Trademark infringement, or brand advocacy? Before you release the hounds with a nasty  cease and desist, consider this approach that the Campbell’s Marketing Manager took over 46 years ago. Community managers and social media markerters should take note, this is how you do it!

Campbell SOUP Company
CAMDEN 1, NEW JERSEY

May 19, 1964

Mr. A. Warhol
1342 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York

Dear Mr. Warhol:

I have followed your career for some time. Your work has evoked a great deal of interest here at Campbell Soup Company for obvious reasons.

At one time I had hoped to be able to acquire one of your Campbell Soup label paintings – but I’m afraid you have gotten much too expensive for me.

I did want to tell you, however, that we admired your work and I have since learned that you like Tomato Soup. I am taking the liberty of having a couple of cases of our Tomato Soup delivered to you at this address.

We wish you continued success and good fortune.

Cordially,

(Signed, ‘William P. MacFarland’)

William P. MacFarland
Product Marketing Manager

(Image from the collection of Billy Name, via Warholstars.org and lettersofnote.com )
Disclaimer: Campbell’s is a client of Proximity Canada

Tags: andy warhol, brand advocacy, cambell's soup, campbell, great branding, influencer, marketing, outreach, pop culture, social media

1. Benchmark: How many rainbows are there normally?

2. Determine key performance indicators:

• Volume: “Double rainbows”
• Reach: “All the way”
• Sentiment: “WOOOHOOOOHOOO”

2. Hypothesize: “What does it mean?”

3. Report: “OMG, double rainbows all the way!”

4. When possible, replicate success: “Triple Rainbow!”

That’s all there is really.

Tags: advertising, double rainbow, marketing, measurement, metrics, rainbows, social media, yosemitebear

Facebook is about transparency. What about those who would choose anonymity?

In recent weeks I have talked with dozens of youth who are very concerned about identity on the internet.   Teens are afraid of their future reputations. They don’t want their lives to be limited by half-naked photos, comments, art and other forms of expressive content they posted in their exuberant youth. They know all this content can be indexed by Google and searchable for their entire careers. This limits their creativity in extraordinary ways.  But when creativity gets limited, people get more creative. Lately, teens seem more interested in belonging to a website that both encourages participation and protects their anonymity.

On Facebook, fake names are becoming more and more common. These names can range from purposeful misspellings to complete aliases.  This simple edit makes a person a lot harder to find, friended and/or tagged in content. Even if you are discovered and tagged, it’s not likely that a future employer will spend the time to investigate aliases. Ironically, changing your name can give you more control over your online identity. There are some who take these new freedoms to extreme levels.

The Anonymous (aka “Anons”) are seeking even more extreme platforms for personal freedom, expression and disruption. By posing as a single collective identity on the internet, Anons remove all personal accountability and consequence in the digital and physical worlds. Personal expression can happen without repercussions, so anything goes. This take challenges the conventional limits of free speech not by the approach, but by infinite scaleability and momentum the web enables this movement to have.

Mischief thrives in the Anonymous web. Pornography, naked hatred, homophobia and rampant sexism are as common here as all other facets of life. Despite it’s follies, most internet memes can be attributed to the anonymous web. Child pornographers have been hunted down and exposed by the Anons. This movement offers the same creative, youthful, rebellious edge as the early days of  rock’n'roll and hip hop did. Anons are typically anti-establishment, big on the rebellion and sometimes relentlessly vicious for reasons from very important to almost no reason at all. Just ask the Church of Scientology or Justin Bieber.

Urban Dictionary, (a “wiki dictionary” that defines slang, web and street language via crowdsourcing) provides definitions of “Anon” written by the Anonymous.

Here are some interesting ones:

• n. Anon or ‘non’ is an abbreviated form of the word ‘Anonymous’. Used to refer to a member or members of the internet-based free speech movement Anonymous.

• Anon does not have a stated purpose. Anon is anarchy, urges and untamed mental impulse, harmful to anyone whose inhibitions and sense of decency are still intact.

