Is Twitter Influence Portable?

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When influential chronicler of all things politics Ben Smith announced his decision to leave Politico to edit Jonah Peretti's ascendent BuzzFeed blog, the Twittersphere was all abuzz with congratulatory words. After all, Mr. Smith had amassed some 60,000 followers on Twitter during his time at Politico.

As one of his followers, I tweeted both warm wishes and an observation:

@PeterHimler "I guess @benpolitico will need a new Twitter handle."

Scott Monty

The question of who owns one's Twitter handle (and its followers) has been around since the earliest days of the real-time social and news channel.

I remember asking Ford's social media chief Scott Monty, with his then 20,000 followers, about it back in May 2009:

@Scott Monty Tell @peterhimler that it's no different than when the Ford CEO leaves. #mrs09 about 20 hours ago from TwitterBerry 

@PeterHimler But are you followers transferable? about 18 hours ago from Power Twitter

@ScottMonty @peterhimler When we're effectively leveraging @Ford @FordDriveGreen @FordCustService @FordMustang @FordFiesta, etc. they are. about 18 hours ago from web in reply to PeterHimler

One would be hard-pressed to find a marketing executive or reputation manager who hasn't lamented the loss of a staffer with a large Twitter following. We've seen it with brands as diverse as The New York Times, Coach and Comcast. Yet some still question the value of a sizable Twitter following. A PR/marketing guy from Philly named Eric Fischgrund commented on a recent post of mine:

"Referencing Twitter followers is so 2009, Peter."

Perhaps, but when the news stories one's Twitter friends tweet form the basis of our daily media consumption, the value of Twitter grows exponentially. Who hasn't noticed the tablet-driven boom in what I call "personalized social news gators?" They have names like News.me, Storyful, Google Currents, Pulse, Zite and Livestand, to name a few.  But that's a discussion for another day.

Let's talk about portability of one's Twitter handle. I mean if the wireless companies permit subscribers to migrate their phone numbers to new providers... (Oh, right. The government had to intercede.) On the other side of the coin, many corporate Twitter stars have built their personal brands by leveraging the brand equity of their employers.

On Christmas Day, The New York Times reported on a lawsuit between a company and one of its highly influential employees who departed, absconding with his 17K+ Twitter followers in the process. Here's what reporter John Biggs (9991 followers, 3171 following) wrote:

"...in a world where social media’s influence can mean the difference between a lucrative sale and another fruitless cold call, social media accounts at companies have taken on added significance."

Noah Kravitz

Noah Kravitz's employer PhoneDog Media is suing Mr. Kravitz alleging that his followers are actually customers. Here's how one intellectual property lawyer in New York summed it up:

"This will establish precedent in the online world, as it relates to ownership of social media accounts," said Henry J. Cittone, a lawyer in New York who litigates intellectual property disputes. “We’ve actually been waiting to see such a case as many of our clients are concerned about the ownership of social media accounts vis-á-vis their branding."

Columbia J School's Sree Sreenivasan, who's authored Sree’s Social Media Guide, said smart companies let social media blossom where it may:

"'It’s a terrible thing to say you have to leave your Twitter followers behind,' he said, talking specifically about media companies that may employ popular Twitter writers. 'It sends a terrible signal to reporters and journalists who care about this, and this will make it less attractive to recruit the next round of people.' 

He said that many industries had policies that required sales staff to leave their Rolodexes behind, but that these policies were as relevant to social media as Rolodexes are to the modern office. After all, social media accounts are, almost by definition, personal."

Jonah Peretti

We'll be keeping an eye on the lawsuit. Until then, please note that my pal Scott Monty now has some 64,000 followers on Twitter and is listed in nearly 22,000 circles on Google+.

BuzzFeed's Jonah Peretti and Ben Smith would combine to influence 72,000+ followers -- that is if Mr. Smith can somehow maneuver those followers to his new gig.  Even if he doesn't, BuzzFeed is in the enviable position of having nearly 52,000 Twitter followers of its own.

What in Your Wallet? Nothing!

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Class Action

I've been looking for a reason to write about Capital One for the longest time. No. I'm not a customer, nor will I ever become one. My distaste for the nation's "10th largest bank in terms of assets" stems from its inane and pervasive Viking-themed advertising.

