Selected by oglio

• Most Topular Stories

• Bear and wolf, friends for life [video]

  Holy Kaw!

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:12 pm

  All too often we lose track of our friends from childhood, but this bear and wolf appear to be BFFs despite the differences. Full story at YouTube via io9. Can’t we all just get along? Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• President Obama Tweets His Spotify Playlist

  hypebot

  Bruce Houghton

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:14 am

  On Thursday morning President Barack Obama shared his Spotify playlist on Twitter. It covers all the music and political bases from Ray LaMontagne to No Doubt and Electric Light Orchestra to Zach Brown. Listen to President Barack Obama's Spotify playlist here: http://open.spotify.com/user/barackobama/playlist/6J9kgSvipjimfDLYTsCOAv 

• Don Cornelius' Death Ruled A Suicide

  MTV News Latest Headlines

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:33 am

  'Soul Train' creator, 75, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, L.A. coroner's office determines.By Gil Kaufman Don Cornelius Photo: Diamond/ WireImage The Los Angeles coroner's office ruled on Tuesday that former "Soul Train" host and creator Don Cornelius
 died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Cornelius, 75, was found shot at his Mulholland Drive home last Wednesday (February 1) morning by his son. According to the Associated Press, the Los Angeles County Coroner's office made the suicide determination after conducting an autopsy on Cornelius' body on…

• Requiem for a Dream Gets Re-Imagined with Puppets

  Paste Magazine

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:26 pm

  You’d think adding puppets might lighten the mood for anything, but as a Fake Film Fest entry proves, that’s not necessarily true. A video posted by Skelemo on YouTube depicts Darren Aronofsky’s classic Requiem for a Dream with puppets, and the result is, well, super creepy. The re-imagined clip was done by Brendan James Boyd, Jess Wood, Matthew Jacques, Marcela Rausch, Ali Hasan, Dusty Hagerud, and Karla Kampars with music by Michael Gordon, Live for Films pointed out. Take a look below to see the film’s most recognized scenes recreated, including the signature shot…

• Here's a Breakdown of Every Dollar That Warner Music Group Makes...

  Digital Music News

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:07 pm

  We can't speak for murky accounting, but this is the line-by-line breakdown presented by Warner Music Group this morning, specifically for the fourth quarter of 2011.

• 

  Holy Kaw!

• Bear and wolf, friends for life [video]

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:12 pm

  All too often we lose track of our friends from childhood, but this bear and wolf appear to be BFFs despite the differences. Full story at YouTube via io9. Can’t we all just get along? Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Can dessert for breakfast help you lose weight?

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:39 pm

  New research suggests that, in the early morning, you can have your cake and shed pounds too A new study from Tel Aviv University finds that eating a small dessert as part of a balanced breakfast can actually help you shed unwanted pounds. Staying skinny and eating chocolate? Here, a brief guide to what sounds, frankly, impossible: Full story at The Week. Photo: CC by ::paqman:: All the top stories from The Week. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Romance survey [infographic]

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:02 pm

  Via Hotels.com. Infographics to put you in the mood. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Do aliens go invisible by 'going green'?

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:24 am

  As we discover more and more planets around other stars, the Fermi Paradox is becoming, well, more paradoxical. The Fermi Paradox simply asks the question "where are they?" Our Milky Way galaxy is so big and so old -- and we are estimated to be accompanied by at least 100 billion planets -- that aliens should have visited us by now. Instead, when we peruse the heavens, we are faced with the Great Silence, which is one of the biggest challenges to modern astronomy. Full story at Discovery News. More news from Discovery Communications. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink | Leave a…

• Mysterious sounds reported around the world

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:23 am

  People around the world have reported hearing strange sounds from the skies over the past month. Sometimes they describe it as a hum or low rumble; other times it’s a whine, thump, or even a melody. Often the sounds have been recorded and posted online, fueling rumors and conspiracy theories. One blogger wrote, "either the world is ending, aliens are landing or everyone is getting hoaxed. Or, possibly, there’s an actual scientific explanation for the mass amount of YouTube videos capturing bizarre sounds that are being heard around the globe. Are we witnessing the beginning of a…

• 

  hypebot

• President Obama Tweets His Spotify Playlist

  Bruce Houghton

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:14 am

  On Thursday morning President Barack Obama shared his Spotify playlist on Twitter. It covers all the music and political bases from Ray LaMontagne to No Doubt and Electric Light Orchestra to Zach Brown. Listen to President Barack Obama's Spotify playlist here: http://open.spotify.com/user/barackobama/playlist/6J9kgSvipjimfDLYTsCOAv 

• 11 Top Ways To Create Compelling Music Video Content

  Bob Baker

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:56 am

  This guest post is by Bob Baker and Kendra Wright of www.TheBuzzFactor.com Every artist should be using online video as part of their promotional toolkit. That means you must set up a YouTube account (also known as a “channel”) if you haven’t done so already. And once in place, your channel must feature new videos on a regular basis. Why? Because video allows you to connect with fans and potential fans in ways that other forms of media can't touch. People experience things through text differently than they do through audio. Video, which combines both audio and visual stimulation,…

• Warner Music Losses Grow 44%, Revenue Flat Despite Digital Gains

  Bruce Houghton

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:42 am

  (UDATED) Warner Music Group this morning reported that losses were up 44% to $26 million in their first fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2011.  Revenue in Q1 was flat, inching up from $778 million a year ago to $779 million. Digital revenue did go up 17% to $219 million and Michael Buble' sold 6 million units at Christmas, but that was not enough to cover a 44% operating income increase to $39 million. The company attributed the $26 million net loss to "the impact of an increase in interest expense, to $57 million from $47 million, related to the July 2011 refinancing of certain existing…

• TasteMakerX Raises $1.8 Million For "Fantasy Sports For Music Lovers" App

  Bruce Houghton

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:22 am

  TasteMakerX has raised $1.8 Million from an A list group of investors for a mobile app mobile app that enables fans to discover artists, trends and inspiration; compete against other tastemakers; and share experiences through geo-tagging, commentary and photo sharing." The app is expected to launch at SXSW. Investors in this round include Guggenheim Partners (Billboard, C3, Variety Magazine), Baseline Ventures (Task Rabbit, Instagram), True Ventures (Schematic Labs, Automattic), AOL Ventures (bit.ly, Solve Media) and Tekton Ventures (Seamless Receipts, DoodleDeals). Additionally, the company…

• Outsider Marketing & The Case Of Willis Earl Beal

  Clyde Smith

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:31 am

  Willis Earl Beal didn't set out to be an Internet celebrity. But he's in the process of becoming one, though the next few months label XL Recordings seem focused on making him an offline star as well. As someone who might be pigeonholed an outsider artist, I'm impressed by the insightful treatment of the music publications that are currently featuring this powerful young singer online. Willis Earl Beal was initially discovered via fliers he posted in Chicago and Albuquerque and songs sung over the phone leading to media coverage and small projects.  These then led to an upcoming release from…

• 

  MTV News Latest Headlines

• Don Cornelius' Death Ruled A Suicide

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:33 am

  'Soul Train' creator, 75, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, L.A. coroner's office determines.By Gil Kaufman Don Cornelius Photo: Diamond/ WireImage The Los Angeles coroner's office ruled on Tuesday that former "Soul Train" host and creator Don Cornelius
 died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Cornelius, 75, was found shot at his Mulholland Drive home last Wednesday (February 1) morning by his son. According to the Associated Press, the Los Angeles County Coroner's office made the suicide determination after conducting an autopsy on Cornelius' body on…

• Rick Santorum Sweeps Three Wins in GOP Race

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:04 am

  Former Pennsylvania senator now has four victories in his primary column.By Gil Kaufman Rick Santorum Photo: Justin Sullivan/ Getty Images Just as former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was gaining a head of steam after winning two primaries in a row, he was dealt another major setback on Tuesday. The man who appeared to be back on track as the leading Republican presidential nominee was bested in the day's three contests by former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. Following a convincing win in Florida
 last week, Romney was shocked by losing to Santorum in caucuses in Colorado and…

• 2 Chainz Brings 'The Entree Home' After A First Date

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:45 am

  'Spend It' MC also hits the gym with MTV News' Rya Backer, joking, 'You've got to work before you get this.'By Rya Backer MTV News' Rya Backer and 2 Chainz Photo: MTV News 2 Chainz (a.k.a. Tity Boi, a.k.a. half of College Park's Playaz Circle) may have been making headlines in recent days because of his recent signing to Def Jam. But on the same day that news leaked regarding his major-label love, Mr. Chainz was doing some partnering of a different kind: a First Date with yours truly. As he says on his breakout hit "Spend It," a Chainz "girl don't have a stomach." So off we went to a nearby…

• Has 'The Voice' Already Re-Signed Christina Aguilera?

  7 Feb 2012 | 5:16 am

  TheWrap reports that Xtina is onboard for season three, which could debut in the fall opposite 'X Factor.'By Kara Warner Christina Aguilera on "The Voice" Photo: NBC We are only two episodes into the second season of "The Voice," and already there is some news about the hit NBC show's third season. According to TheWrap, Christina Aguilera has signed a contract to continue her stint on the judging panel for a third season of the singing competition. Aguilera is the first of the four judges to ink her deal, a payday for which is supposedly in the $10 million realm. TheWrap also reports that the…

• Fat Joe Debates Drake, Ross And Lil Wayne For 'Hottest MC'

  7 Feb 2012 | 5:05 am

  'I'll probably just say Rick Ross and I probably bump Drake even more,' fat Joe tells MTV News of his own internal 'Hottest MCs in the Game' debate.By Rob Markman Fat Joe Photo: MTV News When it comes to MTV's "Hottest MCs in the Game" debate there are no shortage of opinions. Whether through social media or in more intimate social circles like the barbershop , seemingly everyone wants to weigh in and pick rap's #1 MC. Fat Joe, though a successful rapper himself is a fan first, and when it comes to picking the hottest, he has trouble narrowing down his decision to just one. "I heard a rumor…

• 

  Paste Magazine

• Requiem for a Dream Gets Re-Imagined with Puppets

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:26 pm

  You’d think adding puppets might lighten the mood for anything, but as a Fake Film Fest entry proves, that’s not necessarily true. A video posted by Skelemo on YouTube depicts Darren Aronofsky’s classic Requiem for a Dream with puppets, and the result is, well, super creepy. The re-imagined clip was done by Brendan James Boyd, Jess Wood, Matthew Jacques, Marcela Rausch, Ali Hasan, Dusty Hagerud, and Karla Kampars with music by Michael Gordon, Live for Films pointed out. Take a look below to see the film’s most recognized scenes recreated, including the signature shot…

• Modern Family Review: "Me? Jealous?" (Episode 3.14)

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:01 pm

  After a few weeks off, ABC’s top-rated comedy Modern Family returned this week with a Valentine’s-themed episode. Sort of. Unlike the past Valentine’s Modern Family episodes, which focused on Phil wooing Claire (remember his alter ego Clive Bixby?), this episode spread the love—and the green-eyed monster—equally among the Dunphy and Pritchett family members.

• A Day In The Life Of Grey Reverend

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pm

  Check out Doug Seymour’s photos below as he spent two days with Grey Reverend in Philadelphia, Pa.

• Watch Justin Vernon Play "Perth" with The Roots

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:48 pm

  During his stay in New York for his SNL appearance, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon stopped by Jimmy Fallon’s studio to perform an alternate, extended take on “Perth” from last year’s Bon Iver. Vernon performed the track as an exclusive to Fallon's studio audience.

• Peter Jackson Finishes Casting The Hobbit, Adds Billy Connolly

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:32 pm

  With all the talk surrounding the forthcoming film adaptation of _The Hobbit_ these days, it was easy to forget that the casting wasn’t even complete. But now, Peter Jackson, producer of the two-part epic based on J.R. Tolkien’s series, has announced that Scottish actor Bill Connolly will round out the enormous cast.

• 

  Digital Music News

• Here's a Breakdown of Every Dollar That Warner Music Group Makes...

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:07 pm

  We can't speak for murky accounting, but this is the line-by-line breakdown presented by Warner Music Group this morning, specifically for the fourth quarter of 2011.

• Rhapsody 'Shocked' Over McCartney Pullout; iTunes Concert Exclusive Begins...

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:50 am

  The fallout is just beginning on Paul McCartney's decision to remove his catalog from streaming services, a process that started earlier this week.

• What Else? Converse, Gorillaz, Dotcom, McCartney, iLike, Kobalt, Ticketfly...

  9 Feb 2012 | 3:59 am

  People wait in line for music, just like they wait in line for shoes.

• 74% of Lana Del Rey's First Week Album Sales Were Digital...

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:25 pm

  Coldplay waited 100 days to license Spotify, and their iTunes album sales were stellar! But wait: would they really have sold less - and made less - if Spotify was licensed from day one?

• RIAA President Attacks Wikipedia, Google Over 'Misinformation,' 'Abuse,' 'Dirty Tricks...'

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:31 am

  Who's really controlling the agenda on copyrights, infringement, and anti-piracy?

• 

  Music News, Reviews, and Gossip on Idolator.com

• Grammy Awards Backlash: 10 Artists Who Are Over The Awards Show

  Mike Wass

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:24 pm

  For as long as there have been music awards, there have been musicians with opinions about those music awards, and the Grammys are no exception. Depending on your point of view, Arcade Fire trumping commercial heavyweights Lady Gaga, Eminem and Katy Perry for Album of the Year at last year’s ceremony was either the event’s salvation or the moment it jumped the shark. That polarizing victory reignited a decades-old debate about the relevance and future direction of the awards show. Grammy nominees — and Grammy wannabes — have long argued over whether the music industry’s…

• Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams And Brandy Attend The Essence Black Women In Music Event (PHOTOS)

  Erika Brooks Adickman

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:03 pm

  Kelly Rowland was honored last night at the Third Annual Essence Black Women In Music event. The “Keep It Between Us” siren kept her sexy abs hidden under her asymmetrical tangerine-colored gown. Fellow Child of Destiny Michelle Williams, “It All Belongs To Me” singer Brandy and Eve were also in attendance to celebrate the Grammy nominee. Check out last night’s soiree at L.A.’s Belasco Theatre and tell us below (or on Facebook and Twitter) which woman best embodied the essence of a diva.

• Adam Levine Starts Record Label, Signs ‘Glee’ Star Matthew Morrison

  Becky Bain

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:51 pm

  After doling out advice on The Voice, Adam Levine believes he can shape a star off camera, too. The Maroon 5 frontman has announced the launch of his own record label, 222 Records, and his first signee is Glee star Matthew Morrison. “Starting my own label has been a long-time goal of mine and I am thrilled to be at the point in my career where it is finally happening,” Levine said. “I am excited for everyone to hear Matthew’s forthcoming album. Great things are in store for him with this release.” Expect Mr. Schue’s sophomore LP sometime this spring. [Via…

• Grammy Awards 2012: We Pick Record Of The Year

  Becky Bain

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:18 pm

  We’ve shared our 2012 Grammy picks for Best New Artist, Song Of The Year and who we think will take all the Pop and Dance categories — now let’s take a look at who’s up for Record Of The Year. The nominees in this category are basically a mirror image of Song Of The Year, with Kanye West’s “All Of The Lights” swapped with Katy Perry’s mega-hit “Firework.” Can Perry make the Recording Academy go ahh-ahh-ahh and triumph, or is the unstoppable force of Adele too big to beat? Head below for our predictions. RECORD OF THE YEAR Adele,…

• Adam Levine Gets Punched By Terry Richardson (PHOTOS)

  Erika Brooks Adickman

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:48 am

  Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine is the pop star du jour to drop by Terry Richardson’s studio. Unlike the photog’s latest shoot with Lady Gaga, the Voice coach remained fully clothed (a pity, that). The dapper singer kept things casual in a t-shirt and jeans and didn’t seem to mind all that much when Terry socked him one right in the kisser (for the sake of art, of course). Check out the Grammy nominee’s shoot, but be warned there is one pic where Adam holds up M.I.A.’s favorite finger. Then tell us below, or on Facebook and Twitter, what you thought of the…

• 

  Hollywood Reporter - Music

• Adele Opens Up About Vocal Cord Surgery on '60 Minutes' (Video)

  THR Staff

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:08 pm

  THR Staff In an interview with Anderson Cooper, the singer said she used phone applications to communicate and "to swear" while recovering last year.read more

• Lana Del Rey Debuts at No. 2 on Billboard 200 Albums Chart

  Keith Caulfield, Billboard

  8 Feb 2012 | 7:06 pm

  Keith Caulfield, Billboard Adele's "21" sits at No. 1 for the 19th nonconsecutive week; Leonard Cohen's "Old Ideas" debuts in third spot.read more

• Katy Perry, Russell Brand Finalize Divorce

  THR Staff

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:47 pm

  THR Staff The actor filed for divorce from the "Teenage Dream" singer Dec. 30, citing "irreconcilable differences."read more

• CAA Signs Its First Bollywood Star

  Nyay Bhushan

  6 Feb 2012 | 9:31 pm

  Nyay Bhushan Priyanka Chopra, one of India's leading actresses, is also an aspiring singer set to release her debut international album on Universal Music Group/Interscope and Desi Hits! Inc. read more

• Super Bowl Party for Two: Jordin Sparks and Boyfriend Jason Derulo Celebrate Big Game

  THR Staff

  5 Feb 2012 | 5:09 pm

  THR Staff The "American Idol" season 6 winner tweets a photo of her R&B star "boo," who is still confined to a neck brace after seriously fracturing his vertebra in early January.read more

• 

  Stereogum

• Mac DeMarco – “I’m A Man”

  Stereogum

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:38 pm

  Young Vancouver dude Mac DeMarco is about to release his album Rock And Roll Night Club next month. Below, listen to the tweaked-out weirdo-blues joint “I’m A Man,” which is the sort of thing a 15-year-old Lou Reed might’ve made if he’d had access to GarageBand and Tumblr.Read More...

• Meek Mill – “Erday (Feat. Rick Ross)”

  Stereogum

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:28 pm

  Meek Mill’s follow-up to last years underrated Dream Chasers drops soon, and previously we heard the Cardiak-produced “Lean With It,” a sinewy rap track consistent with the street-savvy strengths of Dream Chasers. Another track from the impending released is now on the web, the Rick Ross-assisted “Erday,” and, probably thanks to another Cardiak beat, it’s an escalating jam with a similar verve in which we find Rozay and Meek trading verses. Download below. Read More...

• Cat Power Cancels Israel Show

  Stereogum

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:26 pm

  Cat Power had been planning to play a 2/13 show in Tel Aviv, but on her Facebook, she claims that she won’t be playing that show after all. After initially posting something about figuring out a way to play a show for Palestinian fans in Ramallah, Chan Marshall posted this: “DUE TO MUCH CONFUSION IN MY SOUL,PLAYİNG FOR MY İSRAELİ FANS W/SUCH UNREST BETWEEN İSRAEL&PALESTİNE I CAN’T PLAY,AS I FEEL SICK IN MY SPIRIT XX.” This post, naturally, has a whole mess of divided comments already.

• Dana Buoy – “Call To Be”

  Stereogum

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:12 pm

  In a couple of months, Akron/Family percussionist Dana Janssen, recording under the name Dana Buoy, will release his solo debut Summer Bodies. Below, download a track from that album: the pulsating, synthetic “Call To Be.”Read More...

• Franz Ferdinand Covers Get Remixed By Brennan Green, dOP

  Stereogum

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:56 pm

  Last year, Franz Ferdinand released their Covers EP, which collected other bands’ versions of their songs, on Record Store Day. Now, they’ve brought in a few other people to remix those covers. Below, listen to Brennan Green and dOP’s revisions of various “Live Alone” covers.Read More...

• 

  The KEXP Blog

• Event Preview: Girl Walk

  Gerrit Feenstra

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pm

  If you haven’t heard of the party-rocking mashup art-form known as Girl Talk, your life is about to change forever. Once a biomedical engineer, Philadelphia native Greg Gillis decided one day that he wanted to take songs and bash them together until they stuck. For over ten years, Gillis has been releasing music under the Girl Talk monicker. In 2006, with his release Night Ripper, Gillis moved away from the glitch-mash sound that he had been working with to try and create full-album sets of mashups that people could dance to. Taking top 40 hits from the past 40 years, Girl Talk made…

• Review Revue: The Buck Pets – The Buck Pets

  Levi Fuller

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:18 pm

  The Buck Pets, like so many “alternative” rock bands of the late ’80s and early ’90s, coulda been huge. The Dallas band had a major label behind them from the release of their debut album (this one), a rabid fanbase (there are still many people waxing nostalgic for this band 20 years after their demise), and even snooty college radio DJs loved their loud, dirty brand of rock – major label or no. They seem to have been the victims of bad timing, though; when their label was bought by Polygram, it appears they fell through the cracks of major label limbo and never…

• Thursday News Roundup

  Gerrit Feenstra

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:00 am

  The Head and the Heart at Mellow Johnny's during SXSW 2011photo by Jim Bennett The Head and the Heart have a new music video out for “Down in the Valley”. The video features footage of the band on the road and playing at different venues. It’s a quite endearing video to a beautiful song. Watch it below: Third Man Records founder and former White Stripes’ guitarist Jack White recently announced the release of his solo debut Blunderbuss. Along with the announcement came the digital release of the album’s first single, “Love Interruption” (the 7″…

• KEXP In-Studio: Mark Lanegan Band

  KEXP

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:42 am

  photos by Lauren Slusher On the release day of his new album, Mark Lanegan made a special KEXP appearance at the Cutting Room Studios in NYC to perform live on the Morning Show with John Richards. You can now stream the full live performance and check out these amazing photos by Lauren Slusher:

• Song of the Day: James Apollo – Two x Two

  Carrie Rubens

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  photo by Tracy Clayton (view set) Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased tracks, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Each and every Friday we offer songs by local artists. Today’s selection, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Two x Two” by James Apollo from his 2012 album Little War, Little Less on Marterry Music. James Apollo – Two x Two (MP3) James Apollo is…

• 

  Popdose

• CD Review: Chris Trapper, “The Few & the Far Between”

  Dan Walsh

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:47 am

  The Push Stars are the perfect example of a band that could/would/should have been huge.  Their debut album, After the Party, was full of radio friendly pop-rock hits. They easily could have been just as successful as Matchbox Twenty, or at worst, have better name recognition than Eve 6. But as we all know, the music industry is cruel and heartless and the best bands are not always the biggest.Fast forward 15 years and we find Push Stars lead singer Chris Trapper releasing his sixth solo record. However, The Few & the Far Between is almost a Push Stars reunion record. Almost. It was…

• Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah #01: How Compleat Was “The Compleat Beatles”?

  Dan Wiencek

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  For my inaugural column for Popdose, I thought I’d serve up a double-size helping of Beatle-y goodness, and take a look at what was, for many children of Boomer parents (like me), our first look at the Beatles’ story: The Compleat Beatles.In the murky days before cable TV and cheap digital video equipment, the music documentary was still a fairly exotic beast. There had been D.A. Pennebaker’s pioneering Dont Look Back in 1965, and then Gimme Shelter, Let It Be, The Kids are Alright, This Is Elvis. You actually had to traipse down to your local multiplex to see these movies, stand in…

• Soul Serenade: The Four Tops, “Bernadette”

  Ken Shane

  9 Feb 2012 | 4:30 am

  This week’s title is just a little bit misleading. While I have undying love for the Four Tops, and while “Bernadette” is my favorite single of theirs and in my Top Ten overall, this week’s column is about James Jamerson.As you know, Jamerson was the bass player in the Funk Brothers, the studio hit machine behind all of the great Motown records. Those great musicians toiled in anonymity and certainly never reaped the financial benefits of Motown’s massive success. Their names never even appeared on a Motown record until Marvin Gaye gave them a shout out in 1971…

• Popdose’s Winter 2012 TV Preview: “The River”

  Bob Cashill

  8 Feb 2012 | 11:16 pm

  The River–Tuesdays, 9:00pm, ABCI love horror, fantasy, and science fiction movies. I’m mixed (at best) on horror, fantasy, and science fiction movies made in the “found footage” style popularized by The Blair Witch Project, which has been recycled for better ([REC], and its US remake Quarantine, Cloverfield) and for worse (The Devil Inside) far too much on our screens. And outside of a few shows (the current incarnation of Doctor Who, the original runs of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker, bits and pieces, so to speak, of The Walking…

• Greatest Un-Hits: Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run” (1988)

  Brian Boone

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pm

  We’re deep into (Give Adele and that silent dog movie all of the) award(s) season, so this week I’m looking at an inadequately performing song that won a lot of major awards from the self-congratulatory entertainment industry. Boomers lionized their icons in the ‘80s, and they loved few as much as dominant ‘70s singer-songwriter Carly Simon. She’s like your mom’s version of Adele! Which means Nicolette Larson, then, is your mom’s version of Lana Del Rey. But I digress.By 1988 Simon was far removed from hits like “Nobody Does it Better,” “Mockingbird,” and “Warren…

• 

  RollingStone.com: Music News

• Lana Del Rey, Skylar Grey Perform In L.A. to Honor Jimmy Iovine

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:40 am

  After an impressive video tribute looking back on a career that has seen him work with John Lennon Bruce Springsteen Dr Dre Eminem and Lady Gaga to name a few Jimmy Iovine joked "Oh that thing gives me a headache" The producer and executive was honored at LA's Village Studios last...

• Bret Michaels New Album to Include Duets With Loretta Lynn, Jimmy Buffett

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:35 am

  Bret Michaels' upcoming solo album Get Your Rock On will include a few friends "Loretta Lynn and I are gonna redo 'Every Rose Has It’s Thorn' together" he tells Rolling Stone "And for me growing up in a family that my father loved country music and Coal Miner’s Daughter this is...

• Van Halen Rocks the L.A. Forum for Thousands of 'Friends and Family'

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:35 am

  There were still kinks to be worked out last night at what David Lee Roth called "the final dress rehearsal" for Van Halen's upcoming North American tour Onstage at the Forum in Los Angeles Roth happily admitted "I forgot the fucking words!" halfway through "China Town" one of several songs...

• 'Portlandia' Book Due in November

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:05 am

  Portlandia the IFC sketch comedy show starring Wild Flag's Carrie Brownstein and Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen will gets its own book later this year The comedy duo have signed on to pen Portlandia A Guide for Visitors for Grand Central Publishing an imprint of Hachette The book a parody...

• Clarence Clemons' Nephew Jake Clemons Joins the E Street Band

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:05 am

  Bruce Springsteen has announced that Jake Clemons - the nephew of former E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons - will be taking over some of his late uncle's sax dutues on the forthcoming "Wrecking Ball" Tour Ed Manion an original member of  Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (and a...

• 

  RollingStone.com: Music News

• Lana Del Rey, Skylar Grey Perform In L.A. to Honor Jimmy Iovine

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:40 am

  After an impressive video tribute looking back on a career that has seen him work with John Lennon Bruce Springsteen Dr Dre Eminem and Lady Gaga to name a few Jimmy Iovine joked "Oh that thing gives me a headache" The producer and executive was honored at LA's Village Studios last...

• Bret Michaels New Album to Include Duets With Loretta Lynn, Jimmy Buffett

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:35 am

  Bret Michaels' upcoming solo album Get Your Rock On will include a few friends "Loretta Lynn and I are gonna redo 'Every Rose Has It’s Thorn' together" he tells Rolling Stone "And for me growing up in a family that my father loved country music and Coal Miner’s Daughter this is...

• Van Halen Rocks the L.A. Forum for Thousands of 'Friends and Family'

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:35 am

  There were still kinks to be worked out last night at what David Lee Roth called "the final dress rehearsal" for Van Halen's upcoming North American tour Onstage at the Forum in Los Angeles Roth happily admitted "I forgot the fucking words!" halfway through "China Town" one of several songs...

• 'Portlandia' Book Due in November

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:05 am

  Portlandia the IFC sketch comedy show starring Wild Flag's Carrie Brownstein and Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen will gets its own book later this year The comedy duo have signed on to pen Portlandia A Guide for Visitors for Grand Central Publishing an imprint of Hachette The book a parody...

• Clarence Clemons' Nephew Jake Clemons Joins the E Street Band

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:05 am

  Bruce Springsteen has announced that Jake Clemons - the nephew of former E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons - will be taking over some of his late uncle's sax dutues on the forthcoming "Wrecking Ball" Tour Ed Manion an original member of  Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (and a...

• 

  SPIN.com -

• See Cults' Fiery 'You Know What I Mean' Video

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:02 pm

  A central motif on Cults' dazzling self-titled debut album is the idea of running away to something transcendent, whether that be a, well, cult, or simply pop music. Music video director Isaiah Seret's previous work with Cults, for breath-of-fresh-air breakout single "Go Outside," placed the New York-via-California duo amid footage from the ill-fated Jonestown settlement. Cults' latest Seret-directed clip, for finger-snapping hipster-prom waltz "You Know What I Mean" (via NPR), examines the consequences of a different kind of escape. No, nobody's jetting off to a join a suicide cult in this…

• First Spin: Karen Dalton's Unearthed 'Katie Cruel'

  Ken Bachor

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:29 pm

  One night in 1966, a guy named Carl Baron hiked up to an address-less cabin in Summerville, Colorado, a remote ghost town where reclusive folk singer and banjo player Karen Dalton had holed up with her estranged husband Richard Tucker. He brought a tape recorder along just in case. Dalton, whose pebbled, one-of-a-kind voice was rarely caught on tape, had recently made the move from New York. And according to legend (and/or press materials!), Dalton and Tucker spent their evenings singing and playing music together, just as they did the night Baron captured audio of Dalton singing "Katie…

• Little Big Man: Clarence Clemons' Nephew Jake Joins Springsteen's Band

  dmaloney

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:56 pm

  In what seems a staunch effort to keep things in the family, Bruce Springsteen has tapped Jake Clemons, nephew to the late E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, to share sax duties with longtime E Street collaborator Eddie Manion on the Boss' upcoming Wrecking Ball tour. The dates, which follow stops at the Grammys and the Apollo Theater will constitute the first Springsteen tour since Clemons' passing. Clemons, Jr., has been busy at work, racking up a discography that includes work with the Swell Season (and Markéat Irglová's side project) and live performance credits that,…

• Odd Future's Earl Sweatshirt Is 'Home,' Hasn't Lost a Step

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:12 am

  Since summer 2010, preternaturally talented Odd Future rapper Earl Sweatshirt (Thebe Kgositsile) has been living in a Samoan reform school — a situation that's left OFWGKTA leader Tyler, the Creator, thoroughly bummed. "I want him to be out here with us on fucking tour, or I just wanna skate the 7-11 with him, 'cause those are times I won't be able to get back," he told SPIN. "That shit just kills me. I miss him." So what to make of the tweet Tyler sent Wednesday reading, “Do Not, Kids I Repeat, Do Not Live Your Life Tryna Make Your Parents/Anyone Happy. DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT" a…

• Hear Zeds Dead's Sabi Remix, Get Tour Dates With Araabmuzik

  Ken Bachor

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:05 am

  Toronto-based duo Zeds Dead have (not so quietly) become a formidable presence in the EDM and bass music scene, and starting in a few days they'll be launching a supersize tour designed by the folks responsible for Deadmau5 and Skrillex’s eye-popping spectacles. The "Living Dead Bus Tour" teams the crew with our boy Araabmuzik and Omar Linx. To celebrate, Zeds Dead have released a remix of "Wild at Heart" by Sabi, the Britney Spears collaborator who most recently appeared on a hit Cobra Starship track. It sounds like Rihanna getting a crash course at Dubstep University,…

• 

  L.A. Times - Music News

• Jimmy Iovine feted by Grammy producers; praises Lana Del Rey

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:10 pm

  On Wednesday night the Producers and Engineers wing of the Grammy Awards presented Iovine with their 2012 Recording Academy Presidents Merit Award. On Wednesday night the Producers and Engineers wing of the Grammy Awards presented Iovine with their 2012 Recording Academy Presidents Merit Award.

• Crickets, Comets, Flames, 3 other bands will enter Rock Hall of Fame

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:07 pm

  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has decided to induct six bands whose high-profile leaders previously made it into the hall individually, in recognition of the critical role those musicians played in tThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has decided to induct six bands whose high-profile leaders previously made it into the hall individually, in recognition of the critical role those musicians played in the history of pop music.

• Video premiere: Chieftains and the Low Anthem's 'School Days Over'

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:46 am

  The classic Irish folk band teams up with some respected Rhode Island indie rockers in their new music video released exclusively on Pop & Hiss.The classic Irish folk band teams up with some respected Rhode Island indie rockers in their new music video released exclusively on Pop & Hiss.

• Merle Haggard recovers from pneumonia, returns to touring

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:32 pm

  Country music veteran Merle Haggard has recovered from his bout with pneumonia and other medical issues and is heading back out on tour for a string of shows beginning Feb. 28.Country music veteran Merle Haggard has recovered from his bout with pneumonia and other medical issues and is heading back out on tour for a string of shows beginning Feb. 28.

• Ledisi, Questlove, Mark Bradford pay tribute to Diana Ross

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:26 pm

  Artists influenced by Ross spoke to us about the magnitude of her effect on popular culture, and how her work -- and work ethic -- has inspired them individually. Artists influenced by Ross spoke to us about the magnitude of her effect on popular culture, and how her work -- and work ethic -- has inspired them individually.

• 

  NYT > Home Page

• Lens Blog: Pictures of the Day: Syria and Elsewhere

  By THE NEW YORK TIMES

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:56 pm

  Photographs from Syria, Iraq, the Philippines and Washington.

• Greeks Reach Deal on Austerity to Meet Condition of Bailout

  By RACHEL DONADIO and NIKI KITSANTONIS

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:46 pm

  After days of talks, Greek political leaders reached a deal Thursday to support a package of harsh austerity measures demanded by Greece’s financial backers in return for a bailout.

• Pentagon to Loosen Restrictions on Women in Combat

  By ELISABETH BUMILLER

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:39 pm

  Women will be permitted to serve closer to the front lines, but still not in combat — angering some advocates who say the rules do not go far enough.

• Olympic Hopeful Missy Franklin Loves Her High School Team

  By KAREN CROUSE

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:18 pm

  Missy Franklin, who holds the world record in the 200-meter backstroke, has passed up about $150,000 in prize money and more in endorsements to swim for her Colorado high school.

• Libya’s New Government Unable to Control Militias

  By ANTHONY SHADID

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:33 pm

  The Arab world’s most sweeping revolution is foundering as the interim Libyan government seems to be paralyzed by its lack of power to control competing militias.

• 

  Aquarium Drunkard

• Videodrome: Cherry Wainer & Don Storer—Peter Gunn

  Satisfied '75

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:54 pm

  Just like last time, today’s Videodrome is a clip from a German TV show. Specifically, the show Beat! Beat! Beat! No, not the Beat Club… but the show did have a Shindig/Bandstand style “variety” format where mostly U.K. and American rock bands would play a few songs to smiling, bopping teenagers. I caught this video [...]

• AD Presents :: Rebirth Brass Band @ The Echoplex – 2/12

  Satisfied '75

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:48 am

  It’s Mardi Gras season. Saturday night Aquarium Drunkard Presents Rebirth Brass Band at the Echoplex in Los Angeles. We’re giving away three pairs of tickets to AD readers via email (you can also purchase tickets here). To enter for a pair, leave a comment below with your name and favorite artist to come out of [...]

• Father John Misty :: The AD Interview

  Satisfied '75

  7 Feb 2012 | 6:20 am

  Josh Tillman has been writing, recording and releasing albums for a decade now. Like Captain Beefheart and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy before him, it was announced last month that future Tillman output would be released under the guise of Father John Misty. A new beginning? Indeed. If past Tillman releases mined the intricacies of greys and [...]

• Mary Weiss & Reigning Sound :: Don’t Come Back

  Satisfied '75

  6 Feb 2012 | 5:03 pm

  A bunch of us drove from L.A. to Long Beach last month for night two of Reigning Sound‘s two night run at Alex’s Bar. To say it was exactly the kind of sonic punch in gut we were looking for would be an understatement. I’ve since been  revisiting  Dangerous Game – the Reigning Sound-backed Mary [...]

• Beach Boys :: Unknown Harmony – 1968, A Capella

  Satisfied '75

  6 Feb 2012 | 6:30 am

  Looped a capella track (reportedly) culled from a 1968 studio session known in fan circles as “Unknown Harmony.” I copped this five or so years ago via the fan-made compilation You’re Welcome: A Beach Boys Sequel to SMiLE. From what I gather, the source material is thought to be clipped from the isolated vocal track [...]

• 

  brooklynvegan

• Dum Dum Girls wore WHITE at Music Hall of Williamsburg w/ Widowspeak & Punks on Mars (pics)

  brooklynvegan

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:20 pm

  photos by Amanda Hatfield Dum Dum Girls @ Music Hall of Williamsburg After playing a secret show at Cake Shop one night earlier Widowspeak, The Babies, and Punks on Mars played a much larger and public show at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Tuesday (2/7), but this time Dum Dum Girls were dressed all in white!! Proof is in this post. Dum Dum Girls (usually all in black) and Windowspeak with continue their joint tour with another area show at Maxwell's this Saturday (2/11). Tickets are still available. Widowspeak have also announced a Glasslands show with Mac DeMarco who is signed to Captured…

• Richard Reed Parry, Son Lux, yMusic & Dessners got 'Ecstatic' @ Merkin Concert Hall (pics)

  brooklynvegan

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:25 pm

  photos by David Andrako Ecstatic Music Festival Day 3 -- 02/08/12 The 2012 Ecstatic Music Festival, which hosted Sxip Shirey and friends one night earlier, continued at Merkin Hall last night with performances by Richard Reed Parry (of the Arcade Fire and Bell Orchestre), Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott), and yMusic, along with special guests Bryce and Aaron Dessner (of the National). As advertised, this happened:"[Richard Reed Parry] takes on the role of composer, presenting a series of works for yMusic and its members utilizing the organic processes of the human body -- heartbeats and breathing --…

• Bill Callahan played the Allen Room (pics), covered Leonard Cohen (stream)

  brooklynvegan

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:09 pm

  photos by Dominick Mastrangelo Bill Callahan @ the Allen Room - 2/8/2012 Following performances by a diversity of musicians including Keren Ann and Thurston Moore, Bill Callahan continued Lincoln Center's 2012 American Songbook Series last night (2/8) at the Allen Room, a show Mr. Callahan said seemed like an appropriate finale to his "Apocalyspe Tour." Here are some pictures. tUnE-yArDs plays the series tonight (2/9). In other news, Bill Callahan recently covered Leonard Cohen's great ""So Long Marianne" for a MOJO Magazine covers CD. Listen to that, with more pictures from the NYC show,…

• JEFF the Brotherhood, Hunters & the Numerators played Death By Audio (pics), play Maxwell's tonight

  brooklynvegan

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:18 pm

  photos by Devan Council JEFF the Brohterhood & Hunters, both on tour with The Kills (pics from their Austin show HERE), played a sweaty, sold-out show at Death By Audio in Brooklyn last night (2/8) The Numerators. Here are some pictures (Uncle Bad Touch were originally on the bill, but replaced by Hunters). If you found yourself out of luck in getting tickets last night-- or for their sold-out Saturday night Terminal 5 show with The Kills-- you can also catch JEFF and Hunters again at Maxwell's tonight (2/9), with support from Devin. Tickets are still available for the Hoboken, NJ show. More…

• tonight's Bjork show is cancelled! (but she already played 2 & will play more)

  brooklynvegan

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:45 am

  Bjork in Queens (photo by Julieta Cervantes) Oh no!"Due to illness, tonight's Björk show at the New York Hall of Science is canceled. Refunds will be available at the point of purchase. Björk will perform at the New York Hall of Science on February 12th, 15th, and 18th and at Roseland Ballroom February 22nd, 25th, 28th, and March 2nd."And she performed at New York Hall of Science two other times this month already. That's a picture from 2/3 above. You can see the setlist below... Continue reading "tonight's Bjork show is cancelled! (but she already played 2 & will play more)" at…

• 

  PopMatters

• Resonant Doc 'Black Power Mixtape' Premieres on Independent Lens, 9 February (Mixed Media)

  Cynthia Fuchs

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 pm

  "What was it like coming back to America after fighting in Vietnam?" asks an off-screen narrator. A 22-year-old black man nods and begins to talk, his weary expression suggesting this is a question...

