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…
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Most Topular Stories
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Throw Away the Maps
chrisbrogan.com6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 am -
Groupon's First Earnings Call Missed the Mark, But It May Not Matter
ReadWriteWeb8 Feb 2012 | 9:28 pmToday in its quarterly earnings call, Groupon reported that it did not meet fourth quarter expectations. The company posted a $43 million loss, or $0.08 cents per share. Despite the loss, Groupon's revenue in the fourth quarter 2011 grew 194% to $506.5 million, up from $172.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. In fact, the fourth quarter 2011 was the company's first quarter of operating profitability since it opening international operations in the second quarter of 2010. This brings everyone back to the same question: Is the daily deals model a real, legitimate business, or is it just a… -
The “New” SEO Secret Weapon
Copyblogger8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIf you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines. Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle. Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated. There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO. It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see… -
How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
@ProBlogger8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis 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… -
Hipster CEO Also Apologizes For Address Book-Gate, Calls For “Application Privacy Summit” [Guest Post]
TechCrunch8 Feb 2012 | 8:07 pmThe following is a guest post from Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow, following yesterday and today’s revelations that select apps were uploading users’ entire address books to their databases. We blew it, we’re sorry, and we’re going to make it right. It’s Hipster’s goal to provide a fun and beautiful service for our community to share where they are, and what they are doing – creating a safe environment for our users is of the utmost importance to us. However, when we built our “Find Friends” feature for iOS, we clearly dropped the ball when it comes to protecting our…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Throw Away the Maps
6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople 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
5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amThe 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
3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amJacq 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
2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 amI 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
30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 amThe 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…
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ReadWriteWeb
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Groupon's First Earnings Call Missed the Mark, But It May Not Matter
8 Feb 2012 | 9:28 pmToday in its quarterly earnings call, Groupon reported that it did not meet fourth quarter expectations. The company posted a $43 million loss, or $0.08 cents per share. Despite the loss, Groupon's revenue in the fourth quarter 2011 grew 194% to $506.5 million, up from $172.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. In fact, the fourth quarter 2011 was the company's first quarter of operating profitability since it opening international operations in the second quarter of 2010. This brings everyone back to the same question: Is the daily deals model a real, legitimate business, or is it just a… -
Daily Wrap: January's List of Apps You Need to See and more
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pmDan Rowinski rounds up the best apps, in our opinion, of January 2012. This and more in today's Daily Wrap. Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well. Sponsor New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012 In what is surely a labor of love, Dan Rowinski combs through the mass of apps released… -
Stop Saying "Finally"
8 Feb 2012 | 5:50 pmFIIIINALLY! Google released a Chrome beta for Android! GODDDDD. What took them so long? All the Ice Cream Sandwich users have been waiting, like, FOREVER! Finally, Tweetbot for iPad came out. I've only been asking them for, like, EIGHT MONTHS! Jeez. Apple fiiiinally released iTunes Match after a whole month, and it didn't even work right! Listen to how this sounds. How do we, the tech bloggers, get away with headlines like this? Where do users get off complaining impatiently about updates to a service that costs them $2.99? Or a free service? Let's have a reality check. Remember how awesome… -
10 Ways to Win Over Writers
8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 pmAs a PR person, product developer, CEO or whatever, you're probably more interested in getting noticed by the media than developing a relationship with a particular writer. That's one way to go about it. Then there's that old-fashioned "building a relationship with a real person not a robot" idea. You know, treating people like people and taking the time to get to know them. Oh right, yeah, forgot about that. Writers, like artists, are sensitive to ideas and people. But not every writer will get you or your product - and in the tech world as in any world, each writer has their own… -
Nginx Continues Growth, Adds Commercial Offerings
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmAccording to the Netcraft Web Server Survey for February 2012, Nginx was "the only server to experience a non-negligible market share increase this month" by picking up 0.27 percentage points. Good news for the upstart Web server, just as the brand-new company behind Nginx takes the wraps off its commercial packages. Nginx has had quite the growth spurt over the past year. In February of last year Nginx had 7.57% of the market, or about 21 million domains hosted with Nginx. Microsoft had 20.04%, or about 57 million. Apache was at 60.10%, with more than 171 million domains. Sponsor…
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Copyblogger
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The “New” SEO Secret Weapon
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIf you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines. Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle. Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated. There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO. It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see… -
8 Quick Tips for Writing Bullet Points People Actually Want to Read
7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIt’s a Twitterized world, we’re just living in it. Blog posts, Tweets, quick videos, Google+, the Facebook Timeline, and tens of thousands of images pinned to digital boards are flying past us faster than we can read them. Faster than we can even scan them, depending on the time of day. What does this mean for writers trying to cut through it all? At least two things that I can think of: You’d better know how to write a compelling headline You’d better know how to write bullet points that grab (and keep) your reader We’re not telling you to keep your copy short. -
7 Crucial Tactics for Writing a Wildly Successful Guest Post
6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amWe all know that guest posts grow blogs. But not many people realize that tactical guest posting grows careers. Most bloggers I see pump out these articles while reciting the mantra “quantity over quality”; there’s no real strategy and there are no real long-term benefits. In this post I am going to show you the seven crucial tactics for writing a radically successful guest post. Done right, these strategies will get you more email subscribers, coveted Google ranking positions, and a big head-start on your content marketing goals. Who am I to teach you about guest blogging? -
7 Smashing Social Media Marketing Links
4 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amThis week on The Lede … What really works on Twitter One thing social media copywriters should never do 9 productive social media hacks A reminder of the power of the original social media If you just can’t wait for The Lede every Saturday, and you want even more practical, useable links than the seven we highlight here every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter. It’s painless. Really. // 9 Social Media Hacks You Need to Embrace Now Mr. Baer makes a good case that though social media is inexpensive in monetary terms, it can get good and costly when it comes to spending your… -
Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules
3 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amWhat if most of the business world stopped blogging tomorrow? Would you stop as well? No, if that happened, you’d find yourself sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Social networking sites would explode with likes and retweets and pins and +1s of your original content all day long. This is why the annual “blogging is dead” claim is so dumb. Even if it were true, your continued content production would dominate the web in every way. So, instead of worrying about the latest claimed trend or alarming decline of the moment, stay the course. Original content creation is the…
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@ProBlogger
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How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis 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
7 Feb 2012 | 12:05 pmThis 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]
7 Feb 2012 | 6:04 amMid-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… -
Six Steps to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to Go Viral
6 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amThis guest post is by Nancy Sathre-Vogel of Family on Bikes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Surely Google Analytics was confusing my site with another, way more popular site. There was no way my visitor numbers could be so high! And yet they were. One of my posts had taken off and was spreading like wildfire. Those viral post phenomena that happen to others were now happening to me. The first day, 17,000 visitors came to my website. The next day we topped out at 56,000. Readers were coming in droves. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. My site, viral! Wow! And then I took a… -
How to Handle Criticism: a Practical Guide
5 Feb 2012 | 12:03 pmImage by Stuart RichardsAs bloggers, each of us has to deal with criticism. Blogging is a very public activity—almost all of us has the goal of gaining readers to our blogs—and the more people you reach, the more likely it is that you’ll hear criticisms. “You’re wrong…” “How can you say that? You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I couldn’t disagree more…” “This is the last time I read this blog!” These are just some of the criticisms bloggers regularly face—I’ve received versions of…
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TechCrunch
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Hipster CEO Also Apologizes For Address Book-Gate, Calls For “Application Privacy Summit” [Guest Post]
8 Feb 2012 | 8:07 pmThe following is a guest post from Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow, following yesterday and today’s revelations that select apps were uploading users’ entire address books to their databases. We blew it, we’re sorry, and we’re going to make it right. It’s Hipster’s goal to provide a fun and beautiful service for our community to share where they are, and what they are doing – creating a safe environment for our users is of the utmost importance to us. However, when we built our “Find Friends” feature for iOS, we clearly dropped the ball when it comes to protecting our… -
Is A Hash Of Hash Of A Torrent Of A Torrent Of Copyrighted Data Copyrighted?
