A deep dive into digital marketing

Today’s time waster and great online advertising

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Flash, I wish I'd thought of that

How can you resist yearbook yourself. Check it out here but as you are playing note that hey this is also advertising. The links go to actual stores in an actual mall. Seeming done by Taubman a property investment/mgmt. company, not only is this super fun to play with but what a great way to get the word out about your stores.

Kudos!

Social Media, look in the mirror first

Posted by Chris under Advertising, I wish I'd thought of that, Social Networking

The other day, Greg Verdino wrote a great post yesterday entitled “Social media: lipstick on a pig or total makeover?” Can I say spot on.

In summary the article is about the hypocrisy of companies using social media or wanting to use social media for marketing when they don’t use it themselves. Thanks Greg I couldn’t agree more!

He goes on to say “If you ask me, starting with social media marketing can often amount to nothing more than putting lipstick on the pig (and yep, the pig in this case is your old school “anti-social” company.)  I can’t tell you how often marketers ask me for advice on how to use social media to reach new customers and sell more stuff, yet have never even considered how they can use the very same (or similar) tools to work better, smarter and cheaper themselves.  Worse still are those companies that seem hell-bent on marketing through social media yet can’t even access social media sites from within their firewalls.”

Then lists seven points that we should all be asking ourselves and our companies.

His point #3 is a big flag waver for me. “How might a private online community enable me to collaborate more seamlessly with my clients, investors and outside business partners?” Tools like Ning can change the way we collaborate not only with clients but also with our audience. Forrester has had some great white papers regarding the connected agency or help wanted 21st century agency, both of which I’d submit are must reads.

But as Greg points out if we don’t use/act/do internally we’re not only missing out we’re selling ourselves short. So let’s all wake up or wake up those around us!

Pandora going bye bye - say it isn’t so

Posted by Chris under Broadband, Community, Technology

In what may be the end to Pandora, the recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) to raise royalty fees that will cover the administrative costs of SoundExchange, may well be the end for Pandora

More info on the fees can be found here, thanks to ars technica, but this would seem to spell the end for not only Pandora but other great intenet broadcasters like Radio Paradise.

So stay tuned (pun inteded) but in the coming months as the new fees come due we may hear a lot less music out there.

at adtech today

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Chicago, Conference, Twitter, adtech

so I’m at adtech today and will be tweeting the sessions as I see/hear them. Join me on twitter if you’d like:

Roaming with your iphone, better have lots of cash!

Posted by Chris under Apple, Mobile, Technology, Travel, iPhone

So I’m getting ready for a trip to Canada, which according to AT&T, may be our northern neighbor but your phone and data plan is US only. Which means get ready for some extra $$, especially around data usage.

Now I’m well used to paying high costs when traveling internationally for mobile phone calls. Of course paying for an international plan can lower the rate slightly or going full native and getting local pay as you go sim/phone can be one way to go. Or at the other end use Skype or tools like that for free skype to skype calls.

But it’s the data that will really get you. After all in my article on TalentZoo.com I wrote about how the iPhone was more computer then phone and I still stand by that.

So first a BIG thanks to AT&T for calling attention to the issue and for Felix Salmon over at Portfolio.com for pointing out even more.

International data roaming can get expensive quickly. In two weeks I’ve pushed almost 100MB to/from my iphone, which if I was international would be about a $2000 bill (based on pay-per-use international data rates of $.0195/KB). Or breaking it down a bit more uploading one photo to Flickr would be about $20-30. OUCH!

What can you do to minimize your international data charges? Here’s where AT&T is very helpful.

1) Turn Data Roaming “OFF”: Be sure to download and install the latest version of iPhone software (version 2.0) from iTunes. By default, this setting for international data roaming will be in the “OFF” position.

To turn data roaming “ON/OFF” tap on: Settings>General>Network>Data Roaming

2) Utilize Wi-Fi instead of GPRS/EDGE/3G: Wi-Fi is available in many international airports, hotels and restaurants to browse the web or check email.

Turn Off Your Phone’s “Auto-Check” Function for Email: Data usage from email can accrue quickly. Check email manually using Wi-Fi instead of having email downloaded automatically to your iPhone. This way you can control the flow of data coming to your iPhone.

To turn off the Auto-Check functionality tap on: Settings>Fetch New Data and select manually

3) Consider Purchasing an International Data Package: Purchasing an international data package can significantly reduce the cost of using data abroad. AT&T now offers two discount international data packages.

$24.99 per month - 20 MB Data Global Plan (20 MB of usage in over 65 countries*. Overage is $.005/KB)

$59.99 per month - 50 MB Data Global Plan (50 MB of usage in over 65 countries*. Overage is $.005/KB)

*for a list of countries visit att.com/dataconnectglobal for current information

Reading Felix’s article he points out the issues of the Data Global Plan, one being that you have to keep it for multiple billing cycle. Otherwise if you cancel it upon your return and the charges haven’t come in yet you be charged the non-plan rate. -note my call to AT&T did confirm this as well but they also said there is no termination charge for the plan you can keep it as long/short as you like. They also did, to their credit, point out the same point that Felix made.

