Jason Bedell - Interactive Marketing & Technology Blog

Wiki Wompus

The mood on Wikipedia is mixed right now to say the least. But, I find it interesting that the only people I hear criticizing Wikipedia tend to be industry people. I've never heard a student, family member, or anyone other normal person looking for a simple yet fairly comprehensive answer to a simple question, do anything but sing praises for Wikipedia.

Yes, the nay sayers have some valid arguments. However, I think in general that most of them are just uncomfortable with yet another form of information democratization. If you are struggling with your own Wikipedia issue, here are some tips you may find useful before you go edit crazy.

The cardinal rule is to maintain a clear and open relationship between your connection to the content being edited and any commercial affiliations you may have. You are right for thinking that you need to be monitoring your Wikipedia entry for submissions of incorrect or biased information, but you cannot be the source of biased information yourself.

Here are some measures you may take to increase the odds of your edits being accepted:

1. Make small edits rather than sweeping changes. If just one word of your edit is found to be vandalism or bias then all changes submitted with that word will be reverted. In other words, it's all or nothing.
2. Site all sources used for claims made. These sources should reference other non-bias sources.
3. Make sure additions to content conform to their Notability requirements. The content has to be of significant, from a NPOV, and be encyclopedic in nature.

Deliver Services, Not Messages

It is the most frequent story. A client comes to me and says, "Build us a website so we can talk to our customers." Besides the fact that they usually have many existing web properties their customers are already ignoring, this one needs to be different. What usually needs to be different is the client's approach.

If you want to change someone else's behavior (your customers indifference), start by changing your own.

When getting excited about all the traffic that will be headed towards your new site and then deciding what messaging and branding to use, take a breath. Instead, start with asking yourself what services is your target audience interested in.

If you are a widget maker, your target may be looking for independent reviews of widgets, tips & tricks on how to use their widget, or they may be looking for a community of like-minded widget owners. Maybe they need a calculator to help them determine what size of widget they need, where the widget service providers are in their neighborhood, or even widget alternatives.

Only once you have filled this service need will your target find value in your website. Once you are providing them value, they may decide to listen to you. Now you just have to decide if the service should be branded or not.

Radian6 and UGC Monitoring

While at AdTech in New York a few weeks ago I came across a very interesting technology from a startup company by the name of Radian6. Their UGC/Social Network monitoring solution immediately struck me as both visually compelling and highly intuitive.

What it is...

Radian6 is all about topics. You start by creating what they call a "Topic Profile". These can be thought of as containers, and become your conceptual view of the world. Radian6 is continuously scouring the blogosphere and specific social networks (YouTube and Flickr today). You setup your topic profile, or container, by telling Radian6 what topics to key in on and place in it. Once you have something in the container, you can ask it questions. What topics are peopling talking about surrounding my brand? Who are they most influential individuals, bloggers, or content generators with respect to my brand? Are people talking about my service offering in a positive or negative light?

Brands are no longer controlled by advertisers. The brand is what consumers and the community decide it is. This tool helps you find those discussions and engage the community.