Micro Persuasion

links for 2006-04-01

• Consumer Tech & Entertainment
  A new blog from H&K on the worlds of consumer technology and entertainment
  (tags: blogs PR)
• myspace: comments
  This tool will make an RSS feed for comments on a Myspace.com profile.
  (tags: RSS myspace blogs)
• Mashable* » AddictingClips - More User-Generated Videos
  Atom Films has re-released its AddictingClips site, and is now accepting submissions from users.
  (tags: video centersofgravity COGs community)
• Wired News: Apple Ads
  A gallery of Apple ads.
  (tags: apple history advertising)
• Newsvine UFG Wrap up
  Jason Calacanis plays with Newsvine.
  (tags: newsvine CitizenJournalism)
• The Google Bookmark Bookmarklet
  Bookmark sites and stick them in Google Bookmarks.
  (tags: google lifehacks bookmarks bookmarklets)

Technorati Adds MySpace Blogs

Aaron Brazell says Technorati is now indexing MySpace blogs. Judging from this graph (below), I'd say he sure is right. A spike like that doesn't occur out of nowhere.

Technorati Tags: Technorati

The Scoblemeter

What's on Robert Scoble's radar? The Dashboard Spy knows.

Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble

Emerson's RSS Starter Kit

Emerson Process Management, which recently started blogging, built an RSS Starter Kit to get their customers up to speed on using feeds. Oh and if you don't think they're serious, check out their home page. It's got RSS and blogs all over it. Emerson Process Management is a b-to-b company that makes tools that automate and improve process-related operations in plants (in blog lingo - the movement of the goop that becomes products we use everyday). They're a unit of Emerson, a Fortune 500 company. Hey Chris, add Emerson to this list. In the words of Annie Potts, "We got one."

Blog, RSS Marketing Picking Up Steam

Where's the money going in marketing? eMarketer knows. According to a survey of ad:tech attendees conducted by MarketingSherpa, there's an immediate interest in spending on RSS and blog marketing with a longer term look towards mobile, podcasting and advergaming. (Via Mobhappy)

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Mobile, Wireless

Online Feed Readers Reviewed

On TechCrunch Frank Gruber examines The State of Online Feed Readers in a comprehensive review. The Google Reader and FeedLounge were the fastest, but Bloglines and Rojo are came out on tops when it came to features. None, Frank says, approach the speed and agility of the best desktop based readers like NetNewsWire and FeedDemon. However, I would remind everyone that Newsgator Online syncs up with these readers. The desktop products also sync with Bloglines so you can get the best of both. The following matrix is from TechCrunch.

links for 2006-03-31

• Videos: A Weekly Siren Call to 24% of Web Surfers
  One in four people online watch a video each week - about 65% of those people were guys. Hmm, porns gotta be a factor here. Sports too.
  (tags: video trends stats)
• Wired News: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes Ever
  One of the great things about Steve Jobs is what comes out of his mouth.
  (tags: quotes Apple stevejobs)

Marketing's New Black

What's black and white and read all over? The answer to this limerick used to be "a newspaper." Today it's the Blackberry.

New York is a big newspaper town. We have four majors, two freebies plus of course two nationals. During my seven years of commuting to work on the Long Island Railroad, the country's largest commuter rail, I have watched the newspaper to gadget ratio slide heavily in favor of the gizmos. The machines have won. People spend far more time fiddling with their iPods and Blackberries than they do reading print. It even cuts across all generations. So how do we reach this captive and important audience?

To reach the iPod crowd we have audio and video podcasts. Though far from perfect, if the programming is compelling enough and marketed effectively through other means , you can grab a tiny share of pod if the consumer decides to let you in.

Blackberries are another story entirely. These aren't entertainment gadgets but business tools. Most of us want to reduce what's on here, not expand it. Nevertheless, the Blackberry is an incredibly fertile marketing ground if we can find a way to court the businessperson to let us in. It's more valuable real estate than the back page of the Wall Street Journal.

The key things to consider when developing marketing programs for mobile devices are how they are used and what the consumer will reasonably accept. This means that more traditional forms of online marketing won't work on a Blackberry. Busy businesspeople will be outraged if they need to wait for an interstitial ad to load when they have an urgent need to read an important news report.

The Blackberry, unlike the iPod, has historically been an information tool rather than a means of entertainment. But lately, I have seen lots of people using the devices to play Sudoku or surf the mobile web. The picture may even be brighter when considering the potential for mobile video. Blackberry Cool reports that 41% of mobile phone users are interested in some form of video service on their mobile phone. So although the device is still all about managing the flow of business, the promise of entertainment is rising. Here are three potential ways to market by Blackberry right now ...

