Whodeani's Official Blog

Genuine Entrepreneur

Digital Main Street

Several weeks back I was asked to write an article for a then 'soon to be launched' new business blog for 99 Designs.

Coincidently, around this time, I had several spirited discussions with a friend over an article on E-Commerce that had appeared in one of Australia's major business newspapers.

I was frustrated by the overly one sided tone of the story, effectively stating that E-Commerce in Australia was growing very slowly and that major retail brands and their landlords had little to fear 'now' at least from the growing threat that online shopping would one day become.

Now, while the one sided nature of this story shouldn't have been a shock (its source information was provided by parties directly connected to big retail) I did feel that the alternative point of view, that is that online retail is growing rapidly (in some verticals significantly faster than is being reported) and that it is a much larger threat to traditional retail in the short term, is not being reported.

At least thats how I see it.

I decided then to focus my story for the 99 Designs Business Blog on the very real and very immediate threat to traditional retail that online shopping presents.

The article follows...

Customers will shop anywhere, anytime.

It’s something all business owners know, and has given rise to all sorts of weird and wonderful ventures. But, a business located in one place and only open sometimes is missing out on a world of potential customers. An important distinction is beginning to emerge with the rise of online shopping: the retail experience is becoming divided based on factors such as utility and experience. Whilst online stores deliver great utility (pricing, availability, etc), they tend to lack experience. The traditional touch it, feel it, surround yourself in it, sensory aspect of the shopping experience is sorely lacking online… but for how long?

Currently, physical retailers who focus on enhancing and delivering experience by making their customer service a key value proposition continue to buck the online trend and bring customers back, but it appears that soon it will not be enough.

Lets look at bookstores. For all the media hype, niche and independent book stores still continue to do well. Example: Tattered Cover in Denver Colorado just celebrated their 40th birthday, and deliver a “book buying experience” including specialist catalogs, cafes to meet up in, and author talks and signings. However facts are facts, booksellers days are most certainly numbered as online shopping begins to flex its muscle, and its only the traditional players that ramp up the experience meter that stand a chance.

According to Hitwise, currently 7-8% of all U.S. shopping is conducted online, with other major markets (UK and Australia) showing dramatic growth and similar figures. This growth is due to the customer exposure provided by online shopping opportunities, despite recent attempts everywhere to quash online shopping’s impact on traditional retail. In this climate, pure online retailer upstarts such as ASOS plan to challenge the supremacy of big box retail players. Playing the utility card by adding safety incentives such as unconditional returns and by focusing on customer service, online entities are pushing the boundaries of what people would consider buying online.

For the time being, retailers embracing both online and traditional storefronts are perhaps best positioned to ride this wave. Australian retailer Haul maintains a highly integrated online and physical store presence allowing them to take advantage of a global reach for their online operations. This translates into a good volume of sales coming via that channel, while still maintaining a local grassroots customer engagement via their physical store which helps them build buzz and street credibility: keys to the success of their service offering.

Keep in mind, it may be slightly premature to declare main street completely dead in the water. A recent report titled “Main Streets Across the World” by Cushman & Wakefield showed that 81% of countries surveyed had retailer rent prices increase in the last year. It will be interesting to see if physical demand remains strong in the face of the growing online presence, or if statistics are just lagging behind reality.

Small businesses need to realise that the benefits of global choice for customers also translates to a global customer pool for them. Looking forward, be ready for a rise in flagship retail stores complimented by robust online platforms (pioneered by companies such as Apple). Additionally, for niche retailers with limited product ranges, developing an online shop with global reach with a local storefront is their recipe for success.

Using techniques to place emphasis on paying for experience to offset the “try here, buy there” trend will be one of many ways to flourish. Examples of this are already being modeled by retailers selling ski boots where a “fitting fee” is charged to customers wanting to try on boots that is refundable against purchase.

The fact remains that whilst the verdict is in and online shopping is here to stay, the current impact on the physical retail is still being significantly understated (mainly by those interested in maintaining the status-quo). It is safe to say that a move towards online buying (as a percentage of overall retail spending) will continue to outpace expectations, and the day that online shopping will overtake traditional main street is coming much faster than many think. Physical businesses best begin learning the online world if they wish to grow and maintain their current relationship they so enjoy with their physical customer base!