"What lies in your wallet?"

It's unclear what Capital One spends each year, but in 2010 the company ranked right up there as one of the nation's largest advertisers and #2 (behind only BofA) in the financial services sector.

What Capital One won't be advertising anytime soon is its practice of pursuing (and in some cases illegally suing) 15,500 of its credit card customers for outstanding payments...after the customers filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Wall Street Journal reports today:

"In 2008, a U.S. bankruptcy trustee in Massachusetts accused Capital One of illegally trying 5,600 times to collect debts already wiped out by a bankruptcy judge. The trustee, who declined to comment, said the wrongful claims were the result of Capital One's failure to keep track of bankruptcy filings by its customers. The trustee began investigating the company when it allegedly sought $5,542.50 from a couple 14 years after the debt was erased."

Few will argue with the success of those dumb viking/visgoth spots. They have empowered Capital One to build some 1000 U.S. branches in a relatively short time, and bid on ING's online banking group for some $9 billion. (Eat your heart out, Geico caveman!)

Inane and attention-grabbing advertising, while often effective in terms of customer acquisition, can also be a double-edged sword. Who among isn't feeling some schadenfreude this morning after hearing the news of Capital One's practice of trying to doubly screw its customers?

I am, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Given all the other nefarious doings we're seeing the banking sector sector, I wonder whether Capital One's missteps would have merited the unwanted media attention if it didn't have such a large and annoying advertising campaign.

Fortunately for the bank, the world is poised to shut down for the holidays. This negative story will have a short shelf life:

"The Capital One spokeswoman wouldn't comment on the allegations, settlement or ongoing scrutiny. In a court filing, Capital One said it beefed up record-keeping procedures before being prodded by the bankruptcy trustee."

Facebook's Hackathon Culture

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Facebook's agency relations manager Jennifer Kattula

I swung by 360i's new offices in Tribeca last evening for Social Media Week NY's weekly board meeting and holiday get-together. SMW chief Toby Daniels invited Facebook's agency relations person Jennifer Kattula to walk the crowd through the company's "hackathon culture," but it wasn't exactly what we've come to know as the hackathon.

Facebook's Rules of the Hack  

Facebook views hackathons less as group coding events -- though that model remains popular -- but rather as individuals brainstorming alone in a room shared with others each, focused on a particular business activity -- from marketing to new product development.
It's not a free-for-all.  Facebook mandates that all hacked ideas comply with a very defined set of rules (at left)  The prize: the idea gets "shipped." More photos of Facebook's hack rules here.

Following Jennifer's glimpse into Facebook's creative culture, the evening's attendees broke into four or five "hackathon" groups to (more traditionally) brainstorm fresh event ideas for the New York leg of Social Media Week February 13-17.  (Not that it needs it.)

Social Media Week NY Keynoters  

Pictured here is a list of some of the confirmed keynoters for NY:

I'll mention some of the ideas that emerged since anyone can take the lead and submit a more fleshed our proposal for consideration. (The last SMWNY in September drew 10,000+ "hyper-social" New Yorkers who attended some 200+ events in the city.) Here are some of the new ideas from last night:

• Collaboration Creation -- Social Media Week attendee stories contribute to an ebook that's developed over the course of the week 
• Festival Fest -- Tribeca Film Festival, CMJ Music, SMW, Fashion Week, NY Wine & Food offer sneak peaks and entertain 
• The Voices Behind the Voice -- Those responsible for crafting twitter personalities of notable news sources, political figures, celebrities 
• Guess that Source: Propaganda in Social Media -- Audience guesses origin of tweet based on tone of voice, message conveyed 
• Unfortunate Tweeters: "I got [fired, divorced, found out] because of Social Media" -- Highlight stories to discuss dual nature and precautionary aspects of social media 
• Who REALLY has the most Klout -- Competition to see whose followers attend most events 
• Open Call -- Participants tweet and trending topics become focus of panel 
• Strike a Pose -- Photobooth transfers photos into online Hipstamatic album 
• Sketch - Artwork is created during a panel to turn "ordinary into extraordinary" 
• VIP Influencer Events -- All attendees are required to have x followers or a certain Klout score to attend. 

