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Web Entrepreneurship: Does the City You Live in Matter?

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

One of the most powerful aspects of social media and the web is the fact that it isn’t specific to any location. So long as you have an Internet connection, you can be halfway across the world Skyping, tweeting, and communicating with your friends. It has broken down barriers, given people the ability to work remotely, and made it so that your location doesn’t have to determine your destiny.

Still, to discount location would be foolish. It’s where we socialize and, for the most part, where we work. We grow to love (or hate) the neighborhoods and cities in which we live. And with the rise of smartphones and GPS, location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Google Buzz have been growing like wildfire.

Thus, I’m not surprised that a new debate has been raging in entrepreneurship circles over whether it matters where your startup is based. For web entrepreneurs, the perceived epicenter has always been San Francisco and the Bay Area – often known as Silicon Valley. With a huge collection of technology companies, venture capitalists, and talented engineers, many advocate moving to the area if you’re serious about building a startup.

That mentality has been challenged recently by growing startup hubs around the globe. One of the ones making a lot of headlines is New York City’s tech scene, which has been growing rapidly in recent years and includes startups such as Foursquare and VC firms like Union Square Ventures. Boulder, Colorado is also gaining traction due to the presence of Techstars, an early-stage seed venture firm.

Why Location Still Matters

While you have a lot of good choices for where to build your company, don’t let anybody fool you into thinking that location doesn’t matter; in fact, it does. Here’s why:

• Different locations have different entrepreneurial support communities.

These are vital, because entrepreneurship can quickly become lonely and nerve-wracking without mentorship and support.

• Talent pools around location. You will simply find more talented engineers in Silicon Valley, while you’ll find a larger pool of financial minds in NYC and media moguls in Los Angeles. You can find talent anywhere, but the pool matters.

• In-person meetings are just as important as they were five years ago. Being able to grab a coffee with a potential investor or partner is still going to be more powerful than Skyping or email.

With that said, it doesn’t mean that San Francisco or Silicon Valley is the best place to start a web company.

Yes, in a lot of cases it can be because of the influx of money and talent, but there are a lot of other things you should consider, including:

• Partnerships: Foursquare, an NYC-based company, has succeeded in striking a lot of great media partnerships, including ones with Bravo and The New York Times. Their location has surely helped: NYC simply has more advertising and media companies than other locations, and Foursquare has seized upon the opportunity it presents.

• Talent: While engineering talent is prevalent in Silicon Valley, you need to consider what your startup is about. For example, Boston has a strong startup community with great scientists and academics that come from MIT and Harvard.

• Happiness: If you live in a place that you simply hate, you are not going to be as productive. If your own needs aren’t fulfilled, how can you expect to fulfill the needs of a startup and its employees? If I have any piece of advice for where to create your startup, it’s this: make sure it’s a place that will make you happy first and foremost, and then go from there.

Location matters for your startup, but it doesn’t define success. Hard work, smart execution, and the right team are far more important. Don’t compromise those things in your quest to find your perfect startup city.

More business resources from Mashable:

- 7 Essential Online HR Resources for Your Small Business

- Google Buzz: 5 Opportunities for Small Businesses

- 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online

- 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence

- HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Matejay

Reviews: Foursquare, Google Buzz, iStockphoto

Tags: business, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, List, Lists, small business, startup

Man Who Extorted David Letterman Extorted David Letterman
David Letterman is the luckiest man alive - his extorter has pleaded guilty AND he gets to have sex with his staff.
Facebook Threatens to Sue Daily Mail Over Sex Predator Claims

According to the Guardian and Global Dashboard, Facebook has threatened to sue Daily Mail over an article that wrongfully claimed Facebook makes it easy for older sex predators to approach and seduce minors.

Daily Mail’s article, which can (in edited form) be found here, was written by a former police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, and had originally been titled “I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you.” It contained the account of the author posing as a minor on Facebook, which, according to him, attracted sexual predators right away.

The problem? He wasn’t really using Facebook to conduct the experiment, he used a “different social networking site,” as explained in today’s update to the article, added at the bottom by Daily Mail staff. The full text of the update is as follows:

“In an earlier version of this article, we wrongly stated that the criminologist had conducted an experiment into social networking sites by posing as a 14-year-old girl on Facebook with the result that he quickly attracted sexually motivated messages. In fact he had used a different social networking site for this exercise. We are happy to set the record straight.”