8 Feb 2012 | 7:23 pmLet’s try to parse this. Pirate Bay (.se) user allisfine just recently uploaded a torrent to the site that is a collection of all the magnet identifiers for the entire site (actually, only about a quarter of the site, but all the publicly visible ones). That is to say, it is a list of the unique identifiers, cryptographic hashes, of every .torrent file on the site. In a way, this torrent file, or indeed its magnet identifier (938802790a385c49307f34cca4c30f80b03df59c), contains millions or billions of dollars worth of pirated content. Or does it? It’s more a philosophical question… -
Stealthy Startup timeRAZOR Raises $3.4M Pre-Launch, Partners With Major Household Brands
8 Feb 2012 | 7:01 pmGot FOMO? (That’s “fear of missing out” for those of you who don’t do slang.) There will soon be an app for that, or so says the $3.4 million in angel funding the stealthy D.C.-area startup called timeRAZOR has raised. In its pre-launch state, the curious company is already lining up brand partnerships with big names like Marriott and L’Oreal in preparation for its March debut. But what the heck is a timeRAZOR? According to CEO and co-founder, Jeff White (formerly the founder of govWin), timeRAZOR is a mobile application that will help people discover… -
Founder Collective Makes A $4 Million Bet On Paddle8′s Online Marketplace For Fine Art
8 Feb 2012 | 6:33 pmWhen it comes to a marketplace for fine art, a space which seems to intrinsically resist digital services, technology really hasn’t had quite the same disruptive influence it has in so many others. Startups like Zazzle and Art.com have taken steps to make art commercial and broadly accessible, with some cool technology to boot, but automation and democratization haven’t really penetrated the upper crust world of fine art in any significant way, for understandable reasons. Democratic luxury sounds like an oxymoron, or phony marketing. Founder Collective, an early-stage venture… -
FYI. Dave Morin Didn’t Lie To Gawker About Path Storing User Data
8 Feb 2012 | 5:59 pmSome people always see the good in people and some people always see the bad … Gawker just published a post with what at first seems to be some pretty damning evidence against Path founder Dave Morin, publishing an email where he assured writer Ryan Tate that Path wasn’t storing user data. While today’s headlines would lead one to believe that the statement was a lie, Morin (who is a friend) tells me that the exchange is misleading out of context. He was actually talking about Path 1.0 in the email, which lacked the “Add Friends” feature and therefore did not…
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Mashable!
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‘Bachelor’ Contestant Courtney Gets Auto-Tuned [VIDEO]
8 Feb 2012 | 9:19 pmFans of The Bachelor are all too familiar with this season’s over-the-top contestant Courtney, who makes snide comments at the camera and likes to take off her bikini top. Now, a video has popped up on YouTube that has turned some of her signature phrases — from “Winning!” to “I do modeling” — into a catchy Auto-Tune clip. The contestants are vying for a rose from winemaker Ben, and Courtney has rubbed many of them the wrong way, and this video shows why. This is not the first time YouTube users have turned pop culture moments into Auto-Tuned videos. -
Facebook Talks About Social Games and Mobile Apps for 2012
8 Feb 2012 | 9:09 pmFacebook revealed its roadmap for social games and mobile apps for the rest of the year at the Inside Social Apps 2012 conference on Wednesday in San Francisco — and it’s good news for app developers. Want to create an app for Facebook’s Open Graph? The mobile space presents a huge opportunity to create cross-platform social games, said Carl Sjogreen, director of product management at Facebook, who spoke to a packed conference center filled with IT insiders about Facebook’s projections for the mobile social gaming and app space for this year. “You sort of had to… -
What Digital Non-Profits Can Learn From Companies Like Google
8 Feb 2012 | 8:46 pmDaniel Atwood works with organizations in the social sector to craft meaningful experiences for customers and constituents, and to find innovative product, campaign and messaging ideas in unexpected places. We live in a world where new digital products are solving problems daily — from managing our finances to remembering the groceries. Often, they’re solving problems we didn’t know we had, like the need to connect several times a day in 140 characters or less. Occasionally, they’re creating new problems (but that’s a topic for another conversation). What… -
Comment and Highlight on Websites with commentto
8 Feb 2012 | 8:30 pmThe Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: commentto Quick Pitch: Comment anywhere. Genius Idea: Commentto is a browser add-on service that allows users to highlight, bookmark, comment, save and share bookmarks and excerpts on websites. Do you ever want to add extra knowledge to a news story or other content on the web? Well, browser add-on commentto lets you comment on anything you want. Commentto allows users to highlight… -
Twitter Comedy: How to Be Funny in 140 Characters
8 Feb 2012 | 7:37 pmComedy is king on Twitter. Professional humorists and armchair standups alike have amassed legions of followers that hang on every 140-character quip. Twitter humor is a brand-builder, a great writing exercise, and if you’re really good, it might even land you a job (but probably not, so settle down). So, what does it take to get laughs at this 24/7 digital cocktail party? We asked some of the funniest tweeters around for their tips on cracking wise in the one-liner Renaissance. 1. Start by Being Funny in the First Place Bill Corbett knows a thing or two about landing short quips. He's…
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ReadWriteWeb
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Groupon's First Earnings Call Missed the Mark, But It May Not Matter
8 Feb 2012 | 9:28 pmToday in its quarterly earnings call, Groupon reported that it did not meet fourth quarter expectations. The company posted a $43 million loss, or $0.08 cents per share. Despite the loss, Groupon's revenue in the fourth quarter 2011 grew 194% to $506.5 million, up from $172.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. In fact, the fourth quarter 2011 was the company's first quarter of operating profitability since it opening international operations in the second quarter of 2010. This brings everyone back to the same question: Is the daily deals model a real, legitimate business, or is it just a… -
Daily Wrap: January's List of Apps You Need to See and more
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pmDan Rowinski rounds up the best apps, in our opinion, of January 2012. This and more in today's Daily Wrap. Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well. Sponsor New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012 In what is surely a labor of love, Dan Rowinski combs through the mass of apps released… -
Stop Saying "Finally"
8 Feb 2012 | 5:50 pmFIIIINALLY! Google released a Chrome beta for Android! GODDDDD. What took them so long? All the Ice Cream Sandwich users have been waiting, like, FOREVER! Finally, Tweetbot for iPad came out. I've only been asking them for, like, EIGHT MONTHS! Jeez. Apple fiiiinally released iTunes Match after a whole month, and it didn't even work right! Listen to how this sounds. How do we, the tech bloggers, get away with headlines like this? Where do users get off complaining impatiently about updates to a service that costs them $2.99? Or a free service? Let's have a reality check. Remember how awesome… -
10 Ways to Win Over Writers
8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 pmAs a PR person, product developer, CEO or whatever, you're probably more interested in getting noticed by the media than developing a relationship with a particular writer. That's one way to go about it. Then there's that old-fashioned "building a relationship with a real person not a robot" idea. You know, treating people like people and taking the time to get to know them. Oh right, yeah, forgot about that. Writers, like artists, are sensitive to ideas and people. But not every writer will get you or your product - and in the tech world as in any world, each writer has their own… -
Nginx Continues Growth, Adds Commercial Offerings
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmAccording to the Netcraft Web Server Survey for February 2012, Nginx was "the only server to experience a non-negligible market share increase this month" by picking up 0.27 percentage points. Good news for the upstart Web server, just as the brand-new company behind Nginx takes the wraps off its commercial packages. Nginx has had quite the growth spurt over the past year. In February of last year Nginx had 7.57% of the market, or about 21 million domains hosted with Nginx. Microsoft had 20.04%, or about 57 million. Apache was at 60.10%, with more than 171 million domains. Sponsor…
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Logic+Emotion
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Will The Real Social Business Experts Please Stand Up?
