Two teams with two brand new coaches met in the first round of the NIT March 13th. One showed an amazing turnaround from the previous season, making their first post season appearance in five years, the other slipping into their old patterns that has landed them in the NIT for the past three years.

You’ll remember that Twitter purchased TweetDeck earlier this year, and at the time there was much hand-wringing over what Twitter would do with its new toy. Theories ranging from a complete shutdown of TweetDeck to a shelving of the popular 3rd-party service were flying around. Then, the redesign happened and we have an answer to the question of what Twitter will do with TweetDeck. The answer? Harness that team’s ingenuity into making the Twitter site and mobile apps a real choice for power users. The designs are strikingly similar; from the “compose” button all the way down to the fonts, the TweetDeck’s teams fingerprints are all over this.

For the longest time, many people (I among them) argued that the worst part about Twitter was its own webpage and its mobile apps. When Twitter purchased TweetDeck in May for the low, low price of just $40 million,functionality was a big reason I thought they were making the move. Twitter’s functionality was a reason many used services like TweetDeck; and many still do. The gap is getting smaller though, and I’ll predict that within the next year, TweetDeck will simply be known as either Twitter Web/Desktop App. It’s all the same company now, so TweetDeck shouldn’t care about what it’s being called and Twitter SHOULD want to have its name all over power-users preferred app.

A few other things I’ve noticed:

• Your Real Name Matters - Rather than your username, Twitter is displaying the name you’ve given them as the prominent identifying text. That’s bad news for spammers, because they just got even MORE obvious. It’s fantastic news for those whose name is their brand; freelancers really benefit here.
• Twitter Is Going After 3rd Party Apps - Seesmic, HootSuite and other popular 3rd party apps have been put on notice by this redesign. What Twitter did isn’t all that different than what the Angels did last week in signing Albert Pujols. Twitter went and got the big free agent name to help them win; and that free agent just smacked a huge home run.
• Twitter Is Morphing Into A News Aggregation Site - I’d love to say I thought of this, but the good folks at Poynter thought it first. I’ll paraphrase a bit of what they have to say, and I’d encourage you to click through and read that article. The new Discover section is huge. It’s a personalized news wire and what you tweet is much more important now as each tweet is embedable. Tweet with care and compose those in a way that encourage people to use them on their blogs and elsewhere.

What about you? What do you think of the redesign? Love it? Like it? Hate it? Think I’m off  my rocker? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Jason has made some very valid and accurate criticisms here. I’m sure there were many people whose feelings were hurt because of the change in Klout’s algorithms. I didn’t really care that  mine went down, and while I will admit to liking the fact that I had a score of 60+ before the change, my ego or professional self-worth has never, and will never, be attached to Klout or any other kind of online social ranking method.

Know why I quit Klout? I wrote about this when I did it, but allow me to reiterate. I have no problem with Klout, as long as people have agreed to have their online presence measured by Klout. The fact that the company was creating profiles for people who hadn’t signed up for the service worried me. Again, I’ve LONG said that your online privacy is your responsibility, not any company to whose services you subscribe, but the catch there is you’ve agreed to their terms of service.

As for my deletion of my Klout account making it more difficult for those using Klout correctly; tough cookies. Tell Joe Fernandez to stop making profiles of people who haven’t agreed to allow Klout to track them and get back to me. When Klout tells me someone like Shonali Burke is influential about the Kardashians, I find it more than a little difficult to take seriously.

There are real reasons for deletion of a Klout account. Will I sign up for Klout again in the future? Probably. I think it’s absolutely a step in the right direction, and they’re blazing a trail in social media measurement. Until I feel like Klout takes itself seriously, (e.g. no longer creating accounts for people who didn’t create them; taking transparent steps toward an end in gaming the system, etc.) I won’t be back.

1. Secure the opportunity for a client (or myself) to sing the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley Field
2. Advise a Major League Baseball franchise (stole this one from Hanson; but it’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a while)
3. Conduct media relations for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes during a Rose Bowl trip
4. Do press for a non-profit I either work for or that is a client that has secured a 7-figure donation/fundraising event
5. Manage the press for Rage Against the Machine’s reunion World Tour

How about you? What’s on your PR bucket list?

Recently, Klout changed its algorithm causing some scores to go up, some to go down, and everyone to question just what was going on. I’ll let others break down the nitty gritty of that. I want to tell you why you’ll not find my profile on Klout anymore. I was inspired to delete my account by Danny Brown‘s post earlier this week. That’s not to say his post is what drove me to delete my account; more like the final point in an argument. I’ve long said that you are responsible for your online privacy, however, that premise assumes that you signed up for an account on a site. If you agree to someone’s terms and conditions, you don’t have a whole lot of room to talk.

Klout has been pulling information for a very long time about people to determine their score. However, these people hadn’t signed up for a Klout account. This information is public info; tweets, Facebook posts/comments etc. but there’s something about a company using that information to create a profile on their site without permission that crosses a line in my mind. That’s the main reason why I quit Klout. I’ve attempted to defend Klout in the past to a certain extent, but I can’t in good conscience do that anymore.

Klout’s goal is an admirable one; trying to make online influence easy to understand and measure. After all, comparing numbers between 1 and 100 is pretty easy. However, many marketing and PR pros had begun to look at a Klout score as a be all/end all for online influence. Ignoring potential sources because their score was  under a certain number or even refusing to interview certain candidates because their score wasn’t high enough. If the algorithms were more transparent, I might be able to buy that but Klout remains far too easy to game. An example: I’m from Iowa. I tweet/post CONSTANTLY about the Iowa Hawkeyes. Yet, I was more influential about hurricanes than about Iowa when I deleted my account; and I had no idea why.

