I just caught the tail end of a story on Radio 4’s today programme this morning which tweaked my interest.

I may have missed the full context of the story but the part that I got was that a Civil servant from a large government department has been anonymously blogging for the past 3 months or so - with the overtone being that it was critical of government policy.

The news today was that the blog has just gone offline and the inference I took from Radio 4 was that because it was it was negative, it had been pulled.

So much for free speech and open blogging - I am reluctant to wade in fully waving the free blog speech banner too high until I can find the full details. Did anyone else pick up on this story also?

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Consolidation is moving in the search market - it will be fascinating to see what happens with the bid by Microsoft for Yahoo - in pure search market terms this is the number 3 player buying the number 2 player.

Firstly, it will be interesting to see what the competition authorities make of this.

Secondly, it will be interesting to consider how it might pan out - will they keep both brands - how will they leverage a direct ad sales model to rival the power of Google.

One thing is for sure, this says that Search is an established "old" industry when the number 3 player bids for number 2. It says a lot about how fast our industry has developed in around 10 years and how brands have rapidly become so established in an online space.

On a different note, we have been doing lots of new and innovative things with one of our clients who provide alcohol help and alcohol rehab. More to be announced in due course….now live - we have launched a rehab blog for our alcohol rehab client to help deal with alcohol related issues.

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Our lawyer, Aoife who we are running a seminar with tomorrow sent us a link earlier showing how one law firm, DLA has launched an internal social network

Its called "Inside the Tent", and allows future trainees to spend time getting to know colleagues.

The value and key reasons for them doing this (as gleaned from the press) are:

- it allows DLA’s graduate recruitment team to communicate more easily with its future trainees.

- The team will post regular updates, as well as news about the firm, and advertise forthcoming firm events and social activities.

- It will be great for the environment as the firm will not have to send out paper based mail-shots to its future lawyers anymore.

We will be tracking this as its good to see other companies adopting new web techniques for communication and collaboration, and ties very much to what we believe in and the work that we are doing helping companies to engage with web based collaboration.

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International Collaboration seems to have been the theme for the last 10 days at Trovus.

Firstly, our own Jon Mell has been at Lotusphere for the last week in Florida (more to follow) - getting the latest thinking and product developments around the IBM suite of products dedicated to social networking and collaboration within companies. There is truly great work being done but I will leave Jon to provide details of that.

The second area has been Trovus securing our first international client in the USA - a large property consultancy. What was good for us around this was that our first workshop was delivered by 100% virtual means - 7 people from our client and 3 of us delivering a 4 hour workshop by videoconference.

The experience?

Well it seemed to work very well - we have had some great feedback and once you settle into the technology (apart from Ed trying to shout all the way across the Atlantic), it was very smooth.

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A community I am part of in the online marketing world - Affiliates4u made a great post today which says that of their 20,000 strong online community, only 200 people are active posters - thats only 1% of the community

Shock horror. This lead to four plus pages of discussion threads on whether the non regular contributing members(thereby including me) should be a) banned or b) charged a premium

http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/affiliate-marketing-moderators-choice/71113-approx-20-000-members-only-approx-200-regular-posters.html

This comes as no surprise to us and accords with other research that shows similar figures:

- Our own research based on communities we own, run and manage - around 1% of people actually contribute;

- Mckinsey and Gartner have carried out similar research and found similar numbers.

We have gone further and classified 5 different groups of people within a community - they are:

1.       Stars - People who actively "do the work" within any online environment.  They are advocates, contributors and generally the people who lead and start dialogue.  These people typically form about 1% to 3% of any group.

2.       Doers - People whose natural behaviour is not to start, but to respond.  They will contribute to most areas and will on occasion be the catalyst for activity.  Typically, these make up 16% to 20%.

3.       Groupies - Always the largest group.  Generally anonymous and showing up as traffic across a web entity, Groupies (or lurkers) spend their time digesting and taking rather than contributing.  Rarely do they contribute and they are unlikely to start any discussions. However, this is the majority of any community and therefore they delineate value.  Typically, these people are up to 60%.

