Robert Scoble is a one of the thought leaders and innovators on the web today.  He is a smart, engaging guy who gets around to listen and exchange ideas with many of the other web leaders. Scoble’s a great favorite of mine and when he speaks, I listen.  And so do a lot of other people.

On his blog today ,Scobleizer — Exploring the 2010 Web Scoble talks about going back to basics and refocusing on his blog. He talks about what some have called his obsession with Twitter and Facebook, where he has, in fact, been a major player. Scoble explains this by saying “All my fun experiments were over on Twitter, Facebook, or friendfeed. You could see that. Mike Arrington even tried to do a friendfeed intervention last December.”  So now, Scoble is trying to bring that sense of fun, experimentation and real time zest into his newly re-invented blog.  He is also trying to show the rest of us now to do the same, in real time.

(About a week ago I posted From The Mouth of A Guru: Why You Should Blog And Not Just Tweet which has many of the same caveats about the value of focusing your work on your own blog and letting Twitter be your outpost.)

In that vein Scoble lays out what he thinks the future of the web will look like:

“1. It’s real time. Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed are all moving toward architectures and displays that refresh in real time, or let you see what’s happening right now. We are at the extreme beginnings of that trend. You really should watch the video of the panel discussion I moderated on the state of real time search to get a sense of where this is going. That panel discussion will be remembered for years as a key point. One of the panel members runs Facebook search team. Yes, Facebook is working on real time search. (That video is in two parts since the meeting ran almost two hours long. I really do recommend watching it. Part I is here. Part II is here.).
2. It’s mobile. You’ll see this more next week when the Where 2.0 conference rolls into town, but if 40,000 iPhone apps hasn’t convinced you yet, nothing will. On Monday I’m meeting with Nokia to find out the latest.
3. It’s decentralized. Look at my behaviors. I’m all over the place. Six years ago I did only one thing: blog. Now I Flickr. YouTube. Seesmic. Friendfeed. Facebook. Twitter. And many more. Go to Retaggr and see all the places I’m at.
4. Pages now built out of premade blocks. You build these pages by copying a line of Javascript code to your template. This is very simple once you see how to do it, but for someone who doesn’t know code, or where in the template to go, this is VERY daunting. Silicon Valley has NOT made it simple enough yet for the mainstream to build highly useful pages. See the friendfeed block to the right of my words? I added that by copying and pasting from the friendfeed widget page. If you know where to look a TON of cool pre-built blocks like this are available for you to put on your website or blog.
5. It’s social. This seems obvious to anyone on Twitter or Facebook, but how many businesses add their customers to their pages? Not many. Silicon Valley has done a horrible job so far of explaining why adding people to your websites matters.
6. It’s smart. We’re seeing more and more smarts added to the web every day. Tonight Wolfram’s new search engine turned on. Have you played with it? That’s the 2010 web and check out what you can do with it.
7. Hybrid infrastructure. When I visited 12seconds.tv in Santa Cruz they told me they were using a hybrid approach: they own a rack of servers but they also use Amazon’s S3 to “cloud burst” or take up the slack for files that are popular…

PR People: I even made a place you can pitch me on 2010 web ideas. It’s interesting that a bunch of people are subscribed to that room — probably lots of tech bloggers looking for ideas.”

I put in that last link so those of you who are bloggers could go fishing there for ideas.

I’m certainly going to watching the evolution of Scobles newlly updated blog and trying some of the same tools and strategies myself.  Are you?  If you do, please leave a comment and tell us what works for you and what doesn’t.  We all in this giant web conversation together, now that Web 3.o and the interconnections of social media and dynamic linking have arrived

Jon Morrow , Associate Editor of Copyblogger, who should know, shares with us this pearl of wisdom:

The Oldest Blogging Myth

“Content is king.”

Well, that is pretty discouraging to those of us who focus on producing or discovering great content.  But then Jon explains what, in our hearts, we already know.  In Why No One Links to Your Best Posts And What to Do About It , Jon points out that this is no longer even Web 2.0. It’s moved beyond that.  The era of social media has arrived and that means Friends: Facebook, FriendFeed, the Twitterati. If you want to be popular, you need to start getting hooked up with very popular friends/fellow bloggers.  Or , as he puts it:

“If you want links now, you need to be more than great. You need to be connected.