7 Feb 2012 | 10:23 amStop what you're doing and check out this thread (on Google Plus of all places) started by Francine Hardaway. She started it off with a simple question. "Who are the best experts in social business?"What followed was a robust discussion on what social business is, isn't and who's driving the agenda forward in the space both in thought and action. If you're interested in the emerging definition of social business (aka the convergence of enterprise 2.0 and social media) I highly recommend you taking a look. Some of my favorite thoughts:"the thread that social business is not the same as social… -
People, Places & Events
3 Feb 2012 | 11:01 amA few significant events happening over the next few months—here's where I'll be: Chicago: February 6th, Social Media Club, An Interview With Richard EdelmanOur I'll be interviewing Richard Edelman our CEO in our new office space as we host the Chicago Social Media Club. We will be discussing this Year's Trust Barometer findings. If you can't make it to Chicago, we will be live streaming video the interview at 5:00 CST. London & New York: February 13-16, Social Media Week Our London office is hosting a panel titled "Social Business In Action". A topic I'm very passionate about—then… -
How To Be A Social Media Self-Righteous Jerk
1 Feb 2012 | 4:28 pmThe scale above shows the many stages one has to go through in order to become a bona fide self-righteous jerk in social media. Still, there are many people who aspire to reach this peak, but fall short in executing against it. Given this observation, I thought it would be worthwhile to piece together a few best practices which will ensure your status as a social media self-righteous jerk (or SMSRJ). In no particular order: 1. Join The Klout GestapoAll social media SMSRJ's know that Klout is simply evil incarnate and requires a organized force to take on this evil axis of influence wherever… -
Launching a Social Command Center (Without The Center)
27 Jan 2012 | 8:05 am"Social command centers" are all the rage today and it's not without some merit. Many organizations now find themselves in a real-time business environment where news travels faster than sound, and information is set free. As a result, some forward thinking companies have put "monitoring" in place either in-house or in combination with partners. This isn't enough. And to make matters worse, I've seen companies make the classic mistake of buying a tool BEFORE putting any thought into the design that goes into effective monitoring and response, forgetting the 3P's (People, Process, Platforms). -
Trust Shifts From Institutions To Individuals
23 Jan 2012 | 9:44 pmToday I had the opportunity to present to academics and industry experts from the international poultry industry (you can listen to a re-cap via a short podcast from "Agwired" here). During the presentation I was able to share some results from the recently released 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, in which the overarching theme is a general skepticism toward institutions such as government and big business with signs of hope when it comes to empowered individuals. A Person Like YourselfIn last year's study, it was the expert and even the analyst who enjoyed some degree of trust from the public…
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Scobleizer
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Hacker News vs. Google+
5 Feb 2012 | 10:20 amI might as well have titled this “Hacker News vs Marketers.” Or “Hacker News vs Bloggers.” Or “jerks vs nice people.” But I never participate in Hacker News for a few reasons and I just was faced with these reasons again when I read the responses there to my blog post yesterday. 1. Programmers often have an attitude of “I can code, you can’t, so I am defacto better than you.” This often comes out in Hacker News comments. 2. Programmers love to bash people anonymously and then, in real life, they will come begging for PR for their companies… -
It’s too late for Dave Winer and John Battelle to save the common web
4 Feb 2012 | 5:02 pmThe date was January 3, 2008. Facebook had kicked me off for running a script to try to save the common web. See, I worked with Plaxo to run a simple script. One that would have taken my contacts out of Facebook and put them back into the common web. The script did some very simple things: 1. It grabbed all my friends names. 2. It grabbed all their phone numbers. 3. It grabbed all their email addresses. 4. It gave me a simple CSV file with all that data so I could bring them back to Google, or Microsoft, or anywhere else I wanted to put them. Facebook’s answer was predictable. They shut… -
HTML 5 pushback in San Francisco? Best mobile app designers say yes
1 Feb 2012 | 3:39 pmThe new Path? The one that won a Crunchie last night for great design? It’s not done in HTML 5. This morning I saw something new coming soon from Storify. Not done in HTML 5. This morning I visited Foodspotting, which just shipped hot new apps on iOS, Android, and Blackberry. Not done in HTML 5. More and more I’m hearing that designers and developers are ignoring HTML 5, especially for the high end of apps. Why? Well, Path’s founders told me it just isn’t possible to build a great user interface, the way they did it in HTML 5. Storify’s founder told me it… -
Why Facebook will be worth a half trillion by 2015: the mobile and open graph revenue it’s leaving on the table
1 Feb 2012 | 2:48 pmLots of people think Facebook is overvalued, at about $100 billion (it just released their S1, announcing its IPO). But in talking with developers, like I did with Foodspotting’s founder, Alexa Andrzejewski, and in reading the S1 I see that Facebook has left most of the potential revenue on the table. That makes me think that the folks crying “overvalued” are nuts. Check that interview out, Foodspotting is one of the hottest San Francisco startups, aimed at people who are looking for better places to eat. Here it is from just this morning: See, Mark Zuckerberg is sandbagging… -
2012 brings a pause in the disruption
31 Jan 2012 | 4:58 pmOK, I’ve been talking with hundreds of geeks from around the world this year at three conferences, CES, DLD, and World Economic Forum. I’m seeing a trend that is worth talking about. What is it? We’re seeing the end of one of the most disruptive ages in human history. I believe that we’re seeing a pause in the disruption. More on that a little later. Just think about all the changes humans have been asked to adopt in the past eight years. Most of us, back then, didn’t carry mobile computers in our pockets. If we did use tablets, like I did, they were expensive,…
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Brian Solis
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Meet the Mother of All Processes
8 Feb 2012 | 10:32 amGuest 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.
7 Feb 2012 | 10:10 amChris 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
3 Feb 2012 | 10:52 amThis 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)
2 Feb 2012 | 3:13 pmMy 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
2 Feb 2012 | 6:16 amGuest 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 &…
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MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
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How Social Media Is Changing the Agency/Client Relationship
8 Feb 2012 | 10:03 amThis week on the Marketing Smarts Podcast, we discuss the evolving relationship between agencies and clients in the era of social media. Our guest is Glenn Engler, CEO of Digital Influence Group, a full-service digital agency with “social media at the core” of everything they do. The jumping-off point for our interview was that “social at the core” position. I wanted to know what that meant, and Glenn explained that, in a nutshell, it doesn’t make sense for an agency to offer “social” as a capability to its clients (as in, “We can also do… -
5 Super Bowl XVLI Ads That Could Have Been Improved with a Mobile Call-to-Action
8 Feb 2012 | 6:49 amMarketers buy into the Super Bowl telecast because it is the one time of the year when consumers are actually tuning in to commercials instead of muting the volume or fast-forwarding on their DVR. Here’s an old school recipe for success: One part new product or service offering upgrade A tear-inducing script (Tears can be a result of hilarity or a message that pulls at the heartstrings.) One teaspoon of a timely message (Think Valentine’s Day and/or tax season.) A cute animal or hot celebrity A tease in the media What’s missing in this day of 24/7 social, mobile consumers? Mobile calls… -
The Questions I Would Ask If I Were Marketing Your Business
7 Feb 2012 | 6:53 amAdvice from Internet marketing pundits is becoming like rock and roll was to a previous generation—it sounds like just a bunch of noise. Every blog-as-media-outlet, thought-leader platform, and social technology company’s website screams top 10 ways to do this and how-to posts to do that. And marketing professionals are left trying to filter the wheat from the chaff. The challenge marketing and brand managers face today, however, is not the basic how-tos of social media. They need less of the top five and top sevens and top 10s, and more content that marries the tactical to-dos… -
How to Deliver Your Sales Pitch, So Folks Listen
6 Feb 2012 | 6:56 amA guest post by Sarika Periwal of karmaCRM. Talking is the best tool of a salesperson. The only way that you have face to face of convincing a person to buy a specific product or service is by convincing them that they need it. This includes highlighting the benefits that the product brings to their life to make it simpler. It also means that to be a successful salesperson you need to have impeccable communication skills. However, this is not an inherent skill but one that has to be developed through practice. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind when you next deliver your sales… -
Free Friday: Marketing Smarts Podcasts
3 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amOn this Free Friday, check out all the free Marketing Smarts podcasts organized neatly on one page for you. Hosted by MarketingProfs own Matt Grant, this weekly podcast features in-depth interviews with bright, engaging marketers. You’ll get insights and advice that will inspire you to pump up your marketing. Podcast topics include: Making the Most of a Mobile Moment (with Tim Hayden of 44Doors) Sally Hogshead and the $500 Cup of Coffee (with author Sally Hogshead) Have You Killed an Innovation Today? (with author and professor David Owen) Calculating the ROI of Social Media (with guest…
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PR-Squared - Social Media Marketing and Public Relations
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Open Letter to Havas CEO David Jones
8 Feb 2012 | 8:12 amHi 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
6 Feb 2012 | 6:35 amDepending 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
3 Feb 2012 | 11:27 amWow. 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
23 Jan 2012 | 9:46 amThose 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
19 Jan 2012 | 7:18 amLet’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…
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Web Strategy by Jeremiah
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Altimeter Webinar Recording: State of Social Media Management Industry
8 Feb 2012 | 10:08 amThis week, Altimeter (myself and Andrew Jones, researcher) hosted a webinar stemming from the the recent report on Social Media Proliferation, which you can download the full report on this blog post. In the embedded slides and video below, you’ll be able to get additional insights on how we perceive how this market will change in the coming years: We’ll see a vendor shakeout, although expect pure play vendors of each of the five uses cases to remain Consolidation will occur from market forces of email marketing, web analytics, CMS, marketing automation, brand monitoring, support… -
Hey Retailers! Refine That Mobile Marketing Strategy (Altimeter Report)
7 Feb 2012 | 10:01 amThis latest Altimeter Report, by my colleague Industry Analyst Chris Silva, focuses on how companies must develop a mobile marketing strategy. It sources research from 26 ecosystem contributors including brands, agencies, and technology providers. To learn more about this report, please register for the webinar in which Chris will provide deeper knowledge from the report. This report is powerful in a few ways, it indicates the growth the in space, referencing that 45% of all mobile phone users are carrying a smart phone, and the growth rate for tablets is 23% annually. The report also… -
Five Trends: How Brands Integrated Social, Mobile, and Web into 2012 Super Bowl Advertisements
6 Feb 2012 | 8:39 amBy Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, and Zak Kirchner Findings: Five Trends Indicate Cross Channel Integration a Mainstay. Super Bowl ads, while only representing the nation’s largest consumer facing ads are a bellwether for advertising trends for the remainder of the year. To best understand these trends, Altimeter Group’s research team analyzed each Ad in real time, and conducted analysis to best understand the advertising trends for 2012. Using Chicago as a middle ground, we reviewed all ads from kickoff till the game clock expired and found that trends out of 87… -
P&G Layoffs Signal Focus on Digital Industry
4 Feb 2012 | 10:49 amLast week was a tremendous change, giant marketer P&G announces 1600 layoffs as they reduce jobs in various roles, and instead shifting budget to digital marketing. The CEO, when pressed, indicates a strong focus on digital marketing, citing: “In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that return on investment of the advertising when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient” -Bob McDonald, Chairman-CEO, P&G Yet this is a trend, as P&G had previously cut advertising spend on soap operas on traditional TV,… -