As mentioned, anyone can submit an event for consideration. Here's the submissions link.  Deadline: January 20.

Krochmal

Separately, I brought my digital audio recorder so was able to grab some sound from a few of the attendees I knew.  It was the end of the year. so we danced around what lies ahead for 2012.  Here's what I learned. Click on the name to listen to the audio exchange.

• Social Media News NY's Mo Krochmal (RT: 3:44) talking about his effort to curate notable predictions for 2012.  I sent him my Wikispaces-hosted collection of digital prognostications for 2011.  

Schafer

•  Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer (RT: 2:39) who forecast that "the only thing you can count on is change."

Berkowitz

• 360i's Digital Veep of Emerging Media David Berkowitz (RT: 2:33) whose company hosted the event.  His clients are "beyond why social matters," and are asking "what's the value for me."

Daniels

• Social Media Week's founder and executive director Toby Daniels (RT: 4:56) observed that entrepreneurs in 2012 are going to look beyond just selling more consumer packaged goods and try to tackle some of the important social issues affecting us all.   

I did make an attempt to grab some insights from a couple of the women attending last night, but for various reasons got turned down.  Bad breath?  Actually, I've been promised some time in January after their gestating professional plans become known.  









Photos of Ms. Kattula and slides: Mo Krochmal

Too Big Not to Fail

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Soho Grand Hotel - Scene of the Pitch

I had about an hour to kill between my breakfast in Soho yesterday and my next meeting. I decided to stroll over to the second floor lounge of the Soho Grand Hotel to grab just one more cup of coffee and dash off a few emails.

Before too long, I couldn't help but overhear a very loud and self-assured man putting on the big sell to a well-dressed couple.

"We work with them all," he boasted.

"I can guarantee that we will have you on with Jon Stewart, Charlie Rose, GMA, and CNBC...a couple of times."

My ears perked. Was this a PR agency pitching a new client prospect in a most open and public venue? I couldn't exactly determine what the client did to merit both the affections of "The Daily Show" and "Good Morning America," but it sounded like the prospect was another Wall Street-themed film documentary poised to debut on the Web.

If you followed my Twitter and Facebook streams yesterday, you heard in real-time how the pitch progressed:

"Bloomberg, AP, Reuters, Fox Business, Andrew Ross Sorkin...we can get you these tomorrow."

It appeared the client prospect was taken in by the fact that this senior executive could actually rattle off the names of these top-tier outlets and journalists. Me? I was tempted to walk over and ask the guy if he even knew who Hilary Kun was -- Jon Stewart's supervising producer. I refrained.

I felt a little sorry for the filmmakers who were clearly new to the process of retaining a PR firm. They were being won over by a most hyperbolic pitch. You heard of "Too Big to Fail?" Well, this was "Too Big Not to Fail."

"We do social too," the exec boasted. "Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin...we do them all."

Hmmm. No Google+? At this, I finally deduced the name of the agency and decided to check the activity of its Twitter stream. Its followers numbered in the hundreds with an equal number of those being followed.

The senior exec finally acknowledged his female colleague who sat demurely opposite him throughout the pitch. "She's the best in the business," he crowed, but offered little room for her to demonstrate this assertion. The meeting was winding down. Money was discussed.

"It'll be $40,000 for four months, " the agency exec explained.

"We're entering the holidays. Does the engagement start right away?" the filmaker asked.

"No. We'll use the next few weeks to draft materials and build a media list, then start in January."

Hands shakes all around. The agency woman finally had a chance to talk, but it was about her three children, including a newborn. They said their goodbyes. The filmmakers hung in. They were staying at the hotel.

In retrospect, maybe the firm did have the mojo to deliver on the promise. I guess we'll just have to come back to the hotel's lounge in April for the post-mortem.

Thank You Lowes

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TIME magazine, The New Yorker, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, The New York Times ABC News... A PR home run? Hardly. These are just a handful of the bigger-branded media outlets that weighed in on TLC's new reality show "All-American Muslim." Would they have done so had home improvement retailer Lowe's not bowed to pressure from some wacky misinformed group in the wacky misinformed state of Florida? Unlikely.

