2012: The Year of the Celebrity Reporter

A few weeks ago a colleague asked me if I had any media predictions for the year ahead. 

Here's what I told him:  

Competition will increase over “Celebrity” reporters — Jolie O’Dell goes to VentureBeat. Josh Constine and Sarah Perez to TechCrunch. Robert McMillan to WIRED. Ashlee Vance (an author of one of my favorite books about Silicon Valley) to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Blogs and news outlets are in a feverish race to add reporters that come with their own loyal audience – and personal panache – into their fold. Expect to see more of this in 2012 as competition heats up among the top technology, business and venture news outlets to acquire the same “celebrity” writing talent. It’s not just about the words anymore. 

To be clear, there's always been "famous" journalists. In the tech industry, for ages we've had the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg <<insert bow>>, who's seen as so influential when it comes to consumer electronics that even his assistant is more well-known than most journalists could ever hope to be. Fashion has the incomparable Anna Wintour, which I'm sure I don't need to remind you was made the subject of a major Hollywood blockbuster. And in broadcast, we have people like Katie Couric. She didn't get the CBS gig for nothing, folks, even if it didn't work out forever. By hiring Katie, CBS not only purchased a national brand (Katie), but her large and devoted audience. 

But today's a whole new media fame game. Through social media, reporters are crafting their own unique voices and developing personal audiences outside of the media properties they write for... audiences that will follow them wherever they go. And media properties have taken note. It's simply smarter business to attach themselves to someone already well-known and well-liked who'll bring their fans with them than to start from scratch with a novice reporter. 

With talent no longer judged solely by the output pen but the strength of the brand behind it, any bets on who's going to be the most sought-after reporter in this year?

My money's on TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid, who if you ask me is the total package - he can write, do vids damn well, and yes, is even what some might deem as attractive. 

With the media talent war in full swing, any triple threat like Jason is bound to show up somewhere else soon enough. 

MailChimp: Examining 10 Years of Messaging

A tagline is like a smile from a stranger; it incites three primary questions: 1) is it sincere?; 2) what the hell does it want from me?; and 3) do I want to know more?

Marketers deliberate over them endlessly. There are internal meetings. A/B tests. Executive deliberations.

Knowing all that goes into it, out of curiosity I decided to take a look at how one major consumer web brand has evolved its messaging over the years. I chose MailChimp - everyone's beloved little email marketing tool. To examine its messaging, I spent about an hour or so on the Internet Archive pulling all the site's major taglines over the last 10 years, in this case from July 18, 2001 to July 18, 2011, and recording them in a Google Docs spreadsheet.  

What I found was pretty interesting. Take a gander:  

Do you notice any patterns? Key messaging shifts?

Here are a few of my key takeaways: 

• 2004/2005 - they do away with leading with HTML messaging, instead focus on "do-it-yourselfers." A response to the rise of the DIY/craft culture perhaps? Make Magazine did launch in Jan. 2005 after all... 
• 2006 - introduce the word "fun" into the mix. Newsletters fun? Blasphemy! Here, MailChimp acknowledges one of the primary faults of its competitors, which are all - frankly - boring (one thing MailChimp is decidedly not)
• 2007 - they drop the "do-it-yourselfers" reference, with tagline changing to "You Design. Me Deliver." The fun stays. 
• 2009-2010 - heavy and continually refreshed focus on MailChimp's phenomenally growing user base. Here, they seek to persuade their visitors to sign up through the power of the crowd: "Everyone is using MailChimp. You should, too."
• 2011 - for the first time, social sharing is a key message. They also go back to leading with the "Easy" messaging they used at the very beginning of the company. They do away with the user number dropping. Perhaps they're so confident people know who they are now they don't feel the need to "proove" their legitimacy? 
• General observation - they really simplified their messaging when they started to take off around 2008.  

These are just some very high level observations, but you get the idea. It's an interesting exercise and I would really encourage you to do it on companies of interest you, especially your competitors. 

As MailChimp shows us, an hour of time can give you 10 years of competitive insights. 

The state of media today

Valuing Design & the Airbnb Valuation

I like pretty things. And I like to spend money on pretty things more than those with mere "acceptable" aesthetics.

Fom shoes, to clothes, to furniture...you name it. I invest in design. 

For the most part, my browsing habits mirror my purchasing habits. Show me an ugly site and I'll show you the "back" button. Maybe it's the Generation Y in me, but design is just as important to me than actual functionality. 

This brings me to Airbnb, which as of this week is valued at $1 billion. 

