We regret to announce that effective December 15th, 2011, Thoora will be shutting down. It is time for us to say goodbye.

We would like to thank each and every one of you for participating in this crazy journey with us. Your engagement with Thoora and your feedback have been remarkable, and we have loved learning from you. We definitely wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did without you.

We will leave the service running until noon EST December 15th, 2011. At that time we will suspend it indefinitely. This includes the website, the API and WordPress widget, and the Android tablet app. You will automatically be unsubscribed from our mailing list, and all of your account information will be permanently deleted.

If you would like to re-bookmark your favorites in the meantime, do the following:

1. Log in to your account on Thoora
2. Access your favorites page for each topic
3. Click on each favorite to open the content in a new browser tab or window
4. Re-favorite the item, using your browser’s favoriting function or other tool

Again, thank you for your loyalty and we hope to meet again in the future.

Last week, Klout updated its algorithm, or as Thoora fave @TheRunningStart calls it ‘the Caramilk Secret’ (how do they get all that ooey gooey influence summed up in one number?). CEO Joe Fernandez attempted to be forthcoming about the changes, re-itering that influence drives action and Klout scores are a combination of how many people you influence, how much you influence them and how influential they are.

Outrage and dismay ensued, centred upon two issues:

1. Transparency

As one of the guiding and Yoda-all mighty principles of social media, it appears the expectation of transparency has yet to be met. Klout admits that their score will always be a work-in-progress, however, they also say they’re taking the same approach as Google with SEO (which for the record, can’t be described as transparent). Perhaps the tagline “The Standard for Influence” just rubs people the wrong way. When social measurement is still young, budding and evolving, it’s hard to stomach this claim.

2. The Number

What is the #1 complaint Klout receives from users? Don’t be surprised. Klout-ers most frequently believe their Klout score is too low. So good and proof there is demand for social media scoring and even more demand for top marks. As Klout integrates with other social networks, a fresh batch of feedback has sprung up. How could Facebook-ers without Twitter, Foursquare and LinkedIn profiles overtake the Klout of the esteemed Twitterati and even important bloggers??? It begs the question, can you hate the game if you’re still a player?

Leave it to Geoff Livingston to bring it back to the heart of the debate. Can we get an Amen please? Livingston has a simple take. Social media will always be about being ‘social’, interacting, dialoguing, chit chatting. So he asks, “What is the real reason to quantify big social media influencers? If relationships are your desired outcome, why waste time?” While we can’t entirely walk away from the great Klout debate (it’s too entertaining!), we can certainly focus on the heart of social media – SOCIAL.

What’s your take on Klout? How often do you check your Klout? How much does this number mean to you? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

What better place to start than Content Marketing World 2011, where social media guru Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner sat down with content guru C.C. Chapman to talk content marketing?

For C.C. Chapman, content is everywhere and it’s in all of us. A Tweet, a blog post, a doodle – if it tells a story, it is content. There are endless possibilities for marketers in this realm.

Entrepreneur Magazine’s Mikal E. Belicove definitively explains that content must be created and published to support business objectives, such as brand awareness or lead generation. Belicove advocates for the direct line between content and your company’s end goal.

These are two essential components at work in the finest content marketing. As Chapman says, storytelling fuels compelling content. Narrative will drive the success of your content. At the same time, marketers who only create content for content’s sake are missing an important opportunity. Content is most effective when it’s leveraged to support a specific objective. Maybe it’s a conversation starter, a relationship builder, or indeed a lead generator for your sales team.

How do you define content marketing? How does content support your company or brand? How do you measure its effectiveness? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Is “stickiness” a thing of the past?

Carroll describes user behavior on smartphones and tablets: when we surf on these devices, it’s quick with a specific intention. Because of this, mobile websites need motivate visitors to pull the trigger lickity-split if they want to be successful. Carroll says, “Call it technologically induced A.D.D. if you will, but mobile-computing devices have made us impatient and hungry for information, entertainment or something to stave off boredom.”

This statement got us thinking… Is our techno-A.D.D. actually specific to mobile surfing? Doesn’t the description above sound a lot like how we generally cruise the web?

Here’s a quick survey to see if you surf like we surf:
▸ Do you have five or more tabs open on your browser at any given time?
▸ When a website is loading, do you automatically open another tab to kill the time?
▸ Have you ever spent an entire afternoon getting your surf on, entertaining yourself and staving off boredom?

