BUt now it’s gone. Removed as an option. The Twitter blog says:

Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

So now they’re controlling what I can see, they’ve removed the choice. They’re censoring what I can hear. It’s the equivalent of being in a pub with a few friends and a bunch of new people and not hearing any of the conversation between everyone else. I’m not the only one who sees it this way, just search for the hashtag #fixreplies

Twitter Fix Replies (screenshot from site)

Twitter, this needs to go back. I make a choice to follow people and I make a choice to follow everything they see. Don’t strip out content, just let me see it all.

• First of all, Amazon’s response was that it was policy
• Then they blamed a ‘glitch’.
• Then a troll came out of the woodwork and announced to the world that he had done it, through clickjacking and other means
• Now an ex-employee Amazon blames the French, or at least a French employee, who conflated the scope of the word ‘adult’ to include the erotic
• Now Amazon call it “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error” affecting over 57000 books

A cataloguing error, a lack of response from Amazon followed by confusing messages and a lot of jumping to conclusions (including me) led to a social media storm that can only damage the reputation of the brand. As BL says, you need to think about how you monitor your brand all the time, not just 9-5 Mon-Fri; although Amazon did appear to be responsive over the weekend even if the answers were not fully clear.

According to Amazon, they’ve been having a ‘glitch’ over the weekend that has stripped the sales ranking form a number of books, thereby reducing the likelihood of the books appearing in searches, so impacting sales.

The only problem with this is that the glitch appears to affect gay/lesbian/sex titles only and even then the impact is inconsistent, which is unexpected if there was a logic behind it. Playboy and Girls Gone Wild is not adult under the glitch, but literature with a gay themes is, even when there’s no sex written about. Apparently, before they called it a glitch, they had called it a policy according to the email received by Mark Probst

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

If you’re on Twitter, or have been reading feeds over the weekend, you’ll have seen this. It appears that the power of public opinion, published all over the web has forced Amazon to update a policy to a glitch and then to fix it. But is it enough to rescue their reputation or the new meaning of Amazon Rank

Last night, the Guardian Word of Mouth blog ran a chocolate tasting and they really did deliver. There was a room full of pieces of chocolate Easter Eggs for us to enjoy, ranging from supermarket basic types all the way up to gourmet organic chocolate. As well as bowls and bowls of choc, there was the opportunity to try some port or Courvoisier. or some Gonzalez Byass exclusive sherry or even to get a demonstration of chocolate making. It was a brilliant evening, ably organised by Suse and everyone looked liked they were enjoying themselves as they ate their way to a chocolate haze.

Writing this up, there’s definitely on improvement they could make – a list of brands to take away so I could remember what I liked! BUt I have some recollection. My favourite from the eggs was the Daylesford Organic dark chocolate. The chocolate truffles from Paul A Young, both the Guinness and the basil were brilliant for my favourite taste overall was the ‘raw’ chocolate from Mayan Magic, who gave a demonstration of making your own (coming to Selfridges next week)

Chocsaway on Twitter

Update: here’s some more posts about the event

Eternally Neurotic

This evening, I went along to the IET for a Pinkerton Lecture, on using social media to inspire change. Delivered by Alex Balfour, who is the Head of New Media for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, it was a brilliant run through of the social media landscape (targeted at the majority of the audience who wouldn’t necessarily play in the space) and an introduction to what LOCOG is doing when it comes to social media.

As Alex ran through some of the innovations that his team has been repsonsible for, such as putting education packs online instead of using mailouts, of putting information for training camp venues up on the web, I wanted to challenge him. Where was the social media, where was the innovation? What he was talking about wasn’t ‘new’, but only new in the old definition of media. An understanding of the mindset of the overall organisation was given when, in answer to one of my questions at the end of the session, let it be known that the media broadcast rights for the 2016 Games, which included digital broadcast, will be signed up in 2009, 7 years before the games, even before the host city is confirmed. Whilst I could understand agreeing traditional TV rights, how can you even understand what could be done online that far ahead? The reasoning given was financial, that TV rights in effect add a huge amount to the running of the games. But why assign them before you know how much it’s going to cost, before you know which city is running it and how much they need. Given the current negotiations with the London budget and how they are going to afford the games, surely it would be better to sign things up closer to the time, when you know costs AND now what you can sell given a changing rights landscape.

Alex also mentioned that the 2010 Winter games are having to work out how they will cope with the media applications from non-traditional outlets, meaning bloggers and online newsites. I asked about this for 2012, but the answer was not clear about the access that would be granted for online reporters.

