AllthingsD

Great Panel on the Science of Sharing

Beyond and MBooth put on a great event last night at the Box SF space.

The first part of the evening detailed the findings of the study by Beyond and M Booth which examined how consumers interact with brands online and identified the channels that influence them.

The second part of the evening was a panel discussion with myself, Rick Silvestrini from YouTube, Carla Bourque from Buddy Media, and Drake Martinet from AllThingsD (a WP.com VIP) – and moderated by David Hargreaves and Josh Rosenberg.

We covered a ton of topics and one in particular was the question of where to author your content and on which of the various services.  I opened things up with the concept of  using an open source / open SaaS platform such as WordPress/WordPress.com as a digital hub (hosted on your own domain), where you author all the content and then smartly push it out to your YouTube/Twitter/FB/Instagram.

I think the entire panel agreed, although we are seeing some exceptions where brands are choosing to do Facebook only campaigns for example.  Later in the q&a, there was a great follow-up question on this topic of how to deal with services like FB who are trying to monetize your users and at the same time control every aspect of the platform, all the while providing an impressive social experience.  It’s a tough balancing act for brands, and I think it speaks to the advantages of a digital hub strategy, where ultimately there is a home for all the content and interactions which a brand ties back in from the various social services – and it removes the grasp of a single service controlling the entire  set of interactions with your audience/user base.

The evening discussion was also a kick-off of sorts to the San Francisco Social Media Week which will be held in February 2012 – and is shaping up to be a great event.  I’m an advisor and helping where I can — and if you are passionate about this area and looking to get involved or interested in becoming a speaker at the event, drop me a note — we’d love to hear from you.

A few thoughts on Jobs from D5 and what I’m reading tonight …

I never spoke to Steve Jobs or had any of those famous emails threads with him.

The closest I got was standing just a few feet away from him at the AllThingsD D5 conference back in 2007. It was a group of us talking in the hallway and Steve just sort of walked by and starting chatting with someone nearby. I believe Brian Lam was right there as well, and was chatting with Steve. I recall sometime later that day, Brian telling me how amazing it was to hear that Steve read Gizmodo 3-4 times/day !

D is one of these conferences with top executives in the digital world, and it was instantly clear to me that Steve Jobs was in his own category. He was the only person who created a buzz when he walked through the hallway. He was the only person people would remark to me later in conversations that when they got to meet him, would have to call their wife/husband an instant later, to let them know. Simply put, it was a defining moment for people to even be in his presence.

At the joint interview session with Steve Jobs & Bill Gates — people packed the hall and it was one of the most amazing conversations I’ve ever seen on stage.

When Jobs remarked that “You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead” – I don’t think there was a dry eye in the audience.

By a strange coincidence, I was searching for some older photos last night, and stumbled on this one from that night in 2007 (taken by Adam Tow and captioned “Raanan is witness to the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates interview at D5.”):
Steve Jobs & Bill Gates @ D5

It’s been amazing reading all the coverage today, and there are some really interesting posts going up tonight that everyone should check out, including:

So a sad day for many of us, but very inspirational as well – just watch this: