Before most people knew about new media and blogging, John Battelle was already doing it.
John Battelle is an entrepreneur, journalist, professor, and author. He is currently founder and chairman of Federated Media Publishing. Previously, Battelle was founder, chairman, and CEO of Standard Media International (SMI), publisher of The Industry Standard and TheStandard.com. Prior to founding The Standard, Battelle was a co-founding editor of Wired magazine and Wired Ventures.
In his spare time he writes the weblog, SEARCHBLOG and acts as the “band manager” for one of the most popular weblogs around, Boing Boing.
John is the author of The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture” (Portfolio, 2005).
John took time over the holiday to answer two questions about new media and how social media has changed the customer-business conversation.
thing one might buy, or every service one might use, is found via the Internet, and in particular using search. That means you need to have a site on the Internet that understands the role of search, and the role of media as an intermediary between your customers and your business. Those who don’t understand this will fail.
and if you don’t have it, you also fail.
JB: Give the people what they want. When they come to your site, make it easy for them to communicate their wants/needs/desires, and then make it
easy for them to act on it! Make sure there is always open communication, ideally, a way for them to instantly call or IM you if they have questions. Use the search refer information (amazing how many folks don’t do this).
Big shout out to John for taking the time post-holiday to talk to us! Find about more about John Battelle over on BattelleMedia.com.