I still think Klout has a place in the discussion of online influence, and I’ll probably be back at some point in the future once they get everything straightened out. I’m rooting for Klout. I hope this whole mess is a bump in the road and they are able to accurately and reliably measure online influence in an easy manner some day. What do you think? Will you be sticking with Klout? Are they being shady in your mind? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Photo via Felix Montino; Flickr Creative Commons

I’ve been thinking about weakness lately. It’s something I struggle to pinpoint within myself. That’s not to say I’m not weak. I’m not sure I could even lift 100 pounds right over my head. The hardest question for me to answer in any situation is, “What’s your greatest weakness?” It’s really a contradictory question, isn’t it? What’s your strongest weakness? It’s been such a tough question for me before that I completely blew a job interview on that question once. I basically said I didn’t know. I had no answer. And I’ve come to realize something about myself since then.

My greatest weakness, is also my greatest strength. It’s my ego. I have a monster ego, believe it or not. It is something I have to fight every day to keep in check (there’s a reason I use so much self-deprecating humor). It enables me to believe in myself and to work to achieve the success I so greatly desire. It can also put me in positions that have me out on very thin ice. You see, I do believe we have to think we have the power to do anything we want. However, we also have to understand that we won’t be great at everything we try. We have to understand our limitations; that’s what truly enables us to succeed. What is your greatest weakness?

But that’s just something to tug at your heartstrings, isn’t it? Those facts and figures don’t really bring home what

Abdullah Khadija in the tent at Choucha transit camp that she and Omar share with another family. Photo © UNHCR/A.Branthwaite

kind of crisis we’re dealing with, does it? A number isn’t a person, it’s a statistic. The Abdullah’s from Mogadishu, Somalia. Those are people. And their story is heartbreaking. Four years ago, Omar and Khadija fled from the violence in their homeland to Sudan, then to Libya, and now to Tunisa.

Their daughter, Rayan, was sick and the couple unable to support her, so they sent her back to Mogadishu to live with her grandmother. Their story is fraught with danger, hunger, frustration, and violence. But those things aren’t the central theme. Hope is. The hope for a better life, wherever that may be.

You can be a part of that hope. USA For The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (USA for UNHCR) has launched The Blue Key Campaign. For just five dollars, you can make a difference in the lives of people like the Abdullah’s, and get a nifty Blue Key Pendant to wear to show your support for this cause.

When you think of refugees, don’t allow the horror of their situations be what defines them. What defines them is what defines all of us; the hope for a better life and the struggle to attain it. Please check out The Blue Key Campaign blog, the USA for UNHCR’s YouTube channel, consider the five dollar donation to the cause and changing your avatar on Twitter or Facebook to the Blue Key leading up to World Refugee Day on June 20th.

My good friend Justin Goldsborough wants to help St. Louis get back on its feet, so he’s started a campaign to raise money for the relief effort there. I could try and duplicate his eloquent post about it, or I could just link you to it and encourage you to give. Since I’d fail miserably at the former, I’ll do the latter.

Wrong.

That link goes to who the FCC is following. Care to take a guess? You’d assume that it would be following companies such as Comcast, NBC, CBS, Time Warner, Clear Channel; you know. MEDIA COMPANIES. In case you didn’t want to click on that link earlier, here’s a quick look at who (or what to be more precise) the Federal COMMUNICATIONS Commission is following:

How many FCC-relevant accounts can you pick out?

I’ll buy that the FCC needs to follow at least SOME of these accounts. The White House, Senate, House, Open Government Iniative. What I can’t buy is the FCC not interacting with anyone, or paying attention to the industry it is charged with regulating. Did I mention that picture above is the entire list of who the FCC follows?

Obviously, we shouldn’t be surprised that a government entity is a bit out of touch with what it’s supposed to be doing. So, ending my soapbox rant, I’d like to offer the FCC some free advice (which I’m sure will be taken to the highest levels of the organization):

1. Follow more relevant accounts. In addition to the above media companies, follow accounts of those covering the media business world. That includes journalists, bloggers, PR people, entrepreneurs; anyone with a stake in the industry. Especially those that are WORKING in the industry. Full disclosure. I used to work at a radio station owned by Cumulus. I was let go on February 6, 2009. Mere days later, Lew Dickey was rewarded with a $500,000 bonus. I am still somewhat bitter over my exit from the radio industry.
2. Interact with more people. At the time of this writing, the first @ reply to someone that is outside the organization (disallowing RT’s of other government agencies), happened on March 16th. That’s a long time ago in Twitterville. This is not a broadcast medium. You HAVE to engage with people for Twitter to have any value to your organization. That includes Dan’s Dog Emporium and the FCC. Besides, how can the FCC know what’s best for American citizens if it isn’t TALKING TO THEM?
3. Explain. Many of the FCC regulations and rulings are written in legalese. I understand why and have no problem with that being the case. Use Twitter to explain to the rest of us that don’t speak legalese what’s happening so we can form an opinion of some sort and then engage with you about what’s happening.

Thanks to Shonali for the opportunity. My feelings are best described by this picture:

Because I'm tooting my own horn, you see.