Just before 7:30 this evening, as we were putting the twins down to sleep, the lights fluttered and went out. They whirred to life again, twice, but soon dropped again, and we've pretty much been in the dark for the better part of two hours. No TV. No WiFi. Not even the background noises of the refrigerator and heater. With temperatures in the low 40s outside, our home is cooling, and we've unpacked the flashlights and candles we could find.

Did you know you can combine a C battery and a D battery in a flashlight, and it will still work? By necessity, I found out tonight that it does.

Preferring to be constantly connected, my iPhone 3G is keeping me sane. The laptops are fairly useless, but not my ubergadget. It still lets me post updates to Twitter and FriendFeed, browse bookmarks, and read e-mail. Nobody told it to shut down, after all.

Losing power is really no big deal, for the short term. Everyone is safe, and if this goes longer, we could pluck our twins from the cooling crib, and warm them up ourselves. But it's got me thinking about being better prepared for something bigger. It's now clear we need more batteries. And the whole hubbub about Twitter being a good news hub during emergencies doesn't hold too well if you lack power. And it doesn't translate well to the small screen. If a neighbor has discovered the source or reach of this outage, I haven't seen it. My network is too diverse and too noisy to get data on local happenings.

So for now, we're a little disconnected. It's dark. It's getting colder. And we don't have answers. I'm lucky to have the iPhone 3G around, but that aside, the infrastructure holding our power and Web together looks pretty flaky - even in Sunnyvale, smack dab in Silicon Valley proper.

Update: Power was restored shortly after 10 p.m., having been out for just under three hours. No cause has yet been determined.

By Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed)


If you are an individual or small business who is looking to get started with social media marketing, you have your work cut out for you. You must first examine the landscape to see if marketing, using social media is even a viable solution. If your current or potential customers are engaging online, odds are you need to be as well. Before you get started, have you asked the right questions? Done all your homework? Using the five W's, and the occasional H, I decided to put that into the context of social media marketing.

1) Who:

The keyword here is demographics. Who exactly are you trying to market to, single women, generation X'ers, parents etc? What are their household incomes, and can they afford your product? By knowing as much as you can about your customer's profile, you can target your marketing efforts more efficiently, and minimize wasted costs. This is more true with a niche product than anything else.

Advertising budgets are tightening today more then ever. You need to spend that money more wisely and effectively. Consider buying advertising on blogs, as opposed to a traditional and rather costly PPC campaign. First and foremost, search engine traffic is still king, but you can not rely on it solely as your pot of gold. Staying consistent with your marketing efforts in social media by default increases your visibility in search. Play your cards right and you can eventually start to lower the cost ofPPC spending, and in time totally eliminate it.

Don't get me wrong, social media is not the viable and end-all solution for every business. Search engine traffic, whether it's organic or paid always needs to be a top area of focus and never overlooked. The fact of the matter is, when people are looking for something, they resort to search engines first. How will you fare in the search results? Social media is an excellent link building tool, learn some of the SEO basics and be consistent, and you will achieve better search results.

The other part of the who, is who are the influencers? In social media we refer to influencers such as Robert Scoble, Chris Brogan,and Louis Gray. Build relationships and target the specific thought-leaders that are related to your industry. Influencers in their own respect have broad reach and influence over potential buyers. Influential marketing is a gateway, seed it small, and it will grow fast. Remember the name of the game with this is time, forming relationships meaningful at that, takes plenty of it. In addition to influencers, target and focus efforts on the "New Influencers ". These are power social media consumers. These are the prominent bloggers, people who upload the most videos to YouTube, the power diggers and stumblers. They are the most vocal and active on their social networks and so forth. They have to some extent a loyal and large following, and with that comes a certain degree of power and influence. YOU might even be a new influencer, and you don't even know it.

2) What:

What are the tools, mechanisms and channels that you will use? A grassroots marketing campaign will require pulling out all the stops. Starting a blog is mandatory, choosing the platform is next, WordPress or Blogger, self hosted or service hosted? What social networking sites/communities should my business be participating on, Facebook, MySpace, or both? Which is better targeted for my product? Do we need to set up a Twitter account? What will the Twitter account be used for,conversing or broadcasting? Explore and try new channels, podcasting, and creating original video are some examples. Something I touched upon in the beginning was search engine traffic. What is more effective cost wise, time invested in pay per click campaigns, or time invested with human social media efforts, or both? What channels, if any should we spend marketing dollars on, banner/text links on blogs, ads on Youtube, on Facebook, branded audio spots on podcasts ? I'm sure I'm leaving plenty out, but you see where I'm headed on this one. Find use and learn the essential tools that you will require for publishing, promoting and listening.

