Tag Archives: Facebook

Heads Up

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I can’t add any more folks to my Facebook friends list. I maxed out at 5,000 friends more than a year ago. Please don’t send emails or messages asking me to add you to my friend’s list. I simply technically cannot do it. Perhaps you can follow me on Twitter? That is a good route.

Also please don’t send me emails on important matters to my Facebook messaging box. I don’t review it that often. I read my email at my personal email address which I don’t circulate publicly but is well known and at WashingtonCaps@aol.com and TheWashWiz@aol.com.

I have just seen some very distraught messages from folks saying they have emailed me at Facebook and I haven’t responded.

I noted that this is not a viable email box for me. I clean it out about every ten days or so. I do not consider this a viable means of communications to me for requests or problem resolution.

I apologize in advance to you all. I can’t keep 4 email boxes going all of the time.

Please understand. I want to do my best but my Facebook box sometimes has 500 unread messages from the world of Facebook members. It is hard to manage. It is overwhelming at times.

Thank you.

Whoa!!!!!!!!

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This is getting way out of hand.

I encourage our players to be interactive and to be transparent. I want them to be on Facebook or to Tweet away. To respond to emails; to be out and about; to sign all autographs; and to be approachable.

Thirteen years ago, I gave all of our players’ laptops and email addresses to jump start the effort. It was the first time in professional sports that happened.

Just so you know, I blog every day and I am on Facebook and Twitter. All of our players are as well. It is generational.What I did say in an interview was that while most people like interactivity, some fans have told me they don’t like seeing some players’ Tweets or posting personal photos and that seeing behind the curtain sometimes makes a fan lose some respect for the player.

Interactivity can cut both ways.

I hope this provides some perspective and context here as this is the third article I have read that makes it sound like I don’t encourage our players to be online and in social networks. Thank you.

Embed or Retweet and We Give $1 to a Worthy Cause

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Memorial Day is a-coming.

A time to show gratitude and a time of reflection.

We want to help. You want to help.

We have made it easy.

Watch a film and share it; embed it; put it onto Facebook; post to Twitter; and we will give $1 to this great cause.

Info is within. SnagFilms has created a great library of films in support of our military and we want to raise money for a great cause.

Thank you for your help here.

I Remember Fondly

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I still use AIM. Do you? See this article.

I have some fun once in a while on AIM Fight.

I sure wish AIM Pages had worked.

Twitter feels like AIM status messaging to me introduced in 1996.

AIM was the first online product to dazzle and delight people.

AIM was fun. Light. Easy to use.

It worked. It scaled.

At its height, 14 million people around the world were using it at the same time!

It was an inspiration to many.

The first social network.

The first virally marketed product.

Kudos to the pioneers behind this great product and service from AOL. The good ole days!

Nostalgia is good but I still use AIM. I am proud to say that, too.

Everything Old is New Again

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I saw this article and smiled.

I once did a deal with the nice people from Mars, Inc at AOL and we launched a customized M&Ms promotion in 1998.

You could order your own M&Ms and choose the color and what you wanted to be messaged on the candy. Order it online and have it delivered overnight. “Clicks instead of bricks.” You could then send some candy as gifts to folks on your buddy list. They would be alerted to this nice gesture by you on email.

We had our members’ credit cards on file, more than 35 million of them.

We, too, wanted to get a piece of every transaction.

We, too, were all about social, community, platforms and payments.

After a while, AOL just took folks’ dollars as sponsorship and ad revenues.

Good to see Facebook running this play in the playbook. It is a good one.

Blurring the Lines

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What is a blog vs. a tweet vs. a website vs. a Facebook newsfeed or a Facebook wall posting?

It is all starting to blur, isn’t it?

This is a terrific article on NYTimes.com. Read this one.

It augers well for people who use a service such as TweetDeck where for example my blog posts also get turned into tweets and into Facebook newsfeeds to reach a wide audience of friends and interested parties.

It also hints that blogs that are a part of a great network of other like-minded sites will do well and morph into major media properties and that singular blog sites will struggle as islands with no where to go and servicing a shrinking audience.

ENTJ

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When things are tough I have always found the best course of action is to be an extrovert. To go out and listen and mingle with employees and with customers to see what is happening yourself and to hear from the people that you serve.

In the Myers-Briggs Exam, I am ranked as an ENTJ.

Extrovert – Intuitive – Thoughtful – Judgmental.

Click here to understand Myers-Briggs and also I encourage you all to one day to take this test. I have found it to be most helpful.

The Wizards are struggling. The Capitals aren’t playing up to our collective expectations. Bloggers are blogging like mad. My email box is filled mostly from the same few people with vitriol.

So what do I do?

I go and collect up customers and employees and talk to them. I listen to them.

In the last 48 hours, I have given five speeches to more than 600 people. I have done a video Owner’s Corner to Wizards fans based on questions received on Facebook. I went and shook 500 hands at the Caps season ticket holder party last night. I read and answered most emails. I do blog posts. I talked to sponsors on the phone. I hosted VIP’s and sponsors in our Owner’s Box.

And I feel energized. I am so grateful for your interest and support and for your business and, most importantly, your time.

I preach to never hide when things are tough but remain calm. Be intuitive; be thoughtful; and be judgmental when you have all of the information.

And most of all be an extrovert so that you are collecting information from the people that matter.

Thank you again.

Intersections

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New hot stuff. “New rules and new media.”

Take identity and location.

Add high speed wireless connectivity.

Think real time data.

Add cool new devices like the iPad and smart phones.

Mix in new revenue streams from tens of millions of local merchants. And local advertisers.

Add 2 billion consumers as an audience and let them act as sellers and buyers. Around the globe.

Create easy and cheap currency and payments options.

Mix together. With video which is standing side by side now with communications as killer app. Think utility. Make it fun and viral too.

Create a new economy.

Build value.

Grow new businesses.

Zynga. Twitter. Facebook. Groupon.

Who is next? Are you?

“Twitter Will Get to a Billion Members”

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I agree, it will.

The Internet remains the fastest growing medium ever. More than 2.2 billion people are on the Internet now and the growth is just off the chart outside of the United States. And most of the growth is in handhelds and mobile devices where the screen size is small. Twitter owns this concept of self-publishing and small burst text format that is very relevant to young adults and students. Google will get to a billion users. Facebook will get to a billion users. And Twitter will get to a billion users.

I used to forecast that “who ever gets to a billion users first wins.”

I think these three companies win.