With friend and fellow blogger Jesse Stay in the Bay Area for the day, I played the part of chauffeur and sidekick, hitting a number of key Silicon Valley landmarks this afternoon. After he finished a lunch at eBay/Paypal, the two of us drove up Highway 101 to meet with the API team at Twitter. Then we headed south and caught up with our mutual friend, Robert Scoble, who true to form, turned on the video camera and engaged with us in a discussion around social networking applications, product development, and our thoughts on Twitter, Foursquare, Google Wave, etc. The video is about an hour long, so buckle your seatbelts.



Afterward, Jesse and I made a quick stop at Apple headquarters in Cupertino and then got dinner at home in Sunnyvale, where he met the twins, and then I took him back to pick up his car, after swinging by Cisco HQ just for show and tell. In the eight hours I dragged Jesse up and down the Peninsula, we managed to see or visit eBay, Yahoo!, EMC, Cisco, Twitter, Apple, AMD, Extreme Networks, TiVo and National Semiconductor, to name a few. All part of the Silicon Valley experience.

If you're a die-hard who can't get enough of our repartee, there was more of the discussion that tripped into a "part two", which you can catch here.

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FTC Disclosure: I got a free t-shirt from Twitter AND a free t-shirt from Robert that says Building 43 on it. Oh yeah, Jesse also runs SocialToo where I am an advisor. Also, at one time, I visited TiVo headquarters and got a grab bag of goodies. Also, a TiVo employee paid for lunch that day. :)

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Two weeks ago, the second in a pair of guest blog posts from me for Brian Solis' PR 2.0 site suggested that people should "stop talking about social media and go do it already". For those of you who know me, and this blog, you know we actually use (and talk about) social media quite a bit. This blog has become something of a jumping-off point for new social services and applications. Sometimes, if lucky, I can even find some valuable tips and tricks to help you find the best places to find information or distribute it. So why the seeming contradiction? And why did my content end up on Brian's site?

Second answer first - Brian is nearing the completion of yet another book, and simply needs to focus, so he reached out to a number of people who he thought could provide value to his site when he was otherwise occupied. FTC disclosure be darned, Brian is a good relationship for me to kindle because not only can he help provide me access to early-stage startups I like to cover, but he also occasionally can find panel opportunities for me to participate in. It's a win-win type of relationship and practically everyone I know respects his work. So when the opportunity came to help a friend out, I did (free of charge).

In July, I wrote the first post: The Influencer’s Dilemma: The Battle For Mindshare Amid Media Turmoil. I hope to talk more about this at length soon. But two weeks ago, I wrote the piece that gained a lot more traction, titled, Stop Talking About Social Media and Go Do It Already. This isn't to mean that we should stop using social and media right next to each other in a sentence, nor does it mean that I am begging people to stop talking about Twitter and Facebook and all their favorite networks. While a dramatic reduction in discussion there wouldn't hurt, I am not saying that either.

Here is what I believe.

I believe that these "new" networks and new activities are becoming essential practices for people in businesses of all industries. I believe that people who are not utilizing social media are going to lose out to people who do. In 1999, at my first job, we had a phrase we used, called "Get Web or Get Out", suggesting that if you were not participating, you soon wouldn't be part of the game. The same is true with social media.

But I also believe that these current "new" practices will be commonplace soon enough. Just like you don't hear about e-mail experts and typists and voice mail specialists in this day and age, so too won't you hear about Twitter aficionados and Facebook Fan page mavens in the years forward. Over time, these skills will blend into the marketplace. This will mean a likely cessation of the discussion of these practices, and more of a head-nodding situation.

Like you, I frown upon the titles of "social media expert" and "social media guru". I'm not all that fond of "community manager" either, which may sound shocking. I get the need, but I fear for those titles in a fast-moving world. (See also: Social Media Experts are the New Webmasters from July '08)

We run the risk of believing our own kool-aid and starving of oxygen in our own bubble if we focus too much on the technologies that enable us to do things than us actually accomplishing these goals ourselves. When I do focus on the technologies and the networks and the services that are in this market, and I bring them to you, it is because that is the role I play as an early adopter and tech geek blogger. But when I take the tools to work, it's all business. Most people won't care how the task is accomplished, only that it gets done. So yes, I love the communities. I love many of the tools. Social media makes sense. But let's focus on results.

My thanks to Brian for the opportunity to guest post. Hopefully more are coming.

In early June, I told you about how my friend Drew Olanoff had encountered some bad news. In what has no doubt been a life-altering experience, Drew was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and scheduled to undergo a series of chemotherapy treatments to take on the illness. At the time, I also told you about his unique strategy to fight back, using #BlameDrewsCancer, a Twitter hashtag and accompanying Web site, to organize the power of social media in his personal quest to give the Big C a big F.

Ten chemo treatments into the promised dozen, Drew is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The doctors have given him a very positive diagnosis, which doesn't mean he's completely put cancer in the rear view mirror, but he has turned the corner. Even when he is feeling the inevitable fatigue, aches, nausea and other side effects of his treatment, he is progressing closer to this specific finish line.

But even if he gets an all clear from the doctors, what cancer didn't realize was that he isn't going to be finished. In the last four months, the #BlameDrewsCancer phenomenon grew from a gimmick to a movement, one that even sported a 24-hour "blame-a-thon" in Philadelphia this September, and a tie-in with the Lance Armstrong-headed charity LIVESTRONG. Drew and the BlameDrewsCancer team have extended their efforts to aid a fellow cancer battler, Ethan Zohn, and have started #BlameEthansCancer. As Drew's personal battle ebbs, the movement will take on a new name - simply Blame Cancer, so you can continue blaming all of life's little problems on one big one that made the wrong choice by picking on the wrong guy.


