It ain't nuthin without the stuffin'...
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Yelp Accused Of Review Extortion
The relatively small circ indy paper East Bay Express, which serves Alameda and Contra Costa Counties in NorCal including my hometown, O-town, has a long piece accusing Yelp of manipulating reviews to reward or punish small businesses based upon whether they make ad buys. These are not new allegations, though the paper cites some specific customer complaints and emails that make the story more credible than the random accusations that have dogged the company before. Here's an excerpt:
"Hi, this is Mike from Yelp," the voice would say. "You've had three hundred visitors to your site this month. You've had a really good response. But you have a few bad ones at the top. I could do something about those."
...
John's restaurant has more than one hundred reviews, and averages a healthy 3.5-star rating. But when John asked Mike what he could do about his bad reviews, he recalls the sales rep responding: "We can move them. Well, for $299 a month." John couldn't believe what the guy was offering. It seemed wrong.
...
During interviews with dozens of business owners over a span of several months, six people told this newspaper that Yelp sales representatives promised to move or remove negative reviews if their business would advertise. In another six instances, positive reviews disappeared — or negative ones appeared — after owners declined to advertise.
Because they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads. Several, including John, even suspect Yelp employees of writing them. Indeed, Yelp does pay some employees to write reviews of businesses that are solicited for advertising. And in at least one documented instance, a business owner who refused to advertise subsequently received a negative review from a Yelp employee.
...
Here's what advertisers receive, according to an e-mailed sales pitch that a local business owner sent to this newspaper. They can highlight a favorite review to appear at the top of the page about their business. They also show up first in search results for similar businesses in their region (for example "coffee" near "Alameda, CA"). Ads for that business appear on the page of local competitors, while competitors' ads do not appear on their page. Owners can post photo slideshows, add a "personal message" about their business, and have the ability to update info on special offers and events. They also can find out how many users visit their web site, update their page, contact Yelpers who've reviewed their business, and have access to an account manager who will help "maximize" their experience with Yelp.
But aside from a single "sponsored review" at the top of the page, the order of all other reviews is based on a secret Yelp algorithm, spokeswoman Ichinose said. The order is mostly due to recency and reader votes for certain reviews as "useful," "funny," or "cool." But Ichinose said there are other factors, including how frequently reviewers contribute to the web site and "what kind" of review writer they are. "It's a number of different things we don't disclose," she said. "To be explicitly clear, the algorithm is an automated system. There's no human manipulation of that. ... If we were to start doing that, that would erode the trust we have with consumers."
Yelp officials strenuously deny that the company moves negative reviews for advertisers. So how to explain all the stories?
...
Former Yelp advertiser Mary Seaton said she took the company up on its offer to move her negative reviews if she advertised. Seaton, the owner of Sofa Outlet in San Mateo, paid $350 a month for six months about a year ago. During that time, Seaton said, her negative reviews were removed and old positive reviews showed up. "There was one negative review but they pulled it down and then it came off," she said. After her contract was up, Seaton said a negative review appeared, which contained lies. When she asked her sales rep, Katie, about it, she responded, "We don't get involved with that. We're not mediators." Seaton said at that point she chose not to renew her ad contract.
One San Francisco merchant said a Yelp sales rep rearranged the reviews on his restaurant's page to entice him into advertising. Greg Quinn, general manager of Anabelle's Bar and Bistro in San Francisco (168 reviews, 3.5-average star rating), said that around January 2007, a Yelp sales rep was trying to get him to advertise. Quinn said he subsequently noticed that some of his negative reviews had moved further down on the page. "It was clearly ... a sales tactic," said Quinn, who added that the rep called him up and asked, "'Did you notice what I did? Well, we can keep doing that for you.'"
While I have pushed the bounds of respectability in quoting so much of this article, let me assure you that there is a lot more info and that you should go read their article and draw your own conclusions.
But is this believable? I think it is, though I suspect that the truth is somewhere in between the company's protestations and the intensity of complaints from small businesses. Specifically, I suspect that there ARE reps promising these things -- it's a pretty darned good way to close in my view. While the company probably does has policies against this, I suspect that the lure of profit and commission has induced some reps to behave in this manner.
And my suspicion is that Yelp is hard to sell to advertisers, because it is not controllable (in theory) and consists entirely of UGC. I have a friedn who's small retail business was dogged by a negative reviewer whom he later found out was a competitor -- by that competitor's own admission.
