I had a fun evening with a good friend recently, someone I worked with years ago in Best Buy’s IT department. My friend and I have shared loads of stories and experiences over the years, from internet start-ups to technology trends to pig roasting techniques, so I was interested in my friend’s take on social media consulting.

“I’m about to set out a shingle,” I told him, “I’ll be doing some social media consulting.”

“Social media consulting? You mean you’re going to be a bullshit artist?”

I had to laugh, and not because I disagreed. Across the web — Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. — the words “social media consultant” are starting look like the new acai berry: compelling only to the very naive, to put it nicely.

It’s easy to promise Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and social media strategy, but how many “social media consultants” out there are proving their worth online every single day? Not enough.

If I was looking for someone to help me with my social media strategy, I’d go ahead and read their proposal, but I’d also take a look at the so-called social media consultant’s Twitter account, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and more. And I’d ask myself — does this person run his business the way I run mine? Is he building real relationships with an eye towards a specific goal? Is he growing communities? Does he seem genuine? Is there a logical connection between the content I’m finding in social spaces and the content I’m looking for? Do I like what I see?

Is this social media consultant really just a BS artist?

Still, it feels good to be back here on this little blog, forcing myself to describe what it is I’m good at and why you should care.

Pollinator Consulting is about solving business problems. Whether your business is an Internet startup, a non-profit organization, a sustainably-minded group, or an entrepreneurial division of a large company, you have challenges. If these challenges include user experience, business planning, social media, product development, or content, we’d love to hear from you.

We are passionate about building businesses, creating great user experiences, helping entrepreneurs, and solving problems. Please take a look at our Services page for more details and our Contact page to get in touch.

Last month reports came out that Google was adding sponsored listings to its finance site with plans to include advertising on Google News in the not too distant future.

Well now Google are testing the placement of AdWords ads in its recently launched Search Suggest, which appeared in August this year after years of testing in Google Labs. Google Suggest is “a search feature that provides real-time suggestions while you search.”

This feels very much related to my post a couple of days ago about net neutrality, and whether or not it makes sense to assume (or if we have any right to expect) that Google – or any business – has anything other than making money in mind.

To Google’s credit, they have significant quality measures in place. PageRank and Quality Score are just two of the tools Google has on place to make sure they’re results are not only relevant, but also meaningful. It will be interesting to see where and when Google is willing to bend its commitment to a terrific user experience in order to extend its reach, thrill its investors, and keep people clicking on all the right stuff. I’d love to hear what you think.

The article also mentions several companies that ain’t so hot: Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications, and Blue Shield of California.

Industry wide, retailers and hotels came out on top. Interesting to note that retailers and hotels have been aggressively courting customers in the face of terrible economic times, while cable and health care companies – often operating in monopoly-like environments – haven’t bothered.

Even for a relatively cynical UX person like me, it’s a bummer to see that the companies that are actively pursuing customer focused solutions tend to be those that are completely desperate. Seems to me that a user centered strategy would keep companies focused on the important stuff from the get go, helping them avoid the inevitability that if they don’t listen to their customers sooner, they will be listening to them later, from a considerably worse position.

The truth is I’m kind of feeling like a loser now, having just checked my own profile on Tweetwasters. According to this site (they use a 30-second-per-tweet guideline), I’ve spent only 2.67 hours on Twitter. But the Tweetwasters site is focused only on the amount of time we spend tweeting, rather than the amount of time we spend reading other tweets. To be sure, many Tweeters are much more interested in sharing the gospel of themselves than in reading what others have to say, and this is as it should be – there will always be celebrities and celebrity gawkers. I’d estimate the true amount of time I’ve spent on Twitter in the last few months at several days, especially if you consider the amount of time I’ve spent following links that have been posted by people I follow. Even more to the point, I’m not sure this time should be considered wasted, as I’ve learned all sorts of valuable things. Why, just today, I’ve learned that it’s snowing in SF, and that Freemium may save Web 2.0. A waste of time? I think not.

But what does all of this have to do with streaming media? Just this: some embarrassing percentage of my Twitter time has been spent hitting the refresh button, and a case can be made that I’m addicted to seeing what’s new. I’m not alone in this. Tweetdeck provides an alternative, as do other products, but the compulsion to see what’s new all the time – as it happens – is getting more intense over time, not less. Twitter is addicting because we want to see what’s posted next, and because we don’t want to miss out on anything that’s happening now.

I’m certain that there’s another (refresh-less) interface solution to this problem, and it has to do with providing streaming real time content to users, in ways that are useful, usable, dynamic, and compelling. Sites like Perspctv are making strides in this direction. I’m excited to see what happens when Bewiki launches soon too. More and more, I’m convinced that this is one of the great opportunities on the web. Race you!

Citing undisclosed sources, the newspaper reported that Google had been in talks with major cable and phone companies about getting preferential treatment for traffic to and from its sites.

That would conflict with the principle of Net neutrality, under which carriers traditionally give the same treatment to traffic from different sites. The Federal Communications Commission has voiced support for the principle, and sanctioned Comcast Corp. this year for slowing some types of file-sharing traffic. Google has been a vocal supporter of Net neutrality.

Isn’t it cute to think that neutrality still exists? Or that a business might have a higher calling than to make a buck? I dunno, the whole thing seems so 1950s (or whenever Andy Griffith was on…), don’t you think? And here’s what Google says in response:

”Google remains strongly committed to the principle of Net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open,” [Richard] Whitt wrote on his blog.

