There’s a difference between monitoring and listening and there’s certainly a difference between conversations and engagement. How social media is employed today promotes monitoring as a reporting function and conversations as a symptom of reaction. In many ways, the state of social media is eerily reminiscent of traditional marketing. We’re fooled into a sense of collaboration and co-creation because people can respond. But programs are not measured by functionality, they are valued by the value customers take away from the experience. It begs the question, is social media in actuality anti-social?

New media philosophies, while rich with good intentions, are confined by the culture of the organization they’re designed to help. Corporate culture is pervasive and planted. It is not anything that will change suddenly because of the popularity of Twitter and Facebook no matter how strong your case. Culture shock takes place because a business is subjected to the harsh reality that customers no longer support the way business is conducted.

Value is not Stated, It’s Delivered…and It’s Felt

Social Media offers a window to the future and a means to earn relevance, nothing less, nothing more. It is an enabler to reinvigorate the mission and vision of the company and extend its value only when the purpose and value have been redefined for a new generation of consumers. This is where it all begins. Otherwise, your engagement strategies activate a timer that counts down the journey to irrelevance.

People have choices. They have options. They can make decisions with or without you. How they’re marketed to today is the beginning of the end of social media 1.0. Social streams are brimming with information, promotions, and friend requests that compete for a finite amount of attention. Something more is required and it’s needed now.

Brands are doing well at building communities in social networks once they realize that there’s an art and science to engagement, content, entertainment, and community activation. But a community is only as strong as the aftereffect that’s produced when it is tested. For example, do customers click through to landing pages? What happens when they get there? Are referrals active and how do they pan out? Are individuals addressing the problems or challenges of their peers when you can’t be there? Or, are they merely interacting with each update within your domain because it’s easy to do so?

@ and Found

The future of social networking lies in conveying value and delivering against the brand promise not only within your communities but also in the communities you do not own and are not present. I refer to this as the “@ and Found” formula for engagement. Businesses are getting better at monitoring conversations where the brand name is mentioned. Some are proficient in comparing mentions to the volume and reach of competitors. Mastering the cycle of monitoring goes beyond reporting however. It must be supported by a conversation framework that pushes important opportunities to engage or learn through the organization to return a response or trigger change or adaptation within.

A conversation framework has a beginning and an end with various pathways to business units and functions in between. Responding to opportunities and communicating the act of listening and adapting form a solid “@” quotient in this equation.

These individuals represent would-be advocates for your brand. If they’re happy with the product or brand experience they are candidates for an ambassador or advocacy program. Note, advocacy programs require different engagement techniques than that of influencers. Advocates operate from a genuine passion for what you do. Influencers operate from a basic perspective of, “what’s in it for me.” They are most likely not customers or users of your product or service today.

As referenced in the image above, MarketingSherpa found that outside engagement represents a greater degree of difficulty but equally offers a greater level of effectiveness.

Responding to mentions is just the beginning. It’s the low hanging fruit of conversational marketing and social media in general. The “Found” side of the calculation is where the future of brand relevance takes shape. It’s not about who you engage with today or those that engage with you, it’s about those who don’t. These prospects are active in your markets, your brand is just not an option for whatever reason. It’s your job to figure out how to earn attention and significance among them and the communities in which they populate and influence.

While advocates are discoverable by brand-related keywords, the “Founds” are identifiable by keywords related to markets and interests.

- They define communities of opportunity
- Recommend other products and services
- Answer each others questions
- Share experiences
- Earn authority on subjects tied to your industry

Listening to what they say and understanding the challenges and opportunities they face provide intelligence to inspire a meaningful engagement program. Once activated, the responses will funnel through the existing listening and conversation framework to ensure continued engagement, resolution and closure.

While the “@’s” represent an opportunity for advocacy, the “Founds” reveal potential influencers. Earlier I mentioned a difference between conversations and engagement. Influencers do not gain value from random acts of conversation. They do however, respond well to informed engagement where value and mutual benefits are inherent in the outreach.

The next era of social media is not based on a one-to-many model but instead a one-to-one-to-many continuum that naturally triggers a measurable social effect. Indeed, 1 + 1 = Many.

We are situated in a market that is in transition. Operating with what we know must be balanced by learning what we don’t know and then applying it to the mix based on the needs and expectations of our customers. Doing so may push us outside of our comfort zones, but in the end, it is how we earn relevance today and over time. Welcome to the end of business as usual.