People on the Move in the Social Business Industry, Jan 31, 2011
31 Jan 2012 | 7:32 pmMore jobs are coming in on the Web Strategy job board, see right nav, or see the full listing. In particular, AAA is hiring quite a few community managers, hear from their social strategist, Kim who’s listed below as getting promoted at the firm. Both the submissions on this job announcement board, as well as available social media positions at corporations continue to pour in. In this continued digest of job changes, I like to salute those that continue to join the industry in roles focused on social media, see the archives, which I’ve been tracking since Q4, 2007. People on…
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The Buzz Bin
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3 Wine Social Media Tools Worth Sipping
8 Feb 2012 | 8:22 amTHE BOOZE BIN By Pia Mara Finkell (@piamara) This is my last Booze Bin post before Baby Finkell joins the party, so I thought I’d leave you with some of my favorite wine social media tools and platforms for 2012. Don’t worry though, my much smarter and wittier colleagues will be pinch hitting for me while I’m on maternity leave. The Booze Bin lives on! Now on to those hot tools for grapey greatness. The first applies to much more than wine, the second saves you time and keeps you engaged (for free) and the third offers a good solution to small business owners trying to get on the… -
Ready, Set, Closer to Go
7 Feb 2012 | 4:34 amBy Mike Mulvihill While Super Bowl fanfare dominated last week’s news, the Interior Department announced the conclusion of a study that sets the stage for the equivalent of a Bowl Championship Series for offshore wind development. The environmental study found there would be “no significant environmental and socioeconomic impacts” from offshore development. This brings the department a step closer to actually selling leases for waters off Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey. Right now, not a single turbine spins off these shores. In addition to moving a step closer to selling… -
Nation’s Capital Hosts First Ever Social Media Week (Feb 13th-17th)
6 Feb 2012 | 9:52 amThree Must-Attend Sessions for Advanced Digital Marketers By Priya Ramesh (@newpr) I don’t know about you but I am really, really excited about DC’s first ever Social Media Week starting next Mon, Feb 13th. It’s about time the DC, Virginia, Maryland tri-state area joined the global during Social Media Week activities. Social Media Week offers a series of interconnected activities and conversations around the world on emerging trends in social and mobile media across all major industries. In just under three years, Social Media Week has expanded to 21 cities, including New York,… -
The Second Screen: Moving Beyond Twitter
3 Feb 2012 | 10:03 amBy Dave McNamara With the explosion of the smartphone and the tablet market, a shift known as the second screen is quickly taking over how people consume media. This phenomenon of the second screen essentially means that while people are watching television in the comfort of their living room, they are simultaneously accessing the web on their laptops, tablets, or smartphones. According to the Nielsen Company, in figures they released in October 2011, approximately 40% of viewers use mobile devices while watching television. A majority of the activity currently involves time during… -
From Babies to Brands: Three Steps for Picking the Best Name
2 Feb 2012 | 5:24 amBy Debbie Myers My family has been in the naming business of late. Both of my daughters are expecting. Together with their husbands, they have been researching names for the little bundles of joy. Having not named a little one in quite a while, I find that I’m clearly out of the loop on the seemingly endless array of names, many of which I’ve never heard of. Now, I get that John and Mary are just too plain Jane, so to speak, but when my son-in-law proposed the name Link from the video game series Legend of Zelda, I had to say, “Hold on a minute. Let’s think this through.” Usually…
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Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero
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Twitter favorites power tips
8 Feb 2012 | 3:07 amWhen I first started working with Blue Sky Factory, I noticed something peculiar about the company’s Twitter favorites. It wasn’t actual favorite tweets at all – it was instead a collection of praise the company had received online. This was the brainchild of DJ Waldow, the community manager, and what started effectively as a content management system (because Twitter doesn’t provide search outside of a 2 week window) has become one of my favorite sales and marketing tools. Here’s why this is powerful. In many ways, it’s just like recommendations on… -
Performance Based Social Media at Social Fresh East
7 Feb 2012 | 9:12 amI have the pleasure of speaking to the Social Fresh East crowd today. For those interested, here’s the slides that I’m speaking about. If you enjoyed this, please click here and share it with your network! Want to read more like this from Christopher Penn? If so, please subscribe right now! Click here to read my blog on Google Currents on your mobile! Marketing White Belt Basics for Digital Marketers is now on Amazon & B&N Watch me speak: Attend virtually! I recommend: for Twitter audience building. Related posts: Social+Email Integration from Social Fresh Charlotte Social Media… -
Build your base to build your momentum
7 Feb 2012 | 5:29 amOne of the most important lessons I teach to my students in the social media course I teach is that it’s vitally important to build your social base. We have so many platforms on which to market that if we try to be everywhere all the time, we’ll effectively not be anywhere. This is especially true if you are budget or resource constrained and trying to make social media work for you. How do you choose a social base? Look around at all of the social networks and figure out which one you are most comfortable working in. For some people, the way Facebook works is ideal for them. -
When was the last time you were your customer?
6 Feb 2012 | 3:52 amWhen was the last time you were your customer? You say you’ve got social media strategy. You say you’ve got great service. You say you’re customer-focused, customer-centric, and the customer is always right. When was the last time you tested it out? If you manage business for more than a sole proprietorship, then give your business a service test. Set up a list of a few tasks and go test out your sales and service teams. Call them up anonymously or set up a fake email account and try your internal processes out. If you work at a small business where you’d be recognized… -
Your name is your title
3 Feb 2012 | 3:50 amSocial media expert? Marketing guru? PR wizard? One of the most common questions asked in the discussion about personal titles and marketing superlatives is, if we shouldn’t call ourselves experts or gurus or ninja, what should we call ourselves? In the martial arts, there’s one title that exists at the top of the hierarchy that eclipses all others that we can look to for inspiration: the concept of meijin. Literally, meijin means “named person”. In the context of titles, a meijin is someone who is so well-known and so respected that their name is their title. They…
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GigaOM
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Report: Google gets Drive cloud storage ready to roll
8 Feb 2012 | 9:41 pmGoogle is about to big foot its way into the cloud storage business, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. With its “Drive” service, Google would take on some very popular consumer-oriented cloud storage entrants, notably Dropbox and Apple’s iCloud. Such offerings act as virtual closets for people’s digital photos, documents and music, allowing them to upload and access their material from many devices. According to the report, posted late Wednesday: The Google service, which is expected to launch in the coming weeks or months, will be free for most… -
Forget the People’s Choice Awards, we’ve got Twitter
8 Feb 2012 | 4:09 pmWho needs an awards show to tell us what movies and actors fans prefer when we have Twitter? In yet another partnership with the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab, IBM is turning its skills in social-media sentiment analysis to Hollywood awards so the world can see which movies and stars are generating the most buzz on Twitter. IBM has done similar analyses of both the World Series and the Super Bowl, and although they’re no doubt part of a marketing effort to demonstrate its big data prowess, the projects are pretty fun and rather insightful. It’s new Senti-meter, which appears as… -
Is Ericsson rolling out 3G using someone else’s technology?
8 Feb 2012 | 4:09 pmWhen Ericsson bought Nortel’s wireless business in 2009 it instantly propelled itself to the top of the North American mobile infrastructure heap, largely because the deal exposed the Swedish vendor to the dominant network technology in the U.S., CDMA. But the CDMA portfolio Ericsson bought wasn’t entirely Nortel’s own. Rather than develop CDMA’s 3G component, EV-DO, internally, Nortel licensed the technology from radio specialist Airvana. Now Airvana is claiming that Ericsson is reneging on its licensing deal and is instead selling a “knock-off” version of its EV-DO technology to… -
Facebook’s monthly rent is $1M+, and other gems from S-1 update
8 Feb 2012 | 3:37 pmFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Facebook on Wednesday updated its S-1 document to the Securities and Exchange commission for its planned initial public offering, and it’s a veritable data dump of new information about the social networking company. The good news is, we’re digging through it so you don’t have to. Here are some of the more interesting tidbits disclosed in this latest regulatory filing: The rent is really dang high.You think you spend a lot of money on rent? According to the new filing, Facebook’s new Menlo Park, Calif. campus is costing the company well… -
To the BBC and others: Twitter is not your competition
8 Feb 2012 | 3:03 pmJust a day after Sky News told its journalists they should not post any kind of breaking news to Twitter — and also blocked them from retweeting anyone but an official Sky News account — the BBC has released a new version of its social-media policies that also requires reporters to file updates to news editors first rather than posting breaking news to Twitter. The BBC’s social-media editor says the policy isn’t as draconian as some critics are portraying it, but the emphasis on protecting the British national broadcaster’s existing news structure is just another…
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Brass Tack Thinking
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The Great Irony of Social Velocity
26 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amI had a brilliant conversation with Justin Kozuch last evening on Twitter. If you don’t know Justin, you should. Smart, introspective, determined to find more in all of this, just like I am. I really like talking with him because he’s always looking more closely at something, which is a rare and wonderful quality in humans and it delights me when I find it. We were talking about feeling the need to “push the envelope” more in social conversations. I’ve even said this myself, many times, about needing to step into more uncomfortable territory. But as we were… -
The Power of Slow Thinking
21 Jan 2012 | 2:29 pmI had a bit of an epiphany this last year. Contentious discussions can be stressful for the best of us. Some people are formally schooled in the art of debate, and I am not one of them, so often I blamed my discomfort in confrontation or extended debate on the fact that I really wasn’t sure how to do it properly. Even watching debates online between other people makes me cringe. (At some point I realized that it was more because those ended up being mud-slinging, juvenile name calling fests more often than actual discussions or intelligent debates about valuable topics. But I digress.)… -
Take Back Your Attention
16 Jan 2012 | 6:00 amThe amount of attention we have to give is finite. The receipt of attention is earned, both initially to capture it, and continually to keep it. No one is entitled to it, ever. The online experience you immerse yourself in is, to a large degree, under your control. You can give your attention easily with a click, and add information to the stream you take in. But never forget that you can remove it as easily, and sometimes you absolutely should. I’m not a fan of the piling-on, lynch mob tactics that seem to be doled out as routine punishment for online misbehavior. I’m also not…
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Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog
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Something Old, Something New, Something Blue
6 Feb 2012 | 9:04 amHey there! So I really wanted to add the Something Borrowed option too, but couldn’t think of anything, so the three in the title will have to do. So… It’s been a little quiet here last week, since Kevin Green’s great guest post about LinkedIn (and if you haven’t read it yet, you’re missing a great ongoing discussion in the comments). But there’s a good reason for that, which is where the Something New and Something Old part comes in. And yes, I’m the something old part in the image at the start of this post… Last Thursday, February 2nd at… -
If LinkedIn.com Fails in the Social Network Forest, Will It Make a Sound?
