Worth exploring; Andy Beal comments on “The Next Hot Marketing Ploy…“

...continue to read "Forget About Marketing: Why You Want To Be Sued"

From Today’s BBC, as pointed out by Jakob himself in his newsletter (emphasis mine):

Sadly, said Mr Nielsen, the rush to embrace Web 2.0 technology meant that many firms were turning their back on the basics.

“They should get the basics right first,” he said. “Sadly most websites do not have those primary things right.“

There was a risk, he said, of a return to the dotcom boom days when many sites, such as Boo.com, looked great but were terrible to use.

“That was just…

...continue to read "Jakob Nielsen on Everyone’s Favorite Buzzword: “Web 2.0″"

Well, at least that’s what Bill Gates said at the recent Microsoft SAS event. While Microsoft is not always known to be right about everything, Bill Gates has been pretty good at predicting long-term trends. Bill riffs about yellow pages, traditional media channels, mobile, virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life), and even social networking. You can watch a video of his presentation.

I’d have to agree with most of what he says; I just wonder about the speed of decline and consumer…

...continue to read "Traditional Advertising Models Are Doomed!"

Internet radio broadcasters have lost an important copyright battle in court that will make streaming music much more expensive and that could force them out of business. The record labels see Internet radio as a threat. They think that radio encourages record sales but that streaming music does not. The record labels haven’t been so smart in the past. Are they being shortsighted now?

If the subject interests you, then also check out SaveNetRadio.org

...continue to read "Are Record Labels Being Shortsighted?"

Your company is not perfect.

Your company makes mistakes.

Your company’s mistakes affect your customers.

What do you do about those mistakes? Do you puff your chest and act like nothing is wrong?

Do you try to ’spin’ your way out of it.

Stop wasting your time, you are only digging yourself a grave in the graveyard of irrelevant companies and poorly perceived brands.

Instead, try being transparent.

Our friends over at Bazaarvoice have a great post about the recent JetBlue snafu.

The jetBlue situation illustrates the fundamental…

...continue to read "How Transparent is Your Business?"

The Ask.com blog shows some amazing new features for their local search product. You can actually draw and write on the map, marking it up so you can send it to friends. It’s worth a try. Actually, my friends know better than to take any directions from me, with a map or without.

...continue to read "Ask.com Maps - Or New Ways To Confuse My Friends"

In December, Dave Young wrote this excellent post about how people interact with websites and how that is different from other media. It’s worthwhile reading.

...continue to read "scan - read - click - scan - click - scan - read - read - click - scan - click - type - click - type - click"

In case someone in your organization forgot, ask them if they can spare four and a half minutes to watch this engaging video:

YouTube - Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

...continue to read "It’s All About the Links!"

Don’t you just love buzzwords? In the 80’s, “synergy” was one of my favs. When Nasdaq was a tad closer to 5,000 than it is today, thinking “outside the box” meant you were someone who “got it”. Yesterday, I was hard pressed to choose between “long tail” and “Web 2.0″. But today, Web 2.0 is the clear winner.

As meaningless as the word is (and as much fun as it is to toss around mockingly), it’s being furthered under the guise of a…

...continue to read "Do Message Boards Equal Community?"

Do you have a successful e-mail list?

How do you determine its success:? Total subscribers? Number of weekly sign-ups? High open rate? Click-throughs? Comments generated?

All those numbers are important, but often the real value of a good list is the participation it stimulates between the subscriber and your business.

Too many businesses shell out too many dollars and resources to up their number of subscribers or to improve the demographic quality of their e-mail lists, while too few consider the quality of…

...continue to read "Delete Your E-Mail List"