Check out BrianSolis.com for more articles by Brian Solis

Conversations are built upon comments going back and forth and branching out in new directions, taken from one channel to the next. As the web as a whole has become more social, the conversation has gotten larger and it has become easier for anyone to get involved at a growing number of destinations, whether you join in the comments on a blog post, a Twitter stream, a Facebook News Feed,  an email , a Google result (courtesy of SearchWiki), IMDB, a forum, a YouTube video, etc.

The web has never been as connected as it is now, and it is only becoming more so each time any service rolls out a new sharing feature. Facebook launched Facebook Connect, Digg launched the Diggbar, somebody launched the Shareaholic Firefox add-on, etc. These are just a few examples of thousands of content sharing tools.

There is value in conversation. I’m sure you’ve heard of the wisdom of crowds. Is every blogger an authority on something? No. Are all bloggers the authority on the subject of each of their posts? Of course not. That’s why commenting is an option.

Comments add value for the reader. If a blogger is wrong about something (or even if he is not, but there is some debate), there are comments there to at least provide different views. Readers can then take these in with the original post and use their own judgment to reach their own conclusion, or use it as reason to further research the topic. Either way, they are getting value out of it because they are not taking one person’s word for it.

When you’re talking about a blog, or a news site, or really any kind of content site, comments add value. They don’t just add vale for the reader, but for the publisher as well.

WebProNews recently conducted an interview with James Smith, Chief Revenue Officer for the Huffington Post, a very popular social news site. In fact, James attributes the site’s success to being social. He says the site currently logs over a million comments a month.

More WebProNews Videos

"The reason I like to read HuffingtonPost is because of the comments – it makes it feel so much more community based AND the comments are refreshed quite quickly," writes Susan, commenting on a WebProNews post looking at the interview (and adding value to that post of course).

In the above clip, Smith talks about some types of things that attract people to want to "dive into" content. He mentions polls, images, and most popular stats, like showing the most popular news stories, and how many comments they have. Readers see hot topics of conversation, and often feel more compelled to look at that content because they have an indication that it has generated some interest.

Of course this helps page views, which can help advertising, and so on and so forth. This benefits everyone involved. Advertisers get more clicks. Publishers get more money from advertisers. Readers get more valuable content – not only from the comments, but because if the publisher is doing well financially, they’ll be able to keep providing the content. Everybody wins. Furthermore, the publisher will be more inclined to post on subjects of interest, because they will attract comments, and the cycle continues.

Sometimes readers need a little push for commenting (which is why you’ll often see comment links scattered throughout WebProNews content). It’s simply a call to action for added value for all parties. Blogger Neville Hobson has a nice list of tips you can use to encourage comments.

As a blogger/publisher, once you get comments, keep up with them, and stay involved in the conversation when applicable (certainly time can be a factor here). For one, it will give the commenters a reason to come back, and conversations that come from comments can often inspire future posts. There also may be some things that fit right into your post that you hadn’t thought of, and they will be there as additional resources for your readers.

Do you enjoy reading comments on articles and blog posts? Do you find yourself commenting frequently? Tell us.

Session description: Google, Yahoo, Ask, and other search engines have changed the way they present search results, and the changes have major implications for interactive marketers. The still emerging trend, referred to as unified search, integrates vertical content into the main natural search results page. Images, videos, news and blog posts, previously accessible only by clicking between tabs in the results, now appear in the main query results. How can you adjust your search strategy to capitalize on the changes? Learn what types of content have grown in importance and hot to capitalize accordingly.
Moderator: Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing and publisher of the TopRank Online Marketing blog

• Chris Heuer, Partner, The Conversation Group
• Paul Bruemmer, Director Search Marketing, Red Door Interactive
• Bridget Shea, Director of Account Services, SendTec

Lee Odden
Explanation of universal search. Execution is different: Ask 3D—3 columns; disambiguation/results/images & video
Live: harder to prompt video
Yahoo & Google: video mixed in
(examples: Shrek III, Nintendo Wii—integrating Google News, Blog search results (as of yesterday))
1/2-2/3 of the audience executing universal search right now
Pushing site on several different channels: Flickr, YouTube, etc.

Chris Heuer
Search is the beginning of a conversation. Social media is also a conversation—search is the end, social is the beginning. Text, audio, video & stuff by people and for people. You’re people, corporations are people.

