Social Media, Entrepreneurship, Law and Public Policy - Mashtag Blog

June 12, 2010

Social Rewards mashes up loyalty programs, affiliate marketing and social media

Social media startup Social Rewards went live this week with an ambitious new service that aims to reshape the landscape of loyalty programs such as airline miles and hotel points, leveraging the power of social media to amplify marketers’ messages in a clever and cost-effective manner. (Full disclosure: Social Rewards is one of my clients.)

Social Rewards is the brainchild of two experienced Southern California entrepreneurs, CEO Joseph Morin and CTO Mike Uesugi. (Many readers may know Joe from his role as an evangelist for the PubCon series of Internet marketing conferences.) The business model is elegant in its simplicity: Reward enthusiastic fans of a product or brand for acting as evangelists by sharing promotions and offers through social media (initially Twitter). Social Rewards effectively turns thousands of individuals into “mini-affiliates” by giving them a cut of the action when one of their social media contacts books a hotel room (for example). Transactions are tracked using unique shortened URLs (similar to affiliate ID numbers) and members can earn and redeem points accordingly.

The beauty of this approach is in its simplicity to implement. Any marketer that has experience using loyalty programs, affiliate marketing and/or social media marketing should feel right at home because Social Rewards essentially combines these ingredients with minimal hassle. For most sophisticated marketers, all of the hard work in determining what kind of promotions and rewards to offer, how much to pay affiliates to generate positive ROI, which types of messages resonate most effectively when delivered through social media, and so forth has already been done. Social Rewards takes care of the back end; the platforms for getting the message out already exist on a massive scale; and perhaps most importantly, the whole thing can morph along with the social Web as different services wax and wane over time. (The same message in 140 characters on Twitter could just as easily be shared on Facebook, MySpace, Foursquare or anywhere else, provided the unique offer link is kept intact.)

I’m proud to represent Social Rewards and wish Joe and Mike the best of luck as they build a company around this innovative service. If you are a business that offers any type of loyalty program to your customers, visit their site here to learn more about participating. If you’re a consumer who enjoys earning loyalty points, stay tuned for news from some of your favorite brands.

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May 21, 2010

TEDx SoMa – Interactivity and the Digital Future

Bottom Line Law Group is proud to sponsor TEDx SoMa, “Interactivity and the Digital Future,” taking place Friday, May 21 from 1-4 pm PST at pariSoma Innovation Loft in San Francisco. The event, organized by the Institute For The Future, features Marina Gorbis, David Pescovitz, and Jason Tester, among other distinguished speakers. It’s a relatively intimate venue that can only accommodate a limited number of guests, but you can watch the livestreamed event at the TEDxSoMa website or right here at Mashtag. IFTF describes the event as follows:

On May 21, IFTF’s Executive Director, Marina Gorbis, will be co-hosting the TEDxSoMa event, an independently produced TED-style experience designed to bring together the most innovative thinkers and ideas from around the San Francisco Bay Area.

With its second gathering, TEDxSoMa is distinguishing itself among the TEDx community for its intimate venue (the pariSoma Innovation Loft), discussion-style process, and prolific use of social media. IFTF is a sponsor of the event, during which Marina will co-facilitate the presentations by leading experts in the fields of bottom-up philanthropy, electronic art, game design, and corporate strategy. The event’s theme of “Interactivity and the Digital Future” speaks to IFTF’s recent research on engagement, persuasion, and media. IFTF’s Jason Tester will be speaking about “Using the Future to Save the Future” and David Pescovitz will be talking about “The World as a Wunderkammer: Curiosity, Citizen Science, and the Maker Culture.” You can view the full list of speakers here.

Thanks to the event organizers for giving us an opportunity to participate and contribute in our own way to the proliferation of “Ideas Worth Spreading.” Click the play button below to watch the livestream:

Watch live video from TEDxSoMa on Justin.tv

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March 30, 2010

Working in Santa Monica, Coworking in San Francisco

As my firm picks up momentum, we’re putting down deeper roots in both Northern and Southern California. Although virtual offices in executive suites offered convenience and flexibility during our launch, they’re less than ideal in the long run for many reasons. At the same time, as I’ve written before, BLLG itself is operating as a bootstrapped lean startup; minimizing overhead is essential in order to pass along savings to our startup clients in the form of sensible fees. (See my March 2 soapbox rant about insane big-firm billing rates.)

Google Street View of BLLG Santa Monica office

The Verona

This week, Bottom Line Law Group moves into new office space at 530 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica, sharing a suite with top-notch entertainment law firm Doyle & Miller. (Thanks to Matt Polesetsky of Demand Media for hooking us up.) The new location, at the heart of the Internet, VC and digital media industries in Los Angeles, is where we want to be, literally and figuratively.

Meanwhile, 381 miles north in San Francisco, we’ve given up the pleasantly nondescript environment of office suites to take up residence at pariSoma Innovation Loft, a strikingly redone Francophile coworking space at 1436 Howard Street that hosts many startup- and tech-oriented events, including my “Ask the Lean Startup Lawyer” office hours last month –

pariSoma

a successful event we’ll be repeating on April 7. While I’ve heard of other lawyers operating from coworking spaces, given the startup-centric nature of our practice, I’m interested in the inherent business opportunities of locating in a collaborative environment that, by its very nature, serves as a beehive of activity where freelancers, solopreneurs, lean startups and others cross paths. pariSoma declares that its mission is to “promote the growth of collective intelligence through five core values – community, collaboration, innovation, openness and sustainability.”

More broadly, although there are some inherent challenges around confidentiality and IP, I support the coworking movement and see it as a natural fit for today’s lean, nimble tech startups. Working from home is an option for many, but coworking breaks the isolation that can result and adds a welcome layer of in-person interaction that is lacking in virtual companies, notwithstanding the power of social media. Biznik’s slogan, “Going it alone, together,” seems an apt description for coworking in the offline world. I’m glad to have connected with the folks at pariSoma and Citizen Space in San Francisco, as well as BLANKSPACES in Los Angeles, and will be watching the growth of coworking spaces around the country with interest.

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March 20, 2010

Martindale-Hubbell Connects Lawyers, and… More Lawyers

Martindale-Hubbell is a legendary name in legal circles, synonymous with legal directories dating back more than 140 years. Long before the Internet existed, a ritual among junior associates at law firms was to pull the weighty leatherbound tome off the shelf, find opposing counsel's M-H profile ...