The Secret to Building a Popular Blog

Remember the saying “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know?”

Well, it’s kind of true. A mediocre writer that’s friends with every member of the Technorati 100 will become a popular blogger faster than a brilliant writer with no friends at all.

Why? Because bloggers link more often to their friends than anyone else. If you write a reasonably good piece of content that interests their audience, they’ll link to you, mainly because they like you.

The secret to building a popular blog isn’t just writing tons of brilliant content. It’s also having tons of well-connected friends.

How to Make Friends with Popular Bloggers

So… how are you supposed to make friends with all of these popular bloggers and get them to link to your best posts?

Traditional wisdom says you should link to their posts, hoping they’ll notice you and start reading your blog. Sometimes it works, but in my experience, you need to be a little more creative. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Write a guest post that gets lots of traffic and adoring comments
• Attend conferences that all of the “Who’s Who” of your niche go to and network your tail off
• Volunteer to “vote” for any posts that they’re pushing on social media sites like Digg, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon
• Email them an irresistible question, hoping to spark a discussion
• Leave lots of truly memorable comments
• Interview them in either a post or a podcast, making sure to ask lots of intelligent questions
• Join their private membership program (like Teaching Sells) and make lots of smart posts in the forums

Give and Ye Shall Receive

We’re not talking about anything new here. Really, it comes down to one of the oldest principles of persuasion: reciprocity.

Contrary to what many people think, A-list bloggers aren’t islands, separate and self-sufficient. They deal with problems and annoyances, just as much as anyone else. If you can help alleviate them, they’ll thank and remember you for it.

The key is finding ways that you can be genuinely useful to them. Make yourself relevant and then use that opportunity to start building a relationship.

Give it a few months, and then start pointing them to your best and most relevant content. They’ll probably link to you anytime you do anything interesting, bringing you lots of readers. They’ll also introduce you to other popular bloggers, giving you a chance to do more favors and expand your network.

It’s hard work, but it’s worth it. If you put as much effort into building relationships as you do writing great content, you’ll have a popular blog in no time.

And better yet, you’ll have made friends with some of the most interesting people on the web. That’s a reward in and of itself.”

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Yes, eventually, if you wait a bit, everything in the world…..at least in the tech world…..will be free and easy.  I have not been doing videocasts because it seemed to be a speed bump in my usual turbo charged tech day:  so many devices to configure and set up.  Not to mention figuring out some of them to start with.  But now, there appears to be a simple solution to the whole enchilada.  Just go to Procaster, poke around and see if you like what you see.  I certainly do.  Then download and start shooting and broadcasting.  Did I mention it’s free?

With its recent redesign and a slew of new features, Facebook has been moving to make Pages a focal point of the site. Personally, I recently described these changes as “the business model that moves [the company] from a successful social network to a highly profitable business.”Thus, it’s not surprising that Facebook is starting to do more to reach out to brands that might benefit from using revamped Pages. The latest example is (fittingly) a Facebook Page that the company has setup to promote “Facebook Marketing Solutions,” complete with case studies from a number of large brands using the tool, tips and how-tos, and discussion with marketers.

The brands that Facebook is featuring include household names like Adobe, Lionsgate, and Ben & Jerry’s, but there are still some useful tidbits for those with slightly smaller budgets. For example, Ben & Jerry’s implementation of Facebook Connect is something that any website could deploy with a bit of coding work and zero marketing spend.

• It lets visitors to Ben & Jerry’s website select their favorite flavor and share it on Facebook. Then, that user’s friends see the flavor selection on their homepage, and also get a link to Ben & Jerry’s Facebook Page where they too can become a fan.

  Meanwhile, for brands looking to spend money on Facebook (), namely by promoting their Page, the Marketing Solutions group shares a number of different types of campaigns. For example, Adobe’s “Real or Fake” campaign includes a game on the company’s Page, where users guessed whether an image was real or Photoshoped.

  Adobe describes its results: “About 10% of our page visitors played the game and, of those who played, 6% clicked the “Share” button at the end of the game, and 6% clicked “Buy Now” at the end of the game. Due to this game and media placement, our page received over 6,000 new fans too.”