Success requires clarity of purpose. The original idea round SEO was to help people find answers (ie your content). Universal search is a natural evolution—provide many different types of info. It’s in the best interest of the searcher. Universal search simply requires search marketing professional to apply keyword optimization to all channels. It’s still about “filling the funnel.”

Put the searcher first. Serving their interest is the purpose, form which you leverage the “because effect.” Interruption isn’t welcome. Roadblocks are . . . blocking.

Serve the market and you serve the marketer.

Making media optimized to engage searcher in the conversation is the optimization of marketing. Universal means thinking about other media in the same way you used to think about landing pages.

Paul Bruemmer

Have you responded to capitalize on the changing face of search engines?

How can you adjust search strategy to capitalize on these changes?

Learn what kinds of content have grown in importance (and how to capitalize on those).

Is Google Backing off from universal search? (15 Oct search insider column, Mark Simon). Very thought provoking

1. Are users confused by natural search?
2. Does universal search make Google money?
3. What about Google’s tabs image/video/etc?
4. Does it erode relevancy?

He’s going to rebut those arguments.

Understand Google’s culture: It was created as a research project; heavily anchored in math. Large amounts of free, relevant info. Successful search & advertising DNA created off the back of organic listings. It’s not about paid search; all about user experience.

Google’s marketing and PR people do a very good job of distracting analysts and journalists from Google’s core activities (it’s all analytical, mathematical—not emmotional)
infolab.standford.edu/~backrub/Google.html — their initial abstract/plan in 1997, got them the grant at Stanford

Is research history?
Google wants to bring DGM, video product reviews, catalogs, books, local, maps, products, web, finance image blogs etc etc etc. Research probably isn’t history.

Do people trust consumers’ opinion? yes—he expects a big growth pattern in video
Video customer reviews
Yideo product demos—videos go viral, videos in conversion
He who hesitates is lost—get to work on universal search

Bridget Shea

She’ll play devil’s advocate. Any shift in the organic listings will have affect on paid listings. We can see that visually the SERP is going to change. For any of you that read the Enquiro research with 2010 SERP, the changes are certainly even more drastic.

It looks like a major shift, but I think this will have a very small impact on the core fundamentals of search campaign management.

We’re always getting back to the fact that it’s nothing new that search has all these dynamic variables. We always have to look at “cost allowable” CPL, etc. Core fundamentals—if you have that intact, you’re ready. It’s just another variable to deal with. Like seasonality—holiday season doesn’t mean you have to scrap everything you’re doing the rest of the year. Like competition—new companies or products don’t mean everything you’ve done is completely irrelevant.

It’s very math-driven, especially in paid side.

The image is most obvious. If you put the image in the middle of the organic listings—it changes the way the users’ eyes go. If you’re getting more consideration on the organic side, you may get less consideration on the paid side.

Another thing that might change is average position. Ask3D—overall average position. We might have 2 average positions—overall and within each individual media category.

Things that impact consumers can then impact marketing. One idea: price comparison within SERP—you might start to see a shift that could be big. If consumers can find all the info that they need and there’s a corollary B&M—if the SERP has reviews, specs, info, local address and store hours could drive your online sales offline.

Some agencies will be better positioned already, but I don’t think we need to scrap everything we know—make improvements and upgrades to move quickly with it. Agencies and SEOs that have full service are better prepared—already doing paid, SEO, video, etc.

An area where agencies could make up some ground, certainly with video in SERPs—take the same video for a tv campaign, cut it up, get it online and add online CTAs, voila.

Additional data points mean we need to not rely on our old ways of doing analytics—big upgrade there.

You can’t rely on one great high-caliber analytics guru—find systems to make all those analytics replicable and scalable to grow business and not get bogged down in data.

Flexible technology. If we’re gonna throw in other variables, think about all the different parameters in query strings—agencies with proprietary technology and those that can modify and track parameters and conversions will definitely be in a good place.

Lee’s question: What do you think is the low-hanging fruit for the organizations that are already publishing different kinds of content to take advantage of universal search.

Paul: certainly along the lines of what Bridget was saying. Those who have the materials need to just get them up and get it going. That’s very low hanging fruit

Chris: the linking behavior around it—having an index page of your images, give images relevance

Paul: Weather.com did a great job implementing their video for earth forecast. Their video pageviews have increased 400% by essentially creating a site map of their videos with thumbnails, links, text, etc.