The complete version of the above story including reference links and imagery can be found on the 99 Designs Business Blog

http://www.twitter.com/whodeani

 

50 Songs in 50 Weeks aka the ‘Final Five’

Whodeani, aka yours truly, has caught a case of the ‘muso’ bug.

Those close to me would know that I have long harboured a desire to be more involved in the music business, less so from a performance perspective and more to with the whole creative process bringing musical ideas from just that, ‘ideas’, through to being released commercially.

Back in the mid 90’s I was heavily involved in the nightclub industry moving from being a DJ to then designing and managing a very popular nightclub in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne known as Jooce.

As outlined in an earlier post (Anatomy of a Hit), I got together with a couple of friends of mine and created a jingle for this nightclub that was then turned into a full length club track that was quite popular in its day (climbing to the top of the club charts and breaking the regular top 50 here in Australia.)

Since then my musical aspirations have taken a back seat to more ‘regular’ pursuits. That was until mid last year when I was ‘inspired’ to bring to market a track called ‘Tweet Me’, a track originally called ‘Release Me’ and created with some friends back in the mid 90’s.

The release of Tweet Me was a lot of fun, enough so that I have decided to significantly expand my musical aspirations ‘and’ output with a project called ’50 songs in 50 weeks’ (or as a good friend of mine refers to it… ‘The Final 5’.)

As the project name ’50 tracks in 50 weeks’ suggests, my aim here is to produce 50 ‘release ready’ tracks in 50 weeks… ie 1 track per week for the next 50 weeks.

The inspiration behind this concept of ’50 Songs in 50 Weeks’ comes from Stock Aitken Waterman, the UK song writing and record producing trio made up of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman.

With great success during the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s the three are considered to be one of the most successful song writing and producing partnerships of all time, scoring more than 100 UK top 40 hits, selling 40 million records and earning an estimated $103.78 million (source: Wikipedia).

Their standard method for creating the music was to first write the songs, next they would record the music with extensive use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers and then finally bring in a singer solely to record the vocal track.

Their remarkable ‘production line-like’ output and similar song structures had the trio being referred to as the "hit factory".

My thinking is to ‘2.0’ their model using todays relatively inexpensive music recording and production technologies ‘and’ potential global exposure via Social Media.

I’ve teamed up with Paul Brandoli (from Psyked) who I met through his work as producer/arranger on the Tweet Me project. Since Tweet Me, Paul and I have worked on 2 more tracks and are about to start a 3rd.

Am extremely happy with his work and more importantly how we are working together on these new tracks. Enough so that I have committed to have Paul work as producer/arranger and sometimes ‘writer’ on all tracks in the project.

We’ll notify you as the magical tracks come to life week by week and from time to time release snippets of the tracks we are working on. Exciting times.

UPDATE: With the planned re-listing of The Swish Group gathering momentum (and my role as The Swish Group's Managing Director occupying the lions share of my time moving forward), I have handed over the day to day management of the '50 songs in 50 weeks' project to Paul Brandoli.

Much has been done in the weeks since announcing this project and I am extremely happy with the work Paul has been doing. The project is in good hands.

Twitter De-mystified

Guest post by my brilliant EA, Lindy Waldeck.

Followers, re-tweet, flushing, symbols like # and @. If you haven’t familiarized yourself with the phenomenon that is Twitter, it can be tweeping confusing!

Brainstorming blog post ideas, DJ (a.k.a Dean Jones, a.k.a My Bossman) suggested we tackle the topic “Twitter De-mystified”.  

I say “Perfect, you can write that with your eyes closed Twitterdeani”. You must know by now that Dean is Twitter obsessed.

Wrong! Dean had in mind that this post was to be my glory and my time to finally learn all that lays beneath Twitter… against my will ;-)  

I am indeed a Twitter user, however I’d call myself more of a casual tweeter. Strange I know, given that my boss is just about preaching Twitter is set to take over the world.

I’m no expert on the inner workings of Twitter so I set about researching and getting to know the business model that is making some serious waves in the Social Media space. Yes, I’m getting paid to play with Twitter, life is good and I won’t complain.

Twitter is ‘basic’, there is not much to it. Ok, but how is something so simple confusing to so many?  

For those of you not completely tweet savvy, read on as I ‘De-mystify Twitter’.

Tweet Tweet it’s all about the Tweet!

This term is used for the messages/updates (short and sweet with a maximum of 140 characters) that you type into your ‘what are you doing right now’ box at the top of your Twitter home page. You can also Tweet via a mobile phone or a 3rd party Twitter client.