• Anons meet on internet message boards and networking sites to protest and plan pickets educating the public on violations of free speech and other human rights.

• Contrary to popular belief “Anon” is not any anonymous stranger on the internet. Anon is the hive mind of deviant fantasies and crude jokes inhabiting the subconscious of hermits, burnouts, stoners and suicidal shut-ins everywhere.

• Anon has a soft spot, not only in his clearly unsatisfying real life but also in his love for mudkipz , longcat and baww ing about his loneliness.

• You will the anarchic entity that is Anon if you spend enough time on the internet. He frequents many a venue – in hopes of adding a touch of chaos to the lives of others – for instance the anonymous chat site, Omegle .

• Anon does not forgive.

Anons can range from simple commenters to radical activists, both online and offline. Many extreme Anons are cut from the same cloth as “hackers,” but with distinctive differences.

1. Anons are typically content hackers not technology hackers. They are not interested in the contents of your hard drive, nor are they interested in robbing you of your identity. They thrive on the memes and conversations they’ve sparked.
2. Anons are obviously not looking for credit the way hackers do. They don’t claim to be motivated by cool. They are motivated by freedom, and they feel they must hide their identities to truly be free. They are a collective and they are growing in size.

Anons are, in many ways, un-definable. They seem to be motivated by the id rather than the ego. They are sometimes creepy, disturbing, hilarious, insightful, disgusting, revolting and almost always compelling.

Every culture needs a counter-culture to encourage evolution and self reflection. I think this may be the beginning of the most important behaviour shift we’ll see on the internet for the next several years. The Anonymous will certainly continue to test and challenge the limits of free speech without the accountability of identity.

(Ironically, the anonymous creator of this video was lambasted by anonymous commenters for trying to define what anonymous meant. )

So how do we sell soap to the Anonymous generation? Very carefully.

Tags: 4chan, anon, Anonymous, facebook, free speech, radical trust

25 years of the Commercial Internet

Part 5:  The Remix Years 2010-2015

Although this time has yet to pass, it’s clear that the next five years will see a great shift towards innovative media. Soon, (if not already) the amount of content on the web generated by individuals will vastly outnumber that which is created by organizations, corporations and governments. With this as the new norm, “social media” may actually cease to exist in the popular lexicon and be replaced or absorbed into every day language through new labels for specific behaviours. It’s already happening: “I’ll Facebook you tonight”, “Tweet me when the movie is over” or “Google it”. When these brand names are used as verbs, it’s no longer about technology or being part of a new movement. It’s something you simply do.

The APIs (Application Programing Interface) for leading publishing sites sites will continue to allow content to be remixed and mashed up into other sites and applications. Established publishers like the New York Times, CNN, the CBC and the BBC may decide to produce less content inhouse and explore the notion of remixing outside content for their own offerings.

API mash-ups will be the norm. How could this work for advertisers?

Each program (or campaign) acts like a mini social network spread across multiple platforms (Facebook, Twitter etc). Each platform gives the user a chance to view and interact with the content, thereby generating word-of-mouth within the user’s personal social network. This radical decentralization, remixing and re-telling of a campaign will spawn creative ideas that Cannes won’t even have Lions for. Sure, some of these mash-ups already exist, but I think we can expect this to improve beyond the current Frankenstein model to very sexy component-based campaign systems.

For example: User Generated Content from platforms like foursquare.com will be remixed with photos from Flickr and Google, videos from Youtube, perhaps fan page content from Facebook and consumer reviews from Amazon; combined with GPS and other metadata, all front-ended by an augmented reality engine on your mobile device.