Needless to say, this caused a strong response from Facebook, which is still referenced throughout the article. According to the Guardian, a UK spokeswoman for Facebook said that the company was considering legal action due to the “brand damage that has been done.” “If you were a Middle England reader and your child was on Facebook, this sort of thing would have a very serious effect on what you thought of us,” she said.

Facebook has a point here; besides the obvious erroneous reporting, the article details how someone posing as a 14-year-old girl would get messages from older men (more accurately, users whose Facebook profile indicates they’re over 18 years old), which cannot be done on Facebook. Therefore, Facebook can argue it has measures in place to prevent exactly the kind of behavior the article describes, unlike the unnamed social network the experiment was conducted on.

We’ve contacted Facebook’s UK PR representative on this matter but have yet to hear back.

Reviews: Facebook

Tags: Daily Mail, facebook

The Twilight Saga: “Eclipse” Trailer Is Out [VIDEO]

OK, Twilight fans, brace yourself because the first trailer for the upcoming third installment of the saga — Eclipse — is now available for your viewing pleasure.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is based on Stephenie Meyer’s novel Eclipse, and should be airing on June 30, 2010. However, you can have a taste of some action, and (of course) more of the vampire-werewolf-human (but-maybe-not-human-for-long) love triangle you’ve probably grown accustomed to in the first two movies.

Reviews: Eclipse

Tags: eclipse, twilight, video

Usher: "Guilty" f. T.I.

A refrain of "Don't take me to jail," is awkward enough on its own, but considering the fact that T.I just left prison and is still completing his sentence in a halfway house, the awkwardness level jumps up to Ted Haggard in a gay bar.

 

Of course, Usher and T.I. are certainly aware of the irony, but hopefully there won't be too many more jokes on Usher's upcoming Raymond vs. Raymond. [Nah Right]

 

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ObybFPAUO4]

 

 

Google Mobile Product Search Now Does Local Inventory Check

Google has announced the initial roll-out of a new feature for its mobile product search: Local inventory checks. This means that you can look for a product and then find out if a store near you has it in stock.

To try out the new “in stock nearby” feature, go to Google.com on your iPhone, webOS, or Android phone (basically anything that uses Mobile WebKit) and then select “Shopping” from the “More” link. As long as you have enabled your location, when you search for a product, it will let you know in the results if a store nearby has it in stock.

For instance, I want to get a new Blu-ray player for my bedroom, and I’m thinking about getting the LG BD-570. Searching for this tells me that Best Buy carries it and that it is in-stock nearby. When I click on that link, I get a listing of stores based on their proximity to where I am, and whether or not the product is in stock. From here, I can either get directions to the store or call them directly.

It’s a pretty cool concept, albeit limited with only a few stores in the program right now. It certainly adds a more useful element to local shopping, especially while on the go. We’d love to see this rolled into the Google Shopper app for Android too.

What do you think of being able to check inventory levels from Google? Do you use Google’s mobile product search? Let us know!

Tags: best buy, Google, Google mobile, Google Mobile Search, Mobile 2.0, sears, shopping, williams sonoma

Opera Mini 5 Beta Comes to Android

Opera Mini 5 Beta was first introduced about five months ago, but owners of Android-based smartphones had to wait until now to get their hands on Opera’s nifty mobile browser.

This version is nearly identical to the Opera Mini 5 Beta for other handsets; the biggest improvements are speed dial, tabbed browsing, password management and better optimization for touchscreen phones. Compared to the old Opera Mini 4.2, it’s a world of difference, so if you’re an Opera Mini user, you should definitely try out, even though it’s a beta.

To get Opera Mini 5 Beta, point your mobile browser to m.opera.com/next, you can also search for “Opera Mini” in the Android Market.

Reviews: Android Market, Opera Mini

Tags: Mobile 2.0, opera mini, web browsers

New Google Maps Mashup Exposes Chatroulette User Locations

You can now see Chatroulette users’ locations, thanks to a new Google Maps mashup that pinpoints where in the world people are signing in to the voyeuristic video-conferencing service.

The new Chatroulette Maps website presents markers of users’ IP addresses on a worldwide map, meaning less anonymity than users have previously experienced (which may go some way to encourage folks to keep it in their pants).

Capturing screengrabs of the users, Chatroulette Map then adds them to the map using geo IP tools. The accuracy of tracking locations via IP addresses varies with the provider and area. It’s certainly not super precise technology, but in built-up areas with an ISP with an up-to-date database it can be up to 95% accurate, and elsewhere, certainly enough to get an idea of location.