Alex covered some of the initiatives they have been running with, for example one around the handover parties that took place in August, where they asked people to contribute videos and images of celebration to add to a video they would show at the parties. Another example would be a call for images and content that could be used as part of the venues, either a collection of the content built up over the lead into the games, or ‘live’ stuff created during the games. They are working in a difficult environment, hampered by what sound like unbelievably stupid rules, such as a ban on linking to any site that is not a sponsor, but I’d like to see how they are going to approach some of the challenges

• One of the basic tenets of social media is sharing. How are they going to let people share the Games, through images, video, remixes, mashups of broadcast content (after the live broadcast)etc if all the ‘rights’ are tied up.
• With the assumption that every single person at the games will have a mobile phone capable of photography, video capture and live broadcast to the web, how are you going to support that?
• The sharing of content is often dependent on the use of tags but most of the expected tags wouls be copyrighted or trademarked. Are you going to police that?

One definite conclusion I came away with is that the games will allow social media as long as they control it, as long as it’s on their terms. A couple of videos were shown, one from the Handover celebrations and one from the announcement of the London win. I was in Trafalgar Square that day and recall vividly the rush of adrenaline and the euphoria of that moment, but it’s indelibly linked in memory to the happenings of the day after, so much so that I can’t watch celebration pictures without getting emotional. As I was listening to the how they plan to manage and initiate social media conversations, I was watching news and images come in on my phone about the Mumbai terrorists attacks. There is much irony for me in the contrast of social media used to connect people about what is happening in the world in real time compared to what the Olympic Committee may be forced to do, which is use the tools to leverage a commercial connection.

My first impressions of the place were not exactly brilliant. In one corner, there was a huge group of what I assume were Cornishmen singing their national songs. Elsewhere, there were a lot of stereotypes, beer bellies and silly ‘real ale’ t-shirts that on the surface did not make this a friendly place. But first looks were deceiving and as we wandered round, we got nothing but good humour and support.

Melissa had put together a list of 40 beers to take a look at, however the tour only covered 5 of them, in 1/3 pints, to ensure we were all drinking responsibly. Here’s what we tried.

• Wells and Young; Youngs Waggledance.. a honeyed sweet ale that was a great start. For me, it only had a very slight honey smell.
• Copper Dragon; Golden Pippen Ale. Lovely and fruity, with lemony overtones.
• Dark Star Expresso. Wow. a stout porter with a strong hit of coffee. As one of the party said, you could drink this for breakfast. It would go great with something like Chille Mole. But I could only drink the one at any sitting I think
• Fuller’s Discovery.. This was a reallyy refreshing, designed to act as a bridge between lager and ales.
• Iceni Raspberry Wheat. the first taste of this is very, very tart, but overall, it slips down a treat. I’d love this with cheese.

I liked all of them, only a small tasting, bt it’s given me new things to try. Thanks for CAMRA for organising this.

•  DP: Brian Oberkirch put this together – he asked 2 questions. How to market into community without being too marketer like. And how do you build a community around what you are doing?  What does ‘no marketing’ look like? How can we use social media?
• DS: None of this is about tools or technology, but is about the customers.  Here to talk about some of the subtleties, not about the tactics. It’s about marketing, customer service, product development. the marketing silo needs to be changed, why are they afraid of the opps. This is not telling or selling, this is being in the trenches.
• CH: what is really bugging me right now is the number of people who are saying to me ‘build me a community’ but this does make a community, it is the interpersonal connections that make it. Social media is not new media, it changes how we relate to each other. You have to shift the way you think about participation. have to change mindset from stop trying to sell me to help make me buy.
• JO: I do a lot of research on this, such as online community best practices.  it was clear that the ones that let go and let their customers take charge have the thriving communities.
• TH: "marketing is the price you pay for creating mediocre products". this was a big part of the reason for this panel. [history of her and move and Citizen agency] Looking at social capital – relationships and reputation.   It’s all about whuffie in these communities, what you can give away.
• CH: you need a patronage model, where there is money, in corps, it needs room to do it in there. there has to be a genuine spirit of giving in there .
• TH: we talk about doing things that are good for the world alongside the product that will sell.
• HM: [wine, blogging stormhoek story.] Social objects help drive conversation. when we talk about community, when a corporation talks about it, it’s liek a lever they think they can pull, which is not there. you have a bunch of people who use and talk about the product. they are not the company community.
• DP: the concept of giving it away for free is a powerful one, that scares the companies away.  Have used Stormhoek as an example, suggesting that companies do this.
• DS: there are lots of companies for 100s of years…this is a new skillset that is an art rather than a science.  if you are at a small company, where you have a certain amount of control, then you have to get out of the ivory tower. get out to conferences, find the edges.  Larger companies have the problem that they only listen to the complainers, how about listening to the people who love you.   Why do small companies put up an FAQ? why not bring in people who can answer the questions? this is marketing and customer support. get out and flatten it.
• JO: you can give away things for free, I give a lot of my knowledge for free, make people nervous.
• HM: James Governer, gives away 90% of ideas, sells 10%. he can only execute on 10% and it works/
• TH: you can tell people you have knowledge and they will see what they are talking about.  It’s a smart calling code.
• CH: it’s the because effect. Will It blend gives away entertainment.
• HM: there has been a paradigm shift from message to social gesture and that cannot be faked.
• TH: a lot of traditional marketing aims to do a generic spread of message. you throw the net out wide and hope to catch as many. with stormhoek HM saw a great opportunity, of people who were doing a lot of events – its niche, opportunities,
• CH: it’s not the message, it’s not the brand logo, it’s what it represents. We have to think about the human connections, about being of service to fellow human.