You know the story. An inherently racist organization called the Florida Family Association took issue with a TLC reality series produced by the same evil geniuses who brought us the high-minded "Real Housewives" juggernaut. "All-American Muslim" gives the nation a counter-intuitive look into the humdrum lives of five families of Muslim descent living in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with the nation's largest percentage of Muslim Americans, but also the home to that most American of companies - The Ford Motor Company.



Of course, it wasn't Lowe's intent to thrust its brand and this issue into the national public spotlight.



Here's how Lowes' spokesperson Chris Ahearn explained management's decision:

"Our decision was not political. It was not social in any way! We just knew that it was a controversial program, and we wanted to reach consumers, and a controversial program is not a place to do that."

Yes and no, Chris. Ironically, you reached more consumers with your company's knee-jerk reaction to some Florida whack-jobs than you would have it you left well-enough alone. In fact, had the FFA taken the same tack as that other intolerant similar pleasant-sounding group Focus on Family, and decided to specifically target the show's national advertisers, you probably would not be as much an object of all those hateful FB posts and this TIME Magazine headline:

"All-American Muslim Meets an Un-American Advertising Pullout"

Lowes' controlled and reasonable-sounding Facebook fan page post still doesn't change the underlying decision to capitulate rather than stand up for tolerance and the American ideal. (Are you listening, Mr President?) Ben Popken just observed a change in Lowes' FB page commenting rules.

"It appears that we managed to step into a hotly contested debate with strong views from virtually every angle and perspective – social, political and otherwise – and we’ve managed to make some people very unhappy. We are sincerely sorry. We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, across our workforce and our customers, and we’re proud of that longstanding commitment. Lowe’s has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views.

As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance. We strongly support and respect the right of our customers, the community at large, and our employees to have different views. If we have made anyone question that commitment, we apologize. Thank you for allowing us to further explain our position."

In thinking this one through, clearly the PR people didn't this this one through. They didn't anticipate the public outcry that the decision to pull the spots would produce. Personally, I think it's better to assertively side with the angels and take a stand, than to mount a lame attempt to avoid controversy.

I bet Lowes' do-it-yourself customers might even appreciate resolve than cowing down to the lunatic fringe.  Ironically, the advertising avails for "All-American Muslim" are now sold out and the subject of intolerance in America is now on everyone's lips. Thank you, Lowes.

Social Media on Steroids [Video]

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Some of this blog's followers have commented on how much they've enjoyed the once-regular feature "Your Weekend Viewing," a curated collection of cool and useful videos posted here at week's end. Unfortunately, Flatiron's client obligations and the emergence of another outlet for this blogger's musings have sidetracked the capture and sharing of these video views in recent weeks.

This week, however, one could not avoid the digerati's "Fab Four," and specifically their product launches, platform upgrades and new marketing campaigns that dominated the social media and marketing spheres. Most were accompanied by both company-"owned" video tutorials and influencer-"earned" third-party video reviews.  Here are a few of the more noteworthy:

Twitter

Twitter set Twittersphere's tongues-a-waggin' this week with the private launch of the new new Twitter. This major Twitter re-vamp sort of coincided with the company's intro of brand pages as a means to compete with Facebook and now Google+ brand pages.  I suppose Sheryl Sandberg's quip to marketers about putting "a little Facebook in everything you do" hit home. Here's PC World's look at all three, and earned and owned clips of the new new Twitter.

Google

Not to be outdone, Google went a little launch crazy last week. It put Google Schemer into private beta,  bowed both Google Currents and Google Carousel, and integrated Google+ Circles into GMail users' accounts.  Here's a look at Google Currents for Android and iOS users:



And Google Carousel for image search on tablets:



Facebook

No new videos from the king of all social nets this week, but that doesn't mean Facebook is off the media's radar. (Will it ever be off the media's radar?) Obviously, the conjecture over Facebook's IPO continues to rage,and then there was the schadenfreude over someone posting personal photos hacked from Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook profile.

