You (or your favorite charity) can benefit from your influence! To find out how, read on…
One of the key themes of Future of Influence Summit, on next week in San Francisco and Sydney, is ‘business models for influence and reputation’.
There are many angles to this particular topic, including:
* Will it be possible for individuals to effectively monetize their influence and reputation?
* What new mechanisms will allow people to make money from the influence?
* How will influence intersect with spending on advertising? (some of the leading players in this space will be speaking at the Summit)
* What are business models for the measurement of influence and reputation?
I recently wrote about Sponsored Tweets, which is one of a number of platforms for people to make money by tweeting sponsored messages and links. There has been extensive discussion on this concept, with a high level of polarization in the community as to whether or not this is a good idea (see for example the comments on Mashable, and thoughts from David Risley, White Hat Crew, and AdWeek).
In the spirit of experimentation and learning how paid influence may work, we are introducing a rewarded tweeting system for promoting Future of Influence Summit. Here is how it works:
1. People using an approved discount code get 25% off the full price of registration (US$199 in San Francisco, A$600 in Sydney). For any registrations with that code, an additional 5% of the registration fee (US$10 for US, A$30 for Australia) is paid to you (or your favourite charity).
Read more →
The changing nature of influentials and the role of the social graph
By Ross DawsonWe weren’t the first to use the phrase ‘Future of Influence’. Most prominently Nate Elliott of Forrester wrote a report ‘The Future of Influence‘ (though you’re better off going to Future of Influence Summit than buying the report :-) ) and has done a number of presentations on the theme.
Nate summarizes the topic:
* As Users Become More Active in Recommending Products and Services, New Influence Challenges Volume of Classic Influence
* The Growth of New Influence Will Overwhelm Some Users, Reinforcing the Value of Personal Recommendations from Known Sources
* Marketers Should Focus on Classic Influentials to Drive Direct Action, Encourage Them to Make Off-line Recommendations
Nate’s presentation below describes the difference between what he calls ‘Classic Influentials‘ (who exert passive influence by responding to requests for information) and ‘New Influentials‘ (who exert influence by proactively giving advice).
A key focus in this analysis is user reviews. As we get a critical mass of reviews of products and content, this becomes a better source of information to consumers. However simple recommendation behaviors, for example in Twitter, are also being aggregated to provide information that guides decisions and behaviors.
Read more →
You (or your favorite charity) can make money from your tweets! Participate in an experiment on making money from influence
By Ross DawsonYou (or your favorite charity) can benefit from your influence! To find out how, read on…
One of the key themes of Future of Influence Summit, on next week in San Francisco and Sydney, is ‘business models for influence and reputation’.
There are many angles to this particular topic, including:
* Will it be possible for individuals to effectively monetize their influence and reputation?
* What new mechanisms will allow people to make money from the influence?
* How will influence intersect with spending on advertising? (some of the leading players in this space will be speaking at the Summit)
* What are business models for the measurement of influence and reputation?
I recently wrote about Sponsored Tweets, which is one of a number of platforms for people to make money by tweeting sponsored messages and links. There has been extensive discussion on this concept, with a high level of polarization in the community as to whether or not this is a good idea (see for example the comments on Mashable, and thoughts from David Risley, White Hat Crew, and AdWeek).
In the spirit of experimentation and learning how paid influence may work, we are introducing a rewarded tweeting system for promoting Future of Influence Summit. Here is how it works:
Read more →
This is my current favorite album – listen to it here!
By Ross DawsonEllipse by Imogen Heap is my current new favorite album – absolutely delightful!
Very generously given away by Imogen a few days ago on her website, and also available as an embed, as below.
Have a listen!
I discovered Imogen Heap when listening to the Kate Havnevik channel on Last.FM – Kate’s music is lovely. Kate and Imogen’s music is indeed very much in the same vein.
Imogen is here providing very open access to her music, with prominent buy buttons on each of the tracks.
While you can listen to streamed music when at your computer, you won’t do that on your iPod or mobile. So you will quite possibly buy the song to pull into your iTunes and listen to as part of your personal music stream.
I’m certainly very happy to allow her to sell her music on my site, and I hope she makes lots of money from this! I think she’ll do just fine.
For more insights into how to create and tap online influence at Future of Influence Summit 2009.
A futurists’ dinner: the future of content and remote engagement
By Ross DawsonLast night media futurist Gerd Leonhard , Richard Watson, author of Future Files: A History of the Next 50 Years, and I caught up for dinner. Gerd is in Sydney for the first time for a couple of events, including The Insight Exchange’s Creating Value With Content on Tuesday (see the event review), and Richard happens to be in Sydney amidst a hectic global speaking schedule.
We had a fascinating discussion, largely on the future of content, and in particular how to leverage our own content. As futurists (I will write a blog post soon on ‘why I am happy to be called a futurist’ – that’s another story) what we sell is content in a variety of formats.
The most prominent monetizable channels we have are speaking, consulting (which can take a variety of forms), and books and reports (which now also can be packaged and sold in multitude of ways). Of course we all throw out plenty of free content on the web as part of the mix.
