Two years ago, we would gladly pay a headhunter outrageous fees to find us a low level developer. But the competition wasn’t from other tech startups. It was from the conglomerates and banks that were paying premium rates for tech folks, pricing startups out of the market for dev talent. Nowadays, things are different.
We’ve got 4, soon to be 5-6 job specs out there, and we’re getting great response. High quality, deep experience, and entrepreneurial attitudes. My opinion is that this type of demand isn’t an indication of an already robust startup city, but rather will be the cause of one. With AOL layoffs and other media companies hitting the skids in 2009, tech talent is out there, conspiring, networking, searching. They’re realizing that the cushy job security they thought they had by taking the clock-punching jobs at big companies wasn’t actually that secure. So, the benefits of joining a small company — launching exciting new products, garnering larger responsibility, EQUITY — are becoming more attractive, more valuable in the career assessment process.
I’m predicting that some spurts of growth occur in NY from the talented seeds that the big companies are dropping all over the City. Existing high-growth companies and new ones springing up will be able to surge forward faster than anticipated with access to the exciting new talent in 2010.
I’m so proud of the effort by our marketing maven, Jess Thorpe, who made it easy for people to donate to the Red Cross through their membership points with EXPO. The additional incentive of a cashless transaction hopefully will make this a great service for EXPO to offer to our members and Haiti.
In this case, I not only changed from blogger.com to a self-hosted wordpress blog, I also changed the custom URL.
My hosting choice was Bluehost.com. (Google “Bluehost discount” for the best affiliate link rates.) Setup with wordpress was very easy, as bluehost has a great integration tool on their dashboard. In addition, there’s a simple Wordpress tool for you to just suck in all of your blogger.com posts automatically into Wordpress. In WordPress, go to Tools > Import. Select Blogger from the list. It took about 3 minutes to dupe my entire blog into wordpress.
2) Forwarding from blogger to wordpress. This site walks you step by step with pictures through a) forwarding posts from old to new, b) not getting penalized by googlebots for duplicate content, and c) leave a custom message as you forward people from your old to new blog
3) Here is a site that will help you ensure that your URLs match so that the old blog post points correctly to the new blog post.
4) Google Wemaster Tools recently opened up the ability to TELL its bots that you’re moving URLs. This is fantastic since you can’t do a 301 redirect in blogger.com since you don’t have access to the root directory. Activate a Google Webmaster account for your blog in order to get to the tool to alert Google.
The biggest test is that after a few months, my pagerank has held relatively steady. Therefore, my thought is that Google is okay with what I did. Does anything else really matter?
Behold, a Christmas gift left by one of our developers for another. It was a 2.5 hour labor of love. If you were wondering, the first thing unwrapped was the tissue box. We are taking bets how long it takes before he unwraps his phone.
In-home video research used to cost an astonishing amount of money. Think about it…how much would it cost to hire a camera crew to follow someone around? You had to screen and qualify applicants (you might not even know what they look like or sound like), you had to hire a camera crew for no less than a full day (even if you were interested in just one sliver of the participant’s life). Nothing could be done quickly — you had to coordinate schedules of applicants and crews, and make sure everyone knew what was supposed to happen. Imagine the costs if you wanted to follow the participant to measure their reaction over time!
And even after all that, what are the chances you could get an authentic, sincere response from the participant, with a bunch of strangers and equipment invading their home?
Marrying the skillset of user-gen content, and the comfort of social media, EXPO has been able to harness the power and knowledge of our community to tap into video ethnography for a fraction of the cost. We can hyper-target a demo, or screen by qualifying questions, and then provide very detailed assignments to our community. This level of care results in a broad video ‘picture’ to accompany research findings. We’re calling it “Kitchen Table Conversations“, to evoke the sense that people are really inviting you into their homes, where they’ve always been most comfortable sharing their lives with you.
In times when social media has made putting personal videos and pictures on public display passe, it’s hard to imagine trying to make a research point without showing real faces in their real words. We recently did a video ethnography for AdAge in conjunction with JWT, on the “Rise of the Real Mom”. We think that EXPO helped AdAge capture the triumphs and tribulations of the unsung heroes that have helped this nation get through the financial crisis…moms!
UPDATE: Will Richmond from VideoNuze did a MUCH better job explaning KTC than I did. I guess the power of being a neutral third party.
Through the magic of interconnected news feeds, I’m sure a lot of my high school friends will see this, (sorry), but we are hiring at EXPO. It’s post-worthy to the extent that anyone growing as opposed to shrinking has got to be good news generally, right?
Our founding sales exec, David Rubinstein, has nurtured a pioneering team that has launched the adoption of video commerce within the nation’s top brands. We’re very proud to be expanding his group to support the growing flow of F500 companies seeking insights & experiences from our authentic, accountable consumer knowledge base. As you can guess by the location of the position (Chi/Cin/Min/NYC), we’re working with some of the largest consumer brand names out there. We are looking for someone to help those companies navigate the world of social commerce safely, effectively and valuably.
Here’s the link to the job post, please pass it on freely:
PART I. THE QUICK READ JUST FROM THE BLOGGER POINT OF VIEW
The FTC guidelines for endorsements have been published and can be found here. There are three main sections of interest to bloggers, and the marketers who support their voice.
