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    • media 2.0

    • The 140 Characters Conference (#140conf) will be taking place in Los Angeles on October 5-6 2010 and in London on October 26-27 2010.

      In support the upcoming #140conf LA conference, the next #140conf Los Angeles meetup will be taking place on May 10th at the Comedy Store in Hollywood, CA. For more information and to RSVP, click here. Special thanks to Make It Work for once again helping to produce this meetup.

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    • media 2.0

    • The schedule for the upcoming #140conf NYC continues to take shape. During the past month I have worked with a number of amazing people who have taken the time to help me invite some great people who will be speaking at April's 140 Characters Conference in New York City.

      Some of the panel discussions I am looking forward to seeing include:

      Fixing America's Voting System, One Tweet At A Time

      Participants:
      Debra Bowen (@DBowen) - Secretary of State, California
      Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) - @AMCnews Correspondent and Executive Director of @WhyTuesday, a nonpartisan election reform group
      Joe Trippi (@JoeTrippi) - @WhyTuesday advisory board member
      Nancy Scola (@nancyscola) - associate editor at @techPresident and inspired the Twitter Vote Report with a blog post
      Steve Grove (@grove) - Head of News and Politics at YouTube

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      Interacting with the television audience in Real Time

      Participants:
      Gavin Purcell (@gavinpurcell) - Producer, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
      Rick Borutta (@CBSborutta) - Producer, CBS Backstage LIVE
      Steve Garfield (@stevegarfield) - Author, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business (Moderator)

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      Finding Common Ground: Discussion of issues of race and politics in 140 Characters

      Participants:
      Blair Kelley (@profblmkelley) - Professor at North Carolina State University
      Elon James White (@elonjames) - Comedian and Social Critic
      Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) - Editor in Chief, Salon
      Liza Sabater (@blogdiva) - Publisher of Culturekitchen & DailyGotham

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      twitter and the Fashion Indusry

      Participants:
      Alexis Maybank (@giltfounder) - Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Gilt Groupe
      Bronwyn Barnes (@InStyle) - Associate Entertainment Editor for InStyle.com:
      Deirdre Sullivan (@GrittyPrettyPR) - Principal / Social Media
      Kimberly Miller (@StyleWatchMag) - VP of Consumer Marketing, People StyleWatch
      Meredith Fisher (@InsideDVF) - Editorial Brand Director, Diane von Furstenberg Studio L.P.

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      twitter and Education

      Participants:
      Aparna Vashisht (@Parentella) - Founder, Parentella (moderator)
      Kevin Jarrett (@kjarrett) - K-4 Technology Teacher
      Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) - Educational Technologist - NYC Dept of Ed
      Mary Beth Hertz (@mbteach) - K-6 Computer Teacher and Technology Teacher Leader in Philadelphia

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      Where Am I? How location changes everything

      Participants:
      C.C. Chapman (@cc_chapman) - moderator
      Dennis Crowley (@dens) - co-founder, FourSquare
      Josh Williams (@jw) - Founder, CEO, Gowalla

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      twitter and Music
      Exploring the use of twitter in the Music Industry

      Participants:
      Jim Jones (@jimjonescapo) - Artist
      Leslie Hall (@dollyhall) - President, ICED Media (moderator)
      Ryan Leslie (@ryanleslie) - Artist
      Xavier Jernigan (@XavierJernigan) - Senior Director, Digital Marketing, Universal Motown

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      twitter: Sports
      A look at how twitter is used in Pro Sports

      Participants:
      Ian Poulter (@Ianjamespoulter) - Pro Golfer
      Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert) - President, Sports Media Challenge
      Natalie Gulbis (@natalie_gulbis) - Pro Golfer

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      Experiencing: Love, Dating and Romance in the Real-Time web

      Participants:
      Julie Spira (@JulieSpira) - Author, dating coach
      Scot McKay (@ScotMcKay) - Dating Coach
      Thomas Miller (@TomfooleryTM) - General Manager, Your Tango

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      Campaign to Governing: Twitter by the Issues

