Justin Dawkins

Updates from May, 2010

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  Projects, Playoffs, and a Pivot

  Justin 12:46 am on May 29, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: atlanta (2), internet marketing (2), jdot, Social Media (4), social media marketing, startups

  It’s hard to believe that we are just a couple of days from moving into the hot, sweltering days of Summer in Atlanta. With June just around the corner, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to send a quick note with some updates on me and the projects you (may) know I work on.

  Social Saints — my baby
  If you didn’t already know Social Saints is the marketing technology consultancy I started in 2008. Over the past two years (without a website believe it or not) we’ve been able to secure some great clients and really explore our service offerings to see what the Kingdom needs. We are now set to launch or web presence in the next few weeks and really take our position as a premier marketing consultancy for the faith-based sector.

  As of now we’ve got a couple of clients under our belts with a few more in the pipeline. Currently we’re working on themichalemahaffeyproject.com [or mikethroughmusic.com] and Batiste Music . The Michael Mahaffey Project is a new, multi-dimensional gospel performance by Michael Mahaffey. Though I can’t disclose any major details, I can say that Mike’s performance will give you some additional perspective and send you on a journey through sacrifice, service and triumph. I’m excited to see the finished product and I’ll let you know when the site is ready so that you can all purchase tickets [Atlanta, Georgia - September 2010].

  As far as Batiste, we’re still working out the details but to date, Socials Saints will create a layered social media campaign leveraging their various networking, fans, and contacts. The plan is to allow people to get to know Batiste more while generating awareness for their music and performances. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know when some of our work “goes live.”

  A Couple of New Projects and a Pivot
  Let me start with the pivot. We recently celebrated our 10,000th user on DIGITALGUESTLIST and so with that milestone behind us, Joe and I decided to take a look at what DGL has to offer and make some adjustments. Thought I can’t talk too much about it yet, we are currently reviewing some changes to the DIGITALGUESTLIST platform. A UI change, feature simplification and a new approach for platform users and marketers will totally change the benefits and utility of DGL. Stay tuned over the next few months.

  In addition to my Social Saints clients and a DGL pivot, I’m also in the process of starting two new start-ups. Both of them are tech start-ups and in my honest, but biased opinion are both game changers. One will focus on a new way to foster conversations about your favorite online content with friends, while the other focuses on providing small businesses with a new way to connect with their customers. I know, I know my descriptions are vague, but within the next few months it will all makes sense.

  Well that’s all I wanted to say for now. Forgive me for my vagueness but I will share more with everyone soon! Until then be blessed and be safe

  -Justin

  Oh and to make the title of this post relevant… yes I am a NBA fan and I’ll be watching the Celtics and Lakers play over the next two weeks! If you want to link up and watch (and live in the Atlanta area) let me know.

 

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  5 Reasons Why I'll Continue To Use UberTwitter

  Justin 3:07 am on April 21, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blackberry, twitter, ubertwitter

  A few nights ago I took a few minutes to download the official Twitter for Blackberry client and my initial thought was; “Wow! This is nice!” I immediately found appreciation in the; super fast connectivity, direct message integration and the beautiful user interface. To simply put it, the official client is slick… real slick.

  While these 3 benefits are nice, I must say that the official Twitter Blackberry app is missing a few things. First let me clarify something. For the average user the official app is great but as a power user I decided I need a bit more. I put together a quick list of reasons why I’ll still use Uber Twitter.

  1. Classic Retweet – Twitter’s explanation about how and why the chose to build the official retweet function makes complete sense to me but it’s not flexible enough. I prefer having the ability to create some commentary surrounding the message as a way to express myself and classic retweeting gives me that option. What would be great is a way to mention a particular message so that users can continue to include commentary around the original tweet.

  2. The Uber Bar – This is a GREAT feature from Uber Twitter and I’ve come to appreciate its utility. Essentially the Uber Bar is a universal book-marking system that allows you to quickly access users from an auto-expanding navigation bar at the top of the application. This is great for quickly accessing your friend or favorite brand’s tweets.

  3. Multiple Accounts – This is pretty self-explanatory. Uber Twitter supports quick access to multiple accounts while the official Twitter application doesn’t. The lack of support isn’t a big deal to most users but for brand managers it’s a drag. I guess the one upside is that you can’t accidentally send brand tweets from your personal account or even worst sending personal tweets to your brand followers… Yikes!

  4. Font Options – Though the official client gives you the ability to change the font size and family, I personally would like more options. UberTwitter gives you the ability to edit the font size and family for consumption and creation. I prefer a slightly larger font when I’m creating a tweet, while enjoying the extra real estate when reading tweets.

  5. Photo Sharing Options – Uber Twitter gives users a few options for photo sharing while Twitter only integrates TwitPic. Though it gets the job done I have an account with TweetPhoto so the integration Uber Twitter has works really well!

