A great explanation of the SOPA and PIPA controversy come from CNNMoney, a Time Warner subsidiary and SOPA supporter:

The bill’s supporters dismiss accusations of censorship, saying that the legislation is meant to revamp a broken system that doesn’t adequately prevent criminal behavior. 

But SOPA’s critics say the bill’s backers don’t understand the Internet’s architecture, and therefore don’t appreciate the implications of the legislation they’re considering.

The bills are about protecting content, mostly from oversees sites. From the CNNMoney article:

Both sides say they agree that protecting content is a worthy goal. But opponents say that the way SOPA is written effectively promotes censorship and is rife with the potential for unintended consequences.

“Imagine a world without free knowledge,” Wikipedia asks us. According to social news giant Reddit, “These bills provide overly broad mechanisms for enforcement of copyright which would restrict innovation and threaten the existence of websites with user-submitted content, such as reddit.” From photo sharing site Imgur: “The internet is on strike.” Hundred of  additional sites are participating in the protests with blackouts including giants, Mozilla, Boing Boing, WordPress and Major League Gaming.

Reaction is obviously strong. Supporters see it as money being stolen from their pockets. Opposers are considering the effect these bills may have on our future. Are we creating a world where information is governed? The priority here seems to benefit a few giant companies at the expense free internet for the rest of us.

We invite you to read more on these bills and others by following these links.

SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act

Reddit’s SOPA FAQs

PIPA: Protect IP (intellectual property) Act

OPEN: Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act

I am sure we have one more invite left, so give us your best reason why we should let you come to the big dance.

As the social communications freight train turns in to a high- speed locomotive C-Level Executives are being forced to truly embrace the idea of positioning their companies in the social space. Not just for the short, but for long-term growth and sustainability. I have seen way to many general posts that speak about the utilization of social and rarely any addressed to Senior Executives. We all know their buy-in is critical! Here is my attempt to bring some light on what the C-Suite should keep an eye out for and consider.

1. Follow the crowds

You must position your company where the people are. Twitter and Facebook both have a significant amount of random content, but there is a serious side to these networks that shouldn’t be over looked. Simply said your time and financial investment must be put where people are spending their time.

2. It’s all about relationships

The day when a CEO would/could spend all day on the phone has passed us by. Electronic communications is here. Social gives you a great opportunity to build relationships and drive brand. Building meaningful engagements through corporate channels and through your own personal handles. A simple link on your email to your blog or twitter account would work. But I don’t have the time? Sure you do and you must.

3. Be an expert

What easier way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Individuals hang onto every world of an expert and take it as gospel. A well crafted strategy and schedule will put you on track to do so.

4. Get personal

The C-Suite has been known to keep the stern corporate image up at all times. We all know you are human with a heart and would love the opportunity to see you open up. For those of you that don’t know me I work with my wife Dolores. Dolores is our CFO at Strategis and my CEO at home. I have written several posts and have been interviewed countless times on how to balance working with your spouse. My answer is always, I do what I am told. Honestly our skill sets complement each others extraordinarily well so there isn’t much overlap in responsibilities and over the years we have settled into a great rhythm. I firmly believe my transparency in both written word and face-to-face interaction has helped bring insight as to what Strategis as a company is all about.

5. Beware of internal social communications

Just as the power of external social communications can transform your business so can internal social communications. The quick delivery of ideas and instant feedback are speeding up the creative process and cutting time spent. That hour meeting can now be gone and ideas can be shared with the click of a mouse.

Some tools to consider: Google Buzz, SAP Streamwork, Yammer and how about Foursquare.

This product is combination Foursquare & Facebook Places into. It will allow you to see where your friends are right now. I know some of you are concerned about the privacy and being seen where you are but Google Latitude has that covered as well with their share, set, or hide your location at any time. I look forward to using yet another Google product and I hope you have fun with as I am.

You would have to have lived under a rock over the past few years not to have realized advertising has changed.  And it’s not just due to shrunken budgets.  With the advent of the internet and digital technology, clients can now customize their specific message to a specific person at a specific time.  There’s just one catch.   Figuring out how to do this is very complex.  Marketing and advertising has jumped form 6 channels to thousands which then often spawn other channels.  Likewise, consumer attention has never been so fragmented.  Think Ipads and mobile phones.  And as if this weren’t enough there is now real-time two way communication with consumers yielding significant might.  Think Yelp.  Gone forever are the days of one-way controlled messaging.