They’re doing a great job of organizing that data.

Bridget: It’s kind of the last check on the box is once we go live on their TV campaigns is that we launch is on Google video as well

Chris: there are all these sites where you can put up your content for free (blip, flickr, youtube) and link back to the brand

Lee: promoting those different media types—upload your video to your site and submit it to those free sites.

Chris: it’s about serving your clients’ needs. They need this, they demand it, someone is going to serve those needs. Are you going to find a way to serve those needs or will you partner out?

Paul: you’ve gotta have content, and if you don’t you have to look at all the other media and find a way to provide the content or be lost in the sea of data.

Is there a preference if there’s something appropriate, tagged appropriately, it’s more likely to come up in SERPs (if video or image)?

Paul: Universal search is not where it’s gonna be 12 months from now. They’re throwing a lot of switches. There will no doubt be a mathematical algorithm to find what people want.

Bridget: they’re smart about how they’re testing. There’s a reason why the page isn’t filled with just video and images. You only see maps when doing a local type search.

Lee: Google Blogoscoped posted screen shots of universal paid results. Very much dynamic and in flux.

Paul: it’s embryonic at this point. Not a foregone conclusion about its direction.

Chris: I don’t see a future where you’d see 10 video results. It comes down to individual preferences and learning styles. Some people are number-driven, some story-driven. 5-1 difference in video v. audio downloads. Yeah, they’re going to other tabs and just listening to it play. It’s a matter of individual preference—may set in profiles.

Paul: You hit the nail on the head there. Gord interviewed Marissa Mayer a while ago: people are tired of network television telling them the news. People want the news the way they want the news and they’ll get it from Goolge. Google provides it to you in a vast, universal way. That’s the direction.

Lee: difference between choosing your content and random access content.

Paul, you showed a shot where there was a right-rail video pd search. Was that live?

Paul: That was live and it was gone the next day—one ad, two “videos” results, two “products” results (very like Ask 3D).

Video is easier—like to be entertained. It’s a lot less of recall and retainment. The advent of more advertainment is going to make it harder to get ROI than it is today. The world may be bigger, but I think it would be harder to dive good ROI through video

Paul: Marketers have their centric POV in getting ROI, but that’s not consumers/searchers POV and goal.

Chris: people don’t want to be advertised to. It’s an interruption. Social graph—how do we monetize it? I’m there to be social, not to transact. Same with YouTube. People don’t want marketers in a lot of their conversations because they’re trying to get them to do things they don’t want to do. But helping them do what they want to do? That’ll work.

Followup: but why should I, then, work on my entertaining video when it doesn’t help?

Bridget: It’s not just entertainment. It should have a strong CTA, it needs to be clear what you want the do after they view it.

Lee: it’s the content that gives them value but also has a CTA

Chris: this shift is NOT about selling, it’s about helping people buy. When they’re ready, they need to be able to find it

Search is a textual medium—Ask 3D commercial. I’m just wondering if this is what the searcher wants, I would submit that if someone’s going to a search engine, if they want an image or video (which they often indicate in query). If it’s not indicated in the query, I don’t think it’s what they’re looking for. There are some improvements that universal does great, but are we getting away from the simple elegance that search provided?

Lee: I have to believe that search engines are looking at click stream data—for this type of query, what type or result they go to, and factoring that data in future SERPs.

Bridget: Huge shift on local with maps onebox for local search. It comes down to preferences and local.

Paul: remember the common denominator. Google is anchored in math. As humans, we can’t do Google’s calculations. It’s gonna be very complex, how they arrive at this.

Followup: from the users’ perspective, what do they want? Are they looking for a rich media experience every time?

Paul: that’s what they’re trying to find out. Google has 30 data centers costing $2b/yr, 400k servers—they’re into it.

Chris: people often don’t know what they’re searching for. They think they can search and just find it. See what they want in SERPs. Helping to direct them more specifically to the things they’re looking for. [requiring less query refinement]

From the advertisers’ standpoint, and working with our clients, it’s around what are people doing when they’re at your site. Are they watching your test drive video? Put it in Google video and drive traffic there. A lot of this going around keyword up there. Not every result gives a universal result. It’s back on you—what are people doing on your site?