4.       Cloggers - People who find their way into a community environment, but are not aligned to the offering.  Their interest is low and generally they have little inherent value.  Typically, these are between 10% to 12%.

5.       Wreckers - in any environment, even highly regulated ones, there will be dissenting voices.  Community owners need to have coping strategies for these people. These are typically around 5% to 10% of a community.  Interestingly Wreckers, if handled appropriately have the potential to become stars.

So to return to the question - should the non active people be banned? Well, that depends on what you want to achieve? Our view is that the profile observed in the affiliate community is a perfectly natural position and that if you want to run/ own/ manage a community that’s what you are going to get. If you want to hive off a separate close for closed discussions and get them to pay for it, then go for it, but we think that probably detracts from the overall energy, position and most importantly the value of an online community.

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Great blog from the online maestro Seth Godin which we completely agree with:

Google yourself.

If you’re a salesperson, your prospects already do.
If you’re looking for a job, your prospective employers already do.
If you’ve got a job, your co-workers already do.

What do they see? Do you know?

If you don’t like it, you can fix it. Start a blog, even if it’s just a few pages worth. Have some colleagues suggest you for wikipedia (if the powers that be think you’re notable enough) or make sure you’re represented on HubPages or Squidwho or write an article for ChangeThis.

You can be finished by tonight. It’s worth it.

Couldnt agree more - its something we encourage with all our sites - profile your people and demonstrate your intellectual capital - be open and honest with who you are.

Further, if you weave a little search magic you can position yourself on the internet as you would want to be seen - not just for your name, but your specialism also.

On a slightly different note, I just wanted to acknowledge thanks to Colin Mills from the FD Centre who provide part time finance directors - Colin has been great helping us evolve some of our nascent software applications.

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Interesting piece of research today that Phil Summerfield has shared with me - it was research by Top IT Consultants which showed what recruitment agents think are the most important channels for sourcing candidates.

Top of the list was traditional head hunting/ cold calling with 80% of the vote.

The second one is the interesting one - 64% of people voted for Social networking sites.

The surevey comments:

"good candidates will be hard to come by. When candidates are in short supply in the marketplace it is increasingly necessary to use these tactics to tempt them out of their current jobs and into new ones.

The high placing of social networking sites backs this - they will hit the passive candidate base where candidates are not seeking new employment as a matter of course, but will be open to offers if they are presented with them"

Social networking is an increasing part of our day to day lives and proving to be an important way to interact with candidates.

Our goal at Trovus is to strive to understand and find ways to create value for businesses using the web as a relationship building tool - its great to see other businesses innovating and using the web creatively for value creation. Thank you Phil for sharing that.

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Last week there was a story about Glen o’Glaza’s post on the Adam Boulton Sky News blog.  In the post he complains about the conditions for journalists during their trip with Gordon Brown to Iraq.  There seems to have been quite a backlash to his complaints, many comparing his conditions with those endured by the soldiers on the ground.  There are two points to make here:

1. Sky have done the right thing by keeping the posting up after the negative publicity.  To take the post down after it had been reported in the press would have been a mistake, as people searching for it and finding it had been removed would probably have imagined it to be worse than it was!

2. It is absolutely vital when writing blogs that you know your audience.  o’Glaza probably had a certain audience in mind when we wrote the post who would be sympathetic.  However, on a public blog you cannot target your posts so that only certain people will read it - the whole point is that it is there for the world to see.

Part of the reason we talk so much at Trovus about the importance of a blogging strategy and a content strategy is that blogs can ruin brands and reputations just as easily as they can make them.  Blogs are a tool amongst many other marketing tools - it is how you use them that makes the difference and potentially allows you to differentiate substantially from your competitors.

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As a business owner and manager there are many competing things to do - create and drive strategy, build new products, sell, deliver the work, recruit and manage staff, finances, legal…you know the story, its the stuff - all those things you cram into a week.

So for my 5am moment today I reflected on the additional stuff which we encourage people to take on - blogging. One of the common question sets we get is around blogging - what should I be doing, what should and should’nt I be writing about and how to I find time to write a blog.