  For Facebook, sharing this type of information using a Page is a great example of a company eating its own dog food so to speak. It’s also good to see that they’re both sharing tips that anyone can do – without spending significant money on Facebook – as well as case studies clearly designed to get big brands to spend big dollars on marketing their Pages.

  ---

  Additional Facebook Resources for Brands

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  - New Facebook Pages: A Guide for Social Media Marketers

  - 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page

  - 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Brand’s Facebook Presence

Just when you thought you had every Twitter tool imaginable……suddenly there are more….!  Take your pick.

130+ Enormous Twitter Toolbox | Twitter Tools | Tools.

• Twitter Topic Trackers
• Track Top Twitter Users
• Find Other Twitters
• Productivity & Bulk management tools
• Other Online Twitter Tools
• Blog and Website Tools
• Twitter Gadgets
• Earn Money by Twitting
• Browser Plugins
• Twitter API / Integration / Interface Tools
• Tools for Mobile Devices
• Windows: Apps, Widgets and Plugins
• Mac: Apps, Widgets and Plugins
• Other OS: Apps, Widgets and Plugins
• Articles and Blogs

“Community manager is the new it position in social media. To establish hardcore communities of evangelists around your brand, you need to have one. However, what makes up a successful community manager? Every community manager must have their own style and idea about how to run things for their company, right?

Some basic tenets and rules apply regardless of the company. I spoke to some of the best in the business to get their thoughts on what makes a great community manager. I’ve narrowed it down to 5 essential traits.

1. Loving your job

Muhammad Saleem, community manager for Tip’d, recommends that you “Be incredibly patient and approachable and never lose your cool, ever. Always start with the assumption that you’re wrong and the community member (or whoever else you’re in an exchange with) is right, and work from there onwards. Always have lines of communication open with your community as well as those outside your community (even competitors) and be available to chat/discuss/troubleshoot/resolve. Remember that the community always comes first, no matter what decision you’re trying to make. All decisions should be made with the community in mind. Ask yourself, how does this improve the community experience?”

Muhammad is able to put the community’s needs ahead of his own and maintain a calm and cool visage.

2. Ability to promote others as well as yourself

Daniel Honigman of Tribune Interactive made this commitment from an MSM news organization: “Linking to the Sun-Times and other sources right off the bat showed our readers and followers that we were doing things differently, that we’re willing to be good netizens. For a mainstream media organization to aggregate outside content in a non-bastardized way, that’s a huge step.”

This goes a long way in promoting more than just your corporate interests and fostering a trusting community in support of your company. It’s just common netiquette.

3. Ability to empower & support your community

“When instilling an attitude that isn’t one of control or management. One that people can relate to and feel comfortable with past the right culture built within the comm, you’ve got to create VALUE and make people WANT to be a part of the community and make them feel that they’re a part of something big and have that rapport spill over throughout all community members,” said Sonny Gill, a social media marketer.

This requires a time commitment. Amber Naslund of Radian6 elaborates, “Flexibility: this isn’t a 9-5 job, nor is it always a neat and tidy job description. That means being what your company and community need you to be, when they need you. Sometimes it’s communicating, sometimes it’s listening, sometimes it’s strategy and sometimes it’s execution.”

4. Transparent, fun, and engaging personality

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Amber came at this from a background that may not have looked exactly like that of a typical community manager, but the same traits were there. Amber’s “background is a blend of nonprofit fundraising, business development, client services, and marketing (B2B). I took a bit of a non-traditional path, but the undercurrent to all of those positions was relationship building in order to drive business. The social tools are just the mechanisms; the most important part is being passionate about stripping out all the broken ideas about impersonal communications and getting back to the idea of humans as the basis for good business. Social communications feel like the ‘home’ to me that I’ve always wanted in my job – the part of customer service and communication that always felt good and not so contrived.”

It doesn’t really matter where you come from, as long as the same morals, attitudes and desires remain the same.

5. Extensive knowledge about the company

Daniel Honigman ran into this problem when trying to gain access to the Tribune’s management: “I was extraordinarily lucky when I started out at the Chicago Tribune by having access to folks at all levels of the newsroom.  However, you still need to make inroads with different departments and levels – groups that may traditionally be siloed – in order to get your job done quickly. You’ll find that as a result, internal communication will improve dramatically. And you can serve customer needs a hell of a lot quicker.”