Chris: Marketing has popularly become associated with selling. The original idea of marketing is matching the value of a product/service with the audience, the people who will drive the most value from it. If we get back to that, it will changes things drastically.

Would you say our low-hanging fruit should be not only including images in Flickr and video on YouTube, but creating a universal LP—include images, video, etc. If you have a product, you want to show everything on that same page—blog, review, text, video, image.

Bridget: you’re gonna want to test that. When you have two product offerings, we do a lot of landing page testing where we give them a very clear decision. You might offer both paths. We don’t know if it’s termite or pest control. If we let them choose. If it’s a broader term that’s a brand term, again it’s going to follow the same principles. More likely: take whether broad or specific query to match to pages like you’re doing now.

Paul: example—Amazon. Long long product pages, everything on there. Do well in organic and paid.

Chris: social media allows you serve a/b markets. Helps you create serendipity—long tail keyword. Those 20 people at the end of the spectrum that call it something else. More content is better!

Yesterday we heard 80% of clicks are on organic. One more tool bar on Ask, no organic results ATF (well, images and video are probably organic results)

Lee: Clicks on search results are on organic side. For folks who aren’t doing SEO, it’s moot. But if you are, and landscape is changing on types of content represented, what’s getting clicks—it’s an opportunity for you

Gord: We understand images much faster than text. It’s a much longer cycle to understand & process text. Spend a little less time with the spreadsheets, spend a little more time looking at what makes your customer tick.

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I just completed the PRoactive Report on Monitoring the Online Conversation so it’s very timely.

Other sessions I plan to attend and blog baout

• Actionable Social Media:

• Podcast & Audio Search:
• Images & Search Engines:

With Google Universal pulling in images, news, audio and video these are the must attend sessions.  I will cover them this week, so keep reading.

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I thought that was a great idea and with so many smart marketers reading Online Marketing Blog, I’d like to invite you to share a few of your favorite books on the subjects of marketing online, social media and new media public relations.

I’ll start with the list I sent Rohit which includes a few books that are several years old but most are fairly new or soon to be released:

• The Long Tail - Chris Anderson
• Join the Conversation - Joseph Jaffe
• The New Influencers – Paul Gillin
• The Search – John Battelle
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR – David Meerman Scott
• Now is Gone – Geoff Livingston & Brian Solis
• Do It Wrong Quickly, How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules – Mike Moran
• Search Engine Marketing Inc – Bill Hunt, Mike Moran
• The Corporate Blogging Book – Debbie Weil
• Waiting for Your Cat to Bark – Jeff & Bryan Eisenberg
• The Eyes Have It – Kevin Lee & Steve Baldwin
• Lead Generation for the Complex Sale – Brian J. Carroll
• Duct Tape Marketing – John Jantsch
• Seth Godin’s “Meatball Sundae – Is Your Marketing Out of Synch?” is scheduled for release in December

You can find and order or pre-order all of these books at Amazon or BN.com.

Do you have a recommended reading list of books for better online marketing and PR? Please share in the comments.

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We chatted with Deloitte & Touche Principal and Lead Interactive Advertising executive Tim Davis about the Facebook phenomenon. While it’s far too early to tell what kind of impact Facebook’s ads will have on marketing, Davis called it an “appealing move,” one that takes ads to a conversational place.

The move shifts the delivery of that advertising, with Davis noting such ads represent a pull model. In the first few years of online advertising, that model was a push, Davis said, as advertisers put as much in front of consumers online as possible.

Early advertisers honed their push models in those early years, and they wielded ads like a club. Naturally, few people want to be beaten with advertising, although considering the nature of the Internet, there are probably one or two fetish sites for that sort of thing.

Now, the consumer is more like the king when it comes to the advertising model. Push has its uses, but the pull proves more welcome for ads. It’s been a positive development.

The negative side, as Davis readily acknowledged, means the conversations people have about brands won’t be relentlessly positive. There will be negativity, but that’s something brands will have to engage.

“Transparency is an inevitable consequence of push advertising,” said Davis. “Marketers need to put themselves into conversations; they need to be brutally honest.”

We know what they need to do, but in the world of advertising, the question of who will fulfill this need is open to debate. Should it be the brand doing so? Its marketers? The ad agency managing a campaign?

There are more people at the table, Davis said, and someone there will have to manage the conversation. Going forward, brands and their partners need to decide who that will be.