 Within this Twitter update you can add a photo, reference a particular site or even a video by simply pasting a link. And given that Twitter updates are kind of ‘tight’ for space the ‘shorten link’ button will reduce your URL characters to allow for more text. 

Update_box

Think of Facebook and updating your status (but slightly different.)  A ‘tweet’ is Similar to a txt message except your txt is sent free of charge and can reach all of your followers in one message (3 million plus if you’re Ashton Kutcher or a whooping 78 followers if you’re @LindyWaldeck).

So as you could imagine, quite powerful if you’re marketing a business or even yourself.

So what is a Follower?
Twitter is a following game. Follow me and I ‘may’ follow you (reminds me of a song actually, more on that some other time). 

Social Media sites like Facebook and MySpace use the term ‘friend request’ and Twitter uses ‘follower’. There are differences as Twitter is public (unless you choose to protect the page) and Facebook is quite restricted ‘usually’ to being viewed by your friends and your immediate network.

A person following me will see my updates displayed on their Twitter home page amongst all the other people they follow.

You see, the great thing with Twitter is that you don’t actually have to have friends to have friends if you know what I mean. Total random people will follow you and in turn make you feel special. 

My preference is to follow celebrities as I find it intriguing that they choose to put certain parts of their life on display. I follow a few friends and occasionally a random hot man I might stalk.

And what is this ‘@’ business?

This one confused me early on in my Twitter discovery. The @ symbol is used in front of a user name. If you place the @ symbol in front of a user name this will tag and get the attention of that user. For example if I want DJ to see what I’ve written or include him I’ll simply type @whodeani (Whodeani being his username) followed by my message.

_symbol

This message will show up in his chain of updates (as he is following him). Whodeani will also be able to see this update by clicking on @whodeani on the right hand side of his page. In my case, @lindywaldeck is where I find messages from my many admirers.  It’s also a handy tool to check if you’ve missed any action directed your way.

Box

What are Direct Messages (or DM’s)?

You’ll also see in the screen grab above ‘direct messages’. These are private messages between users. I have noticed very public figures/celebrities disable this feature, probably a good idea given the amount of people that would love to contact them.

Remember that your Twitter page (unless protected/locked) is totally open to the weird and wonderful.

 Anybody can view your updates on Twitter. Followers and non-followers alike can view all your updates.  

So a Twitter user doesn’t necessarily need to ‘follow’ you in order to ‘follow’ you. Sounds creepy huh? No, It’s fantastic.  

Some advice: Be selective with the info you choose to tweet. Don’t want you getting into any tweeting trouble. 

RT... Please Explain?

RT = Re-tweet which = basically a re-post of another person’s update.

For example Sarah Silverman posts something hilarious that I want to share with my followers so I simply place my mouse over her tweet and to the right side you’ll notice RT appear.  Click on this and hey presto you’ll see it appear in your update box. The RT will be directed at the person who posted it.

Rt

Very useful when you have absolutely nothing interesting to share with the ‘tweet-er-verse’. Take note: add tweet or twit to anything for instant ‘tweet-cred’. :)

A Twitter trend is what exactly?

It’s some sort of fashion statement right? No. Wrong.

Trending_topics

In the screen grab above you’ll notice to the right of the page (trying to ignore the pre pubescent picture of @iamdiddy) a section headlined Trending Topics.

A Twitter trend is a popular topic that people are tweeting about at any given moment. For example there may be a lot of talk surrounding the television show ‘Dance Your Ass Off’. There's laughing, there's outrage, fat people are mad and the skinny amused. Whatever people are saying, the noisiest topic will become a Twitter Trending Topic.

You may have noticed the use of the # symbol aka the hashtag in the above picture. The # is used to promote the theme or subject matter of your tweet by simply placing it at the start of a word, phrase or topic. Should anyone then search that particular topic, it will appear in the search results.

Hashtags also appear within the Twitter timeline as ‘hot links’. Clicking on any topic highlighted by a Hashtag will take you to the Twitter Search results page for that topic. Clever.

Recently I watched an episode of US TV show Tiny and Toya online (wouldn’t recommend unless you love bad reality TV shows as I do) but I couldn’t find the follow up episodes. I noticed #tinyandtoya as a top trending topic on Twitter, clicked on it and found threads and threads of tweets about the show, reviews, where to watch online etc. So I excitedly watched episodes 2, 3 and 4. 