This, dear reader, is the new challenge of digital media -- it's all an incredibly dynamic and wonderful total morass of truth and lies. But Yelp has to figure out a way to solve this issue, or face advertiser -- and consumer -- backlash. I believe in the people at Yelp and alsp believe that they can find a solution. And they'd better.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
What We Can Expect From Kindle 3
And what CAN we expect from the next next Kindle. That'd be Kindle Three. I have to think that Amazon will be following the lead of every other electronics company in moving toward convergence of functionality. So here's what I expect:
0. 20% smaller. Loses keyboard along bottom
1. Color screen
2. Touch screen buttons
3. Ability to REALLY browse the web like a supersmall netbook
4. Color choices for the shell (4). Black white blue red. Could Stephen King's vision of a pink Kindle 2 on the cover of his novella be the preview of some powdery colored Kindles?
5. Real email capability
I don't expect video -- I would doubt this kind of screen can render that quickly. Maybe Kindle 4. ;-) Or Kindle NANO!!!
Hip Hop G-Ho-P: Republicans Plan To Get Down and Boogie, As It Were...
"Err, Chivers, would you be so good as to bring the..err..hoop-dee round to the front of mah crib?"
From Talking Points Memo:
Steele Promises New Image For Republicans In "Hip-Hop Settings"
By Eric Kleefeld - February 19, 2009, 10:38AM
Michael Steele is promising a drastic makeover of the Republican Party's image -- and he really means it!
"We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles," Steele told the Washington Times. "But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings."
"It will be avant garde, technically," he said of the new public relations team he's signing on. "It will come to the table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook." He also added: "I don't do 'cutting-edge.' That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge."
This sort of sounds like a middle-aged man talking to his kids, trying his utter best to sound as if he's cool.
Digital Marketing Factoid Of The Day:Valentine's Day Spending
Less love buying this year, not surprisingly.
Comments Just Got Cool
I've been watching Intense Debate for some time, a tool that is designed to improve discussion on content and posts by making it easier to dailogue.
As we get farther and farther into the social era of the web, it's natural that companies will try to improve on existing communicaiton tools and make functionalities converge. That appears to be the idea behind this service. Here's how they define themselves:
IntenseDebate provides many new features meant to inspire discussion and easily follow the conversation.
In order to better organize the discussion, we've implemented comment threading which allows users to directly reply to one another.
Users also have an identity that spans across all blogs powered by IntenseDebate. Along with this is a reputation value, based on the quantity and quality of the comments users make, meant to give an overview of a user's commenting history. Quality is determined by the users through comment voting, which also serves to move the best comments to the top.
With all of our comment systems being interconnected, we make it easy to track users and their activities across all blogs using our system by providing email and rss notifications.
In short, IntenseDebate has completely transformed the commenting experience.
IntenseDebate. Comments Rediscovered.
Their mission also becomes a little clearer when you watch their teaser trailer:
You should also know that while Intense debate works on a variety of platforms, it's now owned by WordPress:
The concept of Intense Debate is a good one, and I'd put it on this blog if YOU PEOPLE MADE MORE COMMENTS!
Oh, I am kidding, you know I love you. The feature set for Intense Debate is extensive. Here's a summary:
Comment Threading
Reply-By-Email
Importing/Exporting
Commenter Profiles
Reputation Points & Comment Voting
Moderation/Blacklisting
Widgets
RSS Readers & Tracking
FriendFeed
OpenID
Gravatar
HTML Formatting
Definitely something to join and use! I will be installing it here in the vain hope that my delightful viewers will find controversy in my musings.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to write.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
White Paper Wednesdays: Managing Brand Meaning
What a wonderful presentation on how a brand can effectively and proactively manage its meaning. From the Brand Master Class and Idris Mootee.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Digital Marketing Factoid Of The Day: Viral Video Ad Growth Projections
Strong online video ad growth still expected.
White Paper Wednesdays: Twitter Ninjas!
White Paper Wednesdays: iPhone Apps For Brands
An interesting deck on the importance of iPhone apps and some prelim ideas on how to!
White Paper Wednesdays: WOM WOM WOM!
A real noggin enricher on the value of word of mouth marketing for a rough economic time. From Agent Wildfire.
White Paper Wednesdays: Thought Provoking Deck On Viral Marketing
And highly entertaining to boot! Your whole family is sure to love it! More please!
White Paper Wednesdays: Guerilla Marketing Ideas
An absolute PLETHORA of marketing ideas is available in this deck from Jay Conrad Levinson.