The brand agency by 2015 as I see it:

• We will see  the 80/20 rule flip to 20/80. In other words, the spend for a campaign will change from an 80% media / 20% creative to 20% media / 80% creative.
• We will see a shift away from data-informed insights, replacing opinion-driven decision making. Big ideas will be a collaboration from all stakeholders on the agency, client and consumer sides.
• Agencies of tomorrow will be curators for communication of sorts . We’ll move from the agency-client model to an agency-consumer-client model. Agencies will create messages, utilities, applications, conversations and experiences that consumers will find useful enough to remix and share, leading to further credibility and awareness for the client.
• The agency will act as the purveyor of brand ideas and as guardians of brand behaviour. Stronger relationships between advertising, digital and public relation agencies will create more flexibility and better response to clients’ needs. When this is done, clients will be more responsive to agency recommendations. Given this new direction, agencies of 2010-2015 will begin to look more like consultants. They will advise brands in customer engagement, build community around products/services, and enable advocates to carry the brand message broadly.
• Trust is the biggest variable. By 2015 the best of us left will be the ones who balanced consumer needs and motivations with client needs and motivation.

How?

Big agency’s 2015 deliverables will be insights, innovation and creative.

If that is adopted all else will follow.

The Crystal Ball

Since this is all speculation, allow me to indulge in some ideas from the fringe that may or may not have significant impact in the world over the next five years. There is little doubt that the U.S. elections slated for 2012 will see social media amplified and incorporated in unprecedented ways, but what about social media for other social causes?

In Social Justice

• Combine the proliferation of Wi-Fi and 3G networks with very cheap video/picture-enabled tools like mobile phones and Flip Camcorders, would it be possible for NGOs to air-drop tens of thousands of devices throughout unstable regions of the world? Would the West be able to ignore thousands of videos and photos uploaded to YouTube and Flickr? Could visual knowledge prevent a situation like the 1994 genocide in Rwanda or the conflicts and crimes against humanity that continue to this day?

In Medical Research

• Will the world’s medical researchers be able to explore beyond their patent-hungry pharma employers and work with charity foundations towards a cure? What if researchers shared their data and research on a wiki or developed their own mass collaboration tool? Could the cure for cancer be found? How about aids? Or heart disease? What if the same model was applied to the development of new energy sources like it was with the hydrogen car in Holland?

In Global Warming

• Beyond 2015, we may be looking at a world much different than what we’re used to today. What happens when we reach peak oil? What happens if the planes are grounded and gas hits $40-$50 a gallon? Will innovative and immersive media be the only affordable way to explore the world we currently take for granted?

Questions of radical trust indeed, and a possible future where digital media is not about the latest app for your iPhone or Twitter client, but rather it’s about remaining connected to loved ones across town and around the world.

Check out the other posts from this series.

25 years of the Commercial Internet 1990-2015
1990-1995 – The Brochureware Years
1995-2000 – The e-Commerce Years
2000-2005 – The Advertising Years
2005-2010 – Web 2.0 and The Social Media Years
2010-2015 – The Remix Years

Tags: advertising, agency predictions, augmented reality, digital agency, future of social media, internet history, internet trends, mash ups, public relations, remix, social media, web trends

The “blog” is well-understood, having become a household word in the Americas and Europe, but in a Monrovia, the capital city of the west African nation of Liberia, you may not even recognize them.

Liberia has suffered two decades of civil war. Here, television and radio have all but been destroyed. The internet is very expensive, poverty is commonplace and literacy levels are dangerously low. Getting information is not an easy thing, and blogging as it’s understood in the West may not be the option.

So, to update the people of his community in Monrovia during Liberia’s civil war, Alfred J. Sirleaf started the “Daily Talk” in the year 2000 . His “News Room” is nothing more than a plywood shack and his publication, large fold-out chalkboards facing the street. Every morning he updates the boards with aggregated headlines and top stories scavenged from around the city. He posts symbols such as UN helmets and other such items relating to the main story topic to entice readership and help with the folks who can’t read. The New York Times has reported that it is “the most widely read report” in Monrovia.

Since starting his “Anablog”, Alfred has been intimidated, arrested and has had his publication torn down. He has even spent time in exile for his efforts, but he won’t quit.

