Community Guy – Jake McKee

links for 2007-08-31

• Nike Mexico
  Fantastic photo of a very cool corporate HQ – Nike Mexico. Too funny.
  (tags: architecture business photography)

Sometimes it pays to do your research

Earlier this year I wrote about the concept of approaching site design based on the household rather than the individual. The idea was basically that as family start using web services like Netflix, Flickr, and BookMooch, it’d be nice to have a single master account that various family members could then branch off of. Upload photos to Flickr once, for example, and you’d have them accessible for any family member to use without re-uploading.

Turns out, I completely missed that Netflix added this ability a while ago.

Duh.

Netflix has a slick feature that allows the main account holder to add various queues and assign them to specific users. Of the 3 discs you can have out at once, you can assign some or all of them to the other queues.

The coolest part is that ratings from one queue only affect the recommendations specific to that queue. So your wife can rate dramas high and you can rate actions high and nowhere shall the two intersect.

So turns out, I’m brilliant. Just slow. Really really slow.

links for 2007-08-30

• Cofoundr – The Entrepreneurs Network
  (tags: socialnetworking entrepreneurship business)

Can Showtime really be THAT clueless?

I’ve been hearing rave reviews about the new Showtime series “Californication“, and since I don’t subscribe to Showtime, I checked iTunes. No luck, it’s not there (at least not yet).

So I headed over to the offical site to see if there was any info I could dig up on when it might be posted. Not surprisingly (for any network, really – official sites are largely pointless), there was no info here either.

I figured I’d check out the sho.com message boards to see what the fans were talking about – maybe they’d know.

I could view a list of message threads without being a member, but I had to log in to read anything. Remember when this used to be common practice? You know, 1998.

The truly foolish thing, however was some text in the footer of the message board area, image below.

Just in case you can’t read the text, it says: “This website is intended for viewing solely in the United States and its territories and possessions.”

Is this some sort of inside joke amongst the site developers or do they really expect that a) there’s any real value in this sort of restriction, and/or b) that there’s any ability to even remotely enforce it?

What do you think? Forgotten April Fool’s Joke?

links for 2007-08-23

• Get Ready for BlogOrlando
  An interview with BlogOrlando sponsor, Josh Hallet about the upcoming BlogOrlando. I’m attending (and speaking), are you coming??
  (tags: blogorlando speaking event)

links for 2007-08-22

• Mommymixer: Mixers for moms & babysitters
  The Speed Dating concept stretches out and heads to the mommy arena. Fairly obvious idea that no one seems to have stumbled on before. I wonder how long until “Dads” start attending too, namely to search for girlfriends??
  (tags: kids childcare)
• Bands funded by their fans
  “…aiming to empower independent artists, SellaBand has created a platform that enables fans to sponsor bands, and get a piece of the action in return. “
  (tags: music marketing2.0)
• Laundromats popping up at music festivals
  “People dropped off their mud-encrusted laundry and were sent a text message the moment it was ready. No spare change of clothes? [..] they handed out black overalls to anyone who used the laundromat. “
  (tags: marketing2.0)
• Setting benchmarks in online community development « Joi Podgorny
  Great look at what community management is all about, how to measure, and what the responsibilities are.
  (tags: metrics communitymanagement)
• Does what happens in the Facebook stay in the Facebook?
  Facebook is, apparently, scary!
  (tags: facebook privacy video)
• Frog Pond
  The latest project from BzzAgent – frogpond. Find/share cool sites.
  (tags: bzzagent)

SXSW Panel Concept: Can I count on your vote?

Last year I had an absolutely fantastic time running the “Community Ecology: Finding balance when working with fan groups” session at SXSW. The panel was a great collection of all types of folks, from brands to web-based games to agencies.

This year, I swore I wasn’t going to try to speak – I was going to go to SXSW and just soak in the Austin/Interactive fun. But when Hugh from the SXSW team asked me about adding a session concept for consideration this year, I was, once again, moved to throw my hat in the ring.

I’ve been talking to clients quite a bit lately about moderation methods and tactics. Surely, they’ve been asking, we can create something more fun and enjoyable than simply having remote moderators screen for porn and spam? Can’t we get the users involved in a way that they get a kick out of?

Thus was born the idea for this year’s SXSW panel:

Breaking the “Porn / Not Porn” Mold for Online Moderation
While the user created content concepts continue to get more engaging, the methods we employ to filter out spam, porn, profanity and other unacceptable content has remained largely unchanged. This panel reveals unique techniques, tools, and strategies for making online moderation as cool and fun as the sites it supports.

Interested in seeing the session? Want to help me out? Please head over to the SXSW Panel Picker page and vote my session up! Since it’s election season, I’ll say it: Can I count on your vote?

Huffington Post knows their comments

I’ve written about Huffington Post’s superior methods of handling blog comments fairly recently, but I’m back again to dive deeper. In particular, I just came across  an old email from the site talking about their new comment functionality, and there was one part in particular I found very impressive.

But we’re most excited to announce a new initiative where we will choose one commenter a month to become a featured blogger at HuffPost. Yes, a blogger! Reading through the comments on our site, we realized that our readers are an underutilized resource – smart and opinionated. Our decisions will be based on how many fans a commenter has, how often their comment is selected as a favorite and our moderators’ favorites. Every comment has an I’m A Fan Of and a Favorite link so start voting for the comments and commenters you like best.  We will announce the first one at the end of this month!

Not only are they giving users an easy method to register feedback, they’re also giving specific details and process for how you, yes you, could become featured on the site. For most users this won’t even register as interesting, but that’s OK.

When we look at the 90-9-1 rule of online participation, we know that a smaller number of people will do a majority of the work. The strategy for engaging users who would want to become “bloggers” via their daily on-site activity speaks directly to that rule.

Great work, HP!

links for 2007-08-21

• A New Mac Tip Every Day: Webcams in Lighthouses??
  Since I’m on the beach at the moment, lighthouse widgets sound fun!
  (tags: widgets macosx)

links for 2007-08-18

• Inside Facebook » Biggest Facebook App Acquisition Yet
  “See Mom, screwing with Facebook all day CAN make money!”
  (tags: facebook socialnetworking API)