General Mills (GMI) Proves Marketing Works
From Ad Age:
BOCA RATON, Fla. (AdAge.com) -- General Mills, one of the package-food industry's top performers, laid out a number of recent marketing successes at the Consumer Analysts Group of New York conference this morning, and offered a preview of the rest of its fiscal year.
The company has staunchly supported consumer-marketing spending increases -- 19% in the first half of fiscal 2009, which began in June -- while competitors, including Kellogg and Kraft, have begun to scale back on the heady marketing outlays of 2008, instead preaching bundling and greater return on investment. General Mills estimates that its consumer-marketing spending will be up by "double digits" for the full fiscal year.
Face Painters Rejoice: Submit Your Fanatical Vids to Coke Zero Contest
From MediaPost and by Karlene Lukovitz:
As a core part of its NCAA "Taste the Madness" campaign, Coke Zero has launched a video promotion giving March Madness fans a chance to appear in a special "vignette" aired just prior to tip-off during the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship on April 6.
Coke Zero is encouraging fans to upload "their most animated and fanatical videos and photos" supporting their favorite NCAA college basketball team.
Fans can upload their videos and photos between now and the NCAA Men's Final Four on the Coke Zero "March Madbase" (www.tastethemadness.com), a database of NCAA basketball fan rituals. The winners, picked by brand-chosen judges, will be hosted on ncaa.com, and will be incorporated into the 30-second vignette during the championship game.
Choice Run Delightfully Riot: Coke Invents 120 Drink Dispensing Machine
Coca-Cola invention produces 120 drinks
By Joe Guy Collier
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Coca-Cola Co. plans to try out a new fountain machine that can dispense more than 100 different beverages, using restaurants in Atlanta and Orange County, Calif., as the test sites this year.
Wider introduction could begin as early as next year, the Atlanta-based beverage giant said. Coca-Cola President and CEO Muhtar Kent will highlight a prototype of the machine this week at a Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference in Boca Raton, Fla.
The machine uses high-concentrate ingredients to fit up to 120 beverages in the same amount of space as the current eight-valve machine. It will hold a variety of both carbonated beverages and still drinks, such as juices, teas and flavored waters.
“Consumers always tell us they want more choice, and we saw a big opportunity to provide that choice while introducing a completely novel brand experience that can help catapult our customers’ beverage offerings into the future,” said Chris Lowe, president, Coca-Cola North America’s food service and on-premise division, in a press statement.
By Joe Guy Collier
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Coca-Cola Co. plans to try out a new fountain machine that can dispense more than 100 different beverages, using restaurants in Atlanta and Orange County, Calif., as the test sites this year.
Wider introduction could begin as early as next year, the Atlanta-based beverage giant said. Coca-Cola President and CEO Muhtar Kent will highlight a prototype of the machine this week at a Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference in Boca Raton, Fla.
The machine uses high-concentrate ingredients to fit up to 120 beverages in the same amount of space as the current eight-valve machine. It will hold a variety of both carbonated beverages and still drinks, such as juices, teas and flavored waters.
“Consumers always tell us they want more choice, and we saw a big opportunity to provide that choice while introducing a completely novel brand experience that can help catapult our customers’ beverage offerings into the future,” said Chris Lowe, president, Coca-Cola North America’s food service and on-premise division, in a press statement.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Homage to Tatiana Del Toro On American Idol
The new Sanjaya! Only talented! But we are not stable...
iMedia Mobile
Not sure if you are aware, but iMedia has a nice mobile site you can access on the go. Find it at m.imediaconnection.com.
HELP! My Client Watches Online PORN!
OK, I sort of tricked you into a visit. And rest assured no CSF client watches online porn because they are all universally good looking and are living very active and wholesome sex lives.
But there is actually a reason for the headline. And it comes in just one paragraph.
Years ago I worked with a partner of LifetimeTV.com and the Lifetime folks said that one of their biggest traffic drivers was the ongoing discussion/board called “Help, my husband watches online porn!”(Of course, this viewing circumstance is both common and troubling, especially for the viewers of Valerie Bertinelli movies.) I kid. Let me give a personal shout out to Lifetime TV as being the only consistent provider of Golden Girls reruns. I love my Sophia and Rose.
Anyway, the reason I used this headline is to point out how hard it is to drive traffic growth online today. I have a number of friends who work on editorial at leading sites, and when they complain about traffic issues I always suggest the “Help! My fill in the blank watches online porn.” They all poo-poo it, saying they are all about quality n stuff, and then sooner or later some actually do it. And it always works. For a day.