”Daily Talk’s objective is that everybody should absorb the news,” says Alfred. ”Because when a few people out there make decisions on behalf of the masses that do not go down with them, we are all going to be victims.” (ref)

Grateful readers line up in droves, on foot and in cars, to read these updates, in what has been described as the country’s — and probably the world’s — only analog blog.’”

Thanks for the tip Daniel P.

Tags: analog, Daily Talk, grass roots, liberia, monrovia, radical trust, social media, trust, truth

The internet is not a “virtual world”. It is this world and it’s time you wrapped your head around it.

There was a time when you could dismiss the internet as some geeky flight of fancy. Then people started to make billions of dollars and you took notice. Didn’t you? I did.

There was a time when you could dismiss the internet as a thing “my kids use”. But then your mother “friended” you on Facebook and you wondered if this was bigger than you thought. Didn’t you? I did.

There was a time when you could dismiss the internet as “the virtual world”. Friends, if this is what you believe, you are the one in the “virtual world”.

The internet has become an integral part the world that we live in. Friends and lovers meet here. Cultures and communities are spawned here. Commerce, law and justice are being served here.  This is not in parallel to everything else … this is completely integrated with everything else.

Do my words have less meaning by posting them here than they would if I said them to your face? They would if you had no way to respond. You would have no way to challenge my thinking in a medium that doesn’t foster discussion. There would be no way to expand on these ideas, or even offer a simple acknowledgment to me that you understand. Your only option would be to turn me off or avert your eyes. That’s not communication, that’s a monologue. You can respond by leaving a comment, or emailing me, Tweeting me, Facebooking me, what ever you want to do. The point is, you can respond. That my friend, is communication.

The word communication is rooted in the same word as community. I hope you agree that the best communities are democratic ones where everyone gets a voice.

If you are reading this you are likely in marketing, PR or some sort of “communications” industry. Maybe it’s time we consider ourselves to be in the “communities” industry.

The longer you continue down the path of denial, circumvention, deflection  and other dismissive behaviours, the longer you will be living in your own virtual world. It’s that world that sounds like a layer away from reality to me, not the planet Earth that we currently live on.

Do you have a Twitter account? If not, how  do you expect to come up with a Twitter program for your clients? If you are a client … how will you be able to judge the validity of the plan? Would you be able to come up with a solid TV plan if you’d never watched television? The notion is ridiculous to even conceive. Yet, we witness this behaviour every day in this space. It really doesn’t matter if you are reading this blog and others, I don’t care if you have read all the books in the world. They are just words. Meaning in this world, digital or otherwise, can only be achieved by participation. Experience is the only route to credibility and confidence in any subject matter.

We are in the midst of a cultural and economical reboot. Isn’t it time you considered your own skills set might need a little reboot too? This is not a lengthy intellectual pursuit we’re talking about here. This is something you can do right now. It’s tangible, it’s real and it’s time you got started.

Change is hard to take. Think of the last 1o years and seriously consider the human achievement that is Wikipedia: The largest encyclopedia in the history of our world. Yet, only around 50 people work there.  Or at YouTube, where they’re currently hosting more videos than NBC, CBS and ABC have ever broadcast combined, built in a garage by three twenty-somethings. When will you begin to realize this shift is not going away? Change is not only inevitable for the future, it has already happened.

The choice is yours. Will you begin or will you allow yourself to be alienated in a world that was?

Tags: collaboration, commerce, community, culture, facebook, justice, law, marketing, radical trust, social media, starting, trends, virtual worlds, wikipedia, Youtube

I’ve been in web development/creative for over 14 years. Until the mid-2000s, you had to be an expert in web technologies to be a publisher … or at least have the money to hire the experts. The game has since changed and now anyone can be a content producer and apparently, anyone can be an expert too.

So now what? How does one qualify as Social Media Expert?

Is a social media expert someone who blogs 101 over and over again? Do you have to publish books on the subject? With respect, do you have to rub elbows with Joel, Solis, Defren, Fox, Jaffe or one of the Shel’s to be an expert?