1) Brand Mobile Games - as Blackberries become more sophisticated, marketers should consider launching free downloadable Java midlets that incorporate their brands into the games.

2) Focus on Data - At their core, Blackberries are all about business. These professionals have real-time needs for information. Consider building downloadable applications and/or email on-demand services that put essential information at users fingertips. For example, a broker could build and brand a real-time stock application or an airline might build a flight tracker.

3) Go MVNO - To date Blackberries have been most popular in medium and large businesses. They're too costly sometimes for smaller enterprises to buy.  According to IDC, with the consumer wireless market approaching saturation, all the attention is going to turn to the business market. There's a window for someone like American Express to come along and launch an mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Blackberry service for small businesses. Think Virgin Mobile for businesses. Such devices could even be co-branded. Expect to see business MVNOs this sometime this year or next.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, iPod, Mobile, Wireless

Disney, Pixar Imagineers Blog Company Missteps

Pixar and Disney's imagineers have started up a rather forthright blog called Re-Imagineering. It aims to "catalog past Imagineering missteps and offer tenable practical solutions in hopes that a new wave of creative management at Imagineering can restore some of the wonder and magic that's been missing from the parks for decades." Like mini Microsoft, this employee blog is also being written under pseudonyms. Nevertheless, it still attracts a lot of commentary.

(Hat tip to Michael Gray for the ping)

Technorati Tags: Disney, Pixar

MySpace Mania

My Edelman colleague Marilynn Mobley sent over some staggering statistics about MySpace. They got my head spinning considering this site was hardly on any of our radar screens a year ago.

It is the largest online social networking portal on the web

It has 61 + million registered users with 21+ million unique visitors (media metrix)

It's the second largest destination on the web, by page views

It splits 50.2% male, 49.8% female

They reach more men online than ESPN.com. They reach more females online than iVillage.

The primary age demo is 16-34

They have 1.4 million registered bands, 350,000 band blogs

The site attracts 220,000 new registrants daily

There are 50,000 groups including fashion, health, wellness & fitness, sports and recreation, music, film, TV, etc.

And last but not least it costs $35,000 to launch a profile for marketing purposes.

Technorati Tags: MySpace

TypePad Introduces Blog Widgets

TypePad has rolled out a nice new feature that bring dozens of widgets to your blog from other Web sites like Flickr, Technorati, FeedBurner and more. This turns what once was a bit of a chore into an easier task. Nice idea but why not open it up to the broader development community?

links for 2006-03-30

• Griffin debuts iTalkPro stereo microphone for 5G iPods
  iTalkPro will be able to record for 3.5 continuous hours on a fully-charged 60GB fifth-generation iPod, or 1.5 hours on a 30GB model before the battery runs out
  (tags: podcasting ipod)
• Alexaholic: Website Statistics and Website Traffic Graphs
  Alexaholic blends Alexa website traffic graphs with a lightweight ajax-enhanced interface to satisfy hard-core Alexa traffic chart junkies – aka Alexaholics.
  (tags: Alexa Ajax Analytics Stats mashups)
• Testing Goowy Web IM and Online Storage
  Goowy is slowly rolling out its new web instant messaging and online storage services to users.
  (tags: Web2.0)
• ANA Marketing Maestros
  A new blog from the brain trust at the Association of National Advertisers (a former client)
  (tags: advertising blogs marketing)
• WSJ.com: Ask.Com's New Look Scores Big Points Against Search Rivals
  Papa loves Ask.com, even over the big G.
  (tags: search google ask.com iac)
• Wired News: Apple Heroes and Villains
  Who should worshipped, and who should be whipped?
  (tags: apple mac)

Search YouTube the Ajax Way

At first I didn't know what it was when I saw it on del.icio.us. Qooqle Video turns out to be one really cool way to search YouTube. It's got a front-end built with Ajax.

Technorati Tags: YouTube

Om Enshrined in the Hall of Google

Congrats to Om Malik, blogger and journalist extraordinaire. His blog posts have been enshrined in Google News.

YouTube is a Friend, Not a Foe

YouTube is capping video lengths to reduce copyright infringement, according Ars. The company conducted an analysis of the videos in its system that are over 10 minutes long and found that the majority were full length, copyrighted videos from tv shows and movies. In response YouTube set up a paid Premium Content Program for professional videos.

I can certainly understand why YouTube had to put these measures in place. They don't want to become the next Napster. Yet somehow I think that most of the networks and the marketers are missing the opportunity here to partner with YouTube.