I salute Lifetime for making this idea endure -- after all, such a discussion is very Lifetime. But for most pubs porn talk won’t be a good driver of ongoing traffic.
But while even a day's traffic boost may be welcome to some pubs, what is more remarkable is when an edit driven site can drive sustained traffic growth – it is surely a sign of consumer engagement and passion – two traits that we definitely need more of. I love it when site partners demonstrate a long term growth trend.
Naturally we need to recognize that a large site will likely show a less steep growth curve than a smaller one, but showing growth is a great indicator of consumer passion and editorial vitality. For some site uniques will be a good measure, for others, pages. And for still others, time spent or some combination of the above. But growth is a really good indicator of quality edit. And we should reward quality edit because it will reward our brands.
So the next time you get one of those canned decks from a pub showing how they are number one in something, I suggest you ask how their traffic is doing lately. What is the trend? It’s not a perfect indicator of consumer engagement, but it probably is a very good one. After all, we can’t expect to have our ads engage if the pages they are on are largely forgettable.
Below is the space reserved for all the pubs who are growing to shout out to you. They deserve the soapbox. ;-)
When Will The Microsoft Brand Police Wake Up?
Despit ethe fact that there is something Microsft on...like...95% of computers, and despite the fact that it is unlikely that Apple PC share will be in double digits in my lifetime, the brand continues to languish as a laughingstock. Now there are those who might say that it doesn't matter because they are on like 95% of computers but I think it's rather important. Microsoft always had FUD going for it. The idea that if you went Microsoft you wouldn't be getting the best, but it was a safe choice.
I am not sure people believe that anymore.
All giants fall. Swift meats was once the largest company in America. Now its a piece of a piece of a company. Toys R Us once threatened to have a 100% lock on the toy biz. Now it limps along as big but not terribly successful. Is Microsoft the next giant that will end up relatively unimportant in a handful of years?
I am not saying they will die. They'll be big for some time. But are they actually going to be essential to our lives? I'm guessing NO unless they figure out what they stand for and stop making the same mistakes. Over. And Over. And Over Again.
Figure out what you are. Be a brand instead of a trademark. Get it together guys! You have some of the smartest people on earth in your walls. Let them do what they can do!
Thanks for reading, and don't froget to write.
I am not sure people believe that anymore.
All giants fall. Swift meats was once the largest company in America. Now its a piece of a piece of a company. Toys R Us once threatened to have a 100% lock on the toy biz. Now it limps along as big but not terribly successful. Is Microsoft the next giant that will end up relatively unimportant in a handful of years?
I am not saying they will die. They'll be big for some time. But are they actually going to be essential to our lives? I'm guessing NO unless they figure out what they stand for and stop making the same mistakes. Over. And Over. And Over Again.
Figure out what you are. Be a brand instead of a trademark. Get it together guys! You have some of the smartest people on earth in your walls. Let them do what they can do!
Thanks for reading, and don't froget to write.
Bebo Traffic Trend Line Cannot Be Making AOL Happy
They paid $850MM for this? Yeouch!
I gotta believe it has something to do with Facebook's trend line.
Bristol Palin Explains How Abstinence Isn't Realistic!
Bristol was interviewed on the Van Susteren show. And she said something oddly realistic!
Who Thinks Lindsay Lohan Should Get Some Help With the Anorexia?
Lindsay Lohan claims she just works out a lot, that's why she's so thin. But I believe that 9 out of 10 doctors say it's time to explore the possibility of an eating disorder when the circumference of your skull exceeds the size of your waist.
I am not making fun of her. An eating disorder is a terrific challenge to overcome. Let's all hope she recognizes her own problem and gets the help she so clearly needs.
Check Out New York Times Article Skimmer
The Old Grey lady ain't washed up yet. The New York times has debuted a new way to peruse the content of the paper, called Article Skimmer.
This great, delightfully clean and simple interface offers a wonderful way to skim headlines and first paragraphs of ALL the articles of the day. And since the NYT actually employs classically trained journalists, that headers and openers actually provide the most important info for your skimming enjoyment.
Great to see continued innovation from the nation's newspaper.
This great, delightfully clean and simple interface offers a wonderful way to skim headlines and first paragraphs of ALL the articles of the day. And since the NYT actually employs classically trained journalists, that headers and openers actually provide the most important info for your skimming enjoyment.
Great to see continued innovation from the nation's newspaper.