Read more →
Insights and notes from Creating Value With Content event
By Ross DawsonThe Insight Exchange’s Creating Value With Content event on Tuesday was a fantastic success. As so many of the attendees observed, this topic is at the heart of many businesses today. While content in the broadest sense is more and more central to the economy, there are many challenges, not least with pricing and distribution, whether the content is music, film, books, news, advertising, or simply the flow of communication that sustains human and business relationships.
Gerd Leonhard and I have been trying to do something together for a few years now, so it was great The Insight Exchange was able to take advantage of his first visit to Australia to run this event. In addition to Gerd’s far-reaching insights and global perspective the event brought together top-level views on the world of content from Agency, Brand, and Publisher perspectives.
Below are my rough notes taken during the event. In addition definitely read Gerd Leonhard’s blog post Creating value with Content: The Future of Marketing and Advertising (my Sydney presentation), and see his presentation slides here.
We’ll shortly add links to the other presentations made at the event.
NOTES FROM CREATING VALUE WITH CONTENT
Read more →
Influence research: what are the real influence networks within Twitter and social media?
By Ross DawsonWe continue our Influence research series, paving the way for in-depth insights and breaking new ground on the topic at Future of Influence Summit 2009 in San Francisco and Sydney. See the Future of Influence Summit blog for the full series.
Earlier this year Bernardo Huberman and colleagues at HP’s Social Computing Lab did an analysis of Twitter networks, resulting in the article Social Networks that Matter: Twitter under the microscope.
They studied a random sample of 300,000 Twitter users to gain insights into how they communicated and connected. There were a variety of insights from the research, including the relationship between Twitter activity and number of followers.
Source: Social Networks that Matter: Twitter under the microscope
The final conclusion of the paper was:
This is of course hardly a surprising outcome. Having hundreds or even thousands of Twitter followers does not imply a strong relationship, just as anyone with over a thousand Facebook friends will not necessarily be influenced by all of them.
Read more →
CMSWire review of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 – A Practical Guide
By Ross DawsonCMSWire has just published a nice review of my Implementing Enterprise 2.0 Report.
Here is an excerpt from the review:
The front page of our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 website now includes excerpts and links to reviews of the report – always handy before deciding to buy it! :-)
Who are the most influential media journalists in the world? Help us compile the list!
By Ross DawsonLeading up to the Future of Influence Summit held on August 31/ September 1, we will release a ranked list of the Top 50 Most Influential Media Industry Journalists in the world.
The list will analyzed and created using the platform of influence ratings startup Repyoot. However we need to provide a list of candidates to be analyzed for the ratings to be generated.
We have created an open spreadsheet with a list of over 100 prominent journalists covering the media industry in the English language.
Please add to the spreadsheet anyone that you think should be included for consideration in the most influential media journalists list. We will continue to add names ourselves until we submit those names for analysis by Repyoot this weekend.
One of the reasons we are creating this list is to make concrete the idea that “influence is the future of media”. While it is true that technologies of participation are making all of us influencers, mainstream media still affords a different scale of influence and impact. Journalists can now communicate not only through established media, but also through new channels such as Twitter and personal blogs. Together these provide multiple facets to how they exert influence.
In the wake of the death of venture capital: Finding a balance between the incubator and VC models
By Ross DawsonThere has been a lot of talk lately that the VC model is broken – here is a small selection of what has been being said recently on the topic:
Forbes: Venture Capital’s Coming Collapse
EarlyStageVC: Traditional Venture Capital Sure Seems Broken – It’s About Time
VentureBeat: The VC model is broken
Fred Wilson: Is The “Traditional Venture Capital Model” Broken?
Mathew Ingram on GigaOm: Is the VC Model Broken? Far From it
New York Times/ Bits: Do Web Entrepreneurs Still Need Venture Capitalists?
HuffingtonPost: The Death of Venture Capital as We Know It
There are manifold reasons for the VC sector’s challenges, not least the vastly lower capital requirements of the typical web start-up of today.
One of the poster-children of the new wave of seed capital has been Y Combinator, which provides very small amounts of capital to kick-start new ventures.
Read more →
Influence research: Duncan Watts and the debate on whether “influentials” really matter
By Ross DawsonWe continue our Influence research series, paving the way for in-depth insights and breaking new ground on the topic at Future of Influence Summit 2009 in San Francisco and Sydney.
Duncan Watts is one of a handful of scientists instrumental in developing the study of networks as a key scientific discipline. He tells his story in his book Six Degrees, which begins by recounting how he found a subject for his Ph.D in mathematics in biological phenomena, which turned out to be based on networks, and to apply to subjects as diverse as society, technology, biology, infrastructure and beyond.
Duncan co-wrote a paper in 2006 titled Influentials, Networks, and Public Opinion Formation. This used mathematical modelling to examine the dynamics of how influence could disseminate.
The paper’s abstract summarizes their findings:
Read more →