You know what my job is? Oh, sure, there’s a lot of stuff about “building relationships” and “communication” and “facilitation” and “sanity checking,” but really, my job usually involves apologizing

MMOClash reports a financial analyst downgraded Activision Blizzard stock from "buy" to "neutral" based on an online survey with 381 gamer participants. Now personally I wouldn't buy Activision Blizzard shares; their main cash cow is aging, and the games business is extremely volatile. But I do have doubts whether accurate financial forecasts can be achieved by asking a few hundred gamers.

Egal ob Modelcontest, Wahl zum besten Design oder Summe X für den eigenen Verein. Das Internet ist voll von Abstimmungen bei denen, auf den ersten Blick, jeder die gleiche Chance hat zu gewinnen. Solle man meinen. Denn was bei online Gewinnspielen schon seit langer Zeit Realität ist, entwickelt sich zum Trendsport für gelangweilte Forenuser: “Votings riggen” (Abstimmungen manipulieren). Dabei muss es nicht einmal etwas zu Gewinnen geben, im Vordergrund steht der Spaß und das “We Win”-Gefühl. Besonders erfolgreich in der Wahlmanipulation ist ein kleine Gruppe die sich in der weltweit größten Pokerschule Pokerstrategy.com kennengelernt hat. Wir haben exklusiv einen Insider für euch interviewet.

Macht plötzlich alles keinen Sinn mehr? Hat sich die Geschäftsführung die Reportings der Marketeers mal genauer angesehen und ist explodiert? Frustration aller Orten. Völlig zu Recht. Denn, da hat Mirko etwas Kluges geschrieben:

“Erfolg hängt im Social Web heute ganz stark am Engagement Einzelner. Das skaliert aber nicht. Und wer es versucht, es zu skalieren, verbrennt sich…”

Da ist es wieder, das Bild vom Social Ikarus, der sich zu nah an die Sonne wagt. Der Absturz lässt sich jedoch vermeiden, wenn die richtige Flugroute gewählt wird.

First, the Eve playerbase feels both empowered and angry. They feel very much as though they should have a voice in how the game is run. CCP has not disagreed with this, and their “Council of Stellar Management” player advisory council is currently winging its way to Iceland, at CCP’s expense (and knowing the expense of last-minute airline reservations, more than cancelling any benefit from selling virtual monocles). We’ve seen player protests in MMOs before, but this is the first overt player riot - enabled in part by Eve’s own strengths of being a unitary server game so that if, say, someone decides it’s a good idea to shoot up a statue commemorating the in-game NPC leaders as a political gesture, it can get legs.

CCP Zulu (aka Arnar Hrafn Gylfason, Eve’s senior producer)

The investment of money in EVE should not give you an unfair advantage over the investment of time. The CSM, under NDA, has been presented with CCP‘s plans for continued evolution of the business model and agrees that nothing they saw breaks this principle. CCP has committed to sharing their plans with the CSM on this front on an ongoing basis.

The Mittani (aka Alexander Gianturco, Eve’s senior politician)

We believe that the situation that has unfolded in the past week has been a perfect storm of CCP communication failures, poor planning and sheer bad luck.  Most of these issues, when dealt with in isolation, were reasonably simple to discuss and resolve, but combined they transformed a series of errors into the most significant crisis the EVE community has yet experienced.

So how is the view from way up here? It’s great actually -- we’re really happy with how Cataclysm is going so far, and we have big surprises on the horizon. On the other hand, there are details you can see at ground level that you can’t make out from 10,000 feet.

When we started these blogs, the idea was to foster developer communication to the players without some of the inherent problems of posting in forums. Some players have pointed out recently, and we totally agree, that the blogs up until now have been from a very high vantage point. We looked for topics with universal interest that would feel important and newsworthy. That has worked overall, but we also feel like we’ve lost something from when I used to be down in the metaphorical trenches talking to players in the forums.

I spent a good portion of my first day at SXSW Interactive sitting in on panels and sessions focusing on the ever-evolving issue of community management. I had the chance to hear many different perspectives on what it means for brands to effectively foster and manage the consumers who care to interact with them via social networks. I heard best practice examples from companies like Pepsi, Starbucks, Zappos, Dell, Ford and many more uberbrands that are pushing the boundaries of social media as a business tool.

These forums have always been about players talking to players. We don't want to foster the expectation that it's going to get a blue response if someone tries hard enough (lol I'm replying to a thread calling for a blue). While GC added a lot to these forums (and I say 'these forums' because he only posted in the North America forums) we think we can reach more players, particularly those in other regions, more directly through the blogs, or concerted Q&A's. Blogs also tend to be a better medium for getting the message out there loud and clear, but does have downsides that it removes the conversation that we know is appreciated quite a bit.

It's Friday January 16th. On Youtube, the user 'boxxybabee', has 21,800 subscribers, 1.4 million video views and over 38,000 comments on her videos and channel, yet she only signed up 8 days ago, and has only 3 videos. Many people were, and are confused. How did this happen? By documenting what I personally saw, I will show you.

OK. It’s Friday night and I admit I’ve had a drink or possibly two already, which means that I’m in a mood for talking and sharing, possibly more than I normally would. But sharing is a bit of the point of blogging, isn't it?

There won't be any pretence or cover-up. This is the truth, the reality the way it is, including cracks and less-than-perfect. But even if this post starts in misery, I assure you it will get much better towards the end. Don’t worry. Just have a seat and a pint and relax while I'm sharing my story, OK? And don't forget I love my guild.

Now let's get started, shall we? (Larísa fills a pint to the brim and heads for her favorite armchair, takes a sip and clears her throat before speaking up.)

