You must click here to see the most amazing, wonderful presentation called, "What the F**k is Social Media."
It's awesome. I love it. Enough said.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Epic Battle?
or bar-room brawl?
You be the judge.
In one corner, you have Microsoft and in the other you have the nimble yet large, fluid yet rock solid Google.
Sure, it sounds a little biased, but consider that Microsoft gave me one of my greatest loves, Excel, and my heart is quite equally torn.
The announcement by Google is intriguing. To enter into the Operating System space is a compelling idea to me. I think of the amazing and innovative things that Google does already and I find that I am interested to see what they could concoct.
That being said, Microsoft Windows clearly has a hold on the market place. Most consumer and corporate PCs come standard with Windows OS of some variety. And while the Mac vs. PC commercials do a nice job of making Windows PCs uncool, they haven't destroyed Windows' image totally. People are lining up to get Windows 7. Surprised?
And then there is the issue of Bing, Microsoft's new "decision" engine. This is actually the shot that started this whole one-upman-ship situation. Google's biggest cash cow is their search engine marketing. As long as they have the greatest share of searches online, they will continue to bring in enormous amounts of revenue with very little effort. While Bing is gaining search share, the engine is really stealing primarily from Yahoo. Short term: Google is just fine. But long term? Speculation is that the dent that Bing is putting into Yahoo will help with any possible acqusition strategies that Microsoft may employ to take over Yahoo. Yahoo + Microsoft Bing = good chunk of the market (not majority by any stretch since comScore still has Google at 65% share of searches.
And since Bing's efforts at getting a larger share of the search pie is a direct threat to Google's cash cow - Google decided that now is as good of a time as any to launch a brand new operating system.
Niiiice.
The question is: Do you think that Google's new Operating System is simply for the sake of distracting Microsoft from their search efforts and attacking Microsoft's core competency?
Or
Do you think that Google really believes that an Operating System is a viable next frontier?
Or is it a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B?
You be the judge.
In one corner, you have Microsoft and in the other you have the nimble yet large, fluid yet rock solid Google.
Sure, it sounds a little biased, but consider that Microsoft gave me one of my greatest loves, Excel, and my heart is quite equally torn.
The announcement by Google is intriguing. To enter into the Operating System space is a compelling idea to me. I think of the amazing and innovative things that Google does already and I find that I am interested to see what they could concoct.
That being said, Microsoft Windows clearly has a hold on the market place. Most consumer and corporate PCs come standard with Windows OS of some variety. And while the Mac vs. PC commercials do a nice job of making Windows PCs uncool, they haven't destroyed Windows' image totally. People are lining up to get Windows 7. Surprised?
And then there is the issue of Bing, Microsoft's new "decision" engine. This is actually the shot that started this whole one-upman-ship situation. Google's biggest cash cow is their search engine marketing. As long as they have the greatest share of searches online, they will continue to bring in enormous amounts of revenue with very little effort. While Bing is gaining search share, the engine is really stealing primarily from Yahoo. Short term: Google is just fine. But long term? Speculation is that the dent that Bing is putting into Yahoo will help with any possible acqusition strategies that Microsoft may employ to take over Yahoo. Yahoo + Microsoft Bing = good chunk of the market (not majority by any stretch since comScore still has Google at 65% share of searches.
And since Bing's efforts at getting a larger share of the search pie is a direct threat to Google's cash cow - Google decided that now is as good of a time as any to launch a brand new operating system.
Niiiice.
The question is: Do you think that Google's new Operating System is simply for the sake of distracting Microsoft from their search efforts and attacking Microsoft's core competency?
Or
Do you think that Google really believes that an Operating System is a viable next frontier?
Or is it a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B?
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Brilliant
I love it when software developers have an insight into consumer life (ie. sometimes people need to go to the bathroom in the middle of a movie, but don't want to miss anything - but also don't want their bladders to explode - oh, the tragedy!) and then create an application that addresses that need. Isn't that what marketing is all about, anyway?