Nevertheless, I did take an interest in a clip posted this week by the BBC in which a reporter questioning Facebook's VP/Public Policy Elliot Schrage about what happens to those who hit the "Like" button on a branded page, and whether they realize that their endorsement will be displayed like an ad. "It's a profound question, " Schrage ultimately admits:




Apple

Never to be outdone, Friday was the day Apple opened its biggest store yet on the balcony in New York City's landmark commuter hub Grand Central Station. Smartly, the company gave journalists a sneak preview the day before. Here's a short noisy clip from Friday's opening.



Finally, as the holidays get that much closer, that deal paving the way for the original Fab Four to finally join iTunes is looking sweeter and sweeter. Here's Apple's new TV spot featuring Beatles covers, and one of my fave LP's title tracks:

Questions Answered

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Here are the answers to the PR 3.0 Questionnaire:




Rank the following in order of their unique visitors per month:

#1 (72.8M uniques) NYTimes.com
#4 (6M) Gawker.com
#5 (5M) Politico.com
#3 (7.5M) TechCrunch.com
#2 (54M) HuffingtonPost.com

Match the following people with their place of work:

Dennis Crowley - Foursquare
Tina Brown - The Daily Beast
Andrew Mason - Groupon
Pete Cashmore - Mashable
Sheryl Sandberg - Facebook
Larry Page - Google
Vivian Schiller - NBC
Jack Dorsey - Twitter

Describe the following:

Spotify - Cloud-based social music service

GroupMe - A mobile app that lets you easily connect with groups of your friends

Flipboard - A social magazine app for the iPad

GetGlue -A social networking app for entertainment that involves check-ins and ratings

Instagram - Fast, beautiful photo sharing for the iOS.

Tumblr A feature rich and free blog hosting platform

Bit.ly A URL redirection service with real-time link tracking.

BuddyMedia - A social media marketing products company to help brands engage and grow their audiences

Who is Siri?

The voice-activated assistant on Apple's new iPhone 4S


Whose Twitter handles are these?

@Carr2N - David Carr (NYTimes)

@APlusk - Ashton Kutcher

@acarvin - NPR's Andy Carvin

@pkafka - All Things D's Peter Kafka

@benpolitico - Politico's Ben Smith

@Xeni - Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin

@Zee - The Next Web's Zee Kane

@Dens - Foursquare's Dennis Crowley

@Ev - Twitter co-founder Evan Williams

@Finkd - Mark Zuckerberg


What are The Shorty Awards?

The annual event in New York City highlighting Twitter's best short-form content

Where can one find The App Store?

On iTunes

What's the significance of Twitter hashtags?

A way to build community on Twitter around a person, place or thing.


Match the following journalists with their news organizations:

Emily Chang - Bloomberg TV
Andrew Ross Sorkin - The New York Times' DealBook
Bob Garfield - Co-host NPR's "On the Media"
Piers Morgan - Host of his own show on CNN
Kara Swisher - AllThingsD's co-editor
Lara Logan - CBS News correspondent
Henry Blodget - Founder /ed-in-chief BusinessInsider

True or False?

The Huffington Post owns AOL - False
The Atlantic's digital ad revenue is greater than its print ad revenue - True
Fox News Channel is "fair & balanced" - False
Bill Keller has left The New York Times - False
Fairchild Publications is the parent company of W Magazine & WWD - False

Which does IAC NOT own:

The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Match.com, Vimeo, Expedia, Ask.com, Gothamist? - Gothamist
______________

What do the following abbreviations stand for?

SXSW - South by Southwest
API - Application Programming Interface
iOS 5 - Apple's mobile Operating System
RT - Re-Tweet
HTML5 - Hyper-Text Markup Langauge
DM - Direct Message
NYTM - New York Tech Meetup


Complete the following:

President Obama recently made news in social media circles. He joined Google+.

Michael Arrington recently quit TechCrunch to start a venture capital fund.

Lance Ulanoff is the new editor of Mashable.

Frank Rich recently left The New York Times to write for New York Magazine.

Anderson Cooper is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt.

Robert Scoble first made a name for himself blogging for Microsoft under the name Scobleizer.

Keith Olbermann has his own show on Current TV.