1) Definition of endorsements/testimonials
2) What is required of the consumer contributors and marketers
3) Disclosing ties to marketers
Additionally, there is a fourth part that concerns only the marketer, which comes into play if they use/feature the blogger’s testimonial in an advertisement. Then, common sense would kick in that the content needs no less care than they apply when they write a scripted ad, such as claims reviews. I’ve not covered that here due to the inapplicability to bloggers on how marketers use their content, but will in future postings.
The FTC seems to be focusing on bloggers “because he or she is known to have wide readership within a particular demographic group that is the manufacturers’ target market.” By acting as the ’speaker’ of the content, and also as the publisher of that content to their audience, the FTC seems to believe that the blogger was selected by the manufacturer to receive some benefit (ie free product, payment) because of the blogger’s direct ability to spread the message to their target market. The FTC seems to equate a blogger’s following with a celebrity’s following — and indeed celebrities are similarly covered in the new Guides. Essentially, the blogger was acting as a conduit for a marketing message to be delivered to his or her following. If the blogger chose to deliver that message, the blogger becomes part of the direct advertising chain.
While the main guidelines begin on page 55, there are a lot of interesting materials in the “Supplemental Information” that covers consumer generated content, including around pages 8-15, a39 and 51. I’ve summarized and tried to interpret from my non-legal reading of the document. The following are some more detail on the three main points for bloggers and other consumer contributors.
1) Definition of an endorsement or testimonial covered by the Guide
The FTC is saying that anytime there is a known, agreed upon tie between the blogger and marketer, this is an endorsement. Here is an example that they used to help you determine what they’re looking for as a tie between you and the marketer.
Example 8: A consumer who regularly purchases a particular brand of dog food decides one day to purchase a new, more expensive brand made by the same manufacturer. She writes in her personal blog that the change in diet has made her dog’s fur noticeably softer and shinier, and that in her opinion, the new food definitely is worth the extra money. This posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides.Assume that rather than purchase the dog food with her own money, the consumer gets it for free because the store routinely tracks her purchases and its computer has generated a coupon for a free trial bag of this new brand. Again, her posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides. Assume now that the consumer joins a network marketing program under which she periodically receives various products about which she can write reviews if she wants to do so. If she receives a free bag of the new dog food through this program, her positive review would be considered an endorsement under the Guides
The FTC included some “supplementary information” to help clarify their position, especially based on the thoughtful comments provided by some of our colleagues at WOMMA and BzzAgent. The FTC said that they would need to look at the overall relationship between the blogger and the marketer, such as:
Whether the speaker is compensated by the advertiser or its agent
Whether the product or service in question was provided for free by the advertiser
The terms of any agreement
The length of the relationship
The previous receipt of products or services from the same or similar advertisers or the likelihood of future receipt of such products or services
The value of the items or services received.
These would go into the decision whether the blogger was disseminating a marketing message to his or her following. My advice to bloggers is not to spend a lot of time trying to decide if you are covered by these definitions. If you’re not sure, err on the side that you are. The FTC believes that the advertiser selected you to blog about their content because you have influence with your audience. Therefore, the FTC wants to ensure that your communication over the audience you have built is taken seriously when an advertiser-requested message is attached.
2) Taking responsibility for what you say in your content
When something is considered an “endorsement” and covered by these Guidelines, what needs are your new responsibilities expected by the FTC? Basically, they want you to take responsibility for what you say and how far you go when describing the product benefits. You shouldn’t make product claims that aren’t your personal experience with or opinion of the product. For example, you shouldn’t say that the product will do the same thing for everyone since you don’t know that is 100% true. If you do, the FTC believes you should take responsibility for these claims that are misleading or not supported by evidence. That’s what marketers currently do when they write ads and tout claims. They have to back up everything they say with evidence.
The FTC believes that marketers should help guide you in the types of claims you can make, and monitor your content to make sure it conforms. However, it believes that you and the marketers share liability since you’re both in a relationship together.
An observation from the Guide: The FTC seems to take a position that if you speak about your personal experience with the product, and keep it to your own opinion of the product, that this may not be making a product claim. I’m not quite sure about this yet, but there was some language that seemed to imply that.
3) Your responsibility includes disclosing your relationship with the marketer
This section is simple to the extent it is what it says. If you have a relationship with the marketer, you should disclose it. As discussed in the definition of an endorsement, the relationship can include where you are paid or get free product. Again, my advice is not to quibble with whether you are covered, and simply disclose whatever relationship you have with the marketer. The Guides don’t really discuss how to disclose the relationship, but it should be obvious and clear to anyone that is reading your blog.
The blogger is also liable if she fails to disclose clearly and conspicuously that she is being paid for her services.
For example, an individual who regularly receives free samples of products for families with young children and discusses those products on his or her blog would likely have to disclose that he or she received for free the items being recommended. Although the monetary value of any particular product might not be exorbitant, knowledge of the blogger’s receipt of a stream of free merchandise could affect the weight or credibility of his or her endorsement – the standard for disclosure in Section 255.5 – if that connection is not reasonably expected by readers of the blog. Similarly, receipt of a single high-priced item could also constitute a material connection between an advertiser and a “sponsored” endorser.