• Norwegian Sensation diskJokke Debuts Environmentally Friendly Video for "Now Dance" (Mixed Media)

  Comfort Clinton

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:00 am

  The Oslo-based artist is now coming into his own, creating original, funky sound mixes based in electronica and infused with hints of house, disco and pop.

• The Dark Pop-Punk of the Shadow Delivers (Sound Affects)

  David Ensminger

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:00 am

  Unlike potboiler musicians with kiss-off egos, the Shadow proves that Blank Generation music was open-ended and robust, a welcome home to punk brands of all stripes.

• Anti-Escapism and 'Final Fantasy Tactics Advance' (Moving Pixels)

  Mark Filipowich

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:00 am

  It’s odd to think of such an expensive hobby that is so often associated with a privileged class as designed purely for escape. What could such an audience have to escape from?

• Forget Shepard Fairey. Niveau Zero & Balkansky Now Own "Obey" (Mixed Media)

  Alan Ranta

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:00 am

  This is not your basic club single. It doesn't ask you to like it.

• 

  The Allmusic Blog

• The Poplist with Mind Spiders

  Tim Sendra

  7 Feb 2012 | 12:45 pm

  Later this month, Dirtnap will release the second record from Mark Ryan’s latest project Mind Spiders. Before you say “Mark who?”, let me head you off by saying he was in the Marked Men and High Tension Wires and therefore, you can expect nothing less than snotty brilliance from this new project. 2011’s self-titled album was pretty hot, but this new one, Meltdown, is even better. Very hooky, very tough, with lots of fuzz, reverb, and rickety guitar and synth clatter. Ryan sent us a list of stuff he’s been liking lately; it kind of reads like an instruction manual…

• AllMusic Loves 1986

  AMG Staff

  2 Feb 2012 | 5:00 am

  By some measures, 1986 may be the most ’80s year of the decade. Sure, Michael Jackson was absent from the charts but his impact could not be denied, nor could his little sister Janet who had one of the year’s defining albums in Control. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis gave Control a Minneapolis flavor just as Prince continued to mine the Paisley Underground for inspiration on his decidedly weird Parade. Counteracting this neo-psychedelia — also apparent on the gorgeous Skylarking by XTC — was the rise of Americana in the form of debut albums by Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle…

• The Poplist: To the Beach with Hospitality

  Tim Sendra

  31 Jan 2012 | 1:24 pm

  This week Brooklyn indie pop trio Hospitality finally release their first album after teasing fans of well-written, sweetly-sung, warmly played, Camera Obscura-styled pop a couple years ago with an EP, then vanishing. Amber Papini’s voice and words are the obvious selling point of the band and album, she’s charmingly witty and totally down to earth with an pleasingly off-kilter way of singing. If you look past that though, you’ll hear that the record is put together like a perfectly calibrated machine, thanks to the atmosphere and arrangements provided by band member (and…

• All Tape Guide, January 2012

  Fred Thomas

  24 Jan 2012 | 7:07 am

  In 2012, when most people think about cassettes it’s usually not in direct correlation with any kind of music. Retro-signifier, sure. Questionable tattoo choice; sometimes. Depending on your age, some typical responses to the importance of cassette tapes are “Do they even still make those?” or “I got rid of all mine years ago!” or maybe most often “What is that?”. However silly or seemingly antiquated it may be to some, the lineage of cassettes, while always existing in the margins, is ongoing. From the early ’80s file-sharing prototype of…

• Musique Concrète: Its Place in the History of Electronic Music

  AMG Staff

  23 Jan 2012 | 5:55 am

  Musique concrète is a type of electroacoustic music in which acoustic sounds are used as source material. It was the brainchild of Parisian radio engineer Pierre Schaeffer (left) in the years following World War II. During the early 1950s, it became a rival movement to a German counterpart based in Cologne, known simply as “Electronic Music,” in which sounds were electronically produced. Schaeffer invented the term musique concrète because practitioners worked directly from existing or “concrete” sound, discovering its internal forms and creating pieces from the…

• 

  Wired Top Stories

• Texas Jury Strikes Down Patent Troll's Claim to Own the Interactive Web

  Joe Mullin

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:26 pm

  After threatening web companies for more than a decade, Michael Doyle and his patent-holding company Eola -- named after the Irish word for knowledge -- may be finished.

• Dell Puts Crosshairs On World of Storage

  Eric Smalley

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:56 pm

  At Dell's offices in New Hampshire, there's a Facebook-esque graffiti wall employees are encouraged to drawn on, and someone has sketched rifle crosshairs over the name NetApp. Dell has a lofty goal in mind: to become the world's number three storage vendor, and the first step is to surpass the number five player: the Sunnyvale, California-based NetApp. Given that Dell is a $60 billion tech company, that goal may not sound so lofty. But in most people's minds, Dell is still synonymous with personal computers. That Dell is even on the leaderboard in enterprise storage says a lot. The company's…

• Built to Last

  Mike Isaac

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:56 pm

  Motorola's newest Droid Razr is just like its predecessor in almost every way -- except for the addition of a positively huge battery.

• R.I.P. 'Laney,' The Dog Who Inspired the Military's Robot Pooches

  Noah Shachtman

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:53 pm

  Before there was the BigDog ? the Pentagon's remarkably lifelike four-legged robot ? there was a German short-haired pointer named Laney. The brown-speckled pooch inspired one of the military's most bizarre and captivating technology projects, its gallops and marches witnessed by millions on YouTube. This week, word spread among the small circle of Defense Department researchers who knew Laney that she had passed away. She was 12 years old.

• A Texas Jury Now Deliberating Who, if Anyone, Owns the Web

  Joe Mullin

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:25 pm

  The fate of the openness of the interactive web is now in the hands of a jury in Texas, weighing testimony from the Web's early pioneers about the validity of a patent claim on features such as embedded video. A loss means that nearly every major U.S. website could owe thousands to millions of dollars to an obscure patent-licensing company based in a small-town in Texas.

• 

  FILTER Magazine

• News : LOOK: Björk’s Female Choir to Perform

  info@filtermmm.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:26 am

  Björk's Icelandic female choir Graduale Nobili (yes, she has a choir) will be performing in New York City at West Park Presbyterian Church, on Monday February 13 at 7pm. For those of you on a budget, good news the show is free! Don't miss your chance to catch the award winning renowned Graduale Nobili choir performing a capella, directed by Jon Stefansson. They will also be debuting a piece composed by Manu Delago, Björk´s percussionist. Doors open at 6pm, so make sure to get there early for a good spot! Visit Here for more information. For more information on the…

• News : LOOK: Chiddy Bang, “It’s Time To Have Breakfast”

  info@filtermmm.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:51 am

  The Philadelphia-based "alt-hip hop" group of Chiddy Bang is gearing up for their forthcoming release, Breakfast, coming out February 28 in the U.S. and March 5 Worldwide. Check out the preview reel below!  Pre-order Chiddy Bang's Breakfast via iTunes Here. Listen to some tracks by the group below.   Chiddy Bang by ChiddyBang

• Media : MP3: Cuff the Duke Are “Always Looking” (Dum Dum Girls Cover) (FILTER Premiere)

  info@filtermmm.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:35 am

  Toronto-based Cuff the Duke  have been sharing with you some great covers these last couple of weeks. While bringing alt-country to the masses via Paper Bag Records, the band is preparing for their fifth album release Morning Comes out February 28 (via Paper Bag Records), and has teamed up with us at FILTER to present a collection of covers found in their EP In Our Time. This week we've premiering the next track off the EP in anticipation for the forthcoming full length! Today we present the band's cover of the Dum Dum Girls track "Always Looking." Read a few words from…

• Media : WATCH: Cults Catches On Fire In “You Know What I Mean”

  info@filtermmm.com

  8 Feb 2012 | 2:46 pm

  Quick-to-rise indie-poppers, Cults, have just unveiled their video for "You Know What I Mean" and it is quite the narrative. The clip features singer Madeline Follin caring for guitarist Brian Oblivion after he has a not-so-great run-in with a ring of fire. "You Know What I Mean" is off Cults' debut self-titled album which you can grab right here.

• News : FILTER Five: Our Top 5 Reunion Wish-list Tours

  info@filtermmm.com

  8 Feb 2012 | 2:20 pm

  Reunion tours and shows might be some of the most hyped news in music that could ever happen. Might be a slight exaggeration, but let's use the unveiling of Coachella 2012's lineup as an example. At The Drive-In, Refused, to name a couple - so many reunions announced right in front of us, all for the luxury of saying they'll most likely be touring around a town near you! Whether it's all the original members or just fragments of the band taking the stage, there's always something special about seeing your favorite bands reunited on stage. In the past few months, there have…

• 

  Altsounds

• Francis Harris Remixed by Scissor & Thread Labelmate Black Light Smoke

  jack

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pm

  Brooklyn-based Francis Harris and his album Leland, his forthcoming full length album on Scissor & Thread, is quite personal, as Harris composed the album as a requiem for his father. With the approaching 2 year anniversary of his father's passing coming up on February 25th, Harris marks the occassion with the release of Leland on February 28th, in close proximity to the life-marking event. From one passing comes new life though, in the form of Harris' Scissor & Thread imprint, a home for the thriving indie-electronic underbelly in New York. Producer Black Light Smoke, known for his…

• No Motiv - Pre-Order Winterlong Vinyl From Black Numbers

  Nuno Saque Ferreira

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:38 pm

  No Motiv's (Oxnard, CA) first release in nearly eight years, Winterlong, is now available from Jersey City label Black Numbers (PJ Bond, Go Rydell, Grey Area, Luther) in the limited vinyl format. The 12" vinyl is limited to 500 pieces on three different colorways, 100 Clear, 150 Colorlight Blue and 250 White. All colors, as well as limited test press packages and an exclusive T-shirt, are available here. Following a storied career at the height of the emo in-a-good-way scene which included four releases on Vagrant Records and numerous worldwide tours with the likes of The Get Up Kids, Hod Rod…

• Audio Fidelity to Release Sade's "Diamond Life" as 180-Gram Vinyl Reissue

  Nuno Saque Ferreira

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:32 pm

  Marshall Blonstein, president of Audio Fidelity, has announced February 14 as the release date for the audiophile label's 180-gram virgin-vinyl reissue of Sade's DIAMOND LIFE album. Originally issued 27 years ago this month, DIAMOND LIFE launched the career of one of the most distinctive and enduring vocalists in contemporary pop. The LP will be issued in a numbered, deluxe gate-fold limited edition that will be available through online and brick-and-mortar retailers alike. The Nigerian-born, British writer-singer (born Helen Folasade Abu) struck more than gold with her debut. DIAMOND LIFE…

• SXSW 2012 Showcase: Krian/BFM Digital Music, Featuring VHS or Beta

  Nuno Saque Ferreira

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:27 pm

  Indie record label Krian Music Group and their exclusive digital distributor, BFM Digital are hosting their first official SXSW showcase this year, bringing an exhilarating must see lineup to the Iron Bear on Thursday, March 15th. Dance rockers VHS Or Beta, Nashville's retro-rockers The Ettes, Spanish garage punks Capsula, Los Angeles indie outfit Hands, Brooklyn quirk-pop band Suckers, and Ohio's The Strange Familiar are all scheduled to perform. VHS or Beta The Brooklyn based dance-rock band, VHS OR BETA, released their fourth album, Diamonds and Death, in the fall of '11. From the backroom…

• Rolling Stone Premieres St. Lucia Remix of Foster The People's "Don't Stop"

  Nuno Saque Ferreira

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:01 pm

  Even in the urban wilds of Brooklyn, there may be no one else like Jean-Philip Grobler, otherwise known as St. Lucia. Originally from Johannesberg, South Africa, Jean grew up performing with the Drakensberg Boys Choir School. When the choir wasn’t traveling—St. Lucia toured Japan, Australia, Europe, the US and more—they stayed in an enclave tucked in the South African mountains, learning everything from Bach and minimalist opera to African War Songs and Celine Dion. A young musician could hardly find better training, but as a young teenager, he started to feel that he’d had his fill…

• 

  Largehearted Boy

• Book Notes - Josh Bazell - "Wild Thing"

  david

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:01 am

  In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, and many others. Josh Bazell's debut Beat the Reaper was one of my favorite novels of 2009, and its sequel Wild Thingis also impressive. Fast-paced, violent, odd, and clever, this book definitely lives up to its title. Publishers Weekly wrote of the book: "Bazell expertly blends action, farce, and political…

• Shorties (Top Emo Songs of All Time, Valentine's Gifts for Comics Fans, and more)

  david

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:24 am

  On the Download lists the top 100 emo songs of all time. Hero Complex shares a Valentine's gift guide for comics fans. The Telegraph interviews Carrie Brownstein of Wild Flag and Portlandia. The Guardian's children's books blog offers a love in literature quiz. Louisville.com interviews Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers about storytelling in song. The Hooded Utilitarian interviews cartoonist Marguerite Dabaie about her graphic memoir, The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories. Nerve lists the 50 greatest love songs of all time. Bookworm interviews author Wayne Koestenbaum. Rolling Stone is…

• Daily Downloads (Ceremony, Gardens & Villa, and more)

  david

  9 Feb 2012 | 5:19 am

  Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet. Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Baby Eagle & the Proud Mothers: "Brave Women" [mp3] from Bone Soldiers (out March 6th) search for more Baby Eagle posts at Largehearted Boy Ceremony: "Hysteria" [mp3] from Zoo (out March 6th) search for more Ceremony posts at Largehearted Boy Gardens & Villa: "Orange Blossom" [mp3] from Gardens & Villa search for more Gardens & Villa posts at Largehearted Boy Inca Gold: "Atom" [mp3] from Inca Gold III search for more Inca Gold posts…

• Book Notes - Katie Ward - "Girl Reading"

  david

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:49 am

  In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, and many others. Katie Ward's Girl Reading is an ambitious and cleverly executed debut novel, the stories of seven portraits of women reading through the ages woven into a cohesive narrative. The Guardian wrote of the novel: "This debut should appeal to a wide but discerning readership. Not for Katie Ward the…

• Atomic Books Comics Preview - February 8th, 2012

  david

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:10 am

  In the weekly Atomic Books Comics Preview, Benn Ray highlights notable new comics and graphic novels. Benn Ray is the owner of Atomic Books, an independent bookstore in Baltimore. The Mobtown Shank is his blog, and his comic Said What? is syndicated weekly in the Baltimore Sun's B-Paper. Atomic Books has been named one of Bizarre Magazine's 51 geekiest places on the planet, as well as one of Flavorwire's 10 greatest comic and graphic novel stores in America. Every Man Is My Enemy by Skinner This book collects the mural and installation art work of Sacramento artist Skinner. The result is a…

• 

  Artists House Music

• What I would tell Jaki Byard (about copyright law)

  8 Feb 2012 | 2:28 pm

  Blog post submitted by: Vanessa Kaster, Esq., LL.M. http://iplegalfreebies.wordpress.com/ The late, great Jaki Byard was a musical genius and like ALL artists Jaki created TONS of intellectual property. Undoubtedly he created more original, copyrightable works than he even knew. Like so many artists… when your art just flows… and your groove is strong… it’s easy to overlook ways to protect and monetize your work. (I studied jazz piano with Jaki a few years before I went to law school and became an intellectual property attorney). What advice would I give Jaki today? I would insist…

• Copyright Status restored to foreign works – removing works from public domain

  27 Jan 2012 | 8:17 am

  Submitted by: Vanessa Kaster, Esq., LL.M.  vk@kasterlegal.com Last week, The US Supreme Court mandated copyright restoration for foreign works that are covered by copyright protection in their country of origin or the country where copyright protection is claimed. This renewed respect for foreign works, removes a bulk of works out of the public domain and vests them with copyright protection. This means that many foreign works will no longer be free to perform, record, copy or make derivative works of here in the US. For example, Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ which has been free to…

• Fiat pays for use of Graffiti Mural “I ❤ the Bronx” …in their commercial

  18 Jan 2012 | 3:22 pm

  Article submitted BY: Vanessa Kaster, Esq., LL.M. The exact amount that Chrysler has paid to TATS Cru, the Bronx based graffiti artist, for use of their mural in a Fiat commercial hasn’t been disclosed… although I applaud the two sides for coming to an agreement. Is a Graffiti Mural protected by copyright?  YES, YES, YES!!  All it takes is ORIGINALITY to qualify for copyright protection… and in this instance there wasn’t any question about the mural being original. Should Chrysler have known that the mural was protected by copyright?  YES, YES, YES!!  Because, there is a copyright…

• Works in the Public Domain are FREE to use

  1 Dec 2011 | 1:15 pm

  BY: Vanessa Kaster, Esq., LL.M. www.iplegalfreebies.wordpress.com Music and other published works that are in the Public Domain are free to use; since, they are not under copyright protection and therefore do not require any permissions from the author (or former copyright owner) to be used. Works that are in the public domain are free for the taking, sampling, using, copying, reproducing, recording and distributing. Typically, works in the Public Domain are very old works. For example, ancient published texts like the “Bhagavad Gita” (a pre-Christian, Sanskrit text) are in the public…

• Copyright Law: Using quotes from someone else (including Cajun keychain sayings) in your song, blog, book or website

  18 Nov 2011 | 11:02 am

  Blog post submitted by Vanessa Kaster http://iplegalfreebies.wordpress.com/ Did you know that it’s possible to buy a “Cajun in your pocket” keychain?  …that plays spoken Cajun phrases?  GOOD NEWS – you can buy the keychain and use the sayings without violating copyright!  Even though the toy manufacturers have copyrights that include the sayings on the keychain… there is no copyright violation for using the sayings in your own song, book, blog or website because, the phrases are not original.  A federal court in Louisiana held that the phrases at issue (see below) were common…

• 

  RouteNote Blog

• Tiger Synth – Versatile VSTi synthesizer plug-in for Windows

  Finchy

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:52 pm

  HG Fortune has released the Tiger Synth. Tiger Synth is a versatile VSTi synthesizer plug-in for Windows. Features: Soundsources: » 4 PCM wave Oscillators each with 256 waves (other SF2 loadable) » 2 Aux oscillators (monophonic) as mod and audio sources Modifiers: » 1 24 dB resonant Lowpass filter with ADSR EG and 4 channel mod mixer » 1 12 dB resonant Band or Hipass filter with ADSR EG and 4 channel mod mixer » 2 Spook modifiers with different resonant characteristics » 1 Amplitude modulation with selectable input and mod sources by 2 Aux oscillators Mod sources: » 2 RPG (16 step…

• Worst Idea of 2012: Simon Cowell and the DJ Factor

  Finchy

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:51 am

  A while ago it was announced that Simon Cowell has partnered with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith for a new reality talent show for, get this, the “world’s greatest DJs.” The concept is nothing new, but this time they have picked the wrong genre! Simon thinks that DJs are the rockstars of their era. This may be the case, but will DJs want to sell their sole to the devil to get a shit 1 album record deal with Syco Records and Sony? Doubt it! What a terrible idea! Plus, when you think it cant get any worse they mention that Will Smith is helping produce the series. Related Articles ITV…

• Charlotte Gainsbourg – Paradisco Remix by Joakim

  Finchy

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:18 am

  This is only a mix and the final version is going to be release very soon, but even at the moment this Joakim Paradisco Garage remix is cool! This is a mix of Charlotte Gainsbourg – Paradisco. Random Articles

• Lana Del Rey on David Letterman Show

  Finchy

  8 Feb 2012 | 9:01 am

  Lana Del Rey with a great live performance on the David Letterman show. Related Articles Skrillex – Rock n Roll (Will Take You to the Mountain) – January 24, 2012 Pro Tools: How To Assign A Clock Source – January 17, 2012 Avicii – Levels (Skrillex Remix) – December 30, 2011 Lana Del Rey on Saturday Night Live on 14th January – December 20, 2011 25 Biggest Pop Tracks of 2011 Mashup – December 6, 2011

• Official UK Music Charts iPhone Applications

  Finchy

  7 Feb 2012 | 7:52 am

  Im not really one for charts, but there are a lot of people who want to see who is leading the charts for any given time. Thus, here is the official UK Charts iPhone applications. Download here. Related Articles The Ocarina. Turn Your iPhone or iPod Touch Into A Wind Instrument – November 8, 2008 Vevo iPhone App: Lets Users Watch Their Favourite Music Videos for Free on their iPhone – August 18, 2010 Universal and UKs Official Chart Company Launch TimeWheel iPhone Application – August 16, 2010 iPhone App Musician Gets Record Deal – June 14, 2010 Thumbplay Launch Their…

• 

  Music Industry Newswire

• Rash of Tuba Thefts Plagues Los Angeles

  David Kronemyer

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:24 am

  Music Industry Newswire COLUMN: The Los Angeles Times recently has carried several stories about a series of tuba thefts that have plagued local area high schools, colleges, bands, orchestras and other performing aggregations. A quick www search reveals that L.A. is not the only jurisdiction [...]

• WOI portal: New Innovative Swedish Portal Provides Indie Publishing Power

  Jesse JJ Jame

  3 Feb 2012 | 10:29 am

  SWEDEN /Music Industry Newswire/ — The Sweden based music rights organization STIM presents WOI, a new portal for multi-territorial composition rights licensing of independent publishers rights. The WOI portal is a smart solution to collectively provide better negotiating leverage, higher influence over deal terms and [...]

• TC Electronic Announces John Petrucci Signature Pedal: The Dreamscape

  Jesse JJ Jame

  1 Feb 2012 | 10:13 am

  Risskov, Denmark /Music Industry Newswire/ — Long-time TC guitar effects user John Petrucci has joined forces with TC, taking their collaboration to a whole new level. John Petrucci was one of the first artists to join TC’s revolutionary TonePrint concept. In total, John created 5 [...]

• REVIEW: John Bowen’s New Synth – the Solaris

  David Kronemyer

  31 Jan 2012 | 1:08 pm

  Music Industry Newswire REVIEW: Yes, OK, it took him a long time to get them done, and some people still haven’t gotten theirs from the initial production run. I am pleased to advise, though, that it is well worth the wait. Ours arrived from Europe [...]

• Musician Press Kits get makeover in Jonas Music Services’ 2012 ‘Worst Music Press Kit’ Contest

  Jesse JJ Jame

  30 Jan 2012 | 12:51 pm

  NEW YORK, N.Y. /Music Industry Newswire/ -- Jonas Music Services today announced its first "Worst Press Kit Contest" with one selected winner receiving a custom designed press kit package worth $700. Jonas Music Services' Executive Director, Dr. Ann Lathan Kerzner, explains, 'Press Kits are so essential in the marketing success of musicians and bands, but they are often poorly understood by the groups creating them.'

• 

  CNN.com

• Drug reverses Alzheimer's in mice

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:18 pm

  Scientists say they "serendipitously" discovered that a drug used to treat a type of cancer quickly reversed Alzheimer's disease in mice.

• British ambassador to Syria: 'It's too shocking to ignore'

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:57 pm

  A Syrian opposition group reported as many as 137 deaths at the hands of government forces. Britain's ambassador to Syria painted a picture of children and elderly being beaten and called for world condemnation of the regime's actions.

• Opinion: Google knows too much

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:58 am

  Frida Ghitis says online hoarding of our private information is not something we can afford to "dismiss."

• 

  WSJ.com: What's News US

• PepsiCo Cuts Work Force

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:36 pm

  PepsiCo plans to spend up to $600 million more on marketing this year to improve sales in North America and will lay off about 3% of its global work force to pay for it as part of a much-anticipated strategic overhaul.

• Greek Deal Faces Scrutiny in Brussels

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:32 pm

  Greek political leaders agreed to more austerity measures that could pave the way for a new bailout and debt-restructuring deal, but euro-zone finance ministers hadn't signed off on the deal as talks continued late Thursday evening.

• Stocks Close Higher Again

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:31 pm

  Shares drifted up as investors took stock of a Greek refinancing deal and continued improvement in the U.S. labor market.

• LinkedIn Posts Profit Jump

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:04 pm

  LinkedIn's fourth-quarter earnings soared as the professional-networking site's revenue more than doubled.

• USDA Raises Corn Export Outlook

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:56 pm

  Dry weather in South America is putting renewed pressure on U.S. corn supplies, raising the specter inventories could again run low.

• 

  News

• The GOP's 'Meh' Moment On Full Display At Conservative Confab

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:09 pm

  If the opening day of the American Conservative Union's annual star-studded CPAC convention is any indication, the Republican presidential hopefuls all have a lot of persuading to do.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• At CPAC, Hard Lines On Race And Immigration Could Be Awkward

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:05 pm

  Three of the GOP candidates will address the largest annual gathering of conservatives on Friday. Conference panelists included a white nationalist and immigration opponents.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Why Estimating Delegate Counts Could Backfire

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:03 pm

  Uber-primary watcher Josh Putnam warns of extrapolating delegate counts from states that do not explicitly tie election results to the actual allocation of delegates.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Protesters At Apple Stores Demand 'Ethical' Products

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pm

  The protesters delivered a petition with 250,000 signatures at six stores worldwide.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Young Republicans Gather In Washington — And Eye An Opportunity In November

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:59 pm

  Young conservatives gathering in Washington say a bad economy may be good news in 2012 for the Republican Party — at least in helping it to dent the overwhelming support Barack Obama enjoyed four years ago among the youngest voters.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• 

  USATODAY.com Feed

• Marines pose with Nazi symbol in Afghanistan

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:34 pm

  A sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with a logo resembling the notorious Nazi SS.

• Ban on women lifted for about 1% of military jobs

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:29 pm

  The Pentagon will lift parts of its longtime ban on women serving in combat units, but only a small fraction of the force will be affected.

• Suffering deepens in bombarded Syrian city of Homs

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:08 pm

  Syrians used loudspeakers to call for blood donations and medical supplies in the stricken city of Homs.

• Warrant issued for former Maldives president

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:40 pm

  A court in the Maldives issued an arrest warrant for former President Mohamed Nasheed, one day after his supporters rampaged in the capital.

• Report: Iran adds 2 submarines to naval fleet

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:09 pm

  Iran's official news agency reported that the navy has added two more domestically built light submarines to its fleet.

• 

  Slate

• Pourquoi autant de records de consommation électrique battus

  Catherine Bernard

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:03 am

  101.700 MégaWatts (MW), voici donc le nouveau record de consommation électrique de l'hexagone, décroché mercredi 8 février à 19h. C'est 1.200 MW de plus que le précédent record, frais de tout juste 24 heures, et surtout 4.990 MW de plus que le 15 décembre 2010, celui «d'avant». Car c'est presque devenu une habitude: à chaque vague de froid, la consommation électrique française s'emballe. Mais au fait, pourquoi le froid provoque-t-il presque automatiquement des pics de consommation? Et pourquoi ces pics progressent-ils d'année en année?  «Thermosensible»: c'est un fait…

• Sarkozy réfléchirait à l'arme du référendum

  Jean-Marie Pottier

  9 Feb 2012 | 5:04 am

  SELON LE BLOG DU MONDE L'ELYSÉE CÔTÉ JARDIN, dont les informations ont été confirmées à l’AFP par une source proche de l’UMP, Nicolas Sarkozy annoncerait, dans un entretien au Figaro Magazine à paraître samedi, qu’il songe à soumettre à référendum une ou deux questions en cas de réélection, sur «des sujets larges de société». La première porterait sur la possibilité pour les chômeurs de refuser une formation ou un emploi, la seconde sur la possibilité de confier le droit des étrangers, et notamment les décisions d’expulsions, à la justice administrative. Le…

• Petit lexique pour l'après-Midem

  Henry Michel

  9 Feb 2012 | 3:55 am

  Son service de presse le proclame fièrement dans un communiqué: l’édition 2012 du Midem, qui s’est tenue du 28 au 30 janvier, était celle d’une «version 3.0, où la musique, la technologie, les marques et les musiciens se sont connectés, pendant 4 jours électrisants de concerts, de business et d’extension de réseaux.» Méthode Coué, réalité économique ou dissimulation positive du gigantesque braquage d’un secteur sur l’autre —les «nouvelles» technologies contre l’industrie musicale? L’heure n’était pas au cynisme, dans les couloirs d’un Palais des…

• Sarkozy et Hollande, un «moment de campagne» au dîner du Crif

  Slate.fr

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:40 am

  La plume de Guéant sur les civilisations, le «New Deal» de Hollande, les confidences de Hulot, les négociations Front de gauche-PS... La revue de web de la présidentielle.1. «Vous n'avez retenu que ça de la soirée?» Comme un avant-goût d’un éventuel débat de second tour: Nicolas Sarkozy et François Hollande ont eu un très bref échange, mercredi soir, lors du dîner annuel du Crif. Comme le rapporte le JDD, le candidat socialiste s’est «faufilé» pour saluer son futur adversaire, lors d’«un vrai moment de campagne». Un moment «pas prémédité car ce n’était pas un…

• Le soft power à la française

  Jean-Michel Frodon

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:18 am

  Le soft power, méthode douce des relations internationales, c'est la capacité d'un pays à élargir son pouvoir d'attraction, et à dominer les échanges mondiaux en employant des outils non-coercitifs, dont l'action culturelle fait partie. «L'action culturelle a une véritable fonction politique et il est crucial que notre pays maîtrise son image externe.» Diplomate et géographe, Michel Fouchet a bien voulu confier à Slate.fr ces cartes de l'action culturelle extérieure de la France, prise en charge depuis décembre 2011 par l'Institut français. Pour lui, il ne peut y avoir…

• 

  Mashable!

• Type This Into Google for a Valentine’s Day Surprise

  Samantha Murphy

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:25 pm

  Romantic math geeks, your moment has arrived. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, go ahead and type (or paste) this into Google search: sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5 Twitter user @Huckberry tipped us off to the fact that typing in the algebraic equation plots several different functions on a graph that forms the shape of a heart. The series includes various square roots, absolute values and cosine functions — mathematical functions often taught in high school math courses. The plotted lines change direction due to…

• Microsoft: You’ll Never Turn Off Devices Running Windows on ARM

  Peter Pachal

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:02 pm

  Microsoft described in detail Thursday exactly how Windows will work on ARM devices. The new strain of Windows, retooled from the ground up for low-power devices like tablets, will be identical to the regular desktop version in many ways, and Microsoft says it’ll ship some test units to developers by the end of February. Actual products are planned for the general release of Windows 8. In a departure from traditional Windows machines, ARM-based devices running Windows will be complete “end-to-end” products, meaning you won’t be able to buy Windows as a piece of…

• When Should You Go All-In on Your Startup? [VIDEO]

  Mashable Video

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:47 pm

  From bootstrapping his company, to raising a seed round last year, to his company’s recent $8 million A round, Neil Capel exemplifies the grit and hustle typical in successful entrepreneurs. Capel founded Sailthru, an enterprise software-as-a-service company that uses clickstream data to individually tailor marketing emails to each user, which Capel says will exponentially increase the lifetime value of a customer email address. Check out our interview with Capel to find out how he went from a consultant at Morgan Stanley to founding a company that will soon be expanding globally and…

• Twitter Joke Trial: Judges Don’t Get Social Media, Says Stephen Fry

  Zachary Sniderman

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:39 pm

  TV personality, activist, and social media comedian Stephen Fry has taken sides in the Paul Chambers “Twitter Joke Trial,” saying that British judges fundamentally don’t understand how Twitter works. Fry’s stance is more interesting for the larger question it raises about the rising role of social media and the generation gap between users of social networks and those asked to adjudicate them. Chambers was arrested for a tweet he sent about Robin Hood Airport in England in January 2010. The airport suffered repeated service delays and disruptions due to cold weather,…

• LinkedIn Hits 150 Million Members

  Todd Wasserman

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:26 pm

  LinkedIn on Thursday announced it has 150 million members in its network, a 20 million increase over November. The figure was disclosed in a press release the company issued Thursday announcing its fourth quarter and full-year 2011 results. The company posted revenues of $167.7 million, beating the analysts’ consensus of $160 million for Q4. Adjusted profit was $0.12 cents per share, which beat analysts’ projections of 7 cents a share. LinkedIn’s stock was up more than 5% in after-hours trading. The Q4 revenue figure was a 105% jump over the same period in 2010. Revenues for…

• 

  TechCrunch

• New Kickstarter Record Set As Double Fine Game Hits $400K In 8 Hours, $900K In 16

  Devin Coldewey

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:50 pm

  If you played PC games in the 90s, chances are you played some of Tim Schafer’s work. He worked on the Monkey Island Series and Day of the Tentacle, later going on to create such classics as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. He recently took to Kickstarter to try and score some funding for a new point-and-click adventure game, as most publishers would consider the genre more or less untouchable these days. He figured there were enough people out there who wanted a new adventure game that they could scrape together $400,000. That was last night. They hit their goal in 8 hours, and are…

• Instagram Founder’s Girlfriend Learns How To Code For V-Day, Builds Lovestagram

  Alexia Tsotsis

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:41 pm

  This might just be the sweetest Valentine’s Day story I’ve ever heard. It’s definitely the sweetest Valentine’s Day story I’ve ever written. Kaitlyn Trigger is a marketing director at Rally.org. She also happens to be Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger’s girlfriend of two and a half years (The 26 year old Krieger and 27 year old Trigger met at a friend’s house in October of 2009 and moved in together in October 2010). And my hero. Last December, Trigger decided she wanted to be able to talk to her boyfriend in depth about the stuff he was working on.

• LinkedIn Beats The Street, Q4 Revenue Up 105 Percent To $167.7M

  Leena Rao

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:12 pm

  Professional social network LinkedIn just reported stronger than expected fourth quarter 2011 earnings today. Earnings came in at $0.12 per share. Revenue for the fourth quarter was $167.7 million, an increase of 105% compared to $81.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Net income for the fourth quarter was $6.9 million, compared to net income of $5.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Analysts expected the company to earn $0.07 per share on revenues of $159.72 million. Non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $13.3 million, compared to $5.2 million for the fourth quarter of…

• TCTV: In the Studio, Bain Capital Ventures is California Dreaming

  Semil Shah

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:58 pm

  Editor’s note: TechCrunch contributor Semil Shah currently works at Votizen and lives in Palo Alto; you can follow him on twitter @semil “In the Studio” at TechCrunch TV this week welcomes a former California resident and current investor back to the west coast, where he and his partners have embarked on a new journey to build out a physical presence in Silicon Valley and San Francisco for one of the most dynamic business groups in the world. Ajay Agarwal, a managing director with Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), is leading the charge of building his firm’s west coast offices…

• Click And Mortar: Zynga Signs Deal With Hasbro For Real-World Toys and Games

  Eric Eldon

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:30 pm

  Mobile app developer Rovio has famously turned its Angry Birds game into a popular toy franchise, but most other new-fangled gaming companies haven’t spent much energy going this route. But now social gaming leader Zynga is, per a big licensing deal with Hasbro. The long-time toy and board game maker is paying Zynga to turn games like FarmVille, CityVille, and its other hit titles into real world products. Details on what this will look like are scant in the press release, so I’m left guessing what this is going to mean. Fluffy pink FarmVille tractors? Lego-style CityVille…

• 

  AbsolutePunk.net - News

• Fat Mike's Ragtime Soundtrack

  Deborah Remus

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pm

  Fat Mike from NOFX teamed up with the Mad Caddies and Tom Waits' backing band to release a ragtime album that doubles as the soundtrack for Rubber Bordello. It's available on iTunes now and the film will be screening in LA on February 10.

• Introducing: Break Anchor

  Alex DiVincenzo

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pm

  Former Suicide Machines frontman Jay Navarro has formed a new band called Break Anchor with members of The Story So Far and Seized Up. The band will release their debut 7" EP, Blackhearts and Blackouts, on March 20 via Paper + Plastick. Stream one of the three tracks, "A Failure of Epic Proportions," here.

• Thursday Discussion: My Favorite Albums From The 2004 Era

  Jason Tate

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:59 pm

  I'm having one of those "fight off your colds" kinda days. Stupid common cold has me pouring tea down my gullet and wishing I could inject DayQuil directly into my veins. However, that doesn't mean I'm not going to power through with our "Thursday Discussion" for the week. The last two weeks have been a lot of fun as we've focused on the early days; we talked about Drive-Thru Records and we looked at the ridiculously awesome albums in the 2001-2003 era. One of the things that continued to pop-up during our discussion last week was just how special this time period was for…

• Macbeth / Jona Weinhofen Spotify Playlist

  Jason Tate

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:19 pm

  We're teaming up with our friends over at Macbeth Footwear to bring you a variety of Spotify playlists from a collection of our favorite artists. To start with we've got Jona Weinhofen from Bring Me The Horizon putting together a playlist for your listening pleasure. Check it out.

• Paper + Plastick To Distribute Japanese Ska Band

  Jake Denning

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:18 pm

  Japanese ska-punk band Hey Smith is having its first full-length, 14-Fourteen, distributed in the U.S. by Paper + Plastick Records. You can stream a song called "She Is A Man" here and purchase the record here.

• 

  Bob Baker's Indie Music Promotion Blog

• Six Steps to Making Money with Music in 2012

  Bob Baker

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:21 pm

  Enjoy this guest post by Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR. It’s been hard to wrap my head around making money with music in 2012. I speak to so many musicians who used to make a lot more, and now it’s time to re-think your approach. Paying attention to the advice in this article could help you make more money this year. That’s my hope. Marketing 101 – Your List The first step towards this is back to Marketing 101 and a topic many musicians don’t like: building your email list and using it regularly. Communicating regularly and consistently with your fan base and then asking them for money…

• 11 Ways to Create Unforgettable Music Video Content

  Bob Baker

  18 Jan 2012 | 8:55 am

  This is a guest post by Kendra Wright (my assistant) Every artist should be using online video as part of their promotional toolkit. That means you must set up a YouTube account (also known as a “channel”) if you haven’t done so already. And once in place, your channel must feature new videos on a regular basis. Why? Because video allows you to connect with fans and potential fans in ways that other forms of media can't touch. People experience things through text differently than they do through audio. Video, which combines both audio and visual stimulation, impacts many people on an…

• Music Marketing Trends & 2012 Predictions - Part 2

  Bob Baker

  1 Jan 2012 | 3:22 pm

  Just to make sure you have a firm grasp on what's ahead in 2012, here are more trends to be aware of from seven more awesome musicians and experts. You can read Part 1 here. Ariel Hyatt - President of Ariel Publicity, Founder of Cyber PR www.arielpublicity.com www.twitter.com/cyberpr 1. Staying Positive and In Gratitude Will Help Tremendously Before I make any music marketing trends and predictions for 2012, here's a good place to start ... Remember: Success in today’s quicksand-like music business is HARD and takes WORK. Getting into a negative, overwhelmed and angry place will directly…

• The Best of Music Promotion Blog 2011

  Bob Baker

  31 Dec 2011 | 3:24 pm

  Before we leave 2011 completely behind us, here's a look back at the best posts from this blog over the past year. Even though there are a lot of fine posts here, I see that my blogging was a lot less frequent in 2011 -- something I plan to remedy in 2012 as I simplify my life and business and get back to basics. And I do feel more frequent posting would benefit you and me. So enjoy this look back at 2011. Happy New Year! Where Passion Meets Profit - How to Make Money w/ Your Music Your Story: A Powerful Way to Connect with Music Fans The Surprising Truth About Making a Living with Music in…

• 2012 Music Marketing Trends & Predictions - Part 1

  Bob Baker

  30 Dec 2011 | 8:58 am

  It's that time of the year to compile a list of music marketing trends and predictions for the new year. So get out your crystal ball, ouija board, or whatever you use to predict the future. Of course, educated guesses and common sense also work here :-) This year I turned to some of my favorite people in the music world and asked them for their best advice on how independent artists should prepare for 2012. Here are the first five responses. Read Part 2 here. Brian Felsen – President of CD Baby www.cdbaby.com The music industry is changing so rapidly that it’s difficult to predict which…

• 

  chrisbrogan.com

• Throw Away the Maps

  ceb

  6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 am

  People judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The…

• The Next Social Networks

  ceb

  5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 am

  The rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for…

• Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform

  ceb

  3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 am

  Jacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the…

• Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard

  ceb

  2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 am

  I had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the…

• Build Your Platform – Start

  ceb

  30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 am

  The following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…

• 

  About.com Alternative Music

• Jim O'Rourke to Curate Tokyo ATP, Recreate Eureka Live

  9 Feb 2012 | 4:00 am

  All Tomorrow's Parties is staging a two-day I'll Be Your Mirror festival in Tokyo on April 14 and 15. Day one will be curated by ATP themselves, and day two's ...Read Full Post

• The Shins Announce Tour Dates for Port of Morrow

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 am

  The Shins' Port of Morrow, their first album in five years, is one of the most awaited albums of the year. With its March 20 release date looming ever closer, ...Read Full Post

• Real Estate Announce More Days Dates

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 am

  If you haven't listened to Real Estate's "Green Aisles" today, just go ahead and do it. It'll make you feel better. Sure, listening to it in the height of summer/depths ...Read Full Post

• Sasquatch! Announces 2012 Lineup

  8 Feb 2012 | 12:00 am

  Following the announcement of Coachella's 2012 lineup, Sasquatch! is the latest big-name festival to unveil their unending list of performing rockbands. At the top ...Read Full Post

• Top 10 Tuesdays: 5 Best Albums of 2012 So Far

  7 Feb 2012 | 4:00 am

  In a slight variation on that eternal music nerd's question —"what have you been listening to?"— that proved telling, a compadre recently asked of me "what have you been listening ...Read Full Post

• 

  TRAEXS.COM Music Video News

• Online Radio Player for UK Radios

  traexs

  1 Feb 2012 | 4:44 pm

  A nice job did the people creating the player of RadioPlayer, which is available as an app to be installed within the Google Chrome browser and on Mac, Linux and Windows computers. The app enables to search for stations and music and includes UK radio stations. The creation of the player is based on ...

