This morning is one of those we Seattlites dream about. The sun is glowing, the water is blue and the mountain is out in full force. It’s these types of days that get Seattlites through the gloom and doom of winter (and this year spring). I can’t think of a more perfect day for Bill Gates to ride off into the sunset. His house has a western exposure with a spectacular view of the lake. He will go home this evening and be able to sit out on his deck, look around at his children and enjoy the spectacular sunset we have waiting for us tonight. I don’t know if he is the bbqing type, most of us are. Maybe someone around his house will crank up the grill and throw a salmon on it. Maybe it’s Friday night gin and tonics by the pool. However he chooses to spend tonight I, for one, wish him well.

A retrospective of his legacy is attempted in the New York Times today.  But remember, he’s only 52. What he can now do for world health organizations and philanthropic causes everywhere is still yet to be written. You can take your shots at Microsoft, where it’s been and where it’s going. You can say BillG doesn’t have all the social graces that other CEO’s do (he doesn’t answer ‘dumb’ questions no matter who the person asking is). But there are few people on the planet that can say they have made as great a contribution to society. Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, MLK. Hopefully for Bill the best is yet to come. We should all be so lucky.

A great reminder from the folks at Brains on Fire on what will make a successful social community work for your brand.

We are about 3 weeks away from launching our new Windows Live community. Social communities will work when they are based on the benefits of the customers, not the corporation. I want happy customers; happy customers use more product, tell more people and will defend your brand when called upon. The best way to ensure happy customers is to put their needs at the forefront of your plan. Do you know what your customer values?

Give it away and it will come back in ten fold (something the airline industry has clearly lost sight of).

After my post yesterday where I ranted my frustration at not being asked if I wanted to have the SpeedDate app applied to my Facebook profile I got a private message from them that read the following;

Hi Marty,
We read your blog post and wanted to apologize for your frustration related to the What Color app.  We decided to transition the What Color quiz to an app that makes it easier for users to meet new people, including friends.  We've been working really hard on the SpeedDate product for a long time - we believe it can revolutionize the way people meet on the internet because we introduce people via webcam, audio, and instant messaging.  Unfortunately, for some people including yourself, it no longer makes sense to have the app on their profile, and we apologize for the sudden change.  If you have any ideas on how to make such a transition easier, please let us know.
Thanks,
SpeedDate

Let me tell you they got it right the second time around. Here is what I love about what they did.

1. They obviously have some sort of web crawl service that is instantly notifying them if someone (like me) is blogging about their company name. By doing this they can timely and personally reply to customers (in my case, a not so happy customer).
2. They apologized in the first sentence. They give a bit of detail for why they did what they did but first and foremost they gave me an apology. Classy move.
3. They asked for feedback or suggestions on how I could make it better
4. And finally, they didn’t take the opportunity to self promote themselves on my blog. They could very easily have replied in my comments section with exactly the same text they sent me in a private message but by sending it to me in a private message they let me choose whether or not I wanted to share it. Bravo!

Social media is hard. It’s not always clear on how to engage, and it so easily can go very, very bad, very, very quickly. I’m about to embark on a Social Media engagement program with Windows and Windows Live. I hope to be as  successful as SpeedDate was here.

I just got an email from SpeedDate. I don’t know what SpeedDate is but I looked at the email address that sent the mail and it’s clear it’s from Facebook. Here is the email copy I got;

This email was sent by SpeedDate. You can disable emails here.
---
Hi,
You have a PRIVATE note. Click here to read your note.
Thanks!
Update: What Color and SpeedDate apps are now combined (and called SpeedDate). Check your note now!

Here’s the thing – I’m married. I didn’t add a SpeedDate app to my Facebook profile. I was pleased to see they offered me a link in the very first line of the email that allowed me to disable the app from my Profile but what I want to know is why in the hell was it added in the first place??? The link took me to the edit your apps page and low and behold SpeedDate was listed in my apps list.

I read the email again and it says at the bottom as an update What Color app, which I did have, and SpeedDate apps are now combined. Ummm, what? Just because I had someone send me a What Color app and I decided to add it to my Profile DOESN’T mean I want to have a dating app. For whatever reason the company that hosted the What Color app was killing that app so instead of losing those contacts altogether it made sense to them to roll those contacts over to their dating app. Not the right call. I agreed to a What Color app, not a Dating app. You don’t get to decide for me if I want what you’re selling now. I do.

Although it’s hard to believe sometimes, Social Media as a channel for advertising and marketing is still not even close to main stream. According to a panel of high level ad execs who spoke Tuesday at the Under the Radar Conference (Odd name because if' it’s under the radar doesn’t that mean no ones talking about it. How do you have a conference about stuff no one is talking about?) Social Media is not considered a focus for advertising dollars because big brands still like spending their money on traditional ads (TV). Of course having an ad exec tell you Social Media isn’t main stream is like having an oil exec tell you natural resources aren’t in diminishing supply. If it were true that would leave the state of their business model in jeopardy. Ad Exec’s are not going to back Social Media until they understand how their traditional advertising model is going to make money in this new world. What’s the new world for advertisers?

• DVR’s make tv ads irrelevant
• YouTube means anyone can show your brand next to anything, anytime to millions
• Internet time is growing, tv time is shrinking
• And the biggest one, the largest audience, Gen Y, does EVERYTHING differently than has been done before

I enjoy a good tv ad as much as the next guy, but the difference is I don’t make my purchase decisions by them anymore. If I’m going to buy a digital camera, computer, DVR, or even CD I read the reviews on Amazon. Today too many messages mean the consumer gets to chose the ones they listen to. The difference between yesteryear and now is there used to only be the advertisers messages so you had to listen to them. Now everyone has a voice.

The Washington Post reported today that Facebook has pulled out of a deal with Google to be a main partner in Google’s new Friend Connect. I have to tell you not being privy to any information other than what is publicly known, it seems quite bad business to me for Facebook to agree to a partnership with a product that they say they never saw before launch. If you believe their story Facebook says the first time they saw Friend Connect was when it launched. I just find it incredibly hard to believe Facebook would do business like that. And if that’s not the case, it means they changed their minds, which is a different story. Between Google and Facebook I think Facebook gets the egg on their face for this one. If by some strange comedy of errors Facebook and their privacy team didn’t review Friend Connect before agreeing to the partnership, shame on them. They say they’ve pulled out because Friend Connect infringes on privacy regulations. 

Friend Connect is an interesting service if you have a web page. You can sign up to be part of the private beta here. Watch the demo below. It’s a great way to add social feature to your website and will definitely help increase traffic. The way it works; you sign in with your Social Network account (it doesn’t current offer Facebook or Windows Live), once you are signed in you can rate and review content, post photos, etc depending on what modules the web page owner has selected.  Those activities will then show up on your activity feed in your social network site so friends can see what you’ve done on other sites. If a friend clicks on the activity link it will take them to the site you just posted your review on. There-in lies the controversy, it take traffic off the Social Network site (thereby taking away eyeballs, which equal page views, which equal ad revenue). But what it does allow is for the Social Network user to update his or her network automatically, which is what happens when he/she does something within their Social Network walls.