Free? Sure! Open? Absolutely! But the idea of Google being net neutral – totally fair in terms of who gets web traffic at all times – seems ludicrous to those of us who watch TV, read newpapers, or are generally aware (meaning: cynical).

Maybe there used to be a sense that certain business had a higher calling, that news shows, for example, were obligated to do more than hit revenues. But that was a long time ago. Did anyone watch Fox News during the election to see fair and balanced coverage of Barack Obama? Heck no! We expect that the news we consume is tailored to the market segment the show is courting, and we assume that the search engine we choose – be it Google, Yahoo, MSN, or any other – has tailored their algorithm to get us to the results they want us to see, the ones that pay. In the case of Yahoo, we expect to see Flickr images. In the case of Google, we expect YouTube videos. We use these tools knowing that this will be the case, and acknowledging that the businesses we choose to patronize have making money – not good will or their user’s best interests – at their core. And we use these services because, regardless of this fact, they’re still pretty darned good.

Trust for business is something most of us don’t have anymore. We expect that our companies will lay us off when the going gets tough. We expect that CEOs are in it for themselves. And we expect that Google search results will skew towards the sites with the best payouts. Why do we use it, then? Because, while we don’t trust that Google has our best interests in mind, we do trust that the results we get from Google will be as good as – or better than – any others.

Website owners and designers need to consider this issue during the design process so that the locations and sizes of ads are appropriate and so that the ads produce revenue with minimal negative impact on the website. Offline ad publishers don’t necessarily face the same dilemma. A magazine may run full-page ads throughout the publication, but when readers see an ad that interests them, they don’t necessarily stop reading and put down the magazine.

Then, the author goes on to explain how design can accommodate the needs of web uses and lead to increased conversion rates, providing loads of screen shots as examples.

Turns out most users want free content enough to put up with ads that make it so. Content providers do well to think about how ads can enhance their site experience, engage users, and reinforce their brands.

and then goes on to

This picture reminds me of a friend’s wife who overheard someone in a Starbucks exclaim: “everyone’s griping about the price of gas, but nobody seems to think twice about spending $64 on a gallon of coffee!” Maybe four bucks IS dumb. Especially now. And maybe, especially as a user experience guy, I would enjoy the experience of walking into a coffee shop and ordering exactly what I want in exactly the language I speak. At Starbucks, my small skim latte always comes back as a tall non-fat one.

So a few weeks back, I found myself driving past a McDonald’s on the way to work, thinking I’d try to order to usual, in my usual way. I’ve long avoided McDonald’s, having convinced my 6 and 3 year kids that the chain is owned by a bad clown who uses shoe-leather to trick kids into eating things that look like food. Anyway, I was on a mission. I stopped the car, walked into McDonald’s and ordered a small, skim, vanilla latte – exactly the one in the picture on the wall.

This set off a series of events. The person behind the register, who had never heard someone order such a thing, asked me to wait while he spoke with his manager. His manager returned a few minutes later, assuring me that, although nobody had ever order this before, they could figure it out. A few minutes later, the coffee was in the grinder, and then freshly ground. A large cup of ice was filled (apparently most people in Minneapolis during the winter prefer their coffee iced), and then 50 or 60 pumps of vanilla syrup ensured that I would be awake long after the caffeine wore off. A shot of coffee was added to a pint of cold milk (skim, at least), at only 8 or 10 embarrassing moments later, I was in possession of a large, skim, iced-vanilla latte for just over two bucks. One freakishly sweet, coffee-less sip later, it was in the trash.

When I got back in my car, I knew where I was headed. Four bucks later (6 in total), I was drinking exactly what I wanted: a tall, non-fat vanilla latte, ordered in English and translated into Italian. My new mother tongue. And if my Starbucks experience didn’t exactly inspire love, it certainly spelled relief.

The point of it all? I’m not entirely sure. But I think it has something to do with the fact that making great coffee – anything great, really – is about understanding your customers, their needs and expectations, and delivering on promises. I think it has something to do with staying true to who you are, and to stretching out in ways that make sense. I think it has something to do with being thoughtful in your approach, and generous in your training. I think it has to do with paying more for things that are better, and brushing up on your Italian in the event that it’s suddenly required.

Thanks to Matt Lee, this morning I became aware of Addict-o-matic, a site that claims to “instantly create a custom page with the latest buzz on any topic”. It’s a big promise and an interesting site. Simply search on anything at all, and Addict-o-matic generates a page of static feeds – a snapshot – from tons of great web sources. For example, a simple Addict-o-matic search on “Christmas Cookies” yields the following results page:

In addition to Live Search results, Addict-o-matic returns Tweets, Blogs, YouTube videos, and several other content types and sources, making the results page immediate and dynamic, while also conveying the variety of material on the web about Christmas cookies. Compare this with the Mahalo results page for the same topic:

This content-rich page also includes a variety of content types and sources, but without the iGoogle-Netvibes–like effect of showing loads of different content sources. Of course, the approach that these companies and others are taking vary wildly, and the end results as well.

Which brings me back to the subject of streaming content, and what it means from a user experience to showcase each result – each video, image, blog, Tweet, etc – as it comes in. Does it have the potential to be truly useful, providing users with terrific content in just-the-right sized bites? Will it completely overwhelm users who feel compelled to keep up with every single result without effectively providing the tools to scan a page? Every day I become more convinced that the experience of streaming content has enormous potential, but clearly there’s still a lot to think through.