• Click and Play Online Playlist Radio

  traexs

  28 Jan 2012 | 12:09 pm

  A nice job did the people designing Boom.fm. It is a playlist radio with an easy and clear navigation. If you start at the homepage there are various genres to be choosen. Once a particular genre is accessed the music is introduced by information about a band or musician accompanied by a button to ...

• Music Charts and Analytics

  traexs

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:44 pm

  Musicmetric is a new service offering online charts, stats and analytics about hundred thousands of musicians and bands online. The service is available by a free version of general interest and a pro version offering comprehensive information about online activities. The comprehensive features include measuring downloads and video views, the performance on the web and ...

• The Soundcloud Story

  traexs

  23 Jan 2012 | 12:19 pm

  The cloud music hosting and sharing service Soundcloud has reached 10 million members. Regarding this jubilee the founders have published a slide show about the story of the service: Soundcloud Story. TRAEXS Directory Links: Music Sharing

• Twitter Music Sharing Service

  traexs

  19 Jan 2012 | 6:10 pm

  Another great Twitter music sharing service has been launched. As it is known by Twitter Apps Twusic is both ingenious simple and most effective. The service uses Twitter hashtags and has reserved the hashtag #nowplaying to be used with its service. One just need to tweet a link accompanied by the hashtag and the ...

• 

  Create Digital Music

• CREATED: Discover Music from Testtoon, Oubys, and Teal & Beastie Respond

  Matt Earp

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:46 am

  Ready for some focused listening time? Photo (CC-BY-SA) Toshiyuki IMAI. [website - JP] Writing about the meeting place of technology and music, we cover potential: what’s possible, what might be in the future. So as he launches a new music column, our new contributor Kid Kameleon has coined a cheeky title: “created.” This isn’t just what you could create with digital music, but what has been made, as he discovers and reviews new sounds. And while words like “genre-defying” get overused, producer/DJ/journalist Kid Kameleon – aka Matt Earp –…

• Music Thing: A Radio Sequencer, How to Get Into DIY Synth Modules, How to Have Fun

  Tom Whitwell

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:49 am

  Lured by the siren song of modular synthesis and DIY electronics, but not sure how to navigate the piles of requisite knowledge – or uncertain what the trip down this rabbit hole might have in store? For years, Tom Whitwell’s Music Thing was a beloved daily read, as that site and this one were among the early blog-format destinations for music tech. Tom moved on – something about a major day-gig at a paper called The Times, perhaps named after the font? – but that makes us all the more delighted to get a dispatch from him. In this guest column for CDM, he introduces…

• 3D Modular Sound Gets Real: Stunning AudioGL Demos, Crowd Funding, Beta Coming to You Soon

  Peter Kirn

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:06 am

  Electronic music making has had several major epochs. There was the rise of the hardware synth, first with modular patch cords and later streamlined into encapsulated controls, in the form of knobs and switches. There was the digital synth, in code and graphical patches. And there was the two-dimensional user interface. We may be on the cusp of a new age: the three-dimensional paradigm for music making. AudioGL, a spectacularly-ambitious project by Toronto-based engineer and musician Jonathan Heppner, is one step closer to reality. Three years in the making, the tool is already surprisingly…

• rePatcher: Make Your Computer a Real Modular, with Knobs and Cords; Pd and Max Right Now

  Peter Kirn

  7 Feb 2012 | 12:04 pm

  For the last few decades, generally speaking, we’ve had computers, and we’ve had physical, modular, analog gear. Computers are endlessly patchable, but not using physical cords. Modulars use physical cords, but they lack the flexibility (and affordability) of a computer. Now, US$25 and an Arduino can change that. rePatcher is a simple, tangible modular interface for computers. It could work with any software, but right out of the gate it already works with two popular (virtual) patching environments, Max/MSP and the free and open source Pure Data (Pd). You use physical patch cords…

• As Battle to Define Digital DJing Heats Up, Dubspot Tests Novation Twitch

  Peter Kirn

  7 Feb 2012 | 8:25 am

  The evolution of what we now call “DJing” is inseparable from the turntables and mixer. So, what happens when you enter the digital domain and you really don’t need to refer to either device? Many digital DJ controllers have simply mimicked those previous inventions, with virtual tables and a mixer-style layout. To some extent, they must, not only for familiarity but to even make it possible to perform the kind of tasks DJs expect. Then again, the computer, endless shapeshifter that it is, can do whatever you like. And so we’re beginning to see mass-market controllers…

• 

  XLR8R News and Features

• Presk Readies New 12" for Fourth Wave

  XLR8R Magazine

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 pm

  Nordic producer Presk returns to the home of his debut single with a forthcoming 12" for Fourth Wave. read more

• Taprikk Sweezee "Volt (kidkanevil Remix)"

  XLR8R Magazine

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:00 am

  This 8-bit-heavy remix of Taprikk Sweezee's "Volt" is lifted from a digital/cassette release that dropped via European beat hub Error Broadcast. Called Repolyx (artwork above), that album is comprised of 12 reworks of tracks from Sweezee's 2011 EP, Poly, and features new versions of the record's four cuts by the likes of Monolithium, Pixelord, B-Ju, and many more. Now that the music has been on the market a few months, we're treated to a flashy music video for "Volt (kidkanevil Remix)," courtesy of Labmeta. You can check that out after the jump. read more

• Doc Daneeka to Release New Single via Ten Thousand Yen

  XLR8R Magazine

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:00 am

  Having just released his solid new collaborative album with Benjamin Damage, UK DJ/producer Doc Daneeka has announced another collaboration, a forthcoming single with singer Abigail Wyles, who also appeared on They!Live. read more

• Desto "Makowrap (VIP Mix)"

  XLR8R Magazine

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:00 am

  For its first release of 2012, Amsterdam record hub Rwina will be dropping a four-track EP by Finnish producer Desto. The artist's last outing with Rwina resulted in last year's Makowrap EP, whose title track spawned this VIP mix. "Makowrap (VIP Mix)" is full of confident swagger; it's bass-heavy and driving, but accomplishes this without relying on overblown production or hyper-aggressive, in-your-face posturing. The tune features crisp beats, a catchy synthesizer melody, and a subtly effective bassline. Desto's forthcoming EP, No Sleep, will be released in late February/early March, but the…

• Check Out Kingdom's 'Darkness II' Mixtape

  XLR8R Magazine

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:00 am

  Oddly enough, LA DJ/producer and Fade to Mind label head Kingdom was tapped to make a very brief mixtape as part of the marketing campaign for the new Darkness II video game. read more

• 

  HowStuffWorks Daily Feed

• What’s the future of virtual sex?

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 am

  The future is bright for virtual sexuality. After all, we're human beings. Think of any great artistic or technological achievement and chances are it winds up in the bedroom. Will it end up in yours?

• 5 Tips for Getting Organized at Work

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 am

  Whether you're fresh off the job hunt or a seasoned employee, a little organization can go a long way. Here are five tips for keeping the piles at bay.

• 5 Tiny Countries With Big Space Dreams

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 am

  Do you know what that spacecraft is? It's one of the old Soviet space shuttles, and it never would have gotten built without the help of one the tiny countries on our list. Can you guess which one?

• Costumes 101 Pictures

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 am

  They're at every sci-fi convention and Halloween party -- those people who always have the most amazing original costumes. Learn the basics of building a costume and find out what it takes to do well in costume competitions.

• How Airplanes Work

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 am

  Today in 1969, the Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight. But it was more than 100 years ago that the Wright brothers made their historic first flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Even after all these years, their creation still boggles the mind: How can something so heavy take to the air?

• 

  TMZ.com

• Halle Berry Wants Out of U.S. Because of Death Threats

  TMZ Staff

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:45 pm

  Halle Berry does not want to leave the U.S. for France with daughter Nahla because the food is so good over there ... she wants out of this country because she fears for her life and the life of her child. TMZ broke the story ... Halle is asking a…

• TMZ Live -- Lisa Lampanelli Hosts ... Queen of Mean RIPS Into Halle, Stallone & Coco News

  TMZ Staff

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:30 pm

  Comedienne Lisa Lampanelli is hosting today -- so get ready for her (potentially offensive) opinions about Halle Berry's custody drama, the naked picture Coco tweeted of herself nuzzling her nephew, and whatever else you can think of ...Lisa will…

• Halle Berry Engaged -- Wants to Move to France ... WITH HER FIANCE!!!

  TMZ Staff

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:55 am

  Halle Berry was not engaged to Olivier Martinez when numerous outlets reported she was back in December -- but we found out ... SHE IS NOW!!! You'll recall, after Halle sported a big ol' ring that Olivier Martinez gave her everyone jumped to false…

• Chad Ochocinco -- I'm Getting My Johnson Back

  TMZ Staff

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:35 am

  Say goodbye to Chad Ochocinco ... the Patriots star is telling friends, he plans to change his last name BACK to Johnson in time for his wedding this summer -- because he doesn't want his wife to have a made-up last name.Ocho's wedding to his…

• Tiffani Thiessen -- I Never Watched 'The New Class'

  TMZ Staff

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:00 am

  Tiffani Thiessen dodged a serious bullet ... 'cause the former "Saved By the Bell" goddess tells us she never brought herself to watch one single episode of the abomination that was "The New Class."If only the rest of us had that kind of will power…

• 

  BLABBERMOUTH.NET Latest News

• CLUTCH: 'Blast Tyrant' Double Vinyl Edition Due This Month

  9 Feb 2012 | 5:18 am

  Weathermaker Music has set a February 28 release date for the CLUTCH double vinyl edition of "Blast Tyrant".

• BRET MICHAELS To Re-Record 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn' As Duet With LORETTA LYNN

  9 Feb 2012 | 4:56 am

  POISON singer Bret Michaels told RollingStone.com that his upcoming solo album, "Get Your Rock On", will include guest appearances by DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen, MY DARKEST DAYS axeman Sal Costa, Jimmy Buffett and country singer Loretta Lynn.

• SEPULTURA, DEATH ANGEL, KRISIUN, HAVOK: North American Tour Dates Announced

  9 Feb 2012 | 4:38 am

  Brazilian/American thrashers SEPULTURA will join forces with DEATH ANGEL, KRISIUN and HAVOK for a North American tour in April/May.

• BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE To Enter Studio Next Week

  9 Feb 2012 | 4:28 am

  Welsh metallers BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE will enter a Thailand studio next week to begin work on their fourth album.

• THIN LIZZY: New Audio Interview With SCOTT GORHAM

  9 Feb 2012 | 4:20 am

  Spain's TheMetalCircus.com recently conducted an interview with THIN LIZZY guitarist Scott Gorham.

• 

  Boing Boing » Gadgets

• Insurer offers discounts to customers running in-car GPS telemetry

  Cory Doctorow

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:51 pm

  Writing in PC Pro, Stewart Mitchell describes a partnership between GPS vendor TomTom and Fair Pay insurance, an auto insurer, to offer discounts to people whose GPS devices report low incidences of sudden stops and unsafe turns. I rather like this idea, the idea that your device could offer testimony on your behalf, but a lot depends on how it is implemented. On the one hand, TomTom could generate trustworthy readings by completely locking its device so that users can't inspect or modify their operations, which would open up the possibility that your device was recording and transmitting…

• Reading lamps made from drilled-out books

  Cory Doctorow

  7 Feb 2012 | 11:05 am

  Typewriter Boneyard does a sweet line of reading lamps made from drilled-out old books, fitted with replica Edison bulbs. Hardback Book Lamps (via Neatorama)

• Circus Galop: the bonkers, non-human-playable anthem used to stress-test automatic pianos

  Cory Doctorow

  3 Feb 2012 | 7:42 am

  Here's a video of a mechanical piano performing Circus Galop (sic), a composition created to test the performance of automatic pianos and other instruments. It apparently can't be played by humans. a single, two-handed human. Circus Galop is a piece for player piano written by Marc-André Hamelin. It was composed between 1991 and 1994 and it is dedicated to Beatrix and Jürgen Hocker, piano roll makers. Its duration is approximately 4–5 minutes.[1] Scores of this piece are available through the Sorabji Archive.[1] Piano rolls of this piece are available from Wolfgang Heisig and Jürgen…

• Test-tube chandeliers, named for Marie Curie

  Cory Doctorow

  3 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  Named for Marie Curie, this line of Maria S.C. chandeliers from Poland's Gangdesign uses test-tubes as pendants that can be planted with sprigs or flowers. Here's the sell-copy, Google Translated from Polish to English: This chandelier is made of tubes. It consists of two modules of different sizes, which can occur together or separately. Shape refers to the traditional forms of Art Deco, and the name is an allusion to the person of Maria Sklodowska Curie. "Maria" gives a wide field for the visual experiment. Version of the reel allows free lowering "Maria" to change the arrangement. Maria…

• Mechanical Elephants in America

  Cory Doctorow

  3 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  Here's a fascinating history of Frank Stuart's Mechanical Elephants, a line of life-sized, rideable elephant automata that were sold to department stores and amusement parks in America in the 1950s. "Cybernetic animal and early robot" historian Reuben Hoggett has collected early print mentions of the Stuart elephants and traced their destiny through the rest of the century. The Billboard 21 Jan 1956 WORKLOAD STILL HEAVY FOR SEARCHLIGHT FIRM NEW YORK. Jan 14.- The huge mechanical elephant owned by Publicity Searchlight Company will earn a raft of publicity for the firm during the next two…

• 

  RCRD LBL

• DOWNLOAD: Donnis - Bout That Life (feat. Juicy J) (prod. Gods Paparazzi)

  Carter Maness

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:52 pm

  This life, the one that Donnis and Juicy J depict on this new track "Bout That Life," is pretty misogynist, drug-addled and obsessed with being a pimp in the traditional sense. Maybe not the best strategy for a healthy American society, but, man, it's a lot of fun. The beat rumbles like a bomb got dropped down the street and both rappers praise "chicks on poles," "blowing green" and "sippin' lean." Uh, yup.  Donnis feat. Juicy J - Bout That Life (prod. by Gods Paparazzi) by DONNIS

• DOWNLOAD: Bowerbirds - In The Yard

  Hillary Kaylor

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:04 am

  (Photo: D.L. Anderson) Bowerbirds: Is there nothing that their sweet, earthy folk-pop can’t remedy? Case in point, second single “In The Yard” feels like being enveloped in Grandma’s quilt. There’s something so familial and comforting in this pretty campfire duet; the soft plonking of keys, low-country strum and chorus of gentle “ohs” are woven into a patchwork of pure, woodsy warmth. This and more lovely stuff resides on The Clearing, out through Dead Oceans come March.   Bowerbirds - In The Yard Get More Free Bowerbirds Music Here

• DANCE PLAYLIST: Seasonal Affective Dance (S.A.D.)

  Hillary Kaylor

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:00 am

  Everything is worse in the gray light of winter: your job sucks harder, your relationship jumps into the toilet, and to top it off, your chapped face is scaring small children. It’s called the sads, and you’ve got them. Fear not: a healthy dose of our Seasonal Affective Dance (S.A.D.) playlist and the world will be right again! Let your manically-excited friends Rusko, Unicorn Kid, Fool’s Gold, Eli Escobar, Canblaster and a masked Azealia Banks bring the bright with energetic, squiggly and smiley dance jams tailored-made to turn that frown upside down. Consider this list…

• DOWNLOAD: Little Barrie - Twisted Little Blades

  Emily Zemler

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:38 am

  U.K. rockers Little Barrie released their first two albums in 2005 and 2007, but had largely fallen out of the spotlight until recently, when the band emerged with a new third album King Of The Waves. Produced by the band and Edwyn Collins, the songs retain Little Barrie’s signature post-punk stomp, showcasing raucous, funk-tinged tracks that just feel very British (in a good way). “Twisted Little Blades” is one of these tracks – a jumping, catchy number that gives a sense of the band’s rowdy live shows.   Little Barrie - Twisted Little Blades

• DOWNLOAD: Memoryhouse - Walk With Me

  Carter Maness

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:17 am

  (Photo: Vanessa Heins) On "Walk With Me," Memoryhouse sound like they built a studio in the prettiest cloud they could find. Airy, plodding, tastefully orchestrated and with just enough anthemic indie elements to soundtrack college evenings, the track serves as an intriguing sample for the group's full-length Sub Pop debut The Slideshow Effect. Look for more February 28.   Memoryhouse - Walk With Me

• 

  @ProBlogger

• Is Perfectionism Stalling Your Productivity?

  Darren Rowse

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:04 pm

  We’ve all been there … You sit down to write a post. You get the opening line down, but half-way through the second sentence, you go back to tweak the first. A bit further on, you decide to chop up the paragraphs you’ve done so far and rearrange them … but on second thought, is that really the better option? In two minds, you “finish” the post, then spend a half-hour writing and rewriting the “ideal” headline. Finally, happy(ish!) your cursor hovers over the Publish button … but you just can’t press it. You decide to give it some…

• 6 Powerful Guest Post Tactics that No One’s Talking About

  Guest Blogger

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:05 am

  This guest post is by Tom Ewer of Leaving Work Behind. Guest posting is a hot topic amongst startup bloggers. It is one of the most widely-adopted blog promotion strategies in existence, and has been made perhaps even more popular by the success of “serial” guest posters such as Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing. His “blitzkrieg” strategy may come across to some as a triumph of quantity over strategy, but nothing could be further from the truth. He understands the key concepts that we will be exploring in this post, and executes them in a highly effective manner. Whilst…

• How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support

  Guest Blogger

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 am

  This guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned…

• Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger: Part 2

  Guest Blogger

  7 Feb 2012 | 12:05 pm

  This guest post is by Devesh of WP Kube. A few months ago, I wrote a guest post here called How to Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger. Today, I’ll go into some more detailed advice to help you speed up your site even more. If you’re a blogger, you already know about the importance of blog loading speed, and the role it plays in search engine rank and marketing your blog. But if this is new territory for you, here are three quick reasons why you need to speed up your blog: Google includes website loading speed as an important metric in their ranking algorithm. If you want…

• How I Beat my Best Month Ever by Doing Something Good, Better [Case Study]

  Darren Rowse

  7 Feb 2012 | 6:04 am

  Mid-December 2010: on my photography site, we launched a new campaign—our first ever 12 Days of Christmas promotion. The result was my biggest month of earnings ever up to that point. The idea was simple: offer discounts on 12 products over the 12 days leading up to Christmas. I used a mix of my own ebooks and products from other photography sites with affiliate commissions. The result was massive. Not only did we see some great revenue generated, it created some lovely buzz on the site. Due to the success of the 2010 campaign, in mid-December 2011 we launched our second 12 Days of…

• 

  ESPN.com

• Rangers, Cruz agree to two-year, $16M deal

  Richard Durrett

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:21 pm

  Nelson Cruz and the Texas Rangers avoided arbitration by agreeing to a two-year, $16 million contract on Thursday, according to a source.

• Michigan Stadium to host Wings-Leafs Classic

  Associated Press

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:23 pm

  Next year's Winter Classic could set an attendance record.

• Rockets GM regrets cutting Knicks PG Lin

  Ian Begley

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:17 pm

  Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey regrets letting go of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin.

• Lance happy federal investigation has ended

  Associated Press

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:10 pm

  Lance Armstrong is relieved the federal investigation into doping allegations against him has ended, and says he always stayed confident he would not be charged.

• Oil Can Boyd admits cocaine use during career

  ESPNBoston.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:50 am

  "Oil Can" Boyd admits he was under the influence of cocaine during "two-thirds' of his games.

• 

  Engadget Mobile

• Nokia Astound owners face a Belle-less future, no update coming

  Brad Molen

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:41 am

  So this is where the road ends for the Nokia Astound. After getting a hearty helping of Symbian Anna in November, owners of T-Mobile's first (and only) Symbian^3 device became hopeful that -- despite the fate of the OS being sealed -- the US counterpart to the C7 would remain relevant throughout the course of their contract. Sadly, it was not to be: the phone maker tweeted that the Astound won't receive an update to Symbian Nokia Belle. What of the original C7, you ask? Oh, the latest refresh is already rolling out to users worldwide, but the Astound doesn't appear to be invited to the party.

• HTC's first ICS update rolls out in late March, Sensation and Sensation XE call first dibs

  Brad Molen

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:58 am

  Ice Cream Sandwich is slowly trickling out to the masses, but we're still waiting on the major phone vendors to come out with their own tweaks of the latest Android dessert. We've known that HTC's busy plugging away at its Sense-ified version of Android 4.0, but the company's finally ready to start discussing specifics. According to the outfit's UK Facebook page, the update will begin rolling out to the HTC Sensation and Sensation XE by the end of March, with the Sensation XL following suit. Additionally, owners of the EVO 3D, Incredible S, Desire S and Desire HD still haven't been forgotten,…

• Dell Voice offers VoIP, but only to Canadians

  Daniel Cooper

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:25 am

  Dell's teamed up with Fongo to offer Dell Voice, a VoIP app that's available exclusively in Canada. It's currently available for Android, iOS and Windows (Desktop), enabling everyone to shoot the breeze about Dustin Penner without charges. You'll get a local phone number that'll let you call all the big cities (and most of the smaller ones), caller ID, voice-mail, 911 service and long-distance calling for no additional charge. Call credit costs 2c per minute, with each call averaging out to 1MB of data. Canadians clutching to their BlackBerries will be relieved to know that the app will roll…

• Telus flipping switch on LTE, network goes live February 10th

  Edgar Alvarez

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:57 am

  After the competition got a head start, Telus has finally announced it's ready to flip the switch on its fresh LTE network tomorrow. Though it's certainly taken the longer road, its 4G waves are hitting several more markets on launch day in comparison to Rogers' solo-city debut. Among the selected 14 markets for the rollout are major cities such as Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Montreal. In the process, the carrier's also managed to stamp a release date on that LTE Note, which will arrive just in time for Valentine's Day. That said, it won't be the only Samsung Galaxy…

• DoubleTwist update brings podcast support to auditory Android users

  Amar Toor

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:11 am

  A fresh version of the DoubleTwist media player hit the Android Market this week, offering a whole new world of podcast possibilities -- for a price. With the in-app upgrade, users can search for and subscribe to a variety of podcasts from the comfort of their own handsets. It's pretty simple. The app will automatically download the latest episodes, too, though there's an option to restrict all downloads to WiFi, in case you're worried about eating into your data plan. You can also choose to either stream or download each file, and manage all your feeds straight from your device. It's…

• 

  TechCrunch » Mobile

• You Can Buy Me Love, But Please Don’t Buy Me Gadgets

  Jordan Crook

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:52 am

  Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and the majority of us are likely scrambling to find that special gift. (The rest of us, meanwhile, are cursing couples.) A Valentine’s Day gift is usually more important than others because it’s a one-on-one situation, unlike Christmas or birthdays. Just one gift, to just one person — and it better be good. With that in mind, I’d like to address an article out of AllThingsD this morning that sourced information from PriceGrabber’s Valentine’s Day Dashboard Report. The report took information from February 4…

• HTC: Ice Cream Sandwich Will Start Hitting Our Handsets In March

  Chris Velazco

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:55 am

  At long last, HTC fans can finally stop holding their collective breath. After months of relative quiet, the Taiwanese company has taken to their Facebook page to spread the word: the Ice Cream Sandwich is coming, and it’s coming soon. For owners of certain HTC devices, the long-awaited Android 4.0 update will begin hitting handsets next month. HTC originally promised that Ice Cream Sandwich would be hitting most of their top-tier devices in “early 2012,” but that doesn’t seem to the case anymore unless you own one of their numerous Sensation devices. If anything, it…

• Glancee: A Nice-Guy Ambient Social Location App For Normal People

  Eric Eldon

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:44 am

  Some of us can’t be bothered to check in, but still want to find interesting people nearby. The challenge for developers is how to do this in a way that is both useful and not creepy. Glancee, available for both iOS and Android, gets closer to solving these problems than most I’ve seen. The app lets you sign in with Facebook, then it shows you people within 100 yards, or one, two, or ten miles who have things in common. In some ways this sounds similar another app I recently covered, Highlight — but there are key differences, that will make each app appeal to different sets…

• Cinemagram Turns iPhone Photos Into Animated Gifs In Seconds

  Sarah Perez

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:07 am

  Remember when the iPhone app GLMPS launched last summer, seemingly heralding the start of a new image format that blended static photos and video? No? That’s OK. Today, there’s a new twist on the idea of reinventing the mobile photo, this time by turning static photos into animated ones. With the newly launched app called Cinemagram, you can turn your iPhone pics into animated gifs in a matter of seconds. Cinemagram isn’t quite the same as GLMPS, to be clear. “The GLMPS app embedded an entire video as a picture-in-picture onto the image,” explains…

• Shopzilla Founder Launches Cheers: The “Like Button” For The World Around You

  Rip Empson

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:40 am

  The “toast” is an age-old, time-honored tradition, where we raise a glass to pay tribute to — and express our goodwill towards — friends, loved ones, and sometimes even our fellow man. They are even known to be meaningfully punctuated with by a good drinking song or two. And now, thanks to BizRate.com and Shopzilla Founder Farhad Mohit, there is, as they say, an app for that expression of goodwill. Yes, “cheers” is no longer simply a word that accompanies toasts — or the place where everyone knows your name — it’s also the…

• 

  Mobile

• Since the FCC no longer listens, AT&T tries Congress

  Stacey Higginbotham

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:15 pm

  The payroll extension tax before Congress has two surprisingly technical segments related to mobile broadband that raise big mobile broadband questions — namely, will the FCC be allowed to set rules to promote mobile broadband competition in its next spectrum auction and can the agency can set aside some airwaves for unlicensed use? In strict consumer terms, will this limit the competition further in mobile broadband and will it kill the next Wi-Fi or Bluetooth before it’s even born. Handcuffing the FCC In a letter released Thursday Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) asked the two…

• SpeakToIt: A personal assistant for older iPhones, iPads

  Kevin C. Tofel

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:31 pm

  Siri may be both the best and the worst feature Apple has rolled out for iOS yet. On the one hand, the beta product is fun and helpful. On the other hand, the software is exclusive to the iPhone 4S; iPads, iPod touches and older iPhones need not apply. The situation provides an opportunity for developers on non-Siri devices, and SpeakToIt Assistant, found in the iTunes App Store, is one of these. What can SpeakToIt Assistant do? I spent some time with SpeakToIt on both an old iPhone 3GS and my iPad 2 earlier today, and while it’s somewhat limited compared to Siri — more on that…

• If 2 GB is excessive, why is AT&T selling 3-GB mobile data plans?

  Kevin Fitchard

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:21 pm

  When AT&T first implemented its throttling policies on unlimited mobile data plans last fall, it justified the move by claiming it had to limit the “extraordinary” consumption of a few greedy smartphone customers. We’re starting now to get a glimpse of what AT&T means by extraordinary. It’s only 2 GB – a full gigabyte less than it sells its newest customers under its most-common data plan. Over the weekend, blogger John Cozen posted a recent e-mail exchange with AT&T about why his smartphone data connection was slowed down after he breached 2.1 GB in his last billing…

• HTC’s Android 4.0 upgrade plans: Sensation next month

  Kevin C. Tofel

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:53 am

  HTC will be updating four of its smartphones to Android 4.0 starting by the end of March, according to the company’s Facebook page. PhoneScoop spotted the news, which shows the entire list of planned upgrades for next month and beyond: HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we’re excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G and HTC Sensation XE, followed soon there after by the HTC Sensation XL. In addition, we can confirm Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades will be…

• This man wants to kill QR codes. Can he do it?

  Bobbie Johnson

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:06 am

  Herbert Bay, co-founder and CEO of Kooaba Herbert Bay doesn’t like QR codes very much. He’s not alone of course: The glitchy glyphs, which are generally used as a clumsy way to link physical media to the web, are regarded by many as the ugliest thing seen in black and white since D.W. Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation. Yet they have proved remarkably popular with publishers, advertisers and web consultants desperate to find gimmicks that can add interactivity to analog media. But it’s not just that Bay, a Swiss entrepreneur, dislikes QR codes. He also thinks he has a way to…

• 

  dailywireless.org

• Hotspot 2.0

  Sam Churchill

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:57 pm

  Roaming between WiFi networks and cellular carriers will be getting easier, reports Marguerite Reardon at C/Net. The IEEE is developing 802.11u and the Wi-Fi Alliance has developed a Hotspot 2.0 initiative to enable easier roaming between hetrogeneous networks. Wi-Fi Alliance’s Hotspot 2.0 is certification program. It drew largely from 802.11u, which enhances network discovery and selection by Wi-Fi clients. The new WiFi standards provide WPA 2 security, with a similar level of security provided on a carrier’s cellular network, but provides a standard automated mechanism for signing…

• GigaOm Buying PaidContent

  Sam Churchill

  8 Feb 2012 | 12:53 pm

  Om Malik says that, indeed, GigaOm is buying the assets of ContentNext Media from Guardian News & Media Limited. They are not disclosing the terms of the deal. They are buying the entire group of properties — paidContent.org, mocoNews.net, contentSutra and paidContent:UK. A representative of Guardian News & Media will join their board of directors as an observer. Guardian acquired ContentNext for a reported $30 million in July 2008 – or was is really $4 to $6.5 million? Paid Content was founded by Rafat Ali and has chronicled the digital media business for decision-makers…

• Windows 8 at MWC

  Sam Churchill

  8 Feb 2012 | 11:49 am

  Microsoft’s Windows 8 “Consumer Preview” is nearing release, says The Verge. The company is putting the finishing touches on the preinstalled application list. Microsoft will bundle in a number of Metro style applications including; Camera, Messaging, Mail, Calendar, SkyDrive, People, Photos, Video and Music. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview launch is slated for February 29, at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The new Metro interface is modeled after Windows Phone 7, and targeted at tablets. Windows Phone 8 will be based not on Windows CE, as is Windows Phone 7,…

• iPhone Mixed Bag for Carriers

  Sam Churchill

  8 Feb 2012 | 11:19 am

  Sprint Nextel saw its biggest surge in new customers in six years, thanks to the iPhone, but that growth came at a hefty price, reports C/Net. Sprint activated 1.8 million iPhones in Q4, with 40 percent of those activations from customers new to Sprint. Sprint offers an unlimited data plan alongside the iPhone. Sprint now serves more than 55 million customers – the highest level ever, according to their year end report. But Sprint reported a loss of $1.3 billion, or 43 cents a share, on revenue of $8.72 billion in the fourth quarter. That compares with a loss of $929 million, or 31 cents a…

• Amazon + Viacom Streaming TV

  Sam Churchill

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:48 am

  Amazon today announced a licensing agreement with Viacom that will allow Amazon Prime members to instantly stream TV shows from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT and Logo. Amazon Instant Video offers downloads or streaming for a fee, while Prime Instant Video is streamed free with an Amazon Prime subscription. The deal will bring the total number of Prime Instant Videos to more than 15,000. Amazon has been building up its streaming video library in recent months, inking deals with PBS, CBS, Fox, NBCUniversal, Sony, Warner Bros., IFC, Sesame Workshop, and…

• 

  InformationWeek Mobility News

• DARPA Tackles Poor Cell Signals In War Zones

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:51 am

  Through new Fixed Wireless at a Distance program, military hopes to make connections over both commercial and traditional military mobile devices more reliable.

• Android Botnet Exploits Gingerbread Root Access

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:34 am

  Malware grabs rootkit exploit code to obtain temporary access privileges, poses a "serious threat," says researcher.

• InformationWeek's RSS Feed is brought to you by

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:34 am

• iPad 3 Unveil Set For Early March

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:54 am

  Apple has scheduled an event in San Francisco to reveal the next-generation iPad. Will LTE be on board?

• iPhone Subsidies Hurt Sprint's Bottom Line

  8 Feb 2012 | 7:45 am

  Sprint broke its own records for new subscribers and revenue per user, but still lost $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter, thanks in part to iPhone subsidies.

• 

  Mobile Marketing Watch

• comScore Says 105 million Americans Now Watch Videos Online Every Day

  Michael

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:31 pm

  Nearly one in three Americans watches online videos daily. That’s according to the latest comScore report, which shows that Americans streamed 43.5 billion videos in December 2011. That figure represents a 44% increase year-over-year. comScore’s 2012 US Digital Future In Focus report indicates that 105.1 million Americans watch videos online every day, which is substantially more than the 73.7 million online video watchers documented in 2010. YouTube, not surprisingly, remains the driving force behind the popularity of online video consumption. Other notable finds from the comScore…

• Google Dashes Retail Rumor Amidst Headlines Flurry

  Michael

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:21 am

  It’s been a busy Thursday for Google in the news. In addition to weathering reports of new cloud-based services launching next month and U.S. regulators gearing up to approve Google’s bid for Motorola, the Internet search behemoth is at the center of the tech news world today. And the list of headlines is about to get even longer. According to a report this week from Bloomberg, Google is allegedly planning to launch a bricks-and-mortar retail presence beginning with a shop at the company’s European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. So concrete sounded the report that few…

• TapIt! Debuts Proprietary RTB-Enabled Mobile Advertising Platform

  Justin

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:16 am

  It’s been announced that TapIt has debuted a new RTB-enabled mobile advertising platform aimed at agency advertisers and mobile app developers. The new platform combined with TapIt’s SDKs allow developers to quickly and easily integrate rich media ads into their Android and iOS applications, leveraging both a self service interface and multiple ad units for a variety of monetization options.  The platform also features real-time bidding capabilities, in addition to advanced tracking and targeting options including channel, publisher, carrier, geographical location, creative type…

• Google’s Bid for Motorola Could Be Approved by DOJ Next Week

  Michael

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:52 am

  There’s an excellent possibility that Google’s bid for Motorola will be sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, perhaps before the end of next week. Despite the jubilation that will likely be rampant inside Google upon this successful clearing of a major hurdle, more hurdles remain, as additional U.S. and European regulators are yet to weigh in. The $12.5 billion deal is deemed to be vital to Google’s role in the so-called “patent wars” transpiring across the digital landscape today. The acquisition will also allow Google to enter into new market segments,…

• Rumor Watch: Google May Launch Cloud-Based Storage Services

  Michael

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:46 am

  The tech rumor mill is churning out a major chunk of speculation today, as word surfaced Thursday that Google may soon launch a cloud-storage service. The Internet search giant is expected to call its service “Drive.” It will enable users to store a variety of personal digital content, like images, documents, and videos, on Google’s servers and then remotely access them at any time on any connected device. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google’s rumored service could launch this spring if not sooner. If such a a service ultimately manifests, it will mark…

• 

  Brighthand.com Handheld News and Reviews

• Best Smartphones from Verizon this Winter

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:06 pm

  Verizon Wireless offers a broad selection of smartphones from a wide array of companies, and running a variety of operating systems. Choosing from all these isn't an easy task, but Brighthand is here to help.

• HTC Lays Out Its Android OS 4.0 Upgrade Plans: There Are Winners and Losers

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:21 pm

  HTC has just announced that it is going to starting introducing Android OS 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) upgrades for a few smartphones by the end of next month. Other models are going to have to wait until later in the year.

• BLOG: Is the iPhone 4S a 4G Device? Depends on Who You Ask

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:43 am

  The most recent blog post from Brighthand's site editor takes a look as a surprisingly difficult topic: whether Apple's latest smartphone should be considered a 4G device or not.

• Google Rumored To Be Prepping a Cloud Storage Service

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:53 am

  For years, Google was rumored to have been working on a cloud-storage service that would allow users to store their files online for free. New reports are claiming that the company will finally release this in the next few weeks.

• iPhone GPS Navigation Apps: Three Free (or Cheap) Options

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:24 pm

  The iPhone makes a great GPS, but navigation software for Apple's smartphone with turn-by-turn directions is often quite expensive. Fortunately, there are some good options that won't break your bank.

• 

  mobileStorm » Blog

• Draft of Proposed “Mobile Device Privacy Act” Introduced

  Justin Montgomery

  1 Feb 2012 | 10:15 am

  The concept of mobile privacy has been thrown into the spotlight more than ever recently as the fiasco surrounding Carrier IQ has come to light.  As such, new mobile privacy guidelines are being proposed to combat the fears of consumers and help keep sensitive mobile data secure and private. This week, Rep. Edward Markey introduced what could become federal legislation to add mobile privacy safeguards to mobile phone users in the United States.  Markey released a “discussion draft” of the proposed “Mobile Device Privacy Act,” which would obligate wireless operators…

• Email Marketing Tips: Three Ways to Increase Relevancy

  Justin Montgomery

  31 Jan 2012 | 11:13 am

  In email marketing, like all messaging, the content needs to be as relevant as possible to ensure effectiveness and a solid ROI.  In a recent article on PracticaleCommerce.com, the author details three simple tips marketers can use to improve communication relevancy. The three main elements discussed are advanced personalization, enlisting dynamic content and using “date-triggered campaigns.”  These tips and more echo what we’ve been telling our clients for years in terms of improving everything from delivery, unsubscription rates, and of course, relevancy. The full…

• Guide: Preventing a HIPAA Violation in 2012

  Cameron Peebles

  30 Jan 2012 | 12:52 pm

  The hosting gurus and go to guys for actionable IT ideas, onlinetech.com, have released a new guide to preventing HIPAA violations in 2012. The piece goes over HIPAA’s new enforcement procedures, requirements that are coming in the pipeline as well as steps that any organization can take to avoid an audit or a violation.  These include… Mobile Device Security Business Associate Agreements Internal Operations The list assumes a very hardware centric environment with little management capabilities, but overall its a good quick read with some ideas on preventing a breach. Read the…

• Forecast: US Mobile & Social Media Revenue to Surge 31 Percent in 2012

  Justin Montgomery

  30 Jan 2012 | 10:15 am

  According to a new report out from market research firm PQ Media, revenue earned from mobile and social media marketing is expected to surge more than 31% in 2012. The firm noted that the market grew an equally impressive 30.2% during 2011 to top out at $45.4B in total revenue for the year.  Over the last five years, from 2006 through 2011, mobile and social media revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate of 28.7% as well.  The report identified three broad sectors of mobile and social media, including mobile advertising and marketing; mobile content and access; and Online social media.