Whispers of another bubble aside, one thing that Airbnb has done over the last few years is design: The site is a treat to look at. The pictures are big. Browsing is intuitive. The colors, vibrant and youthful. I feel physically happy browsing the site. Don't you? And even though I've never actually stayed at a member's house or had anyone stay at mine, I find myself going there just for fun to look at beautiful homes and daydream about traveling abroad (oh Berlin, how I miss you!). 

Would Airbnb be at the valuation it is today if it only had an "okay" design?

I can't say for sure.

After all, sometimes a business's idea and market need is so great that its design doesn't matter (as much) to its success. Craigslist is the poster child for this.

I'd argue though that Airbnb's design and usability have strongly contributed to the astounding number of repeat visits and new member growth the site's experiencing. And both of these have a direct impact on its revenues and therefore astronimical valuation. 

Think of it this way: Craigslist (and its ilk) is like a Northface fleece jacket. You use it because it does its job and that's all you really need it to do. Airbnb, on the other hand, is that tailored wool winter coat that makes you feel not just toasty, but stylish and confident. You'll come back and wear it not only because of the underlying purpose it serves, but because it makes you feel great about yourself. 

Design is another communications channel for businesses. It reflects what you're about and what you value.

Done right, it's one of the biggest PR assets a business has. And that's something Airbnb understands astutely. 

PR Case Study: Where Color Went Wrong

By now, you may have heard of the little app that could(n't), Color. Funded to the tune of $41M pre-launch, co-founded by a prestigious Silicon Valley entprepreneur and already brimming with 27 employees, you'd expect the product to be decent if not extraordinary.

And you'd be wrong. 

Last Thursday, Color launched to the public and announced its insanely large funding round. The initial stories were generally positive, mostly focusing on the company's hand-fed messages about how it hopes to change social networking and flush of funding.

People wanted to like it, they really did. 

But then a funny thing happened. They started downloading the app. And that's where things got interesting.

It was bad. So very bad. 

Between the confusing UI, non-intuitive icons, eerily requiring users before entering the app to take a picture of themselves, and if you're like me being greeted by only one or two pictures of lonely people in their apartments, the first impression was horrible. And it didn't get much better after that. 

When I downloaded it on Thursday, I thought for a second maybe I wasn't too intelligent to "get it." I couldn't figure out what the icons were for or how to see photos of all the other users. But kinda like tasting bad coffee right after brushing your teeth, I soon realized it was Color and not me. Did the PR team even use the product before creating the launch strategy? If so, surely they would have toned down some of the insanely bold "changing the world" messaging. 

Let's be clear: A handful of media and bloggers have lauded the company for pushing the boundaries of social networking. It is a compelling app from that perspective i.e. we all know little about the lives of people who are physically closest to us. Color wants to change that. But for the most part, Color set a world-record for losing the media, the tech-savvy early adopter crowd and mainstream America from the get go. 

Want proof? As of today (four days after the launch), Color only has a 2-star average rating in iTunes. And one of its few, very few "5 star" reviews? Yeah, that's a satire review that has made Techmeme itself. 

I really wish I could have been in the conference room when the Color team debated how to launch this thing. It's hard to know exactly what they were thinking, and why they chose to introduce the product when and how they did. 

To be fair, there are a lot of factors that can go into how to launch a product, and why you might do it under less than ideal circumstances. Investor pressure. Running out of money (Color obviously does not have this problem). Deciding it's "good enough." Simply being blinded by your passion that you can't see your product for what it is. I know I'm leaving a lot out here.... 

Not knowing what happened behind closed doors, here's my first blush assessment - as someone who works day in and out introducing products/companies to the world - on where Color went wrong. 

How not to launch an app (specifically Color) 

MISTAKE #1: Announcing the funding and the company, and releasing a (less than) subpar app at the same time. Why did the app have to be released along with the funding? Why not announce the company and funding and keep the app under wraps until it was ready for prime time? This would have solved several major issues. 1) Assuming Color was under investor pressure to launch, revealing the enormous funding round would still have created a healthy dose of buzz around the company; and 2) this approach would have bought the development team more time to do some clearly needed refinement to the product. 

MISTAKE #2: Doing a national launch. Color is an app that works best in densely populated areas or at events (ball games, parties, etc.). A lot of people have wondered why they didn't launch at SXSW Interactive a few weeks ago. True, it might have done very well there but according to a response from one of Color's employees on Quora, the product simply wasn't "ready" then. I think most of us would agree it's not "ready" now either... I don't always agree with Scoble's assessments, but he offered a lot of great ideas in his audio review of Color. For example, why not put Color in the hands of some of the cool kids in NYC, LA, San Francisco, Austin, etc. and get some good buzz going before unleashing it to the hounds? Or, simply choose another venue than SXSW? Just check out Lanyrd for a list of upcoming conferences. Great events are happening all the time. They could have fun with it, too. Why not launch at one of the big summer music festivals and form some sort of "official app" sponsorship with the organizers? 