So what am I going to do? Well the plan is to get the 20MB plan so at least if I really need to use things like Google Maps (as in help I’ve wondered off and am lost) I won’t feel like my $ are flying away. But this is for “emergency” use only I’ll plan to use WiFi as much as I can.

I’ll let you know when I return how that all worked out. Oh and one last note I’ll be resetting the Usage Tracker to Zero when the plane touches down (in the general settings menu & select reset statistics.) This way I’ll rally know how much data usage I use. Unfortunately it doesn’t differentiate between WiFi and 3G/Edge.

Lastly, no comment on how crazy this feels having to plan my data usage, so much for the ubiqutous internet, I guess that’s just for the well heeled vertu crowd.

Your bits are better then mine

Posted by Chris under Broadband, Comcast, Security, Technology, Uncategorized

Yesterday CNET reported on the latests over the the FCC 3-2 ruling on Friday to “declare that Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent traffic last year was unlawful, marking the first time that any U.S. broadband provider has ever been found to violate Net neutrality rules”

Big news right except that there were not fines, penalties or even a slap on the wrist, and Comcast’s comment from a company spokeswomen: “We believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices,” isn’t really one of apology.

Remember this is the same Comcast that denied in August 2007 that it was filtering BitTorrent traffic. But when experts showed a few months later that Comcast really was throttling BitTorrent after all, and the company was forced to concede to the FCC that it blocks only “excessive” traffic.

Now I’m a Comcast subscriber. I’ve been using their highspeed broadband for almost 10 years and their broadband and TV for over four. It’s fast, reliable and for the most part like the electricity in my house, it just works. Clearly their are network bandwidth issues, some of which along with some solutions are pointed out in the recent MIT Technology Journal. As a side note I’d suggest you add this magazine or the website to your regular reading.

The FCC needs to get it’s act together to work with ISP’s and create solutions to packet/data management as the problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

Get out and walk with Google

Posted by Chris under Chicago, Google, Search Engines

Google Maps now offers walking directions, in addition to driving and public transportation. Just get directions as you normally would. If you’re going 10 km or less (some call this 6.2 miles), we’ll show you a link that you can click to get “Walking” directions:

If public transit directions are available for Google Maps in your area, you’ll seen an improvement to them as well. And if the route is shorten then 10km you can choose from Driving, walking or public transportation.

That’s it, now get out and walk!

Ohh and the Google LatLong Blog is a great one for all things Google Maps!

Crowdsourcing a trend or…

Posted by Chris under Community, Mobile, Search Engines, Social Networking

Maybe because I’ve been reading a few books, posts, articles, etc. on crowdsourchign lately but it seems we’re at another lift in the plateau of crowdsourcing.

I know it’s been out for a while but ChaCha has really caught my eye lately and more from the guide vs. the user. Sure I could just look up the stuff myself on google but why if I can have someone else do it for me. And this brings me to the guide.

It’s a very interesting model of crowdsourcing for $.20 an answer I can spend, as they say “15 minuets or 15 hours” answering questions that come in. Kind of intersting for say someone who has a few hours to in which they are otherwise not engaged. Or a retiree who can’t get out to work easily but has their computer right there, well I could go on but you get the idea.

Sort of plays right into other activities that ordinary citizens can do at the leisure of their computer, but in this case get paid for it.

I think it’s a trend to watch both in crowdsourcing and tapping into a market that may not be reached through help wanted ads but are imminently employable none-the-less.

gaah, my blog is-was under DNS attack

Posted by Chris under Hosting, Technology

Ok, well the probably isn’t directed at me but my hosting provider, hostway informed me that some of their Linux servers are under a DNS attack. Oh, and my blog may be sitting on one of those servers. Which it seems to be as it wouldn’t load earlier.

But looks like I’m back up, whew!

To MyHosting.com’s credit they answered the phone call to tech support in 5 min. Told me what they could and I got an email this evening explaning what had happend and that everything was back up.

Customer Service +2

Are you in the Tribe

Posted by Chris under Advertising, I wish I'd thought of that, Social Networking, Technology, trends

Call it smart marketing or eating your own dog food but Seth Godin is pushing his new book building community in a pretty interesting new way. First you have to buy pre-order his book then you may be admitted into his”tribe for marketers” after you jump through a few small hoops.

An invitation only, spots are limited, membership has it’s privileges kind of site which I of course could not resist signing up for.

Are you in the tribe?

As a note I got my auto response back, I like that they are using Ning for the community, that’s really eating your own dog food!

note per Seth’s request I took the email down, I’d posted the email response I’d gotten from them. (you’ll see his reply below) Happy to do so!