If the blogger is actually paid by the advertiser or a third party acting on its behalf, disclosure certainly will be warranted.
Example 7: A college student who has earned a reputation as a video game expert maintains a personal weblog or “blog” where he posts entries about his gaming experiences. Readers of his blog frequently seek his opinions about video game hardware and software. As it has done in the past, the manufacturer of a newly released video game system sends the student a free copy of the system and asks him to write about it on his blog. He tests the new gaming system and writes a favorable review. Because his review is disseminated via a form of consumer-generated media in which his relationship to the advertiser is not inherently obvious, readers are unlikely to know that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the video game system, this fact likely would materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge.
I am going to write more shortly on these rules. We believe that ever more than before, Expo continues to act as the clearinghouse for the best way for consumers to engage in authentic, helpful and relevant product dialogue.
I’m maturing from blog infancy to blog adolescence by upgrading from a Blogger account to Wordpress. It’s ugly, but I’m working with someone to make it prettier…
I actually have a > zero pagerank, so I am being dainty about how I complete the transfer. You can see that I’ve duped all my archive posts below.
Thanks for visiting, feel free to link to this site. All new posts will show up here.
Daphne
UPDATE: Transferring URLs…Google just put up this summer a way to notify them of the change of website address:
Amazon killed its Video Widget this morning. Sunsetting fully-working affiliate tools simply due to low usage cannot be a high priority for Amazon at this flush time. I would guess that it was closed down due to reasons other than low participant uptake. Sometimes, low-level tools are shut down because the number of complaints aren’t worth the fixes. When I wrote about the Video Widget in the Spring, a concern was the conflict between uploading a ‘review’ video and then making affiliate fees off it. It would have been possible to trash competitive products to promote your own. Alternatively, possibly people were taking advantage of a free hosting platform and uploading personal videos. Since you have to associate one product to each video, perhaps manufacturers objected to having their products associated with unscreened, irrelevant videos. Here’s one by me:
Another reason to sunset a working product would be if an improved, or conflicting product is due for launch. This might be the case since they’re allowing you to leave up your old Video Widgets. If I find other discussions about the closure, I’ll update this post.
The position that social media marketing is risky for brands is far from unfounded. The democratization of any medium is almost by definition messy and uncontrolled. That is a scary place for brands to be. But the smart brands know that it’s scarier to not be there at all.
We have been working with a number of those smart brands.We use three ingredients to ensure that everyone wins…our clients, our creators, and our consumers.
Start with a great product
We don’t work withF500 brands because they’re the easiest ones to get to. For a small company, they’re the hardest to get to. But we target working with F500 brands because they launch great products. They do a tremendous amount of work beforehand to ensure the success of a product. P&G spends $2 billion a year on 8,000 engineers. LG maintains 30research centers for $3 billion a year. Who wouldn’t want to test a product that has millions of dollars of R&D and months of consumer testing behind it? Expo has actually turned down a number of companies because we thought that the products were not high enough quality.
Don’t ask the bald guy about shampoo
Part of the power of social media marketing is that it is intensely personal. Sites should know so much more about their community than ever before. Companies that allow anonymous text postings, or encourage thin veils of member credentials are simply socially bankrupt. The more information your community shares with you about itself, the more you can tap into the appropriate, relevant social network for clients. A great product needs to be in the hands of the person it was designed for. Great brands design their products with a very in-depth consumer profile in mind. These profiles don’t just encompass age, gender, income, but also include things like buying habits, social activities, lifestyle choices, and family size. We have located, on behalf of our clients, consumers with a certain hair length, buyers of no-frills grocery products, people who watch a specific TV show, even women who are breastfeeding!
Reward an honest relationship
You started with a great product. You put it in the hands of the target consumer. What can go wrong? At this point, very little should go wrong. But, alas, companies out there have screwed it up anyway. A few thoughts on how to avoid the last few potholes on the way to buzz nirvana…
There should be no need to bias the consumer. If you feel a need to somehow inject incentive for positive reviews at this point, then something in step 1 and 2 isn’t working.
General review sites on retailers and elsewhere generate about 80% positive buzz. We will turn down clients expecting us to generate a 100% positive campaign. Trying to manipulate an unnatural result leads to disastrous choices.
Disclose until you can’t disclose anymore. Don’t just do this for FTC reasons…which are only there to protect the reader/viewer of the content. Disclose and require disclosure so the community of contributors knows that those are the rules you play by. Build a relationship with contributors where everything is out on the table. You will attract people who want to play by those rules. Those are the people that will strengthen your ability to guarantee a natural, authentic and honest result.
Co-founder and CEO of Expo, video commerce solution based in New York City. Former CFO of Oxygen Media and member of founding team. Entrepreneur, wife, mom.
With all the debate about whether NYC has become a city competitive for tech startups, one of the indicators we could look toward would be how fast digital jobs in the area get filled.
The FTC guidelines for endorsements have been published and can be found 