I don’t think it really matters … although I’ve met and respect all of them, they only have a few dozen months experience in “Social Media” ahead of the thousands currently popping up as experts, not to mention all of the PR and ad agencies finally coming online in a truly meaningful way for their clients.

Many articles have focused on this social media expert question as of late. Personally, I’m surprised by the layers of BS you have to sift through in order to come to any sort of “expert” who qualifies based on having met business objectives for real client needs.

Is it really who you know? Does it matter how many people follow you on Twitter? On LinkedIn? On Facebook? Does it matter how highly ranked your blog is on Technorati? Social media is part of everything I’ve done in the last three years, yet no client has ever asked me these questions to qualify my expertise… ever.

The term Social Media Expert has jumped the shark. Social Media Expert is like saying you’re a broadcast expert, or a print expert … it’s too vague and we’re way past due for the reckoning. However, I understand the need to keep it just a little longer. There are social media experts out there who do provide meaningful consultancy for their clients and there’s still validity in knowing about social media in order to engage in any meaningful way – but there has to be more to it than the fishbowl as described by Mitch Joel, or the “circle jerk” as described by Ray Wert of Jalopnik.

Who are the real social media experts?

They’re the ones who achieve meaningful results for clients. The ones in the trenches trying to make it work. The ones who learn from mistakes and always put the message ahead of the platform. Look for ones who demonstrate “the attitude”, not the ones who preach about “the technology”. The ones who establish meaningful relationships and provide relevant content; content which often finds its way to the Huffington Post, BoingBoing or even Jalopnik. They’re the ones who delight when video they’ve produced earns tons of views and a shift in brand, product and feature awareness. The ones who engage in or enable meaningful dialogue with their customer’s customer are the ones to look out for.

A social media expert is one who’s more concerned with their clients’ results than their own personal profile. A social media expert identifies business objectives, develops strategies to meet them and then delivers on all of the above.

Ask your “expert” about the results they’ll get. If there’s a quiver in any way, or they answer with something incomprehensible… run away.

That’s my 2 cents… keep the change.

Tags: circle jerk, defren, fonzie, fox, gaping void, jaffe, jalopnik, jump the shark, linked in, radical trust, shel holtz, shel israel, social media business, social media experts, social media results, solis, technorati, twitter, Web 2.0

According to the book “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)” by Tom Vanderbilt, “Caution: Children Playing” signs have not been shown to reduce speeding or accidents. The evidence is so compelling that most traffic departments don’t plant the signs voluntarily.

Yet these signs are nearly as ubiquitous as, well, children playing. Most of them find life via frustrated neighbourhood committees who lobby city governments to reduce speeding on their streets. Sadly, there’s the rare occasion when a futile “Children Playing” sign marks the spot where a child was killed by a motor vehicle.

I wonder if “Child Killed Ahead” might be more persuasive in slowing traffic down.

There are also signs that warn of deer, moose, camels, elephants, etc, crossing ahead. Again, studies show that these signs, no matter where you are in the world, do not alter driver behaviour.

Vanderbilt writes:

“A Colorado trial featured a special animated deer sign (no it wasn’t Bambi). Researchers presumed that the animated sign would draw more attention and heighten driver awareness. For a few weeks, it was turned away from the road, then turned back. There were actually more deer killed when the sign was activated than when it was not, even though fewer deer had crossed. The researchers then went so far as to place a deer carcass next to the animated sign – only then did the drivers finally slow.”

How does this relate to social media and trust? “Children Playing” and “Deer Crossing” signs may warn of what might happen, but people are more likely to react to what is happening.

Talking about the “conversation” on your corporate blog or via your twitter account, etc, may be good for identifying the possibility of connections, but to earn attention you actually have to play in this space and (forgive the metaphor) place your carcass where people can see it.  You need more than a sign post that talks about what you can do in social media. You need to demonstrate that you are capable and competent in the subject matter you represent. In order to earn attention, you have to read more posts than you write and leave more comments on other blogs than you receive on your own. It seems pretty straight forward, but there are very few examples of this actually happening.

