Marketing Bits co-host Jerod Morris was asked by Glenn Moore to attend Sports Media 360 in Cleveland, OH  to participate on a panel discussing credibility online.   The event was put together by The Dugout Sports Show (OKG Media) and Media Frenzy Communications.
The discussion on the panel was excellent so I thought I’d share with our listener base.  A special thanks to Sports Talk Cleveland for the audio feed and to Glenn Moore putting the event together.

The panel members are:

Brad Zibung – “The Heckler”, Founder/Publisher
Greg Bedard - Green Bay Packers Beat Writer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Jerod Morris – Midwest Sports Fans

As highlighted in National Public Radio’s story, “Facebook, MySpace Divide Along Social Lines“, Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace in 2005 at the height of its popularity in social networking.  Today, the tides have changed as Facebook and its estimated 95M visitors clearly dominates the social networking niche of Web 2.0.  This is so much the case that early this week the Financial Times broke a story where MySpace all but concedes defeat in the social networking arena and describes its future as an entertainment hub.  Though the facts are clear, there really hasn’t been much discussion on how MySpace lost its popularity nor the lessons learned in this curious case.  Well, we stumbled upon some insight during a podcast we did with Aaron Bollinger of KickApps who we came to find out during the podcast had written a book called “The MySpace Social Guide”.  We were so excited about a hallway conversation that ensued after our podcast with him that we went back into the studio and fired up the recording equipment to capture the conversation.

Join episode host Jerod Morris as he discusses the demise of MySpace and its brand with Aaron Bollinger.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to discuss the role of the Internet on an industry that is not always included in social media discussions: banking.

Rob Rothrock, a Vice President at NexBank, joined me in-studio to discuss how the integration of the Internet into everything we do has affected the way NexBank interacts with its customers and attracts new ones.

As with every industry, even the ones that we don’t necessarily think of first in relation to the Internet, what is happening online is having a great effect on what is happening offline. Rob does a great job of articulating this, and we certainly are appreciative of his time.

Listen to my interview with NexBank VP Rob Rothrock:

The following are some of the links referenced in the podcast, as well as others that will provide further background information on NexBank.

• NexBank company website
• NexBank presents the White Rock Marathan
• NexBank VP Robert Rothrock appointed to Board of Directors of DWRM
• NexBank company profile on LinkedIn

Where small businesses strive to participate in the social media phenomenon, larger enterprises are looking to create a social media experience on their Internet real estate.  The conversations can start anywhere from the boardroom to the chief marketing officer’s office and almost always end up in the IT department.  This begs the question of whether to build or buy a social media platform.  So, we brought in Aaron Bollinger from KickApps to have that discussion.

KickApps is a early stage company that creates one of the industry’s premier social media platforms.  One way to look at it is that KickApps is to social media outside the firewall what Microsoft’s Sharepoint Server is to corporate portals inside the firewall.  Aaron Bollinger is a business development manager with KickApps based out of Austin, TX.  When he was on one of his regular visits to Dallas, Jerod and I thought we’d lock him in our studios to discuss KickApps and social media.  What we weren’t expecting to happen was a conversation that got so interesting that we had to cut a separate podcast for one of the topics—the demise of MySpace.

In this interview we learn about KickApps and discuss Aaron’s background prior to joining KickApps.  This uncovered the fact he was the author of a book on MySpace called “MySpace Social Guide“.   We also touch upon a very early career venture of Aaron and Jerod called Flash Sports Tonight.

Whether you are a professional marketer interested in learning about KickApps or have simply had a rough day and want to listen to an entertaining conversation, this is one of the best interviews we’ve done to date.

(FTC Disclaimer:  Aaron Bollinger conducted this interview as a courtesy to Orangecast Social Media; NO SPONSORSHIP has been provided by KickApps and any favorable comments we make about the platform are because WE LIKE their platform)