(Image by Brian Solis on Flickr)

Today during the Mark Zuckerberg keynote at SXSW, a compelling thing happened. Zuck was interviewed by author and BusinessWeek reporter Sarah Lacy, and meanwhile, all sorts of chatter and criticism (mostly directed at Lacy’s interview style) was happening among audience members via various back channels such as Twitter and Meebo.

The silently-brewing revolt finally came to a head when Lacy mentioned the infamous Lesley Stahl interview a second time in response to Zuckerberg answering only with one-word responses, and Zuckerberg quipped: “You have to ask questions.” An overjoyed cheer erupted from the mob - hundreds of angry monkeys who seemingly felt jilted out of a keynote conversation. By the end of the interview, Sarah Lacy’s frustration with the Twitter Mob was evident.

Lacy: “Could somebody send me a message and tell me how I sucked so badly?”
Audience member, into the mic: “Check Twitter.”

Actually, this was the second time mob rule took over at SXSW this week - it also happened at the metrics panel on day two. This backlash is really less about Mark Zuckerberg and Sarah Lacy, and is totally a microcosm of what happens every day within disruptive social mediums, whether it’s a blogger calling out bad customer service at Dell, or a Taco Bell patron posting a video of rats running around the kitchen on YouTube.

The tools are at our disposal, so corporations and institutions must be prepared for disruption and know how to respond.

UPDATE / 6:44 pm: Jesse from BitStrips sent this comic to me:

Unbelievable! Day one of SXSW was packed with fantastic conversations and invaluable new friends. The day started with bacon, biscuits and a social media chat with former colleague Greg Swan (new media guru and founder of Perfect Porridge), Jim Turner of One by One Media and Rick Calvert, co-founder of BlogWorld.

In the middle of sitting in on the “How to rawk SXSW” session, word started to spread via Twitter of an impromptu tweetup happening at Champions sports bar across the street. Greg and I immediately ran to join this, and met all sorts of Tweeps including the legendary @Pistachio, @simedia, @kristanaeher, @newmediajim, @twalk, @hansveld and @waderockett, among others. A quick, grainy video of the tweetup is below.

As if the day couldn’t get any better, Charlie the Unicorn stopped by for a beer before wandering off across the street. YES. We later met Brian Shaler of Crappy Graphs fame, the one-and-only Robert Scoble, and co-creator of Fantasy Congress (Andrew Lee) in the Hilton lobby bar.

After launching Des Moines’ first TweetUp back in February, my intent was for future events to be de-centralized and self-organizing. I opened up a wiki to let participants discuss ideas for future locations and dates, and almost overnight, others had taken the reins and organized a second TweetUp, which took place this Monday evening at Court Avenue Brewing Company. Based on our unofficial headcount, 17 people showed up — that’s almost triple attendance from last time!

What I love about these events is the opportunity to connect with other people interested in technology and new media here in Des Moines, who I otherwise may never have met. The insights, shared knowledge and ideas formed over cocktails with new friends are extremely valuable, or, as @webboy put it: “It did more for me in one night than LinkedIn did in one year.”

Well said. If you’re interested in joining us for future TweetUps, please check out / join the Des Moines TweetUp wiki and be sure to track updates using the #dmtweetup hashtag method on Twitter.

Last fall, Google announced the OpenSocial standard. Let me spend a few moments explaining what exactly that is, and why it will be important to your business in the future.

The OpenSocial movement is based on the belief that users should be able to distribute content across the Web’s many manifestions (blogs, social networks, mobile phones, etc.), as opposed to accessing it only via one central website.

Lots of other companies have joined the movement along with Google: MySpace, LinkedIn, Plaxo and SixApart, to name a few.

We’ve always thought of the corporate website as THE one-stop destination for all of our prospects and existing customers. With the onset of embeddable YouTube videos and RSS feeds, we saw that if the content is good enough, others will distribute it. OpenSocial is simply the next step of this evolution.

Let’s say you’ve created a little interactive Flash game on your website. It’s branded with your identity, it’s engaging, and you want your visitors to play around with it. Three years ago this was called "sticky" content, thinking that users should be given incentive to "stick around" and come back to websites. Today, OpenSocial allows you to offer that game for anyone to grab and post inside their blog or their personal Myspace/Facebook page. Remember, your customer can also be your distributor.

Another great thing about the OpenSocial movement: If you want your content to easily "snap in" to all of these various spaces, why should your developers have to learn programming languages that are specific to each platform? They could spend hours learning how to develop something inside Facebook, then duplicate that time by re-creating the same initiative for MySpace. That’s a lot of wasted time. OpenSocial gives us a common set of tools - learn it once, apply it everywhere.