30 Jan 2012 | 3:31 pmThis is a guest post by Kevin Green. Would anyone be really upset if LinkedIn’s .com destination up and disappeared tomorrow? It’s safe to assume that recruiters scouring the site for new talent and current shareholders would be pretty peeved, even if the stock (LNKD) is trading at half price from the IPO. But how would the lack of an online destination really impact everyday users? Users that are tethered to their mobile phones and enamored by the promise of applications, innovation and integration? Of the top 10 most trafficked social networking sites, LinkedIn is a bit of an… -
Because We Never Failed
28 Jan 2012 | 7:45 pmAs children, we have unbridled aspirations. We dream to be astronauts. We dream to be explorers. We dream to be princesses. We dream to be the world’s greatest sports star. We dream. Looking back at our childhood dreams, we rarely feel we failed because we didn’t become the astronaut. Or marry the prince. Or found new lands. Or had stadiums cheering our name. Instead, we look back and remember a time when dreams had no limits, and anything was possible, even if (in reality) it never was. Yet we never use the fail word. Because, in truth, we never failed. Just because something… -
Collaborative Marketing and the Natural Progression to Real Customer Satisfaction
26 Jan 2012 | 12:52 pmI’ve been thinking a lot about collaborative marketing lately, and how we can turn co-existing businesses more into partners and less about missed opportunities. I think there’s a great untapped market for someone that really wants to grab collaborative marketing and run with it. For example – imagine you’re going on a trip. You have to fly to get there, so there are a few processes you need to go through before, during and after: Buying your ticket. Driving to the airport. In-flight activities. Hotel or accommodation when you land. Rental car. These are just the basics – I’m… -
The Only Thing That’s Dead Is Your Crappy “Everything Is Dead” Meme
22 Jan 2012 | 8:06 pmI’m a little tired. Not physically. I could always do with a little more sleep, but then so can everyone. No. I’m more tired about the constant “The End of PR”, “The End of Marketing”, “The End of Print” and “The End of Advertising” missives that seem to be flying about at the minute. I can’t open my email subscriptions without the latest link shouting out “The end of…. Where now for Industry X?”. I’m an avid blog reader and use Alltop regularly to find interesting stories from my industry and beyond. Yet it seems that there’s an “End of…” blog…
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sassholes
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Everything I Know About Business I Learned From THE TOXIC AVENGER!
22 Jan 2012 | 5:57 pmLights, Camera, Action! Early in my career I spent 7 years working for Troma, the low budget film studio probably best known for the cult Classic, The Toxic Avenger… As I am sure you know, The Toxic Avenger is the heartwarming story of Melvin, a lowly mop-boy, who, teased and taunted, falls into a vat of radioactive waste and emerges as… The Toxic Avenger - The First Superhero from New Jersey! (And affectionately called "Toxie.") Making movies is hard work, especially making movies on a shoestring budget… (OK, eventually we were able to advance from shoestrings… -
Zen and the Art of Ultrabooks...
19 Dec 2011 | 8:08 pm(Note: this is a sponsored post that originally appeared at Dadomatic.com, but the words and opinions are all mine.) It is fitting that Asus calls their new Ultrabook line "Zenbooks." Just one look and you can see that it is a device that exudes a sense of calm and balance, purity and power. An early entrant in the Intel Ultrabook category, the Zenbook is thin and sleek, capable and fast. It is the Ying and Yang of portable computing: thin and light enough to take with you everywhere, yet powerful and feature rich enough to function as a primary computer. Actually,… -
A Hollywood Tale: From Screenplay to Podcast to...
27 Nov 2011 | 9:32 am(Disclosure: This post is a shameless plug to ask you to consider subscribing to my new podcast, Wunderkind! and, if you are so inclined, help me to spread the word about it. Wunderkind! is the podcast of an original comic-adventure screenplay, written and performed by me.) If you've enjoyed my posts here at over the years, I'd greatly appreciate your help in spreading the word about my new fiction podcast, Wunderkind! Since it was originally written for the screen, I am performing Wunderkind! as a screenplay and generally retain the protocols of a screenplay format, with… -
Feeling Full After A Half-Marathon
8 Nov 2011 | 7:24 pmThere is something incredibly human about running. According to many articles, books and talks, we are made for running. Our erect biped being makes running as natural for homo sapiens as flying is for birds. We used to run as a tribe, chasing our prey over vast distances until it collapsed from exhaustion and the running man conquered the savage beast without a blow. Whole villages ran to follow the hunters to the fallen spoil. Perhaps that is why I found running in a race to be such a deeply satisfying experience, and a deeply emotional one...it is in our DNA... -
New Podcast Fiction: Wunderkind!
16 Oct 2011 | 8:51 pmFor almost two years now I have officially been a podcaster as a co-host of the Cast of Dads podcast along with C.C. Chapman, Michael Sheehan, Brad Powell and Max Kalehoff. While I love being one of the Cast of Dads, I have always wanted to try my hand at podcast fiction. Finally, I have have dusted off something I've written that I think will lend itself well to the podcast medium, and I am announcing the launch of a new serialized podcast of an original comedy screenplay, "Wunderkind!" I am very fortunate to consider many of the highly creative and innovative podcasters friends…
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ReadWriteWeb
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Groupon's First Earnings Call Missed the Mark, But It May Not Matter
8 Feb 2012 | 9:28 pmToday in its quarterly earnings call, Groupon reported that it did not meet fourth quarter expectations. The company posted a $43 million loss, or $0.08 cents per share. Despite the loss, Groupon's revenue in the fourth quarter 2011 grew 194% to $506.5 million, up from $172.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. In fact, the fourth quarter 2011 was the company's first quarter of operating profitability since it opening international operations in the second quarter of 2010. This brings everyone back to the same question: Is the daily deals model a real, legitimate business, or is it just a… -
Daily Wrap: January's List of Apps You Need to See and more
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pmDan Rowinski rounds up the best apps, in our opinion, of January 2012. This and more in today's Daily Wrap. Sometimes it's difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well. Sponsor New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012 In what is surely a labor of love, Dan Rowinski combs through the mass of apps released… -
Stop Saying "Finally"
8 Feb 2012 | 5:50 pmFIIIINALLY! Google released a Chrome beta for Android! GODDDDD. What took them so long? All the Ice Cream Sandwich users have been waiting, like, FOREVER! Finally, Tweetbot for iPad came out. I've only been asking them for, like, EIGHT MONTHS! Jeez. Apple fiiiinally released iTunes Match after a whole month, and it didn't even work right! Listen to how this sounds. How do we, the tech bloggers, get away with headlines like this? Where do users get off complaining impatiently about updates to a service that costs them $2.99? Or a free service? Let's have a reality check. Remember how awesome… -
10 Ways to Win Over Writers
8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 pmAs a PR person, product developer, CEO or whatever, you're probably more interested in getting noticed by the media than developing a relationship with a particular writer. That's one way to go about it. Then there's that old-fashioned "building a relationship with a real person not a robot" idea. You know, treating people like people and taking the time to get to know them. Oh right, yeah, forgot about that. Writers, like artists, are sensitive to ideas and people. But not every writer will get you or your product - and in the tech world as in any world, each writer has their own… -
Nginx Continues Growth, Adds Commercial Offerings
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmAccording to the Netcraft Web Server Survey for February 2012, Nginx was "the only server to experience a non-negligible market share increase this month" by picking up 0.27 percentage points. Good news for the upstart Web server, just as the brand-new company behind Nginx takes the wraps off its commercial packages. Nginx has had quite the growth spurt over the past year. In February of last year Nginx had 7.57% of the market, or about 21 million domains hosted with Nginx. Microsoft had 20.04%, or about 57 million. Apache was at 60.10%, with more than 171 million domains. Sponsor…
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Wired Top Stories
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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Feb. 9
8 Feb 2012 | 9:01 pmGoogle's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills. -
GigaOM Acquires PaidContent: Interview With GigaOM CEO Paul Walborsky
8 Feb 2012 | 5:30 pmOm Malik's GigaOM has purchased media news organization ContentNext, paidContent's parent company, from the UK's Guardian News & Media. -
Purported Pictures of iPad 3's Rear Casing Emerge
8 Feb 2012 | 4:28 pmThe launch of Apple's next iPad is just around the corner, if the presence of leaked parts images are any indicator. Today, what reasonably seems to be the rear casing of the new iPad has popped up in photo form on the interwebs. -
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gregory Brothers, ACLU Team for Video on Photographers' Rights
8 Feb 2012 | 4:10 pmBenjamin Franklin kicks an informative and hilarious rhyme about transparency and First Amendment protections for pro and amateur photographers in the latest video from Joseph Gordon-Levitt?s open collaborative production company, hitRECord. -
Researchers Build Hard Drive of Future With Lasers
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pmA team of researchers from across Europe and Asia has demonstrated a way of using laser heat to store data rather than magnetic fields, potentially increasing the speed of your hard drive by 100 times or more. Tom Ostler -- a physicist at the University of York, which led the research project -- tells Wired that this could not only allow allow your machine to save files much faster, but also reduce the machine's power consumption by avoiding traditional magnetic storage techniques.
