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Jaffe Juice podcast - Topic: The Future of Podcasting

Finally, this Sunday, Steve Jobs published a letter to the Apple community talking about the real reason for his obvious weight loss over the year. It’s obvious from the end of the letter it’s something he did not want to do. Steve Jobs has never liked talking about personal matters. The problem is Steve Jobs is no ordinary individual. He isn’t even an ordinary CEO. Jobs is a personality, a rock star if you will. When you are one of the most watched and popular CEO’s in corporate America, and when so much of the health and future of your company appears to rest on your shoulders, you’re going to get the increased scrutiny.

In the new social media world of increased transparency and openness, Apple is one of the worst companies. They do not play in this world. As innovative as their producs are, Apple marketing is as traditional as ever. The Apple community is amazingly strong and creates plenty of it’s own user generated content, but Apple almost never talks directly with the community. Apple gets away with it, though, because Jobs “reality distortion field” is so strong and their producs are so strong. But this may not last forever

Until Jobs finds a way to clone himself, Apple remains a cult of personality and when someday Jobs is forced to retire, Apple will have to find it’s way without him. If you want a good profile of Steve Jobs and his personality, I recommened reading The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. The book gives you a good idea of why Apple is the way it is. With Jobs gone, I think Apple will have to change. They will have to start using more social media tactics of transparancy and engadement with customers. My goodness, they might even have to start an actual blog.

I’m not sure Twitter is something that can be explained at this point. As I said to a recent client, look, Twitter is like a ball of clay. It’s nothing really, but also everything. It’s whatever you make of it and different people do different things with it. It’s one of the aspects that makes it so hard to explain. Is there alot of flack and nonesence on Twiter, sure. But that’s not the sum total of the Twitter experience. If you focused on certain aspects of a knife, you might say it’s a dangerous wepon that can ingure of kill. Why would I ever want to use one. But, of course, that’s not the sum total experience of a knife. Most people use it as an important tool to prepare food. Don’t let the trivial aspects of Twitter fool you, there is serious marketing, PR and branding going on on Twitter daily. Major corporations are starting to figure it out such as ToysRUs, Dell, and Ford. They are listening, engading and making a difference with real customers. My friend and social media cohort Ron Ploof wrote a terrific e-book on how Ford’s Scott Monty used Twitter to put to rest a potentially very damaging PR firestorm. ToysRUs did a great job over the Christmas holiday season answering customers questions on toys, availabiity and other customer issues. A more enjoyable experience than waiting on hold endlessly.

Not every social media tool is right for every business or every situation, so the first thing to do is determine is Twitter is right for your business. Then, think about a strategy based on a clear purpose and outcome. How will you mold the Twitter clay? Is it a branding tool, customer service, a listening post? How can you provide value and service to your followers? If you don’t like the sillyness of Twitter, than come on in and start adding value.

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Design-wise, this is one of the best iPhone applications I have ever seen. It keeps well to the Obama campaign colors and graphic themes. It also adhears perfectly to all iPhone application standards. I’ve seen plenty of other iPhone applications from reputable companies that are no where near as good as this one. Remember the train wreck that was the Audi racing application?

But this application isn’t just a pretty face. There is clear purpose here. One of the most important aspects of a national election campaign is phone calling. Millions of dollars are spent setting up phone banks and aquiring  lists of names. With this application the Obama campaign can unleash an army of phone callers at no cost. The application searches your built in phone book and by area code determins who among your contacts are in certain battle ground states and sets you up for calling them. It even keeps track of who has been called and who has not. Other features include a get involved button which, using the build in location aware feature of the iPhone, finds your local Obama HQ and other local events and activities you can participate in. The Media section includes lots of video from Obama speaches that you can watch and email to your friends. Again, a method to spread the word. This is how virtal marketing really works. Finally, there is an issues tab which provides detailed information on Obamas positions on a variety of issues.

Obama has been heralded as the campaign that has best used the Internet and new media to great effect. Here we see the campaign really walking the walk and living up to this reputation in spades.

Apple has a priority list of features, and they got as far as they could down that list with this model, Joswiak said

Really? Apple’s priority list of features certainly does not match up with its customers priority list because every iPhone owner I know had copy and paste at the top of that list. It smacks of the elitism that has always been a part of Apple if you look closely. We’ll do what we please and you’ll like it. For the most part we do because what they create is amazing. For all the talk of Open Source and freedom on the Internet, Apple is the most closed, proprietry company there is. So, Apple will give you copy and paste on the iPhone when they are darn good and ready and until then you will sit quietly and wait.

But we haven’t come very far yet as every blog/podcast ad network still works under the presumption of numbers. Lots of raw numbers. They do this because this is what the advertisers demand. As an “old school” podcaster, I belived we were going to change the world. We were supposed to change the very face of advertising, forcing them out of their relentless chance for raw numbers and getting them to understand the power of who and the return on influence. But were trying to change an industry that has done what it does for many many years and change never comes easily. Until then, the fight goes on.

I am throwing my weight behind FriendFeed. Follow me there at http://www.friendfeed.com/davidjacobs

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I don’t understand why they need to put these kind of restrictions on the service. My other favorite coffee shop, It’s A Grind, provides free open access, no questions asked. And when I am there, I always buy a coffee. The Starbucks program reeks of corporate think. Let’s look at all the risks and mitigate them. God forbid we trust our customers because given the chance they’ll rip us off. 98% of Starbucks customers will buy a coffee while there, so there’s no real reason to require it with the card and how many will sit there all day and suck access? Not many. And those that do are going to be thirsty and hungry and will most likely buy more stuff. I would rather see Starbucks and AT&T trust customers to begin with and apply restrictions in the future if real problems surface. But like the music and film industries, corporate America still feels the need to control their customers and has a basic lack of trust for them. This, of course, runs completely contrary to the spirit of the Internet and the new world of business online. Maybe, just maybe if you treat your customers with respect they will give you back the same.

Within five years it’s going to be hard to run any kind of web service or application that is not open source, or at least provide a strong set of open API’s. This is part of the new paradigm of Internet business. Open Source has been around for years, but only now it is really starting to take hold. This is partly why Google has the strategic advantage over Microsoft as we move into the future. Open Source is built into the Google DNA. Microsoft has been built on the concept of proprietary systems and control. Buying Yahoo makes sense for Microsoft not just for their search advertising program, but for the Yahoo culture and philosophy. Yahoo also has Open Source built in. If Microsoft would allow some of that to seep in, it could benefit them emencly.

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Last Christmas I asked the members of my family about various aspects of technology. I didn’t even bother with things like Twitter. I was probing mostly about RSS. Some knew of it. Fewer had a good idea of what it did and none used it. They all read blogs directly from the websites, no aggregation. Shocking. The Internet, like the entire Silicon Valley, is a giant reality distortion field. If you don’t check things out from a different point of view, you can get a very inaccurate notion of what is true.

As Kara so aptly points out, while Twitter looks like the hottest thing since sliced bread, when you take off your reality distortion lenses, you realize we’re not even close to being there yet.