Demand Satisfaction!

April 28, 2008

Web 2.0: Sharing Slides

Last week’s Web 2.0 conference here in San Francisco was stimulating. I know I learned a thing or three.

In case you missed it — or wouldn’t throw down the cash for entrance to the full convention — we’ve collected the slides from our two biggest presentations of the week.

First, here are the slides from Lane and Thor’s presentation, Customer Service is the New Marketing:

| View | Upload your own

And here are the slides from Scott’s talk, The How of OAuth, about that scrappy up-and-coming OAuth protocol:

Thanks to everyone who showed up and asked all those great questions.

Plus, thanks to everyone who attended Cameron’s OAuth Hackathon on Saturday. We had a huge turnout, especially considering it was such a stunningly sunny Spring day. Thanks for spending it indoors with us!

By Eric Suesz | Posted in Satisfaction, conferences, customer service, development, web 2.0 | Comments (0)

April 17, 2008

Web 2.0 Conference: We’re Speaking

Web 2.0 is next week. We will be there. You bet we will. In fact, we’ve got a bunch of speaking engagements lined up. Come visit us as we expound on these topics:

Start-up funding: Thor speaks in a workshop setting with Rob Hayes (First Round Capital), Jeff Clavier (Softtech VC), and Ted Rheingold (Dogster/Catster) about getting early funding for your start-up venture. The official title: Starting Up: Strategies for Financing & Growing Your Web 2.0 Startup. Topics will include financing, marketing, team, revenue models, and managing all the other hats every startup entrepreneur needs to wear. Start it up on Tuesday! 9 a.m. (Moscone West 2022)

Data portability: Leslie will be talking about user interface and data portability. In an as-yet-untitled roundtable, the focus will be on hopping from one social network to another. What can we do to make that easier? How should these kinds of interfaces be designed so that users can clearly understand how all this passing-through and jumping over works? Get on that UI on Wednesday! 10:50 a.m.

Community Management: Amy will be whispering into the ears of trolls. Not the kind that you may have read about in fairy-tale books, but the more destructive kind who try to disrupt, grief, and kill online communites. Come learn some strategies for dealing with that guy on your Web site who seems to have a wealth of time on his hands and a whole lot of ire to share with the world. Trolls on Wednesday! 1:30 - 2:20 p.m. [Note: This one is part of Web 2.0pen -- a free event (you can register for a free pass).]

Customer Service: Thor and Lane’s Customer Service is the New Marketing presentation is for those folks who are into fanatical devotion. No, not the religious kind; the kind that people feel toward their favorite companies and products. If your organization needs to get religion and fix your customer service problems, get thee to a seat early for this one. Customer Care Thursday! 2:40 - 3:30 p.m.

OAuth: Scott’s The How of OAuth will get you up and running with OAuth. What is it? How does it work? How do you get started? Scott shows you why it’s not the big wrestling match you might think, provided you take a simple, measured, Zen-like approach. OAuth on Friday! 2:40 - 3:30 p.m.

… More Web 2.0 news as it happens.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in Tips and tricks, appearances, community, conferences, customer service, development | Comments (0)

March 21, 2008

They Really Liked Us

Yesterday, we gave a presentation about Get Satisfaction at the Under the Radar conference. It’s a shindig that seeks to identify the trends — and the start-ups riding those trends — that are shaping the online world. This year, the focus of the conference was on “the business of Web apps.”

There were a number of start-ups on hand yesterday who are also focused on how companies and customers interact online.

We were excited to be named the winner of the Happy Customers award. This audience favorite award made us pretty darn happy, but then we were even more thrilled to be named as the day’s Overall Winner.

Thanks, audience! We couldn’t have done it without you.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in Satisfaction, conferences | Comments (0)

March 17, 2008

SXSW: 10 Texas-Sized Memories

1. Worst Website Ever: Wired wrote about the Worst Website Ever contest, which we participated in. Although he didn’t win (almost!), Lane’s idea about over-the-top shopping experiences in virtual worlds was pretty damn funny.

2. Judo Moves: Thor gave a spirited talk on how to deal with people who try to impugn your reputation online. It had some examples plucked right from the previous day’s headlines, including a hilarious song consisting entirely of lyrics culled from angry blog comments.

3. Taking It with You: Leslie joined a packed room to talk about taking your log-in information with you as you jump from social network to social network. The “Building Portable Social Networks” panel provoked a lot of discussion about OAuth, OpenID, and related topics. The response it received from the audience really made me think that these new strategies are moving forward, and quickly. Awesome.

4. Moblogging SXSW: Welcome to a panel on using tools like Twitter and Utterz to publish words, audio, and video in real-time. But, don’t bother sitting down. We’re all going to head outside and use these tools to interview people and come back in half an hour and see what we all sent to the Internet. Fabulous idea, and one that lives up to the “interactive” label that SXSW promises. There should be more workshop-like panels like this one.

5. The Sauce: The enchiladas verdes at Las Manitas. Tomatillos done right.

6. Twittering On: Twitter proved to be just as invaluable, influential, and fun as it was last year. Good. That’s what we all had hoped and expected. By all accounts, SXSW got much bigger this year, and the parties that go along with that growth didn’t always scale, as anyone waiting in line for an hour to get into a party can attest. In a way, Twitter helped fill that gap by moving all the people who couldn’t fit into the bigger venues into smaller ones. Thanks, Twitter, for being a crowd-caller when you need to draw a crowd — or leave a big crowd for a more intimate one.

7. Big Party: The big 16-bit party we co-sponsored was covered by Yahoo’s TechTicker. Skip forward to 3:50 in the video to see Lane interviewed by Sarah Lacy. My favorite part: Lacey asks, “Do you think people get too old for SXSW?” Lane: “I don’t because I’m delusional.” That’s the spirit.

7. RVIP Lounge: A recreational vehicle that scoots you away from the downtown crowds and into a rolling karaoke partyland? Why, yes, I would like to ride on that bus. Thanks, Jonathan Grubb, of RubyRed Labs, for creating the one thing we didn’t know we needed. Delightful. Also seen on the LA Times Web Scout blog.

9. Lone Star state: Lone Star: the perfect watery, domestic choice when you’re just not sure how long the party might go on.

10. Tacos Supremely Successful: Get Satisfaction hosted an informal Meetup about what we’re up to and where we’re going. We’re happy to report that all of the breakfast tacos were scrumptious. Thanks to everyone who joined us. I’ve already noticed a few of those new faces signing up their companies on Get Satisfaction. Right on! If you’ve got any questions about getting started with us, I’m here to help answer them.

All in all, it was a stellar SXSW. New faces at SXSW = more people to learn from. Old friends at SXSW = more ways to find unofficial meet-ups. Thanks to everyone who met us, promoted us, befriended us, or otherwise shouted out to us.