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Oh, how long the path can be.
This note is a quick congratulations to Emile Cambry Jr. and the crew at Chicago start up, Soceeo. Soceeo enables anyone to create their own social network, free of charge. I'm still playing around with the site and understanding its concept, along with how it compares to Ning and others. It's a system that's easy enough for your grandmother to use, which is a perk I like.
Good luck guys! Today was Emile's official first day as an full time entrepreneur.
I paid a visit to new Chicago start-up, crowdSPRING last week. I met their community manager, Angeline, through Twitter and wanted to get to know the crew a bit better. After all, we start-ups in town like to know who's new on the scene and how we can help them out.
crowdSPRING's idea is simple: post a logo/design need of any sort and name your price. Creatives from around the world bid on the job by submitting their ideas. You provide feedback, collaborate, etc. and pick the winner. Pete, the team's Director of Marketing, mentioned that many of their designers have other full time jobs and the crowdSPRING model lets them compete on a global scale.
I talked to a few local designers about the model and some are fans, while others don't think it enables them to present their full portfolios to would-be clients. I can respect both sides on this one, but as a start-up I like the idea of naming my price and having the globe compete for my business. Author's note: I used local professional designers for my CondoPerks, Gals' Guide, Bsolutions and Chicago Tech Report logos:).
Here are the video interviews I shot at crowdSPRING's temporary offices on W. Lake Street. Highlights: meet the co-founders, the head of marketing, the team's community manager and get some VC tips.
UPDATE: The Yelp folks sent some points of clarification to this post, see below. Also, I've received some comments/concerns about 'drinking the Yelp Kool-Aid'. That's what comments are for folks. I write what I hear. If there are pieces of the story I'm missing, comment away...
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The Communications Director of Yelp, Stephanie, reached out to CTR to meet, chat and fill me in on Yelp, developments, etc. With recent questions I received from the local Yelp user base, I took her up on her offer. Yelp's Chicago manager, Andrea, also joined us.
We met up at Tempo and thanks to your questions, I had topics to discuss right away. The first question many of you had: 'It seems that Yelp's marketing blurs with user generated content. Are companies stacking the reviews?' The Yelp team reminded me that yes, advertisers can buy terms, similar to the Google Adwords model,and appear on top of search results.[ From Yelp: Qualified Yelp businesses can advertise with Yelp and part of that includes impressions in our search results based on category (not keywords) Here's a little more info on our sponsorship program."]
For example, I just typed in 'pizza' and got an orange shaded sponsored ad for Aurelio's Pizza. The word 'sponsored' is clear.
(video, what I can make of it, will be coming soon)
At 6:15, a line formed down Clark Street. The DIGG fans were out in full force and patiently waited to get in to see Kevin, Jay and the rest of the DIGG crew. I had the pleasure of having lunch with DIGG's marketing manager earlier in the day. By the time I got to the basement of SmartBar, I was thankful for the 'quality' time the two of us spent at lunch. Aubrey is one of those women that I could talk to all day long. A fellow Midwesterner, her dot com path took her to Google, Ask.com and DIGG.
I don't know who chose this particular meetup locale, but confused faces began to form as soon as we got into the space. SmartBar is typically a dark place. I think some DIGG folks requested a few lights to be turned on, which helped a bit. It was still difficult to see people, however, moving to another room made conversation and keeping track of friends easier.
pictured, Leah Jones, Aubrey Sabala, me
I headed over to my local South Loop Panera to meet TimeOut Chicago's Web Editor, Scott. It's always good to meet up with other local web/tech/start-up types, but even better to ask a few choice questions and get a sense of how they 'tick'.
With quite a bit of activity happening in the world of entertainment reporting, events lists, etc, I always wondered, 'Does everyone get along'? According to Scott, yes. Do I believe him? Yep, I do. Here's why.
In Chicago, competition will always be around - when it comes to companies. I've been in the space for years and ran into a bevy of ideas, people, etc. that competed with the given brand I was working on, but at the end of the day, I'd gladly meet them for a brewski. There is a unique spirit to Chicago that separates the person from the company. We're known to be one of the largest small towns in the country - and we pride ourselves with this distinction. If you are a new start-up, agency, or media whiz, you best get to know your neighbors. It's not about a secret 'group' or class of people. It's about knowing your business neighbor and being aware of who's around. It's also about taking the time to get to know these people, understand what they do and see what they are about.
It's one thing to get the scoop, but it's another thing to ignore your peers. For all you Chicagoland media planners, buyers, and sales people, I'm sure you'd agree.
Thanks for meeting up, Scott!
For those folks that want to add another get together to your social tech/web calendar, here you go...
ad:tech's upcoming Chicago conference will be taking place on August 5-6 at Navy Pier. By the way, if you are a CIMA member, you get a 30% discount to the conference by entering the code 30CHC3.
The ad:tech crew is putting on the opening night' party at Enclave.
Here are the details:
Enjoy music, an open bar and hors d'oeuvres from 8pm - 11pm. Cash bar from 11pm - closing.
Bring your ad:tech badge for entry.
Expo hall pass is free when you register before August 5.
What a fun night. The annual CIMA White Sox Fan Deck bash took place last night and we had a few extra tickets. I decided to send a Tweet to the folks that my follow me and bam, within 15 minutes, I had four new guests to join us! Pictured are @sachinag @LenKendall @lkr and @joipodgorny.
This whole experience made me think more and more about Twitter and how powerful it can be. For example, I've seen Joi at events and online, but she and I never spoke in person. After last night's random outing, we have a slew of projects to share and brainstorm.
For those agencies in Chicagoland that think Twitter is 'just a fluke', think twice. Your clients may not need to use Twitter, but at the same time, you may want to dabble in its inner workings.
For more pictures from last night's event, you can visit the CIMA Facebook Group.
I attended last night's CIMA White Sox Fan Deck bash and ran into a series of industry friends. Leave it to us to be at a ball game and talk about search engine marketing as if it was on sale at Nordstrom...
Someone mentioned the firm, ReachLocal, doesn't provide drill down reports for its clients. Hmm. I didn't understand, so I kept prodding. Apparently, ReachLocal doesn't even provide its clients with drill down reports from, say, Google's AdWords reporting. Clients receive the total amount of clicks, but the clicks aren't drilled down by keyword.
Really? Seriously? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of knowing what terms actually work?
From what I gathered, there is a limited amount of information they provide their clients - and that information doesn't include URL sources.
If someone from ReachLocal can reach out to CTR and put these rumors to rest, it may be in your best interest.
