Boomerang

These days politicians don’t own their own political campaigns. The days of political candidates sending one-way messages to the public are over. Today, anyone with access to the web can spread an idea like wildfire among millions. For instance, the popular anti-Clinton ad posted on YouTube clearly illustrates how one person can have a huge impact on the political landscape.

For several weeks the public didn’t know who created the clip. On the Internet, any creative mind can post to his or her heart’s desire about pretty much anything. The web allows any passionate (and clever!) individual to completely undermine the traditional roles of authority. I take that back – passion and cleverness are not even requirements to have an influential digital voice. All you need is an idea and membership on a social networking site. When the Internet provides a platform to reach millions of viewers with something as simple as a video or an e-mail, there is no denying the power of social media.

Although politicians also leverage social media to bolster their reputations, they are no longer in complete control of their image, brand, or for that matter, digital content. (In case you didn’t know, the same is true for corporations.) Only time will tell how social media will continue to level the new political playing field. In the meantime, I’ll be checking out MySpace’s Impact Channel to read what Hillary and Obama have to say on their personal profile pages. I would like to check out Rudy Giuliani’s page, but at this point the only way to access his content is to send a “friend request.” Wait though: I’m not ready to enter that level of political networking — I mean, social networking — just yet.

These days the only thing that gets between me and the dozens of blogs I peruse each day is my thin framed glasses. I consider social media the main focus of my work life, and it wasn’t until my recent visit to Brazil with some friends that I realized blogs and social networks are an integral part of my personal life as well.

Before leaving for my dream trip, my “travel planner” and dear friend told me countless travel tips and personal stories she read on various travel blogs. In Rio de Janeiro, we met some wonderful people who appeared to be close buddies, but we learned that they met just a few days prior through social networking sites while looking for travel companions. What a great way to have some new friends to hang out with upon arrival.

As our trip came to a close, eight of us exchanged contact information and promised to “MySpace” each other once we returned home. In addition to email addresses, we shared personal web pages, IM screen names, and the URLs to shared photo sites where we agreed to upload the evidence from our crazy time at Carnival. Of course there will be a filtered set of photos for the family and coworkers - don’t want to have any of those online persona issues.

Now that we are all back in our respective countries, I’m interested to see how our in-person friendships translate to cyberspace relationships. We started the trip using social networks to find information and people, and now we return to those same networks in an effort to maintain our connections. We’ve come full circle using social media - just like a Boomerang to Brazil and back again!

There’s no denying that Wikipedia has become the most popular encyclopedia on the web, with a collection of facts on almost every subject in the world. The site has generated over 6 million articles in more than 250 languages – truly a global phenomenon. Not bad for a site that just celebrated its 6th birthday, employs fewer than 10 people, and relies on an army of volunteers to produce content. That’s the power of Wikipedia’s “wiki” format – anyone who creates an account on the site can contribute and edit existing pages on any topic. However, a recent scandal has placed Wikipedia in the spotlight of scrutiny regarding its stance on contributors to the site.

Last month, it was discovered that Microsoft paid a blogger to edit a Wikipedia entry. Microsoft claims it didn’t want to edit the content directly, so it brought in a third party to provide “balance.” This has raised serious questions regarding the ethics of the site and what restrictions, if any, can be placed on author contributions. Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press asks “why is it so bad to pay someone to write something on Wikipedia?” After all, isn’t it about providing deep knowledge on a subject, regardless of payment?

In the past, Wikipedia has blocked PR agencies from making contributions due to presumed bias. That’s absurd. What Wikipedia needs is more authors, not less! Truth be told, mass participation is surprisingly low on the site. Eric Goldman points out that 72% of all articles on the site have been written by less than 1% of Wikipedia users. That’s not much of a democracy in terms of content created, if you ask me.