Drew With the Twins in 2008 (L) and With Matthew Saturday (R)
As I've gotten to know Drew over the past year-plus, I am continually impressed by his "no prisoners" approach to getting tasks done, and his creativity. Where others would have whimpered and begged for sympathy, Drew fought back and did so with all the tools he had at his disposal.


Drew Sucking Thumbs With Sarah Saturday (L) and Sporting a Balloon Hat (R)
Just this last week, Drew made a stop in the Bay Area - armed with a new idea. Taking his idea to Twitter headquarters, and tipping Mashable on the story, Drew announced that he was going to extend the charitable impact his battle has had by auctioning off his valuable @Drew Twitter name to the highest bidder. He set the bar at $10,000 in donations to LIVESTRONG, hoping a celebrity like Drew Carey, Drew Barrymore, Drew Brees or another famous Drew, would make an offer.

On Friday, Drew stopped by our home. In the time since Drew and I became friends, our families have become friends as well. I visited him at his parents' home in New Jersey (to his surprise) earlier in the summer, and if you turn the calendar back to 2008, he was actually the first babysitter that Matthew and Sarah ever had. The twins took to him like he was one of the Grays, climbing all over him and playing with toys. (As you can see in the pics)

The next day brought a big bombshell. On Saturday, Drew Carey bid $25,000 for the @Drew name, and in a bigger commitment, promised to increase his bid to a massive $100,000 if he were to reach 100,000 followers on Twitter by Drew (Olanoff's) birthday this November 9th. And even though Carey started at only 13,000 followers at the time, he is nearing 50,000 in only a few days' time. It's incredible.


Drew Carey Digs Deep for LIVESTRONG
The story has blown up - beyond our corner of the blogosphere, and into the mainstream press. Take for example:

• CNN: Drew Carey may bid $100K on @drew Twitter name
• Huffington Post: Drew Carey Bids $100K For Twitter Name
• Perez Hilton: Drew Carey Tweets For A Good Cause

Many startups around the Web would kill for that kind of coverage, and Drew has made it happen through creativity and persistence - two major reasons I believe that Cancer is reeling from this attack. All through the last few months, I have been blaming Drew's Cancer for stuff. I have had people ask me who Drew is and what the story is about his cancer, for those who haven't been paying attention. I have seen friends of mine who don't know Drew blaming stuff on his cancer. And I don't care if it looks a little out of whack from the usual tech stream I try to provide. This is real life, and Drew is a real friend and a real inspiration to me. So let's help Drew Carey reach one hundred thousand followers, and push the heck out of the other Drews on Twitter to try and beat his proposal.

As you no doubt already know, the Federal Trade Commission posted a revision to guidance to advertisers around endorsements that might have far-reaching effects in the blogosphere, asking authors who receive free product, services or are paid outright to disclose such a transaction or stand to receive heavy fines, potentially into five figures. While some are welcoming the move toward greater transparency, others see it as bloggers being put under the microscope again, not being trusted, adding that mass media journalists have operated in the same manner for much longer, and disclosures are not always clearly found.

The goal of the new rules? Helping to make it clearer when somebody's influence has been bought and sold. If an author has an undisclosed financial relationship with a subject, they no doubt have bias, and that should be disclosed to the reader. In the end, the Web could become, as Matt Cutts put it, " more useful and more trustworthy". I have always mandated on this blog that all of us have a responsibility to be trusted and transparent, and I have tried to do so almost to a fault. When I have gained a new advisory role, or had a paid speaking opportunity, I have told you. I wish all folks were as ardent.

But with that said, I don't think the mandate will have a dramatic effect on the way bloggers disclose. The reason? Because good people will continue to be good, and bad people will continue to be bad. The people who have been in a gray area thus far, and have chosen not to disclose, will likely continue to not disclose - FTC regulations or not. And the FTC has a lot bigger fish to fry than the occasional mommy blogger or gadget freak who takes a free product in exchange for a plug, not to mention we haven't even discussed the enterprise space, where analysts who may have five to six-figure annual relationships with clients fail to mention that when writing articles that disparage their competitors.

The FTC's goal isn't to track down that I got a free copy of Brian Solis' book on Putting the Public Back in Public Relations (I did) or that I got a copy of the New Community Rules from Tamar Weinberg for free (I did). (Note I haven't reviewed either one yet) The FTC doesn't care that I have t-shirts I got free from Lijit (I'm wearing one now), or that I have free stickers on my laptop from companies including Seesmic, OneRiot, AllTop, TiVo, FriendFeed, Facebook, Blogger and Tweetmeme. But the FTC does care if an independent product review is really a paid review, or if a blogger "regularly" receives products from a company, which would cause the audience to "view their reviews differently". (Quotes sampled from Mary Engle, Associate Director for Advertising Practices at the FTC via BrianSolis.com)

It would be nice if every blogger who does have regular paid relationships with companies would add a disclosure link on their site. I will aim to keep my list of advisory roles up to date, and mention it when I do cover companies that are in the same space. And you might remember last year's post when I told you I won an iPhone 3G from Socialmedian, not in exchange for a post, but as a result of a contest. That is because I already made the decision to disclose. Those who aren't already disclosing probably won't now that this rule has passed. After all, isn't it like passing the speed limit? If nobody crashes, nobody gets hurt, they may feel, and after all, everyone is doing it. I am glad the FTC is thinking about this, and there will no doubt be edge cases where the most blatant offenders will be paraded in the streets, but for the minor offenders, life should continue as usual.