Yeps across the board? Us too. So what does this mean for stickiness? Is it time to look beyond ‘time on site’ as an indicator of website performance? Here are a couple ideas to paint a picture of what visitors are up to on your site.

▸ Pages/Visit is a great way to understand how visitors navigate your site. Do certain pages consistently appear? Do others barely register? Ideally, every page should captivate. How visitors rip through a website provides insight into what information visitors are craving, especially new visitors.
▸ Bounce Rate is something to keep a close eye on. If visitors aren’t enticed to stay on your site for more than 10 seconds, your sticky just ain’t sticky.
▸ Take Time to Understand the Big Picture. While each individual metric is part of the story, assessing how they’re integrated is essential. Ad performance, which drives traffic and goal completions, whatever your goals may be, may just translate into increased blog traffic, or even new Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Piecing together these insights is the fun stuff!

What are the most important metrics for your website? Does stickiness still matter to you? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Thoora’s #BOLO2011 Quotable Quotes Highlight Reel:

▸ “There’s no such thing as an expert in social media, just those who are willing to fail faster and more often.”
- @TomMartin

▸ “I hear people bragging about the number of Facebook fans they have; all that is is a very public dick measuring contest.” - @JayBaer

▸ “Content marketing is like sex in high school – everyone claims they are doing it but few are doing it well.”
- C.C. Chapman, @cc_chapman and Charlie Wollborg, @charliecurve

▸ “This is the best time to be in marketing and advertising.” – Steve Schildwachter, @SteveS1

▸ “Pick one [social platform] and grow it.” – Scott Stratten, @unmarketing

Did you attend BOLO this year? What’s in your highlight reel? Did you contribute a quotable quote yourself? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Here are Thoora’s top picks for BOLO:

▸ Content Marketing, with C.C. Chapman and Charlie Wollborg

Fun, approachable and on-his-game Chapman + Motor City’s self-proclaimed Chief Troublemaker = Must-attend Session

C.C. tweeted that they’ll be “taking the concept of content to a whole new messed up fun level” for #BOLO2011, but the important basics won’t be overlooked. These two are experts on how to break through the clutter and generate content that will drive engagement. They also have strong case studies, that you can steal and make your own.

▸ Curation, The Art of Digital Discernment, with Josh Yaeger

This is a quickie, but a goodie. We all know there’s too much stuff on the web (or as the session description says “too many squeaky wheels, whiners and nutjobs” – AMAZING). Curation has digital buzzword status, but Josh is going to hammer home why incorporating curatorial skills into your marketing mix will go a long way in driving engagement with potential customers.

▸ UnMarketing, with Scott Stratten

And of course, we’d be remiss not to mention our fellow Canuck Scott Stratten and the fact that today is Turkey Day in our home and native land. Happy Thanksgiving Canada! Thoora will be starting the week, not with a turkey hang over, but with a killer key note on relationships, engaging with customers, and the best tactics to get at it right away.

BOLO-ites – Thoora’s charging station will be set up in the Main Hall to meet all your dead-phone needs. Please come and say hello! Let us know the sessions you’re excited for and who you’re looking forward to meeting. Feel free to leave your comment below, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

PS – If you register for an account during #BOLO2012, you’ll even be entered into a draw to win a brand spanking new Motorola Xoom Android tablet, which is fully compatible with Thoora’s new app. Coincidence? We think not.

Invoking the ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses’ line, he says, “While we shouldn’t become obsessed with everything our competitor does, we do need to be aware.”

This inspired us here at Thoora. We agree that it’s bad form to ignore the Joneses, but we know our readers, and you’re a group of knowledge-hungry social media enthusiasts who work very hard to stay in-the-know (with a little help from Thoora too, we imagine!). So, we’d like to up the ante.

What if the Joneses slabbed a new coat of paint on their porch? So what if they rebuild an entirely new porch? What if instead of trying to keep up, you trust yourself to do your own thing? What if you beat the Joneses at YOUR own game?

One of the best things about playing in the social media space is that there’s something new every day. Maybe it’s a porch made from a different material, maybe it’s an entirely new way to enter a home.

