Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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December 9, 2008

Guy Kawasaki Talks About Alltop.com and the Alltop.com Community

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:07 am

Featured in Alltop

I work with companies who are watching in the way of new ventures — weight risks against benefits. Lawyers try to keep them conservative, while the “common wisdom” seems to tell them they need a blog. I’m finding that often a blog isn’t the answer, at least not the appropriate first step. User participation has many forms.

One of the best examples of a social media, user-centered endeavor is Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop.com Alltop gets it right in so many ways. FAQ 3 is part of the magic of the Alltop formula, and what we’ve been talking about — let the community help build the barn.

3. Q. How do you decide which sites and blogs are in a topic?
A. We use a patent-pending, semantic computational algorithm derived from the post-doctoral work of Guy at Stanford. Just kidding. We rely on several sources: results of Google searches, review of the sites’ and blogs’ content, researchers, and our “gut” plus the recommendations of the Twitter community, owners of the sites and blogs, and people who care enough to write to us. Let us declare something: The Twitter community has been the single biggest factor in the quality of Alltop. Without this group of mavens and connectors, Alltop would not be what it is today.

You can tell a person wrote that.

I’m lucky to be talking to the man behind Alltop —
Guy Kawasaki — about his thoughts on how businesses
can engage people as they move online. I wondered about low-risk choices that businesses might make when forming new social media businesses and communities online.


Hi Guy! About Alltop, I’ve been through it all in the past few days. I think most folks don’t realize the scope of the accomplishment you’ve built … it’s no wonder you’re always smiling.

Alltop really is more than it seems. What is Alltop really and why does it work?

Alltop is a digital magazine rack. We assemble (”aggregate”) subscriptions by topics, and we have approximately 400 topics ranging from Adoption to Zoology.

It works because there is so much information on the web and search engines are too good at what they do. For any topic, Google would find millions of hits. Most people do not have the time or ability to winnow this down.

For example, try typing “China” into Google then look at


What’s special about Alltop is the way people have taken a personal interest in it — especially the Twitter community. Did the Twitter community come first or did you grow the community as you grew Alltop?

Twitter as a service pre-dates Alltop by several years. Fortunately, the people who follow me have taken a liking to Alltop. They provide suggestions for topic and feeds for topics, and they help us spread the word about topics. Alltop would not be what it is without Twitter.


What was crucial to making it all happen efficiently? What was crucial to getting the community to buy in?

Many factors came into play: I had a large following because of my visibility so Alltop had a jump start; the product is truly useful; and we were more than willing to hear and implement what the community wanted. Twitter was made for Alltop, and Alltop was made for Twitter–you couldn’t have designed a better synergy if you tried.


What advice do you have for companies who worry about the risks of their first steps into the social sphere?

The willingness to open things up and to seemingly lose control is the only way to control social media. If you think you can control social media in the traditional sense, you shouldn’t even try it. Just stick to buying Super Bowl commercials instead.


What sort of projects might you suggest would offer low risk but high profile community relationship value?

The first thing most companies should do is go to search.twitter.com and search for anyone who mentions their products, services, or the company itself. Then it should help those people in any way possible.

To see how it’s done, they should watch @comcastcares on Twitter. That is a Comcast employee who monitors Twitter for people who have issues with Comcast. This is a great example of how to use social media. The cost is $0 and the upside is huge.

Thanks Guy! It was a pleasure, as always.
_________
Look closely and you see that Alltop.com is a magazine rack that draws people into a community. People help choose the topics. They suggest the sites included. People proudly display the badge of the Alltop domain and discuss Alltop blogs with @GuyKawasaki and @NEENZ on Twitter.

Guy let the people help build it, made the site about them and what they’re doing, and now they promote and protect it. It’s a community all right.

What do you think is the magic of Alltop? What bit of it could make work for you and the community you’re building?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Filed under Interviews, Marketing, Successful Blog |




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16 Comments to “Guy Kawasaki Talks About Alltop.com and the Alltop.com Community”

  1. December 9th, 2008 at 9:24 am
    John said

    Liz,

    Great interview with Guy. He did a podcast with John Janske (@ducttape) a few weeks ago and I listen to it over and over again.

    “The first thing most companies should do is go to search.twitter.com and search for anyone who mentions their products, services, or the company itself. Then it should help those people in any way possible.”

