Some great videos with David Karp, Dennis Crowley and Fred Wilson

The Techcrunch TV offshoot is producing a lot of really interesting content – including this series of ‘Founders Stories’, with the likes of Tumblr’s David Karp, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, and Union Square Ventures Fred Wilson, all interviewed by by Hunch.com co-founder Chris Dixon.

You can watch all the videos on the TC site, but for some reason I struggle to isolate one series from all the Techcrunch TV content on their site, and although they republish on Youtube, they still don’t seperate everything into series playlists (Or seemingly spend any time tagging their content effectively).

But the joy of Youtube is that I can solve that almost instantly, so here’s a BadgerGravling Playlist of Techcrunch Founders Stories.

If you want an example of the type of interview, here’s the clip of Dennis Crowley, with some interesting insight into why Google seemingly struggles with social, despite ex-Google employees producing a lot of successful social startups:

Useful study on Social Network Marketing on Facebook and Myspace

I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and read Tom Chapman’s study of Social Network Marketing, Engagement Marketing and Brands, which specifically looks at marketing on Facebook and Myspace from the perspectives of both social network users, and brand executives from the likes of innocent drinks and BBC Radio 1.

It’s quite unusual to see a report from someone who isn’t linked to either the network in question, or an agency which may be looking to attract business (Tom is Head of Marketing for an ISP).

It’s effectively split into two parts. The first section is a look at the quantitative findings of surveying Myspace and Facebook users, whilst the second part compiles the in-depth interviews with brand executives.

I won’t quote too much of the study, but it covers topics like the percentage of Myspace and Facebook users who would feel more affinity to a brand that listened to them and communicated with them (65% and 67% respectively). And it goes into detail for both social advertising and brand promotions, as well as finding out how many Myspace and Facebook fans are aware their profile information is used to target them – (56% and 45%). It’s quite surprising, particularly after the uproar within certain circles over Facebook’s Beacon advert system, for example.

And it’s certainly interesting to hear the responses of some executives who use both networks to great effect – for instance, the Chris Moyles fan page with 536774 fans.

As someone who is fairly deeply involved in the subject (It’s my day job, after all), I saw lots that will be useful in supporting my own work and theories, and some correlation between what other brands have found, and what I’ve discovered from Bauer Media’s brands on Facebook and Myspace.

I’ve had the chance to exchange a couple of emails with Tom, and voiced my thoughts that the next stage will be to look at exactly how brand executives are measuring loyalty, engagement and participation, especially with respect to Return on Investment and justifying the time and effort involved. It really is the multi-million dollar question of social media, and it’s getting closer every day – and I think this study goes a long way to reaching that destination.

Anyway, if you’re interested in reading more, the study is at socialnetworkmarketinguk.com. And if that inspires you, there’s still time to save 10% off the price of attending Social Media in Business on October 23rd.

Interviews so good they destroyed time…

Many apologies, but although I said my exclusive interview with Blippr founders Jonathan and Chris would be published today, a late night scheduling mistake saw it appear yesterday. And by the time I’d got online and realised, I thought it would be pointless to put it back offline for a day simply to avoid looking stupid.

I can only blame the fact I was still excited about getting two interviews with interesting figures in microblogging for the same week, after speaking to Posty creator Cesare as well.

I’m looking to interview quite a few more people in the coming days and weeks, so feel free to volunteer and beat the rush….

Just a quickie post…

I’ve been a bit busy today, and I’ve promised myself some sleep tonight, so I’m going to throw out some quick half-formed thoughts – rather than my usual long and rambling half-formed thoughts!

  • I have put up two good interviews on 140char.com. The first is with the creator of the Posty microblogging client using Adobe Air, Cesar Rocchi, and the second is with the co-founders of micro-review and recommendation site Blippr, Jonathan Cottrell and Chris Heard.
  • I’ve also been having a bit of fun helping out some colleagues in moving forum users over from an old location, which for various reasons required some subterfuge and some co-ordinated communication. I know a few bikers crossover with my social media audience, so it’s www.pbmagforum.co.uk. It’s been quite good fun playing with something new, as all the forums I’ve moderated or admin’d before have either been fairly small, or on corporate software, so I’m learning some new things about Invision. The big challenge is trying to estimate the server space we’ll need, so if anyone has any experience in that area, give me a shout.
  • I spotted the BBC reporting a ‘crackdown on suicide websites‘ earlier and wondered how effective it will be to update a UK law when most of the sites will probably be UK hosted, or incredibly easy to move to new hosting etc. I’m glad to see the Justice Minister state that the update won’t be a magic bullet, especially as I recall The Tipping Point looking at rises in suicides after straight reporting in mainstream media. But bearing in mind the concern is about search returns promoting suicide websites over those offering help, surely they should be working with search engines (like, maybe Google), rather than ISPs? And what about providing SEO advice and help to charity and anti-suicide sites to ensure that any suicide websites will be buried down the search listings regardless of whether they’ll be eventually banned by their ISP or not?
  • I love the reporting of Stan Schroeder on Mashable regarding the statement that social networks are killing porn sites because Bill Tancer at Hitwise has noticed searches for porn decreasing, and social networking increasing. Stan’s answer? Maybe people are able to find the porn they want more easily and more quickly as they’ve become more experienced!
  • Apologies to the blog which originally published that the UK is lagging behind in broadband speeds, but I seem to have misplaced my bookmark. Here’s a bit from Computer Shopper. At the same time, a UK gov report recommends not getting involved in trying to implement next gen broadband, besides monitoring the progress of industry. I can understand the reasoning behind the report, particularly if people are leaving high speed connections unused in favour of cheaper deals – but more and more services are now coming online to make use of higher speeds, and broadband is still too expensive for a decent service in many cases. More importantly, it might not be for everyone, but the high speeds are definitely for the early adopters and innovators who will continue to invade the economy of the country.
  • I forgot to include Dave Cushman’s contribution to ‘The Best Practices in Social Media Marketing‘ meme when I compiled it all, as we were simultaneously tagged. So he’s gone for revenge by tagging me in the ‘Measures of Engagement‘ meme. I say revenge, because in my daily work I spend a lot of time thinking about the best measures and then spend a lot of time monitoring them, so if I don’t come up with something worthwhile I should probably be shot.
  • And now for the heartwarmingly funny tale that ends daily news roundups. Matt at Signal vs Noise has a stunningly brilliant example of how not to describe and market an offer, as Jetblue turn their special deal into a ‘chronological date riddle’

That’ll do for now….if you’re after more of a window into what I share, I’m mainly using a combo of Google Reader for interesting RSS items (Shared Items Page here), with Delicious, and Stumbleupon also making an appearance. At some point I’ll try and aggregate all my various storage applications into one stream which will overwhelm us all?