Although Chatroulette uses Adobe’s Stratus platform, the actual webcam hook-up between two users is a peer-to-peer link, which means the user’s IP address is revealed by this direct means of connection.

Chatroulette Map says there are plans to make the images rateable, as well as filter out any NSFW content, but for now the service just offers a snapshot of Chatroulette users across the globe.

Anyone unhappy with being screengrabbed and mapped can get in touch with the site to have their marker and pic removed, provided they e-mail in a pic of themselves as proof.

Will this development put you off using Chatroulette? Do you see it as an invasion of your privacy? Let us know in the comments below.

[via Laughing Squid]

Tags: chat roulette maps, chatroulette

Conan O'Brien: Conan O'Brien Slated To Perform At Bonnaroo

Since the last strums of Conan O'Brien's guitar on his epic finale version of "Free Bird," fans have wondered when the former Tonight Show host would return to television. While that wait continues, the members of Coco Nation can catch their favorite red-headed comedian as he takes his act on the road.

 

O'Brien, along with sidekick Andy Richter and the former Tonight Show band, will embark on a 30-city theater tour starting on April 12 in Eugene, Ore. But music-loving Conan fans can especially rejoice: O'Brien is slated to headline Bonnaroo's comedy line-up, which will also feature Margaret Cho, Aziz Ansari, and many other funny people. Doesn't Bonnaroo seem like the perfect venue to recreate some Lynyrd Skynyrd-inspired magic?

Reporter Freaks Out on Air, Internet Laughs and Laughs [Randomly Viral]

Live TV can be tough, especially if you’re in a cranky mood. Case in point: WVLT TV Volunteer News reporter Gordon Boyd, whose on-air freak-out has gone viral this week.

Reporting from a courthouse in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, Boyd seems to be having a bit a trouble wrapping up a story about a harrowing sentencing. As he goes to deliver the final sentiment, he botches the line, saying gravely: “Staying and doing nothing is as heinous as doing at all.”

The slip of the tongue prompts the reporter to throw his notes to the ground, a snarl contorting his livid face. The best part of the video, however, is the anchor’s expression as the camera cuts back to the studio, and his ensuing explanation of the tantrum: “All right, we’re having technical difficulties we can see, a little frustration there…” Yeah, technical difficulties…

Check out the video below, as well as a few favorites from the annals of botched news reports:

Snowpocalypse

Giant Bird

Lizard Attack

[via Buzzfeed]

Tags: video, viral video

WEBTHUMP! 10 March 2010

10 – Ewan McGregor continues to be fairly unlikeable – AmyGrindhouse

9 - Bye bye (most of) Hollyoaks – WatchWithMothers

8 - Want to get paid to be the lowest rung of the Pocket TV food chain? Here’s Not Simon Amstell with details – YouTube

7 - THIS DINOSAUR WILL EAT YOU! – Geekologie

6 - Literally everything you could ever wish to know about the Oscars. Literally – BestWeekEver

5 – OLD UNICORN LADY! NO, REALLY! – Asylum

4 – Simon Cowell continues to make an unusually large fuss about his girlfriend in public – Popsugar

3  – Kate Nash’s fringe - MyChemicalToilet

2 - Ha ha, people who go online dating are funny…

PlayStation Move: We Take It For a Test Drive [VIDEO]

If you’re a gamer, you might have heard about yesterday’s news about the PlayStation Move, Sony’s answer to the Wii Remote and Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal motion controller. In a demonstration yesterday, the company showed off the device, which utilizes remote-like controllers and the PlayStation Eye camera to capture your movements and turn them into actions on the screen.

We’ve seen plenty of screenshots and heard a lot about the controller’s capabilities, but we wanted to find out for ourselves whether it really could make the PlayStation more competitive with its counterparts. That’s why I decided to take the system for a test drive here at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California.

Did it live up to expectations? Could it challenge Nintendo and Microsoft in gaming? I’ve got some thoughts on the matter:

PlayStation Move: Sony Played It Safe

First, a little bit about the PlayStation Move: it is a two-part control system. First are the handheld controllers, which act essentially as Wiimotes. The main controller comes with a lighted color ball on the top though — this is an essential component for the second part of the Move: the PlayStation Eye camera, which tracks your movements on screen. Combined, you get a controller system.

When I held the remote-like device in my hands and actually got to play with it, I immediately became aware of two things: its accuracy and its augmented reality features. It feels just a little more precise than a Wiimote with the MotionPlus controller. Because it uses the camera rather than the senor bar that the Wii utilizes, it can more accurately catch your motions. It also translates them onto the screen with your face on the TV.