Don’t feel like you need to go out and learn everything about the OpenSocial movement today. Just keep it in your web strategy toolbox as your company’s web content evolves. In fact, if you’ve ever read a blog’s RSS feed, embedded a YouTube video, or sent a link to your friend, you’re already a pioneer in this movement!

Just a quick note to announce that I’ve started blogging at IowaBiz.com — a multi-faceted collection of Iowa bloggers talking about various small business topics. I’ll be posting three times per month, covering new media and social media marketing.

Mike Sansone, who previously addressed these subjects at IowaBiz, is stepping aside to further focus his efforts within his business and other arenas. Multiple hat tips to Mike for getting the ball rolling, and to Drew McLellan for inviting me to join the family!

The first post is about Google’s OpenSocial API standard, and why your business should take note of it.

On Wednesday, February 6th, I’ll be speaking at an IABC Iowa luncheon about various social media goodies and their applications in business. (Hat tip to Mike Sansone for setting up this opportunity.)

Also, the FIRST EVER Des Moines TweetUp will be taking place this Thursday the 7th at Shorty’s, beginning at 5:30 pm. If you’re a Twitter user and you’re in the DSM area, please come join us.

So, where’s Shorty’s? Glad you asked. It’s in the basement of a closed-down grocery store at 208 Court Avenue, downtown. (Here’s a map!) Shorty’s doesn’t have a front door, so you have to enter through the alley south of the building. It’s the best bar in DSM, hands down. Feel free to spread the word, and I’ll see you there.

Lava Row has an opening for a Strategist in Social Media, New Media and Emerging Media. (How’s that for a title?) Responsibilities will include development and execution of strategy for new and existing clients. Candidate should have exceptional verbal/written/human communication skills, huge ideas and an obsession with emerging mediums. 2-3 years of experience in marketing and/or web technology is preferred but not necessary.

Interested? Please read the careers page, then give a shout.

UPDATE 6/9/2008: This position has been filled.

When developing social media strategy for clients, I often talk about listening before talking. As with any marketing effort, it helps to know the general wants and needs of the customer first, before jumping in.

Traditionally this would take the form of consumer research, surveys or focus groups. Today, with all sorts of social mediums inviting peer-to-peer conversation (such as blogs, wikis, message boards and social networks) companies can listen to what’s being said about them in real-time.

There are many listening / buzz trending tools online, ranging from the free (Google BlogSearch and Twitter) to the high-end (Radian6). One application that has emerged as particularly useful for me recently is the search partnership between Omgili and Google.

Omgili, to put it simply, is a search engine that tracks opinions, discussions and conversations, as opposed to individual websites and pages. At google.omgili.com, you can see how they’ve paired subjective search results (perception, arguments, opinion, sarcasm) with Google’s objective results (facts, raw information).

It’s a nice blend, especially for marketing and PR folk. Just type in your company’s name and click "search both" to see what customers are saying, right now.

Consumer insight like this is invaluable, and it gives your organization an advantage in the long run. The best part: Omgili is a free application that you can start using today.

Fellow 515ers Chris Punke and Andy Brudtkuhl have teamed up to create Tech in Iowa — a show that highlights the people, companies and advancements within Iowa’s tech community.

I was invited to participate in the inaugural episode, which can be viewed via the embedded video above, or by heading over to YouTube. In this episode Andy and I discussed social media marketing, viral marketing, and (of course) Whopper Freakout. This is the first of many shows; look for them to be aggregated in the future at TechinIowa.com.

Andy and Chris will surely be accepting ideas for future show content, so feel free to drop them a line on Twitter (@abrudtkuhl and @chrispunke) and make your voice heard.

Scrabulous is one of the more popular add-on applications inside Facebook with over 500,000 users per day. (Count me as one of them.) On January 11th, Hasbro/Mattel — makers of the original Scrabble board game — sent Facebook a cease-and-desist order, citing copyright infringement.

Facebook apps (Scrabulous included) are created by third-party developers on top of the social networking site’s open API. Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the Calcutta-based developers who created Scrabulous, are apparently also included in the cease-and-desist letter.

While the copyright infringement issue is certainly understandable, I’m inclined to think that Hasbro/Mattel is more upset that they aren’t profiting from the 500,000+ people who interact with their product every day. Here’s another example of how companies must adapt and adjust their revenue streams to work in tandem with social mediums, and quickly.

If I’m Hasbro/Mattel, I immediately hire the Agarwalla brothers, full-time or via consulting contract, and put them in charge of getting the entire brand portfolio (Battleship, Monopoly, Jenga, Stratego, Clue, etc.) built upon the Facebook API and Google’s OpenSocial movement. I’d use this as an opportunity to create communities around my products, turn my users into distributors, gather data via opt-in methods to learn more about my customers, sell ad space and ultimately promote brand loyalty.