What is the standard email nomenclature for journalists at:

The Wall Street Journal: FirstName.LastName@wsj.com

The Associated Press: FirstInital.LastName@ap.org

Conde Nast FirstName_LastName@condenast.com

How many years has CBS "60 Minutes" been on the air?
43 years

What is Mediaite and which ABC News contributor founded it?
News site devoted to media started by Dan Abrams

How does Twitter make money?
Advertising via promoted tweets, promoted trends, promoted accounts (2400 accounts thus far)

Which print magazine has the largest U.S. readership? AARP

When is it OK to pitch a story idea via a Twitter direct message?
It's not.

Having fun yet? YES!

That Exclusive TV Interview

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Several weeks ago, a friend referred a client prospect who was embroiled in a headline-making PR imbroglio. The out-of-work man, who shall remain nameless, filed a lawsuit against a small mom & pop shop for non-delivery of services from more than a decade earlier. To make matters worse, the founder of the shop was a Holocaust survivor, a detail that emerged in a prominent story in the newspaper-of-record.

As many PR pros have come to understand, this colorful, antithetical newspaper piece prompted interest from some salacious segment producers at a couple of network TV magazine shows. The question he had for me: should he agree to do these interviews to try to set the record straight or should he ignore them altogether with the hope the whole mess will go away? More on this below.

The decision to avail oneself for an on-camera interview is a nuanced one. In the last week, we watched as Penn State perv Jerry Sandusky hail-Mary'ed himself for a four-hour, on-camera, on-the-record sit-down with The New York Times. We also witnessed the once down-and-out and now Iowa frontrunner Newt Gingrich sit for a love-fest with the Faux News Channel. And finally, we learned that 82-year-old Barbara Walters snagged a (Hail Allah) interview with Syria's notorious, terrorist-supporting, and tenuous leader Bashar Al-Assad. (I wonder which PR firm facilitated that one?)

Sandusky Talks to The Times

Following the Sandusky-Times interview, we heard an outcry from PR and legal experts about just how fatalistic this unorthodox tack will turn out for Mr. Sandusky. Me, I'm not so sure. The lawyers will invariably err on the side of extreme caution, making the (not unreasonable) argument that whatever is publicly shared can (and will) be used in the court case.

I believe, however, that if the newsmaker is well-prepared, assertive and articulate, with supporting facts as back-up, a high-profile interview can produce a net-positive result in the court of public opinion, and perhaps with prospective jurors. Sandusky's mistake was that he didn't appear to have been adequately prepared, nor have credible answers to quell his accusers. He also could have applied some leverage by insisting that the final footage be posted unedited.

Most significantly, if the media world was Sandusky's oyster, why did he opt for a tough Bob Costas followed by four hours with The New York Times? Where's Larry King when you really need him?

Gingrich on his Fave Network

Separately veteran media manipulator Newt Gingrich also carries his share of negative baggage. I mean which is worse: frolicking in the shower with a young boy or frolicking with another woman while your wife lay dying? At least Newt's handlers had the wisdom to have him chat it up with his friends at Fox, or was it Fox & Friends? The segment was a home run for the ethically challenged and disgraced former Speaker of the House.

Bashar Gets Celeb Treatment

As for the beleaguered Syrian president -- who had the choice of virtually any U.S. journalist with which to espouse his POV -- Mr. Assad chose ABC News veteran Barbara Walters who, in recent years, has put her share of A-list Hollywood celebrities on the hot seat during her highly rated pre-Oscar specials.

Nuf said here.

Now back to that litigious client prospect being chased by the TV magazine shows. I had two thoughts: The first was to have him lay low and ignore the media requests. The 24/7 news cycle will soon dissipate any interest in his story. The second idea, which I'm kinda liking better, is to have him agree to all the interviews (and more)....but for a counter-intuitive reason.

He should forgo trying to mount a successful public defense of his position on television. The segment already is written in stone, and the questions he'll be asked -- every which way but up -- will only serve to support the predetermined story premise. RATHER, he should take/milk the interview for what it's worth because in this cockamamie media culture, notoriety can breed opportunity. In other words, he's got little to lose and much to gain. (BTW - I turned down the assignment.)