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Top News
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Alabama's immigration law: Denying children food stamps
8 Feb 2012 | 6:26 pmAlabama's immigration law was the focus of a recent episode of "This American Life." For the segment, Jack Hitt traveled to Alabama shortly after HB 56 went into effect to see how the draconian law, which has been compared to... -
Microsoft, Google, and Apple talk up "fair and reasonable" patent license fees
8 Feb 2012 | 2:40 pmMicrosoft today pledged to make essential patents available to competitors at fair and reasonable rates. -
Silicon Valley Recovering Faster Than Nation
8 Feb 2012 | 9:17 amEven before Facebook Inc. goes public, Silicon Valley is experiencing a surge in jobs and per-capita income, in contrast to the weak economic situation dogging the rest of the nation. -
Mars-Bound NASA Rover Carries Coin for Camera Checkup
8 Feb 2012 | 3:46 amAt least one object in photos NASA's Curiosity rover will transmit from Mars later this year will look familiar to all Americans: a Lincoln penny sent as a camera reference. -
How Can We Fix Skyrim?
8 Feb 2012 | 9:45 amFive suggestions for refining a messy masterpiece.
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Techmeme
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Google letter to standards bodies indicates no improvement whatsoever over Motorola's FRAND litigation tactics (Florian Mueller/FOSS Patents)
8 Feb 2012 | 8:55 pmFlorian Mueller / FOSS Patents: Google letter to standards bodies indicates no improvement whatsoever over Motorola's FRAND litigation tactics — I have just obtained a copy of Google's letter to the IEEE, one of the standard-setting organizations to which Google wrote a letter today as it previously announced. You can find it further below. -
Microsoft, Google, and Apple talk up "fair and reasonable" patent license fees (Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica)
8 Feb 2012 | 8:30 pmJon Brodkin / Ars Technica: Microsoft, Google, and Apple talk up “fair and reasonable” patent license fees — Microsoft today issued a brief statement promising to make “essential patents” available to competitors at fair and reasonable licensing rates, and promised not to sue companies making products that infringe these patents. -
Google Near Launch of Cloud Storage Service (Amir Efrati/Wall Street Journal)
8 Feb 2012 | 8:05 pmAmir Efrati / Wall Street Journal: Google Near Launch of Cloud Storage Service — Google Inc. is close to launching a cloud-storage service that would rival one of Silicon Valley's hottest start-ups, cloud-storage provider Dropbox Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. — Like Dropbox, Google's storage service … -
Don't break stories on Twitter, BBC journalists told (John Plunkett/Guardian)
8 Feb 2012 | 7:45 pmJohn Plunkett / Guardian: Don't break stories on Twitter, BBC journalists told — As Sky News clamps down on staff Twitter updates, corporation tells reporters to file copy before tweeting it — BBC journalists have been told not to break news stories on Twitter before they tell their newsroom colleagues. -
Foxconn hacked by group called SwaggSec, here's what they are looking at... (Seth Weintraub/9to5Mac)
8 Feb 2012 | 7:20 pmSeth Weintraub / 9to5Mac: Foxconn hacked by group called SwaggSec, here's what they are looking at... Hacker group SwaggSec just released a dump of Foxconn internal information, including a mail server login/password dump and logins to various online procurement sites and Intranets. The hack seems to be a retaliation …
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NYT > Technology
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California Housing Market Braces for Facebook Millionaires
8 Feb 2012 | 8:28 pmThe Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from the Facebook stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter. -
Young People Are Watching, but Less Often on TV
8 Feb 2012 | 7:56 pmYoung people still watch many television shows, but they are streaming them on computers and phones to a greater degree. -
State of the Art: Android Phones Go on a Power Trip - State of the Art
8 Feb 2012 | 7:56 pmIn a world crammed with Android phones, HTC, Samsung and Motorola introduce three new models, each of them Verizon 4Gs. -
Digital Security Bills Bruised by a Lingering Antipiracy Fight
8 Feb 2012 | 7:56 pmLegislation intended to help protect infrastructure from terrorists is hampered by fears of pressure from advocates who scored a victory against antipiracy bills. -
In Piracy Debate, Is the Sky Falling?
8 Feb 2012 | 7:55 pmMedia and Internet giants at odds over dealing with purloined content on the Web may need to agree first on exactly how bad the problem is.
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Lifehacker
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From the Tips Box: Chrome History, Amazon Prime on iOS, and Chrome to Phone [From The Tips Box]
8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 pmMore » -
Microsoft OneNote Comes to Android, Syncs with Microsoft SkyDrive [Onenote]
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmMore » -
Remains of the Day: Windows 8 Consumer Preview Launches Feb. 29th [For What It's Worth]
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pm -
How to Set Up Windows 7 Homegroups for Seamless, Instant Sharing Between PCs In Your Home [Emailable Tech Support]
8 Feb 2012 | 3:30 pmMore » -
Amazon Prime Expands Its Video Streaming Library, Adds 2,000 More Titles [In Brief]
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 pm
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GigaOM
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Report: Google gets Drive cloud storage ready to roll
8 Feb 2012 | 9:41 pmGoogle is about to big foot its way into the cloud storage business, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. With its “Drive” service, Google would take on some very popular consumer-oriented cloud storage entrants, notably Dropbox and Apple’s iCloud. Such offerings act as virtual closets for people’s digital photos, documents and music, allowing them to upload and access their material from many devices. According to the report, posted late Wednesday: The Google service, which is expected to launch in the coming weeks or months, will be free for most… -
Forget the People’s Choice Awards, we’ve got Twitter
8 Feb 2012 | 4:09 pmWho needs an awards show to tell us what movies and actors fans prefer when we have Twitter? In yet another partnership with the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab, IBM is turning its skills in social-media sentiment analysis to Hollywood awards so the world can see which movies and stars are generating the most buzz on Twitter. IBM has done similar analyses of both the World Series and the Super Bowl, and although they’re no doubt part of a marketing effort to demonstrate its big data prowess, the projects are pretty fun and rather insightful. It’s new Senti-meter, which appears as… -
Is Ericsson rolling out 3G using someone else’s technology?
8 Feb 2012 | 4:09 pmWhen Ericsson bought Nortel’s wireless business in 2009 it instantly propelled itself to the top of the North American mobile infrastructure heap, largely because the deal exposed the Swedish vendor to the dominant network technology in the U.S., CDMA. But the CDMA portfolio Ericsson bought wasn’t entirely Nortel’s own. Rather than develop CDMA’s 3G component, EV-DO, internally, Nortel licensed the technology from radio specialist Airvana. Now Airvana is claiming that Ericsson is reneging on its licensing deal and is instead selling a “knock-off” version of its EV-DO technology to… -
Facebook’s monthly rent is $1M+, and other gems from S-1 update
8 Feb 2012 | 3:37 pmFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Facebook on Wednesday updated its S-1 document to the Securities and Exchange commission for its planned initial public offering, and it’s a veritable data dump of new information about the social networking company. The good news is, we’re digging through it so you don’t have to. Here are some of the more interesting tidbits disclosed in this latest regulatory filing: The rent is really dang high.You think you spend a lot of money on rent? According to the new filing, Facebook’s new Menlo Park, Calif. campus is costing the company well… -
To the BBC and others: Twitter is not your competition
8 Feb 2012 | 3:03 pmJust a day after Sky News told its journalists they should not post any kind of breaking news to Twitter — and also blocked them from retweeting anyone but an official Sky News account — the BBC has released a new version of its social-media policies that also requires reporters to file updates to news editors first rather than posting breaking news to Twitter. The BBC’s social-media editor says the policy isn’t as draconian as some critics are portraying it, but the emphasis on protecting the British national broadcaster’s existing news structure is just another…
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TweetMeme
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What Boys Do In The Bathroom In The Morning - YouTube
8 Feb 2012 | 5:16 pmWhat Boys Do In The Bathroom In The Morning0 comments -
Twitter / VerifiedAccount : This deserves endless RT's ...