Alas, there is a silver lining in the chaos.   Smart and nimble agencies who understand, stay abreast, and dare I say, stay ahead of internet marketing and digital technology will thrive.  The one caveat is that agencies must be able to educate clients about the new realities of advertising.  Sure client can do it themselves.  But do they have the immense amount of time and energy necessary to acquire the expertise and stay abreast of the new marketing technologies and then implement them effectively and consistantly or do they want to run their companies?

Just recently Google had to look hard and fast at their search algorithm. Not because some inventive college student cracked it or even a marketing wizard found a work around. It was a small e-tailer that took a page out of the Lindsay Lohan book of promotion. It doesn’t matter what they are saying about you as long as they are saying something, especially if it is negative. Come to find out the holy grail of the top organic listings weren’t all that pristine. Inventive, genius or just carrying their horrendous customer service skills online? I tend to think the later and they stumbled on to it. What are your thoughts?

Here is the NY Times article http://tinyurl.com/2wrogmo and I will never look at those top ranked sites the same way again.

One last point Google isn’t in the habit of being directed to change anything even if the Government requests.

Facebook announced its plan to release the new “Facebook Messages” late Monday afternoon. CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the need for an enhanced system with the mind-blowing statistic that more than 4 billion Facebook messages are sent each day. One can only imagine that number will continue to grow with the site.

Despite plans to distribute facebook.com email addresses allowing users to send emails from their accounts, Zuckerberg did clarify that this modern messaging system is not e-mail. The three part system of seamless messaging, cross-platform conversation history and the social inbox will center around the idea of user friendliness. “People should share however they want to share” says Facebook project leader Andrew Bosworth.

A key difference from e-mail is the absence of subject, CC and BCC lines, though this is also been the case with Facebook’s currently standing messaging system. It is the second time in less than 6 weeks that Facebook has made a major announcement about a service that they technically already offered, the first was Facebook Groups. The two features have however been significantly improved.

One of the breakthrough aspects to this feature is its platform-agnostic design which allows users to message through IM, Facebook or their mobile device. Finally, in typical Facebook fashion, this system will allow users to organize messages by people you care most about and minimize spam.

Though Zuckerberg has assured major e-mail competitors such as Gmail that “it’s not email”, that statement may leave many wondering if it will be something better.

For those of you unfamiliar with QR Codes (or Quick Response Codes) are those cryptogram images (typically black and white) that can be scanned to a smart phone. Scanning a QR code allows you to obtain instant answers and links you directly to whatever you may need. Embedded information on the code can include a URL, text, a phone number or an address and ready-to-send SMS message. QR scanner apps are available for installation on the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Nokia, Blackberry and other app-based phones with a built-in camera. You may find these codes in magazines, billboards (as depicted above), on buses, business cards or anywhere else a quick link is needed.

Now that we have established a basic understanding for the technology, the most recent news regarding the feature is that the popular URL shortening service, Bit.ly has recently enabled users to produce these codes. This ability to create your own code has been available for some time. However, the implementation to this popular site, and more importantly the timing of its release- just less than 2 weeks after Google’s URL shortener, Goo.gl made this feature available- should be noted.

This technology has been popular for years in Asia and Europe. But could the adoption of this feature by these two sites be the catalyst in making QR Codes more mainstream in the United States? Only time will tell but one thing that is for certain is that this avenue for instant information should not be overlooked.

Now go play whilst I prepare a better blog post.

This week launches Facebook’s strategy for “Like” v. “Fan”

And Google announced the renaming of their Local Business Center to Google Places.

Of course these products are not exactly the same as their more poorly worded predecessors. There are little tweaks and perks that come along with the upgrade. Google Places will now offer a paid advertising option called Tags, where businesses can, for a small fee, be featured on Google Maps with a yellow ‘tag’, where you can attached a special offer or promotion, or as Google calls it “important aspects of their businesses,” that can be viewed by customers when they click your tag.

Facebook’s changes to the way people connect with business also accompanies the addition of Facebook Community Pages which we announced earlier this month. – But son’t worry, Facebook has created an FAQ page to answer all of your questions.