• Five Common Flaws in Mobile Marketing Strategies

  Justin Montgomery

  27 Jan 2012 | 9:37 am

  In a guest post on Mashable recently, Scott Forshay — a brand marketing consultant and mobile strategist often featured in the Wall Street Journal, Luxury Daily and PSFK — offers up 5 common flaws seen in brands’ mobile marketing strategies. Many brands underestimate the power of the mobile channel in terms of contextual relevance, immediacy and many other attributes that make it one of the most effective marketing channels around.  This is part of the reason we here at mobileStorm make sure every client receives a dedicated account rep to guide them through their mobile…

• 

  mobiForge Recent Content

• Future of the Mobile Web

  mclancy

  3 Feb 2012 | 4:13 am

  Last week we hosted an event loftily entitled "The Future of the Mobile Web" at the Dublin Convention Centre.read more

• Server-side device detection used by 82% of Alexa top 100 sites

  ronan

  11 Jan 2012 | 6:53 am

  About 82% of the Alexa 100 top sites use some form of server-side device detection to serve content on their main website entry point. As you descend from the top 10 to the top 25 and top 100 sites the percentage of sites using server-side detection falls from 100% to 96% to 82%. This is an interesting fact given the all of the recent discussion in the blogosphere of responsive design using client-side techniques such as media queries.read more

• Future of the Mobile Web: Request for submissions

  mclancy

  6 Jan 2012 | 6:35 am

  Dear mobiForge community, We have invited a number of colleagues and opinion formers from across several different verticals to a forum event in Dublin on January 26th next to discuss some of the most pressing issues, trends, opportunities and challenges in today’s mobile web environment. People from companies like Adobe, Cloud Four, Nokia, Yiibu and others will be coming along. The idea is to build towards a consensus on current technology, facts, fictions and opportunities of the mobile web in an environment that is increasingly noisy and hype filled. read more

• Mobile web content adaptation techniques

  ronan

  1 Nov 2011 | 10:20 am

  Introduction This article will help you pick from amongst the many techniques for building a mobile website. It doesn't describe how to do it, rather it instead tries to help you to pick the right approach. Before we begin it's worth clarifying exactly what the goal of the exercise is. Generally speaking, people who are looking to build a mobile site fall into two categories. They're either:read more

• Displaying Status Bar Notifications in Android

  weimenglee

  20 Sep 2011 | 6:59 am

  Developers of Android are no doubt familiar with the Toast class, which displays a little pop-up containing whatever message you want to display to the user. However, the Toast pop-up will automatically dismiss itself after a while, making it useful as a tool to provide timely feedback to the user (such as informing the user that a file has been saved successfully), but not a really good tool to use for some asynchronous action (such as telling the user that an incoming SMS message has arrived). read more

• 

  Mobility Site

• Review: Cygnett CarGo for iPad & iPad 2

  PPCApache

  28 Jan 2012 | 7:34 am

  If you are like me and road trips with your kids is a nightmare or is like a ticking time bomb waiting for one to set it off and you have access to an iPad then maybe you need to look at Cynett’s CarGoholder for your iPad, I recently tried this over the New Year when we took a trip up to Guilderton here in Western Australia, it is about an hour a half from home so took the opportunity to try the CarGo for my 4 year old, loaded up the iPad with Cars 2 and hit the road. The trip was great the youngest and most volatile of my three kids was entertained thanks to the CarGo and Jaybird…

• Review: Cygnett Lavish Multi-View Folio Case for iPad 2

  PPCApache

  28 Jan 2012 | 6:48 am

  Over Christmas I was sent  Cygnett’s Lavish Multi-View Folio Case for my iPad 2 to have a look at, I love the look of the case, very sleek and business like. Here are the specs of the case from Cygnett’s website. Both my wife and I used the case on my iPad 2 over the last few weeks we both liked the fit and how it worked, just was light and comfortable . Read more after the break. (...) Read the rest of Review: Cygnett Lavish Multi-View Folio Case for iPad 2 (477 words) If you like what you are reading, please consider clicking one of the social networking icons to share the link…

• Review: Cygnett Platform – Universal Tablet Stand

  PPCApache

  20 Jan 2012 | 7:31 pm

  With more and more people looking at buying Tablets, be it an Apple iPad 2 , Motorola Xoom or even the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 (yes you can get them in Australia now…) as their main internet/ media device. So can Tablets be as good or even better than a Notebook? I believe so and you can make it even easier with Cygnett’s new Platform, this simple yet elegant designed stand could make the staunch supporter of the Notebook think twice about possibly moving to the Tablet side. I received my review unit of the Platform and have been using it over the Christmas / New Year break and must say the…

• Review: OtterBox Defender Case for iPad 2 & iPad 1

  PPCApache

  14 Nov 2011 | 5:04 am

  Recently this year I purchased an iPad 2, replacing my original iPad which i gave to my Wife Lisa. Both are now covered with a bit of OtterBox TLC namely OtterBox’s Defender case. There are quite a bit of a difference in the two cases other than colour of course. With the iPad 2 being loads thinner than its older counter part, and the introduction of the camera with the iPad 2 also has influenced a rethink of the Defender Case. Here are is my review on these two great looking cases… THE CASE At a glance the cases standout with style, clean lines, smooth finishing’s and over all just…

• Review: Samsung SCH-LC11 LTE Hotspot

  CR H.

  11 Nov 2011 | 2:19 pm

  We’re finally getting a chance to play with one of Verizon’s LTE hotspots here at Mobilitysite, so today we bring you a quick review of the Samsung SCH-LC11 LTE hotspot! Hardware The Samsung LTE hotspot is a cute little device. It’s very, very small, very light, and pretty good looking. The device sports a plain black soft-touch paint. The top of the device has all of the requisite branding (Samsung, Verizon, 4G LTE), along with a small power button, and 4G/3G/WiFi status lights. Along the side is a microUSB port tucked behind a sliding plastic cover. The power button is a little too…

• 

  Wireless Watch Japan

• Japan Mobile Advertising Awards

  admin

  2 Feb 2012 | 10:50 pm

  D2C announces their 11th annual Mobile Advertising Awards, accepting applications now via dedicated site, details: http://bit.ly/xXpcEO

• SoftBank Q3 FYE 2011 - Press Conf.

  admin

  2 Feb 2012 | 10:49 pm

  SoftBank Q3 fiscal results press conf held Feb. 2nd, watch on-demand video runtime 90-mins in English here: http://bit.ly/wm5K6P

• DeNA Establishes Office in Canada

  admin

  1 Feb 2012 | 10:14 pm

  DeNA announces new wholly-owned subsidiary in Vancouver, headed by Gameview’s CEO Irfan Virk, details: http://bit.ly/AnTJfq

• KDDI Announces $50M Dev. Fund

  admin

  31 Jan 2012 | 10:08 pm

  Hot off the press wire: KDDI and Global Brain Corp. just announced a new $50M Open Innovation Fund: http://bit.ly/znwpGe

• DoCoMo x Disney Mobile x Android

  admin

  31 Jan 2012 | 10:06 pm

  DoCoMo just announced new Disney Mobile co-op with two branded Android smartphones - details Here: http://bit.ly/y0jUQY

• 

  MobileGamesBlog

• Microsoft releases its Second Android App

  Arjan Olsder

  8 Feb 2012 | 12:04 pm

  Microsoft has released its second Android app today as the company pushed One Note for Android on the Andrid Market. The first Android app from Microsoft was the Lync client. OneNote is a product...

• HP Releases Sourcecode HP Touchpad Android Kernel

  Arjan Olsder

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:48 am

  HP has announced the release of the sourcecode it has developed for the kernel of the HP TouchPad. HP initially released the HP TouchPad with their WebOS system on board. Since that failed, HP is...

• LG Preparing for NFC Launch on Windows Phone

  Arjan Olsder

  7 Feb 2012 | 1:28 pm

  Not only Nokia is going big on NFC. As it seems, LG has also started preparations for their next generation of Windows Phone 8 devices that will be offering full support for NFC hardware. The first...

• Chrome Web Store Heading for Android ICS?

  Arjan Olsder

  7 Feb 2012 | 1:14 pm

  As it seems, Android developers will soon get competition from Google’s Chrome Web Store. Google has just released the beta of Chrome for Android on ICS devices (not available in all...

• Gameloft Live! Pushed on Android Market

  Arjan Olsder

  7 Feb 2012 | 12:46 pm

  Some time ago, Gameloft launched their Gameloft LIVE! service for the Android gamers that roamed Gameloft’s own deck of Android apps. Now, Gameloft seems ready for the big numbers as Gameloft LIVE!...

• 

  MobileMarketingProfits.com | Build Your Business with Mobile Marketing

• Super Bowl XLVI had MOBILE commercials!

  Kim Dushinski

  6 Feb 2012 | 11:28 am

  For four years in a row I have watched the Super Bowl commercials with a specific plan of action – to critique the ads that have a mobile call to action. I have sat ready to participate with my mobile phone by my side and for the past three years have been sorely disappointed.… Read the rest

• Cute QR Code at Jamba Juice

  Kim Dushinski

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:24 am

  Mobile Marketing in the Wild: After school yesterday, my daughter and I went to Jamba Juice. I spotted a really cute QR Code on the wall. The giant strawberry with a QR Code embedded in it was calling out to me to scan it.… Read the rest

• 3 Steps to Mobilize Your Business NOW

  Kim Dushinski

  15 Dec 2011 | 10:49 am

  Given that nearly everyone on the planet who is old enough to be a potential customer of yours (explored fully here) has a mobile phone, it is imperative that your business takes steps to mobilize now. If your customers haven’t already interacted with you on mobile, they will.… Read the rest

• Why 67% Mobile Access is a Big Deal

  Kim Dushinski

  13 Dec 2011 | 8:23 am

  Why 67% of the world’s population having mobile phone access is a BIG DEAL to your business. Your business needs to market to reach customers. Plain and simple, without effective marketing your business will suffer. Effective marketing is being able to reach and be reached by the right customers at the right time with the right message.… Read the rest

• New Site Design

  Kim Dushinski

  22 Nov 2011 | 6:58 am

  I am so excited to have a new design for my site and want to say that while the site is live, there are still quite a few tweaks and adjustments we are still making. If you see something strange or missing graphics or links that don’t work, please excuse our virtual dust.… Read the rest

• 

  Mobile Entertainment: Stream

• Footwear chain Clarks adopts augmented reality

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:31 am

  Aurasma's tech will be integrated into Women's Spring Summer ads.

• Adele uses mobile app to swear

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:00 am

  Fucking award-winning singer made the dog's bollocks tech discovery after throat surgery.

• CamContacts offers chance to win $40,000 for Valentine's Day

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:01 am

  Part of the mobile adult chat platform's 'Sweet Temptations' promo.

• App Of The Day: Airbind

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:21 am

  Allows users to wirelessly connect to their iTunes library.

• Indian politicians caught watching mobile porn in parliament

  9 Feb 2012 | 5:32 am

  Anyone for Asian babes?

• 

  All About Symbian

• Nokia Maps Suite 2.0 in Beta Labs

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:21 am

  A beta version of Nokia Maps Suite 2.0 has been released through Nokia Beta Labs for Symbian^3 devices running Nokia Belle. The updates in this release include the addition of a photo layer to maps (displays your photos), the return of standalone route planning, improved map display in Drive, new homescreen widgets, the addition of hands-free voice search, improved coverage and integration for Public Transport, and the addition of a landscape view in Weather.

• Nokia's official Belle update FAQ

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:06 am

  Following on from our extensive story on the Symbian Nokia Belle update availability, I wanted to highlight Nokia's own, surprisingly comprehensive, Belle Update FAQ. With five major sections, covering roll out, how to update, application compatibility, music license problems and troubleshooting, there's plenty of meat in here, and most users should find an answer to their update queries.

• Review: LiveJournal

  8 Feb 2012 | 11:35 pm

  Symbian Bloggers are in for a treat – after having two options for WordPress, they now have a LiveJournal app too. LiveJournal is one of the original blogging platforms, and was a social network before there were social networks as we now know them. Users will be glad to hear this app is functionally equivalent to the WordPress apps, and supports specific features like LJ-Cut and other tags specific to the platform.

• Nokia plans changes to its manufacturing operations

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:57 am

  Nokia has announced planned changes at its factories in Komarom (Hungary), Reynosa (Mexico) and Salo (Finland), to "increase efficiency in smartphone production". These three factories will now focus on "smartphone product customization" and device assembly is expected to be transferred to Nokia factories in Asia, where the majority of component suppliers are based. Around 4000 employees will ultimately be lost.

• Review: Air Strike

  7 Feb 2012 | 11:02 pm

  We're all too familiar with the 'huge-production-budget game that plays like a turkey' - Air Strike is just the opposite, a labour of love by the developers that's clearly produced on limited resources yet has gameplay that's both insistent and addictive. Ultimately, it just falls short of mass recommendation, but that doesn't mean I didn't have a blast during my review period, blowing up enemy fighters and warships.

• 

  Mobile Industry Review

• Have you see what o2′s been doing with their #o2Cupid campaign?

  Ewan

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:28 am

  Kudos to the team at o2 who’re having a bit of fun and spreading the lurrve this Valentine’s Day through a series of personalised video messages from ‘Cupid’. There’s a hot Cupid (look out, ladies) and there’s a panto-dame-style Cupid — have a watch of his introduction and explanation: It looks like the Cupid service has been up and live since yesterday and already the team has produced an impressive 135 personalised videos. I wonder just how many they’ll get through by the 14th of February? 500 videos? 800? Either way, it’s a brilliant…

• MEF Americas 2011: Marco Argenti discusses Nokia’s support for developers

  shauna

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:18 am

  At MEF Americas in Miami I spoke to Marco Argenti, SVP Developer Experience & Marketplace at Nokia, talking about the firm’s focus on and support for developers. We talked through the  benefits of Windows Phone 7 (including ‘Live Tiles’), how Nokia helps developers address a broad (and crucially, global) market and how – and this is were Marco became most animated – Nokia’s focus was now on making apps a business for developers… This, he felt, was a key area of differentiation for the firm. Read more about Nokia’s developer support at http://www.developer.nokia.com/ We…

• Mobile coupons: Don’t discount for the sake of it

  Ewan

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:34 am

  I’ve delighted to bring you this contribution from Theresa Wabler, Marketing Director at incentive solutions firm, Parago. Theresa explores a phenomenon that I’ve been watching closely — that is, discounting for the sake of it. Or, discounting where there’s no specific reason to do so. A perfect example is the oft quoted mobile marketing nirvana situation — “A user walks by a coffee shop and gets an alert on their phone to receive a discount on coffee”. It’s all very nice in concept, but the financial reality of doing this needs to be examined.

• Hello to all the o2 employees working from home in today’s flexible working pilot

  Ewan

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:39 am

  A quarter of o2′s 12,000 employees are working from home today. The company has shut the doors at their Slough HQ for this day only, in support of what they’re terming as the country’s biggest ever flexible working pilot. It certainly sounds like it to me. The point of the exercise is to test the company’s ability to handle the disruption likely to be caused by this year’s Olympics, especially given the Olympic rowing venue is just down the road from the Slough HQ). I really, really like the concept of this. It’s a bold step by o2 on a number of different…

• Is Tim Cook throwing chairs across his office right now after this iTV leak?

  Ewan

  7 Feb 2012 | 8:29 am

  Have a quick read and see what you think — it looks like someone working at these Canadian networks has been very, very leaky: In a rather unexpected twist, Canada’s largest newspaper and newspaper of record — The Globe and Mail — has published details of Apple’s upcoming iTV. According to the paper, Rogers and Bell — Canada’s two largest telcos — are already testing the Apple iTV in their labs. via Apple iTV detailed: It’s like a 42-inch iPad | ExtremeTech. I’ll have two, by the way. Or maybe three.

• 

  GISuser GIS and Location Technology news

• Using Twitter To Land A Job – Tips, Tricks, and Suggestions

  glenn

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:07 pm

  Like many of you, I’m sure you’re astounded by the number of your contacts, friends, and associates that have changed jobs recently. I receive regular updates via my LinkedIn service that... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• More Camera Love! The Pentax K-01 Designed by Marc Newson

  glenn

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:53 pm

  More treats for you shutterbugs like me! Here’s a fun, new device announced this week by Pentax – the Pentax K-01. Some very cool news out of Pentax.When is a camera more than a... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• PENTAX Optio WG-2 and Optio WG-2 GPS with 1080p Video

  glenn

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:55 am

  An interesting new rugged, waterproof, dustproof  device from Pentax delivers strength, durability, GPS, and much more – perhaps an interesting option for anyone needing a fine camera for field... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Algoma U to Offer Degree Program in Geography

  glenn

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:10 am

  This one for GeoGeeks in Ontario, Canada as Algoma University has been approved to offer a four-year honours bachelor of arts in geography degree, starting in September 2012. Some details… The... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Links for 2012-02-08 [Digg]

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 am

  Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Geo Challenge Looks to mobile apps and crowd sourcing Here's details of an effort that's near and dear to my heart, literally! The Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Geo Inventory Challenge, challenge the crowd to map these life saving devices in Philly. iOS and Android apps available

• 

  How to Change the World

• Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK

  GuyKawasaki

  20 Jan 2012 | 10:46 am

  Over the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to download from my SkyDrive account. I hope these documents and blog posts help you save a boatload of time and increase the quality of your efforts.I leave you with two sets of top ten lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors so that you know what not to say and what not to believe. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs “Our projections are…

• Design a Sam Adams beer

  GuyKawasaki

  20 Jan 2012 | 8:24 am

  Now this is a fun project. I’m helping Sam Adams “tap” the knowledge of beer drinkers and crowd source its next brew. Join the party by getting the app and designing your beer: The final brew will be released in Austin in the first week of March. #sponsored

• How to Create an Enchanting Financial Forecast #OfficeandGuyK

  GuyKawasaki

  17 Jan 2012 | 1:52 pm

  This is the third post in my Microsoft partnership, and it’s all about numbers. The topic is crafting your financial forecast to include in your pitch. Bill Reichert, my partner at Garage Technology Ventures, created an Excel model and wrote this blog post. There’s a lesson in this too: Get the best person for the job. His grasp of financial models and how to present them exceeds mine by two orders of magnitude. The Purpose of Financial Projections When it comes to financial projections, there are two types of entrepreneurs: first, the “visionary entrepreneur” who…

• How to Create an Enchanting Business Plan #OfficeandGuyK

  GuyKawasaki

  12 Jan 2012 | 8:16 am

  Here is the second post in my series about planning, pitching, and launching a new business venture. In partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve created a Word document that outlines a good business plan. It’s saved to my SkyDrive folder here. Feel free to download it and use it as inspiration. And if you’re working with a partner, you can use the free Word Web App to stay in sync. I provided the PowerPoint document before the Word document because a good business plan is an elaboration of a good pitch as opposed to a good pitch being a distillation of good business plan.

• How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK

  GuyKawasaki

  9 Jan 2012 | 8:01 am

  Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts I’ll be doing as part of a partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps. Over the next two weeks, I’ll cover everything a budding entrepreneur needs to turn an idea into an enchanting investment opportunity—from the perfect pitch to a killer business plan to financial forecasts. I’m going to start with a little dissertation on creating effective PowerPoint pitches for your company. I embedded the sample deck for you to click through by using the PowerPoint Web App. When you’re ready to get started, you can download the…

• 

  MarketingVox News & Trends

• Closing Bell: Google search at 66% | iPad 3 | Google to get Motorola, sources say

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:20 pm

  Search: Google search share back to 66% as Yahoo swoons. Mobile Computing: March debut of 'iPad 3' a sure bet, says analyst. Business News: Zynga, Hasbro ink deal for game-themed toys. Google developing home entertainment system. Legal/Regulatory: U.S. to approve Google's bid for Motorola-sources.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/_72i2ltpuq0" height="1" width="1"/>

• F-Commerce Gains Momentum With Exclusive Cillit Bang Sale

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:11 am

  Facebook Commerce is picking up with one brand making plans to sell a product exclusively through a Facebook store.  Reckitt Benckiser has announced plans to sell a new Cillit Bang cleaning product exclusively through its Facebook page, according to eConsultancy. The product launch –an 'All in 1 Dish & Surface Cleaner' — is being [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/2JOa_GhfC6A" height="1" width="1"/>

• E-books Sales to Figure Prominently in Bertelsmann Results

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:50 am

  In its preliminary report on 2011 results, Bertelsmann pointed to "rapidly growing" e-book sales at Random House and a good performance of the advertising-driven businesses as one of the drivers for its growth. Unfortunately, the company also said, this growth was offset by other factors such as planned start-up losses for new growth platforms [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/Y54n0ZNKqHw" height="1" width="1"/>

• It is Easy to Fudge Social Media Numbers

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:42 am

  Google has been taken to task for being obtuse with its engagement metrics for Google+. After parsing the definition Google provided, All Things Digital described it as anyone who "registered for Google+ any time since it launched this summer, and you used any other Google product–say, search!–in the past day or week, [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/r4bk-7Jjvr0" height="1" width="1"/>

• 10 Words You Can't Say in an Email Heading

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:06 am

  There are ten words most likely to trigger a spam filter, All Spammed Up reports.  These are: 1. Meet Singles. 2. Work From Home. 3. Business Opportunity. 4. Buy Direct. 5. Clearance. 6. Pre-approved. 7. Hello. 8. You Have Been Selected. 9. Weight Loss. 10. Limited Time. Some of these terms, obviously, are tempting to legitimate marketers–"clearance" and "limited time" are often used as call [...]<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/Ga8dS0TK30s" height="1" width="1"/>

• 

  Neuromarketing

• Super Bowl Ads: “Second Payoff” Pays Off

  Roger Dooley

  8 Feb 2012 | 11:11 am

  The Super Bowl is the biggest day of the year for football fans, and just about as important for neuromarketing companies. The first results of neuromarketing studies from the big game are trickling out, and Innerscope Research observed a strategy employed by multiple advertisers: a “second payoff” at the end of the ad, after the [...]

• Neuromarketing Fun: Add Your Caption

  Roger Dooley

  7 Feb 2012 | 5:32 am

  Want to win a signed copy of my new book, Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing? I thought we could have a little fun while we’re waiting for the results of the Super Bowl neuromarketing studies to roll in. Read on… Neuromarketing scares some people, even though the techniques used by [...]

• NeuroBowl: Neuromarketing and Super Bowl 2012

  Roger Dooley

  3 Feb 2012 | 5:51 am

  The Super Bowl may be the biggest sports event of the year and the biggest advertising event of the year, but it’s also the biggest event of the year for neuromarketing companies. With $3 million being spent on every 30 second spot, you can be sure that lots of advertisers rang up their favorite neuromarketing [...]

• Social Personalization and the Doppelganger Effect

  Roger Dooley

  1 Feb 2012 | 5:18 am

  Are you overlooking a way to personalize your ads that goes far beyond the usual “Dear Roger” salutation? In my recent article, Put Your Customer in the Ad, I mentioned that LinkedIn was using profile pictures for targeted ads. Since then, I’ve been able to capture a couple of examples. The first one surprised me [...]

• Time Warner Opens NYC Neuromarketing Lab

  Roger Dooley

  26 Jan 2012 | 5:42 am

  Time Warner Inc. is opening their new “Medialab” at its New York City headquarters. The media giant expects to “generate valuable insights into consumer behavior, evolving media habits and industry trends across all of Time Warner’s businesses, brands and advertising partners.” The lab sounds like one of the more diverse facilities dedicated to this kind [...]

• 

  Influential Marketing

• The Best And Worst Of Super Bowl Marketing Strategy 2012

  Rohit

  6 Feb 2012 | 1:40 am

  I couldn't help but feel sorry this year for anyone who only watches the Super Bowl ads for entertainment. Perhaps the most defining feature of all the ads this year was how uniformly uncreative and dated they were. Marketers turned to old and obvious gags like girls in bikinis and dogs (lots of dogs) to try and carry their ads. The result was a very disappointing collection of ads for anyone who loves marketing and the hype of Super Bowl advertising. Still, there is plenty of marketing to learn from all the efforts this year, so let's get started in breaking down the strategy behind the ads…

• What The Amish Paradox Can Teach You About Marketing

  Rohit

  3 Feb 2012 | 4:01 am

  Last year on a trip back to the US from South Africa, I picked up a magazine about a topic I knew very little about. It is of the common tricks I use to learn about different industries outside of the ones I work directly with – and in this case, the magazine I ended up with was called Farmer’s Weekly. The content was as you would expect, advice for farmers on techniques, information about regulations that will affect their industry and ads for tractors and things like that. In the middle of the issue I picked up was a feature article about what the author called the “Amish Paradox”…

• The 4 Principles Of Delusional Economics

  Rohit

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:59 am

  When it comes to economic theories, there is plenty of fascination in the business world around how to explain what drives business and purchasing activities. Behavioural economics, the field of economics concerned with examining why people behave the way they do when it comes to their purchasing behaviour, is hot right now.  Bestselling books like Freakonomics and Predictably Irrational dig deep into the psyche of people to try and explain seemingly illogical actions. My own upcoming book called Likeonomics, to some degree, looks at a similar theme of why we do business with people and…

• FinnAir, Republic Day & Why Celebration Is The Best Marketing Strategy

  Rohit

  26 Jan 2012 | 8:28 am

  A few weeks ago it was my birthday. The day before on a Saturday morning, my two boys came leaping into our room very excited to wake me up. It wasn't so much about my birthday, unfortunately, as it was about getting ready to do their favourite thing on a Saturday morning: going to IHOP for pancakes. And when there is a birthday involved, it is an even bigger deal. Your birthday is a celebration there. They bring over at least 6 of the wait staff to sing their own version of the birthday song to you. You get ice cream for breakfast (what kid wouldn't love that?). People love celebrations -…

• Honda Masters The Art of Marketing Timing

  Rohit

  23 Jan 2012 | 6:44 pm

  Every year at the start of the new year there is something that most of us do without realizing it. It is related to making new year's resolutions, but it is more about sequencing your long term goals into the order in which you want to achieve them. One example might be saying to yourself, "I want to be married and then have a kid before I turn 35." Life is full of these little promises. So full, in fact, that often we make them to ourselves without even thinking. It raises an interesting marketing question as well. What would it take to get a customer to reevaluate the life sequence they…

• 

  JasonKeath.com

• 5 Great Ways to Use Pinterest

  Jason Keath

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:01 am

  Originally published at Social Web Daily What do sculptors, jet setters, philosophers, foodies, and collectors have in common? They can all make great use of Pinterest, the pinboard-channeling new social network. With a stream-lined interface, and plenty of opportunity to engage with and get inspiration from other Pinterest users, there are an endless number of creative ways to use the new site. Here are five of our favorites: 1. Collector’s Showcase Hobbyists and special-interest enthusiasts can put Pinterest to good use by uploading pictures from your personal collection, or collecting…

• Checking out the downtown NYC coworking space @Hiveat55 today

  Jason Keath

  10 Jan 2012 | 11:31 am

  It is across from the NY stock exchange. Nice quiet space. And I got a free day pass thanks to my Foursquare checkin.

• How to Spot a Yelp User, The Definitive Chart

  Jason Keath

  5 Jan 2012 | 4:36 pm

  via flowtown.com

• Pinterest Is Perfect For Your Dear Santa Letter

  Jason Keath

  21 Dec 2011 | 9:55 am

  Social image bookmarking site Pinterest is very hot right now, even though the site is still invite only. If you have not tested it out, Pinterest is simply a place to save and share images from around the web. You “pin” images to a “board” and anyone that follows you or that board sees it. Even better, all images on Pinterest are links to whereever you found them, by default. So if you want to buy that cool pair of shoes your friend pinned, click through. If you want to see more info on an inspirational poster or what beach your friend took a photo of, click through.

• How Not To Provide Customer Service, A JCPenney Story

  Jason Keath

  20 Dec 2011 | 5:02 pm

  So, maybe I am spoiled by Amazon and Zappos, but the last few days, I have been trying to buy a couch from JCPenney.com and have failed on 3 occasions. The couch in question: Here’s the thing, this is an awesome couch and it was on sale. But we need the chaise portion of the couch to be on the left when you are sitting down. But it was unclear to me how to order it. I either had to order LAF (left facing arm) or RAF (right facing arm). I had no idea what those two terms meant. Did LAF mean the chaise was on the left when facing it or when sitting on the couch? I was also curious about…

• 

  Social Media Darwinism

• Gut Feeling or Analytics – which is better?

  Paul Dunay

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:00 am

  So I was talking with a CMO buddy of mine the other day over dinner and this topic came up. Of course you know as a CMO of a leading Social Media analytics firm – I think you can guess which side of this argument I was on. But seriously, my buddy honestly wanted to know – so what can you do with all this good social media analytics that you talk about? He really didn’t know. So here is what I told him that marketers should be doing with analytics but haven’t truly adopted. I think part of the problem is that some of these tactics haven’t become a standard operating procedure but…

• What Social Data can Teach You about Audiences

  Paul Dunay

  1 Feb 2012 | 10:00 am

  My son is a senior in high school and I am beginning to help him with his search for the right school.  One of the aspects of college life that he is looking forward to is belonging to a university with strong school spirit. So to help with this, I suggested that we use football teams as a proxy to find the right environment. With this in mind, we set out to find a simple list of “2011 NCAA Football Rankings” – an easy Google search is there ever was one. I assumed that the top result, ESPN’s 2011 NCAA Football Rankings, would be the perfect match for our search, until I looked at…

• Trust is hard to come by these days

  Paul Dunay

  25 Jan 2012 | 10:00 am

  For years I have kept tabs on the Edelman Trust barometer report, which comes out every January in Davos.  And this year was no exception. After last year I figured this years report could make an excellent gauge of the economy worldwide! Simply put the report states: Trust is down in every industry and every country across the board by an average of 6%. So what does this mean for marketers and for major brands in an era of social media? Well 2 things … Hidden in the data is the fact that CEOs and Government officials are at the very bottom of the totem pole when it comes to delivering a…

• Brands: It’s not enough to be liked

  Paul Dunay

  15 Dec 2011 | 10:00 am

  Imagine a company that has upscale retail locations around the United States receiving tens of thousands of customer visits. Now imagine not having anyone there to greet and interact with those customers. What’s the point of the storefront? Facebook fan pages are much the same thing. But only 0.2 to 2 percent of fans go back to a page. Why? Because there is nothing going on that interests them. Fan pages are a unique marketing canvas to connect with avid consumers. Yet some brands are terribly underutilizing these pages, making them basically brochureware repositories — essentially…

• How important is real-time data? It’s all relative

  Paul Dunay

  7 Dec 2011 | 6:35 am

  The speed with which social media spreads ideas and information has led many marketers to place a premium on capturing data in real time. But should real-time data be such a priority? Real time means different things to different people when the term is used as a proxy for recency. To an evolutionary biologist, real time could mean thousands of years of species development data. To a 911 dispatcher, real time is a few seconds worth of critical information from a telephone call. What about marketing and advertising? This notion of “relative real time” extends there, too. To a marketing…

• 

  NYT > Media & Advertising

• Editorial | State of Play: Perpetual War: Digital Pirates and Creators

  By EDUARDO PORTER

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:12 pm

  Stopping digital piracy, which is growing by leaps and bounds, is about protecting creativity — and jobs.

• Media Decoder Blog: CNBC Hires VH1 Executive to Help Develop Reality Shows

  By BRIAN STELTER

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:10 pm

  The business news network signed on Jim Ackerman in an effort to jump-start its own plan for reality shows, which could become a presence in its prime-time lineup.

• Mike Huckabee to Begin Radio Show

  By BRIAN STELTER

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:54 pm

  Rush Limbaugh will soon have a new radio rival: Mike Huckabee, who will be running a radio show from noon to 3 p.m. for Cumulus Media Networks.

• Media Decoder Blog: Ratings Decline at 'American Idol' May Have Leveled Off

  By BILL CARTER

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:44 pm

  The ratings Wednesday night were down from the year before, but in the range of the week before. But, notably, the singing contest will not be No. 1 this week among 18- to 49-year-old viewers.

• Advertising: Marketing Financial Risk Management to Clients and Providers

  By STUART ELLIOTT

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:02 pm

  A campaign encouraging professionals to become certified as financial risk managers is centered on photographs of men in business garb recoiling as if they had been punched.

• 

  AdPulp

• Manage Customer’s Expectations In Social Channels — Save The Brand’s Ass

  David Burn

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:23 am

  I am not a social media fan boy, but I recently had a customer service experience enabled by social media that gave me new found respect for the channel (as a customer service opportunity of untold magnitude). More on my story in a minute, but first, let’s have a view from the mountaintop. Open Forum points to a new study commissioned by Conversocial and conducted by New York University professor Liel Liebovitz. The report argues that “businesses seem to be struggling to deal with the volume of communication on Facebook and Twitter; they aren’t equipped to deal with this new…

• Ridin’ The Storm Out (To Kansas)

  David Burn

  8 Feb 2012 | 9:18 am

  Show. Don’t tell. It’s an age old maxim in this business, and one that 180LA has taken to heart for their Mitsubishi Motors client. And it’s working — the brand’s market share has almost doubled year-to-date with significant monthly sales increases every month, since 180LA took on the business 19 months ago. For this new “Ride the Storm” spot, the 180LA team chased a storm from LA to Kansas with the expert help of Weather Underground. The film was shot documentary-style with Directors Emmett and Brendan Malloy, two brothers who say chasing…

• Gerry Graf Talks Commercials, And The Team That Creates Great Ones

  Dan Goldgeier

  7 Feb 2012 | 8:23 pm

  There’s no doubt that Gerry Graf, now head of Barton F. Graf 9000, has done, or overseen, a lot of great TV commercials in his career. Here’s just one: On FastCoCreates, a project of Fast Company magazine, Graf shares the ingredients of a great commercial. Here’s the part that caught my eye, as Graf describes “The Ideal Team”: Account people: no one who has a vested interest in making sure the client is happy. I don’t want anything to do with people who think they work for the client. Many account people get their bonuses based on how clients rate them. If your…

• Social Is Another Channel Entirely

  David Burn

  7 Feb 2012 | 4:02 pm

  Old Milwaukee rolled out a new TV commercial starring comedian Will Ferrell during the Super Bowl. You probably didn’t see it though, as it only ran in one place–the country’s second-smallest TV market, North Platte, Neb. According to BusinessWeek, despite its tiny TV audience, the Old Milwaukee ad managed to outperform some of the nationally broadcast Super Bowl commercials in an increasingly important metric of Super Bowl advertising bragging rights: chatter on social-media networks. On Sunday night, a user named Daddymcc uploaded a low-quality copy of the Ferrell commercial…

• Lots Of Weak, Recycled Spots That Don’t Lead Anybody Anywhere

  David Burn

  7 Feb 2012 | 2:43 pm

  The other day, Gary Vaynerchuk predicted that Super Bowl advertisers would extend the story told in their Super Bowl ads to online venues, and that these extensions would have us talking on Monday morning. Didn’t happen (except in a few rare exceptions). In fact, if you look at the Toyota Camry spot, to name just one, it ends with the point that all Camry drivers have stories to tell. Yet, there’s no pointer for the viewer to follow, no place to hear more Camry-centric stories, or to tell them. Granted, there is a Toyota.com graphic at the end of the spot, but that’s hardly…

• 

  Church of the Customer Blog

• Playbooks and visual explanations

  Ben McConnell

  6 Feb 2012 | 8:30 am

  By the time the New York Giants and the New England Patriots took the field Sunday for their Super Bowl matchup, the players on both teams had read, re-read and rehearsed their respective game playbooks dozens, if not hundreds of times. They'd studied each play via multiple diagrams and photographs, stats and descriptions of assignments for every player on the field.  A playbook is an apt metaphor for any business team that needs concise, how-to plans to deal with the complexity of systems, processes and moving variables, especially with social business. Whether it's for one of the world's…

• People trust people

  Jackie Huba

  1 Feb 2012 | 12:27 pm

  [Click on chart to see larger version.] The latest edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer study just came out showing CEO's in the dog house when it comes to being trusted. Who do people trust? Academic and tech experts, sure. But the biggest movers in the study are "a person just like me" and "regular employee."  Look at your 2012 marketing plan. Are you providing ways for your customers to get together in-person and online to encourage word of mouth?  Are you showcasing your best employees in social media, at conferences, and at private events with customers? Source: 2012 Edelman…

• FedEx's apology: expertly delivered

  Jackie Huba

  21 Dec 2011 | 8:29 pm

  We've seen this before: 1) company makes an egregious service mistake and is outed by a customer via a YouTube video, 2) video goes viral, 3) mainstream media picks up the story and amplifies it, 4) PR nightmare begins. This week's culprit is FedEx. A California FedEx driver is caught on a security-camera video flinging a package containing a computer monitor over the fence of a gated Southern California house. At no time does the driver attempt to ring the bell for delivery. Just a toss over the fence, and he jumps back into his truck. In two days, the video has over three million views. …

• The simplest definition of word of mouth marketing

  Jackie Huba

  28 Nov 2011 | 12:38 pm

  Nice video from WOMMA on the basics of word of mouth marketing. Tweet

• 14 new statistics about word of mouth marketing

  Jackie Huba

  17 Oct 2011 | 11:45 am

  The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has a neat infographic detailing the latest stats about word or mouth marketing, online and offline.  Source: WOMMA Note: the WOMMA Summit is coming up November 16-18 in Las Vegas. It's a great conference to learn the latest WOM marketing techniques from leading brands and agencies.     Tweet

• 

  Scott Anthony

• Don't Confuse Passion with Competence

  Scott Anthony

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:26 am

  The most successful innovators are consistently portrayed as possessing a passion that borders on dogmatism. They work tirelessly to bend reality to achieve their vision, with Steve Jobs and his "reality distortion field" serving as the prototypical example. There's no doubt that passion is a critical component of innovation. After all, innovation is awfully hard work, with plenty of false starts. Rosabeth Moss Kanter teaches that everything can look like a failure in the middle. Mike Tyson puts it another way: "Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face." Passion is necessary…

• A.G. Lafley vs. Steve Jobs

  Scott Anthony

  23 Jan 2012 | 1:41 pm

  Usually the question comes right after I tell an audience that I put former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley on my "Innovation Mount Rushmore" as a reminder of the importance of investing time and energy to understand the target market. "But how do you square that with Steve Jobs?" an intrepid audience member asks. "After all, Jobs said, 'It isn't the customer's job to know what they want.'" It feels like a classic battle — the scientific approach of a company that launches 80 market research studies a day versus the intuitive touch of the iconic innovator of our time. But it's a false…

• Kodak and the Brutal Difficulty of Transformation

  Scott Anthony

  17 Jan 2012 | 9:46 am

  2012 has not gotten off to a great start for Eastman Kodak. Three of the company's directors quit near the end of last year, and word recently emerged that the company was on the brink of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The easy narrative is that Kodak is a classic case of a company blind to the disruptive changes in its marketplace. Like many easy narratives, this one is not quite right. In the 20th century, Kodak was truly one of the world's powerhouses. Its rise to prominence began when it launched its affordable Brownie camera in 1900. In the decades that followed Kodak…

• How to Choose the Ideas Your Company Should Invest In

  Scott Anthony

  11 Jan 2012 | 6:51 am

  My last post described how Innosight follows a three-stage process to evaluate investment proposals from outside entrepreneurs. But deciding how to invest in ideas at a corporation is a different beast. In The Innovator's Guide to Growth we suggested that companies should create one-page "Idea Resumes" that capture the essence of an idea on a single PowerPoint slide. After this starting point, however, our VC process holds pretty well. The first decision is whether to explore an idea more deeply. Consider some combination of the following criteria: Does what we hope to do fit our strategy?