Consider what amount of time you are willing to commit to your marketing efforts. What are your objectives, a hard sell, creating brand awareness, buzz, or recognition? What markets am I going after? Should I focus on international, domestic or both?

3) When:

The time is now. A majority of smaller and medium sized businesses are not engaging in social media. Are you one of them? Don't hesitate any longer. Your competitors are using it and there is no reason why you shouldn't be too. The traditional and costly marketing methods such as print are becoming less and less effective. Consumers have adapted with the times, so don't get left behind. You can achieve better results with a social media advertising campaign for a fraction of the costs, compared to old school traditional ways of marketing.

4) Where:

Where is the conversation taking place? Where should you respond and engage on, Twitter, your blog, Facebook? Where should you create outposts? Go where the existing and potential user-base is and establish a presence, it's that simple. Never spread yourself too thin, but don't go overboard either, otherwise you end up creating more work than really needs to be done.

5) Why:

The question should read more like why not? Your customers are using it. With the current economic crisis, a recession, and no sign of things getting better, marketing budgets are being slashed. What are your alternatives? I have already talked about some of the positives, such as it's cheaper and more effective than the old school traditional ways of marketing. Social media, because of it's medium, brings globalization to your company's front door. It's easy and anyone can do it, just as long as they are willing to invest their time into it by learning, and participating. Your competitors, especially the ones in the know, are already are using social media. Have you noticed? Social media is about conversation. You want people talking about your product, spreading the word, and creating brand awareness in the process.

6) How:

Social media is not a rush job. It's not about creating a website, Twitter or Facebook account and calling it a day. Don't be fooled or mislead by the hype, the tools are only the facilitators of the message. Yes they are important, but without a basic understanding of how to use them, they are in effect rendered useless and become nothing more than a one way megaphone, with no one listening at the other end.

I will end with a little more food for thought:

• How are we going to participate?
• How are we going to create openness?
• How are we going to create, find and react to the conversation?
• How do we find and create community around our product?

If I gave you the answers to all of these questions, I would have nothing else to write about:)

Image by Leo Reynolds under Creative Commons license.

Read more by Mike Fruchter at MichaelFruchter.com.

There's no question that some of the most popular Web ventures are centered around finding that perfect someone, or at least centered around looking at perfect pictures. The popular "Hot Or Not" model that has you rate a person's photo and give it a numerical rating has been emulated time and again, evolving (or devolving) from individuals to their body parts. (Don't make me link there. Just trust me.)

Nick Halstead, the creator of Favorit and TweetMeme, is looking to capitalize on the simplicity of such an engine, but this time, has targeted the focus on one of the fastest-growing social networks out there... Twitter.

The new TwitOrFit shows a random user's image, along with their most recent Tweet, and gives you the option to either follow their account, or give them a numerical rating, from a 1 (Twit) to a 10 (Fit). As with the "Hot or Not" model, you can select a pull-down menu that says "Show Guys Only", "Show Girls Only" or "Show Both".


How Do You Rate This Twit Or Fit User, 1 to 10?
And as with many of these sites, you can't just jump in and start voting people up or down, without taking a bit of a risk yourself. Halstead wrote in an e-mail last week:

Some facts about how the site works:

1. you can only vote if you sign up yourself - and therefore put yourself forward to be voted upon
2. The picture comes from your twitter profile (which can be any size)
3. If you change your profile picture we let people re-vote on you
4. The system optionally (opt-out) sends a tweet when you sign up to tell your friends to come vote for you
5. A badge system allows you to display your current score (out of 10) on your own blog/site

Unsurprisingly, TwitOrFit displays a "Top 10" leaderboard for Fits, but oddly, it also shows a Top 10 for Twits, so if you think your Twitter profile is not the most flattering, this might not be the place for you. (For example, as of this posting, @robashton was considered the biggest Twit with a real photo, and @huddlesuz, a member of the TwitOrFit team was considered the most Fit.)


The TwitOrFit Leaderboard (Top 10)

TwitOrFit is a joint collaboration between Favorit and Huddle.net, Halstead says, pointing back to a Twitter conversation from early November - which also signals that this site was designed and made live in about a month's time.

Twit Or Fit is officially launching today at Twinterval in London. If you want to brave the Twitter masses and put your own profile picture up for a vote, head over to TwitOrFit. You just might find that special someone is a "follow" away.