8 Feb 2012 | 5:07 pmThis deserves endless RT's http://t.co/ctBeOnmS0 comments -
Double Fine Adventure by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions — Kickstarter
8 Feb 2012 | 4:59 pmAwwww yeah!! RT @GregRicey The Double Fine Adventure Game Kickstarter is now live!: http://t.co/dMCV5VD40 comments -
Home - YouTube
8 Feb 2012 | 3:24 pmHome0 comments -
Twitter / #TrendSetter: Heard these Louis Vuitton ...
8 Feb 2012 | 1:12 pmRT @wealthydmo: Heard these Louis Vuitton Condoms cost $65? http://t.co/mBZwn1aP0 comments
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HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
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How to Score Your Leads So Sales Works the Hottest Prospects
8 Feb 2012 | 1:47 pmThe 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
8 Feb 2012 | 10:02 amAccording 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
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amThe 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… -
Why User-Generated Content Is More Important Than You Think
7 Feb 2012 | 11:33 amA certain group of consumers has been gaining attention from marketers recently, because of the strong role they play in the purchasing decision; these power purchasers are known as Generation Y. Whether they're part of the target audience to which you sell or not, this group is worth considering as part of your inbound marketing strategy because there's a strong likelihood they either will become part of your target audience in the future, or because they already influence your target audience now. Let's break down who these power purchasers are, some of the interesting demographics and… -
How to Create Marketing Offers That Don't Fall Flat
7 Feb 2012 | 6:16 amIn marketing, offers are the gateways to lead generation. Without them, site visitors have no way of getting converted into leads. They are also a critical tool for nurturing existing leads into a position that makes them more sales-ready. But gosh, isn't the word 'offer' so utterly vague and abstract? What the heck is a marketing offer, and what are the qualities of a good one? Because we see so many marketers get tripped up on this concept, let's discuss exactly what a marketing offer can be, highlight the characteristics of an effective offer, and explain how you can start using them the…
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MarketingProfs How-To Articles
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Four Keyword Research Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
6 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amIf 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 amThe 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 amCustomers 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 amQR 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 -
Four Easy Tactics for Becoming a Must-Follow Account on Twitter
31 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amTwitter is a powerful channel that can help you connect with customers, promote products, and create brand awareness. Learn four tactics for making your Twitter account a social media heavyweight in your industry. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
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Technosailor.com
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TUTORIAL: Using WordPress’Ajax API
8 Feb 2012 | 9:46 amWordPress has tons of APIs to do tons of things. It really does. One of the cool ones that I’ve been using a lot lately, has been around for a bit. It’s the Ajax API. Sure, you could write your own Ajaxy thing but why do that when WordPress lets you do it all very simply. This tutorial will show you how to replicate the functionality that is presented in the “Like” button at Facebook. It assumes that you have WordPress set to require users to be logged in to take such actions. It wouldn’t make much sense for someone to not be logged in for such functionality. -
Blackouts, Boycotts and Regressing From Progress
30 Jan 2012 | 1:54 pmA couple of weeks ago, the United States, and in fact, the world saw the internet grow up. Namely, through the use of blackouts – a previously unused tactic of protest and grassroots organizing – we saw the evil Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and it’s evil twin Protect IP (PIPA) anti-piracy legislation fail in what seemed like an instant. Back in December, it became clear that Congress would hearken to their corporate sugar daddys and shove these two pieces of legislation through the Congress without so much as a minimal amount of input from the technology world that would… -
Congratulations, Internet. We Won the Day.
19 Jan 2012 | 12:05 pmToday, I feel like a proud poppa. I don’t want to get too celebratory and put out some kind of aura that our battle against SOPA and PIPA are over. In fact, neither are over. But I’ll get to that in a minute, because yesterday was AMAZING! Yesterday, we saw the Internet come of age. We’ve seen the trend. The Internet has played a crucial role in the Arab Spring, political activism and fundraising as seen in the Obama election campaign in 2008, news reporting as seen in the incident of the US Airways jet in the Hudson River. We’ve seen a definite maturation process on… -
Open Letter to Congressman Lamar Smith Regarding SOPA Championing
18 Jan 2012 | 11:55 amAn email sent to the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who insists on pushing the SOPA bill through committee. Dear Mr. Smith- This is an open letter which will be published online, and promoted on Facebook, Twitter and other networks. As a Texas resident, I find it egregious that you have decided to sell out so uniformly to the entertainment industry. It is so transparent, in fact, that federal records show that your biggest donor are from the holding company for Clear Channel and your biggest campaign contributions come from the entertainment industry itself. -
Your Fiefdom Doesn’t Matter (Or Get your Head out of Your Regional Startup Ass)
5 Jan 2012 | 12:58 pmPhoto used under Creative Commons. Taken by Fellowship of the Rich There’s this thing called Protectionism. Protectionism is largely a political word used to describe the retreat to self-isolationism for the sake of preserving well-being. It was a word tossed around in late 2008 and 2009 after the market crash when the international community joined together to try to stave off a global economic failure. There were some who believed the United States had their own issues and shouldn’t be worrying about bailing out Europe. This mentality still exists, for better or for worse. But…
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Being Peter Kim
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Is social media free?
2 Feb 2012 | 12:22 amIn 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…
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PR-Squared - Social Media Marketing and Public Relations
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Open Letter to Havas CEO David Jones
8 Feb 2012 | 8:12 amHi 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
6 Feb 2012 | 6:35 amDepending 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
3 Feb 2012 | 11:27 amWow. 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
23 Jan 2012 | 9:46 amThose 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
19 Jan 2012 | 7:18 amLet’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…
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Seth's Blog
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How do they know you're not a flake?
8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 amBefore 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
7 Feb 2012 | 2:09 amBut 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?
6 Feb 2012 | 2:26 amRule 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… -
In search of a timid trapeze artist
5 Feb 2012 | 2:01 amGood luck with that, there aren't any. If you hesitate when leaping from rope to another, you're not going to last very long. And this is at the heart of what makes innovation work in organizations, why industries die, and how painful it is to try to maintain the status quo while also participating in a revolution. Gather up as much speed as you can, find a path and let go. You can't get to the next rope if you're still holding on to this one. -
Will energy consumption stay private?
4 Feb 2012 | 11:45 amIt's clear that the consumption of energy has external effects that impact more than just the person who is paying for it. Geopolitical, health and economic issues come to the neighbors and nearby citizens of entities that are using a lot of power. It was always straightforward to see who was burning a lot of wood or drove a huge car. It's easy to see when a company has a huge smokestake belching carbon. What happens when sensors make it easy to see how efficient a machine is, how much of a resource is being consumed and how much exhaust is being spewed? What happens when Google maps shows…
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Charlene Li
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New Report: “Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retailers”
7 Feb 2012 | 10:16 amWhen it comes to shopping, I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone. Some apps are actually helpful, letting me explore products or buy something immediate. But the vast majority of the retailer apps litter my screens, sitting unused after an initial, disappointing whirl. My frustration is reflected in the findings of my colleague Chris Silva‘s new report, entitled “Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retailers“. Of particular value is that Chris pivots the report around two major strategies retails can use when it comes to mobile: Enrich: These strategies are… -
Jerry Yang’s departure signals a New Day for Yahoo!, the passing of an era for Tech
17 Jan 2012 | 4:30 pmMy first reaction to the news that Jerry Yang is leaving Yahoo! was that this was the passing of an era. I first met Jerry in 1994 when he was still a PhD student at Stanford, before he and David Filo left to run Yahoo! full time. Through bubbles and two economic downturns, Jerry has always been omnipresent in Silicon Valley. But all good things come to pass. With the arrival of Scott Thompson as the new CEO of Yahoo!, it makes sense that Scott be given a clean slate upon which to write the future of Yahoo!. This is very much the norm for incoming CEOs, where founders are asked to take a… -
Predictions Social Business in 2012, Part III: Transforming Your Organization
9 Jan 2012 | 10:26 amThis is the last of three posts I’m writing on predictions and priorities for Social Business in 2012. You can read the first and second prediction posts for more context. Prediction #3: Connected leaders and employees will create sustained competitive advantages through a culture of sharing. This year will see some companies pull ahead of others because they are able to collaborate, innovate and execute better and faster thanks to an ingrained culture of sharing. This is the year that companies get serious about investing in their internal social business capabilities, simply because it… -
Predictions for Social Business in 2012, Part II: Knowing Your Customer
3 Jan 2012 | 4:26 pmRather than simply make prognostications, I wanted to give actionable advice based on these trends. This is the second of my three predictions and priorities for Social Business in 2012 (read the first prediction). Prediction #2: Your customers want to be known. Your customers don’t merely want you to understand their needs or pain points. They want you to know them as individuals anywhere and anytime they engage with you. Companies sure know a lot about us, without knowing much. For example, I’m classified for marketing purposes as a Gen X, 35-45 years old, graduate degree holding, Real… -
Predictions and Priorities for Social Business in 2012 – Part I
2 Jan 2012 | 9:57 amMy pet peeve about the annual predictions ritual is that they lack context for action. It’s nice to know that tablets and big data are important — but what should you do about it? So here’s my attempt at not only forecasting but also to provide actions that companies should be prioritizing in 2012. The Process: I went through my speaking and client engagements in 2011 and looked at which topics and themes I kept referring to over and over again, especially toward the end of the year. I also analyzed which of the tweets from these events were most retweeted to verify where the heat…
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Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
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How To Get Started As A Business Leader
7 Feb 2012 | 1:04 pmYour 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
7 Feb 2012 | 6:51 amIf 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
5 Feb 2012 | 11:30 amCTRL 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
5 Feb 2012 | 10:41 amEpisode #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… -
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #85
3 Feb 2012 | 8:40 amIs there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see". Check out these six links that we're…
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Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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Turn Your Business Into a Community Building Platform
8 Feb 2012 | 5:36 amTurn 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
7 Feb 2012 | 5:58 amIs 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
6 Feb 2012 | 5:51 amThis 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
4 Feb 2012 | 5:32 amWeekend 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… -
Does Your Marketing Make the Grade
1 Feb 2012 | 5:02 amDoes Your Marketing Make the GradeThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Laura Fitton (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes or subscribe via other RSS device (Google Listen) A number of years ago Hubspot created something called the Website Grader, a tool that graded a number of important aspects about a website and concocted a score or grade based on those factors. Although no tool can really accurately measure the effectiveness of a website, the tool had a nice marketing bent to it and was a pretty simple…
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John Battelle's Search Blog
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Larry Page’s “Tidal Wave Moment”?