Here you have this vibrant community of amateur content producers who are going to considerable efforts to post their own videos. Plus there many more who are consuming them. And yes, some of this content is produced by big media. My point is that YouTube is candy for the marketers and the TV networks. Everyone here wants to tune into video programming. In a TiVO driven world you couldn't ask for more.

Rather than fighting YouTube, companies should be partnering with them, like MTV did. For example, advertisers could open source their creative into pieces, release them on YouTube and encourage the community to remix them into the next great TV ad. The content producers could release pilots into the community and partner with them to co-create the next show.

Time and again we've seen that when people aggregate into a content community they become accustomed to maintaining their rights there - whether they're right or wrong. Rather than fight the community the content networks and the marketers need to find the magical middle ground of compromise. When will they learn?

Technorati Tags: YouTube

eponym Debuts Blog Platform, Search

There's a new free blog host in town - eponym. Feature-wise they stack up really nicely against TypePad and Blogger. I created a test blog in under five minutes that you can see here. They have a classy designs too. Separately, eponym has rolled out a blog search engine as well. This site needs work but more competition is a good thing to have in both these categories.

Technorati Tags: eponym

State Department Schools Us on Blogs

The US Department of State hosted a webchat with David Kline. For those of you who might not know David, he wrote blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture. He also writes the Blog Revolt blog. A shorter summary can be found here.

This is just the latest in a series of hints over the last several weeks that the Federal Government is waking up to the transformative power of blogging. A lot of individual politicians heard the call four years ago with the Lott scandal and more recently Rathergate. But something bigger is going on here. It's coming out of the government's mouth both online and off. It's almost like some internal educational program has wrapped up. Could it be long before we see some government agencies launching their own blogs?

links for 2006-03-29

• Get reminders sent to your BlackBerry 7520 with Naggie - BBHub
  Naggie combines with GPS technology to send your BlackBerry 7520  "to do" reminders that are associated with your current location.
  (tags: blackberry lifehacks gtd)
• Make the logo bigger.
  A blog written by an art director
  (tags: adverting blogs)
• Ok, I Fell For It: Wurk.net
  Me too, Stowe.
  (tags: Web2.0 fun)
• David Binkowski.com: Blogging takes too much time
  David, come back. We miss you. Besides, isn't there a job number on your time sheet for this stuff?
  (tags: blogs PR)
• Get it? Like "still in beta..."
  Six Apart's Comet is in alpha.
  (tags: sixapart typepad blogs)

The Web 2.0 Awards

If you're interested in Web 2.0, look no further than this page.

Mark Cuban's Lessons for Revolutionaries

Regulars here know that I am a huge Mark Cuban fan. After I scanned all the chatter about Strumpette and his/her ridiculous and faceless prediction that I will not last in my new job, as an antidote I spent an hour watching this fascinating interview with Mark.

I hardly know Mark. We traded a few emails about blog search and he was kind enough to give me tickets to a Mavs game. Yet, I feel like he's my unofficial mentor. I have read and re-read his outstanding lessons on success and motivation dozens of times. He is to me like Ann Rynd's characters are to him - an inspiration. Now that some at least feel that I too am a "public figure," I look to Professor Cuban for more wisdom. The timing of the interview's release was perfect.

As I watched the piece I kept thinking "what would Mark do if he were in my situation?" What would he say if he pulled up an IceRocket search to find dozens of bloggers speculating that he was selling the Mavs or getting out of films or whatever the case may be. The answer is he would keep being Mark. Despite his billions, Mark makes himself completely approachable. He answers a good many of the 1000 emails he receives daily from fans and, I bet, foes. This shows he's true to himself.

Mark Cuban is a maverick. No doubt. He saw the PC and broadband revolutions coming long before we did and, god bless him, he capitalized. More recently he turned around a fledgling basketball team by making them more fan-friendly. Now he's trying to reinvent entertainment distribution, basketball and even PR in the process.

Mavericks have friends and they have enemies because they're often successful revolutionaries. They're pushing what Robert Scoble (another revolutionary) so eloquently calls the membrane. Mark is taking plenty of heat for his revolutionary plan to distribute movies on DVD at the same time they're in the theaters. But you know what, he listens, occasionally takes on his critics and does his thing.

So that's what I take away from this whole Smurfette episode. I listen, do my thing and continue to be part of the revolution. After all, that's what I was hired to do. If I veer from that then I will let everyone down - me, my employer and perhaps even you. That's not going to happen if I can help it. And I can.

Technorati Tags: markcuban, mark+cuban, mavericks, nba, basketball, success, motivation