    I love how his second step is about helping. So many non-profits and companies make the mistake of selling before any trust has been built.

    Too bad didn’t know about the Super Bowl commercial idea before now… I could have saved myself a lot of headaches ;-)

    John

  2. December 9th, 2008 at 9:35 am
    Bloggeries said

    I like all top and have visited it several times. I agree with Guy regarding Twitter being perfect for marketing any other type of social site. I’ve seen similar growth with my forum as my level of twitter activity has increased.

    The only thing I”m weary about of alltop is that it works on the reciprocal game. You get a link from 1 sub domain / category in exchange for giving a link from every single page of your blog? Is that worth it?

    These types of systems are nothing new and tend to mainly help the site offering listings instead of those getting the listings thinking they are benefiting. Both parties arguably benefit but the question is who gets the most in each individual reciprocal exchange…? Often not the blog giving away a site wide.

    That being said I like the idea of All top and think Guy is doing a fantastic job of marketing it on Twitter.

    Cool post Liz!

  3. December 9th, 2008 at 9:37 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi John!
    Guy is a master of simply answer people’s needs in a way that suits people. He’s great to talk to and fabulous to work with. It was a pleasure and a “breeze” doing this with him. One more reason he’s where he is.

  4. December 9th, 2008 at 9:45 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Bloggeries,
    If the purpose is linkage, yeah, it’s going to get individuals far. But if the purpose is community and discovery — the intangibles. Then we’ve got something going. I think that’s what makes Alltop work. It offers the folks who don’t know the blogosphere (but do know search) a place to go to find a group of great reads on a single topic.

  5. December 9th, 2008 at 10:02 am
    John said

    Liz,

    You’re right. I think his success stems from his straight-forward business wisdom that is both profound and easy to understand.

    It seems like he’s a very compassionate guy.

    John

    BTW - I’m working on a bigger badge for you.

  6. December 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi John!
    I agree. Guy has a clear vision of what works and what doesn’t. It makes what he says so easy to follow.

  7. December 9th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
    Lucretia Pruitt said

    Guy is amazing. His energy, enthusiasm, vision and advice are incredible. I am always in awe of his ability to translate ‘idea’ into ’success’ and then to turn around and share with the rest of us how he did it.

    Thanks for the additional insight Liz! It has been great to see alltop.com grow over the past year into a very cool site. Guy & Neenz are passionate about alltop.com and have created a passionate audience.

  8. December 9th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
    Paul Merrill said

    Hi Liz. Thanks for all you do for the social media space.

    I just linked to this interview…

  9. December 9th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Yes, Lucretia,
    You have look to see exactly what it is that Guy and Neenz have going to fully appreciate it. Alltop is something very special. It’s built around people. It truly is a community. :)

  10. December 9th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Thank you, Paul
    I appreciate that. :)

  11. December 9th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
    Karen Putz / DeafMom said

    I find Alltop to be a very useful site. I try and browse through it whenever I have extra time. It’s quickly replacing my Google Reader!

  12. December 9th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
    Sheloo Koul said

    I find Alltop interesting and useful. It is like going window shopping and getting a sneak peek. I can then dive deeper into the rack that catches my attention.

  13. December 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
    @redeyechicago said

    Alltop is not only an incredible site, the people that run it really get social media. We’re on alltop’s Twitterati page and it’s an absolute honor being there. I’d recommend alltop to anyone, even if I wasn’t on that page.

  14. December 10th, 2008 at 8:51 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Great interview Liz. I like Alltop because it’s good content chosen by someone who has thought about what readers want to see. The editorial eye has become a bit unfashionable in this age of search algorithms and social bookmarking/voting — but Alltop deomonstrates the value of having an editorial filter.

    Like all good editors, Guy and his team obviously listen to their readers, especially on Twitter. But for every site on Alltop, a human being has taken a final decision on whether or not it deserves its place.

    I also like it because they included Lateral Action in the innovation section. :-)

  15. December 10th, 2008 at 9:09 am
    John said

    Liz,

    I’m sure you’ve already seen this, but your good friend Chris Brogan posted this about AllTop.

    John

  16. February 21st, 2009 at 4:51 am
    Will Twitter kill the Forum Community? said

    [...] Guy Kawasaki Talks About Alltop.com and the Alltop.com Community (successful-blog.com) [...]

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