De.licio.us Bookmarked for Closing

It appears as if one of the most popular social bookmarking sites (and pretty strong brand name amongst certain circles) has been marked for what Yahoo calls being ‘sunset’. In other words, it will be riding off into the sunset and sent to the glue factory. Never heard that one? OK, I’ll say it in simpler terms. It’s being shut down.

The slide below was displayed over at TechCrunch and shows other Yahoo properties targeted for sunset-land including Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, AltaVista, MyBlogLog and a few more..

An update to the TC post pretty much put the final nail in the rumor and turned it into ‘fact’.

AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes is reporting that the products will be in fact shut down and that the slide does in fact originate from an all hands meeting at Yahoo, following yesterday’s layoffs. As if we needed more proof, Yahoo Product Manager Blake Irving has threatened to fire whomever leaked the slide.

The official response from Yahoo:

“Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond.

We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate.”

For the few of you unaware this is PR speak for, “We confirm.”

What I find most fascinating about this entire thing has little to do with what is or is not being closed down. Rather it’s this Wikileaks like culture that exists in the Internet / tech industry. Things that are obviously intended for internal use to convey information to people who are on a ‘need to know’ basis are just as likely to end up on TechCrunch as they are in a VP’s office at the company.

Yahoo is a publically traded company that has investors who could lose a lot of money if any of these leaks lead to further activity that negatively impacts the shareholder value. There are any number of consequences that could result from this kind of internal planning being made public but people don’t seem to care.

I have read others who have broached this subject and they talk about honor, class and integrity. It appears as if these qualities are in shorter supply than ever at companies these days. We are not talking about government secrets that get everyone in a tizzy about what was or wasn’t shared, what should or shouldn’t be shared and if there are lives in the balance. On some level, those actions can be justified to some degree (Note: I am not the least bit interested in debating the whole Wikileaks thing. It’s not anything that needs to be done in this forum. I’m just citing the example.)

As for employees (who are paid by a company for their services, which are to help the company grow regardless of whether it can really be done or not), letting these sensitive ‘documents’ out into the wild? I think it shows an extremely low level of class and a complete lack of integrity.

I mean honestly, other than to hurt the company and endear yourself to the tech media, what is the purpose of giving this information to outsiders? It’s all for personal gain and it does nothing but create the potential for greater harm to those who are actually trying to work to help the company succeed (even if those efforts appear to be very misguided). I think it’s pretty pathetic.

Look, I am not perfect. When I worked at bigger companies I could be found engaging in water cooler talk that was questioning or wondering what in the world was going on. I am not claiming piety here. But one thing I would have never considered was giving company data to outsiders. That’s just short-sighted, ignorant and mean-spirited, in my opinion.

But anyway, for today I am part of the machine that uses the information that has been passed along. Maybe I am just as guilty as the next guy on this one by sharing it further. That’s one I’ll have to work on myself now, isn’t it?

Ted Rubin Sees OpenSky for Online Commerce

Many people in the social media world are familiar with Ted Rubin. He is one of the most enthusiastic and energetic users of social media in the business. What makes Ted quite unique is that he is an executive level social media user. It’s unfortunate that we call him unique in his efforts. We have to though because most executive level marketers barely know what social media is let alone actually use it.

I first talked to Ted when he was CMO for e.l.f. Cosmetics. It was the first time I realized that in an ‘interview’ with Ted I would just have to try to keep up because he’s got a ridiculous amount of energy. His energy is commensurate to his level of excitement about his projects. Considering the pace he kept with me, it is safe to say that Ted is completely ‘jacked up’ about The OpenSky Project, which is where he puts his efforts currently.

The OpenSky Project was started by John Caplan who has a resume that includes being president and CMO of About.com and CEO of Ford Models. Ted’s role with the group is as Chief Social Marketing Officer or Chief Relationship Officer or whatever you would call a position that is pretty new to the corporate hierarchies of today.

The OpenSky Project is described in a blog post by Caplan from September of 2009

The idea for OpenSky is simple: we are a community center, a gathering place for people to learn and connect with one another and share great expertise and the best products.

With success, OpenSky means real people connecting consumers to the products they love and use.

What Ted is promoting is a service that helps two groups: bloggers and their fans. He doesn’t talk about readers, per se, because what Rubin and OpenSky looks to do is tap into the passion that exists in many bloggers and their followers. This passion is obvious but what is not obvious to most is how that passion can turn into making some money.

Rubin has extensive influence himself with the “mommy blogger” set and has found that the question he has had to try to answer most from this group (and other affinity groups like them with whom he interacts with daily) is “How do I make money doing this?”. It’s not an easy answer really since there is much debate in blogger circles about just what should and should not be allowed with regard to commerce related activities and, of course, the government has thrown their hat in the ring about how product endorsements are handled.

Enter OpenSky. Blogging is about relationships. These relationships, which are born of trust from readers, create influencers. Bloggers who are influencers can mold opinions about many things. One of the most powerful ways is in their “rubber stamping” of products and services they trust, enjoy and use themselves. OpenSky provides a great way for bloggers to turn that passion into revenue. Rubin describes the service as follows:

OpenSky is a platform that enables bloggers/influencers to make money by selling products they are already interested in and passionate about.

As with all things that Ted is involved in, the secret sauce of this offering which is in beta but preparing to relaunch with their new scaleable platform in less than 60 days, is relationships. In fact, he calls this type of ‘selling’ relationship commerce.

This concept is very new in many ways but investors have taken notice with OpenSky receiving $11 million to this point. While there are only about 200 current bloggers/influencers using the platform the big picture is to democratize the opportunity for bloggers and product producers to make money. There are over 800 more signed up and ready to go as soon as the relaunch takes effect.

These are not the usual department stores or big box store products we are talking about either. Most of the bloggers have found neat niche products that not many people would know about and thus share with their trusted readers. They can then use the OpenSky platform which puts the shopping cart on their blog, sources the item, ships it,provides customer service on the purchase, and guarantees all sales for 365 days for a 50/50 split of the margin on the sale.

As Rubin describes it, there is only upside because it allows bloggers to make money, it gives their readers access to products that they would have never known about otherwise and it allows product producers to have channels for their products to get to market. In essence, the OpenSky environment is really a complete commerce ecosystem that empowers content providers, their readers and great niche product innovators to work together and do something better than just ‘buy and sell’.

So why have I written about this for you, the Marketing Pilgrim readers? So you can see that there are people out there trying to connect passionate people with other people that results in business. It’s also a testament to the power of a high energy social media user like Ted Rubin who proves that social media is effective when you work it.

Oh and does Ted work at social media? Yes he does. Just follow him on Twitter (@tedrubin) and ask him any questions you have about OpenSky. He’ll answer. Why? Because he gets it and wants others to ‘get it’ too, whether it’s about OpenSky or social media in general.

Stay tuned for more news about this new platform that is about helping people be successful. It should be fun to watch this new way of doing online commerce take hold.

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