  That’s about it. I hope that this is helpful but I’d love to hear what you think. What Twitter application do you use on your Blackberry and why?

 
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  Prediction: Google will roll Aardvark into Buzz

  Justin 12:10 am on April 2, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aardvark, buzz, gmail, google

  Trying to see the future is good for the imagination and spurring innovation but in my personal opinion isn’t very fun. Furthermore, predicting what a large, highly innovative company with deep pockets will do next either requires some sort of magic eight ball or a knack for making really good guesses. Since I possess none of the above I tend not to participate in making predictions but with Google’s recent moves I thought I’d give it a shot.

  With the recent acquisition of Aardvark and the release of Buzz, Google is adding an additional approach to its social media technology strategy. By adding the “put Google anywhere” model (think Google FriendConnect) with tools that draw users back into their existing products to consume content (Google Buzz) Google is looking to cover a lot of ground in the social media space.

  Now with Aardvark under the umbrella I have a feeling things could get really interesting. Here’s 5 reasons why I believe Google will roll Aardvark into Buzz.

  1. Access to friends – one of the greatest and meaningful features of Aardvark is that you can get answers to any question from anyone and you don’t even have to know them. Heck your social graphs don’t even have to come close to one another. However, I believe that every once in awhile you want answers from your friends or at least the colleagues you respect or have a rapport with. Integrating Aardvark into Buzz will give users the best of both worlds.
  2. Relevance – Another strong point of Aardvark is the way it matches questions to those who have expressed knowledge or expertise in the particular subject matter. Using this “classification” will allow any Buzz user to wear a hat of expertise and offer their knowledge to others.
  3. Access to answers (and questions) – Google at its core, is about search and since Aardvark is about questions I believe it’s safe to assume that the new acquisition is about searching for relevant answers to ANY question.
  4. User experience – I believe a fusion of Buzz and Aardvark would make a powerful and extremely useful tool for users. Being able to ask a question, review responses and derive answers in one place will make Buzz a contextual king and ultimately drive more accuracy and relevance for its search results.
  5. Where else would they want to put it? – This is my most straight forward prediction. Simply put, aside from renaming Aardvark “Google Ask” or “Google Answer” I can’t imagine where else they would put it and maintain a high level accessibility. Keeping it as a standalone product isn’t a bad idea but providing results (answers) within a familiar system just seems more appropriate.

  Look I’m not expert and to be honest all of my reasons are shots in the dark. For all I know Google may keep Aardvark exactly the way it is, though history tells us differently. I just thought I’d take a shot, now let’s sit back and watch. Actually… Let’s take cue from Aardvark and ask a question. What do you think?

 
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  5 Reasons I Use Skribit

  Justin 3:08 am on January 25, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: skribit, social

  Ok, I’m just going to put it out there! Writing for a personal blog, consistently, is likely one of the most challenging task of my online life. Between my to-do list, ongoing projects, staying connected with friends and family and answering email, I rarely have the time needed to consistently produce quality content for my blog. Add in the fact that it’s hard to come up with topics and my blog is often a content disaster. Though the first set of excuses are completely on me, there is a solution to the second on. Enter Skribit.  At its core Skribit is a tool that enables you to take suggestions for your blog or website and manage those recommendations in one spot. It also lets you see what the rest of the web is planning to write about, keeping you abreast of trending topics and possibly inspiring your next blog post. Now there are quite a few other features that make Skribit great but I’ll leave that up to the tour. Now the site does a great job of revealing its features but I didn’t want miss the opportunity to tell you why I use Skribit!

  5 Reasons Why I Use Skribit

  1. It’s really helpful- Though I only have a few hundred unique visitors per month, the suggestion box seems to be a place for the “regulars” to voice their opinions about what I should write about next.
  2. Easy to use – I literally installed the Skribit widget in about 30 seconds. Once I did, I immediately shared it with friends and family to see if there was anything I should write about (since I cover such a wide range of topics). Another idea is to add a link to your Skribit blog profile into the signature of your emails and/or email marketing messages.
  3. Flexible – I imagine that the team over at Skribit’s initial idea was for bloggers, but the service can really be used for just about anything. In just a few minutes you can integrate it on websites, Facebook profiles (tricky but doable), corporate blogs or any other site you may create original content for. I suppose it’s up to you.
  4. The team – Paul Stamatiou, Lance and the rest of the Skribit team are great people. Lance has given me quite a few pointers on a couple of my startups and Paul is just a good guy to know in the Atlanta (always in the know).
  5. It’s an Atlanta startup – Skribit is an Atlanta based startup and is one of a handful of startups still in active development from Atlanta’s Startup Weekend. Though I believe you can build a great startup anywhere, I do believe in supporting Atlanta based startups, so if not for the other 4 reasons I would support them because they’re based in Atlanta alone.

  Well have you signed up yet? If not check it out and let me know your thoughts. Oh and feel free to suggest something… my Skribit widget is located on the left.