I was impressed with the augmented reality aspect of the PlayStation Move more, though. The lighted ball on my controller turned first into a paintbrush, and then a fly swatter. It didn’t have the lag that a lot of other systems deal with, which made the experience enjoyable.

Is it that much better than the Wii, though? To be honest, I think the answer to that question depends on how developers use the PlayStation Eye camera to enhance their games. If they focus on the controllers, then it’s just a fancy Wiimote. If it focuses on bringing you into the game via the camera, then there are some real possibilities.

In the end though, Microsoft’s Project Natal is still going to garner the attention and the hype, as it is a bolder step into motion control. Sony essentially played it safe with the Move, while Microsoft’s implementing an all-or-nothing strategy with Natal.

Here is me in action with the PlayStation Move:

PlayStation Move Demo Video

Tags: games, gaming, microsoft, Natal, Nintendo, playstation, playstation move, project natal, sony, video games, Wii, xbox

How The Roxy Became the #1 Venue on Twitter [INTERVIEW]

With over 26,000 followers, West Hollywood’s Roxy Theatre is the most popular club on Twitter. Just short of half a decade earlier, however, the fortunes of the historic venue and many of its neighbors on LA’s infamous Sunset Strip were waning and in need of serious attitude adjustment.

We had a chance to talk with Nic Adler, owner of The Roxy and the man behind the club’s transformation from “castle on the hill” to social media juggernaut, about how Twitter and other tools helped not only reverse the fortunes of businesses on the Strip, but build up a stronger, more vibrant local community.

If you’re a small business wondering how social media can be relevant to you, someone in public relations looking for creative ideas, or an organization looking to take your first steps into the waters of social media, you’ll want to read on for a resounding success story and a number of practical tips. If you’re a music fan, don’t touch that dial or miss a slice of history.

The Roxy’s Social Media Transformation

The Roxy Theatre has been graced by numerous musical legends in its 37-year history, from Motley Crue to Nirvana to Bob Marley to a venerable pantheon of who’s who in rock history. The Rocky Horror Show and Pee-Wee Herman were launched there, and the upstairs bar was a regular hangout for folks like John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, and John Belushi.

Fast-forward to the mid-2000s though, and the grunge scene had come and gone, displacing a good chunk of what was once perceived as an unstoppable draw to the Strip — one that had easily brought in locals and tourists alike. “The Strip has always been busy and always had relevance, but in the last 10 years we hadn’t had our best 10 years,” says owner Nic Adler, son of one of the club’s founders (Lou Adler, legendary manager and producer of artists including The Mamas & the Papas, Carole King, and Sam Cooke).

Part of the problem? The “velvet rope” mentality. “We on the Sunset Strip just thought we were on this golden hilltop, that we don’t have to listen. And we just created these walls around the venues, almost like these castles on the hill, and stopped talking with each other, and didn’t really participate with each other.”

What ended up turning the fortunes of not only The Roxy but a good chunk of other businesses on the Strip? A creative and unique social media campaign that began to build offline community using online tools. “We switched over to a blog format about three and a half years ago, and started to understand that there was this conversation going on. And that we could participate,” says Adler of their first steps into social media.

Local Business: Cooperation or Coopetition?

Early on, the club faced the question of how to approach their nearby neighbors and ostensible competitors for the time and dollars of Sunset Strip clientele. “We got on Twitter pretty early, May 2007, and we got up to about 10,000 followers. The Viper Room had just gone through some new ownership and they popped up and started tweeting. We had this conversation in the office, wondering ’should we retweet them?’ We have these 10,000 followers who would probably be into the Viper Room — do we do this ‘coopetition’ thing?”

Deciding to retweet them ended up being the best choice, because shortly afterward, a new bond was formed and other clubs on the Strip began to take notice. The Comedy Store down the street got on Twitter and joined the conversation, and “from there it just went from one business to the next, and it just grew. And because we had started this new relationship — a clean slate — it didn’t have anything to do with the bookers, or who had more people at their show, or anything. It was a whole new relationship that was created online with the clubs.”

Beyond revitalizing an audience of patrons (which we’ll talk more about in a bit), the Sunset Strip’s embracing of social media led to a regrouping of business owners who are taking a fresh approach to their local community. From creative adoption of Twitter and other tools, The Roxy and its neighbors discovered “we can revive ourselves and take a fresh look at what’s happening out there and not only get the actual customers back, but even affect the government — I know that sounds crazy, but literally, we go down to the city council meeting together and there’s 40 business there. And we’re all talking together and we’ve become a really strong voice within our city to get things done.”