Hey it’s all part of my job de-mystifying Twitter.

Twitter Search, Not Just Your Average Search

Not another search engine I hear you say. My thoughts exactly until I found Tiny and Toya using this new search technology known as ‘real time’ search.  
Twitter search is real time search and is constantly updated every second. Tweets are the basis of the results. It provides instant information on topics from what people are saying now. Not archived results or days... even weeks old information.  

You may remember the Hudson River plane crash was first reported via a tweet from Janis Krums, a passenger on a nearby ferry when she posted a picture of the plane via her Twitter account.

Now I remembered this occurrence, however the fine detail such as the photographers name and picture below I found using Twitter Search.

Twitpic

Earlier this year Whodeani launched Australia’s first real time search engine called appropriately enough, Real Time Search. Real Time Search uses Twitter’s API to access their real time search results with a focus on those ‘tweets’ coming from Australia. And yes, there’s my shameless plug :)

Recently with the tragic loss of Michael Jackson I turned to Real Time Search and anxiously watched updates from other Australians of what I thought initially was a rumor mill spinning out of control. This swift form of search is usually ahead of what traditional media is reporting.

I hope you have gained a little insight into Twitter that you may not have already had.  

As to what I hope to gain now? More followers. Come on you know you want to follow me. Handsome potential followers should click here @lindywaldeck right now! And don’t forget Bossman also, you can follow him @whodeani.

Building and Managing Your Twitter Presence

Everyone from the main stream media (even Oprah) and celebrities through to leading global brands have embraced the new and exciting communications platform known as Twitter.

Twitter

Many of you reading this would know I am a huge fan of Twitter and believe it to be one of the most significant and disruptive web sites/platforms to come along in a long, long while.

For me at least I see Twitter being to today’s crop of social media sites/platforms what Google was to the then disparate and unprofitable ‘search’ space.

That is, I believe Twitter will be the brand that finally works out how to make a real business from a space that while extremely popular is yet to produce a business model that can deliver sustainable and substantial profitability (Twitter is a relatively new entrant to the social media space and while people now feel they ‘need’ to be part of it, many are not sure ‘why’ they should use it or ‘what’ they need to do to benefit from it once they have taken the trouble to join it.)

An interesting quote from a recent article on Twitter (written by Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski) provides some insight into what Twitter is … 

This implies that Twitter's resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network. http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html

Researched thoroughly (over a glass or 3 of Margaret River Red), one of Twitter's greatest supporters, me, feels it’s time to get to blogging on the topic. 

This blog post will cover two commonly asked questions (asked of me at least).

“How do I build a following on Twitter?” (Building an audience on Twitter) and “How do I manage my presence on Twitter?” (Managing your twitter presence)

I should point out at the outset that this post is in the main about building a following on Twitter and continuing to grow it for commercial purposes. That’s not to say that the advice contained here-in can not be used for personal Twitter account building, just that the relatively ‘broad’ targeting of many of the suggested techniques is better suited to less personal accounts… 'one to many' as the article mentioned above suggest.

There are a number of tools I have used and researched for the various Twitter accounts I have (each of these using some or all of the following tools to varying degrees.)

Flashtweet is a tool I first tested early on in the Tweetspace with my ‘Better Sports’ Twitter account (Better Sports is a small startup that sells a simple guide to the rules of golf that I started with my father.)

Flashtweet is a collection of Twitter Tools that help you manage en masse many repetitive tasks in a clean, simple to use interface. With Flashtweet (according to their website) “…you will be able to bulk follow up to 100 friends at a time, unfollow individuals who are not following you back, display mutual friends and all of your followers.”

What to use it for: 2 things.

  1. The Mass follow tool allows you to pull up the ‘followers’ of another Twitter users profile (say someone that shares similar interests to yours or is in the same industry as your business) and then ‘mass follow’ (or select individually) those profiles that may be interested in you. The aim here is to follow people that you find interesting and in turn hope that they find you interesting enough to follow you back. Tip: When using this tool, only follow those profiles that have a photo as these profiles are more likely to be active and therefore a greater chance of following you back. (Further tip… avoid the ‘make easy money now’ style profiles that often show a shot of an attractive model. They may follow you back but will be noisy and likely clog your Twitter stream with all manner of ‘get rich quick’ schemes.)
  2. The Mass Unfollow tool allows you to list all those people that you are following that are not following you back. Simply select them individually or in bulk (lots of 100). 
Personal preference for Twitter Karma for this sort of thing (which I mention further on.)