I hope that if anything comes from the Microsoft debacle, it’s that scads of people will flock to Wikipedia and post content for the first time. Just make sure content is unbiased and has validity, folks. If not, Wikidumper is waiting in the wings. Billed as the “official appreciation page for the best of Wikipedia rejects,” Wikidumper may just take your entry and show the world how ridiculous it really is – like this one about chickenology. (If you’re curious about official Wikipedia guidelines, read the “Neutral Point of View” article. )

Thanks to everyone who now participates in the online world in some way or another. We have artists, writers, educators, and experts sharing their stories and experiences with the world. Social media tools like blogs, tags, and widgets help us understand our cyber neighbors better.

As we all know, the web is an interconnected force that evolves daily. Messages move at the speed of light. Online networks can build very quickly. Written words live on the Internet forever. So how do we maintain balance and harmony when speaking to the entire planet? Rules, my friend, rules. Nobody knows that better than Tom Foremski, who has launched a new blog called New Rules Communication. As Tom puts it, “There are new rules emerging that will become the basis for best practices in communicating ideas in what is becoming a conversational, social media world. We don’t yet know what the new rules will be, we know some of them but there are lots more to discover –and that’s what’s exciting because we all get to participate in creating the new rules.”

While people are connecting like crazy every which way, some folks are helping to establish more order to this online ecosystem. Foremski is one of those people with a mission to provide common sense and standards among communicators. We applaud him for his efforts and take full pleasure in being a major sponsor of New Rules Communication. So we thought it was only fitting to pull together our own rules to live by in this social media world. Therefore, the Boomerang Blog offers its rules for “active listening” to start 2007 off right. As we see it, the online “playing field” will undoubtedly change but good rules will still apply.

There was an interesting piece by Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times last week that focused on a new segment of the social network scene: “social shopping.” The article showcased ThisNext.com, a new startup that allows users to discover, recommend, and share the “things they love.” All the items for sale on the site are recommended by real people - after a quick look at inventory I found a favorite: the Saladino Lamp. A feature that will resonate with MySpace users is an embedded badge that provides product recommendations on their MySpace page. Other online offerings vying for attention in this market are Kaboodle and StyleHive.

We couldn’t help but point to Om Malik’s article on widgets and their growing use as a marketing tool. They’re the perfect vehicle for packaging a branded experience.  Widgets, also known as gadgets, are single-function programs that exist on the user desktop or on websites and pull data from online sources. The more common applications are to keep tabs on sports scores, daily headlines, and monitor blog updates. Google, Yahoo!, and the underdog web browser Opera have all embraced widgets as as way to stay connected to users and vice versa. While new in the Windows arena, the Mac communinty has enjoyed these little programs for quite some time now.  The mobile platform has even gotten into the act with Nokia Labs spawning Widsets, a fantastic library of widgets designed to pull content to your cell phone.

Lifestyle blog, Lifehacker, reports that Facebook has recently opened its door to any and all users (it was previously limited to students) and is also in talks with businesses such as Viacom to be acquired. Early reports say a sale could start at $780 million. This could put them at the top of the heap and give MySpace a run for their money.

BusinessWeek’s Steve Hamm has an excellent article up about how Dell and the blogosphere interacted with one another during the incendiary accidents of notebook batteries. Hamm writes that bloggers were most influential in keeping the news of this problem alive after the media furor had died down, and also credits Dell with promptly setting up a website to help customers and react to the situation via informative executive blogs.

An article by The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield highlights efforts by bloggers and reporters who are trying to raise money to turn their blogs into money making businesses. The article points to Rafat Ali as an example with recent backing to expand his indepent blog PaidContent.org. As his site indicates, “it’s about the economics of content.” Ali is biz-tech journalist and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles.

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TechCrunch has an interesting article up about Bix, an online service (currently in invite-only beta) that allows sponsors to easily create and control contests. Sponsors can allow entrants to submit video, audio, or photo content and can even allow voting if they are really after the “American Idol” feel. For marketers, Bix provides an opportunity to interact with target customers and provides opportunities not just to increase brand visibility, but to offer such things as coupons and offers.