• A Disciplined Approach to Evaluating Ideas

  Scott Anthony

  3 Jan 2012 | 8:37 am

  "Make sure you ask the right questions at the right time." That's one memorable piece of advice from a leader at a global innovation powerhouse. Unfortunately, it is a piece of advice that is heeded too infrequently inside large companies. At many companies, the idea evaluation process revolves around detailed Excel spreadsheets, comprehensive PowerPoint documents, and an orchestrated sequence of pre-meetings leading up to a decision meeting. This kind of disciplined approach works very well when companies have knowledge that lets them be precise in their analysis, and executives have the…

• 

  Rita McGrath

• Crowd-Sourced Labor: Will It Trump Permanent Employment?

  Rita McGrath

  1 Feb 2012 | 8:50 am

  A few weeks ago, I wrote up some of the trends that I'm going to be watching in 2012. One was the interesting phenomena of access to assets replacing ownership of assets in more and more realms. Car-sharing services such as ZipCar, room-sharing services such as AirBnB, and project-based programming services from companies like odesk are upending a lot of our assumptions about what it takes to run a business. Indeed, owning anything may soon be seen as an industrial-age relic in a lot of cases. The trouble with assets is that owning them creates inflexibility that can cause problems when…

• Industry Analysis Is Dead. What's Next?

  Rita McGrath

  19 Jan 2012 | 9:54 am

  One of the most widely held beliefs in strategy is that variations in performance can often be explained by what industry a company competes in. A lot of our most cherished tools — five-forces analysis, the BCG portfolio matrix, and even SWOT analysis — rest on this assumption. But evidence is all around us that, although industries matter, they matter in different ways and with different effects than we may have thought. To take one example that crossed my desk recently, consultancy Accenture has developed a point of view on what they call the "Age of Aggregation." Among the…

• How Many Customers Did You Lose Today?

  Rita McGrath

  7 Dec 2011 | 10:36 am

  My theme this month appears to be tone deafness among business designers. Cue Bank of America! But genuinely, one of the most vexing dilemmas for senior executives is being plugged in to what is actually going on in the front lines of their business. It's all too easy to miss critically important customer experience information when one is engaging in the day-to-day grind that constitutes an executive's job. All the same, not being attuned to the way your business is perceived by customers can lead to a lot of damage. Here's a recent example. My husband and I were traveling from Edinburgh to…

• Bank of America: A Case Study in Tone Deafness

  Rita McGrath

  2 Nov 2011 | 7:33 am

  You would think that savvy, sophisticated companies would have an easy time figuring out whether a move they are considering would blow up on them, wouldn't you? And yet, in the last few weeks we've seen some amazing examples of firms that seem to be tone deaf about how their customers feel about them. Take Bank of America. A month ago, it famously introduced a fee for using its debit cards, to a withering storm of protest. One customer was sufficiently enraged to gather 200,000 signatures asking the bank to reverse its decision. Oops. Yesterday, the bank announced plans to do just that. But…

• Groupon's Business Model Is Leaking

  Rita McGrath

  13 Oct 2011 | 10:54 am

  Remember late last year when Google offered $5.3 billion to buy out Groupon? When the daily deals site rejected the generous offer from the search giant in favor of pursuing an IPO, it unleashed a flood of commentary, from this site and others. Many were skeptical; I wrote a blog post for HBR in the aftermath of the decision questioning the business stability of Groupon's model. Others contended that the deals site — at one time speculated to be valued at $15-20 billion — had nowhere to go but up. But in hindsight, spurning Google's offer is starting to look like a bad decision…

• 

  Conversation Agent

• Being in Control of the Interaction

  Valeria Maltoni

  9 Feb 2012 | 3:00 am

  I don't know about you. I wasn't terribly impressed by the Super Bowl ads this year. With the exception of the seducing commercial of the FIAT Abarth, where they are clearly in control of the interaction, most ads seemed to have sacrificed newer creative executions for safer ones. At the per second dollar spend, it was an understandable move. Disappointing because of the high expectations created through social media ahead of the big day. I got many ad preview offeres from the PR Agencies working with brands this year. A few days ahead of the game I saw that FIAT was making the rounds on…

• Collaboration? You Must be Joking!

  Valeria Maltoni

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 am

  I read this post by Chris Saad the other morning in response to Robert Scoble 's mention in a recent post and I keep thinking about the applicability of its concepts not just for Silicon Valley and the tech community. It applies to marketers and communicators as well. [Posted originally on Google+]<rant>1. lead not just cheerlead - how many times do we copy the same concept over and over, or look at short term payoffs when the opportunities are on the making better promises side of the conversation?2. add to the business DNA - nothing dies, not media companies, not blogging, not…

• What a Difference Five Years Make

  Valeria Maltoni

  7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 am

  Here I am. Writing from my heart more than my head where all the good ideas are and I get the zinger -- yeah, a personality would be great. Seriously? Kidding. I'm sure it would. And I have one. I can go from Zero to Italian in no time. When appropriate. Why do you care? Because that's just it -- online content should have a style and point of view, to get more personality it needs to have guts, and it needs to have time. Guts don't come from charts and stats, they come from people. Time as in face time, as in skin in the game, as in relationships. Or you're just making the seagull move --…

• How Would You Redesign the Sears Customer Experience?

  Valeria Maltoni

  6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 am

  As a regular at Brand Autopsy, I remember the "would you miss" series of posts about brands John Moore wrote a couple of years back. The brands discussed ranged from Denny's, Costco, Ace Hardware, Dairy Queen, Crate & Barrell, BusinessWeek, UPS, Pizza Hut, to Walgreens, Polaroid Instant Film, Advertising Age, The Cheesecake Factory, Chili's, Wells Fargo, and more. One of the brands was Sears -- if Sears went out of business tomorrow, would any of us care? Does Sears provide such a unique product and customer experience that we would be saddened if it didn’t exist? How did Sears do on…

• ... then I Discovered I am Actually Funny

  Valeria Maltoni

  5 Feb 2012 | 4:00 am

  So, I've been thinking. What I'm doing here with this blog is not working. It's not you, it's me. Somehow I manage to scare you off to some site with LOL cats whenever you open your feed. I'm not inspiring you. Or maybe I am, and you're not telling me. I've tried a couple of things to justify keeping up with producing researched and useful content. That only makes the scraping and copying and rewriting gremlins happy and me poor. They don't link anymore in the sphere, those bastards. This is a departure from my usual writing style, I know. I've been slaving on figuring out an angle for the…

• 

  MarketingProfs How-To Articles

• Never Waste an Opportunity: The Value of Lead Nurturing

  7 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  When new visitors arrive at your website, you have two ways to seize the opportunity and guide them toward becoming customers. Both opportunities can evaporate in the blink of an eye--if you don't have the proper systems in place. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

• Four Keyword Research Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  If you are serious about the words "sales," "profit," and "conversions," you must master keyword research. Learn four common pitfalls marketers make when selecting keywords--and how to avoid them. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

• The Inside Scoop on Using Twitter Lists for Profit and Sanity

  3 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  The dirty secret of Twitter is that as helpful as it can be, it's also a time sink. Learn how properly using and cleaning up your Twitter lists can help you save time--and generate leads for your business. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

• 10 Hot Tips (and a Promo Campaign Planner) for Seasonal Sale Success

  2 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  Customers today expect more deals and offers during holiday seasons, so it's important to create seasonal campaigns to increase revenues. Here are 10 tips--and a campaign planner--to help you achieve seasonal sale success. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

• Five Tips for Implementing a Successful QR Code Campaign

  1 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  QR codes can be inexpensive to implement and can provide you a measureable return on investment--if you use them correctly. Learn five invaluable tips for implementing an effective QR code campaign. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

• 

  Social Business Advisor: Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0

• Do Organizations Need a Chief Collaboration Officer?

  Jacob Morgan

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:06 pm

  More organizations are starting to deploy new collaborative tools and strategies as a core part of their business evolution to connect and engage employees.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult (especially at large companies) to oversee these initiatives as typically there isn’t a role devoted to collaboration.  Usually collaboration falls on the shoulders of employees with an existing full plate of things that need to get done (such as the CIO). So is it about time for organizations to create the role of the CCO (chief collaboration officer)? In 2010 Morten Hansen and Scott…

• Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 4: Financial Impact, Future Changes, and Lessons Learned

  Jacob Morgan

  6 Feb 2012 | 12:08 am

  This is the fourth and final post in a series of posts on how the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (The Foundation), is implementing emergent collaboration strategies and technologies within its organization. You can read part 1 on Business Drivers, part 2 on Organizational and Culture shifts, and part 3 on Technology Adoption and Operational Impact. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17…

• Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 3: Technology Adoption and Operational Impact

  Jacob Morgan

  3 Feb 2012 | 12:08 am

  This is the third in a series of posts on how the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (The Foundation), is implementing emergent collaboration strategies and technologies within its organization.  You can read part 1 on Business Drivers and part 2 on organizational and culture shifts. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17 countries, was founded in 1988 and experienced significant growth…

• Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 2: Culture and Organizational Structure Shifts

  Jacob Morgan

  1 Feb 2012 | 12:08 am

  The first part of this case study on the Glaser Foundation discussing business can be found here. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17 countries, was founded in 1988 and experienced significant growth in the last five years, with its employee base increasing from 200 employees in 2006 to over 1,500 in 2011. This was due in part to increased funding from new global health initiatives, such as the…

• Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Pt 1: Business Drivers

  Jacob Morgan

  30 Jan 2012 | 12:08 am

  This is the first in a series of posts on how the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (The Foundation), is implementing emergent collaboration strategies and technologies within its organization. The Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing pediatric HIV infection and eliminating pediatric AIDS through research, advocacy, and prevention, care, and treatment programs. The Foundation, currently working in 17 countries, was founded in 1988 and experienced significant growth in the last five years, with its employee base increasing from 200 employees in 2006 to over…

• 

  HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

• Neuroscience Makes Strong Case for Engagement, Personalization in Marketing

  Corey Eridon

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:52 am

  Recently, Facebook sponsored a study run by NeuroFocus -- found via Search Engine Land-- intended to quantitatively determine how people respond to websites and website ads. The results had some interesting findings for marketers who are wondering how their site structure and ad campaigns affect how users react to their website. Let's just dive right in to those results and see what marketers can learn from their experiments. What the Study Looked At NeuroFocus used devices to measure the brainwaves of searchers when visiting websites, and looked to see if any patterns emerged. The test…

• The History of Marketing: An Exhaustive Timeline [INFOGRAPHIC]

  Corey Eridon

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  Ever since people have had something to sell, we’ve been marketing. But the effectiveness of those marketing methods have waxed and waned over thousands of years, and as consumers and their technologies advanced at a more and more rapid pace, marketers have had to change their game. At one time, cutting edge technology was limited to just a small segment of the population – and these advancements were slowly rolled out to the masses over decades (and even centuries!). Now, adoption rates are faster than the speed of light and more widespread than ever – and it’s…

• How to Score Your Leads So Sales Works the Hottest Prospects

  Pamela Vaughan

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:47 pm

  The good news about inbound marketing is that it can help you attract high volumes of leads. The challenge then becomes, how do you separate the good, quality leads from the people who are just starting to look around? That’s where lead management, and specifically, lead scoring comes in. With lead scoring, you can attach values to each of your leads based on their professional information and the behavior they’ve exhibited on your website. For example, you would likely rank a vice president-level lead who has spent time on both your products and pricing page higher than an…

• A Marketer's Complete Guide to Launching Mobile Apps

  Corey Eridon

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:02 am

  According to former CEO of AppVee and AndroidApps Alex Ahlund, the average cost to develop a mobile app is $6,453 -- and the cost can skyrocket to as much as $150,000 depending on the complexity of the app. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, the money and resources you dedicate to conceptualizing and developing a truly great mobile app can all be put to waste if you don't orchestrate a proper mobile app launch. In fact, in December 2011, the 1 millionth mobile app was pushed to market. To give you an idea of just how quickly these mobile apps are being released, at the end of 2010, there…

• How to Attract the RIGHT Social Media Followers for Your Business

  Meghan Keaney Anderson

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  The benefits of an extensive social reach are clear, but how do you attract the right followers for your company? As with most inbound marketing, relevancy can make or break the effectiveness of your strategy. So to ensure you have a social media following that helps you advance your marketing objectives, start by identifying a set of core topics that reflect the interests of people who typically become your customers. If you're a HubSpot customer, you can use the Keywords App and the Social Media Prospects App to help with this. For example, we at HubSpot would choose the…

• 

  AgencySpy

• Thursday Odds and Ends

  Kiran Aditham

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:20 am

  -GSD&M offers us a SXSW survival guide. Could be useful, attendees. link -Perfect Fools and Hasan & Partners offer us “Kauko,” which is purported to be the world’s first internet-controlled cafe (above). link -For those not feeling Valentine’s Day (and we’re sure there’s more than a few), here’s a site for you. link - New York/San Francisco-based prodco Bodega signed director and one-time JWT and DDB creative Dave Merhar for commercial representation. -Zeno Group helped Seattle’s Best Coffee launch a “yearlong marketing…

• The Planner, The Brief, The Creative, The Thief

  The Advert

  9 Feb 2012 | 7:49 am

  Oh well that’s a curious headline, isn’t it. Who’s the thief? Not important, because it rhymes and you’re reading this so now onto the point. We want to know what you think about planners. Their weeks-long brief writing process has been proven enough that the practice is now an industry standard. And from a business perspective, there’s a lot that can be billed against with planning — research, time, bodies, and of course the decks, which can go a long way to selling through campaigns. So you might not like it, but those planners are probably helping pay…

• And Now, for You Romantics, a Quick Agency V-Day Rundown

  Kiran Aditham

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:42 am

  The fabricated holiday that is Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and, of course, the agency world is cashing in. Since we’ve already seen the W+K contribution, why not showcase other agencies who want to reach consumers who are stuck in Cupid’s crosshairs. Durham, NC’s own McKinney has launched a web app called “Meet Me in the Photo Booth” that lets users invite a partner into a virtual photo booth (webcam necessary), take a few pics and share them on Facebook and Twitter or even print. The agency is also running a little contest where those who tweet…

• Cubes: VIP Office Tour of Seamless

  Andrew Gauthier

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:31 am

  In this episode of “Cubes,” we tour the Manhattan offices of Seamless, the popular online food delivery service. The Seamless headquarters boasts an interactive Google Earth “weather wall,” blood pressure-lowering chairs, a game room with foosball and ping-pong, and a bunch of other cool features. For more mediabistroTV videos, check out our YouTube channel, and be sure to follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Bonin’s Move to Ogilvy is Now Official

  Kiran Aditham

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:19 am

  Just a week after we reported about some buzz that Matt Bonin was leaving the West Coast and TBWA\Chiat\Day LA for a job on the East with Ogilvy, the latter agency has confirmed his move. O&M has officially announced that Bonin is joining the New York office in the newly created role of chief production officer. In a statement, Ogilvy North America CCO Steve Simpson says, “Matt has done in practice—and to wonderful effect—what many agencies are still attempting notionally. He knows how to pull all the levers of production, at all the right times, in the service of the idea.

• 

  The Tom Peters Weblog

• Off the Cuff #2

  Shelley Dolley

  7 Feb 2012 | 8:17 am

  Our Off the Cuff video series is a direct response from Tom to your questions. This is the second video in the series, which poses the question, "What is the greatest piece of advice you ever received that has made you a better writer or communicator?" It's a terrific question for Tom, and he discusses not only writing influences, but touches on public speaking as well. Don't miss the Dan Pink technique at the end; it may feel excruciating in practice, but there's no denying the improvement gained.

• TLBT Video #73Strategy: Measure Innovation

  Cathy Mosca

  3 Feb 2012 | 8:46 am

  We've posted the latest video in The Little BIG Things series on YouTube. Do you think it's impossible to measure innovation? In this video, Tom offers a brilliantly simple, easy-to-implement method for ensuring that a good portion of your work meets the mark on innovation. You can find the video in the right-hand column of this page or watch it at YouTube (time: 2 minutes 3 seconds). Or, get a PDF transcript of the video's content: Strategy: Measure Innovation.

• MOAP #4

  Cathy Mosca

  30 Jan 2012 | 7:53 am

  The latest installment of Tom's "Mother of All Presentations," or MOAP, is now available at ExcellenceNow.com. You can download the PowerPoint version or a PDF. We'll be releasing a section every other week throughout 2012. Part 4 introduces Tom's conviction that encouraging your people to make friends in other functions of the organization should be a top priority. Tom says you should reward such behavior, make it an agenda item. Download Part 4 of Tom's Mother of All Presentations, and learn how and why cross-functional socialization (read, idea-sharing) is essential to business excellence.

• Race to Nowhere

  Shelley Dolley

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:51 am

  Tom has said, "We tell our kids to 'be still,' then tell them to 'read history books'—which are replete (100%!) with tales of people ... who never sat still." This is obviously not the ideal way to cultivate a talented workforce. The education system in the United States still seems to be attempting to churn out well-behaved factory workers. With the enormous pressure placed on teachers to produce sufficient test results, the classroom becomes more about test preparation than exploration and discovery. Albert Einstein, long since deceased, had this to say: "It is nothing short of a…

• Advice, For What It's Worth ...

  Tom Peters

  25 Jan 2012 | 7:20 am

  I was asked to contribute (a very few words) to a family page offering words of wisdom to a graduating high school senior. That's a serious challenge—and I literally spent days on the task. Here, for better or for worse, is the result: Rules For Living Life to the Hilt Nothing will turn out the way you thought it would. There is no bigger waste of time than making plans. Any success you have will be the byproduct of having thrown yourself headlong and without reserve into what you were most passionate about—and then ridden the wave you created wherever and at whatever speed it…

• 

  Drew's Marketing Minute

• The 5 things that will derail your marketing in 2012

  Drew McLellan

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:37 am

  I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but the truth is — most organizations’ marketing efforts stink.  And they stink for reasons well within the marketing department’s control. If you’re worried that your own efforts might fall short — beware of these five danger zones that can derail you in a blink! Inconsistency:  Does your monthly newsletter go out 5 times a year?  Does your copy tone/style fluctuate between somber and casual?  Are your weekly sales calls happening every week? Inconsistency not only waters down your results but it also…

• Crisis communications – don’t wait to create a plan

  Drew McLellan

  6 Feb 2012 | 6:10 am

  Does your organization have a crisis communications plan that you could actually put into action at this very moment? All of the hubub surrounding the Susan G. Komen decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood and then their reversal of that decision following a 72+ hour firestorm of public outrage should have scared the bejesus out of you. If an organization as large, powerful and well respected as Komen can get into that much hot water — and is that ill-prepared to handle it then what in the world would happen to you if there was an accident on your job site, if your CFO embezzled…

• Don’t add frill until your core is rock solid

  Drew McLellan

  2 Feb 2012 | 6:15 am

  A couple times a month a cleaning company comes into our house and does a deep clean. Every time I walk into the house after they’ve cleaned… the toilet paper rolls and tissues sticking out of the boxes are folded in some sort of origami art.  Sometimes, they leave a truffle on the kitchen counter. I get what they’re trying to do.  And it’s a lovely little extra.  Unfortunately, I also find things like: Every waste basket in the wrong spot (they’ve been cleaning the house for over a year) The back door unlocked or a window left open A few lights left on…

• What you don’t know about your sales funnel

  Drew McLellan

  30 Jan 2012 | 5:56 am

  We all think and talk about our sales funnel a lot.  We’re always saying things like: We need to keep it full. We need to stay active with the prospects that have been in it for awhile. On average, it takes a prospect X months to move through it. And so on…. But consider the statistic to the right.  60% of your sales efforts are what happens before you have actively put someone into the funnel.  In other words — it’s not you who is doing the selling. Who is? Your existing customers The customer who left and is working with your competitors Your vendors Your website…

• What’s your purple goldfish?

  Drew McLellan

  11 Jan 2012 | 11:30 am

  Get your free copy of Stan Phelp’s book! A few years ago, I met Stan Phelps, another marketing guy, online (I think he commented on my blog and we started chatting via email) and before I knew it — we were friends.  He was just dipping his toe into the blogging waters and I tried to be helpful along the way. Fast forward to today, January 11, 2012. Stan’s first book, What’s Your Purple Goldfish*, is being released today.  I’ve read it and know you’re going to love it.  Really love it. I’m also very humbled to say that Stan asked me to write the…

• 

  Brian Solis

• Meet the Mother of All Processes

  Brian Solis

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:32 am

  Guest post by John M. Bernard, author of the new book, Business at the Speed of Now, and Chairman and Founder of Mass Ingenuity. Imagine going to work in one of Henry Ford’s factories a century ago, proud that management referred to you a “hand” or a “hammer” or maybe even a “wrench.” The labels reflected Ford’s emphasis on automation and management’s view of laborers as mere cogs in the machine. Screw this nut onto that bolt; weld this strap to that frame; do it over and over and over again until your brain froze with boredom. Of course, management needed workers to get the…

• 2011 Was the Year of the Mobile Consumer, What’s in Store for 2012? Value.

  Brian Solis

  7 Feb 2012 | 10:10 am

  Chris Silva, my colleague at Altimeter Group, released a useful report today that I wanted to share with you here. Mobile is important and I believe you know this. However, when we consider mobile, we often think about the experience when and where it begins. But, we often miss the opportunity to lead a more meaningful journey as it may travel from small screen to larger screens across laptops, desktops and beyond. And along the way, we must now determine our role in this journey to provide information, shape decisions, and influence behavior. In Chris’ report, he reminds us that 2011…

• Season 2 Finale: How Yamaha invests in new customer experiences

  Brian Solis

  3 Feb 2012 | 10:52 am

  This is it…the Season Finale! And, what a way to end Season 2 of (R)evolution…. In this episode, Yamaha shares what is by far the most expansive view of disruptive technology’s impact on business infrastructure and culture on the show to date. What you’ll see is a genuine discussion with Jeff Hawley and Rick Williams of Yamaha explore how an already successful business is exploring new opportunities to better define the customer experience before, during and after transactions. It comes down to workflow. Nowadays, it either works for you or works against you. Here,…

• Smartphones, Tablets, PCs, The Devices People Use to Discover Information in Social Media (and when)

  Brian Solis

  2 Feb 2012 | 3:13 pm

  My friends over at bit.ly published an interesting graph that reveals the devices as well as the days/times that people use different devices and how and when they consume information. As you can imagine, it’s across the board, but as you can see, there are waves that every device follows, except the desktop. Desktops are of course the devices that we can assume people use during work hours. As such, they are most heavily used on weekdays before noon. Interestingly enough, phone traffic peaks at about the same times, but not to similar effects. What’s also telling is that tablets…

• What’s Love Got to Do with It? The 3P’s of Identity

  Brian Solis

  2 Feb 2012 | 6:16 am

  Guest post by Allison Cerra, author of Identity Shift With the 2012 Presidential election looming, there’s no shortage of polls to help narrow the field of candidates. I find a recent one from Fox News to be particularly fascinating. Among other questions, Republican primary voters were asked which Republican presidential candidate is most likeable and which they would most trust with a nuclear weapon. While Newt Gingrich scored at the top of the heap in earning the trust vote, he scored only marginally well on the likeability scale. The topic was discussed on the network’s “Fox &…

• 

  Branding Strategy Insider

• Time For Brand Marketers To Lead A Comeback

  Derrick Daye, The Blake Project

  7 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pm

  It’s a good thing the game between the NFL's New England Patriots and the New York Giants was exciting because this year’s Super Bowl commercials were dull, and what a weird thing to say about the Super Bowl. Generally, it’s the very opposite of that. Perhaps it’s best not to read too much into Super Bowl ads vying for viral buzz (many of which adopted a new pre-game, social media preview approach to generate buzz, albeit some have argued it was poorly done). But there was one thing that stood out. In a noticeable departure from the tradition of Super Bowl Sunday, this year’s crop…

• When To Reposition Your Brand

  Derrick Daye, The Blake Project

  6 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pm

  Brand repositioning is necessary when one or more of the following conditions exist: Your brand has a bad, confusing or nonexistent image. The primary benefit your brand "owns" has evolved from a differentiating benefit to a cost-of-entry benefit. Your organization is significantly altering its strategic direction. Your organization is entering new businesses and the current positioning is no longer appropriate. A new competitor with a superior value proposition enters your industry. Competition has usurped your brand's position or rendered it ineffectual. Your organization has acquired a…

• How To Transform An Under-Performing Brand

  Thomson Dawson

  5 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pm

  Once the decision has been made to continue to invest in an under-performing brand, brand owners will be faced with a new set of challenges completely foreign to them. The temptation is always to do more of what got you there. That rarely works when brands face reinvention.  By that I mean brand relevance. The main reason brands begin to under perform is that people no longer care. When that happens, like it or not, you’ll be starting over from scratch. This is a hard pill for brand owners to swallow, particularly if the brand was once an iconic leader in its category.  For brand owners…

• Logo Design Requirements

  Brad VanAuken, The Blake Project

  4 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pm

  A brand’s identity is a combination of visual, auditory, and other sensory components that create recognition, aid in memory encoding and decoding, represent the brand promise, provide differentiation, create communications synergy, and are proprietary. The logo is one key component. Here is what we look for when we evaluate logo design: Memorable – highest recognition and recall (both of which can be tested for) Including recognition at maximum distances (can be tested for) Aesthetically pleasing Timeless quality - the logo will not become dated Appropriate for the product/service…

• Brand Tagline Requirements

  Brad VanAuken, The Blake Project

  3 Feb 2012 | 9:10 pm

  In definitive global research, The Conference Board has found the development and consistent use of a tagline to be a key factor in brand strategy success. A tagline that succinctly and powerfully communicates the brand’s promise is one of the quickest, easiest and least expensive ways to communicate the brand’s new position to internal and external audiences. It should consistently accompany the brand’s logo in situations outlined by the brand architecture. I believe that developing brand taglines (and elevator speeches) are the most important next steps one can take once a brand has…

• 

  Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

• How to Use a WordPress Blog as a Referral Generator

  John Jantsch

  9 Feb 2012 | 5:19 am

  How to Use a WordPress Blog as a Referral GeneratorThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve seen and heard this scenario countless times. Two perfectly suited strategic partners determine they should start doing some things together in an effort to create referral opportunities for each other. They shake hands and agree that it’s a fabulous idea, but then nothing happens. Mostly nothing happens because there’s no catalyst to get the ball rolling in a way that makes sense. I mean, sure, they could both send out a mass mailing to their clients professing how great the other is, but…

• Turn Your Business Into a Community Building Platform

  John Jantsch

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:36 am

  Turn Your Business Into a Community Building PlatformThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I believe the future of business and commitment building resides in the idea of viewing your business as a platform for your community. The notion of a platform is one that receives a fair amount of play in various contexts. An author is said to possess a platform when they have built a following. Consultants might work with a business owner to build a platform through speaking, writing, blogging and connecting in social media. And finally, many tech firms have built platforms by creating open source…

• Is Your Marketing Producing the Results You Expected

  John Jantsch

  7 Feb 2012 | 5:58 am

  Is Your Marketing Producing the Results You ExpectedThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Quipol Image:One-Fat-Man via Flickr CC The poll question above is a bit loaded and, not that I want to skew the results, the answer for most lies in the fact that they don’t really know what results they expected or what result they are actually getting. Mostly they know the results aren’t what they had hoped for, but that’s another issue. Setting expectations One of the simplest, yet most effective, things you can do is set expectations or goals for your marketing. You can create…

• This Is a Message from Your Heart

  John Jantsch

  6 Feb 2012 | 5:51 am

  This Is a Message from Your HeartThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I had a heart scan the other day – mainly because I’m old and my spouse is convincing in the most loving way. a4gpa via Flickr CCIf you’ve never done it, it’s a pretty incredible experience to get to watch the awesome mechanical miracle that is you heart spray blood in and out through a series of valves, tubes, chambers, levers and doors that any engineer would be challenged to recreate. More often than not the heart is the subject of poems and songs about romance and love but in addition to being a physical…

• Weekend Favs February Four

  John Jantsch

  4 Feb 2012 | 5:32 am

  Weekend Favs February FourThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or from my own travels. First run of the day Telluride Good stuff I found this week: Quipol – Easily create and embed social polls that are very easy to use and very good looking Transcribe – free online tool that makes it much easier…

• 

  The AdHole

• Eli Manning May Be Going to Disney World

  Jason Fox

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:14 am

  But he's taking the haters to school thanks to this print piece from Gatorade G, courtesy of TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles. Nicely done, everyone. Later, Fox Tip of The Hole to AdLand.tv for being the first of hundreds of sources to alert me about this.

• Calling a Sexist a Sexist

  Jason Fox

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:19 am

  My disdain for GoDaddy.com's advertising tactics is no secret to those who know me – either in real life or through this blog. Every year, in my Obligatory Super Hole review of the game's commercials, I automatically give the company's spots F-minuses and forgo linking to the YouTube clips. This year was no exception. Also in this year's sexist crosshairs was Teleflora, which ran an ad to which I gave a one-word review: Telewhora.Thousands, and probably millions, of others feel as I do. But I'm linking to this blog from GSD&M writer Carlotta Stankiewicz because she is, wait for it,…

• Why "1984" Will Always Be the Only "1984"

  Jason Fox

  6 Feb 2012 | 12:59 pm

  It’s been the same for almost three decades now. The Super Bowl rolls into view and the world becomes all a-twitter with talk about which television commercials will or will not ascend as the true stars of the game. The general news media always gets into the act, too, inviting folks like the lovely Sally Hogshead or that not-quite-so-lovely Donny guy to comment on which spot will wow the 14 consumers who haven’t already seen every ad on YouTube. Local stations harass local agencies for their opinions. And, more than likely, every single interview, article and blog will make some…

• The Obligatory Super Hole VI

  Jason Fox

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:36 am

  The Obligatory Super Hole VI Six years in, I’m still clinging to the “those that don’t get to produce Super Bowl ads get to critique them.” This year, however, I’ve chosen to not offer letter grades for the spots (except GoDaddy.com’s automatic F’s). Because let’s not kid ourselves, anyone who was part of producing one of these bits occupies a more enviable position in the ad cosmos than I do. Even the AEs. I hope you know the rules by now: I only review ads shown during the four quarters of the game, so no pre- or post-game bits. No movie trailers, TV show promos or local…

• State Farm Has a Journey Moment

  Jason Fox

  30 Jan 2012 | 2:12 pm

  Proving yet again that writing, directing, casting and editing are everything (shocking), State Farm rolls out this subtle little gem of a spot. It's not quite a match for Allstate's "Mayhem" campaign, which continues rolling strong, but it certainly is a much more appealing "Journey moment" that Neal Schon is having. Ewwww. Later, Fox

• 

  Digital Influence Mapping Project

• Are Social Media Ethics About Actions or Intentions?

  John Bell

  30 Jan 2012 | 12:29 am

  What is your social strategy? Are you trying to increase the amount of positive consumer generated media (CGM) for your brand or are you trying to inspire and manage brand advocacy? The media mindset thinks in terms of CGM. How can they make more of that and put it in all the places where customers will find it. How they “make” that media happen is a means to a simple end.  The social mindset thinks in terms of genuine brand advocacy. How can we give customers, employees, stakeholders a reason and a means to share a sincerely positive point of view about a brand with their friends,…

• Actionable 2012 Social Business Predictions: #4 Social Selling as a Service

  John Bell

  16 Jan 2012 | 1:38 am

  Sales force-driven organizations are wising up to using social media to build relationships with customers. Businesses are investing in sales enablement software like Salesforce.com, iCentera and Jive that have social-related functions internally to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing and some even have ways to manage social contacts. Sales as Content  Sales organizations are all a-twitter about content marketing, certain the answer to closing sales is in a steady flow of just the right white papers or video talking heads. All that is right-minded in my book. The sales process,…

• Actionable 2012 Social Business Predictions: #3 Gamification Endures

  John Bell

  9 Jan 2012 | 12:08 am

  No, it’s really not about gaming. It’s about good old behavioral economics using game mechanics. PFSK recently ran a series profiling how different organizations were using points, leaderboards and social proof to drive behavior change. They have sunk a fair amount of energy into reviewing the use of game mechanics in groups like RecycleBank, LetGive, Stickk and SuMo . They have also produced a report that is worth previewing and grabbing called The Future of Gaming. The world of ‘gamification’ is certainly buzzy if not frothy. Loads of marketers are talking about it. Many startups…

• Actionable Social Business Predictions: #2 Social Insights over Social Data

  John Bell

  5 Jan 2012 | 12:35 am

  We have long been fascinated by the wealth of data we could collect, analyze and put to use via digital media.  It’s taken us years to get beyond the intention and excitement of doing that to actually using data in constructive ways. Now along comes all this social data spread between platforms like Facebook and Twitter and conversation search tools like Radian6 and Sysomos. The promise of knowing what your fans and detractors are saying about your brand is irresistible. The chance to put these social "signals" to use cannot be passed up.   Well, as more brands finally…

• Actionable 2012 Social Business Predictions: #1 Comprehensive Content Strategy

  John Bell

  2 Jan 2012 | 12:30 am

  Timing is everything in business. Business leaders want to embrace innovations the moment before they become profitable business strategy or execution. That goes for most social media-based business solutions. Most annual social media predictions are loose stabs at what may happen and often range from the obvious, “20-whatever is the year of mobile,” to the interesting, “2012 will/won’t be the year of Google+.”   With hard-to-read economic indicators, business leaders don’t need broad meditations on what might happen but rather ways of more precisely anticipating change and…

• 

  Ryan Stephens Marketing

• Passion is Constantly in Flux…So Are You!

  Ryan Stephens

  1 Feb 2012 | 7:23 pm

  Tweet“This book (Incognito) was written over the course of a few years by several different people, all of whom were named David Eagleman, but who were somewhat different with each passing hour.” — David Eagleman Maybe this quote resonates with me because my passions are constantly in flux. In 2009 it was work and Generation Y. In 2010 it was about re-connecting with friends and finding happiness. In 2011 it was education reform and behavioral change. A great professor can make you passionate about a subject. Discovering you’re talented at a work task can make you…

• How to Find Your Passion in the Workplace

  Ryan Stephens

  29 Jan 2012 | 9:52 pm

  TweetRamit Sethi is getting ready to launch his dream job course. Ordinarily leading up to their product launches I temporarily unsubscribe from even my favorite bloggers because I get tired of the ‘hard’ sell; HOWEVER, lately Ramit’s free stuff has been superior to most people’s paid products so I’ve consumed and bookmarked as much I could. I wish I could print it out, get it bound and give it to my friends currently job searching or trying to upgrade their current job situation. More importantly, I wish they’d read it and take action. One of the most…

• 5 Ways to De-Stress in the Office

  Ryan Stephens

  19 Jan 2012 | 6:17 am

  TweetIf you’re doing important work, work that matters, stress is inevitable. No matter how cool, calm and collective you are invariably there will be days where your workload, deadlines, work-life balance, etc. gets all up around you. You can hyperventilate and complain all day or you can take a deep breath and leverage these 5 ways to de-stress in the office. 1.) Attack the Most Impactful Work First Your projects aren’t going to complete themselves. Most of us breathe a sigh of relief when we mark something off of our to-do lists so determine what will add the most value to your…

• “Incognito” Book Review

  Ryan Stephens

  10 Jan 2012 | 8:57 pm

  TweetFellow neuroscientists might claim that this book is derivative and vague, but David Eagleman’s “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain“is not written for them – it’s written for the layman. And while the first few chapters might feel a little dense, the book builds momentum as Eagleman begins to tie the ideas together in later chapters. Here’s some of my highlights from the book. On how your brain interrogates the world: Brains reach out into the world and actively extract the type of information they need. The brain does not need to see everything…

• “Enterprise Social Technology” Book Review

  Ryan Stephens

  2 Jan 2012 | 1:25 pm

  Tweet“Enterprise Social Technology” is a book that flew under the radar in 2011. The book aims to be “a how-to manual that will teach you a process for implementing social technology in its most powerful form.” It wants to give you and your organization a leg up on leveraging social media, social networking and social relevance to change how your business operates and give you a leg up on the competition. And I genuinely feel like it does just that. There’s 12 steps (chapters) in the book and I’m confident that if you read and take action on each step your…

• 

  Search Engine Watch - Latest

• adCenter Increases Ad Text Limit to 71; Adds Budget Overview, Mobile Targeting

  John Rampton

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pm

  To simplify importing ads for AdWords to adCenter and align with industry standards, adCenter has changed the allotted character count in ad descriptions from 70 to 71. Here's a quick look at all the latest changes to Microsoft adCenter.

• A Good Social Media Marketing IDEA: Identify, Deliver, Empower, Amplify

  Miranda Miller

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pm

  Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research and co-author of bestseller "Groundswell", shared tips for success in social and instigating positive change by causing trouble in a way that’s disruptive at Covario’s recent INFLECTIONPoint 2012 conference.

• Google Screenwise Pays People to Search the Web With Chrome

  John Rampton

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 pm

  A new Google project called Screenwise is offering web surfers the chance to get paid to surf the web and help "make Google better." You have to search the web using the Chrome browser and share your data with Google, according to the signup page.

• DOJ to Approve Google's Motorola Acquisition

  V3

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:00 am

  Google's proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility could soon be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ,) sources told the Wall Street Journal. The DOJ is reportedly poised to issue a formal approval on the deal as early as next week.

• New Signals to Search Engines Revisited

  Mike Grehan

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:30 am

  Search engines have evolved from primitive crawling technology and now have a very powerful combination of signals. This downloadable PDF “thought paper” shows how end user data, social, mobile, and personalization are shaping the future of search.

• 

  Flooring The Consumer

• Thoughtfulness in the Retail Experience: Zipcar, Nufloors Coquitlam

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:34 am

  Whenever I come across signs of thoughtfulness in the retail experience, I appreciate it. In this article, I share with you examples from Zipcar [thank you, Gary Petersen!] and Nufloors Coquitlam in British Columbia [thank you, Cynthia Dean!]. You may read the article by clicking on the link: What Goes Into a Thoughtful Retail Experience? Let me know what examples you've come across in your retail travels that have caught your attention. Let me know, too, how you demonstrate thoughtfulness in your business? Thanks for reading! Best, C.B.

• Does 'Green' Feel Good? 5 Tips

  30 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  Do you celebrate 'green' or are you skeptical? Here are 5 tips for ensuring that green feels good to you and your customers: Sustainability and Flooring Marketing: 'Green Should Feel Good' Thanks for reading! Best, C.B.

• Retail Experience in the News: Link for Updates!

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:07 pm

  If you are looking for my weekly updates on Retail Experience in the News, you will find them on the Simple Marketing Now website. More specifically, click on Retail Experience in the News on Flooring The Consumer. Any questions or observations, please let me know. Thanks for reading! Best, C.B.

• Uniqlo's Retail Experience Offers 2 Business Marketing Ideas

  17 Jan 2012 | 6:26 am

  I love coming across new retail experience examples, particularly when they offer ideas for reconsidering the tried and true... This latest blog article is inspired by Uniqlo which recently opened two stores in NYC, in addition to its SoHo store: on 5th Avenue and on 34th Street. To read the article, click on... Two Small Business Marketing Ideas From Uniqlo Comments welcome! Thanks for reading. Best, C.B.

• How to Use eMail to Not Generate Retail Business!

  9 Jan 2012 | 9:48 am

  Here is my latest post inspired by the onslaught of email messages I received from retailers over the holidays. Were you in the same boat? What did you think of the experience? Check out How Not To Get More Business: 7 eMail Retail Experience Horrors! and let me know what you think... and what you would add to the list! Thanks for reading. Best, C.B.

• 

  RefreshWeb

• B2B Afraid, B2B Very Afraid?