Flashtweet

Twollo (pronounced tee-wollow) is a relatively new tool that allows you to find and follow Twitter users automatically.

What to use it for: Allows you to automatically follow people based on topics that you are interested in. Twollo will follow as few or as many people as you set it to do (within Twitter limitations) all day, every day.

I have only used this tool a handful of times and even then have turned it off shortly after using it .

Is difficult to balance maximising the number of people you would like to follow using the tool with not ‘over’ using your allocated calls of the Twitter platform and restricting you from following people manually through the regular Twitter interface.

Twollo

Buzzom (InRev TwitIn) offers several useful twitter tools including the ability to follow people that are ‘likely’ to follow you back (something they mention on their site) and ‘flush’ (unfollow) those that you are currently following that are not returning the favour.

What to use it for: This site is particularly useful for following people given its stated claim that those that it suggests you follow are likely to follow you back. While this claim is not substantiated, I’m guessing they suggest people that have around the same number of followers as they do people they are following.

You are limited to following a maximum of 25 people at once, so if you want to follow larger numbers, suggest you open multiple browser tabs and run the ‘grow’ tool in those additional tabs (is faster than repeating the process within one browser tab.)

The Flush tool on this site is also particularly useful, especially if you have a large number of people you are following that are not following you back (some of the other tools that provide ‘flushing’ functionality have trouble flushing large numbers of people in one hit).

Here the tool randomly selects 25 people that you are following that are not following you back and allows you to ‘remove’ them from your following list (either the whole 25 or those individually selected.)

Buzzom

Twitterkarma is a handy Twitter application that helps you manage a large list of followers (and those that you are following.) It pulls your info from your Twitter account, which you can then filter in several ways.

It has a very easy to follow interface that lists your connections and shows against each, your relationship to them including wether or not they are following you back.

What to use it for: Useful to see which followers you are following that aren’t following you back. Unlike Buzzom (mentioned earlier), TwitterKarma allows you to ‘bulk unfollow’ very large groups of people. As mentioned above however, the larger the list you are trying to manage the more likely you are to experience difficulties (including taking a substantial amount of time.)

Speaking of unfollowing, as I was putting this post together I came across the following article on the excellent Read Write Web site.

The general thrust of the story is that Twitter will be clamping down on people that unfollow (or flush) large numbers of people on a regular basic.

According to the story, Twitter’s Doug William’s stated "There is no limit to the number of unfollows. Using software to constantly churn followers in a repeated pattern of following and unfollowing will however risk suspension."

In lieu of this, suggest you use any of the tools suggested (especially those with the ‘unfollow’ feature) sparingly, possibly experimenting with a test account (one you could afford to have suspended, or worse removed).

Karma

Tweepme is a site that houses a growing group of tweeple whom via this site follow each other.

So in theory if the site has 10000 members then eventually all 10000 members will have 10000 followers and so on.

What to use it for: Useful to get a jumpstart and increase credibility (in some peoples eyes) on Twitter by having a high number of followers.

Note: I tried this a couple of months ago and didn’t’ find any measurable increase in my followers for the account that I used it on.

I have included it here however as in theory this type of site seems like a clever idea, especially for commercial Twitter accounts where bragging rights of follower numbers matter.

Tweepme

The Twitter Tag Project - Follow Friday is a fun way to increase followers for you and your friends on a Friday.
Rather than entering them manually this tool will scan through your last 200 tweets, count the duplicates and return your most active friends for you to then promote to your followers.

Followfriday

Having mentioned all these ways to increase the amount of people you follow and in turn have them follow you, there are also some useful tools to unfollow. 

Untweeps is a simple way to unfollow inactive Twitter profiles.

What to use it for: Allows you to unfollow people who haven’t updated their profiles in 30 days.  Useful for removing inactive accounts, often those that have been set up yet never used (or used sparingly) i.e. spam accounts or squatters.

Untweeps

Using the mentioned methods above you should be able to increase your presence on twitter.  But the key is to maintain this presence and keep on tweeting.
Many of us don’t have the time to tweet constantly throughout the day.  However there are tools to make it seem that way by auto tweeting on your behalf.