Getting Creative With Twitter

From rewarding loyal club fans to transforming customer service, Adler relayed some creative and unique initiatives that The Roxy and other businesses on the Strip have employed to great effect. A “Tweet Crawl” event was first held in July 2009, where several businesses partnered up to invite the Twitter community for an all-night mosey down Sunset Boulevard with free access to clubs, food and drink specials, and hidden prizes and giveaways handed out via clues on Twitter. Now in its third incarnation, the most recent Tweet Crawl grew the participating crowd from 40-50 up to around 100 crawlers. “Something I miss from my youth is seeing people walk on the Strip and go from business to business. So not only are we doing this community thing online, but we’re actually getting these people to go to these places.”

Another initiative, Club Rox, sold 100 “all-you-can-eat” annual passes to the club for $100 each. Buyers get as many shows per year as they want to attend, front-of-the-line access, a special custom drink menu, and half price deals on everything at the bar. The passes, only advertised on Twitter, sold out in three days and had a far more positive effect than Adler and his team expected. “It created this group of 100 people who are so passionate about The Roxy, and there are people who have come to over 20 shows already this year. We thought we were getting something maybe financially, but we ended up getting this voice of this group of people who are super positive about The Roxy and love music.”

The group avidly uses the Twitter hashtag #ontherox to represent themselves. “They’re one of our greatest assets. They talk about the shows all the time, they always tweet when they’re here,” says Adler.

Also just launched is the Sunset Strip VIP Pass program, which gives any customer staying at participating Strip hotels free front-of-the-line access to participating clubs. The initiative runs for the next six months through the summer, and encourages tourists on the Strip to stay in the area instead of hopping in the car to drive over to Hollywood or Universal City. “Personally I’ve done it a million times and it’s one of my favorite things to go see three or four bands in a night and hang out on the Strip,” says Adler of the VIP program.

The Real Sunset Strip is a weekly weekend Ustream show that aggregates the news and events of the week from around the various venues on the Strip. Photographers send in photos from the week’s events, celebrities come down for interviews, and Adler et al grab passersby on the street for short segments. Sometimes they’ll broadcast right from within the venue. “The club is going on but there’s a TV show happening right in the middle of it. That’s been a great way to tie the different businesses together.”

Adler had a robust Wi-Fi system put into The Roxy specifically to encourage patrons to livestream during shows, share photos from the club, and generally get content out surrounding what’s going on at the venue. Licensing issues prevent the club from doing the official livestream events it has long been interested in. Lots of companies are also interested in partnering on livestreams, but “you can’t get any bands to do it because they don’t have the right to give away their own music when they show up here, and who’s going to get a lawyer to go through contracts with all these bands?” So instead, the in-house Wi-Fi provides a platform for the audience to do their own livestreaming, and The Roxy will retweet the links. Adler says, “I’ll go down during the soundcheck and do 10 minutes of Ustream on the phone and people love it. They eat it up.”

And of course, giveaways are also a popular and frequent method of both bringing in repeat business and giving something back to loyal customers. Offers like “the next 5 people to hit us up get two pairs of tickets and VIP passes,” or “the next person to hit us up gets a month of Roxy shows,” often do well. The people who win are the ones who actually show up. They’re happy about the experience, and they tell their friends. “It’s a positive cycle that’s starting to happen not just at The Roxy but all over the Strip,” said Adler.

Other Social Media Tools

While Adler doesn’t see more traditional methods of marketing going away any time soon — “We still have a publicist, we still have a street team that comes and picks up their fliers on Tuesday to distribute them. I don’t think you can totally write it off,” — he sees social media as essentially a no-brainer for businesses to get into. “It’s a [much] better way to do business. Be honest and keep that conversation going.” Nevertheless, it might not be any singular tool that will do the trick, and it behooves companies to investigate what methods their audience uses to find them and make sure they have a presence there. “People find you in many different ways, and you have to find out how people do that — it’s constantly changing.”

Tools like Foursquare are becoming more relevant especially to local business, although Adler still sees that as something “on the horizon. I would love that Foursquare were stronger.” Nevertheless, depending on the nature of your business, diving into emerging tools might help you reach the right audience. “With LA, it’s a different kind of market than Main Street America. If you have that person who’s on Foursquare, it’s usually someone that’s a first-adopter — someone that other people are listening to and watching to find out the next thing.”