We see this push movement and the need for conversational interaction as one that may drive a newer segment of the market. Our recent discussion of Buzzlogic suggested the kinds of tools the conversationalists will need to interact in the world of push advertising.

To leverage the BuzzLogic Ad Targeting feature, advertisers create BuzzLogic conversation queries (similar to key word searches) to discover the opinion leaders who are driving online conversations on virtually any topic, as well as the community of sites listening to or participating in a particular discussion. Once influential sites are identified, advertisers develop text or display ads directly from the BuzzLogic dashboard, then customize a list of influencers for site-level campaign targeting.

BuzzLogic will allow advertisers to change their advertising based upon who’s influencing the conversation at the time. “Influence is topic-specific and dynamic – it changes over time,” said Rob Crumpler, president and CEO of BuzzLogic. “For the first time, BuzzLogic Ad Targeting is making it possible for advertisers to follow influential conversations as they move across the web, and target ads in the exact places where like-minded consumers are gathering to exchange ideas and opinions.”

Here’s how it looks:

The company claims the new service increases conversion rates–which makes sense if the ads are targeted to hot conversations. That said, it will be interesting to see which company is the first to stumble. While BuzzLogic’s ads will help you to better target your ads to match the conversations, I’m sure it won’t be long before a brand-under-fire tries to use the service to participate in the conversation. If your business is being criticized, it could be tempting to simply post some ads instead of responding to the blogger’s concerns. In addition, I wonder if bloggers will feel pressure from their readers–such as happened with FM Publishing’s attempt to mix conversations with advertising.

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Now Dell takes another bold step—one sure to raise eyebrows—with the introduction just minutes ago of DellShares, a blog focused on investor relations authored by Lynn Tyson, Dell’s IR veep.

Neville and I had the privilege of interviewing Tyson yesterday for a For Immediate Release interview, which is now available for your listening pleasure (in fact, it’s the post just below this one on this blog).

Few companies have employed social media for investor relations purposes, hindered mainly by qualms about onerous regulations that govern IR activities. But Dell’s experience with Direct2Dell has quieted any concerns, even among the company’s lawyers, according to Tyson, who tossed off a great quote in the interview:

People have learned that there is little downside to having conversations.

The blog was part of a broader initiative for implementing a “21st Century IR Plan,” Tyson says. The plan—and the blog—are based on two key principles. First is the democratization of information; second is the ubiquity of information. Tyson suggests that making information available on a blog where people can find it and having a conversation about that information is nothing different from her department’s normal day-to-day activities:

The ability for an investor relations department to execute this and do it well quite frankly is predicated on how well they do their jobs every day. And if there’s confidence in their ability to exercise sound situational judgement over the phone or over emails or in one-on-one meetings with investors or group meetings with investors or drafting press releases, then there should be that same level of confidence by the company in their ability to have a dialogue over the Internet.

I would cast my vote in a heartbeat for Tyson to serve as a key spokesperson for the adoption of social media in business. Her pointed statements—that fears don’t come to fruition and having a conversation online is no different than having one anywhere else (in terms of your ability to reap value and avoid problems)—stand in stark contrast to the naysayers who insist that closely controlled, one-way, top-down communication should continue to characterize corporate interaction with constituent audiences. These forces fear dire consequences of business adoption of social media. Dell has had the opposite experience, a practical, real-world case study of how engaging in conversation serves the company’s goals.

Couple this with the Northwestern Mutual case study from Forrester (in which intranet blogging boosted productivity) and other success stories. Weigh them against the few tales in which the adoption of a social media strategy has backfired on a company. It’s clear that social media will play a critical part in the fortunes of any company planning to do business in the new-media environment.

DellShares opens with an introductory welcome post. Tyson plans to coordinate posts with key investor events (earnings announcements, conference calls, and the like) and to use it to discuss issues with shareholders large and small. I’ll be watching. Hell, I may buy a few shares just so I can participate as a genuine member of the investing audience.

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Smart dudes. 45 minutes. Talking about Sun Microsystems’ ZFS. File storage system that’s used on a ton of datacenter computers and is rumored to be used in a future version of OSX.

You know, I hope you are enjoying these conversations as much as I do. Getting to talk with some of the industry’s smartest people just is such a privilege. I pinch myself every day.

What do we discuss here? Storage trends, stories about how ZFS came about, data center trends they are seeing, and a lot more.

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