7 Feb 2012 | 10:54 amWho remembers the moment, back in 1995, when Bill Gates wrote his famous Internet Tidal Wave Memo? In it he rallied his entire organization to the cause of the Internet, calling the new platform an existential threat/opportunity for Microsoft’s entire business. In the memo Gates wrote: “I assign the Internet the highest level of importance. In this memo I want to make clear that our focus on the Internet is crucial to every part of our business. The Internet is the most important single development to come along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981.” The memo runs more… -
Now All That’s Left Is To Write It
7 Feb 2012 | 9:27 amFor posterity, if nothing else, here’s what my desk looks like at the moment. After a particularly enlightening whiteboard session with Steven Johnson late last week, then further musings on the back of bar menus and borrowed receipt-tape with my wife, and finally after waking up and scribbling notes in the middle of the night, I finally have a working outline of The Next Book. No, it’s not supposed to make much sense. Yet. Now all I have to do is write it. -
Do You Think The US Government Is Monitoring Social Media?
3 Feb 2012 | 8:49 amI had the news on in the background while performing morning ablutions. It was tuned to CBS This Morning – Charlie Rose has recently joined the lineup and my wife, a former news producer, favors both Rose and the Tiffany Network. But the piece that was running as I washed the sleep from my eyes was simply unbelievable. It was about the two unfortunate british tourists detained by Homeland Security over jokes on Twitter about “destroying America” (a colloquialism for partying – think “tear up the town”) and “digging up Marilyn Monroe” whilst in… -
In Which I Officially Declare RSS Is Truly Alive And Well.
2 Feb 2012 | 7:50 pmI promise, for at least 18 months, to not bring this topic up again. But I do feel the need to report to all you RSS lovin’ freaks out there that the combined interactions on my two posts – 680 and still counting – have exceeded the reach of my RSS feed (which clocked in at a miserable 664 the day I posted the first missive). And as I said in my original post: If I get more comments and tweets on this post than I have “reach” by Google Feedburner status, well, that’s enough for me to pronounce RSS Alive and Well (by my own metric of nodding along, of course). If… -
It’s Not Whether Google’s Threatened. It’s Asking Ourselves: What Commons Do We Wish For?
2 Feb 2012 | 10:40 amIf Facebook’s IPO filing does anything besides mint a lot of millionaires, it will be to shine a rather unsettling light on a fact most of us would rather not acknowledge: The web as we know it is rather like our polar ice caps: under severe, long-term attack by forces of our own creation. And if we lose the web, well, we lose more than funny cat videos and occasionally brilliant blog posts. We lose a commons, an ecosystem, a “tangled bank” where serendipity, dirt, and iterative trial and error drive open innovation. Google’s been the focus of most of this analysis…
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Brian Solis
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Meet the Mother of All Processes
8 Feb 2012 | 10:32 amGuest 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.
7 Feb 2012 | 10:10 amChris 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
3 Feb 2012 | 10:52 amThis 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)
2 Feb 2012 | 3:13 pmMy 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
2 Feb 2012 | 6:16 amGuest 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 &…
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Conversation Agent
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Collaboration? You Must be Joking!
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amI 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
7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amHere 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?
6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amAs 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
5 Feb 2012 | 4:00 amSo, 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… -
The Weeds and Trees Links Edition
4 Feb 2012 | 4:00 amDo you have poor information consumption habits? Here's how you can tell -- if you're constantly looking for the next thing or shiny object, you're addicted to the fast growth and short term life of weeds. Some of them are pretty. All the action is up top, yet they don't grow strong. Small roots. On the other end of the spectrum are trees. All the action is underground, so you don't really see it while it's happening -- and at least for a while. Yet, once they grow, trees could be there for decades, stretching upward and providing a welcome respite for generations. Weeds and trees Is a…
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Brian Solis
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Meet the Mother of All Processes
8 Feb 2012 | 10:32 amGuest 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.
7 Feb 2012 | 10:10 amChris 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
3 Feb 2012 | 10:52 amThis 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)
2 Feb 2012 | 3:13 pmMy 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
2 Feb 2012 | 6:16 amGuest 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 &…
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Web Ink Now
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MYTH: "My buyers are not on the Web"
5 Feb 2012 | 8:20 amI frequently hear from people that their buyers are not on the Web. This myth is used an excuse not to create a valuable Web site and to avoid creating content. Sorry to deliver a reality check, but the truth is that very few people are offline, particularly when you include lower cost mobile technology. In fact, there are more mobile phones in the world than toothbrushes. Of the 6 billion people on the planet, 4.8 billion have access to a mobile phone. I saw this phenomenon in action this week while on a one-week expedition in the Panamanian jungle. Together with seven other international… -
The advertising arms race now going to the edge of space
31 Jan 2012 | 3:17 amPerhaps you've seen the video Lego Man in Space that’s gone around recently. It's an interesting time-lapse sequence of a ride on a weather balloon and has generated two million views in five days. Whenever there is a new technology like this, it is inevitable that somebody will use it as a place to sell ads. Enter JP Aerospace, a company that flies a high altitude balloon, carrying ads, to the edge of space and returns photos for the sponsor to use. The JP Aerospace site says: "Creates impact! Gives customers a lasting impression of your logo or message! Provides a dramatic… -
Thinking Right (and Left) about Content Marketing
27 Jan 2012 | 1:11 pmAs I evaluate Web marketing such as blogs and websites, one thing I look for is evidence of both left-brain and right-brain thinking in the creation of the content. This obsession might seem trivial, but I guess my right-brain outlook on life causes me to take a holistic view of content. The right-/left-brain concept is widely credited to have developed from the thinking of American psychobiologist Roger Sperry in the late 1960s. Sperry's Nobel Prize-winning work opened whole fields of psychological and philosophical debate including the idea that there are two different sides of the… -
Playing for Change
23 Jan 2012 | 7:28 amWhen I first saw the original Playing for Change video Stand By Me on YouTube I was moved and fascinated and jumped for joy. Wow. As a music lover and collector of social media success stories, here was both music and social media triumphantly on display and coming together to support a good cause. I talked up the videos via social and in person to everyone I saw. Stand By Me now has 37 million views on YouTube and has sparked a movement. Now, Playing for Change has 15 videos in the Songs Around the World series with a combined 140 million views. If you haven't seen a Playing for Change video… -
Stop SOPA Silliness
18 Jan 2012 | 3:36 amIt didn't work with music: The music industry killed Napster and sued 16-year-olds to protect their dying business model of selling "albums" via top 40 radio. Instead of understanding the immense power of social media like YouTube as a marketing tool to sell single songs (iTunes) and streaming subscriptions (Spotify), the music industry honchos preferred to destroy in a ridiculous attempt to save the status-quo. Listened to top 40 radio recently? It didn't work with email: I get many times more unsolicited (and illegal) email than I did prior to CAN-SPAM. Tons of it from legitimate companies…