Whilst we have spent time writing here about best practice with blogging, you need to be aware of the blogging crimes…and how we try to get around them.

Crime 1 - You dont blog for a while 

Guilty as charged. Too much stuff going on and blogging becomes one thing on a very long list. Result - no blog for 3 week. The problem with this is in my view each time I visit a website, I expect a different experience (if you want me to go back to that website that is) - to me a different experience is fresh rotating content. So a blog which doesnt get updated stands a good chance of not developing any ongoing readers or engagement.

How we do as a business get around this? Simple really - you have 3 bloggers (Jon, Ed and myself) and soon to be Kirsty and Mark also - you share the load - readers can then find out the story and opinions told in different voices. Secondly, you make it something that for us is a weekly action - a requirement for at least 2 blogs per week - we agree who for the week and make it happen. What we also do for some of our clients is set up ghosted blogs - we find journalists - they speak to a client for 5 minutes - get a quick digest on views and write the blog using the clients words - its sent for approval and published.

Finally, it can actually be quite cathartic and addictive - its a good outlet for thoughts and feelings - set the world to rights by sharing your thoughts.

Crime 2 - Dull blogs

Probably guilty on a personal note, but fortunately Ed and Jon are far more witty and erudite, so collectively we get by. What’s the point of a blog? To me, its about engaging people in a subject on which you are passionate. If your blog is dull and lacks engaging content which people dont want to come back to read, believe me they wont. 

Whilst sharing the responsibility is one thing, for me it is about writing with passion about what you believe in - whats going on and your honest thoughts and feelings on it. 

I am sure there are other crimes that strike a chord but for me these are the main ones - plus the ways that we as small business managers deal work to maintain our blog presence.

So what else has been going on at Trovus - well Mark passed his driving test yesterday (congrats mark), we continue to be shown amazing opportunities to work with a range of incredibly impressive organisations (more to come) and we are looking forward to our first Trovus xmas party on Monday which Kirsty has been organisng for us (photos to follow).  All is well on the good ship Trovus and we sail on at good speed.

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Over the past couple of months, we have written about Facebook and have touched on Facebook Fatigue as a concept based on some ancedotal evidence.

What is interesting is that we have been contacted by a Sunday Times journalist, Kathy Brewis who asked us the question:

"Hi, message for Caspar - would love to hear more thoughts from you on Facebook fatigue and any other negative aspects of ’social networking’ for an article… Many thanks, Kath"

Firstly we are delighted to be contacted (she also contacted Jon directly through his blog) and asked for opinion, and will be even more delighted if we get published.

Secondly and more importantly, it raises some great points - my answers to Kathy were something along the lines of:

Facebook Fatigue

what keeps interest levels high and prevents fatigue is lots of fresh new interesting content; friends and lost friends connections are the big draw – applications are good but they don’t have the same bite or emotional connection as friends;

facebook fatigue kicks in once the majority of your friends are in – especially for Generation Y; the rise in levels of new content (friends) falls away;

I think the time for Generation X before fatigue sets in will be much longer; so many friends you have “touched” over the past 20 plus years you could keep connecting for a long while – it is likely to be steady stream of friends connecting rather than a flood;

Negative Aspects

Security concerns and privacy are the big ones;  users need to be aware of the dangers of having all their information on there – having your date of birth, home address and phone number does present risks, especially if you havent opted out of the the ability to have your profile indexed by the search engines.

I am reminded of when the Northern Rock crisis broke and someone on a forum/ blog (not a social networking site) left their name and home address, and then went on to comment that they had taken all their money out of the bank and put it under the mattress!!! Being reckless with personal details isnt just limited to social networking sites!

The other wider point which was brought home to me this week is how Facebook is now a part of people’s lives and communicating through a digitial platform is second nature for some. The example I draw on is Births, Deaths and Marriages. I have personal examples of Facebook being used to broadcast all three events - if that is’nt a shift in behaviour I dont know what is (remember, social networking sites didnt exist 3 years ago!) 

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