So when I saw the amazing and impressive Guy Kawasaki on Twitter talking about the L.A. Times asking Alltop for its own page there, I knew I had to seek out an interview. I sent him a direct message on Twitter and he responded quickly with his email address. He sets an amazing example, by being a total weblebrity (he only has, oh, almost 70,000 followers on Twitter alone) and yet being completely accessible. Others who social network should follow his example (I certainly do). I emailed him questions, and thought it was interesting he has the same concerns I do about the fate of investigative journalism (and the need to keep it alive).

Guy Kawasaki is arguably one of the most impressive and innovative players in Web 2.0, business and technology. He is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Here is the interview:

Question: What prompted the idea of having newspaper-specific Alltop pages?

ANSWER: It was a late night email session with the folks at the Los Angeles Times
who are such big supporters of Alltop. I thought to myself: How can I really
show them some Alltop love and came up with the idea of creating an Alltop
page just for them.

Question: Did newspapers approach Alltop to ask for this, or did you approach newspapers?

ANSWER: Once we did LAtimes.alltop and saw the positive reaction, it was natural to
continue down the path of doing NYtimes.alltop, Washingtonpost.alltop, and
USAToday.alltop. Several more newspapers have expressed interest, and we’ll
do them too.

Question: Are there plans to add more newspapers to Alltop or a main Alltop newspapers-only page (distinct from the news page you currently have)? Can you say which newspapers we might see added soon?

ANSWER: If asked, we’ll do more. Our goal is WWDOR (“widower” worldwide domination
of RSS), so we want to cover all the topics eventually. I would love to do
more foreign newspapers and media sites. I tried to find multiple feeds for
Al Jazeera but could only fine one general feed.

Question: Have you encountered newspapers that are opposed to having an Alltop page or being in an Alltop feed?

ANSWER: Not yet. Frankly, I doubt that the New York Times and Washington Post even
know that we exist. Theoretically, we bring more traffic to them–at least
that’s the way we look at it.

Question: How do you think the way readers are consuming news is different now than it was just a few years ago?

ANSWER: Yes, for sure. An analogy is that many people are eliminating landlines and
just having cell phones. It used to be that when you moved into a new place,
you got a landline and newspaper subscription. Both are no longer so true.

Question: Where and how do you get your news?

ANSWER: It shouldn’t surprise you, but various Alltop sites, Twitter, and several
email-alert subscriptions.

Question: What do you see as the future of newspapers if they are to survive? Will the print newspaper become extinct?

ANSWER: Good question. I think that foundations should start online newspapers to
foster hardcore, investigative journalism. Imagine if the MacArthur
Foundation created the MacArthur magazine made up of all the Pulitzer-prize
winners who got laid off from magazines.

My greatest fear with the challenges that newspapers face is the lack of
lengthy, rigorous investigative reporting. I doubt that the next
Woodward and Bernstein will be Twitter users: “OMG, R. Nixon’s flunkies
broke into Wtrgte Htl.” Somebody has to pay for this kind of reporting, and
if the public won’t, I hope foundations do.

_{Photo of Guy Kawasaki by Bryn Colton.}

So needless to say, I was thrilled when she asked to interview me for TravelingMamas.com (which, if you haven’t checked out yet, you definitely should.. the four traveling mamas there know their stuff!).

Here is an excerpt of the interview:

One pleasant consequence of being a travel writer deep into Web 2.0 and new media, is the interesting people I “meet” along the way: These are the fellow writers and technophiles with whom I have extended online relationships, but only occasionally meet. One of my longer online professional relationships is with Kelby Carr.

Read the rest of the interview…

The most common questions I get about social networking, the most frequent dilemmas I hear about, and the most prominent social media mistakes I see are all tied to someone (or a company) with a resistance to these worlds colliding.

People get on Facebook, and they get confused about whether they should friend old high school buddies or business associates. They sign up for Twitter to promote a business, then use their company logo as their avatar and wonder why they get no followers.