  John Rasco

  1 Feb 2012 | 10:12 am

  Despite what you might read, the rosy depictions of B2B tightly integrating social media marketing simply aren’t true. Penton Marketing Services just did a study of 5000 B2B marketers, and this statistic popped out: 81% of B2B Marketers find online marketing moderately to extremely challenging Read more: http://budurl.com/B2BMarketers Well, who wouldn’t be challenged? There’s SEO and PPC. There’s managing the Twitterverse, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, blogging, plus monitoring your competitors and their key employees on all of the above. And on all the industry blogs…

• Welcome New Energy In The Market

  John Rasco

  28 Jan 2012 | 5:21 pm

  In the world of B2B marketing, the fourth quarter is like a wind-up toy slowly coming to a halt. The third quarter is when marketers are busy, priming the sales pipeline. If the deal’s not done by Thanksgiving, it’s probably not happening…unless your client suddenly needs to empty out their 2011 budget. There’s plenty of discussion about 2012 budgets in Q4, but it’s a rare company that can commit to start spending in January. So, it was a pleasant surprise this past week to be super busy working on proposals and projects. I think some consistently positive…

• Dave Barry’s 2011 Year in Review

  John Rasco

  5 Jan 2012 | 9:21 am

  I’m always happy to get past the interminable drudgery of “best of” articles at year-end, but with Dave Barry’s ever-ready wit to balance the painful process of a month-by-month goodbye to 2011, this is a refreshing sendoff. In an election year, I’m sorry to have to point out that the next version of this article is 12 long months away, leaving us only a few interim bright spots to enjoy: the Darwin awards, international Talk Like a Pirate day, and maybe your birthday. Oh, and don’t forget your anniversary! Well, there’s also all the small victories…

• Some Great Work by an Agency Far, Far Away

  John Rasco

  26 Jul 2011 | 4:56 pm

  I was looking to update some statistics today, so I visited many sites via interesting search terms like “best online marketing tactic” and “SEO + lead generation quality.” There was often a disconnect between the purpose of updating and the date of the article, but I did find a company doing great work as an everyday event: Elliance, an interactive marketing agency in Pittsburgh. Having worked in and run advertising agencies, one thing I miss about our focus on the research and analysis side of search marketing is the loss of having graphic designers as part of the…

• What Metrics Matter in Online Marketing?

  John Rasco

  29 Jun 2011 | 9:22 am

  A few months ago, I shared one of those ubiquitous eMarketer charts showing how marketing execs measure the effectiveness of social media. Today, I ran across a new chart showing the top metrics marketers are using for online engagement. An article in the new Fast Company explains that there is typically little, if any, accountability demanded of social media. And it’s interesting, in terms of actual prospects coming to your site, that the top metric most marketers are using is click-throughs, which shows you the dependence of marketing pros on paid search. While we understand the…

• 

  Being Peter Kim

• Is social media free?

  Peter Kim

  2 Feb 2012 | 12:22 am

  In 2002, I was having a budget conversation with my CFO. I was general manager of the online store and we were discussing my requests for FTEs, technology upgrades, and marketing spend. The CFO asked me, "this is an online store...why do we need to spend any more money...doesn't it run itself?" (I'm 99% sure he wasn't joking.) This week, news has been circulating that FMCG company Procter & Gamble will eliminate 1,600 jobs and shift more budget into digital media. The headline over at Business Insider is a bit more incendiary: "P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It's Free To…

• 

  AdWeek: AdFreak

• Sir Paul McCartney Loves His New Wife…and JBL Equipment

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:09 pm

  Two of this week's big themes—love and music—come together in this Doner commercial for JBL starring none other than Sir Paul McCartney. The former Beatle recently married again and wrote a song called "My Valentine" for his new wife. The song is featured in the JBL spot, which will break Sunday during the Grammy Awards, two days before Valentine's Day. "JBL is synonymous with great sound and has consistently met the standards for my music," McCartney says. "I've used JBL's professional equipment throughout my career as a recording artist…

• Clothing Brand Helps You Love the One You're Not With

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:58 am

  If your idea of a great Valentine's Day gift is passionate sex with someone other than the person you're actually dating, then Moosejaw Mountaineering has got your back. The quirky clothing retailer has created a permission slip (link goes to a PDF) that asks your loved one to officially endorse your fling with someone else. The form, offered up today to Facebook fans, begins with a description of how nature's notoriously promiscuous bonobo apes use sex to alleviate social conflict. "With that beautiful spirit in mind," the form says, "I'd like to ask you…

• Ben Stein Is Pissed He Wasn't in Honda's Ferris Bueller Ad

  9 Feb 2012 | 9:34 am

  Ben Stein would have enjoyed Honda's Ferris Bueller ad for the Super Bowl, if it hadn't disrespected him so badly. "They had a guy imitating my voice, they should've had me in it," Stein tells one of the goons from TMZ upon being ambushed at an airport. Frankly, if RPA passed on having Alan Ruck (aka Cameron) appear in the spot, there wasn't much chance for Stein—even though a bellhop in the ad (above) does imitate Stein's teacher character from the movie by droning "Broderick? Broderick?" Asked if he feels disrespected, Stein replies, "A…

• Courtney Stodden Stars in Worst Ad of 2012 So Far

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:04 am

  [Note: This is not a real FreeCreditScore.com ad. See update below.]      Jezebel's writers can be a little overly sensitive, but they're right to heap abuse on this Courtney Stodden ad for freecreditreport.com, because it's just aggressively stupid. The "I'm so wet" line makes no sense, which the article points out. Plus, how do you even catch a mermaid with a fish hook. Plus, Stodden doesn't turn 18 until August, meaning the natural reaction male viewers might have is still technically a felony. That didn't stop her chickenhawk husband,…

• Cycle of Life: Resetting L.A.'s Smoking Deaths Billboard

  31 Dec 1969 | 4:00 pm

  Ushering in the new year at the Smoking Deaths billboard above Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A. has become a somewhat morbid yet surprisingly meaningful tradition. Each year, just before midnight on Jan. 1, locals gather to watch as the numbers, which tally the nation's annual smoking-related deaths, are manually reset to zero. Onlookers aren't necessarily drawn by personal ties to smoking or cancer. A mixture of curiosity, camaraderie and community compel most to make the scene. Gideon Brower, in an affecting piece in the L.A. Times, describes the scene this past New Year's…

• 

  Marketing Pilgrim - Internet News and Opinion

• Majority of Users Say Social Networkers Are Kind and Caring

  Cynthia Boris

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:34 pm

  Need a shot of the milk of human kindness? Spend a little time on a social network and your faith in humanity will be renewed. So sayeth the majority of the 2,260 adults who responded to the latest Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project study. “The tone of life on social networking sites” takes a look at people’s perceptions about their interactions on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 85% of adults said that their experiences were mostly kind. 68% went so far as to say that they had an experience that made them feel good and 61% felt closer to…

• The Sharing Economy: Could It Be the Next Big Thing?

  Cynthia Boris

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:31 am

  Back in the days when we all knew our neighbors, borrowing from them was a common occurrence. Lawn mowers, hand tools, and that insane “cup of sugar” that appeared on nearly every TV show in the 50′s and 60′s. Jump forward to the 90′s and borrowing wasn’t so hot anymore. Much of this was due to the change in the way we live and socialize. People who knew their neighbors well enough to ask a favor became the minority. We also became more possessive. If we wanted it, we bought it. If our friends had it, we bought it. Even if we were only going to use it once,…

• Groupon’s First Public Quarter Is No Deal for Investors

  Frank Reed

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:54 am

  We haven’t talked about Groupon in a while. There is actually a reason for that. Mostly it’s because when we post about the company our readers don’t seem to care. I have wondered why that is (maybe you can help enlighten me in the comments?) but this is somewhat significant to help us understand the state of the daily deal industry. So here we go. According to USA Today The online deals site, reporting for the first time as a public company, said its fourth-quarter revenue nearly tripled, but it lost money and its shares fell sharply after hours. Groupon’s net loss…

• Compete Says Google+ Is Becoming An Enormous Success

  Frank Reed

  9 Feb 2012 | 5:12 am

  No matter how you feel about Google, Plus 1′s and Google + or how you think they should or should not influence search results you have to admit that Google has created some positive social waves for the first time in its history. So just how big is this impact? Compete calls it enormous It is now safe to say that Google+ is becoming an enormous success, with nearly half of the unique visitors of Twitter (40,411,065 unique visitors in December). With a steep upward trend and knowledge of the power behind a Google product, expect continued growth from the unequaled search engine’s…

• Valentine’s Day Shoppers Plan for a Budget Holiday

  Cynthia Boris

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:55 pm

  It’s February. Love is in the air and the chocolates are piling up in the stores. Valentine’s Day is less than a week away but folks are still planning on how they’ll honor their partners without going over budget. A new survey from PriceGrabber shows that 68% of shoppers will spend under $100 on Valentine’s Day, most spending between $25 and $50. For most shoppers, this is about the same as last year. 4% of loved ones are going to be in for a shock when their partner comes home empty handed. In addition to buying for their spouse, 36% of shoppers said they’ll be…

• 

  brandSTOKE

• Best Buy’s smart Super Bowl play

  Kirk

  6 Feb 2012 | 8:17 am

  A few weeks from now, the Super Bowl commercials featuring dogs, babies, sex and celebrities will blur together. Was it Doritos or Bud Light? My nominee for most likely to succeed in the long run is Best Buy’s spot. (Watch it below.) Best Buy borrowed equity from the innovators of smartphone technology, a strategy likely to appeal to its tech-savvy customers. Geek celebrities who implied their endorsements, included: Philippe Kahn, creator of one of the first camera phones Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of text-to-speech Neil Papworth, the person who sent the world’s first SMS message…

• Repost: Advertising’s swimsuit competition, the Super Bowl

  Kirk

  2 Feb 2012 | 4:40 pm

  Let’s be honest. This week, when we chat online or around the water cooler about the Super Bowl commercials, we will not be judging them based upon which are most effective at doing what they are supposed to be doing, which is actually selling something. Instead, we will talk about which spots we “like,” which spots we find most entertaining. We’re judging style, not substance. In pursuit of being popular during and after the game, advertisers and their agencies push the limits to engage us. And we reward them with a couple of week’s worth of buzz. But how…

• Is YouTube the new Super Bowl?

  Kirk

  31 Jan 2012 | 6:15 pm

  Remember when, in order to see the much anticipated Super Bowl commercials, you had to actually watch the game? Not anymore. Acura unveiled its Super Bowl commercial on Monday. On YouTube. Six days before the game. “In previous years, Super Bowl commercials were single-day lightning,” Suzie Reider, head of industry development for the global video team at Google, told The New York Times. “Now, it feels more like rolling thunder.” Social media has changed the strategy. “The reason social media is becoming so important is the price tag,” Derek Rucker, associate professor of…

• Proud sponsor of plagiarized taglines

  Kirk

  24 Jan 2012 | 6:32 am

  Brands used to pay hefty fees to be sponsors of major attractions, such as the Super Bowl. One reason: They benefit by borrowing brand equity from the event. Turns out, there’s a much cheaper alternative. Many brands, for nothing, are claiming “sponsorship” of free-floating concepts. Why borrow equity from the Summer Olympics when a brand can borrow instead from, say, “the American dream?” Here are a few examples: Mutual of Omaha: Proud Sponsor of Life’s Aha Moments American Cancer Society: The Official Sponsor of Birthdays Omaha Steaks: The Official…

• Chobani starts Greek war, wakes giants

  Kirk

  17 Jan 2012 | 6:36 am

  Usually, niché players are satisfied to pull small shares away from the category leaders. And usually, category leaders overlook the incursions. Only rarely does the niché grow to challenge the entire category, but this is exactly the case with yogurt. Until recently, yogurt sales in the U.S. have been dominated by Dannon and Yoplait. Now, Greek-style yogurt, hardly a presence four years ago, dominates. And New York-based Chobani is the niché-turned-category leader, having launched only four years ago. Greek company, Fage, also led the revolution. It began importing its product in 2000 and…

• 

  Marketing Articles | Business Articles

• How to Use Video to Leverage Your Marketing

  Business:Marketing Articles from EzineArticles.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:28 pm

  Today I want to teach you about leveraging your marketing. I met this woman just a couple of days ago and she said, "Oh my Gosh. It's you. You're in the flesh in person. I feel like I know you so well because I watch all your videos."

• What’s That in The Shopping Cart?

  Business:Marketing Articles from EzineArticles.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:13 pm

  When business owners figure out how to measure some benefit of having "market presence" and "brand awareness in real dollars maybe it's more interesting. Because that's the only way you know what's working and what's not so you can invest your marketing funds wisely. See if you can refocus your marketing into a track able comprehensive system.

• How to Blog Better for Your Small Business

  Business:Marketing Articles from EzineArticles.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:35 pm

  Many forget this basic principle; When you have a blog, you must blog. It is very disappointing when you like a brand, head to their blog and see that it has been months, or even a year since their last blog post. I've also seen blogs with the post date removed so they can "get away" with posting less frequently.

• Recognize Top Realtors With Cost-Effective and Stylish Lapel Pins

  Business:Marketing Articles from EzineArticles.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:18 pm

  Certificates of achievement might be the standard when it comes to recognizing professionals for their continued education, but often they wind up hidden away on an office wall that few see. For real estate agents and others who work remotely, a better choice is an attractive piece of jewelry that clients will instantly notice and identify.

• How to Create Content That Attracts Clients

  Business:Marketing Articles from EzineArticles.com

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:12 pm

  I keep hearing the question, "How do you come up with this stuff? When I get to the computer, try to write an article or it's time to turn on the video to create content on video, I'm just staring at something blank."

• 

  Marketing Interactions

• Expectations and Experience are the New Competition

  ArdathAlbee

  6 Feb 2012 | 11:51 am

  For years, B2B marketers have been worried about competitors' products and solutions. They spent a considerable amount of effort trying to differentiate their features and prove their offering is better than another company's version of something similar. As technology continues to shorten product time-to-market and allow for rapid updates and improvements, it's also enabled marketers to become publishers, applying even more pressure to move faster to produce more information than competing vendors. Online publishing is the new version of one-upping. (Competitor A just…

• Marketing Cloud Computing to Non-Believer CIOs

  ArdathAlbee

  2 Feb 2012 | 4:16 pm

  Cloud computing is a pretty big deal. It's one of the top priorities for many CIOs. So, it should be a pretty easy process to build a B2B content strategy that helps CIOs make a purchasing decision. Or is it? I subscribe to a lot of newsletters and have a ton of Google Alerts to help me mine for information I use to learn more about the buyers my clients sell to. In my Inbox today was a bonanza of a resource. SearchCIO sent me a link to: Quick take: Why iRobot's CIO doesn't like enterprise cloud computing This resource is a quick interview with Jay Leader, CIO of iRobot, in…

• Why B2B Marketers Must Address Status Quo

  ArdathAlbee

  31 Jan 2012 | 4:15 pm

  When I do stategic planning workshops with my clients, we get into a lot of discussions about buying stages. Anyone who's followed me for a while or read my book knows that I always start very early in the process with the stage of Status Quo. My definition of status quo is the buyer's current situation. We get to that by answering questions such as: How are they doing what your product enables today? What workarounds may be in place that could be escalating pain? Why should they care about what you're talking about? What would get their attention? What would they need to learn…

• The Content Marketing Continuum: Part 1

  ArdathAlbee

  29 Jan 2012 | 12:25 pm

  Online publishing has changed the game. Yes, the Internet changed everything. You've heard it before. But, what many B2B marketers haven't yet grasped is the shift from start and stop marketing campaigns to approaching online publishing as a Content Marketing Continuum. To make this shift, marketers need a framework, not just the ability to publish content. Marketers are under pressure to create a sustainable buyer experience that results in a profitable outcome. Pushing out stand-alone events or campaigns that stop and start and continuously change in focus is not going to…

• Are Shorter Sales Cycles a Wake-up Call for Marketers?

  ArdathAlbee

  24 Jan 2012 | 4:47 pm

  Marketing Sherpa's chart of the week shows the answer to this question. Q. Please select the time period closest to the length of your organization's entire sales cycle, from first lead inquiry to purchase. In the commentary, Jen Doyle states that these results showing shorter sales cycles correlate to the lower deal prices Marketing Sherpa's annual benchmark survey also discovered. But I think there's more at stake here than lower prices. Everyone has been talking about how much time buyers spend self-educating and researching prior to identifying themselves to vendors.

• 

  Strategic Public Relations

• Links for 2012-02-06 [del.icio.us]

  7 Feb 2012 | 12:00 am

  Super Bowl Twitter, Facebook Use Up More Than 6X Over 2011 If you remember that mobile doesn't simply mean outside and that most everyone watching the game probably owned a mobile phone or had access to a laptop, the above is not a surprise. Advertisers had plenty of "conversation starters" -- from hashtags to shazam tags -- in their ads this year too. Balance your Mix of Stock and Flow Content Like A Pro | The Content Strategist The need for a mix of content and the advantages of mixing it.

• Links for 2012-02-05 [del.icio.us]

  6 Feb 2012 | 12:00 am

  NYPL Labs | The New York Public Library New York Public Library is doing some interesting things in their labs. 4 Ways to Tweet as a Visual Brand Some helpful reminders from mashable that apply to more than visual tweets. Not sure I agree about only using Twitter. As a default, it makes sense. But if you're a luxury brand, for example, I'd suggest using instagram. It all depends on audience...per usual.

• Like Angry Birds [Flickr]

  prblog

  1 Feb 2012 | 3:38 pm

  prblog posted a photo: Great to see folks skipping the F icon and simply using the thumbs up. Makes sense as its a clear call to action. In fact, Facebook changed the Fan action to Like because twice as many people would click Like. And now we will be seeing similar actions offered on Facebook. It's a move to create more "lightweight user actions" on Facebook and create an environment of frictionless sharing. It helps their advertising for one. But it also makes it easier to participate on Facebook.

• Like Orange Tic Tacs [Flickr]

  prblog

  1 Feb 2012 | 3:38 pm

  prblog posted a photo: Great to see folks skipping the F icon and simply using the thumbs up. Makes sense as its a clear call to action. In fact, Facebook changed the Fan action to Like because twice as many people would click Like. And now we will be seeing similar actions offered on Facebook. It's a move to create more "lightweight user actions" on Facebook and create an environment of frictionless sharing. It helps their advertising for one. But it also makes it easier to participate on Facebook.

• Links for 2012-01-27 [del.icio.us]

  28 Jan 2012 | 12:00 am

  Tips for Better Listening based on 7 Types of Listeners | Lead Change Group There's a great stat about how much of communication involves listening. And it's a higher percentage than you think. Yet we're never taught about it in professional development of even college.

• 

  AttentionMax

• Super Bowl 2012 Digital Advertising Trends

  maxkalehoff

  7 Feb 2012 | 10:26 am

  Since 1999, I’ve found myself in digital advertising analysis around the Super Bowl. At Media Metrix and comScore, we focused on website traffic. At Nielsen BuzzMetrics (aka NM Incite), we focused on blog buzz. Now at Clickale, for Super Bowl XLVI, we focused on integration of TV ads with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Interestingly, our analysis revealed that three-quarters of Super Bowl ads were available, predominantly on YouTube, by the Friday before the big game. Also of note, advertisers are scattered as they visibly connect their ads to a range of websites and social channels,…

• Victim Of Malware Attack, Pharma Hack

  maxkalehoff

  5 Feb 2012 | 6:32 am

  As Facebook celebrates the “hacker way” amidst its looming IPO, my website suffers from a serious malware attack, inflicted by some bastard, criminal hackers. (Dont’ worry, this infection impacts my site, and will not harm you.) My ongoing saga… Last fall, several readers of this site notified me that various pages contained names of several male-enhancing prescription drugs. And then others pointed out that a Google search for my name led to search results littered with the same. CRAP! I’d been infected with the “pharma hack”! The purpose of this…

• Cooking Staples

  maxkalehoff

  29 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pm

  If you stock your kitchen with anything, be sure to include cooking staples like olive oil, onions, garlic and dried oregano. I’m not a chef, but I’ve worked as a line cook in some upscale French restaurants during some weird periods of my life. That partly explains while I’m the primary cook in my household. I’m practical. I dish out family meals in little time — while keeping the kitchen clean and sterile. I prep. Today (Sunday), I prepped a meatloaf to bake tomorrow, after work. After the meatloaf, I also prepped some homemade tomato sauce for the night after.

• Email Closings

  maxkalehoff

  28 Jan 2012 | 2:30 pm

  If you want your written correspondance to make maximum impact on an individual, the handwritten letter is always best. File this in my list of personal pet peeves and subtle ways that business people frequently make themselves look stupid… I received a follow-up email last week from a salesperson hoping to sell me his company’s business software. I had already spoken with him on the phone earlier that day. His email recapped our conversation. Great. But his closing —  ”Great to talk to you…Best,” followed by his name — was in the same font as his…

• Teen Drivers And SUVs Are A Lethal Combination

  maxkalehoff

  21 Jan 2012 | 6:33 am

  Cars — and especially SUVs — are lethal machinery. They’re even more lethal when combined with young, inexperienced drivers. The other night at around 10:30pm, nearly asleep after a 19-hour day, we heard a car skid outside our home. We looked out the window to see that a Ford Suburban had spun out of control, side-swiped one of our oak trees, skidded over the sidewalk and through our bushes, and landed halfway into our front yard. I couldn’t get good pictures from my phone that night, but I’ve posted on this page a few next-morning images of the damage. More…

• 

  Sport And Health Blog

• Canadian Pharmacy – Best Way to Get Treated

  Sebastian

  24 Jan 2012 | 2:00 am

  When we get into the topic of sports, one is sure to get into the topic of sports injuries as well. Sports injuries are of many types and vary considerably according to a particular kind of game. There are some injury form that can be more associated with only a specific type of sports overall. When people have sustained injury, especially that of a severe sports injury then it become essential to resort for immediate treatments that includes taking of the right kind of medicines. Canadian pharmacy online is one of the best pharmacies that provides for a great service in providing the right…

• MLS Cup Finals Soon

  Sebastian

  25 Oct 2011 | 7:05 am

  While we in the USA look ahead to the MLS Cup Finals schedule, hoping our teams will make it to the big game, spare a thought for our footballing brothers across the pond. This morning in Manchester, England, the smoke of a thousand fires assails the sky, the black eyes, bruised egos, burnt bathrooms and broken records are littered across the city’s sense of surrealism, in the wake of what was surely the most dramatic derby day defeat ever. Manchester City have triumphed in such an extreme fashion that the Red Devils and their fans are still wobbling their heads, asking themselves…

• Boas and Torres

  Sebastian

  21 Oct 2011 | 1:44 am

  Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas will give a clear indication of Fernando Torres’s place in his long-term plans when he names his team for Wednesday’s Champions League clash against Genk. Torres has been sidelined for Chelsea’s last two Premier League games as a result of his reckless red card against Swansea on September 24, but the ban doesn’t affect European ties so the Spanish striker is available for Genk’s visit to Stamford Bridge. Before his dismissal for a two-footed lunge on Mark Gower, Torres had finally started to show a few glimpses of the predatory…

• NFL Calendar

  Sebastian

  21 Oct 2011 | 1:39 am

  — Jan. 1, 2012—Regular season concludes — Jan. 7-8—Wild-card playoffs — Jan. 14-15—Division-round playoffs — Jan. 21-22—Conference championships — Feb. 5, 2012—Super Bowl, Indianapolis

• Fixtures from England

  Sebastian

  20 Oct 2011 | 10:49 pm

  Friday, October 21 2011 League Two 19.45     Accrington Stanley     -     Cheltenham Town Saturday, October 22 2011 Premier League 12.45     Wolverhampton Wanderers     -     Swansea City 15.00     Bolton Wanderers     -     Sunderland 15.00     Aston Villa     -     West Bromwich Albion 15.00     Newcastle United     -     Wigan Athletic 17.30     Liverpool     -     Norwich City Championship 15.00     Leicester City     -     Millwall 15.00     Coventry City     -     Burnley 17.20     Reading     -   …

• 

  Seth's Blog

• The Weird interview

  Seth Godin

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:06 pm

  To celebrate the launch of Squidoo's new UpMarket magazine, we got permission to post an audio interview I recently did with Darren Hardy of Success. You can find it here. Thanks for listening.

• Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)

  Seth Godin

  9 Feb 2012 | 2:46 am

  If I tell you, "I'm going to the baseball game," it seems as though you're likely to understand what I mean. Of course, you won't. When George Will goes to a baseball game, it's a religious experience. Me, I don't even like baseball. Or maybe it's my nephew's ball game (the playoffs), or maybe going to the game causes me to miss an important event, and on and on. We label the experience with just two words, and two words can't possibly capture the emotions and circumstance surrounding an event. The same thing is true with brands. If I tell you that a new business was funded by USV, that might…

• How do they know you're not a flake?

  Seth Godin

  8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 am

  Before your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will…

• Horizontal marketing isn't a new idea

  Seth Godin

  7 Feb 2012 | 2:09 am

  But it is the new reality for just about every organization. Vertical marketing means the marketer (the one with money) is in charge. Vertical marketing starts at the top and involves running ads, sending out direct mail and pushing hype through the media. Your money, your plans, your control. It might not work, but generally the worst outcome is that you will be ignored and need to spend more money. Horizonal marketing, on the other hand, means creating a remarkable product and story and setting it up to spread from person to person. It's out of your control, because all the interactions are…

• Who is your customer?

  Seth Godin

  6 Feb 2012 | 2:26 am

  Rule one: You can build a business on the foundation of great customer service. Rule two: The only way to do great customer service is to treat different customers differently. The question: Who is your customer? It's not obvious. Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes. Nike, on the other hand, doesn't care very much at all about the people who buy the shoes, or even the retailers. They care about the athletes (often famous) that wear the shoes, sometimes for money. They name buildings after these athletes, court them, erect…

• 

  Hard Knox Life

• “There’s something happening here…”

  Dave Knox

  14 Jan 2012 | 3:22 pm

  As I sit here at our region’s first Startup Weekend, it is clear that there’s something happening here when it comes to Cincinnati’s entrepreneurial scene.  That magic is in the air as we watch over 100 people work on launching a startup in just 54 hours.  The success of this event builds on the momentum of the last 12 months that includes: Venture for America announced that Cincinnati is going to be part of their inaugural class of 4 cities starting Summer 2012. The Brandery had a busy year as we moved into our new home into Over the Rhine and the Kauffman Fellows named…

• Mark Cuban’s 12 Rules for Startups

  Dave Knox

  17 Dec 2011 | 8:39 am

  I just finished reading Mark Cuban’s new ebook How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It. Considering it only costs $2.99, there is no reason for you not to go buy it right this minute. While the entire thing is a great read, I particularly enjoyed a chapter at the end entitled “12 Cuban Rules for Startups.”. They include: Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession. Hire people who you think will love working there. Sales Cure All. Know how your company will make…

• Help Rockfish win iMedia Agency of the Year

  Dave Knox

  15 Nov 2011 | 5:30 am

  Tonight I received the great news that Rockfish is one of ten finalist for the inaugural iMedia Agency of the Year Awards.  With iMedia being one of the leading sources of digital marketing news and insight, this is quite the honor.  But being nominated doesn’t mean that we are the winner.  That title will go to the agency that receives the most votes between now and Friday, November 18th. I am not one to ask for a favor, but this is one of those cases where I will go out on a limb and ask for help.   If you have been impressed with the work we are doing at Rockfish, please take the…

• Join our Roundtable on the Future of Digital Marketing

  Dave Knox

  8 Nov 2011 | 5:49 am

  This week I am taking part in a fun experiment with a new startup called Roundtable.    Roundtable describes itself in the following way: At Roundtable we’re all about empowering meaningful conversations – between thought leaders, between friends, and between curated communities of strangers. It is a really neat concept and one I became interested in after reading a Roundtable on Startup Funding that was hosted a few weeks ago.  I decided to jump at the chance to have Rockfish host a Roundtable on the Future of Digital Marketing.  After all, we call ourselves a “Digital…

• “Kentucky for Kentucky” – This is a Kickstarter campaign I can get behind

  Dave Knox

  26 Oct 2011 | 4:14 pm

  Thanks for the folks at SocialTimes, I came across one of the coolest Kickstarter campaigns that I have seen yet.  ”Kentucky for Kentucky” is aiming to accomplish the following: With your help, we are going to crowd-fund, produce, and air the most epically kick ass Super Bowl 2012 commercial for the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. For Kentucky by Kentuckians. That’s what it means to a be a Commonwealth. It’s a project that Kentuckians all around the world will be proud to be apart of. Join us, become a Kentuckian. While I was not born in Kentucky, I have become an…

• 

  Online Marketing Blog

• Good Content Marketing vs. Great Content Marketing: Learn the Difference From Joe Pulizzi #OMS12

  Ashley Zeckman

  9 Feb 2012 | 3:00 am

  If you are part of the online marketing or content marketing industry you have undoubtably heard of Joe Pulizzi (@juntajoe) and his company the Content Marketing Institute (CMI).  Joe has been a member of the content marketing community for over a decade, and has made it his mission to help brands create quality content and distribute that content through multiple online channels.   This was my first time seeing Joe speak and he made it a great interactive experience, and was of course wearing his trademark Orange. I enjoyed the history that Joe shared with the audience as well as his…

• Innovative Search Features Drive Engagement – Paul Vallez #OMS12

  Ashley Zeckman

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:30 am

  "Google taught us how to search." - Paul Vallez Paul Vallez admits that when he started at HP less than a year ago he had just come from Ask.com and was pretty cocky about what he knew.  Vallez also shares that he wasn’t very open to new ideas and wanted to step into his new position at a big brand and immediately demonstrate value. What was his approach? 75% Cocky 25% Open to new ideas In Vallez’s presentation he identified what he called “3 Key Learnings” that he shared with the audience for improving the way that your search strategy is implemented for…

• #Optimize This: Online Marketing Summit 2012 Presentation

  Lee Odden

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:21 am

  I’m headed to (hopefully) sunny San Diego today for the annual Online Marketing Summit conference where I’ll get to present on one of my favorite topics: Optimization. Of course, if you read Online Marketing Blog very often, you’ll know my definition of optimization is a bit different than traditional SEO.  My post last Thursday “Are You Optimized?” touched on this. The competition for attendance during the breakout sessions at OMS is really tough during the time slot I’m scheduled for. SAP, Wider Funnel and SAP are all presenting at the same time as…

• Online Marketing News: Facebook IPO, Harmonize with Google+, Pinterest Dominates Traffic

  Ashley Zeckman

  3 Feb 2012 | 4:55 am

  Facebook in Numbers: Prior to the IPO The big news in social media and business this week is Facebook’s new IPO.  This infographic from statista and creative commons shares some very interesting figures about Facebook, before it goes public. Highlights include: In 2012 Facebook is expected to reach: 90% of U.S. Social Network Users & 60% of Internet Users. Assuming a valuation of $100 billion, Facebook would be work 67 to 100x’s it’s estimated 2011 net income. The Social Media Buzz “How to Harmonize Google+ With Your Other Social Platforms”  Search Plus has placed even more…

• Essential Shifts in Online Marketing: Are You On Board? Are You Optimized?

  Lee Odden

  2 Feb 2012 | 7:21 am

  Is your company adaptable? Is your marketing optimized? I think most online marketers get the fact that marketing and communications on the web is a fast changing place and that most companies are structured to move at a slower pace than the digital world is evolving. Take for example, the notion of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s been around for about 15 years or so and in just the past few months Google has made the most significant changes ever. Despite the crystal clear focus towards search integration with social, many companies and digital pundits are still skeptical about…

• 

  Tom Martin:

• The Right Way To Launch a Brand on Twitter

  tommartin

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:50 pm

  A Case Study: How to effectively reach bloggers on Twitter. Especially useful to hospitality and hotel marketers engaged in social media marketing in the tourism industry.

• How Do I Create Compelling Content Marketing for My Industry Niche Audience

  tommartin

  31 Jan 2012 | 7:47 am

  What if you're marketing to a niche audience or your product isn't sexy? Is social media really an option for you? Can you reach your audience via Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Facebook? Would anyone read a blog you created? And if so, what the hell would you write?

• The Biggest Social Media Content Mistake Businesses Make

  tommartin

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:55 am

  Wanna know the biggest mistake social media content marketing companies make with their social media and content marketing efforts? "It isn't creative if it isn't found." Confused? Let me explain...

• How Long Before A Social Media Campaign Shows Results

  tommartin

  17 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

  When companies first contact me about launching a social media campaign, they usually have three big questions. First, how much will it cost. Second, how long will it take. And third, how to approach the building of a blueprint for launching the effort. This post answers those questions.

• The State of Travel Marketing Report

  tommartin

  1 Dec 2011 | 3:45 am

  This week the IBM Institute for Business Value published it's Travel 2020: the distribution dilema report, which suggests that travel marketers of all stripes must change their "go to market" strategies if they wish to compete in the future. A complete summary is contained in this post.

• 

  Advertising Lab

• Instead Of Sales, They Seek Applause

  7 Feb 2012 | 11:03 pm

  From a book about which David Ogilvy is quoted as saying: "Nobody, at any level, should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times":  "Advertising is salesmanship. Its principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman's standards. Let us emphasize that point. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales. It is not for general effect. It is not to keep…

• Why Facebook Will Do Search And Why Google Needs Social

  3 Feb 2012 | 1:03 am

  Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture of himself in front of his computer, and an eagle-eyed blogger noticed that his version of Facebook sports a larger-than-usual search box. An unintended leak or not, Facebook competing in search is only a matter of time just as, in retrospect, it was inevitable that Google would integrate social elements deeper into its main product. This is why. It wouldn't be a revelation to say that no large-scale ad delivery system is perfect. Reason one is that, at any given moment, only a fraction of the exposed audience is actively on the market for the benefit…

• Convert Your RSS Into Email Newsletters With Ads

  2 Feb 2012 | 9:17 pm

  This is a sponsored post. RevResponse, a company that helps bloggers make money by selling and giving away white papers and magazine subscriptions, has a new nifty tool that converts a blog's RSS feed into an email with automatically inserted promo offers. RevResponse's aptly named RSS to Email Tool is a welcome addition to the pretty small group of  RSS converters. A field once teeming with start-ups, it is now the domain of a few email newsletter providers, notably MailChimp,  and Feedburner,  a once innovative product that has become stale after its sale to Google and the…

• How To Remove Ads from YouTube Videos

  1 Feb 2012 | 9:07 am

  Simple. Except for the pre-roll.

• Future: The Pirate Bay Loads Up on Physical Goods

  24 Jan 2012 | 3:25 pm

  Not science fiction anymore, this: "Once chairs and other things become content, the prospect of rampant chair piracy turns from unimaginable into very real."  The Pirate Bay is opening a new category for the new kind of piratable stuff: "We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby…

• 

  Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

• Why Super Bowl Ads Suck

  Futurelab

  7 Feb 2012 | 12:18 pm

  I know, they’re funny, and ads with animals and/or kids can't lose. Last night was a ritual for some of us to judge and compare the commercials during a football game that we otherwise wouldn’t have watched. We’re going to spend a few days enduring incessant “best of” lists, marketers will perform some complex gymnastics to explain why the spots are brilliant business strategy, and ad agencies will refer back to all this buzz when it’s time to revive their pitches to sell Super Bowl spots to their clients next year. read more

• So You Want To Be Customer-Centric? (video)

  ath

  7 Feb 2012 | 7:32 am

  I spend a large part of my professional life telling companies that if they truly take their customer's interests to heart, these customers will reward them with their business, their recommendations and their support. But even though I preach this gospel, I have to admit that I never really understood the impact of super-promoters until I experienced it around my book "So You Want to Be Customer-Centric?". read more

• The Next 80% (manuscript)

  Futurelab

  7 Feb 2012 | 3:22 am

  The following text is the manuscript to my presentation The next 80%.     read more

• Research Claims that 25% of Tweets Are Not Worth Reading. So What?

  Futurelab

  6 Feb 2012 | 2:01 pm

  According to research from a team at Carnegie Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology, we think that 25% of tweets are not worth reading. The study found that, when asked to rate tweets by people they follow, only 36% of tweets were marked favourably, 25% were marked less favourably and the balance (39%) received no strong feeling either way. read more

• Brand Experience Brief: Steak ‘n Shake Signature

  Futurelab

  6 Feb 2012 | 12:11 pm

  (Here’s my latest “brand experience brief” — insights and analysis of new and interesting restaurant and retail concepts.) read more

• 

  mobileStorm » Blog

• Survey: 90 Percent of Marketing Teams use Social Media, Yet Investment Remains Low

  Justin Montgomery

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:28 am

  A new survey published today by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) had some interesting findings in terms of social media and the large gap that exists between the attitudes on behalf of large brands and the investment being seen in both time and money. The survey, called “Marketing in Today’s Economy,” surveyed more than 100 marketing executives across North America on their company’s use of email, mobile and social media marketing. The survey found that a full 90% of marketing executives surveyed use social media, and three quarters believe it…

• Best Practices: How mHealth Can Decrease Readmissions

  Cameron Peebles

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:44 am

  How to decrease cost while providing quality care – this is surely one of the key discussion points in every healthcare board meeting over the past decade.  At mobileStorm, we work with healthcare providers on a nearly daily basis to make sure the that healthcare communication solutions that we are bringing to market match the demands of the marketplace as well as the demands of the real world. Dr David Lee Scher, a pioneer of mHealth monitoring techniques, has released a new list of ways that hospitals can decrease readmission rates and it matches most of our experience as well. The…

• Survey: 27 Percent of CIOs Say their Firms Already have Mobile Apps While 22 Percent are Planning one

  Justin Montgomery

  7 Feb 2012 | 11:50 am

  In a new survey conducted recently by Robert Half Technology, it was found that 27% of CIOs polled currently have mobile apps, while another 27% are planning one by the end of 2012. The survey, conducted by an independent research firm and based on telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States, also found that a full 43% are planning mobile apps for 2013 or later. When asked what the greatest challenge was in developing a mobile application, 29% said “collaborating between departments,” while 28% said “finding and hiring IT…

• Projection: By 2016 Remote Health Monitoring Will Reach 3 Million and Smartphones Will Be The Key

  Cameron Peebles

  7 Feb 2012 | 10:20 am

  Juniper Research, the UK based analysis powerhouse, released a new report earlier this month that places the usage rate of remote monitoring solutions much higher that previous projections. According to their studies, cardiac monitoring will be the leading use of the new category of mHealth tools followed closely by diabetes and COPD chronic management.  Driving factors behind the increase are the increasing penetration of smartphones in the worldwide population along with projected increases in computing power. Read the full release by Juniper HERE.

• DMA: Email Brought in $40.56 for Every Dollar Spent in 2011

  Justin Montgomery

  6 Feb 2012 | 11:17 am

  According to the Direct Marketing Association’s recent “Power of Direct” study, email brought in an average of $40.56 for every dollar spent in 2011, with that number projected to decrease to roughly $39.40 in 2012 as many marketers are “missing out on opportunities to fully capitalize on email’s power.” “Too many programs fail to incorporate customer data effectively, to deliver more targeted and relevant emails,” says Matthew Kirsch, senior manager of online marketing at DirecTV. “The challenge with social and other new technologies is that an…

• 

  The Retail Email Blog

• AM Inbox: First reference to Presidents' Day

  9 Feb 2012 | 10:57 am

  The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:Bass Pro Shops, 2/8 — Presidents' Day Sale - Save up to 50%Bass Pro Shops gives us our first reference to Presidents Day, which is Feb. 20 this year. For insights and inspiration for your campaigns, check out the Presidents’ Day 2011 Season Finale.View this email full-sized.J. Jill, 2/8 — J.Jill Denim is a clear winner on Facebook + 20% off!‏Just as they did last August (see Aug. 1, 2011 AM Inbox), J. Jill is once again mining Facebook…

• Season Finale: Halloween 2011

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:57 am

  A look back on seasonal trends, email activity and standout B2C marketing:Start to finish: The first reference to Halloween was on Aug. 9. The final reference was on Nov. 3.The biggest day for Halloween emails was Halloween itself, Monday, Oct. 31. Retailers sent the majority of their Halloween-themed emails after Oct. 9.View this chart larger.Most interesting emails: Sears regularly runs “Midnight Madness” campaigns offering discounts that start in the evening and end at midnight. They recognized that these campaigns would be a great fit for Halloween, sending the following email on Oct.

