the Web Chef's e-Bytes

10 Facebook Facts from SeeWhy,Inc.

Viral Video Takes on United Airlines

Companies often don't get it when it comes to customer service. Airlines are big culprits in this regard. From fees for bags to snacks to possibly even using the toilet (one proposed revenue generator) they fail to remember that they are in the service business. In a video that has gone viral, the Sons of Maxwell, a band traveling on United Airlines to Nebraska, takes on the airline for breaking their Taylor guitar and for the lack of responsible customer service. The video is catchy and is not what you want to have happen to your brand.

Recipe Management - Online or Offline? Print or Software?

As the Web Chef and a food afficionado, I'm always interested to read about where consumers are finding food tips and recipes and how they are using online and offline tools to manage, organize and share their recipes.  I've been a devotee of Epicurious.com for a number of years, but also enjoy the pleasure of clipping and trying recipes from the Food section of local and national papers. 

Lifehacker had an interesting poll and review of the benefits of using online recipe management vs. traditional offline print.  Of the 1580 votes, Lifehacker found that 36% of respondents weren't ready to move away from their print-based note cards, binders or notebooks.  They continued to like these "old fashioned" ways as part of their cooking process. 

My partner and I are part of this group.  Even though we designed our kitchen during our remodelling and expansion project to include a Cat5 Internet connection and a pull out shelf  for a laptop, we've found that the "traditional" mode still works best.  (Besides that the shelf is now full of our overflow of Penzey's Herbs and Spices) We use a set of binders where we can take recipes from print sources (taped to a three hole drilled sheet), from friends, from online sources (printed out) and combine them into a binder indexed by major ingredient. 

Lifehacker blogger Jason Fitzpatrick reviewed the online tools including the top four were rank ordered by survey respondents with these results - Other (18%), Evernote (17%), Other (18%), SousChef (14%), AllRecipes (9%) and Big Oven (5%).  

So what other tools are out there? 

I was curious so I did a search and came up with quite a few including 23 indexed and referenced in DMOZ..org and a few others that are either software or web-based:

• Food (online community and recipe storage)
• LivingCookbook (software for Windows)
• MacGourmet (software for the Mac)
• MasterCook (software)
• MyRecipeCircle (online community)
• OpenEats (online community)
• Recipezaar (online recipes)
• TasteBook(create your own cookbook)

You can also find a ranking and review of ten tools at TopTenReviews, where BigOvens ranked #1, followed by Living CookBook and MasterCook Deluxe. 

Photograph of soup is from stock.xchng.

Bluenity Air Traveler Social Networking Sites (SNS)

The Wall Street Journal had a blurb announcing that Air France/KLM had launched a new social networking site (SNS) for air travelers called Bluenity.  Reflecting the multi-lingual nature of the organization and the markets served, the site will be available in 3 languages - French, Dutch and English. 

According to Patrick Roux, Senior VP Marketing at Air France KLM "From 7 November onwards, travellers and especially the 75 million customers who choose our two airlines every year, will be able, by using Bluenity, to meet before, during and after their flight"

It is an interesting example of a corporate-sponsored SNS, but faces existing competition in sites like Trip Advisor and expanded community activities at booking powerhouses Expedia and Orbitz.  I also found it interesting that they didn't incorporate the other airlines in the Skyteam Alliance into this marketing initiative.

So where do you go for travel reviews and information?

Web Tidbits - Web 2.0, Photo Sharing

I've been remiss in posting to this blog. 

Here are a couple of links to articles and resources that I thing you'll find interesting.

State of the Blogosphere - Technorati, Day 1 of their 5 part series on the status of blogs.  Today's report covers "Who are the Bloggers?", with the next 4 days expanding on the topic.  Among the findings are that North American bloggers are 57% male, 59% above 38 years old and 74% college graduates (yeah!  I fit in).

Beyond Blogs - Business Week writers and bloggers Heather Green and Stephen Baker refresh their popular 2005 cover story "Blogs Will Change Your Business" with "Beyond Blogs", a refreshing look at some of the many tools of social computing that are having an impact within the enterprise and among consumers.

Photo Sharing Sites - Looking for photo sharing sites beyond Flickr?  Check out this listing and evaluation on Photography Bay of 45 sites.

The Disgruntled Employee, PowerPoint and Viral Marketing

Philebrity and The Globe and Mail have coverage of a PowerPoint presentation that was put together by a Comcast Customer Service agent explaining the "What doe CQE (Comcast Quality Experience) Really Mean" that highlights some of the significant problems that are being experienced by Comcast customers.  Philebrity actually posts the PowerPoint show, while Toronto's Globe & Mail comments on it.  While the presentation doesn't follow guidelines I'd suggest for an effective live presentation, it certainly serves as a tool for creating a story that you can read about CQE.