Find Out What Your Address Says About You!
The fascinating Prizm household classification system has sliced and diced every zip code in America into economic and lifestyle groups. When I entered mine, I got an extremely accurate picture of the population segments within my (transitional) neighborhood.
Find out about what your zip code says about you here!
Find out about what your zip code says about you here!
Digital Marketing Factoid of the Day: Who Rules in Online Vids
Why do you suppose Fox gets twice as many views per visitor as CBS?
Afrigator Puts African Content Front and Center
Since digital is universal -- read global -- it;s important that people from everywhere have a clear and enduring voice online. Afrigator, a social media tool designed to help African voices get heard and distributed more broadly, is a great tool for ensuring that the long neglected voice(s) of Africa are heard and understood.
Afrigator describes itself thus:
Afrigator is a social media aggregator and directory built especially for African digital citizens who publish and consume content on the Web.
You can use Afrigator to index your blog, podcast, videocast or news site (i.e. any site that publishes an RSS feed) and market it to the rest of Africa and the world. You can also use it to discover new sites in the Afrosphere.
Afrigator attempts to use social media tools and technologies to showcase the best digital content that the African continent has to offer, ranging from syndicated news feeds to blog posts, podcasts, videos and images. We invite citizen publishers with African content (or based on the African continent) to submit their sites and then we send clicks back to them. We also scan the Web for African-related tags and aggregate that content in the site.
Content is divided by country channels, by category (we’ve developed an organic categorisation algorithm that sorts content into single or multiple categories by scanning it as it’s pulled into the site) and finally by content type. One would be able to filter audio content of a business theme originating from Nigeria, as an example. Our goal is to include geotagging to drill down search possibilities even further and improve our data on where our content is coming from.
Content on Afrigator is divided into several broad channels:
News: Like it says on the tin.
Blogs: A Technorati like directory of blogs with the common denominator of African voices
Photos: A community photo book indexed by country and topic, offering a stream of the latest snaps 24/7.
Video: Similar to the photo offering, but featuring site, sound and motion content.
Hot topics: A directory f posts and content organized by key topic.
It also offers the proverbial "My gator..." section that lets you customize a page to your interests and have RSS-based content delivered to you on an ongoing basis.
What's important about Afrigator is the idea rather than new fangled technological offerings. We should all be thankful that African voices now have a platform that helps to amplify their long-neglected perspective in our global digital environment.
YoBusted.com Trades In Digital Blackmail
I just read over at Valleywag about a newish website called YoBusted.com that blackmails users into joining. The method? Well, your friends post embarrassing pictures of you, and to take them down you must join the site by plunking down $50. And your "friend" gets a kickback when you do. Evil genius. Here's the screen Valleywag posted:
But good news for those who aren't evil. It appears the site has shut down, at least temporarily:
But good news for those who aren't evil. It appears the site has shut down, at least temporarily:
Monday, February 16, 2009
Dim Dim: Enterprise Web Conference Just Got Easier and Cheaper
Yesterday I was doing a remove programs housekeeping exercise and found that I have 6 web conferencing platforms on my PC. And worse, I cannot get rid of them because we have a client using each.
it's dumb. It wastes space, and I think the amount of time wasted in the Abbott and Costello "who's on first, what do I do next" exercise has been a contributing factor to the economic meltdown. I am kidding, but you get the point.
OK, so now there is Dim Dim, an extremely unfortunate name for a wonderful service. Here's how they describes themselves:
Dimdim is a free web conferencing service where you can share your desktop, show slides, collaborate, chat, talk and broadcast via webcam with absolutely no download required to host or attend meetings.
Actually, many of you know that Dim Dim isn't new, but I thought is appropriate to cover it as a new item because they just added a bucketload of features that make the platform really remarkable! The list is toward the bottom of this post.
When they say "free", its actually free asterisk as the basic version is free but the pro and enterprise versions have modest costs, in exchange for empowering multiple conferences and up to 1000 viewers. Cool stuff for not a lot of green.
Dim Dim enables you to show pretty much anything on your desktop -- and is also integrated with VOIP phone service so that additional connection costs can be mitigated from distributed organizations.
SO I bet you're thinking, who could possibly need to link thousand of users?
Well, big companies, financial services orgs, e-learning providers, financial analysts. In short, the power users of these platforms. Here
is a small sample of the companies using Dim Dim who clearly prefer its cost structure and massive user versatility:
And with a feature set that now includes all this, who can blame them!