      Participants:
      David All (@DavidAll) - Health Care/Capitol Hill Tweets Founder
      Leslie Sanchez (@LeslieSanchez) - Author and a former Bush presidential advisor
      Maegan Carberry (@maegancarberry)
      Paul Rieckhoff (@PaulRieckhoff) - Founder of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
      Whit Jones (@whitjones) - Energy Action Coalition - Climate

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      Augmented Twitter: A Conversation with Three Futurists

      Participants:
      FakeJerry Paffendorf (@WELLO) - Artist, futurist, entrepreneur.
      joshua fouts (@josholalia) - Cultural relations futurist at the crossroads of emergent media, digital diplomacy, games, virtual worlds and storytelling.
      Rita J. King (@RitaJKing) - Innovator-in-Residence, IBM Analytics Virtual Center, #SmarterWork project.
      Tish Shute (@TishShute) - "enthusiast for our networked potential to make a better world"

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      The effects of twitter on the Real Estate Industry

      Participants:
      Amanda Wernick (@funomenalrealtr) - REALTOR Associate, Licensed: CA
      Bob Watson (@TopBrokerOC) - moderator
      Diane Guercio (@HeyAmaretto) - REALTOR, Boston, MA
      Eric Stegemann (@EricStegemann) - Broker, Licensed: MO
      Maya Paveza (@mayaREguru) - Realtor, DE/PA

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      These are just a sampling of some of the approximate 70 sessions that will be taking place during the two days of #140conf NYC.

      If you are thinking about attending #140conf NYC, now would be a great time to secure your seat. With the "early bird" ticket costing only US$ 100 for this two day event, seats will sell out so register NOW to guarantee youself access to the event over at: http://nyc.140conf.com/register.

      Note: Speakers and sessions are subject to change without notice. These "characters" are accurate as of: February 22, 2010.

      For more information about upcoming worldwide #140conf events, please visit: http://140conf.com.

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    • media 2.0

    • When Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and others don’t have customers, only users – does it mean that we the users, lose the right to adequate customer service?

      Services like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Y!Mail and many others have amassed hundreds of millions of users. We all use these services, and many of us use them for many hours every day. Some of these services have become indispensible to us. HOWEVER, as these are free services and we do not pay for them, in the eyes of the providers we have lost any right to customer service. What do we do when something is not working for us? Who you gonna call?

      Remember when we used to complain that we were put on hold for a long time when calling the phone company? Or that the rep that answered the phone had a foreign accent that was difficult to understand?

      Well these were the good old days because with the above online services – there is no one to call. When you have a problem it is YOUR problem. And because these services all have a similar approach to us, the users (not customers), we are left with no alternative. If we are locked out from facebook, what are we going to do? Go to Myspace? If we are kicked out of gmail and cannot access our email, what are we to do? Switch email provider? And what about all our gigabytes of emails archived with Google? How do we get access to it?

      A few months ago, my son created a gmail account dedicated to his college application processes. All correspondence with the various colleges is done via the email account. He is now in the phase where he is waiting to hear decisions (quite stressful). A few weeks ago, we learned that Google has disabled the account. Btw – it was pure coincidence that we found out – no message from Google to inform us… Not sure what caused it, as it is only used for this sole purpose. For two weeks we have tried to convince Google via its online reporting mechanism (there is no 1-800-GOOGLE…) to no avail.

      These services would tell you that it is not possible to provide customer services when they have hundreds of millions of users. I happen to disagree with that assertion, and believe that is mostly a matter of priorities and corporate values. Having had run some businesses that had many millions of users, I know that it IS possible to serve each and every user interaction in a fair and timely manner, if only you decide that this is something important enough for you to do.
      It is also possible to provide customer service for a fee. How many of you would be willing to pay to have your issue addressed (not to mention resolved)?

      I fear however, that the situation will not change, as these online services have lowered our expectations to the point where we simply accept that as a given that we are mere users, and not customers and thus deserve no customer service.

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      Amit Shafrir is currently COO of OurParents. He previously was President of AOL Premium Services, GM of ICQ and other online services.

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