• AM Inbox: Reacting to unforeseen events

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:41 am

  >>2011 Halls of Fame: Design Hall of Fame, Oopsy Hall of Fame and Subject Line Hall of FameThe Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:Ann Taylor, 2/7 — A Fashion First: Michelle Obama In Ann Taylor!Sometimes you have lots of forewarning of an event, such as the Super Bowl (see Feb. 6 AM Inbox), so you have plenty of time to prepare for the possible outcomes. Other times, you might have a little bit of a warning, such as with a major hurricane like Irene (see Sept. 3, 2011 AM Inbox).

• AM Inbox: Winner of Super Inbox XLVI

  6 Feb 2012 | 12:25 pm

  >>2011 Halls of Fame: Design Hall of Fame, Oopsy Hall of Fame and Subject Line Hall of FameThe Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:Sports Authority, 2/5 — Congrats to the Giants! Get Your Official Championship GearMore Super Bowl viewers than ever watched the game with their laptop, smartphone and tablet at their side—a trend that is only going to grow. So it’s important to seize on the excitement of the game by delivering emails, tweets and other social postings about…

• Week-End Trends: Email volume growth on record pace

  4 Feb 2012 | 12:13 pm

  Email activity and seasonal trends during the past week:The Retail Email Index: The top online retailers sent each of their subscribers 3.8 promotional emails on average during the week ending Feb. 3, 2012. That’s up 4% week-over-week, up 13% from where it was four weeks ago, and up 32% year-over-year.For each of the past eight consecutive weeks, year-over-year email volume growth has exceeded 20%. Considering that email volume grew 16% in 2011, 2012 growth is on track to easily eclipse that mark.The Retail Email Participation Rate: Friday was the most popular day to send retail emails last…

• 

  Service Untitled

• Does America run on “Dunkin’ Donuts”?

  Cheryl

  8 Feb 2012 | 12:29 pm

  Brands Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index sets Dunkin’ Donuts as number one in customer loyalty for the coffee category. Second only to oil production, coffee is the largest commodity sold. The coffee category included ratings on consumer preferences, the consistency of meeting customer expectations for taste, quality, service, and brand value. This is the sixth year in a row the quick food coffee shop has been recognized with the award. Dunkin’ Donuts has more than 7,000 restaurants in the United States and District of Columbia and another 10,000 restaurants in 33 countries.

• Interview with Rob Siefker of Zappos – Part 3 of 4

  Douglas

  7 Feb 2012 | 6:31 am

  This is the third of a four part interview with Rob Siefker, the Director of the Customer Loyatly Team at Zappos. In this part of the interview, Rob talks more about the service metrics that Zappos tracks, how the company empowers its Customer Loyalty Team Members (and has avoided bureaucracy), how escalations to managers work at the company, how the Zappos compensates its employees, and the extensive continuing education programs employees have access to at Zappos and how they work. You can read part one of the interview here and part two here. To read this part, click “read…

• Are mobile devices serving customers properly?

  Cheryl

  31 Jan 2012 | 10:04 am

  Before I leave my house in the morning, I grab my car keys, purse and of course, my smartphone. AT&T sold 9.4 million of these in the fourth quarter of 2011. Is it any wonder that the 2X4 inch tidy packages of computer chips have revolutionized everyday behaviors including the way we shop? We read on them, play Words With Friends, make dinner reservations, buy concert tickets, and frequently text. Now smartphone application users have even surpassed the amount of people texting and talking. Online sales from mobile devices continue to increase as applications scan, share favorites, share…

• Interview with Rob Siefker of Zappos – Part 2 of 4

  Douglas

  27 Jan 2012 | 6:08 am

  This is the second of a four part interview with Rob Siefker, the Director of the Customer Loyatly Team at Zappos. In this part of the interview, Rob discusses how Zappos motivates members of their customer loyalty team, what programs they have in place to recognize good service, and what service metrics the company tracks and how. You can read part one of the interview here. To read this part, click “read more.” Service Untitled: So how do you motivate Customer Loyalty team members? And then how do you keep that motivation up over time? A lot of companies institute programs and…

• The silent exit of poor customer service

  Cheryl

  25 Jan 2012 | 10:07 am

  Most customers who feel they have been the recipients of poor customer service will never vocalize their feelings to a particular organization. According to First Financial Training Services and the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, only four percent of dissatisfied customers ever complain making the other 96 percent essentially ripe for the picking when another company offering similar services or products appear in the horizon. Typically an unhappy customer who perceives that attitude of indifference will tell eight to ten of their friends, coworkers or family members about their bad…

• 

  PR-Squared - Social Media Marketing and Public Relations

• Open Letter to Havas CEO David Jones

  Todd Defren

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:12 am

  Hi Mr. Jones.  I caught your MSNBC interview this morning with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski re: your new book, Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business is Better Business.  You made some excellent points re: how transparency, authenticity and speed will win the day for corporations; about how companies who expect to do well must increasingly expect to do good, as it is becomes ever easier for consumers to suss out egregious behavior and punish bad actors (from un-friending to public humiliation). This is all well-worn territory for Social Media geeks, of course, but it’s always good…

• Facebook IPO is Good for Everybody

  Todd Defren

  6 Feb 2012 | 6:35 am

  Depending on who you ask, the Facebook IPO will result in boundless glory or is destined to be remembered as the final pinprick in an impending burst of the current tech bubble. For my part, whereas in the past I likened Facebook to previous Walled Garden successes like AOL (the AOL of the early 90′s, not the AOL of today – which is a SHIFT client!), in the past 18 months or so I’ve only been impressed by Facebook’s ability to embed itself across the larger, open expanses of the Web. It “rides alongside” us as we surf, versus dictating how and where we experience the…

• Susan G. Komen PR Disaster: Lessons Learned

  Todd Defren

  3 Feb 2012 | 11:27 am

  Wow. It’s been nearly two weeks since my last blog post. Sorry about that. I was out sick. And wow, what a crazy time to sit on the sidelines… Facebook IPO. Hello!  More on that in a future post. Susan G. Komen vs. Planned Parenthood.  Sheesh! Let’s talk about that! (Caveat:  I am a Blue State progressive; whose mother died of breast cancer; who marched on Washington as a college student in support of women’s rights; and whose dear-departed grandmother spoke with horror of the days prior to Roe v. Wade. Got all that?  You’ve been warned.) Just as I started…

• It’s the End of the Web as We Know It … or, Speed Kills

  Todd Defren

  23 Jan 2012 | 9:46 am

  Those of you who follow me on other social nets like Twitter or Facebook know that I am pretty opinionated when it comes to politics.  Suffice to say that I am a card-carrying member of the “Liberal Coastal Elites.”  (I try not to over-indulge or bore folks with it; and I certainly can play nice with my right-leaning friends.) I bring it all up only as a segue to the fact that I am a big fan of Andrew Sullivan’s Dish blog.  Sullivan’s one of the big dogs in blogging; he’s been freshly-empowered by his move to the Daily Beast to experiment…

• Thoughts on a Twitterversary

  Todd Defren

  19 Jan 2012 | 7:18 am

  Let’s take a ramble. One of those automated spambots on Twitter informed me that today was my 5–year anniversary of microblogging.  Wow.  Five years.  Really? What was I up to five years ago? I was living in Boston, in-between my family’s quinquennial moves to San Francisco.  My brain was on fire, as I’d hit upon a worthy successor to the Social Media News Release concept and was just a couple of weeks away from debuting the Social Media Newsroom template. As I look back, 2007 was a prolific time for the entire Social Media industry.  It was not only the year Twitter…

• 

  David Airey, graphic designer

• Print vendors: a few handy resources

  David Airey

  3 Feb 2012 | 5:36 am

  Establishing a good relationship with a printer can make all the difference when it comes to cutting costs. But obviously you first need to find a reliable vendor. I covered a few basic money-saving tips deep in the archives, and previously featured your recommended UK commercial printers. Here are some additional resources from my bookmarks should the need arise. Jessica Hische added a “find by location” tool to Inker Linker (worldwide, but with US focus). Lovely as a Tree contains a UK database of commercial printers. Rob Giampietro published a list of mainly US print vendors…

• It’s not easy choosing a book title

  David Airey

  30 Jan 2012 | 7:36 am

  My book will be aimed at those who are thinking of, or who have started their own design business. The title I wish I’d read a few years ago (although I know I’m going to learn a lot writing this one). It was going to be called The Business of Design, but it’s already published. Then Nikki suggested Business Designed to tie-in with Identity Designed. Great idea, but someone’s sitting on the domain and my purchase request led to nowt. Then Bernadette pitched in with these two ideas: Working in Design The Design Startup I’ve registered both .coms, so it’s…

• How do you find new clients when starting a design business?

  David Airey

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:12 am

  I’ve just put pen to paper on a new contract with publisher Peachpit. This book will focus on the business of design, answering the most frequently asked questions about starting and running a successful design business. The copy deadline is October, so the release-date should be just before the end of the year. Many of you will run your own studio, be in self-employment, or freelance in your spare time. I’d love to share your experiences in the book, and for now, there’s one topic I’m particularly interested in: How do you find new clients when starting a design…

• Music video for the deaf blind

  David Airey

  24 Jan 2012 | 12:57 pm

  Here’s a kind of science experiment that had me thinking. “This video is made to be connected to a metal pad that a low-strength electrical current runs through. The current’s strength modulates in conjunction with the frequency of the wave of the color depicted on screen. Low frequency colors (red/orange) emit a lower level of current than higher frequency colors (blue/green).” By Evan Drolet Cook who lives and works in Los Angeles. But it’s not the actual video I was contemplating. It was our eyesight and hearing. Just as we do our health, it’s incredibly…

• From the reader #7

  David Airey

  19 Jan 2012 | 1:28 am

  Land art. Worth a look. On Kuriositas. The importance of a good crop. A nice visual demonstration of photo manipulation, and how you can use cropping to improve your photos. On ISO50. “Instead of doing two jobs at 50%, or four jobs at 25%, just do one job at 100%.” Do one job properly. Dave Trott on why specialising is the way to go. On Dave Trott’s blog. Beautiful colour in this 60-second ad for Lurpak Butter (embedded below). Via Creative Review. Typographic chocolate holiday gifts. Lunch time yet? Via inspire me now. Uncloaking a slumlord conspiracy with social network…

• 

  CK's Blog

• B2B Mobile Marketing: Featured In BtoB Magazine Article on Mobile Engagement

  CK (Christina Kerley)

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:31 pm

  In this BtoB Magazine article, Mobile advertising: Make it engaging, which I'm thrilled to be a part of, explores the opportunities and challenges of mobile display advertising. My contributions urge marketers to develop engaging advertisements that focus on their customers’ needs. And I also advocate to get creative in using formats prime for the mobile environment, as with using video not just text and graphics. Here's an excerpt: Once ads are delivered, the challenge becomes matching the ad to the medium—because mobile screens are so much smaller, a typical banner ad…

• New Mobile-Marketing Article: Mobile As 'First Screen' For Customers

  CK (Christina Kerley)

  4 Feb 2012 | 1:27 pm

  Big thanks to the BMA (the Business Marketing Association) for running an article with me in their "BMA Buzz" Newsletter. The piece, titled "Mobile Set To Be 'First Screen' For Customers" explores three facets of B2B mobile marketing, namely: (#1) Why it's important for B2B marketers to begin focusing on mobile-marketing opportunities, (#2) Why B2Bs in particular have been slower to move into mobile than their B2C counterparts, and (#3) What should be the top priorities for B2Bs in setting their mobile strategies. The article is located here and in case you…

• Mobile Marketing 101: Unique Experiences For Unique Environments

  CK (Christina Kerley)

  13 Jan 2012 | 10:52 am

  While mobile-marketing tools and strategies will differ amongst different companies; like any strategy worth its salt, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. There is, however, one action that all companies—yes, every single company—must take. We must optimize our content for the mobile environment. Why? Because the mobile environment is unique, our audiences' needs are unique when they're mobile, and the mobile environment has a unique set of best practices, opportunities and constraints. I feature an example above of my own sites (desktop and mobile), which I'm…

• Video Interview: Mobile Marketing At The PPAI Expo

  CK (Christina Kerley)

  4 Jan 2012 | 7:39 pm

  While leading two mobile marketing sessions at the 2012 PPAI Expo in Las Vegas on January 2nd and January 3rd, I did a quick 2-minute video interview on mobile and its tremendous impact upon the promotional products industry... you might find some mobile gems in here to leverage in your own marketing. And for all videos, just go here and for my mobile marketing guide go here • B2B Social Media • B2B Mobile • About CK • CK's Web Site • Services • Contact CK •

• CK On Mobile: Collection Of Video Clips All In One Place

  CK (Christina Kerley)

  24 Dec 2011 | 10:06 am

  Just click around the below image to launch several videos (you'll see several hotspots when you roll your mouse over several parts of the graphic ). Videos are a collection of clips covering many facets, implications and best practices on mobile. Best of all, you don't have to leave the image to enjoy the video content. I created this dynamic graphic through ThingLinkwhich was both fun and easyand I can see many uses of it going forward. In this anytime-anywhere, always-connected world, I like how several images within one graphic can also be connected and become veritable channels…

• 

  Servant of Chaos

• Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week

  Gavin Heaton

  6 Feb 2012 | 6:09 pm

  Sometimes the week takes off without us holding tightly. So that makes it already Tuesday where I live – and I’m yet to catch up with my long list of Monday to-do items. And I am sure I am not alone, right? I hope that these five great posts from last week help you catch up with your busy life! I’ve often thought that blogs (and all the other social media sites, content and interactions that we produce) – when taken collectively – say more about our lives and reputations than we’d like to admit. Jen Stumbles calls this out explaining just how recruitment is changing right beneath…

• Presentation Trends 2011

  Gavin Heaton

  5 Feb 2012 | 9:19 pm

  Take a look back at your presentations from last January/February. Think about how you might do them differently. What would it be – more images? Longer? Shorter? More words? Less video? Personally, my file sizes seem to be getting larger – with higher resolution photos and images blowing out the sizing. I’m using PPTX files – and about 80% of my slides have pictures. This deck on trends from popular web presentation sharing site, Slideshare, provides the details on just what has changed in the last 12 months. Take a look. How do you compare? SlideShare Zeitgeist 2011 View more…

• How Average Is An Average Day on Facebook?

  Gavin Heaton

  2 Feb 2012 | 8:29 pm

  With all the hoopla about Facebook’s IPO, I thought it would be interesting to dig a little below the surface. Brian Solis points out that with 845 million monthly active users and 100 billion friend connections as at December 31, 2011, we’re looking at a valuation of about $5.90 per active user and about 5c per friend. So, for the average Dunbar bound individual, it values your network at around $7.50 (there’s a premium calculation there on your individual active user value). But what does “average” look like in the Facebook world? This infographic from JESS3 provides a nice…

• Who is your Most Valuable Follower?

  Gavin Heaton

  2 Feb 2012 | 7:31 pm

  Here is a nice web app for Twitter built by Alexander Taub and Michael Schonfeld. It’s very simple and straight forward, asking “who’s your MVF” – most valuable follower. You login via Twitter and authorise the app to dig around in your follower list, and after a few moments it tells you which of your followers has the largest following. OK, so it’s not necessarily your most valuable, but your most popular – even still, it’s an interesting question to ask of any audience. Mine is @ONECampaign. Who is yours? Find out here.

• Social Media Week and The Social Enterprise Hub at SAP

  Gavin Heaton

  1 Feb 2012 | 5:18 pm

  Social branding, online communities, social business and product integration are big and popular topics at the moment. Every day you will see blog posts, articles, whitepapers, videos and conferences devoted to these topics – yet there is a vast gap between those who can “talk” about social media and those who “do” social media within a business context. During the week February 13-17, 2012, Social Media Week seeks to remedy this with a focus on the business impact of social media. For those near San Francisco, you will be able to attend the “content hubs” hosted by Cisco…

• 

  Other Side Group » Thoughts

• Infographic of the Week: A History of Disruptive Innovations in B2B Marketing

  Kate Brodock

  3 Feb 2012 | 6:52 am

  An excellent infographic by the team over at Eloqua looking at breakthrough technologies and processes that forever changed one segment of the world: B2B Marketing professionals.  

• Infographic of the Week: Social Networking at Work

  Kate Brodock

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:55 pm

  A new set of stats show that two out of every three people agree that social media should be banned in the workplace.  Simply Zesty brings us some interesting visuals on how social media is seen at work (in the UK…but let’s be honest, it’s probably similar in the US!)

• Infographic of the Week: How America Spends on Electronics

  Kate Brodock

  20 Jan 2012 | 7:46 am

  Ever wonder the who, what, where of electronic lovers in the US? Bundle shows us some cool stats.

• MarketingProfs B2B Content Marketing Report suggests increasing use of content to meet 2012 marketing goals

  Kate Brodock

  17 Jan 2012 | 7:52 am

  A study released last month by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute highlights some significant numbers in the area of content marketing for the B2B industry.  In short, content production has become and will continue to be a major piece of the marketing mix for B2B marketers. There are several high-level takeaways from the report: Content marketing is still very widely used.  90% of B2B marketers used some form of content in their marketing program in 2011, and no individual industry reported lower than a 70% adoption rate. More budget is being spent on content…

• 1 in every 5 minutes online is being spent on social networks (and more data from ComScore’s 2011 Social Report)

  Kate Brodock

  16 Jan 2012 | 7:02 am

  I’ve finally gotten around to reading ComScore’s 2011 Social Report that came out in late December.  There are some great, granular pieces of data taken from March 2007-October 2011. Some key stats: Social Networking is the most popular online activity. 1 in every 5 minutes of time online is now being spent on social networking sites (up from only 6% in early 2007), reaching 1.2 billion people total. Facebook is important. Facebook takes up the largest part of this time, reaching 55% of the worlds’ online population in October. Facebook also has incredibly high engagement,…

• 

  Andy Sernovitz | Damn, I Wish I\'d Thought of That!

• Newsletter #870: The “Experience Amazing Word of Mouth Case Studies — live in Austin, May 10″ Issue

  Andy Sernovitz

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:00 am

  [Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.] Come to the amazing Word of Mouth Crash Course on May 10 in Austin. It’s the “How to be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing” conference, and it’s the only one like it in the world. It’s 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors, all in one thrilling day. The case studies alone will blow your mind! They include: Discovery Communications: Matt…

• The Home Depot’s case study: How to bring your culture to life through an online community

  Andy Sernovitz

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pm

  Come to our upcoming BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media conference in Dallas to hear brands like Farmers Insurance, Rogers Communications, Target, Yahoo!, NVIDIA, Hitachi Data Systems, Verizon, and Autodesk share 8 great case studies on corporate social media. You’ll get practical, how-to advice on developing your social strategy, scaling your program, driving sales, engaging internal and external audiences, and measuring it all — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell Atlanta: One of Tia Robinson’s big ideas: Don’t be afraid to let your…

• Why would a music industry visionary be writing passionately about a turtleneck?

  Andy Sernovitz

  8 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  Bob Lefsetz is a well-know music industry guru who covers critical issues for industry insiders. So why did he write 625 words about a turtleneck from Uniqlo? And then email it to his thousands of email subscribers? And why did my friend Josh Dorf email it to me? Not because he was paid. Not because he was part of some cheesy word of mouth advocacy program. Not because the company asked him to. He did it because true word of mouth, driven by authentic enthusiasm for amazing products, is an unstoppable force. Read this classic example of word of mouth in action: Uniqlo Andy couldn’t stop…

• Save the Date: Word of Mouth Crash Course, May 10, Austin

  Andy Sernovitz

  7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pm

  Big news: We’re bringing back the world’s greatest word of mouth marketing conference: The Word of Mouth Crash Course in Austin on May 10. It’s the original “How to be great at word of mouth marketing” conference: 12 Real-world case studies 12 How-to classes 6 Amazing authors 1 Fast day (Yes, this is the event formerly called Word of Mouth Supergenius. We changed the name to better reflect that you’re going to learn a ton, really fast, while having fantastic fun.) Learn more here: http://wordofmouth.org/crashcourse Important: The first 100 registrants will get 50 copies of new…

• It’s not over when you turn in your homework

  Andy Sernovitz

  7 Feb 2012 | 7:00 am

  Some advice for recent college graduates entering the corporate world: In college, you finish a paper, you take the test, you get to the end of the semester — and you’re done. You can walk away and move on to the next project. No looking back. At work, it’s the opposite. You win when you take and keep responsibility. You own a project, you see it through, you take responsibility, and you make sure it works great for the long term. When it’s time for you to move on, you are responsible for handing off your knowledge and work to the next owner, and you’re not done…

• 

  The Accidental Product Manager

• What Can FishVille Teach Product Managers About Using Analytics?

  Dr. Jim Anderson

  6 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am

  Image Credit You can have any fish that you want in Fishville, if you are willing to pay for it… Here’s a classic product management question for you: how well do you know your customers? I mean, do you know then REALLY well? We all like to say that we know what our customers are looking for, but do we? The product managers over at the online gaming company Zynga (you know, the one that went from nothing to $600M in revenue overnight) can say that they do know their customers very well. They’ve got the analytics to prove it. Fishville: A Case Study In Product Management…

• What “What’s In Your Wallet?” Means To Product Managers

  Dr. Jim Anderson

  30 Jan 2012 | 1:00 am

  Who would have guessed that Vikings could sell credit cards? I’m sure that any product manager living in the U.S. has encountered one of the Capital One ads for their credit cards at some point in time over the last year or so. What might get lost in the blizzard of Capital One ads and promotions that seem to always be around us, is that the product managers at Capital One are very good at what they do. Perhaps we can learn something from them… It’s All About Analytics There are a lot of companies out there that are selling credit cards to consumers. Why has Capital One…

• What A Video Rental Store Can Teach Product Managers

  Dr. Jim Anderson

  23 Jan 2012 | 1:00 am

  Image Credit Can you even remember racing to the video store to avoid late charges? Not to date myself or anything, but can anyone else remember going to the video store on a Friday or Saturday night? I’d wander the aisles and take a look at every movie on the “just released” rack in order to decide which one or two videos I was going to rent. Netflix and the Internet have pretty much killed the video store these days and so what’s a video store product manager to do? (Streaming) Video Killed The Video Store To be a video store product manager in the 1990s was the…

• Is Being Yellow The Worst Product Management Job In The World – Or Not?

  Dr. Jim Anderson

  16 Jan 2012 | 1:00 am

  Image Credit Should A Product Manager Let Their Customer's Fingers Do The Walking? When I was first out living on my own, the arrival of the latest copy of the yellow (and white) pages was a big deal. Since my parents had always received these huge volumes, when I got mine I felt that somehow I was now a “grown up”. Fast forward to the 21st Century and man have things changed. There still are Yellow Pages®, but is it possible that owning this product is the worst product management job ever? What Happened To The Yellow Pages Once upon a time the Yellow Pages ruled the world…

• What A High-End Boutique Can Teach A Product Manager About Marketing

  Dr. Jim Anderson

  9 Jan 2012 | 5:00 am

  Image Credit Just because you are a boutique doesn't mean the big boys can push your products around… So there you are, a happy product manager creating and delivering products that meet your customer’s needs. All of a sudden (but you should have seen it coming) a big box competitor with tons of selection and low, low prices shows up in your backyard. Oh, oh – what’s a product manager to do now? It turns out that we can learn some lessons from the world of women’s fashion. Boutiques have been dealing with this very situation for awhile and they have a thing or two…

• 

  Loud Amplifier Marketing

• Leadership: Are You A Visionary Or An Empowerer?

  Bryan Stapp

  17 Jan 2012 | 5:31 am

  Great quote from from Professor Henry Mintzberg on leadership that really got me thinking..... Related posts:Are You Talking To Yourself? Internet marketing and Rock n Roll go together on the Loud Amplifier Marketing blog.

• Government Raids Gibson Guitars

  Bryan Stapp

  2 Sep 2011 | 5:43 am

  Gibson Guitars raided by the government. Really, was this necessary? No related posts. Internet marketing and Rock n Roll go together on the Loud Amplifier Marketing blog.

• Back To Basics – Call Your Leads

  Bryan Stapp

  17 Aug 2011 | 9:32 am

  Here’s a shocker – most companies don’t call their leads. I really don’t understand how this is possible, but I see it all the time.  And there is a new “secret shopper” study to confirm it. As a sales and marketing guy for mmmmmm years now, this really goes... Internet marketing and Rock n Roll go together on the Loud Amplifier Marketing blog.

• Which Landing Page Will Win?

  Bryan Stapp

  14 Jun 2011 | 7:07 am

  Compare these two landing pages and see which one you think will generate the most calls and leads. No related posts. Internet marketing and Rock n Roll go together on the Loud Amplifier Marketing blog.

• What Charlie Sheen Can Teach Us About Branding

  Bryan Stapp

  25 Mar 2011 | 1:43 pm

  Charlie Sheen has reinforced for me one of the immutable laws of branding -- The Law of The Word. If you’ve read Al Ries’ famous book The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,  you’ll remember the fifth law.   This law simply states that the goal of any brand is to own one word in the... Internet marketing and Rock n Roll go together on the Loud Amplifier Marketing blog.

• 

  Customer Experience Optimization

• Voice of Customer for All Employees

  Administrator

  29 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  Present voice of the customer to all employees, and you will be more likely to reap financial benefits and manage customer experience holistically, according to the 2011 Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study. Although only a third of companies are presenting customer feedback to all employees, those who do reported at least 20 percentage points advantage in the performance of holistic customer experience management, as shown by the gaps in blue and red bar graphs below. Examples of business results attributed to customer experience management efforts include:…

• Payoff for Coordinating Customer Experience Management Enterprise-wide

  Administrator

  24 Jan 2012 | 8:52 am

  Connect your customer experience management efforts across the company, and enjoy exponential benefits, according to the 2011 Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study. Companies with managers (of their top five methods to achieve CEM goals) who meet together quarterly or more often for coordination purposes, or have dotted-line reporting to a single executive or committee tend to enjoy advantages* in the following areas: Role of CEM: Top management’s day-to-day activities indicating that customer experience is a competitive differentiator, CEM is a formal…

• 6 Success Factors for Customer Experience Excellence

  Administrator

  19 Dec 2011 | 3:15 pm

  The 2nd Annual ClearAction Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management (CEM) Benchmarking Study has identified six best practices for strong market performance and customer experience excellence: Coordination among managers of CEM methods. CEM as a determinant of corporate strategy. Presentation of survey results to all employees. Calculation of customer lifetime value (CLV). Action on survey results by owners of customer experience key drivers. Funding of cross-organizational collaboration. These findings may be instrumental to the future of customer experience as the majority of…

• Valuing Customer Value Management

  Administrator

  25 Aug 2011 | 4:59 am

  Customer Value Management (CVM) is widely undervalued in the way we practice customer experience management (CEM). Excellent resources on the CVM topic abound, yet few executives — and even few CEM professionals — are aware of them. Sometimes CVM seems too quantitative or difficult to grasp or implement, but the companies that have distilled customer value management principles are certainly reaping higher value for their stakeholders, especially customers! In addition to step-by-step calculations for customer lifetime value, return on customer, customer equity, customer…

• Customer Value Creation Essentials

  Administrator

  6 Aug 2011 | 1:57 pm

  Value creation is perhaps the single most important aspect of any executive’s job. As such, crystal clarity on what it is and how it’s done should certainly be top of mind. Shareholder value is fueled by customer value; shareholders leave when customers leave, not the other way around. Customer value is an ambiguous term, as it can be used either from the company’s or the customer’s perspective. Few companies know the lifetime value of their customers, or collective customer equity, and more importantly, fewer still know how much customers value their brand, and why.

• 

  Connect - Digital Marketing Expertise from iCrossing

• AdWords Developments in 2012…

  Tobit Michael

  7 Feb 2012 | 2:42 am

  Last year I posted on elements which I’d like to see Google incorporate into AdWords during 2011.   Google claim to have tested over 100 new ad formats in 2011, along with a bunch of new features, so unsurprisingly a couple of my predictions came up.  There are still some omissions which I feel are no brainers, but given the progress made this year I’m pretty optimistic about them. How I did before… Ad scheduling was resolved by automated rules, which opened up to all advertisers in February. Not only that, it allows for some reasonably advanced automation at most levels of the…

• 2012 Mobile Market Share [Infographic]

  Gregory Lyons

  2 Feb 2012 | 8:39 am

  As has become tradition in February we’ve taken a fresh look at the state of the mobile web and who are the main players with respects to Mobile Operating System (Mobile OS) market share. We looked at 15 countries from all corners of the globe to see what the predominant mobile platforms are in that country and how the situation has changed in the last year. 2011 has been a big year for Android, with the platform seeing massive growth in many countries, growing from 17% to 47% in Spain in the last year and from 6% to 45% in Peru. In the UK Android has grown by 10% which has mostly been at…

• Google privacy announcement: “will benefit us…I mean users”*

  Sam Zindel

  26 Jan 2012 | 7:47 am

  [*not an actual Google quote] On Tuesday Google announced via its blog that from 1st March, more than 60 of its privacy policies will be helpfully consolidated into one, easy to read document. What a fantastic idea! We all know how sensitive the issue of internet privacy has become and anything that provides transparency in a simple way has to be of great benefit to internet users. But before we shake Google by the hand for doing the honourable thing and distinguishing themselves from privacy flouters like Facebook, let’s investigate what this privacy update actually means…are Google…

• Is Google using gamification to increase engagement on Google+?

  Daniel.Fernandez

  23 Jan 2012 | 6:54 am

  A new game of Google maps will be available for Google+ customers next month. Below is a screenshot of the video called “Play Your World with Google Maps” released by Google a few days ago. It is not a surprise that Google and other large companies such as Nike, McDonalds or eBay amongst others are taking the online gamer community very seriously.  Let’s take a look at the numbers: Gamer community stats According to Jane McGonigal, author of the book ‘Reality is broken’ the online gamer community –including console, PC and mobile phone gaming – counts for: More than 4m gamers…

• The BIG Fight – Internet Privacy vs Google Analytics 5

  Sam Zindel

  20 Jan 2012 | 4:14 am

  Following the connect post on the content battle by Jeremy Head there is another head-to-head brewing in 2012… With the old Google Analytics (GA) interface being phased out later this month, I take a look at the duel between Internet Privacy and Google Analytics that is likely to be more heated than ever in the coming year. Analysts like myself are preparing to wrestle with reduced data samples and doubts over the reliability of tracking data in Google Analytics. [The purpose of this blog post is to inject an element of humour whilst identifying some of the new GA5 features and…

• 

  Social Media Marketing

• Foursquare in Context

  Scott Monty

  29 Jan 2012 | 8:11 pm

  If you're a regular user of services like Twitter or Foursquare, you've undoubtedly been met with skeptics and naysayers who wonder aloud, "Why would I want to tell anyone what I'm having for lunch?" or "Why would I care if someone is having a ham sandwich?"Fair enough, but the inquisitors fail to take into account the all-important factor in any conversation, whether it's in person or online: context.Context is what allows us to make sense of much of the world around us. "He's so bad!" could have two very different meanings, depending on the the rest of the conversation surrounding it. With…

• Social Media and Travel

  Scott Monty

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:37 pm

  If you're like me, you spend a good deal of time on the road. Whether it's at an airport, on a train or in a car, you're mobile and your digital life is mobile too.The pervasiveness of tablets and smartphones (in addition to the already ubiquitous laptop) is growing daily. Just this week, Apple announced that it sold 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone. It means that more of us are doing things on the web (or mobile web, as the case may be) while we're on the go, and there are certain things those of us in the digital world look for when we travel -…

• Revealing a New Ford in a New Way

  Scott Monty

  13 Dec 2011 | 6:00 pm

  Ford Motor Company has been at the forefront of social media for some time. The Fiesta Movement, the Explorer reveal on Facebook, Doug the Spokespuppet, Ford Social (formerly known as The Ford Story) and being the first brand on Google+ all stand as examples of Ford's success that spans from clever campaigns to a daily commitment to engage.Ford played a significant part in how the automotive industry thinks about social media (and in some cases how large companies think about social media) and now, as we near the 2012 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), at Ford we have an…

• Infographic: 5 Companies That Are Rocking Social Media

  Scott Monty

  29 Nov 2011 | 8:47 am

  This infographic was created by Voltier Digital, a content marketing agency based in Florida, specializing on the creation and promotion of impactful content marketing campaigns for businesses of all sizes.We all know the usual names of companies that are doing well in social media. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the lesser-knowns and why they've had success, either on an ongoing basis or with some one-off efforts that stood out.And since infographics are all the rage, what better way to look at them? Of course, for SEO purposes, I've listed them here as…

• Twitter Business Guide

  Scott Monty

  7 Oct 2011 | 8:53 pm

  I was recently introduced to a compact guidebook for businesses trying to get a sense of Twitter. The microblogging site that allows you to update in no more than 140 characters at at time is deceptively complex and nuanced - especially for a newcomer.This short guide, entitled Twitter Business Guide: Communication and Marketing was written by Jean-Christophe Barré and Dr. Andreas Schroeter and in just 32 pages covers some of the things that may be keeping you and your business away from this platform. For someone who is new to Twitter, this e-book will prove a helpful compass as you…

• 

  Herd - the hidden truth about who we are

• How DOES advertising work then?

  Mark Earls

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:22 am

  For adplanners and the like: In the pre Christmas (holidays to you, Gareth) rush, you might have missed this major U-turn by the lovely folks at Millward Brown research (the people who brought you the "awareness index" a key metric that assumes that advertising achieves its effect primarily by impacting memory - awareness and recall).  Suddenly - after years of dissing those like my chums at Brainjuicer - who dared to suggest that emotions were the key to advertising effectiveness, the folk we used to know as The Leamington Spa Gang have turned 180 degrees. Apparently, emotion…

• Neurononsense revisited: a new dawn?

  Mark Earls

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:05 am

  Last night at a reception in memory of the late and great Ginny Valentine, an old buddy of mine asked me what I thought about the proliferation of neuromarketing techniques and the general air of "brain is best" in market research communities. Perhaps I should have just referred him to David Penn of Conquest who is delighting in being the continuing scourge of snake-oil neuro-research sales persons: his "neuromania" schtick is coming to the MRS in March. Always good value. Regular readers will know that - like David - I'm deeply suspicious of the willing…

• Do this for you

  Mark Earls

  7 Feb 2012 | 11:35 am

  I speak at a lot of conferences and gatherings and such like. Undoubtedly the best of these are the Do Lectures, held in a field in "a small clever country called Wales".  This is my picture from my visit a couple of years ago as a speaker (I went back last year as an audience member) and this is the speech I gave. You should go, too.  Not because of what your ticket does for other people (it helps pay for the free-to-air archive of 200 going on 1000 videos of Do Lectures and it also makes sure that there's another interesting person to spend the days and evenings…

• I'll have what she's having at the RSA

  Mark Earls

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:46 am

        Oops forgot to post the RSA video of Alex and myself explaining the big ideas behind our book I'll Have What She's Having - Mapping Social Behaviour. Here it is  Apologies if you've seen it before - but here it is again...! Enjoy   BTW here's the book itself

• More on Networks from the irrepressible Mr Rheingold

  Mark Earls

  6 Feb 2012 | 3:01 am

  This is a doosie. Not sure we'd agree with everything.Put your feet up for 15 minutes and listen to the man.   

• 

  The Database Diva

• Is Everybody Following Up with Your Customer But You?

  Lori Feldman

  6 Feb 2012 | 11:31 pm

  Are you of the school that says once you close a sale with a new customer, it’s time to go find another one? Guess what? You’re “Old School,” and you’re leaving easy money on the table. You’re also making your job a lot harder than it needs to be. Let’s say it really is 5 times easier to sell an existing customer than it is to find a new one. Then you should spend 80% of your selling time staying in touch with current customers and only 20% of your time prospecting for new business. (Oh, look…we created another 80/20 Rule!) Unfortunately, most…

• Winning Bids in the Hyper-Competitive Sales Quoting Business

  Lori Feldman

  19 Dec 2011 | 11:24 pm

  Sales quotes come in all shapes and sizes. Here's one I call the "Celebrity" sales estimate. It puts your product pics on the runway (and you can add a rep's image and autograph, too.) In the past few months I’ve looked in every nook and cranny of my business for ways to cut costs, especially the “hidden” costs that you don’t realize are adding up. Like inefficient use of time. Turns out one of our big time sucks is sales quoting. Some of our services are straightforward and easy to quote…maybe take a minute or 2. But our really lucrative…

• Rethinking Getting Things Done with ACT!

  Lori Feldman

  16 Nov 2011 | 11:48 pm

  Susan Clark, author of the Sage ACT! Quick Study Guide, is guest presenter on productivity kaizen at the November ACT! User Group meeting. Well, it’s that time of year. My desk is pleading for a desktop clearance intervention and, at my gym, the increased number of cars in the parking lot confirms that it’s do-over season again. The good news is that every end of the year brings each of us a fresh chance to rethink how to get things done better in the new year. Fortunately, the moon and stars are in alignment for our final, end-of-year ACT! User Group on leveraging ACT! for higher…

• Be a Q4 Sales Ninja with a Sales Follow-Up Drip Marketing Campaign

  Lori Feldman

  2 Nov 2011 | 3:29 pm

  Ever since the very first recorded sales call, sales reps, sales managers, business owners and sales trainers have tried to perfect the sales process. The sales call is the championship arena, when honing the sales process and all that sales training really pays off. Sales people shine when they’re in full salesmanship glory in front of a qualified prospect. But we don’t enjoy the process of  *getting in front of prospects*, especially after they’ve gone into what I call “radio silence.” This is where the sales process typically breaks down. Sales statistics…

• Two Obscure Tweaks and One Caveat for Sage ACT! Software

  Todd Viau

  24 Jul 2011 | 7:02 am

  A couple of obscure questions came up this week about using Sage ACT! Software and also one that many people think is a “gotcha.” Q – When using Swiftpage for a newsletter, it will not recognize my secondary contacts. How do I include them in my email blast? A – Sage ACT! only recognizes primary email addresses. This can also be a problem for insurance agents, stock brokers and financial planners who capture spouse and child data in their ACT! contact management systems. The best time to figure out how to email secondary and additional contacts in a company or family…

• 

  60 Second Marketer | @AskJamieTurner

• History of Marketing Infographic from HubSpot

  JamieTurner

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:59 am

  Here’s a fun, engaging snapshot of the history of marketing, brought to you by our friends at HubSpot. Enjoy! History of Marketing Infographic From: HubSpot Marketing Software

• How I Rated the Super Bowl Spots

  JamieTurner

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:45 am

  Part of my job is to watch other marketers and analyze what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong. One of the best times do to that is during the Super Bowl. Last week, CNN asked me to comment on the Super Bowl commercials, which was a lot of fun. After the interview, I decided to take notes and grade each of the spots on a scale of 1 to 10. Apparently, I was the only person on the planet who thought this Cars.com spot was funny as hell. I wasn’t able to see all the spots (hey, a guy has to visit the restroom at some point), but here’s how I rated each spot.

• Which Countries Have the Highest Twitter Usage?

  JamieTurner

  7 Feb 2012 | 1:40 pm

  Not long ago, a company called Semiocast did an analysis of which countries had the highest Twitter usage as a percentage of total population. While the U.S. comes in first in terms of total numbers (with 107 million users), it comes in second to the U.K. in terms of percentage of total population with a Twitter account. Special thanks to Ross Dawson who originally brought my attention to this data via Google +.

• The Top 10 Marketing Trends of 2012

  JamieTurner

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:21 am

  Like most businesses, you probably have your marketing plan for 2012 already in place. But have you built your plan so that you’re ready to respond to the latest market trends? While it’s important to stay focused, it’s equally important to be prepared for the opportunities and challenges that will come from the latest marketing trends. Wondering what the future looks like for marketing in the year ahead? Here are my predictions for the top ten marketing trends of 2012: 1. A broader brand presence across channels With the range of available marketing channels growing all the time,…

• What Were Your Favorite Super Bowl Spots? Vote Here.