There are a growing number of abandoned corporate blogs on the web today.  Perhaps they thought that simply launching a blog was enough to put towards their share of the conversation when in fact, all they really contributed was another sign for people to ignore.

Tags: corporate blogging, marketing, marketing metaphors, radical trust, roadsigns, social media, tom vanderbilt, traffic

It’s been 28 months since I started blogging about radical trust and social media. The following is a compilation of hard lessons I learned and attitudes I needed to adjust to understand the potential of this extraordinary media.

28 months later, there’s so much more to learn.

“Social Media is a cultural revolution, not a commerce one.” (ref)

“Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is” (ref)

“Credibility is earned by character, not wealth.” (ref)

“Conversation is the dominant media in spend and effectiveness.” (ref)

“Think locally, act globally.” (ref)

“Connecting People is never a bad thing.” (ref)

“Consumers are people and people are inherently good.” (ref)

“Quality media – awareness and endorsement all wrapped up in a message of support.” (ref)

“Astroturfing makes baby flying spaghetti monster weep meatballs.” (ref)
“The form is the function, the content is the brand, the medium is the message.” (ref)

“If you want to change the way the world sees your organization, you first have to change the way your organization sees the world.” (ref)

“How will you ever fill the needs of your consumers by saying what you want to hear.” (ref)

“If you want to play in their space, you better be ready to listen.” (ref)

“Social Media may not sustain the big agencies of Madison Ave, but at least it’s sustainable.” (ref)

“The fight is over, but you can still decide if you win or lose.” (ref)

“Social media is the way I make my living, radical trust is the way I aspire to live.” (ref)

“Start by listening.” (ref)

“Awareness is not your problem… credibility is.” (ref)

“The conversation can be deafening.” (ref)

“Good conversation can be traced to antiquity, if not on record, then surely in humanity’s demonstrated ability to convey its dreams.” (ref)

“Most asked questions; 2006-What is social media? 2007-How can we participate in social media? 2008-How will we succeed in social media?” (ref)

“Expect new bridges to be built between marketing and PR.” (ref)

“People are not mediums for our messaging – agencies and their clients are the mediums for people’s needs.” (ref)

“Bloggers don’t want a pat on the head, they want respect.” (ref)

“We can’t ignore the most credible of all reporters… the enthusiasts of your message.” (ref)

“Be honest, keep it simple, keep it clear and put their needs first… that’s all the spin you need.” (ref)

“A neighborhood of empty houses does not make a community; it’s the people who live there that do. “ (ref)

“The hardest part in the development of an online community is earning credibility.” (ref)

“Infinite remixability, maximum viral capability and the ability to respond in other channels makes this an extraordinary medium in my books.” (ref)

“Social Media is not a business risk, it is a business reality.” (ref)

“The greater the number of proscriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.” (ref)

“Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Flickr are largely run on ego.” (ref)

“How can you determine the potential of tomorrow when you can’t even predict the potential of your next 3 emails?” (ref)

“Social Media is born, it takes a community to raise a child.” (ref)

“We have entered the age of dialogue.” (ref)

“Your strategy must focus on credibility for any measure of success to be achieved.” (ref)

“If your product or service fails, disappoints or inconveniences the customer in any way, count on them to say something negative.” (ref)

“Your brand needs an immune system.” (ref)

“Not everything in social media needs to be a blog, podcast, forum, or place to house an asset uploader. In fact, this is much more about attitude than it is about technology.” (ref)

“Once the novelty wears off, there had better be some substance for connecting if you expect people to remain engaged.” (ref)

“When rights are liberated, companies may find a new relevance which seemed unattainable before. Being relevant in the era of choice IS the new brand equity.” (ref)

“Given a long enough timeframe … all mass ads will be targeted to individuals.” (ref)

