Oct
28
2009
0

Google’s entry to the GPS world should have happened earlier

Google announced this week that they will be rolling out GPS-functionality (like the ones that Garmin & Tom-Tom have) out to their Android Phones.  They will also be coming out with hardware that will allow you to easily prop the handset onto your dash, so it can function as a traditional Car-based GPS unit when you’re not talking on the phone (I’m assuming eventually netbooks will also be able to do this).  What amazes me is not that Google was able to do this and is approaching the market by offering essentially “free” GPS service, but that the traditional businesses (Garmin & Tom Tom) didn’t have the guts in previous years to establish Google as a channel partner. They were likely too enamored with their $79/year Map updates that they sell to current customers.  I have a Garmin and love it’s quality, but wondered to myself why they could not just put bluetooth in their units and enable gps units to data link to a cell phone (with a data plan).  This would have allowed Garmin to offer google maps as a feature (maybe a $ service?)  - and not this year – they could have done this in 2006.  If they did, then this would be old news:

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Written by LP in: Business |
Oct
26
2009
0

Be honest about the Brand – and don’t pretend you’re Charlie Rose

AdAge launched a hilarious and scathing review, from a marketing perspective, of what everyone can learn by NBC’s missteps with regard to the Jay Leno Show.  I did manage to watch the Jay Leno Show last week and realized very quickly that Jay tries to be serious (when interviewing 1 on 1) - sort of Charlie Rose-esque – but unfortunately fails at it.  They should have stuck to the parodies and “man on the street” segments.

Anyway, AdAge calls out the fact that NBC paints the Jay Leno brand as being an “institution” that everyone in America would watch irrespective of the quality of programming – because it’s Jay!  Instead, the quality breaks through and we realize that Jay isn’t funny ALL the time, and thus, his status as an “institution” is falling sharply. It would not have been so bad for NBC if they hadn’t have painted the brand in such a way… it just erodes trust in the network itself.  A lesson for anyone promoting product brands of any sort.

7. It’s dangerous to pretend your brand is something it’s not.
NBC executives, in marketing Leno’s move to prime time, tried to position him as a beloved broadcast institution — like they were bestowing a comedic gift on America — as a cover for their entirely cynical cost-cutting. In reality, though, it was clear all along that late-night Leno functioned as a sort of utility: an easy, default pre-bedtime diversion literally not ready for prime time, even after 17 years. NBC used to offer substantive entrees at 10 (“ER,” “Law & Order”), and figured that viewers could be forced to switch to comfort food. But Leno at 11:35 wasn’t ever really even meatloaf; he was more like that stale bag of Funyuns in the back of the cupboard you were willing to settle for because mindless late-night snacking is … mindless.

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Written by LP in: Business |
Oct
21
2009
2

Gen Y Says: Stop Pigeonholing Us!

I am very confused by all the studies and claims that “Gen Y” either hates or loves email.  Why does it matter?  While you may be able to derive some affinity for social media based on someone’s age at this point, there are still those GenYers who prefer printed paper, some who prefer SMS, or some who prefer Facebook. 

We are going in a direction where a company needs to have multiple voices.  Those voices you can consider are “platforms” that everyone talks about all the time (email, facebook, etc.).  A brand’s job is just to enable their employees to speak in those different voices. Customers & the brands’ community at large can then consume in the manner that they prefer.  Case in point: my baby boomer+ mother-in-law uses Facebook more than my Gen X wife.  She may be more open to keeping up with you on Facebook than Email.  How are you gearing marketing toward her?

We should start talking about managing each and every demographic – over each and every platform.  It’s the holy grail of niche marketing, and too few want to talk about that (or do a survey on it).

Link to the article that tripped off this post:

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Written by LP in: Business |
Oct
21
2009
0

iPhone iTouch is blowing past other technologies in terms of adoption

If you look at raw subscribers, this is a great argument for the supremacy of the iPhone right now.

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Written by LP in: Business |
Oct
20
2009
1

Best Idea for RSS – But why do I have to install it?

FeedAFever is one of the best ideas I’ve seen so far for RSS reading.  I am heavily into feeds, and am guilty of bringing up my feed reader at a stop light once or twice.  Consequently, I was excited to learn that a company finally has understood the pains of we at the heavy end of the RSS reading spectrum.  We do, in fact, get a little “guilty” as the site puts it when we have things we have not read yet.  This software seeks to address that, by analyzing the posts from selected feeds and comparing them to other blogs that you watch. The popular topics, bubble up, much like popurls.com, but they do so in your customized feed reader. 

Great idea – one that google reader should have adopted a long time ago – I’m not sure why they’re so interested in showing you “who” liked a story (you can see other google reader people who clicked the like button), when they really should show you “how many” people liked a story.  Then I can drill down on who liked it  The frustrating part is that it’s not SaaS. I have to find a server of my own and install it.  There’s a reason Wordpress launched a service, ya know…

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Written by LP in: Business |
Oct
14
2009
0

Best Practices on designing Call to Action buttons

Marketers around the world know the importance of a good button. The most important of which is the call to action button, prompting a visitor/prospect to get started down the path of “enlightenment” (regarding your product ).

Great article from smashingmagazine about best practices on call to action buttons:

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Written by LP in: Business |
Oct
13
2009
0

Facebook vs. LinkedIn vs. Twitter

While mashable had an interesting article today about Twitter’s decline and Facebook’s stagnation, I thought it’d be more interesting to view LinkedIn besides these “big guys”.  The surprising finding is that LinkedIn is not extremely behind in terms of daily visitors. It actually matched twitter’s daily visitors just a few months back.

Below you can see how Linked In is growing steadily and Twitter’s been having a bad month so far.

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Written by LP in: Business |
Oct
01
2009
1

Stepping up Social Media at your Company

Luis’ Notes on the Webinar:  SMBC: Stepping up your company’s social media learning curve,” presented by Jeanette Gibson (Cisco’s Director, New Media) & Bob Pearson (Social Media Business Council’s Chief Evangelist, formerly of Dell), hosted by GasPedal.

Good ways to Listen to News Outlets:
  • netvibes.com – news feeds in one place, can see how your world is changing. 
  • Alltop.com (companies can have their own page)
Setting up an Innovation Team (or a web 2.0 team).  At Dell, they had a rule – you cannot talk about the past or present.  You can only talk about the future.

Branding:  There’s both a personal brand and a corporate brand that you can create online, but giving people guidance on how to craft a personal brand that represents your corporate identity well is necessary.  Need to outline best practices & recommendations company-wide.

Give everyone on your marketing & tradeshow teams a Flip camera.  Encourage team to record snippets at events.

Ways to start:
  • Start blogging.
  • Start commenting on others’ blogs
  • others:  video, podcasting, etc.
  • Web 2.0 mini summits, live in the studio, showcase what other employees are doing.
  • Interesting quote:  “make sure experts are your friends”
Example of something done badly:  Executive blog posts which are done “too perfectly”.  People know that these posts are finessed and proofed by a team, and lacks the authenticity that people are looking for.  Lacks transparency.

Tools:  Symphony, Radian 6, netvibes.  Listening tools.

Guidance for Employees:  Build off of the Employee Code of Conduct.  Expand to include social media presence in specific ways.  Cisco posts their social media policy on their blog. http://blogs.cisco.com/news/comments/ciscos_internet_postings_policy/

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Written by LP in: Business |

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