  JamieTurner

  5 Feb 2012 | 6:51 pm

  No matter what you thought of the Super Bowl commercials, one thing was sure — it was an awesome game. (Unless you were a New England Patriots fan. Sorry, guys.) What were your favorite spots? Vote for your favorites below. Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

• 

  Think customers: The 1to1 Blog

• Are You Getting the Sales Results You Want?

  Guest Blogger

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:00 am

  In many ways, selling is a bit of a black art. We can't control the customer. They don't buy when we're absolutely certain this one's in the bag, and other times they surprise us with an order in the second meeting. Salespeople pump themselves up every day to go off into the unknown and find revenue. They work hard under a cloud of uncertainty, and at the end of the year, they've put up a number. Then management sticks them with a new quota that 5 to 10 percent higher than last year "just because." And sales managers are trying to manage this process. There’s more… To read the rest of…

• Unexpected Actions Can Transform a Customer Experience

  Cynthia Clark

  9 Feb 2012 | 4:37 am

  Customers have come to expect good products and service. What blows them away is when companies go beyond the line of duty, giving customers more than they expect. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog

• Why Your Business Should be on Pinterest

  Mila D&apos;Antonio

  7 Feb 2012 | 9:07 pm

  Now that your company is just getting the hang of navigating the social world of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, along comes another site that you should start leveraging...Pinterest. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog

• The Rise of the Data-Driven CMO

  Tom Hoffman

  7 Feb 2012 | 6:08 am

  The dawn of a new year often marks a spate of leadership changes within many companies and 2012 is no exception. This includes new marketing leaders that have popped up at Facebook (former Levi's CMO Rebecca Van Dyck), Kenneth Cole (former Anthropologie marketing chief Amy Choyne), Macy's (Martine Reardon has been promoted), and Gilt Groupe (Elizabeth Francis jumps from Intelligent Beauty). And while there are multiple factors that can drive changes in leadership changes (e.g. newly-appointed CEO brings in their own team; CXOs in search of new opportunities), it's safe to say that today's CMO…

• Improve, Transform, or Sustain: What's Your Path to a Better Customer Experience?

  Guest Blogger

  6 Feb 2012 | 11:00 am

  If you're reading this post, there's probably at least one person in your company (you) who's already working to improve your customer experience in some way. That means your company's CX efforts fall somewhere on the curve below. There’s more… To read the rest of this blog posting click here or visit www.1to1Media.com/weblog

• 

  Marketing and Public Relations

• The Importance of Networking

  13 Jan 2012 | 8:45 am

  Networking is important for any single person or industry. Without adequate networking, nobody will know what product or service you wish to provide.

• Logo Board Game Shows the Value of Company Brand Recognition

  30 Nov 2011 | 11:25 am

  Building strong brands is reinforced in family-friendly game that plays on brand nostalgia and pop-culture memory of popular company brands over the years.

• Three Social Media Marketing Trends for 2012

  25 Nov 2011 | 10:07 am

  Three of the major social media marketing trends for the year 2012 - Customer Service via Twitter, Content Marketing, and QR Code Marketing.

• Sponsorship for Non-Profits: Available Opportunities

  7 Nov 2011 | 12:15 pm

  NPOs seeking sponsorship need to know exactly what they have to to offer as vehicles or "properties" for marketing sponsor names/brands.

• Brilliant Branding Strategies of Highly Celebrated Brands

  6 Nov 2011 | 6:12 am

  Apple, Google and IBM, the three highly celebrated brands employ brilliant strategic branding programs that help them retain the top positions every year.

• 

  Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image

• The Death Of The Unconference

  Mitch Joel

  9 Feb 2012 | 8:23 am

  Does anyone remember the unconference? There was hope for collaboration and self-organizing groups, but it seems to have gone the way of the corporate spin machine. I was a massive proponent of the unconference movement (I still am!), but that word has been used so poorly by so many groups that it seems to have all but disappeared. In short: calling your conference an "unconference" just to sound young, hip and with it, actually makes you sound old, out-of-touch and stupid. This past month, I've seen a handful of events that are billing themselves as unconferences when, in reality,…

• How To Get Started As A Business Leader

  Mitch Joel

  7 Feb 2012 | 1:04 pm

  Your life and your success is not obvious. It's not a given. It's not a direct path. I often say that the best careers in marketing (specifically the ones that have a digital/new media slant) are very squiggly. They involve everything from stumbling through university and very crappy jobs to bad choices and decisions that were driven by financial debt instead of personal opportunity. Every year, I do my best to attend the TED conference. A couple of years ago, the name Chris Sacca was bandied around as someone who everyone wanted to not only meet, but hang out with. He was (and still is) a…

• Digital Tumbleweeds And Virtual Crickets

  Mitch Joel

  7 Feb 2012 | 6:51 am

  If you publish online get ready for a lesson in humility. Brands quit publishing content for the exact same reason that many individuals stop publishing content: the brutal reality that nobody cares. As someone who creates and publishes a lot of content online (roughly six Blog posts and one audio Podcast every week), there is both a certain humility and instant humiliation that comes along with the process. The cream rises to the top. Even in a world where two hundred billion videos get viewed every month, the cream still does rise to the top (as the saying goes). It's just that we seem to…

• CTRL AT DEL - The Business Book

  Mitch Joel

  5 Feb 2012 | 11:30 am

  CTRL ALT DEL is the title of my second business book. It will be published in Spring 2013. Following is the official press release and some media mention of the pending project... BUSINESS PLUS To Publish CTRL ALT DEL by Mitch Joel Author of the best-selling business book, Six Pixels of Separation, and President of award-winning Digital Marketing agency, Twist Image, signs with Business Plus for the release of his sophomore book. NEW YORK, February 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Business Plus, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group USA), has announced it will publish CTRL ALT…

• Madison Avenue And Mountain View Collide For The Future Of Marketing

  Mitch Joel

  5 Feb 2012 | 10:41 am

  Episode #291 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. This is also episode #20.20 of Across The Sound. Joseph Jaffe is widely regarded as one of the top Marketing Bloggers (Jaffe Juice) and Podcasters (both Jaffe Juice in audio and Jaffe Juice TV in video). He is the author of three excellent books (Life After The 30-Second Spot, Join The Conversation and Flip The Funnel). A long-time friend (and one of the main inspirations behind the Six Pixels of Separation Blog and Podcast), we've decided to hold monthly conversations, debates and…

• 

  About.com Marketing

• Great Customer Service Captures a Consumer

  7 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm

  Customer service is the key to turning a prospective buyer into a customer. Often, people think that the buying choice is made via price, but nothing could be further from the truth....Read Full Post

• Top 6 Marketing Consultants Share Their Secrets

  6 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm

  There are times that a company seeks to outsource their marketing efforts. Often, when a company does this they seek out marketing consultants. A marketing consultant works with companies to create and implement marketing strategies. A great marketing consultant will be able to not only think creatively but analytically....Read Full Post

• QR Codes - Understanding Best Practices

  4 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm

  You've seen them, those technical looking badges that are appearing everywhere. They are called QR codes, QR stands for "quick response."  More than likely you are seeing at least one daily, perhaps in a magazine, on a billboard, flyer, business card or a sticker on a window....Read Full Post

• Social Coupons - Good for the Small Business?

  29 Jan 2012 | 3:56 pm

  As consumers we love great deals, but do the social coupon offers  make sense for small businesses? For most businesses they are tempted to buy into social coupon sites like Groupon and Living Social. I've seen so many small businesses walk away after they have bought into the "social coupon craze" realizing they may have not only lost money, but diluted their brand....Read Full Post

• Ten Ways Restaurant and Entertainment Industries Can Use Social Media to Market

  24 Jan 2012 | 9:00 pm

  Many businesses are trying to figure out how to use social media to grow their business and increase their revenue. The industries of restaurants and entertainment is no different. I'm always surprised at how many of these businesses are not using social media marketing, but for most, it boils down to the lack of knowledge on how to use this new medium to create commerce in their businesses. Commerce won't come overnight; that I can guarantee you, but by getting involved and adopting social media as a way to engage and interact with your customers and patrons you will find that commerce will…

• 

  THE NEXT WAVE...

• We’re All Marketers Now

  paultroberts

  16 Jan 2012 | 6:46 pm

  Courtesy of McKinsey Quarterly For the past decade, marketers have been adjusting to a new era of deep customer engagement. They’ve tacked on new functions, such as social-media management; altered processes to better integrate advertising campaigns online, on television, and … Continue reading →

• Bare Naked Brand Names

  paultroberts

  11 Jan 2012 | 8:14 am

  Courtesy of Internet Business Law Journal  by Naseem Javed Last century business names were colorfully dressed with uniquely stylized lettering, colorful logos, slogans and contextual support. This century, such ‘stylized dependency’ has been pushed over the cliff by neo-socio-mobile-media-lingo. They’re … Continue reading →

• Use Storytelling Skills to Transform Your Web Content

  paultroberts

  14 Dec 2011 | 3:43 pm

  Courtesy of PR NEWS. By Stephen Terlizzi Traditional PR approaches relied mostly on a well-defined network of contacts to whom you pitched news or an idea and some facts, and the reporter created a story. However, like that famous book … Continue reading →

• Introducing the NEW Facebook Timeline

  paultroberts

  23 Nov 2011 | 12:28 pm

  Courtesy of SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY. You may have heard that Facebook will be rolling out their new profiles and features, including “Facebook Timeline”. As developers for Facebook, the team at MarketMeSuite got early access to it.  This post explains the … Continue reading →

• When Your Brand Message Doesn’t Match How People Search

  paultroberts

  4 Nov 2011 | 3:38 pm

  Courtesy of SEARCH ENGINE LAND. SEO is all about words. Which words people search with; how to use them; and where to put them. Choosing the right keywords is imperative to the success of any SEO campaign. Unfortunately, selecting these … Continue reading →

• 

  Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Day

• Branding Helps Response Rates

  Larry Chase

  2 Feb 2012 | 8:32 am

  Most DM’ers will tell you a well targeted branding campaign will give a lift to direct-response results. Web Metrics Guru Jim Sterne sees much of today’s Social Media campaigns as branding and CRM enablers. So, while you might not be able to easily connect the dots between SocMed and ROI, a well targeted SocMed campaign could help your direct-response campaigns. The “SocMed Helps Direct Response Rates” argument might help you get budget approval from upper management. LC The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers…

• Tell Me What You Want Me to Do

  Larry Chase

  17 Jan 2012 | 8:23 am

  How many times have you gone to a Website, and you can’t figure out what they want you to do? Even if visitors don’t want to take action, they often want to know what action you would like them to take if they were so inclined. This telegraphs to the site visitor where you’re coming from. I see nothing wrong with being straightforward about exactly what your agenda is on a Website. In fact, when I see such clear-headed directions, I’m relieved that I don’t have to spend more time trying to figure out what you’re trying to sell me, how you make money or what…

• Talk to Many as If They Were One

  Larry Chase

  29 Dec 2011 | 9:22 am

  You might have tens of thousands or millions in your audience. But, you really talk to only one person at a time, and your words should come across that way. When you write to faceless thousands or millions, it comes across as superficial as a TV commercial. We all know how meaningful TV commercials are in our lives … not. Pick an audience member or imagine one person, and write to that person. Talk his/her language and reflect the person’s thoughts and feelings in your copy. Can you imagine talking to a friend or colleague in the language and terms of a TV or radio commercial?

• Identifying the Next Small Thing

  Larry Chase

  13 Dec 2011 | 8:20 am

  If you want to stay a couple steps in front of your competitors, keep a sharp lookout. Very often, the next big thing is really a small thing, greatly magnified. Look at Twitter. There’s not much to it. Only 140 characters, in fact. And that’s because the founders wanted to make sure you could easily interact with Twitter on your cell phone. They wanted it to be as easy as, well, texting … which is another one of those small things you see everywhere. But, just because you’ve identified a small thing that takes off, this doesn’t mean you have a meal ticket for…

• Twitter as a Direct Response Channel

  Larry Chase

  24 Nov 2011 | 8:19 am

  Online or offline, a marketing campaign that asks for the sale is called a direct response campaign. Twitter has hundreds of feeds that offer deals on everything you can think of, and then some. Blow-out deals or clearance deals are a natural commercial use for Twitter and other forms of SocMed. Twitter is a good channel for Customer Relationship Marketing, which is also a subset of Direct Marketing. Many B2B sales relationships can take 12-18 months before resulting in an actual sale. Direct Marketers of many disciplines are used to having direct contact with their audiences. Cataloguers and…

• 

  Better Closer

• Using Social Media to Prep Your Next Sales Call

  Bill Rice

  16 Jan 2012 | 5:16 am

  Bill Rice originally wrote Using Social Media to Prep Your Next Sales Call.Getting your prospect to listen to your first sales call can be a matter of 1-3 seconds. Success in this first 1-3 seconds is often the result of making some sort of personal connection–you voice, location, common interest–something that makes you seem human and interested in the person you called. Unfortunately, you are typically calling a complete stranger and that makes it hard to personally connect that fast. Unless you use the power of social media to warm up that relationship. Here are a few of my…

• Wednesday Webinar: SEO Fundamentals

  Bill Rice

  3 Jan 2012 | 4:59 am

  Bill Rice originally wrote Wednesday Webinar: SEO Fundamentals.I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year’s Eve. Are you ready to take it up a notch in 2012? I sure am. January is always an exciting time–fresh beginnings and new challenges. On the flip side it can be a little scary. It’s kind of like an artist staring down a blank canvas hoping to create a masterpiece. Starting from scratch is always hard. That’s why I like to start a New Year by reviewing the fundamentals. In my business (and probably yours), that means taking a look at how I am doing SEO for each of my…

• 5 Sources of New Business

  Bill Rice

  1 Nov 2011 | 4:45 am

  Bill Rice originally wrote 5 Sources of New Business.As sales folks we’re always looking for leads, right? Over the years the most productive trick for me is to have a lot of sources of prospects always churning around in my daily prospecting routine. Here are some of my regular money-makers… Keep Up on the News Whether it’s Google News online or the good old-fashioned newspaper, keep in the know. At least once a week I will spot a person, an organization, or a trend that has an interesting business angle for me. These opportunities are going to look a little different for every…

• 5 Ways to Make Your Sales Numbers Outrageous

  Bill Rice

  31 Oct 2011 | 8:38 am

  Bill Rice originally wrote 5 Ways to Make Your Sales Numbers Outrageous.I’m not going to try to convince you that I have the silver bullet. But, I am going to give you the basic philosophy that consistently makes me money. Good money. Some might even say outrageous money. Be Nice…To Everyone It just makes sense. You’re in the business of referrals. You don’t have to do deals with the devil, but good old fashion manners and politeness will ingratiate you to lots of potential clients. Even those who aren’t will think of you when others ask for a “good guy (or gal)” to…

• 5 Tips to Better Sales Emails

  Bill Rice

  27 Oct 2011 | 7:56 am

  Bill Rice originally wrote 5 Tips to Better Sales Emails.Email is still the most effective marketing technique. It’s easy to automate and highly efficient at bringing in qualified new leads. Whether you are managing a large marketing list or trying to open the door on a new major accounts, these are a few tips proven to increase your email sales results. 1. Subject Line That Look Human It all starts here. Even the best of emails will go unopened 60-80% of the time. That’s why repetition and frequency is important, but that’s another topic. However, to get that 20-40% open rate you have…

• 

  The Quisenblog

• The Evolution of the Super Bowl Ad.

  Mickey

  7 Feb 2012 | 5:04 pm

  Yesterday I had the pleasure to speak at the Spokane Ad Fed monthly program. The subject of my presentation was (most appropriately) the Evolution of the Super Bowl Commercial. Here is the powerpoint from that presentation for your perusal. I look forward to your feedback. Bookmark It Hide Sites

• Just Another SOPA Opera.

  admin

  24 Jan 2012 | 2:53 pm

  Last week, the Internet showed itself to be effective at more than streaming cute cat videos and finding the latest deal on shoes or videos. In a single day, the Internet enabled millions of people to assemble and form what is perhaps the largest protest in the history of the world. Wikipedia's home page on the day of the protest. An almost spontaneous movement that culminated in one historic day of protest effectively killed two bills being debated before Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). I’m definitely not the most well-versed person in regard to…

• Editor’s Choice: The Best of the Quisenblog 2011.

  admin

  29 Dec 2011 | 3:11 pm

  When you publish 12 months of blog posts, some are going to stick out. As we bid adieu to 2011, we thought we’d use our final post of the year to revisit a handful of our favorite posts from the past year. To succeed in Social Media, think like a B-to-B marketer. To be a successful business-to-business marketer, you need to spend time building relationships with your potential customers. And guess what. That’s what social media can help you do. The first janitor in space. Does everyone in your organization—from the C-suite to the folks who mop floors at the end of the day—understand…

• Five resolutions to make in the New Year.

  Mickey

  19 Dec 2011 | 4:27 pm

  Got room on your list for one more resolution for the upcoming year? If you’re a marketer, you won’t go wrong picking one of these: 1) Think mobile. Already, it is reported that more than 40% of smart phone owners have made a purchase by using their smart phone. In fact, about half of them made the purchase while in the store. The mobile phenomenon is just getting bigger. By 2014, it is predicted more people will access the Internet via smart phones and tablets than with all other computers combined. So if your web site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’ll miss a lot of web traffic. Use 2012…

• Where Pepsi got it wrong, Coke got it right.

  Mickey

  14 Dec 2011 | 4:04 pm

  I’m talking about the soft drink marketers’ uses of Social Media here. As you may recall, Pepsi was one of the first big-name marketers to aggressively go “all-in” in a Social Media sense, with its much talked-about “Pepsi Refresh Project.” This was a commitment from Pepsi to support worthwhile causes recommended and voted on by its customers and fans. Pepsi used Social Media (primarily Facebook) to elicit suggestions, to “crowd source” the causes (have fans and friends vote on them), and to report news developments. What gathered a lot of media attention for Pepsi wasn’t so…

• 

  Online Marketing Blog

• Good Content Marketing vs. Great Content Marketing: Learn the Difference From Joe Pulizzi #OMS12

  Ashley Zeckman

  9 Feb 2012 | 3:00 am

  If you are part of the online marketing or content marketing industry you have undoubtably heard of Joe Pulizzi (@juntajoe) and his company the Content Marketing Institute (CMI).  Joe has been a member of the content marketing community for over a decade, and has made it his mission to help brands create quality content and distribute that content through multiple online channels.   This was my first time seeing Joe speak and he made it a great interactive experience, and was of course wearing his trademark Orange. I enjoyed the history that Joe shared with the audience as well as his…

• Innovative Search Features Drive Engagement – Paul Vallez #OMS12

  Ashley Zeckman

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:30 am

  "Google taught us how to search." - Paul Vallez Paul Vallez admits that when he started at HP less than a year ago he had just come from Ask.com and was pretty cocky about what he knew.  Vallez also shares that he wasn’t very open to new ideas and wanted to step into his new position at a big brand and immediately demonstrate value. What was his approach? 75% Cocky 25% Open to new ideas In Vallez’s presentation he identified what he called “3 Key Learnings” that he shared with the audience for improving the way that your search strategy is implemented for…

• #Optimize This: Online Marketing Summit 2012 Presentation

  Lee Odden

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:21 am

  I’m headed to (hopefully) sunny San Diego today for the annual Online Marketing Summit conference where I’ll get to present on one of my favorite topics: Optimization. Of course, if you read Online Marketing Blog very often, you’ll know my definition of optimization is a bit different than traditional SEO.  My post last Thursday “Are You Optimized?” touched on this. The competition for attendance during the breakout sessions at OMS is really tough during the time slot I’m scheduled for. SAP, Wider Funnel and SAP are all presenting at the same time as…

• Online Marketing News: Facebook IPO, Harmonize with Google+, Pinterest Dominates Traffic

  Ashley Zeckman

  3 Feb 2012 | 4:55 am

  Facebook in Numbers: Prior to the IPO The big news in social media and business this week is Facebook’s new IPO.  This infographic from statista and creative commons shares some very interesting figures about Facebook, before it goes public. Highlights include: In 2012 Facebook is expected to reach: 90% of U.S. Social Network Users & 60% of Internet Users. Assuming a valuation of $100 billion, Facebook would be work 67 to 100x’s it’s estimated 2011 net income. The Social Media Buzz “How to Harmonize Google+ With Your Other Social Platforms”  Search Plus has placed even more…

• Essential Shifts in Online Marketing: Are You On Board? Are You Optimized?

  Lee Odden

  2 Feb 2012 | 7:21 am

  Is your company adaptable? Is your marketing optimized? I think most online marketers get the fact that marketing and communications on the web is a fast changing place and that most companies are structured to move at a slower pace than the digital world is evolving. Take for example, the notion of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s been around for about 15 years or so and in just the past few months Google has made the most significant changes ever. Despite the crystal clear focus towards search integration with social, many companies and digital pundits are still skeptical about…

• 

  Five Sparrows Marketing Blog

• What Happened to Your Website?

  Lauren Hobson

  18 Jan 2012 | 9:30 am

  If your small business website was built a few years ago, you may be surprised to hear that it may soon be obsolete (if it’s not already).  Big changes in digital marketing have affected how users access and use the web today, and new technologies have made many old-school websites inaccessible, unreadable, or completely unusable (Read More...)

• 5 Tips to Boost Web Conversion Rates

  Lauren Hobson

  13 Jan 2012 | 10:30 am

  If you’re like many small businesses, you want to squeeze every last drop of value out of your website and online marketing activities.  But do you know which initiatives are worth your time and money?  Do you know the mistakes to avoid? Here are five tips to help you focus on where to put your (Read More...)

• Tip of the Month: “Google Plus Your World” Has Arrived

  Lauren Hobson

  10 Jan 2012 | 10:46 am

  In case you haven’t heard yet, last week Google announced a big change to its search algorithm, called “Google Plus Your World.”  Basically, Your World combines social search (introduced in 2007) with personalized search (introduced in 2009) into a single algorithm that also includes relevant Google+ results.  Google+ was designed to be the overriding glue (Read More...)

• Tip of the Month: Quick Keyword Check

  Lauren Hobson

  9 Dec 2011 | 9:01 am

  Ever notice that as you start typing a search term into Google or Bing, it starts “guessing” what you are typing?  That’s the auto-complete feature, and the terms it displays are often related search phrases and keywords that other people have used when searching.  You can use this feature to check your existing keywords to (Read More...)

• 5 Marketing Take-Aways from 2011

  Lauren Hobson

  8 Dec 2011 | 12:07 pm

  Yes, it’s that time of year; when marketing experts begin compiling their “best-of” lists for the events, tips, lessons, developments, and/or advice gathered from the past year.   And for small businesses, the year brought some very big changes that have already affected the way in which companies must now position themselves in order to stay (Read More...)

• 

  iMediaConnection Blog

• The Rise of Hypersocial

  Damian Hagger

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:16 pm

  Remember when Hyperlocal was a trend? There was a time, believe it or not, before the advent of check-ins, coupons and restaurant finders, where people actually had to decide where they were going (before they went), read the Zagat guide – or even clip a coupon! But then people started checking in on Foursquare, Yelp found restaurants nearby and Groupon presented us with coupons to local stores. Today, most people are using smartphones and most apps they use are hyperlocal, meaning you can find whatever the app’s presenting within a few miles or even feet of you. Enter Hypersocial Social…

• Star Wars, Robots, the Internet, and Marketers

  Josh Messinger

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:08 pm

  I love the Internet. As with most guys who grew up in the Star Wars era, I maintained an abnormal fascination with technology, electronic toys, and the future. While I thought I'd be surrounded by robots and hovercraft by now, it turns out an even cooler future arrived sooner than I expected. Where's my hovercraft? Google maps when I travel, Engadget for toys, the Sartorialist for fashion advice, and funny tweets from Thomas Lennon!! Online advertising powers all of this. I've had a running conversation with Brad Berens for years, the gist of which is that even with the best targeting,…

• Komen's Race for the Clue

  Tony Quin

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:59 pm

  By Todd Copilevitz, Digital Strategist, IQ The reality of this new environment is that speed equals emotion. Logic gets left on the curb when messages are passed along in tweets and status updates. What do these things have in common: Netflix, Bank of America, SOPA, Susan G. Komen for the Cure? Answer: they've all got tread marks on their backs from social media protests. The last six months have provided an amazing string of case studies on how protests movements are being changed forever by the speed and reach of social media. Forget about organizing workers to gather signatures on a…

• How Digital Success Relates to Business Success

  Greg Kihlström

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:02 pm

  You know what you are doing with your social media marketing. I know you know what you are doing. Even though the senior management at your organization knows you know what you are doing, too, there is often a disconnect between the way a digital marketer talks about success and the way the board views the success of the business. The goal of this article is to make your job a little easier by helping you frame your digital marketing successes in a way that even the most skeptical CFO would want to support you. First, a disclaimer: this is not to say in any way that senior executives don’t…

• Creativing :: The 20 best Super Bowl Tweets, Histories of Social Media, and confessions of a young media planner

  Doug Schumacher

  9 Feb 2012 | 11:41 am

  Links pointing to the future of marketing, from the co-founder of Facebook content strategy tool Zuum. The 20 most entertaining Super Bowl tweets Funny stuff. Naturally, a lot of ad references. Via @PublicityGuru Input Error – Histories of Social Media Just came across this site. I like both the content and the URLs implication: That social media may be a new term, but it’s a long-standing phenomenon. Via @jonathansalem Glam Media launches Foodie.com, a culinary site with a social network baked in In the social media wars, what will most likely pull large numbers of people away from…

• 

  Michael Durwin

• Product Review: 8x Zoom Lens

  Michael Durwin

  6 Feb 2012 | 7:12 am

    I recently ordered an 8x zoom lens for my iPhone. Digital zoom on an iPhone looks pretty terrible and of course you can’t zoom the video camera at all. This seriously limits potential video shots and needed to be remedied. I already have a 2x zoom which doesn’t do much so a greater zoom was necessary. I happened across a blog post on GeekSugar that reviewed an iPhone lens wallet that showed a telephoto lens. I followed the link and ta da: PhotoJoJo. I placed my order very easily, something most ecommerce stores could learn from. I received my new lens on Friday. Here it is:…

• Product Review: Hague Mini Motion-Cam Stabilizer

  Michael Durwin

  25 Jan 2012 | 7:41 pm

  I did a little research on camera stabilizers because I found any moving footage was every choppy. I’ve known about Steadicam for years, they were used in both the MTV and Pantene commercials I worked on. I needed a Steadicam for my iPhone! I had no idea if such a thing existed but lo and behold it did! Sort of. Most stabilizer manufacturers make a prosumer device for small, light weight consumer cameras, perfect for an iPhone. I checked out reviews, specs and videos for stabilizers from Steadicam, Hague, Lensse and some great DIY stabilizer videos. Seeing as how I don’t have a…

• Review of Splice and SlowMo

  Michael Durwin

  23 Jan 2012 | 11:28 am

  While working on my iPhone film, I’ve been testing various editing applications, many of which I’ve mentioned already. I wanted to share more detailed info on a few of them. Tis post covered SlowMo and Splice. The former is strictly for slow motion, the later handles editing and slow motion. I won’t be reviewing Splice as an editing tool, you’ll see why soon. SlowMo SlowMo is pretty basic; shoot or load video, slow it down, purview and export the final footage. Splice Cool opening page and easy interface for an app that handles editing, cropping, slow motion. As you…

• A New England Love Story Documentary Part 5

  Michael Durwin

  22 Jan 2012 | 11:07 am

  I finally got a chance to do some lighting tests using my SIMA (SL-10HD) LED light. It connects via cold shoe to my AR-4i, OWLE, or my iPhone via its connector arm and iPhone tripod adaptor. The SIMA uses 2 AA batteries, has no DC input. It comes with an arm that allows you to attach it to a tripod, or tripod adaptor-equipped iPhone. It provides 600 lumens for 45-60 minutes.     Here are some test photos and a test video.   Share and Enjoy:

• A New England Love Story Documentary Part 4

  Michael Durwin

  16 Jan 2012 | 5:44 pm

  I spent the day working on my script. I had been using Evernote for writing until it became useless. When typing the app froze, when saving it crashed. Apparently users have been having this problem for months with no resolution. So, I switched to Pages, Apples version of Word. Unfortunately there is no movie script app and formatting in the iPad was seriously slowing me down. I spent some time today checking out script writing apps on the iTunes store. There weren’t many, only 2-3 of the apps below are for film script writing, and I found one other under “script”, but that…

• 

  Rocky FU

• The Secret Behind The Success of Pinterest.com

  Rocky FP

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:27 am

  Pinterest.com Traffic Trend Launched in March 2010, the invitation only site Pinterest.com received nearly 11 million total visits during one week last December, almost 40 times the number of total visits versus just six months ago. Stats from ComScore showing that Pinterest had 11.7 million unique monthly visitors in January 2011. Pinterest.com Pinterest.com is growing like crazy; check out this website now if you haven’t. Pinterest is not only surprising of its own traffic growth but also being a referral giant (driving more traffic than Google+ and LinkedIn) and retail sites like…

• How to Increase Your Facebook Fans

  Rocky FP

  3 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

  Image via Wikipedia Getting “likes” on Facebook Page is usually the first thing marketers focus after setting up the Page. But how? It’s important to first understand why people “like” and “unlike” a Facebook Fan Page and learn from them; experiment, track and optimize channels and tactics you attempt to increase your Page fans. Why People Like A Facebook Fan Page Learn from the best practices; find out what worked for other companies. A survey by Lithium and the Chief Marketing Officer Council revealed the top three reasons why marketers believe…

• Why Is Singapore’s First Virtual Shopping Wall A Failure?

  Rocky FP

  13 Dec 2011 | 4:12 am

  SMRT QR Codes Shopping Singapore’s public transport service provider SMRT, working with retailer Cold Storage,  transformed some of the wall spaces at its stations into virtual ‘shops’ where commuters can make purchases on the move. The idea is this (via SMRT PR release, PDF): they can order the latest tech gizmo while standing at the station platform, or do a bit of grocery shopping while waiting for their friends at the station foyer; without having to step into a shop, queue, send an SMS or make a call. All that is required is a QR code reader, which is installed in most…

• How To Get Consumers Talking About You

  Rocky FP

  12 Dec 2011 | 3:49 am

  When consumers talk about your company, they’re sharing personal experience with friends and those they don’t know. That could have a positive or negative impact on your business. First of all, it’s important to understand what get consumers to share experiences. Why Consumer Share Company Experience NM Incite’s data shows that 61% of social media users share company experience to “give recognition for job well done”. You should realize that social media is not merely for marketers as its real power can hardly be utilized until it’s embraced by the…

• How to Get High Ranking on Google and Nothing Else

  Rocky FP

  6 Dec 2011 | 4:35 am

  I’m very surprised to see in the past few years that many people conduct search engine optimization (SEO) as if they could outsmart tech giants like Google who have top-notch scientists in the world. Whatever you do for your business via digital, don’t forget the ultimate objective — revenue. To achieve the long-term growth, companies must create “value” for customers and the prospects. Search engine traffic is very cost effective; but don’t ever think the goal of SEO is to drive traffic to your website; your sites may rank very high for competitive keywords,…

• 

  GoodBuzz App - Blog

• Are we doing something important?

  Mawuna R. KOUTONIN

  9 Feb 2012 | 1:45 pm

  On the homepage of Goodbuzz website, there is simple form for visitors and users to share their opinion about Goodbuzz with us. We receive everyday a lot of them, some very funny, some very cheerful, some very supporting, some asking questions or looking for answers. This morning however, when I’ve opened the feedback box, I found this incredibly moving message from a new user: That is really very appealing people earns so much in tips i never knew that , but now i have so looking forward to joining this good buzz. Its a better way to advertise, promote our things online and i think i…

• Why Progammers Are Not Like Us?

  Mawuna R. KOUTONIN

  31 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pm

  Same reality 2 different views

• How People Spend their time Now compared to 15 years ago

  Mawuna R. KOUTONIN

  20 Jan 2012 | 1:45 pm

• Love letters from our customers

  Mawuna R. KOUTONIN

  19 Jan 2012 | 12:56 pm

  We are in love with our customers, and they send us some lovely letters

• More feedbacks, critics and suggestions from our Awesome users

  Mawuna R. KOUTONIN

  18 Jan 2012 | 4:43 pm

  “GoodBuzz has digged out the unknown/neglected value of ‘tips’. The world now understands that ‘tips’ have value and so GoodBuzz!” “This site is great! I’ve never seen anything like it in my life! I think you’ll change my life. It is a new step for human evolution.” “Very interesting website providing tips to spread message,good for small business,artist,designer.Website is providing grater importunity to earn more than now earning from the existing source.proving message to service each other.” “I think that…

• 

  Marketo B2B Marketing and Sales Blogs

• B2B Marketers Need to Get on Board with Social Media… NOW!

  Phil Fernandez

  9 Feb 2012 | 12:16 pm

  by Phil Fernandez For B2B marketers to be competitive and grow in 2012, it’s essential that they not only realize the value of social media, but make a commitment to improved execution. An eMarketer article recently reported on a new Accenture study, which saw a huge gap between “knowing” and “doing” when it comes to social media in the B2B Marketers survey group. The report found that almost two-thirds of B2B marketing executives view social media as an “important” channel to interact with customers, partners, and stakeholders. The problem is that only 7 percent of the survey…

• Utilizing Linkedin to Improve SEO and Organic Visibility

  Jason Miller

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:35 am

  by Jason Miller Your company and its employees are on Linkedin, but are you optimizing their presence? I read a recent article from Search Engine Land that talked about the link between Search Engine Optimization and Linkedin. It was a fascinating look at how a properly optimized Linkedin page, both company and employees’, can boost SEO and organic visibility. The author, George Aspland, CEO of eVision, sums it up perfectly: “Having a company page with associated employees (each with optimized profiles) who are active with a large number of connections, can increase the visibility…

• How to Calculate the Value of a Superbowl Ad

  Seth Resler

  7 Feb 2012 | 9:16 am

  by Seth Resler According to Business Insider, the cost of a 30-second TV spot during the February 5th Superbowl matchup between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants averaged $3.5 million, and topped out at a jaw-dropping $4 million. With companies like Hyundai buying a total of five ads during the Tom Brady / Eli Manning faceoff, 2012 was a record-breaking year for the event, even after adjusting for inflation. I love little kids in Darth Vader helmets as much as the next guy, but here’s the obvious question: Was a Superbowl ad really worth it? Twelve years ago, Seth Godin wrote…

• How to Hire an Awesome Inbound Marketing Manager

  Maria Pergolino

  6 Feb 2012 | 10:50 am

  by Maria Pergolino As you may have noticed, some new faces have joined the marketing team here at Marketo to help improve our online engagement and grow demand from inbound marketing sources. Why? Because we believe that to continue our fast growth we need to scale both paid programs as well as inbound programs including SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing. And it appears we are not alone. Organizations are putting more and more resources into inbound marketing, so I wasn’t shocked to see the chart below from The CMO Club that shows that these skills are the most coveted by marketing…

• Four Signs That You May Need Marketing Automation Help

  Kelly Waffle

  3 Feb 2012 | 7:27 am

  by Kelly Waffle I recently finished a book on Thomas Edison. Contrary to public belief, he did not invent the light bulb—instead he discovered the carbonized filament that made the process of electric lighting more efficient, long-lasting, and available. That is what we as marketers try to do with marketing automation—make the process of marketing more efficient, long-lasting, and available. Most of us, like Edison, are dabbling in the great unknown with trials and errors when it comes to marketing automation. Along the way it can get frustrating. It is said that Edison tried over 6,000…

• 

  retailwire.com

• BrainTrust Query: Facebook IPO Puts Relationships at the Center of Business

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  With its user base reportedly reaching 845 million users globally, Facebook measurements are largely all bigger than life. Amidst the eye-popping numbers included in Faceook's S1 filing, founder Mark Zuckerberg's business perspective was especially interesting. How might Facebook's "bottom up or peer to peer" organizational structure affect retail businesses?

• Rumor Mill: The Amazon Store is Coming

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  A report last weekend by Good EReader said that Amazon, similar to its Quidsi division, was tinkering with the idea of opening a small store in Seattle to show off items such as its various Kindle models and a widely anticipated Android smartphone line. Do you think it makes sense for Amazon to open physical stores?

• The Future of Home Shopping: An App

  9 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  Many a year has passed since shopping channels launched, but the ability to make purchases directly through our television sets has been long in coming. Now Marks & Spencer has become the first retailer to create an app for Samsung's internet-connected Smart television. How may internet-connected TVs transform the at-home shopping experience?

• Walmart: New Nutrition Labeling Program is 'Great For You'

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  Walmart has now officially launched its "Great For You" labeling program, entering the space of providing nutrition information to shoppers with the hope it will lead them to healthier eating choices. Will Walmart find success with its Great For You nutritional labeling program?

• Looking Smart: New Gen Digital Signage Raises Performance Bar

  8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  Digital signage for retail, at least partially written off with the advent of smartphones and tablet computers, may be back in vogue with a few high tech twists. Do you think "smarter" kiosks and digital signage will have a big impact at retail in the near to medium term?

• 

  On Social Marketing and Social Change

• Walmart: Marketing Foods That Are Better For You

  Craig

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:05 am

  Corporations can do responsible marketing to improve people's nutrition behaviors (or call it social marketing). Walmart announces a new point-of-choice food labeling program that will add 'Great for You' on many of its own products and at the fruit and vegetable counter; it will also be made available for free to other brands - though I would not expect a stampede to that offer. In the NYT article today, the usual suspects are herded to proclaim that "the label will only go on a fifth of their products" and "in the midst of all this clutter of competing [food labeling] systems, how helpful…

• Applying Service-Dominant Logic to Social Marketing Programs

  Craig

  13 Jan 2012 | 1:25 pm

  Many social marketing programs, and most public health ones, have shied away from working with their customers or members of their priority groups. Rather, we have stuck with the ‘marketing-to’ approach that Lusch (2007) describes as one of stimulating demand through use of the 4Ps in order to get customers to purchase goods, use services or adopt behaviors, and then be satisfied with their decision, in order to meet organizational (or social) objectives.Service-Dominant marketing Logic (S-D Logic) marks a shift from this 'marketing-to' approach to a 'marketing-with' perspective (Lusch,…

• Service-Dominant Logic and Social Marketing

  Craig

  9 Jan 2012 | 10:18 am

  Is it time for more of us to loosen our grip on the 4Ps of the marketing mix as a necessary ingredient or benchmark for social marketing programs? In the broader marketing world, a growing dissatisfaction with the 4Ps framework has been driving a fundamental shift in the conceptualization of marketing since the 1980s (described as “merely a handy framework” of managerial decision-making variables; Day & Montgomery, 1999). Constantinides (2006) summarized over 40 papers that have been critical of, or presented alternatives, to the 4Ps marketing mix framework. The essence of their…

• Stump the Maven

  Craig

  3 Jan 2012 | 1:38 pm

  Last week I asked for nominations for the best papers in the field of social marketing. Prizes were offered for any nominations that were unfamiliar to me. I received quite a few suggestions and five people came through with "stumpers." The winners are: Alan Andreasen, PhDProfessor of MarketingMcDonough School of BusinessGeorgetown UniversityWashington, DCSteven Chapman, PhDSenior Vice President & Chief Technical OfficerPSIWashington, DC Nurit Guttman, PhDChair, Department of Communication Head, the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics & Society Faculty of Social SciencesTel…

• Top 10 Papers on Social Marketing for 2011

  Craig

  29 Dec 2011 | 2:57 pm

  It's that time of year for retrospectives on the state of whatever. Here we offer our top 10 papers on social marketing published in 2011. Each title has a link to the full article as an html and/or a choice of downloading a free pdf (toll gates are coming down slowly, but surely). They represent a diversity of theory, practice and research from around the globe, and several may get you rethinking your understanding of social marketing in 2012. That might be a good thing - ring in the new year with these! EPODE approach for childhood obesity prevention: methods, progress and international…