Manchmal muss man die User einfach überraschen: #communitymanagement #blizzard #epic

Last night I returned home to see a post by Jeremiah Owyang about online community best practices. Included in the post was the following image of the life cycle of a successful online community:

If you take a look at this graph you may think, wow this is definitely how I’d like my community to end up. My immediate response was “is this possible?” Thanks to “continual improvements” these online communities appear to have continued growth even past the standard maturation phase of the business. If you’ve read “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore you will immediately realize that this chart makes no logical sense.

We have previously discussed how online communities are often characterized by vast participation inequality. The so-called 1% Rule states that 90% of a community’s membership will not participate; 9% will contribute only occasionally; and the eponymous 1% will participate frequently, contributing the vast majority of material.

This model of participation inequality holds true for many online communities, and especially for bulletin-board modes of interaction (such as forums, blogs, etc). What it doesn’t provide, however, is a more detailed look at just how these participants become involved in communities or how they transition between groups. Rationally it must hold true that the 1% shifts as the online community grows, its members age, and so on.

Aktuell bin ich mit den Vorbereitungen für die neuen Kurse an der Social Media Akademie beschäftigt, speziell mit dem neuen Lehrgang “Community Manager SMA“. In diesem Zusammenhang habe ich einige namhafte Community Manager Deutschlands zur Rolle des Community Managers befragt.

It’s really, really easy to exceed customer expectations by doing one simple thing: Have the customer’s back. Customers want to feel like someone is on their side, and being on the customer’s side is the job of the community team.

Non-traditional engagements are, to say the least, pretty awesome. Why be boring, take a knee, and propose to your love in some stupid restaurant? Pft, lame. Far better is a recent proposal between two gamers (and, full disclosure, great friends of mine) in City of Heroes (the whole episode has been conveniently put into comic book form by the fiance himself, if you scroll down). Lead designer at Paragon Studios, Melissa “War Witch” Bianco, who made the in-game proposal happen, had perfect reaction to the idea: "I thought, 'Wow, that is freaking COOL!'"

Community management isn’t what it used to be.
Once upon a time, managing a community meant hanging out in an online location – be it a forum or a chat room – and moderating chat. Approving comments. Handling some support issues. Dealing with trolls, helping people with questions. That kind of thing.
But community management, at least the way we approach it, isn’t just online issues management and discussion moderation anymore. It’s a far more fundamental business role, one that ties together responsibilities from a number of different places, both online and off.

We're sort of a weird group in community and social media management. Our newly-minted "profession" is still being defined. Most people have no clue what we do for a living. We have few if any professional guilds (I did find the excellent Community Roundtable). The language and jargon defining our activity is still in flux. It's not like the US Department of Labor even recognizes the term "community manager" - unless referring to the guy who manages an apartment building (which is what most people think I do when I reveal my job title). We're definitely a breed apart.

Over the past 2 years, the relatively close knit blog universe has exploded in a massive confluence of social expression and corporate reaction. A cottage industry of owner-operators, trawling social media on behalf of themselves and others, has cropped up in lofts, dorms, agencies and iPhones.

These are the new social media Community Managers and corporate is clearly looking. This post offers a granular look at crucial skills, essential duties and a job description for the CM role.

I don't play WoW at the moment. I played off and on (mostly on) for the first five years of the game, and I'll play again for a while once the expansion comes out, then probably quit again, etc. Anyway, especially a few years ago when I had the time and inclination to play more, I was fairly active on the forums. My husband still plays, and so do a ton of my friends. So I'm really familiar with how the forums work and what people are like there. This is a terrible, terrible idea. Especially if the intent is to discourage trolling, there are much more effective solutions available. Some of the reasons why it's terrible have already been brought up, but a bunch of people who are obviously not familiar with the WoW forums have muddied things by making arguments based on incorrect assumptions, so for the sake of having an omnibus "this is why it's bad" post, here we go.

Dear Blizzard; I’ve been enjoying your game for quite some time now — nearly six years in fact. That’s an awfully long time for a video game to hold my interest, so congratulations on producing a game that is engaging enough to do so. Hooray! But you know, I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about this silly thing you’ve implemented called Real ID. I’m sure you’ve been getting a lot of feedback on it already, but seriously, stick around. This is worth reading, this right here.

Blizzard announced that they will be requiring anyone who posts on their Starcraft II and World of Warcraft forums to use their real first and last name, as identified by their account details.  Naturally, people are up in arms about this.  MMORPG forums are not the place for real life identities, it’s not for establishing relationships, or rekindling friendships with people you already know.

Of course, there are naysayers.  People are claiming that anyone who is vehemently opposed to the Real ID change are doing so by “fear mongering” or “blowing things out of proportion”.  Saying things like “this is no big deal”, or “this is the internet, you have no privacy anyway”.

Oh yeah?

- I’ve always said employees should be using their real names to provide transparency and accountability. If you can’t handle being the public face of a company and all that implies, get another job. It’s that easy. It is not always that FUN, mind you. - My customers are not public citizens. Making them public citizens against their will is crappy. I can think of half a dozen reasons why someone should be allowed to be anonymous, and I’m not going to list them because any one of them is good enough. Want people to stop acting like asshats on the boards? Suspend in game accounts for out of game behavior. Hire more mods. Close the board. Whatever. This is just chickenshit.

In the realm of marketing, Gatorade is probably best known for splashy commercials featuring some of the world’s most famous athletes. However, a new effort behind the scenes of the PepsiCo-owned sports drink maker is putting social media quite literally at the center of the way Gatorade approaches marketing.

In Building Web Reputation Systems, we appropriate the term karma to mean a user reputation in an online service. As you might expect, karma is discussed heavily throughout the more than 300 pages. During the final editing process, it became clear that a simple summary of the main points would be helpful to those looking for guidance. It seemed that our first post in over a month (congratulations on the new delivery, Bryce!) should be something big and useful...