Often you will need to break down cultures ingrained within your corporation’s DNA and this can’t happen without a buy-in from management.

Amber Naslund added, “Sometimes, you just have to shut up and realize you’re not the one with the answers. You need to have first-hand knowledge of what’s happening in your company to communicate that to customers and you need to shepherd information and insights back from your customers to your company. Sometimes the best person to provide an answer isn’t you, but you can help connect and put the right people in touch to make sure their experience with your company is always a good one. You’re more often the means than the end.”

Community management is a delicate balance; you need to be able to serve both your company’s needs and those of your company’s community. A lot of trust, respect and responsibility comes with being the voice for your brand. It’s a lot of power, but if you use it wisely it could be a boon for your company and your community.

So, what do you think are essential traits for a community manager?”

From Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

Why blog for your personal brand?

There are so many reasons why blogging is good for your personal brand. A blog allows you to position yourself as an expert in your field and blogs rank very high in Google because there’s fresh content, they are keyword rich and people link to them often.  Blogs allow you to build a community around a topic, network professionally, and hopefully make new friends.  A blog will help you become a more proficient writer, gain confidence in yourself and it will make you feel empowered to reach to the stars.  From a marketing standpoint, you can get your message out for free and command the attention of the media.  There’s also bloggers who make money with advertising and AdSense.

DOWNLOAD: “Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success!”

Click here to download

For complete table of contents go to Free 52 Page Complete Blogging Guide | Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel.

Dan Schawbel makes an  interesting point and one I think might be helpful to all of us about the value of starting your own page on Facebook. Schawbel in HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Facebook notes that with over 200 million active users, Facebook has become a personal, product and corporate branding hub. He presents a very thorough  guide to building your personal brand on Facebook, but the most interesting point he makes, I think, is How To Start Your Own Page.

“Facebook pages are for brands, ranging from Coca Cola to Barack Obama and even you. These pages resemble your Facebook profiles, so only use one if you have a large number of Facebook friends. By having a Facebook page, your brand can go viral, holding a spot on other people’s profiles. The other main advantage is that your page will rank high for your name in Google () () and you can use it for your professional career, while keeping your personal profile private.”

The reason I think this is a really good idea is because I recently read a study showing the most likely prospect for getting new business is from someone you are already doing business with. The next most likely place is from someone who’s heard good things about you from someone you are doing business with.  In other words, credibility — being good at what you do—, attention to clients and colleagues and word of mouth or at the core of building your brand, your reputation and your business. Remember that when you are deciding where to invest your time.  Facebook is a more intimate platform where you can get some of those qualities across.

Since I’ve just come upon this truth myself I haven’t built my Facebook Page yet, but it is now on my priority to do list.  It will be a bit tricky because my Facebook friends come from many different personal camps or tribes, and my page will blend webbiz, social media and entrepreneurship.  The idea will be to gather a small community with interesting thoughts on these subjects. An interesting challenge.  I’ll keep you updated.  In the meantime, if you’ve built a Facebook page or are planning to, please share your thoughts and experience.

If you’re going to use Twitter….. and you should…. you might as well get the best apps to support you…. to make the process faster and more automated. Serious users consider Tweetdeck a must.  Also Hellotxt can be useful, since it updates from web, mobile, sms, email, 3rd party applications, API to more than 35 social network at the same time.

You can also take a look at the 21 most popular Twitter applications ranked by TechCrunch that produced these monthly traffic results:

1. Twitpic	1,236,828
2. Tweetdeck	285,864
3. Digsby	233,472
4. Twittercounter	212,200
5. Twitterfeed	149,812
6. Twitterholic	147,164
7. Twhirl	143,333
8. Twitturly	88,793
9. Twtpoll	74,154
10. Retweetist	60,051
11. Tweepler	51,304
12. Hellotxt	45,754
13. Twitdom	45,411
14. Tweetscan	44,463
15. Tweetburner	41,754
16. Tweetvisor	31,621
17. Twittervision	30,708
18. Twitterfall	29,592
19. Monitter	25,433
20. Twibs	17,168
21. Twistori	16,229
22. Twitbin	14,986

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