Audience Questions

• Q: JO – when selecting brand evangelists, how?  And HM – what about Cooler?  A: JO: tools to find them, who is talking online, goign into communities, finding out who is talking the most, customer support forums. go to brand monitoring companies, who do good job of mining the whole place. the main point is that you can find the people, great people to start with.   HM: Kula is South Sea shells that had a story. Talking about the iphone with Tara, what matters is that tara is a friend, we talk about shared stuff. stories are key. tech is still about socialising around objects.  DS: this is about a cultural shift – getting out. Traditional marketing..is not a relationship. in a relationship you can’t ignore until you have something to say. giving away things for free, the whuffie payback comes back way later. this impacts all lines of your business.
• Q: I understand giving away the small things. what about the big stuff?
  • A: CH: audi are doing a great things. doing a lot of things around the experience, the educational classes, spa treatments.
  •  TH: some people give amazing support and service. 
  • DS: you have to break it down to smaller segments, go local. 
  •  HM: great brands have lots of little small brands, like starbucks. it’s not just about the big thing, it’s all the small things. 
• Q: how do you actually get some money in the short term? (ref a movie, document)
  • A: HM: put half out there, and if people want to learn more they will buy it. 
  • TH: start telling the story, getting people to start telling his story.  
• Q: giving away for free reduces perceived value?  what’s the rebuttal. 
  • A: DP..when selling things, I had a client for selling to teenage girls. they wanted to ‘go viral’. I had to remind them they can’t the product can only go viral.  I suggested we find people to talk about it.  My response is not to go to an intermediary. go to the customers.  put it to the people who would actually use it. 
  • TH: it’s not giving products away for free only. It can be the things around it, the experience.
  • DP: audi, free wifi, breakfast, things to do
  • DS: now everyone has a different perspective on audi. it’s nuanced. 
• Q: can you distill this into a takeaway?
  • HM – social objects ate
  • TH: turn it around, be part of the community, listen, embrace the chaos, find your higher purpose
  • CH: passion for people and product
  • DS: technology changes, human behaviour doesn’t. nothing replaces listening, get out of tower.
• Q: I work for PETA and what we give away for free is our message? is that annoying?
  • CH: saying the only thing you have is a message is wrong. you are connecting to a higher purpose, to a felling.
  • TH: I don’t remember the emails, shows that you have not connecting.
  • DS: are you giving them something they be interested in or just what you want to sell. Think about you are only talking to these people when you need them – cultivate the connections you have.
• Q: I work for Kaboom. A lot of the things you have suggested we have done and it has not taken off as we hoped. now I have all these goals I need to reach. What can I take back to explain that this takes time.  The vision is to make a great place to play for every child in america.
  •    HM: they don’t get it…
  • CH : it’s not campaigns, it’s programmes, you have to change the mentality. get qualitative results, people who have heard online and show the stories.
• Q: Why are you doing this – because you believe or is it a fad?
  • JO: marketing does not exist to hide shitty products, there is a reason.
  • CH: marketing has become associated with sales as opposed to matching product with user.
  • DP: it’s about stories and relationships, helping them work out what they are doing. it’s been a fun ride.
  • DS: it’s a personal mission, not a fad. I’m not a marketer, but a customer advocate. I love that everyone has a voice,
  • CH: it’s about what is your intention.

HM – a story without love is not worth telling

Tags: hughmacleod, darvidparmet, chrisheuer, tarahunt, jermiahowyang, deborahschulz

Virtual Worlds: They are becoming platforms for thought experiments — some of which involve fantasies we would not like to enact in the real world, others involve possibilities that we may want to test market before putting into practice.

Fan Cultures: Courted, encouraged, engaged and acknowledged, fans are more and more frequently being recognized as trendsetters, viral marketers, and grassroots intermediaries

Transmedia Properties Part 1 – an introduction

Transmedia part 2

User Generated Content Part 1: Caterina Fake, Ji Lee, Rob Tercek, Kevin Barrett.

User Generated Content - part 2

The Future of Television: Andy Hunter, Mark Warshaw, Josh Bernoff, Betsy Morga

Entry is simple – create a scrapblog, tag it and get people to visit it. This is a traffic and member generation strategy, as the more people you get to see your scrapblog, the more entries you get. Go ahead- what are you waiting for.

Furthermore Keith is quite happy for bloggers to get samples to test and blog about – and I’m pretty sure he won’t need them back Considering the other blog is called Behind the Buzz, that could be something to think about!

However, on Firefox it looks like this:

I know that sites sometimes launch without full testing…and that Walmart Video is probably targeted fully at those who have never heard of anyother browser but a token effort to fail gracefully would have been nice. (Tip: Valleywag)