Here’s the thing. Even if you want the worlds separate, there is no 100 percent guarantee. You should proceed with the assumption that everyone can see and read everything you do on social networks. Period. Use appropriate caution in what you say and post.

So, once you move past that, just think about it all in real world terms. You don’t go to business meetings and refuse to mention you have a wife or kids. Most of us don’t visit family and zip your lips about what you do for a living. Social networking isn’t much different than real-life networking. It’s no secret, either. Entrepreneurs back in the 1950s knew customers like the personal touch.

Think of some of today’s biggest movers and shakers in the social web, such as Guy Kawasaki, Liz Strauss and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. There is one common characteristic. They engage people on a personal level, and they are people first and foremost.

So here is a checklist of five key points to be sure you have made your peace with those business and personal worlds colliding:

1. Have a face – If you are socializing, you do that as a person. You can represent a company, but you are a person first. No one wants to talk to a logo.
2. Talk about your personal life – No, you don’t need to tweet every moment of angst and embarassment, but small hints that you are human are a nice touch.
3. Mingle first – If you join a social network, take some time to feel it out. Don’t just jump in and start bugging people to Digg your site.
4. Ge a giver – Don’t just be there to self-promote or, frankly, it will backfire. Whatever social network you use, be sure you enter it first contributing to the community, not taking. Ask how you can help your followers or friends.
5. Enjoy the colliding worlds – You will probably discover you have business associates who share much in common with you personally, and old high school buddies who would make wonderful customers or clients. Because, you know, people do work and customers are people. Plus, like-minded people tend to have similar interests.

Social networking illustration © Rodolfo Clix.

Part of the hang up for many higher-ups, I think, is fear of change. Another part of it is the desire to track ROI on marketing down to hard numbers, and social web campaigns don’t work like that. It’s a bit like asking to measure water cooler conversations.

Mostly, it’s a fear of surrending control of the marketing message to the online community. But guess what, people, they are already running it. You don’t think so? Search for your company name in Google and just see what you see. Mmm-hmm.

The Moms Panel is not even a year old yet, but the call for applicants alone attracted about 10,000 inquiries. Yes, Ten Thousand. So many that they created a private site, the Mickey Moms Club, just for the many moms who didn’t make the cut (they only selected a dozen for the Moms Panel). They are right now in the midst of going over the thousands of applications for the 2009 Moms Panel members.

Just think of this: the power of connecting with thousands of your enthusiastic fans, many of whom already are active online, and some of whom are bloggers and influencers. Just pause and reflect for a moment.

Yesterday, I chatted with Disney World Social Media Director Leanne Jakubowski about the Disney World Moms Panel. It was interesting to learn about how it all began, and how amazingly and wildly successful it has been in helping them find real mom Disney World evangalists. Also, I’d like to note, every major (and some minor) company should have a social media position on their roster. Just sayin’. It isn’t the 1990s anymore.

“It’s been a huge success,” Jakubowski said. This year, for example, they have upped the panel to 16 members. They were forced to do that to handle the high number of questions web site visitors asked.

When the idea first emerged, however, she said there were naysayers. In fact, even proponents were surprised at the impressive response.

“At the start, we were like shooting darts at the wall. We had no idea what the response would be. We thought if we got 100, we’d be doing good,” she recalled. Not only did they get around 10,000 applicants, but these were people who took the time to complete essays to apply. “These were very passionate people. These people were pouring out their hearts and souls.”

Their response in creating a social network just for the moms who didn’t make the cut is pretty impressive. I think many companies would have missed that catch. “We were going to tell 9,999 moms they didn’t make it. We quickly got together as a team here and worked with our internet folks and an outside consultant. We reached out to the moms and we formed the Mickey Moms Club.”

Kudos to Disney World for getting it! And if you have any questions about visiting Disney World, ask the Moms Panel.