This story reminds me of other ways that PowerPoint and YouTube are being used to spread a message of dissatisfaction not only by employees, but even more importantly by customers.  One example of this that I saw several years ago was in a PowerPoint presentation ("Yours is a Very Bad Hotel")that a disgruntled customer created trashing their experience at a specific hotel that was part of a big chain in 2001.  Given that this PowerPoint presentation was created before the days of slide sharing tools like Slide Share and Authorstream the distribution occurred through e-mail and viral marketing of the slide show as it was re-mailed over and over again. 

Two points of interest - 1.) you can still find this PowerPoint presentation by doing an Internet search and 2.) when I gave a presentation in early 2002, I referenced this as an example of "negative viral marketing" and asked if anyone had seen or heard of this presentation.  In that audience of around 100 people 4 - 5 people had heard or seen the presentation.

Do you have examples of how PowerPoint has been used in this fashion that you'd like to share?

Community Supported Agriculture - Driftless Organics

Given my "nom de plume" the Web Chef, I do enjoy cooking in addition to commenting, training and speaking about the Internet. This year, my partner and I have been enjoying the bounties of a biweekly box of fruits and vegetables provided under a community supported agriculture (CSA) agreement with Driftless Organics, a farm in western Wisconsin.  The boxes we've picked up have been full of seasonal wonders that have forced us to experiment with ingredients new to our cooking armamentarium - rutabaga, beets, scapes anyone? 

Beyond promoting the CSA concept and this farm in particular, what I find interesting is how they are incorporating web 2.0 into their mix with their member-written blog CSAte, eating the CSA from Driftless Organics.  This is an interesting way to build community online for an offline enterprise, while encouraging continued consumption of a varied set of produce.

New Column in Wisconsin Technology Network - Widgets

I've written a new column in the monthly series of articles, Buzz Networks, recently published in Wisconsin Technology Network.  The article "Widgets - web components for plug, play and pay" reviews the evolving and expanding world of widgets or gadgets and the benefits they can provide companies looking to connect and distribute their messages widely. 

With Facebook, Microsoft and the major blog platforms endorsing these portable applications, they will only be growing in the future.

If you'd like me to come and speak to your group on the latest developments in e-marketing, I'd be happy to discuss your budget, needs and schedule.  Please contact me in the United States at 608 255 4092 or via e-mail.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Paul J Gibler

Web Tidbits - Social Networks, Wikis

One year old Citizendium is hunting for a piece of the content pie seeking to be a reliable alternative to Wikipedia through the use of expert contributors.  According to the Financial Times they still have a ways to go given that the site only has 3,300 articles (compared to Wikipedias 2 million in English alone) and is growing at 14 new ones a day.  With the viral and network effects of the Internet the projections for the site are positive according to the founder Larry Sanger.

In the social networking space, Google announced the launch of OpenSocial, a consortium described by the Financial Times as "The technology that Google unveiled will let developers spread applications across any of the social networks that adopt it, removing the need to rewrite them for each one".  CNet is reporting that there are 26 companies that have joined the consortium including Google's Orkut (popular in Latin America), Hi5, LinkedIn, Friendster, Plaxo, Ning, Beebo, Oracle, Salesforce.com, etc.

For more on social networks see my article "The expanding world of social networks" on Wisconsin Technology Network.

Web Tidbits - Social Networks, Dell

Breaking news - Microsoft and Facebook
Microsoft has acquired 1.6% of Facebook for $240 million.  The deal values the social networking king at $15 billion, far more than the $1 billion offer that Yahoo! made for the site earlier according to CNNMoney and The New York Times.  Microsoft will be the exclusive advertising platform and will gain rights to sell adverrtising around the world.

For more on social networks see my article "The expanding world of Social Networking" at Wisconsin Technology Networks.

Dell Strategy Changes - Social Media, Retail Channel Expansion
In a continuing evolution of their business strategies Dell is learning how to listen and join the conversation with a range of web 2.0 technologies according to Michael Jarvis in a recent Business Week article.  Jarvis is a blogger who infamously had taken Dell to task in the past.

In other Dell strategy changes, Dell has expanded beyond their direct sales model overseas according to Business Week and in the U.S. signed a deal with Staples to sell select small business equipment starting November 11th according to eWeek.  This retail expansion follows their earlier agreements with Wal-Mart to sell consumer models in their stores.