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Gettin’ Social in 2009

skyline

Charlotte, NC Social Media events coming in 2009

Anything else happening on the 2009 Social Media Calendar? Enlighten me in the comments section.

Groundswell, Hit and Miss

5 page synopsis of the book, download my summary notes here.

Groundswell is a  how to guide for social media in business. The authors were analysts at Forrester research, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. Forrester reports a lot of the stats out there on social media, so they know the numbers and help big clients on these issues daily – the credibility is there.

My overall impression of Groundswell is very positive. They explore social media solutions for many aspects of business and do it in an easily digestible way. They also include great real world examples to cement the many lessons. Anyone using social media, or planning to, should read this book. I highly recommend it.

I will, however, add a few caveats to my endorsement. I understand that no book can squeeze in all the lessons of social media or please everyone. But here are some things to keep in mind when reading Groundswell:

Magpie Tweaks its Feathers

Magpie has jumped on the Twitter scene with a force and much of the more vocal initial reactions have been negative (check the 100+ comments on a Magpie post by @GeekMommy). However, with the amount of money they are paying out for occasional Tweets, I believe they are going to have a presence on Twitter for a little while, barring any declarations from Twitter to the contrary.

After receiving some initial feedback from their fast growing user base, (last reported to have over 500,00 combined followers) they have already made some significant changes to their service that should give them even more longevity.

I have used Magpie for 5 days now. I have had 3 advertisements so far worth a combined €18.33. To get any cash from Magpie you must reach a €50.00 minimum, which I could easily do earning over $5 a day, but for now I have turned off the ads.The original reason I signed up for Magpie was to review it as a new media technology. It is my industry and I need to know how these things work. I will not lie, when I saw I could earn over $2,000 in year with just 1 ad per tweet a day, I considered rolling with Magpie for the rest of the year. There are two issues I would have to see cleared up before I adopted Magpie as a regular service.

Overall, I believe Magpie is a value add to the Twitter community. They will be forced by their advertisers to produce a product that is not ignored by everyone, so I believe a balance will be reached or Twitter users will reject and bankrupt Magpie as a company. The latter seems less likely to me considering the changes they have made thus far. If nothing else, Magpie is the first of many and might encourage Twitter itself to start trying to make some money and ensure the service is around for the long haul.