Tweetlater is a handy tool that allows you to schedule tweets minutes, hours or even days ahead of when you would like them posted.

What to use it for: Tweetlater is especially useful for when the bulk of your followers are from another time zone (as is the case with myself, based in Bali and Australia.)

In my case, quite often I will find useful information around Movies and Technology first thing in the morning (my morning), yet a lot of my followers are based in the US. With Tweetlater I can schedule some of these posts much later in my day to coincide with early morning in the US

Tweetlater

Hootsuite is a similar site to Tweetlater (allowing you to schedule tweets to be posted later) but can also do a whole lot more. My favourite feature is the ability to manage multiple accounts, something I use to handle my main Twitter account (@whodeani) and my many business Twitter accounts.

What to use it for: Not only does it allow you to schedule your tweets minutes/hours/days ahead it has a nifty ‘hootlet’ function that allows you to post the page you are currently viewing within your browser to Twitter as a short URL (via the URL ow.ly).

It also provides statistics on posts that include these short URL’s including clicks per URL and a popularity ranking. Outside of  Power Twitter (a plug in for Firefox), this is my most used Twitter tool.

Hoot

Tweetie is an iPhone based Twitter tool that includes everything you would expect from a 3rd party Twitter app (the ability to post tweets, search trending topics, read your ‘@’ and Direct Messages) and additional features specific to the iPhone.

2 of these iPhone specific features I used earlier this year while ‘live’ tweeting the Anzac Day AFL match from the MCG in Melbourne (using my Anzac Day account @anzacday).

Firstly, I was able to take photos of the match using my iPhone and upload them (compressed) onto to Twitter. Second, I was able to post alongside these photos, my location using GPS and Google Maps.

So not only was I able to post score updates on the match as they happened, I was also able to show visual highlights of the match and let people know exactly where it was happening.

Tweetie

Yes it’s true I am a twitterholic!  And twitterholic proves it to be true. This is a useful tool to check how you rank in your area (against those other Twitter users whom have submitted their site to Twitterholic or had it submitted to the site by someone else.) 

As of posting this blog, I am currently ranked 13th in my location on Twitterholic (Australia). A ‘long’ way to go to the number 1 position where @kevinruddpm, the Australian Prime Minister, has 4 times my followers.

I can dream.

                                                                                                        (Note: Global Chart)
Holic

Your Checklist for Managing Your Twitter Profile.

  • Say something interesting. Simply getting people to follow you is of little use if you aren’t saying anything that will interest them. As easy as it is for people to follow you, it’s just as easy for people to unfollow you.
  • Post regularly. As mentioned above, there are a growing list of tools that allow you to ‘unfollow’ profiles that are inactive. This needs to be balanced of course with ensuring your posts are interesting and that you don’t post too much and cause people to unfollow you (or worse be tagged as spam).
  • Use the various tools mentioned here to find interesting people and follow them. Ideally these people will find you and your posts interesting and follow you back.
  • On a regular basis, review those that you are following and see those that are not following you back (using tools like Flashtweet and Twitter Karma). Consider removing those that are not following you back. This will allow you to follow new people. This particular tip is very useful for those trying to break through 2000 ‘following’. (To be able to follow more than 2000 people, you need to have 2000 people follow you.)
  • Track the success of your posts via tools like Hootsuite to see what people found interesting.

This is just a brief overview of the many applications that support Twitter.

Test them out. Some may work for you and your needs more than others.

There may be other tools that spring to mind so feel free share your experiences with using the tools I’ve mentioned and any others in the comments section below.

Follow me on Twitter @whodeani

Realtime Search for Australia - Now Live

Realtime Search is a project I’ve been developing since March 2009.
 
I have been watching the explosive growth of Social Media, in particular sites like Facebook and Twitter.
 
I noticed that while there were some great sites developed to help people search these vast databases of user generated content, there wasn't something specifically for the Australian market.
 
Enter Realtime Search, a simple site that allows you to search in real time for what Australians are currently saying about any topic.
 
You can visit Realtime Search here.
 
http://www.realtimesearch.com.au

Realtimesearch_homepage

As you can see from the image above, the site is quite basic and currently in 'Beta'. We are already at work on the next major update to the site which all going to plan should go live before the end of June.
 
For now though I was keen to get the basics live and into the Australian online space and see what people think. Good, or bad, all feedback will influence updates and new features on the next version of the site.
 
