learnandteachonline.com

Danah Boyd's story of how one company came to understand the viral power of the web just by watching something unfold.

According to a story in the NYTimes, the newest Microsoft MP3 player has a software overhaul.

Under the old rules a user who received a squirted a file from another user couldn't pass it on. That's possible now but each Zune can only play the shared file three times, even if its rights are not protected.

MS is thinking hard about DRM, and will offer a large library of unprotected songs, along with a place on the web to get all social about them.

The Times article leaves a lot of unanswered questions. I'm with Dave. It would have been nice if bloggers had been clued in on this announcement. There could have been a lot more informed discussion. Maybe that's what they don't want, deep down.

My questions:

- I wonder if they still have that crazy deal to give over a percentage of each player's purchase price to a record label (was it Universal?) and if other labels haven't clamored for and been granted the same deal.

- Why limit unprotected files? There shouldn't be any restrictions on podcasts.

- Considering the Gates Foundation's interest in education, I wonder if they've considered educational uses of the file sharing feature. Like squirting lectures or guided tours. It's such a unique feature, it seems like they'd try to get more creative with it.

Here's the Zune press website with specs and stuff. Ah, Edelman is handling the launch. Maybe that's a clue to why no blogger involvement, some perceived risk of the important Christmas announcement reeling out of control.

Elinor Mills on Cnet last week asked the question "Want to 'converse' with advertisers?."

No, not really. Anyway not the way they seem to want to do it.

She covered the Conversational Marketing Summit, and came away feeling wary of the whole deal.

I can't help but view conversational marketing as a thinly veiled attempt by the ad industry to insinuate itself into the popular social media craze. Calling it a "conversation" makes it sound benign and implies that it is consensual.

Yep yep yep.

Still, I do think there's a place for talking to customers that PR people don't get because they are stuck thinking in terms of image. I don't think people want to talk about a marketing slogan like Microsoft's and Federated Media's dumb "People Ready" campaign where they asked for reactions to top bloggers' takes on the slogan. That's pretty much having a conversation about nothing.

Online types do like to get into the nitty-gritty of products, and that makes you think the conversation might better be taking place in the customer service arena. Let people talk to product managers and developers and designers. Leave the PR types -- with their exclamation points and "lively language" and their messages -- right out of it.

Update
Bonus links: Doc Searls, a Cluetrain brother, brings the
marketing conversation topic up to date. Also check out this other great post from Doc on NYTimes Select, the Times' paywalled service that came down this week. He quotes from one of David Weinberger's chapters in The Cluetrain Manifesto. So amazing how well the ideas in that book have held up, but then when it came out it just felt so true, I'm not surprised it's endured.

Keepers of Harry Potter fan sites were invited to a conference call promoting a new movie starring Daniel Ratcliffe, who plays Harry in the Potter movies.

Of course they're going to feel flattered and write about it -- a lot, and probably rave. Really smart. Find the bloggers who care and give them access. So much better than astroturfing nonsense that tries to create community rather than find and tie in to existing communities. So much smarter than working to thrust crafted marketing messages on carelessly chosen lists of bloggers. Expellimarus, Bacon's!

When you look at online job listings like those at paidContent.org they're always dominated by sales and marketing jobs. Is there an imbalance of content sellers to content creators? (And could that be another sign of a bubble?) Or is it just that recruitment advertising isn't needed as much to locate the maker class?

Remember a while back when Microsoft first announced support for RSS and we found out they weren't going to call it RSS because the acronym isn't descriptive enough? I told a business story about names as an example of how whatever you call a thing eventually comes around to equate to the thing it names.

The idea intruded into my thoughts again this morning when I spotted a box in my bedroom labeled "floppies." That box hasn't held floppy disks since... well, since you didn't keep boxes of floppies anymore. It has contained sewing junk for years now, but when I see the word floppies scribbled on that box I think, "Oh, that's where my pincushion is." It's about associations, I guess, isn't it? Either on a personal or group level.

The Origami team's take on its buzz campaign is reported on the team blog.

Robert Scoble has had a peek at Origami and now he's teasing about it.

Microsoft's channel 9 will showcase it on Thursday. Sounds like the latest speculation is true -- it's a little tablet and priced right.

- My most recent posts categorized under PortableMobile are all about Origami.

I swear Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ, has spent more on snailmailings to me than I ever have contributed. Why don't they e-mail me, since I donate that way. I'd listen.

I wrote something about preferred method of contact on a customer service blog I've abandoned, but I've moved some of the posts over here.

Consider making e-mail the default contact method when a customer orders on the web. Doesn’t it make sense that if Acme Company buys something in your online shopping cart instead of phoning or mailing in the order, the buyer likes online transactions? So, it follows that your Acme buyer would prefer to hear from you in e-mail rather than on the phone if there is a problem with or a question about the order.

Doesn't that make sense?

I'd given up on ever getting my podcast listed at indiepodder, formerly ipodder.org, after submitting it at least twice back in April and May. Now suddenly on Monday, it shows up in the directory. Thanks, whomever got round to adding it. I've always had quite a number of visits referred from ipodder even without the listing. I imagine it must have been from the output of audio.weblogs.com pings on the ipodder site.

BTW, I got my audio.weblogs.com ping-thing solved at last. It was my own fault. I modified the PHP file in Loudblog that generates my podcast's RSS feed. Something about the way I tucked in the iTunes namespaces plus a third-party Flash player's stuff made the feed invalid. Verisign was extra helpful all the way through my trial with it. They seem to really care that the podcaster community is happy with them. A refreshing attitude on the part of a big company.