I’m also thinking about going to Disney World in December to write about spending the holidays there. What do you think? It is an insanely busy time of year for a mom, but I keep thinking about the cool events happening there that I wrote about here. The kids would certainly enjoy checking those out, and it seems like I’d get loads of travel writing material. I was even thinking it could be fun to live blog and live microblog the Disney World trip, post twitpics, post qik videos, generally do something like Apryl did at Type-A Mom last weekend while on a press trip in Destin.

So do you think I should go? I would probably do it early December so readers/followers would have time to plan their own trip, too. Would you follow live blogging about it? I’d love your feedback while I mull the idea over.

_{Photo of the 2008 Disneyworld Moms Panel, courtesy of Disney World.}

Even today, it provides a great resource for moms seeking advice from real moms. It provides a central social network profile where moms can link to their web sites, blogs, and other social networking profiles. There is also a free mom directory for mom blogs, mom owned businesses, and so on.

I also hope other user-generated content web sites will see the model of revenue sharing and copy it!

It also has me thinking I might start a Type-A Mom show on Ustream. I see it as yet another opportunity to help moms promote themselves and to provide tips and advice to moms. What do you think? Would you watch a Type-A Mom web TV show?

Enough about me, here’s a video about me. And thanks so much to Aronado and Dennis of Lucky Startups. And kudos to them as well for creating an outlet for startups to get exposure. Be sure to contact them if you have a startup and what to be a guest on their show.

You may be wondering what blog kharma even is. Blog kharma is doing the right thing just because you are part of a community, and you want to help others. Be a generous blogger. Here is how you get good blog kharma:

• Link to other blogs.
• Don’t just link to other blogs that have a high PageRank and are wildly popular. Link to the little blogs, the ones just starting out. You were there once, too (and maybe still are). Help a blogga out, sisters and brothers!
• Promote other bloggers’ stuff. Stumble (recommend, review or or thumbs-up a post at StumbleUpon), post it on Twitter, Digg it, Propeller it, Kirtsy it, momShare it, you name it. When you see something good, spread the word. You help the blogger, and you help other readers
• When bloggers ask for promotion (such as on a social network, or by sending you a message through StumbleUpon), provide it. You don’t want to be taken advantage of, but if someone is reasonable and only asks for a little help from time to time, then give it!
• Have a blogroll, or a weekly link love post, or some place where you regularly give mention and exposure to other bloggers.
• Comment on blogs to keep conversations lively and active. Don’t comment just to promote yourself (although most do let you make your name linkable to your site).
• If you use WordPress, use a plugin like CommentLuv to allow those who comment on YOUR site to get an extra boost of exposure.

On the other hand, I frequently see sites and blogs that have serious bad blog kharma. You have bad blog kharma if you have committed any of the following:

• Mentioned a site but didn’t highlight the name of the site and link to it.
• Held back from linking to other blogs or sites because you were afraid you would leak some of your Google PageRank, send someone away from your site, or because you’re afraid you’ll boost their search engine rankings and not your own, or for some other blog-selfish reason.
• Used nofollow for your blogroll or links inside posts. I don’t believe in nofollow. If it’s worth linking to, it’s worth getting the credit with Google. Also, many bloggers don’t know about nofollow. So it’s disingenuous. They think you are helping them, but you really aren’t. Don’t know what nofollow is, or want to know how you can spot a nofollower? Comment below. If there is enough interest, I will do a post just on the subject of nofollow.
• Not linking at all.
• Not commenting at all.
• Only commenting on other blogs to promote yourself or insert a link to your blog or post. You should talk WITH the blog community, not AT it.

Before you even get all commenting and ranting below, I will address this right here and now: Yes, I know there are reasons for doing the stuff on my bad kharma list. If there weren’t reasons, people wouldn’t do those things. I’m talking about something else, being generous, and being a giver not a taker in the Blog Community.