OK, so what is Realtime Search and why would you use it?
 
Firstly, what it is 'not' is a replacement for Google (or for that matter any of the other search engines operating in the Australian space.) Google, and others like it, are the best place to go when looking for information that isn't time-sensitive, be it company web sites, the official homepage of your favorite band or where you can buy the latest electronic gadget (as examples.)
 
If however you are looking for something more immediate, be it a variety of opinions on the recently released Star Trek movie, the latest news on the Swine Flu outbreak as it happens or what people are saying about 'me', Whodeani :) then Realtime Search is a good place to start.
 
A good example of just how powerful and 'useful' this style of website could be can be found in a fairly significant announcement that was made in Australia earlier today about Telstra, one of Australia's largest companies.
 
Telstra announced earlier today that they have hired a new CEO, David Thodey. As a result social media users here in Australia has been very active.
 
So while traditional news services have done a great job of reporting the actual story, that David Thodey was hired (see the ABC news story here http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2564513.htm) etc... where would you go to see what people are saying about this story 'now' (that is minutes or even seconds ago) as its breaking?
 
See the screen grab below for an example of what people were saying about Telstra shortly after todays announcement (this was taken around 30 minutes ago).

Realtimesearch_serp_telstra

You can see what people are saying 'right now' about Telstra by visiting Realtime Search (http://realtimesearch.com.au/search?q=telstra).
 
The above results are interesting as not only do you get links to the various stories posted on the topic 'as they are published' and other interesting commentary on Telstra in general, you also get to see what people 'think' on todays CEO hiring at Telstra ranging from "Good news that David Thodey is new CEO of Telstra!" to "Why does everyone think the new Telstra CEO is going to be better than the American?"
 
The Realtime Search site is now live in Beta and we of course welcome any feedback, comments (add them below.)
 
As above, the next major update of Realtime Search is due before the end of June. If you would like to keep track of Realtime Search's progress, please 'follow' it @realtimesearch.

You can also follow me, @whodeani on Twitter.

Whodeani Logo Competition

The process of building the Whodeani brand has been long and complex.

Being that the brand is the essence of myself personally and professionally, it has always been more than just your average branding project.  

Early on in the picture I engaged Michel Hogan of Brandology to assist me in building a detailed brand strategy that explored the inner workings of Whodeani.

With the branding strategy now set, its time to actually engage creatives to bring the brand to life.

I have blogged about the genius that is 99designs on more than one occasion now.  

So armed with a detailed brief of how Whodeani is to be brought to life through this logo I have now launched a competition as done previously for 'Real Time Search' and jokes.com.au (http://99designs.com/contests/20909) which is live as we speak.

You can view the competition here... http://99designs.com/contests/20971

I believe the fresh young talent of 99designs should produce some quality material.  

It’s an avenue I have happily travelled before so let’s see what it can do for Whodeani this time around.

As always, will keep you all posted on its progress.

Whodeani Project Update

As you may have noticed from my previous updates, I’ve been very busy of late establishing and developing many varied projects. 

But help has arrived and it couldn’t have been better timing!

Lindy Waldeck (my previous PA at Ansearch Ltd.) has officially started as my EA (Entrepreneur's Assistant) early last week, Tuesday April 14th, 2009.

Lindy will be actively supporting all things Whodeani allowing me to free up some much needed time to venture into new projects and do more with existing projects.

In addition to this I will be working with Lindy to bring to life two very exciting ideas she has bought to the table.

They’re still rather hush hush and in the early developmental stages but she has let me tell you one is a form of travel aid which will probably have you saying “why didn’t i think of that” and the other a funky re-design of the standard wine bottle, that works in a way yet to be seen or heard of.

Both very, very clever ideas.