Scalable (from 1-1000 users)
Reliable (99.9% availability)
Flexible (Onsite and Hosted version available)
Secure (Private meetings)
Share & Present Documents (PPT/PDFs)
Share Mac & PC Desktops
Share Whiteboards (new laser pointer & lock)
Share Audio (Built in VoIP mics & conferencing)
Share Video (Live web cams)
2-Way Video Chat (Pro & Enterprise only)
Recording and playback of meetings
Multiple Presenters (Host lets others share)
Public Chat (Instant Messaging
Private Chat(1:1 with any other person)
SynchroLive Co-Browsing
Annotations and Markup tools
Presence indicator
Instant Feedback (Mood & Emoticons)
Scheduled Meetings
eMail & Calendaring (Outlook integration)
Localization
Learning Mgmt System (LMS) integration
CRM integration
Here's a video that spiels the whole ball of wax in 3 minutes.
Cool stuff. A platform you should be a part of. And best of all, users don't need to download anything to join the Dim Dim partay!
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Panting For My Kindle 2
There I was, plunking down my credit card for Kindle Two, the hjighly anticipated (by me, at least) replacement to what was perhaps the ugliest piece of personal electronics since the brick phone.
My dear friend Susan MacDermid pointed out that Kindle One looks like a medical device - perhaps one you use to puncture a finger tip and check your blood sugar.
But Kindle Two is far more cyute. See below.
Still B&W, but I am totally cool with that. It's for books not watching movies. Though you know color will be a part of Kindle 3.
I get all tingly thinking about its rounded corners.
My dear friend Susan MacDermid pointed out that Kindle One looks like a medical device - perhaps one you use to puncture a finger tip and check your blood sugar.
But Kindle Two is far more cyute. See below.
Still B&W, but I am totally cool with that. It's for books not watching movies. Though you know color will be a part of Kindle 3.
I get all tingly thinking about its rounded corners.
Ning Stops The Porn And Grows the Business
As you know, for a long time the word on the street was that Ning was totally dependent on porn for its traffic. So it came as a surprise to many that Ning kicked porn to the curb last December. Many believe that would be the end of this site.
Not so. Somehow they have accelerated their growth despite the moratorium on adult content. Check out the Quantcast traffic chart:
As you know I am a Ning believer, so this is great news!
Not so. Somehow they have accelerated their growth despite the moratorium on adult content. Check out the Quantcast traffic chart:
As you know I am a Ning believer, so this is great news!
Microsoft Retail Stores: Waiting for the Ribbon to Get Cut
(Taken from THIS Flickr artist.)
Microsoft has announced that they'll be launching a set of retail stores to "create deeper engagement with consumers and continue to learn firsthand about what they want and how they buy."
As I recall there WAS a Microsoft store in the Metreon in SF, Sony's sleek and bizarre shoopping experience that has lots of browsers but not lots of buyers. The challenge of a Microsoft retail environment is that the company focuses on software rather than hard goods, which are far more difficult to generate customer saliva over. Granted, a big chunck of the store will likely be games related but if it becomes a games dominant environment i think you'll find they have difficulty attracting the electronics early adopter.
I wish them well with this -- I think it will be fascinating to see what they come up with, and their retail selling experience may actually soften the lockstep approach to branding and brand presentation that (I think) limits the level of consumer connection to MSFT.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Bravo To Kellogg's For Dumping Michael Phelps
If you ask me, Kellogg's was right to dump Michael Phelps. You write check for millions of dollars, and part of the thing you should get in return is an endorser who lays off the bong. I don't care how old he is, or that swimmers are big stoners or whatnot. Millions of dollars should get you someone who understands what a role model is and does.
You wanna get stoned? Fine by me. 100%.
You want millions of dollars from a wholesome brand, you learn to live without the weed. Trading green for green, as it were.
And if you disagree with me, you should write your Congressman to get marijuana laws changed because there are people in prison for smoking pot. Phelps won't go to the pokey, because he is rich and famous. Others are not so lucky.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Barack Obama Coins a Hoax! Try Barack Obama Stickers!
Perhaps you've seen the ads starring Montel about Barack Obama full color commenorative coins:
But oh ho! Apparently, the four color coins turn out to be stickers. Check out the vid at this link!
Now, i you feel a need for Obama coinage check out the Franklin Mint.
But oh ho! Apparently, the four color coins turn out to be stickers. Check out the vid at this link!
Now, i you feel a need for Obama coinage check out the Franklin Mint.
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