It's a year-end tradition for many media, blogs and individuals, to predict what will happen over the next year. Some prefer to make their guesses fairly straight-forward in an effort to be right (Example: Apple will release new notebooks with a faster processor at MacWorld) and others will make their guesses seemingly outlandish, so that if they're right, they're seen as virtual psychics. Others, somewhere in between. At the conclusion of 2007, I made ten predictions that I thought would be fun, and as we're coming on the one year anniversary of that post, it's a good thing you didn't bet your home mortgage on my list. (What? You say there are other issues with your mortgage? Oh.)

See: 10 Predictions for 2008 In the World of Tech

In the spirit of reducing my ego, here are how those ten predictions in the world of tech stand:

1) Google Will Trump Both TechMeme and FeedHeads

Wrong. I expected that Google would start to tabulate its shared items and most popular feeds via Google Reader, and that using this data, Google could provide a democratic version of Techmeme, or at least pull Feedheads outside of Facebook. Instead of Google doing this however, it was ReadBurner, followed by RSSMeme and others, including Feedheads, who started a site at www.feedheads.com. Later in the year, Google Blog Search did introduce the option to show hot topics in tech, but it's largely been a stale effort. At this point, Techmeme is still more important than Google in this regard, and Google Reader has declined to show most popular feeds or shared items.

(Disclosure: I am an advisor to ReadBurner and took the position in August.)

2) Facebook Will Buy Digg in an All-Stock Transaction

Wrong. I thought Facebook would use its expensive stock and buy up some smaller companies. Digg continually sounded like it was shopping itself, but it never sold, and the company's CEO often denied talks were occuring with anyone. Also, given the stock market crash, Facebook is no doubt valued much lower these days, making a stock transaction less likely.

3) eBay Will Sell StumbleUpon to Yahoo! or News Corporation

Wrong. So Far. In September, TechCrunch and others reported that eBay planned to sell StumbleUpon, but no sale has taken place yet. At this point, also, with Yahoo! crumbling, they are less likely to take on the service.

4) Twitter Will Add Video, Photography Support

Wrong. Twitter focused on growing and not crashing this year. Still just text.

5) Apple Boot Camp Will Morph to Be Like Parallels, VMWare Fusion

Wrong. I hardly hear anything about Boot Camp these days, likely because VMWare Fusion and Parallels have become entrenched, and nobody cared about Apple's "restart" alternative. My comment that Apple would "slowly take over the market" in this space also looks quite dumb, as did the expectation that Windows applications could boot alongside Mac apps. The question is, why not?

6) At Least One Major Browser Will Embed Ad-Blocking

Wrong. And it's too bad! Sure would change things a bit if somebody could figure out how to check a box and have graphical ads or text ads disappear.

7) Assetbar and FriendFeed Will Gain Early Adopter Audiences

Wrong and Right. AssetBar, in its attempt to replace Google Reader, failed fast. FriendFeed, however, did much better than I could have guessed at the time I wrote the post. Obviously, I played a small role in evangelizing FriendFeed through it coming out of beta in early 2008, but it got bigger than even I expected. My comment saying that "neither would be acquired by the end of 2008" did manage to be true.

8) Video Blogging Will Remain Unpopular, Unprofitable

Right. While there are some bloggers who prefer video and are using it, from Robert Scoble at FastCompany TV to Loic LeMeur at Seesmic, it hasn't become as second-nature as standard blogging or mciroblogging. And so far as I know, nobody is making money on this in a consistent way.

9) iTunes Video Rentals Will Decimate Netflix, Blockbuster, Hurt Box Office

Mostly Wrong. Netflix didn't blink against iTunes' charge. They instead branched out with their "watch instantly" feature and partnered up with TiVo and others. Blockbuster is still a disaster, and I certainly am not going to the box office thanks to so many alternatives. But iTunes video rentals cannot be said to have hit Netflix and others all that much.

10) Fast Company Will be a Fast Stay for Robert Scoble

Wrong, So Far. Robert joined FastCompany at the beginning of the year, and is putting up some interesting content. That said, FastCompany has seen changes in focus and leadership, and I am curious to see how his show evolves in 2009. Scoble continues to be a mainstay on the social Web and at industry events of course, so even if 2009 sees him somewhere else, it won't be far from the limelight.

So wasn't that fun? Now you see you can largely ignore my predictions, or maybe, I should try harder to be right. Maybe, if I'm good, I can put a 2009 prediction list up by the end of the year...