The point is, play! Forget borrowing, copying, one-upping. Think about what’s right for your company, your brand, for your product. Think about what social channels suit your business objectives. Head into brainstorms with your own informed ideas, instead of a series of examples of what others are doing.

Here are some au-THOORA-tative tips on getting the most from brainstorms:

▸ Tap the right brains and consider group dynamics. If having the boss in the room means the savvy intern with killer ideas won’t let out a peep, decide out who will bring more value to your brainstorm.

▸ Prepare. Send a small task to the group to prep. A little individual brainstorming in advance can up the quality of the group session significantly.

▸ Quantity over quality. Determine in advance how many ideas you want to generate and push participants to meet that number.

▸ Goofy can be very good. The most offbeat, bizarre and ridiculous ideas often seed the top-notch, original ideas.

▸ No no’s. Simply put, there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm.

▸ Hand out scratch pads. Ask participants to stay focused and if they have off-task ideas, scratch them down to discuss later.

How do you beat the Joneses? How do you get the most from brainstorming sessions? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

▸ Monitor Facebook page and ‘like’ what your overenthusiastic fans are saying
▸ Load up Twitter client with content, respond to some @s and RT deserving zingers
▸ Check on blog traffic, come up with idea for a post, and then hammer out 250 words on said topic
▸ Be in-the-know about what important people on G+ are saying
▸ Read 5-10 of the 1,000+ unread posts in Google Reader

The Social Grind is actually a very gratifying series of activities. We all find joy in a Twitter mention, a spike in blog readership and high engagement rates to Facebook content. The challenge is making time for The Bigger Picture. You know what we’re getting at here – the meatier stuff. For example:

▸ Report and review social media Key Performance Indicators
▸ Plan for 2012 and strategize about strategy
▸ Start brewing the ‘big idea’ for the 2012 plan
▸ Maintain your social media smartie pants status by reading about the latest campaigns and new social platforms

Finding balance between the demands of real-time social media and deeper thinking can be a battle. Here are some au-THOORA-tative tips on finding effective social media balance:

▸ Limit your tabs and shut down easy access to The Social Grind when you’ve got The Bigger Picture to deal with.

▸ Choose the right time to go for The Bigger Picture. Figure out when you’re at your best during the day and when your witching hour occurs, and plan accordingly.

▸ Be honest and call out your crutches. What’s your default Social Grind activity when you get stalled thinking Big Picture? Call it out and make an effort to stay focused. Twitter may be more of a distraction than an inspiration, so kick the crutch.

▸ Be realistic about how long things will take. If you can accurately schedule time for your daily Social Grind, you can set aside the remaining time to go Big Picture.

▸ Set your priorities and let them be known. If your boss knows you’re taking time for The Big Picture, there’s less pressure to respond to a customer service question on Twitter within 60 seconds.

How do you balance The Social Grind and The Bigger Picture? Any tips or tools to share? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

The same thing kinda happened when Amazon unveiled the new Fire tablet. And the same thing will most definitely happen when Apple hosts the iPhone 5 event event next month, debuting not only new CEO Tim Cook, but a relationship-on-the-mend with Facebook.

These truly are examples of social media at its finest – bringing together a community with shared interest for big news.

What generates the most buzz with the social media tribe (ourselves included!) is the drive to find out something new, something that will actually make a difference – as soon as possible. Make no mistake that launches and announcements that bring about change create an unreplicable energy.

On top of this, the ability to share an experience with others is extremely gratifying. Checking Facebook and seeing your friend in the office down the street is tuned in on Livestream, following Twitter and RT’ing amazing commentary from a stranger on the other side of the world… With so many ways to tune in and catch the news, the community experience grows exponentially.

That’s what makes it all so fun. Being part of something shiny, new and big with a good crew.

Did you tune in last week? Will you tune in this week or next? Do these big events feel ‘so right’ to you? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook, or Twitter, and get all the latest on The New Facebook from Thoora.

At Thoora, we want to tap into the pulse of busy bee social media peeps, especially when it comes to content. We want to know what you’re using content for and how you consume it.

So, please give us five minutes OR LESS (honest!) for quick survey.

As always, please be in touch with any comments below, on Facebook and Twitter.

PS – Yes, before you ask, there is a reward for participating. You know us better than that!