With Lindy now with us, and the next phase of Whodeani’s development in motion, now is as good a time as ever to provide a quick recap of ‘some’ of the more interesting projects I am working on currently…

Quick Whodeani project re-cap

  • My father and I recently launched the Better Sports ‘Golf Guide’, as an iPhone application and the response has been positive. The printed version of the Golf Guide is also now available and we are in the process of preparing the product for retail sale (POS display packaging etc.) Both versions are available on the Better Sports Golf Guide website.
  • Real Time Search Engine. The Real Time Search Engine (which you may be familiar with from the recent blog post here) is set to go live in a matter of days. I will of course update this blog when the site is launched so stay tuned. 
  • Some of you may remember my mention of developing an 'action movie'. It’s been a dream of mine for many years and last year whilst holidaying on Calicoan Island in the Philippines I set myself a deadline to have a script written by the end of 2009. Just recently I returned from a 6 week working retreat in Bali where I was joined by Tim Giles who is co-developing the script with me. The ball is now well and truly rolling. Stay tuned for more exciting updates, maybe even a casting call or better yet casting couch... :)
  • Another exciting project nearing completion is a book I am co-writting with two good friends of mine, Richard Mataska and Tim Giles (yes, the same Tim working with me on the movie project.)  We don’t as yet have a title for the book however much of what the book is about has been covered in very basic form in a recent blog post of mine titled ‘The 4 Pillars of Measurable Marketing’. In essence the book will cover anything and everything needed to get more ROI from your businesses online marketing efforts.

In addition to the projects mentioned above, Lindy will be helping me bring the Whodeani brand to life including development of the Whodeani logo.

Being that the brand is the essence of me personally and professionally we need to to bring to life a brand that I’m absolutely passionate about.

With considerable research over the past 6 months or so, I now have a very clear idea of how the Whodeani brand will be represented. The design brief is almost completed and I will shortly launch a competition on 99 Designs, as I did previously for 'Real Time Search'.

Following the completion of the logo/branding project, the official Whodeani website will then be set for launch. (Currently www.whodeani.com  houses a basic temporary website.)

So that’s some insight into just a handful of projects circulating within the Whodeani space. Watch this space for further updates.

If you cant wait for the next blog post to learn more about whats happening at Whodeani, feel free to follow us on Twitter. @whodeani.

Cybersquatting 2.0 - Secure your Twitter URL... NOW!

Some of you may have heard of a little social medial startup called Twitter.
 
I say little facetiously as Twitter is growing explosively... over 1000% during the last 12 months with no sign of slowing down.

Twitter-feb-chart

SOURCE: Techcrunch 'Whoa Twitter Mania'.
 
Twitter is easily the hottest site/platform around and will likely disrupt the order of things within social media... maybe even within the broader internet (check out http://search.twitter.com to see what I mean.)
 
Over the past few months I have been using Twitter more and more to the point where (and I should say a lot of people are moving this way too) I am using Twitter more than LinkedIn and Facebook. My usage of those 2 sites has dropped to less than 20% of where it was as little as a few months ago.
 
Twitter has become an important way for me to communicate with friends, family and business colleagues. Over time, I'm predicting Twitter will be seen as a vital communications tool in its own right in much the same way as we now view the mobile phone, SMS and email.
 
Twitter has become so popular that like domain names before it, people are 'finding' Twitter profiles by typing in what they think they will be directly as a URL, as opposed to searching for them.
 
For example, if you were looking for Twitters page for me, Whodeani, you could simply type in http://www.twitter.com/whodeani. If you were looking for Yahoo, you could type in http://www.twitter.com/yahoo and so on.
 
Unfortunately, a lot like the domain name landrush of the late 90's, many people are 'already' seeing their brand names or actual names being taken up by the Twitter equivalent of Cybersquatting. There has in fact been a steady increase in disputes over whom has the rights over a Twitter URL. Is it Twitter, the official brand holder, name holder or someone else entirely speaking about the brand/person in question.
 
Unlike the domain name disputes so prevalent of the late 90's, early 00's, the disputes thus far with Twitter URL's have usually been settled amicably, privately and with Twitter having the final say. As Twitter continues to gain in popularity, the number of disputes will increase, they will become far more public and more than likely these disputes will spill over into the courts.
 
If history has taught us anything from the domain name disputes of the past it is that it is far easier to secure a name 'early' (that is legally and rightfully yours) than to have to fight to have it returned at some later date.
 
So whats the point...?
 
The point is this, even if you are unsure as to wether or not you will be using Twitter in the future, you should secure your personal name, business name and/or brand(s) as a Twitter URL 'now' to ensure that if you do decide to use the service, you have a Twitter URL that is easy to remember and clearly associated with you.
 
To see if your name is available simply type it in as follows... twitter.com/yourname
 
If its available... it will return 'This page doesn't exist' (as below).

Twitter_page_does_not_exist

Simply then click on Twitter's 'Home' link, join the service and secure your own unique Twitter URL.
 
Its free so why not...?