MISTAKE #3: Using hyperbolic, if not misleading, messaging. Everyone wants to say his or her product is the best thing ever. Sometimes it is, but more often than not, it isn't. In working with entrepreneurs, a huge role of the PR team needs to be striking a balance between staying true to the broader vision a founder wants to get across while not making journalists pull out the barf bag. Color's press release has astoundingly bold messaging that also positions the app as something that currently lives up to the larger vision, when all you have to do is download it to see otherwise. Here's some phrases straight from the release:

• Color Reinvents Community (headline)  
• A miraculous, free application
• "Once or twice a decade a company emerges from Silicon Valley that can change everything. Color is one of those companies" (quote from Sequoia Capital investor)
• Getting to know new people is almost impossible online...Color is social networking for a Post-PC world (This is just not true. Most people I know have made a good handful of their "real" friends online. Also, millions of people have met their significant others online. I get where they are going with this, but the message itself needs to be tightened)  

This is a great example of getting much too "pat-yourself-on-the-back" happy in a press release. The messages don't reflect the current state of the app, which right now is pretty unusable. This brings me to the fourth thing Color messed up on: 

MISTAKE #4. Providing no information/tutorials on how to use the app. When I first loaded up the app, I was confused. What did all the icons mean? What did they do? The UI was one of the worst I've come across. Naturally, I went to the color.com website in hopes of getting some more information on how to use the app correctly. They would have some more details there, right? NO. Not even a simple "About Us" page or FAQ. And no screencast or tutorial. Color comes off as not caring about its users. In fact, the website itself, which the co-founder paid $350k for the domain for - is more or less empty. Investing that much money in the domain and not even putting it to use during the launch gives me a huge case of the sads. Color could have easily pushed off the launch a day or two and created some supporting materials - even if they were stupidly basic - and uploaded them to the site.    

MISTAKE #5: Relying too heavily on the pedigree of the co-founder. Without fail, one of the best ways to get the attention of the tech media if you're a startup is to have a co-founder who has done amazing stuff in the past. Look at Path. Square. Hipmunk. They all got great press when they launched. And the one thing they all had in common? Well-known and respected founders who have been involved in some of Silicon Valley's more well-known success stories. 

Color has the same advantage. The founder, Bill Nguyen, is legit. He sold his last company LaLa to Apple a few years back. Another company for $850M before that. He's a Silicon Valley success story and clearly a smart guy. 

Who knows if Path, Square and Hipmunk will see long-lasting success. But one thing the founders of these companies have that Bill doesn't - sorry to say - is a usable product. Mainstream users won't care if your founder is hot stuff if your product doesn't work. 

So they screwed up. What now?

I'm probably missing a lot of other mistakes, but you get the point. Color's strategy was simply off. It's easy to say this in hindsight, but to give them the benefit of the doubt PR can be extremely unpredictable. Unlike programming, you can't put X and Y into an equation and guarantee someone Z will happen. You only have best guesses. Maybe the Color team knew they were introducing a subpar product and that some people would rag on them for it, but surely they didn't expect all of THIS. 

If I was in charge of the PR for Color's launch, I would have done several things differently, including: 

1. Advising them to wait until they had a respectable version of the app that lived up to some of their lofty goals of reinventing community/social networking; 
2. Toning down the "change the world"-esque messaging. They can talk to this larger vision, but make it clear it's an end goal; they're not there yet; 
3. Making sure they had supporting launch materials in place. A screencast video. An FAQ. An About section, etc. These would have gone a LONG way for them.  

But they didn't do any of this and now the Color team is in the awkward position of having to play the role of the comeback kid. They are going to have to prove to the media, the public and investors their product is really worth the huge investment and attention (albeit mostly negative) they've garnered these last few days.

It won't be easy, but not impossible... 

So where should they go from here? In my opinion, their focus right now should be on creating support materials to help users who haven't deleted the app already figure out how to actually use the product. They should also be building a longer-term plan to communicate what's coming down the pike and what major improvements users can expect to see and when. This will require laser-like communication between the person managing PR, and the development and product teams. They can't afford more hyperbole that isn't aligned with the product roadmap. 

Once they have a communication plan in place, they should consider offering an exclusive conversation with Bill and the NYT, WSJ or TechCrunch, etc. to talk about the strategy and afterward disseminating it widely to anyone and everyone who has written about the app.

And then, for Christ's sake forget about being a PR darling for a while and work wildly on executing on the vision. 

Color: People love a good comeback story. It's now on you to prove all of your naysayers wrong.