Business Insider Ignites New York

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NYC's Time Warner Center

In compiling the questions for this week's much-shared "PR 3.0 Questionnaire," I did some research to see where various blogs and news sites ranked by unique monthly visitors in relation to one another. I hadn't done this exercise in a while, but pretty much assumed that Boing Boing no longer topped the list as it had for years as blogging grew its sea legs.

BB remains a most respectable #15 of the list with its 3.5M uniques. That might change after a brave (and nervous) Xeni Jardin took her 50K Twitter followers through the exam and results of her mammogram this week.

What surprised me about the blog analysis was just how far one of my fave sites has climbed into the top tier of blogdom with its 12M+ monthly uniques. The Business Insider not only blew past TechCrunch, but also left PerezHilton, Gawker, Engadget, Mashable and other big-branded blogs en route to its boffo #3 slot behind only Huffington Post and TMZ.

(Would one even consider Business Insider, HuffPost and TMZ "blogs." Aren't they really just shorter form and dynamic news/opinion sites? We'll look at that question another day.)

Mark Cuban

Business Insider's ascendant influence, its business acumen, and cool New York sensibility, is no doubt giving AllThingsD a run for its money when it comes to talent acquisition in the conference game. While nothing will ever compare to Walt Mossberg chatting up Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together at the D5 conference in 2007, Business Insider's Ignition 2011 conference this week at the Time Warner Center certainly drew more than its share of media and tech luminaries.

Glenn Beck Ignites (credit: BI's Matthew Lynley)

Among the digerati were Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg (who joined Mayor Mike the next day at FB's NY offices to announce an engineering office in the Big Apple and lots of new jobs), Twitter's chief revenue officer Adam Bain, Gilt Groupe founder/CEO Kevin Ryan; NBC and News Corp's digital chiefs Schiller and Miller, respectively, Pandora's Joe Kennedy, Federated Media's John Battelle, the always quotable Mark Cuban, the notorious Glenn Beck, Hulu's Jason Kilar, Google's Developer Advocate Donald Dodge,  Eric Hippeau, Glam.com's Samir Arora, SecondMarket's Barry Silbert, PiperJaffray's Gene Munster, Kleiner Perkins' Aileen Lee, and the list goes on.

Business Insider founder/ed-in-chief Henry Blodget

Business Insider founder and editor-in-chief Henry Blodget served as a most competent impresario for which he deftly tackled moderating duties with the most luminous of the luminaries: Sandberg, Miller & Schiller, Battelle, Kennedy.

His grounding in tech equity research and more recent embrace of the evolving media and mobile content worlds served him and the audience well - thankfully, since the event format didn't allow for questions from the floor.

My client commitments prevented me from attending all the presentations, but the several that I did were well worth it.  The first day opened up with Blodget giving a topline on the changed media landscape. Some notable quotables included:

"...the future of media is already here...all the power has shifted to digital...content is distantly less important than distribution"

"Where's the digital growth going forward: social, video, display, ecommerce (daily deals), mobile."

Twitter's chief revenue officer Adam Bain

Next up was Twitter's chief revenue officer Adam Bain who took a shot at answering the #NYTM-banned question: how're you gonna make money? First the metrics:

"Twitter has 100M users/month, 50M log-ins/daily, 2400 advertisers, a renewal ad rate of 80%, and a conversion rate for promoted tweets of 3-5%..."

So there! He then got a bit more granular, as if Twitter weren't granular enough:

"...50% of our usage is through mobile...we have an incredible connectivity with TV biz."

"The ad sales team is already built to sell...promoted tweets, promoted trends, promoted accounts"

As for metrics to measure user engagement, Bain said:

"Retweeting and favoriting messages are signs of engagement...and again, we have a 3-5% response rate..."

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster

I didn't really think I'd care much about what PiperJaffray's Gene Munster had to say -- that is, until he started talking. Munster follows Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), among other things in TMT, and as such, he's consumed with all things emanating from Cupertino, CA.

He kicked it off by asking the audience how many owned at least one Apple device. Two? Three?  It was clear he was speaking to an audience of the Apple-converted. There wasn't a lowered hand in the bunch. Here are some Munster snippets and the audio of his preso (ends at 19:37):

"Apple is a very secretive company. In fact they [intentionally] give us misinformation."

"Apple's international blueprint for expansion: lead with the iPhone, follow with a retail presence, enhance with apps."