In the old days, a web site was a self-contained entity, an island unto itself. This is the world of Web 2.0. This is a community people, no different than the one in which you physically live. Be a good citizen. And here is a hint. Good blog kharma does pay off. So you are even being selfish by giving.

_{Image of connecting figurines, copyright spekulator on stock.xchng.}

It started in a pretty simple way. Jessica, aka @JessicaKnows, posted this tweet:

looking for next new opportunity. Anyone need a marketer/biz dev?

She really didn’t expect it to lead to much, but she actually heard from a handful of Twitter members with potential opportunities. The one that sparked the most interest came from Max Ciccotosto, CEO of Wishpot, using the Twitter name @wishpot:

Hi Jessica! We’d love for you to help us at Wishpot! We have some new things coming for moms\babies and looking for bizdev\marketing help.

Simple as that. It didn’t happen like magic. She still went through all of the normal steps: sent in her resume, did interviews (by phone, since she’s on the East Coast, Wishpot is on the West). And then she got the job. With the coolest job title ever (for a mom anyway). Jessica is now the Chief Mom Officer for Wishpot, a social network for shoppers.

As her first task, she assisted Wishpot in the launch of Wishpot Baby, and she recruited several Baby Experts (hey, I’m one!) for the launch. Many of the faces are ones I recognize from Twitter and other social networks.

There are a couple reasons why this story is so interesting. The first is the way she found the job. Her new boss said he didn’t even consider using traditional methods to find the company’s new Chief Mom Officer.

We don’t think a traditional mode would work for these type of positions. We did not want a traditional “I have done marketing.” We were watching the conversations to see if there was something interesting that we saw. We of course ended up getting the best possible hire we could have ever hoped for!

He also thinks the Chief Mom Officer position is a valuable one, and many companies should consider it (and I have to agree, especially since that mom demo is so desired right now and marketers are struggling with outreach).

I think that it’s invaluable to have a great passionate insider in the markets that are being targeted. If a company is targeting moms than I’d definitely recommend getting their own Chief Mom Officer …

The best part is that Jessica has flexibility in her schedule, making the job remote, enjoyable, and family-friendly. Max said the telecommuting component is a no-brainer. I would have to agree (and you would see how much I rant on this subject at my Mother’s Day Wish post). As Max put it so nicely:

In terms of logistics we were never concerned. Nowadays is just to easy to work remotely. The tools are there, the flexibility is there. It’s just matter of both being committed to make it work.

Jessica really said it all when she said this of her new position:

I really hope this helps to get other Moms hired as CMOs

Me too. Or helps companies get it (both for getting actual moms to reach moms, and for letting people work from home). Or helps other moms find their dream jobs, be that at home or in an office.

Why is he back? His reason:

Too many people I do business with are also on Twitter. Being off it was impossible. My bad.

So this just shows how integral social networking has become. Even if it levels off a little, it is here to stay. This is how many of us communicate now.

Here’s why:

• Something new happens. Everyone thinks it’s cool. Reports say you simply MUST be doing it. So people and companies and organizations jump on board.
• Then they realize something: you need to actually socialize to do social networking. So it’s manpower intensive if you’re an organization, and it’s a time-sucker if you’re a human.
• People want to be cool online, and they think they can do that by being friends with everyone. But it’s hard to be in EVERY clique. That’s why cliques exist. So you can focus.
• They try to connect on several levels and several locations, and just can’t stand to spend another minute socializing.

So here’s what I expect to happen next. Companies who were nervous about dabbling in this realm to begin with will see this emerging trend as a sign they were right all along, and this whole social web/Web 2.0 thing was just a passing fad.

They will be wrong.

What will happen is that social networking will settle in. People will find their social niches and favorite sites, and they will ignore the other “cliques.”

Then some of the big guys will level off on traffic, slow down or be bought out by other sites. The smaller, niche social networks will become even more popular.

People will keep socializing because that’s how the web has evolved. How and where they will socialize is what will change.