“The notion that everybody is a pirate is false.” (ref)

“In the future everything (ad related) will be permission-based” (ref)

“Mass advertising is no longer about impressions, it is about engagement.” (ref)

“Consumers have no reason to trust you.” (ref)

“That we use marketing terms like “conquest and loyalty” should be an indication as to why we’ve never earned trust in the first place.” (ref)

“Lately, advertisers sound more like vikings then they do business partners.” (ref)

“Enable communication rather than create it. That is the message.” (ref)

“Housing all of these mediums proves the internet to be the lead medium of mass persuasion because it is the only true medium of mass communication.” (ref)

“SocialMedia is perhaps the most important democratic tool since the ballet box.” (ref)

“If your company is not trusting, your consumers will make decisions for themselves and you are out of control.” (ref)

Tags: advertising, anthropology, collin douma, marketing, PR, quotes on trust, radical trust, social media, Web 2.0, WOM

In 2004, O’Reilly Media played host to a series of conferences which birthed a notion that forever changed the way we think about the online space. Scribbled on a piece of paper and taped to a door, the topic for discussion read: “Web 2.0″.

The result? Talks that have continued to inspire the web, the marketing and, most recently, the advertising worlds. Revolving around companies such as Google, Amazon, eBay and more, the seeds of Web 2.0 were sown on the core principles of the aforementioned “dotcoms,” which grew, survived and even thrived through the bubble burst of the late 1990s.

Some of the notions which were captured are summarized below.

Web 2.0:

1. is an attitude not a technology.
2. incorporates the notions of “the Long Tail.”
3. realizes the content is the brand.
4. is in a state of “perpetual beta”.
5. supports software which gets better the more people use it.
6. often grants the right to remix with “some rights reserved”.
7. tries to provide the feeling of “play”.
8. allows granular addressability of content.
9. is emergent; user behaviour is not predetermined.
10. offers a rich user experience.
11. trusts the user (radical!).

Perpetual beta suggests that these principles, and all those that may follow, are simply extensions of the original notion. In other words, Web 2.0 does not mark a place in time, pre- or post- bubble; instead it simply offers a label for these proven principles and encourages exploration from there.

To suggest that your company offers or sells “Web 2.0″ products or services may be technically true, but it sounds terribly naïve. In effect, you’re simply announcing that you build web properties that work. Shouldn’t that be a given? Could you imagine a car dealer selling a car by saying, “now with engines that run!”

To sell “Web 2.0″ as a product suggests there was a “Web 1.0.” To say a website is “Web 1.0″ is like saying that product is failed or doomed to. So, if you sell “Web 2.0″ as a service, are you suggesting to your client that he/she may opt out for the Web 1.0 version?

This brings us to Web 2.1, Web 2.5, Web 3.0 and all the ridiculous version numbers people are tossing around nowadays. I wish these principles were never labeled Web 2.0 because it implies (without further understanding) that there can be a Web 3.0. A property that is in “perpetual beta” does not allow for “versioning”. If only that note scribbled at O’Reilly’s conference read “Web That Works” or “Schicki-micki” or anything to prevent the name from being harvested and exploited by misinformed marketers as is being done today.

This basic misunderstanding has led to many headaches for those trying to develop web properties that work. Lacking a workable lexicon, it’s difficult to get the concept past two very dangerous audiences:

- The first audience has no clue what Web 2.0 means, often rejecting the concept as “too risky”. (Creating websites that will actually work is “too risky”?)

- The second audience understands exactly what Web 2.0 means, but dislike the term because the first audience has bastardised it – and who can blame them?

Since schicki-micki is too hard to spell anyway, I propose we move on from the designation of Web 2.0 (and thereby eliminating its unfounded sequel Web 3.0), and stick to a common term like “internet,” or websites that “work”. If you continue to insist on utilizing a new term, consider retirement.

(reposted from a piece I did on the CMA blog)

Tags: radical trust, social media, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Principles