"We have confirmation of an iPad3 in March 2012, iPhone 5 in August 2012 and iOS 6 in 2013."

"Don't buy a TV right now. Wait until the 2012 holidays when Apple enters the TV market in a big way. In fact, we think SONY will eventually get blocked out of the living room by Apple."

"We're bullish on Apple's sales figures for December...more iPads were sold on Black Friday than the Street was led to believe."

Photo: Michael Seto

The morning continued with Flipboard's editorial director Josh Quittner opining on the issue of to pay or not to pay for content and the staying power of Apple's iOS:

"I'll pay for NYTimes.com, HBO, my Internet service provider (Time-Warner), but not much more."

"We love iOS. It's a phenomenal platform that has some much life left in it, but it is a three-way race between Google, Amazon and Apple."

Some other bites from the first day of Ignition 2011:

Glam.com's Founder & CEO Samir Aora:

"100% of Glam's revenue is from premium advertising...we have 4000 writers in 'the long tail'...Glam is the outside Facebook social media web. The click? It's already changed. We have the data that's not click-based."

Buzzfeed's Jonah Peretti on "how you make something go viral."

"The biggest factor for virality is the network, i.e., the right network at the right time with the right idea."

 BI's Blodget, NBC's Schiller, NWS's Miller (l. to r.) 

Here's an abridged audio clip of Jonah's preso that ends at 16:15.

NBC's Digital Chief Vivian Schiller

"The TV industry has been behind other mediums in terms of embracing digital."

News Corp's Digital Chief Jon Miller regarding the newly announced YouTube network and video at The Journal:

"You move where the market's moving...we're training all WSJ reporters to file video reports."

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

Here's some abridged audio (ends at 15:23)

The second day of the conference opened up with a tete a tete between Henry Blodget and Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg that concluded with Blodget nudging her to run for the U.S. Presidency -- a suggestion to which this particular audience did not object.

Here's the full audio of the interview (RT: 60 mins +/)


And some of the bites:

"What I saw FB doing: technology powering us as real people."

"What Mark [Zuckerberg] did first at scale was creating 'privacy you can control'...We really do take this [privacy] incredibly seriously."

"What Mark worries about the most is a lack of change and lack of innovation...the innovators dilemma...the most important thing Mark & I focus on is how to stay innovating, i.e. keeping teams small."

"Everything is better if it's social (w/friends)...Wisdom of friends is better than wisdom of crowds...Facebook is as interesting as what your friends do and share"

"Our business strategy is distinguished from most other players...we are a very deep partnership company."

"Our product strategy is as different from Google's as two companies can get...we're much more integrated."

"We have 35 million people updating their status (check-ins) every single day."

"I don't want to speculate about a Facebook phone...our strategy really is to be a social (horizontal) layer to work on every device."

Re: Google's ramp-up versus Facebook's: "It's not about mapping to any one trajectory. It's about building user base and engagement."

Re: Google+ "Imitation is highest form of flattery and Google+ is flattering."

"I don't think Google is evil. We care a lot that Android stays true to its promise of being open."

Blodget w/ Federated Media's John Battelle

The last full session I attended featured Mr. Blodget and Federated Media's founder and search/web/media/technology  visionary John Battelle, who ironically, played a similar role journalistically during the dot-com era (as editor of The Industry Standard) that Blodget seems to be enjoying now as Business Insider's chief.

Here's the audio (RT: 21:33) and some notable quotes:

"Federated Media powers 'the independent web,' including all of WordPress. We have a reach of 200MM uniques."

"The quality of a site's content and where it resides 'matters deeply' in terms of advertiser engagement."

"I believe the independent web is a multi-billion dollar space...equal to or larger than the portals."

"I don't believe all brands should put their tap-roots into Facebook, though they should play there."

"Five 'horseman' that have a play in the 'operating system of our lives:' Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple....all of which will pivot 3 or 4 times over the next decade."

My only regrets: missing Mark Cuban speak and paidContent founder Rafat Ali sticking it to Glenn Beck. Here's how Rafat described the moment.


Photos: Peter Himler with a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Audio: Olympus DS2 digital audio recorder