The folks at Mashable (I love those guys!) wrote up a fun article on the RunPee: an iPhone app that lets you know when it's safe to go to the bathroom during the movie AND tells you what you missed when you get back. Brilliant! Ah, what will they think of next.
The folks at Mashable (I love those guys!) wrote up a fun article on the RunPee: an iPhone app that lets you know when it's safe to go to the bathroom during the movie AND tells you what you missed when you get back. Brilliant! Ah, what will they think of next.
Monday, June 29, 2009
People Love Free Stuff.
As a freshman in college, I observed my classmates signing up for multiple credit cards just to receive free tees, notebooks and other cheap tchotchkes. I did not participate in the free-for-all because, as God would have it, I was only 17 and too young to sign up for credit cards. By the time the hype had died down (along with a myriad of young credit scores) and I turned 18, signing up for free money had lost it's appeal for most of us college freshmen. And it didn't hurt that someone older and wiser, witnessing the insanity, started the rumor that signing up for so many credit cards was not only unwise, but it negatively impacted your credit score. In truth, most of us didn't know what a "credit score" was, but it sounded important and mysterious - and not something to be messed with.
I digress.
Considering the KFC debacle, which I fully enjoyed, it should be well understood that people (especially in this economy) love, love, love free stuff. Is it a sport? Is it out of necessity? Is it a combination of the two? I am not entirely certain. Regardless - our distant neighbors at Wizz Air in Budapest would have done well to take note of what happened with KFC before attempting to give away $49.95 free travel money on their airline - without ANY restrictions on using multiple vouchers for a single purchase.
See, Wizz Air thought it would be cool to attach vouchers to balloons and then, at a press conference for their 5th anniversary, release the balloons with the vouchers, providing consumers far and wide the opportunity to sample the airline at a reduced rate.
And... well, the unruly crowd LOVED the concept so much, they raided the net holding the balloons - popping them and stealing the vouchers.
Remember the part where I said the vouchers didn't have usage restrictions?
Niiice.
What can we learn from this, fellow marketers?
1. People Love Free Stuff.
2. Consumers will lose themselves in the frenzy of obtaining free stuff.
3. Your brand will potentially be lost in the frenzy.
4. There's a reason why moms everywhere say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" It applies just as much to daughters as it does grilled chicken and your brand.
I digress.
Considering the KFC debacle, which I fully enjoyed, it should be well understood that people (especially in this economy) love, love, love free stuff. Is it a sport? Is it out of necessity? Is it a combination of the two? I am not entirely certain. Regardless - our distant neighbors at Wizz Air in Budapest would have done well to take note of what happened with KFC before attempting to give away $49.95 free travel money on their airline - without ANY restrictions on using multiple vouchers for a single purchase.
See, Wizz Air thought it would be cool to attach vouchers to balloons and then, at a press conference for their 5th anniversary, release the balloons with the vouchers, providing consumers far and wide the opportunity to sample the airline at a reduced rate.
And... well, the unruly crowd LOVED the concept so much, they raided the net holding the balloons - popping them and stealing the vouchers.
Remember the part where I said the vouchers didn't have usage restrictions?
Niiice.
What can we learn from this, fellow marketers?
1. People Love Free Stuff.
2. Consumers will lose themselves in the frenzy of obtaining free stuff.
3. Your brand will potentially be lost in the frenzy.
4. There's a reason why moms everywhere say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" It applies just as much to daughters as it does grilled chicken and your brand.
TweetBoard
One of the challenging things with Twitter (among many) is the ability to sort through the data and follow conversations. On my own personal blog, and on this blog, I have a Twitter Feed that is allowing me to display my tweets. The difficulty is actually following these conversations. TweetBoard is coding that can be embedded into the site and allows blog/site readers to better follow related conversations happening on Twitter. It is a free application and the coding is in open alpha. A full article is here.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
NeoReader
A picture is worth a... website? Cool site called NeoReader.com allows consumers to download an application to their cell phone that will convert pictures of 2 dimensional barcodes into hyperlinks to URLs. Very cool idea. Check it out! Are we in the future or what? Just snap a picture and go!
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