Facebook is another staple these days, and Adler had great things to say about the social network’s ad platform and its ability to finely target a desired audience. “I discovered how amazing the ads are on Facebook. If I can get that target number down to 5,000 people, that’s who I want to be advertising to. I don’t think it really helps to go to 100,000 people; I think your ad gets lost. Getting very specific works.”

Still, Twitter remains a primary tool for The Roxy and other clubs on the Strip for a number of reasons, one of which is immediacy. A patron’s tweet about a weak gin and tonic earned her a visit from Adler and a complementary drink refresh. “It was kind of an awkward moment because she’s like, ‘Oh, are you stalking me?’ [laughs] But it turned into a good thing because she ended up being happy. It’s actually brought [customer service] at The Roxy to an amazing level … Having that relationship will really bring people back.”

Having a large number of followers and clout on Twitter also becomes a draw for the bands that play at The Roxy. “Our social media is starting to be a reason for bands to play here because they want that Twitter contest, or whatever influence we might have out there on Twitter — they want a piece of that. That part makes Twitter important.” Twitter is used to knit together the entire experience of a show as well. These days, many bands and their individual members are on Twitter, in addition to the audience. “We do maybe two or three actual tweets [per] day, maximum, and then the rest of them are really using other tweets to tell our message — whether it’s a fan that’s talking about the band, or the band talking about their experience, or connecting up the people who are thinking of coming to a show. It’s a little easier and faster to connect on Twitter than on Facebook.”

Mobility is also key, and access to Twitter from almost any phone, whether smartphone or not, simply makes it more accessible in that regard. “Facebook to me is someone at home, whereas Twitter I feel is someone on the go. They’re either coming to the venue or figuring out where to go — it’s more mobile.”

Advice for Local Businesses and How to Get Started

What if you’re a small business just trying to get started with social media? Adler had some good advice on how to dive in, and primary among the concepts is to start slowly. “It almost sounds old school now, but just starting with a blog was a huge step into everything. It’s like Twitter in slow-motion. For someone that is just coming into this, it teaches you about content.” It’s also a great introduction to bi-directional conversation for brands. “…the comments on the blog — it was my first time listening to what people had to say about what I was putting out there. It’s an awesome moment.”

Adler also speaks to defining your business’s personality as a key component in developing a voice online. “The personality — whether it is on your blog or Facebook or Twitter — make sure that the personality of your business is apparent. That’s a huge step for a lot of businesses because a lot of them don’t even know their personality … What if your business was a person? How would it act and interact with people? Most businesses probably couldn’t give you that answer. But I think defining that and learning what that is was a huge part of our growth here.”

Using Twitter to gather information is also a powerful way to bring the huge amount of new data that’s out there to bear on your business knowledge. “Being able to track the bands in the weeks coming up to the show is great. You can learn a lot about a band and their fans: What kind of drink specials should we have? Is this a Dewar’s crowd or a Bud Light crowd? There’s a lot of data out there we collect. Also when people leave, we want to hear that exit comment. And we’re the first to do something about it — if it wasn’t a positive experience, we want to fix it.”

Building an audience online also helps solve one of the problems that’s often referred to as a business’s number one fear about embracing social media: What happens if and when people are making negative comments? Building up a supportive community can help crowdsource a way of dealing with that. “If someone tweets something like ‘The Roxy is old,’ I can’t wait to retweet them and say, ‘anyone want to tackle this one?’ because literally 40-50 people will tweet back with supportive messages. So you have this awesome community that starts to back you once you define yourself.”

Overall, for businesses just getting started with social media, the key point is to start slowly. “Starting small was key for us. We went from a calendar-style website that was one page and hadn’t been updated in 2 years, to a blog and all of this.” At first, “I thought it was advertising — that doing the blog was an advertising tool. It turned out to not be that. It turned out to be more of a roadmap of what we should be doing and who we are.”

Nic Adler joins The Comedy Store’s Alf LaMont and The Viper Room’s Nathan Levinson at SXSW 2010 for a panel entitled “A Social Media Case Study of L.A.’s Sunset Strip” on Thursday, March 18 at 3:30pm.

Connect with The Roxy:

- On Twitter

- On their home page

- On MySpace

- On YouTube

- On Flickr

[Image Credit: Totallylikeduh!]

Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Netalab on Twitter, Twitter, ustream

Tags: blogging, BLOGS, business, interview, live music, MARKETING, music, roxy, small business, social media, twitter

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