Blog Potomac Speaker – Frank Gruber
June 14th, 2008 by Simon Heseltine
The next presentation was billed as the ‘after lunch keynote’ and was delivered by Frank Gruber, who is AOL’s social media & web product development expert. The topic of this presentation was how he parlayed a blogging hobby into a fun social media job with AOL, and the fun ’shiny objects’ or social media tools that he likes to play with.
3 years ago he started his blog – Somewhat Frank. After attending an SEO conference he was convinced that he wanted to start a blog. So he did, the same week that TechCrunch started up, which got him talking to Michael Arrington eventually he started writing for Techcrunch. AOL found him through the articles that he wrote for Techcrunch. He worked on the myaol product, part of which involved bringing in bloggers to evaluate the product and provide feedback. He’s now working in the people network – Bebo, Gooey, ICQ, AIM, which is basically their social network.
Products that he loves and uses every day – ‘Shiny objects’
- Summize
- Tumblr
- Friendfeed
- SocialThing
- TubeMogul - Pushes videos out to multiple platforms at once
- Viddler
- Mixx
- Digg
- Delicious
- Stumbleupon
- Shareaholic - FF plugin
- Typepad
- Wordpress
- YouTube
- Flickr
- Evernote
- Filterbox
- awayfind
- Basecamp
- Legit
Shiny Objects that he likes, but uses less frequently
Q. How do you find out about all the ’shiny objects’?
A. People recommend things to him through his existing ’shiny objects’. His role involves keeping his finger on the pulse of social media, so he also goes out looking for new toys to play with that may be useful for AOL in the long run. Generally they find their way to him.
Q. How sustainable are these social media tools?
A. People can only concentrate their efforts on so many tools at one time (given the list above Frank can obviously concentrate more than most!).
Q. How do you cope with the fact that blogging is now a multimedia effort?
A. Frank started a vlog because of that fact. He feels that people have to ‘pick your poison’.
Q. How do you feel about pay per post style businesses?
A. He’d tested it out, and feels that as long as the person is transparent about the fact that they are paid to write about a product then it’s fine.
Q. What ’shiny object’ would you create if money was no object
A. If he could have clearance, it would be something to do with pictures or video
Q. How would you recommend a firm use these shiny toys to enhance their PR?
A. Pick a selection of tools, have community managers who are passionate about the tools.
Q. How do you reach the people who don’t know about the ’shiny toys’?
A. People have different social circles expanding out from friends and family.
Q. What are the keys to success for startups?
A. Create your own market, or find a market that’s not currently serviced.
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