In the short time since I launched this blog, in June 2008, I've learned a lot about web marketing. The somewhat randomly-named Porter-Kendall began as a place where I could experiment with different web tools without messing up my client's own blogs. It was really a practice blog for me, and not meant for public consumption. But - thankfully - a growing number of people actually find Porter-Kendall useful, and my old practice blog just won't do any longer.
So I'm moving all of my blogging activity to my new blog: the Central Sq. Inbound blog. I have migrated all the Porter-Kendall posts for your (and my) convenience. As for the results of my Twitter survey - which I hope you'll take 3 minutes to fill out - I'll publish the raw data and analysis on both blogs on 3/6/09
I apologize for the trouble - thanks for bearing with me. I think you'll like the new blog.
Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think!
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Monday, March 2, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Take my Twitter survey today and get ALL the data in a week.
I'm happy to announce my first attempt at a survey of how people use Twitter, and I want to thank you for visiting. The survey takes about five minutes and has 10 quick questions. Take it Here. The anonymous survey results and raw data will be shared.
I will publish CSV and Excel files of the survey data on March 6, 2009. If there are still significant numbers of people still taking it on March 6, I'll publish revised files at a later date as well.
Please forward this survey to people you know who might be interested. Here's a tiny URL for sharing the survey on Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/bgx5ws
I would welcome suggestions & criticism about the survey in the comments section right here. If it makes sense, another survey incorporating suggestions can be done in several months.
Thanks, and pass it around!
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Monday, February 23, 2009
Hubpages Squashes DIY Aquarism
Hubpages threatens to close my account for telling people where to get the materials they need for a DIY home aquarium project:
After saying so many good things about the potential of Hubpages and writing a bunch of content on their network, I seem to have run afoul of one of their linking laws. To Wit:
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After saying so many good things about the potential of Hubpages and writing a bunch of content on their network, I seem to have run afoul of one of their linking laws. To Wit:
"Your Hub has been flagged by our system as a violation of our Terms of Use.
Overly Promotional - Solely or excessively promotes another site(s), especially when Hub links all point to one site.
A link to your Hub: http://hubpages.com/hub/Reef-Tank-Gravity-Driven-Automatic-Freshwater-Top-Off-System"
Overly Promotional - Solely or excessively promotes another site(s), especially when Hub links all point to one site.
A link to your Hub: http://hubpages.com/hub/Reef-Tank-Gravity-Driven-Automatic-Freshwater-Top-Off-System"
It seems that since all my links to fish-tank specific materials linked to a single on-line store, I've been flagged. Wack!
I can easily find another store to link to, but I am nevertheless irked. My Hubpages are studded with revenue-generating ads managed by Hubpages, and yet I have been flagged for promoting too much...even though the links are totally relevant to the content (Hubpages claims they are not).
Now, I have to compliment HubPages on doing a lot of the SEO stuff right. Could this limit on linking have an SEO rationale? According to the founder of a local SEO and PPC analytics startup (and SEO genius), excessive linking from a typical web page can be interpreted as spam by search engines. Could linking 3 times to the same page have the same effect?
I suppose it's possible, but in fact the URLs I linked to are all different:
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~category~Kent_Marine_Float_Valve_Only__Black_ABS_Saltwater_Aquarium_Supplies_Reverse_Osmosis_Accessories_Float_Valves___Controllers~vendor~Kent_Marine~SearchStr~float~action~view~idProduct~KM1675~idCategory~FIRORAFV.html
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~category~Two_Little_Fishies_Micro_Valve_Barb_x_Barb___(1_Per_Pack)_Saltwater_Aquarium_Supplies_Air_Pumps___Supplies_Air_Pump_Accessories_Fittings~vendor~Two_Little_Fishies~SearchStr~valve~action~view~idProduct~TL9151~idCategory~FIARAAFT.html
I can easily find another store to link to, but I am nevertheless irked. My Hubpages are studded with revenue-generating ads managed by Hubpages, and yet I have been flagged for promoting too much...even though the links are totally relevant to the content (Hubpages claims they are not).
Now, I have to compliment HubPages on doing a lot of the SEO stuff right. Could this limit on linking have an SEO rationale? According to the founder of a local SEO and PPC analytics startup (and SEO genius), excessive linking from a typical web page can be interpreted as spam by search engines. Could linking 3 times to the same page have the same effect?
I suppose it's possible, but in fact the URLs I linked to are all different:
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~category~Kent_Marine_Float_Valve_Only__Black_ABS_Saltwater_Aquarium_Supplies_Reverse_Osmosis_Accessories_Float_Valves___Controllers~vendor~Kent_Marine~SearchStr~float~action~view~idProduct~KM1675~idCategory~FIRORAFV.html
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~category~Two_Little_Fishies_Micro_Valve_Barb_x_Barb___(1_Per_Pack)_Saltwater_Aquarium_Supplies_Air_Pumps___Supplies_Air_Pump_Accessories_Fittings~vendor~Two_Little_Fishies~SearchStr~valve~action~view~idProduct~TL9151~idCategory~FIARAAFT.html
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~category~Python_10_Ft_Air_Line_Tubing_Saltwater_Aquarium_Supplies_Air_Pumps___Supplies_Air_Pump_Accessories_Air_Pump_Tubing~vendor~Python~SearchStr~air+tubing~action~view~idProduct~PY1231~idCategory~FIARAAAT.html.
I have now linked to three different aquarium stores and submitted my page for publication. My readers will now have to either buy from three different stores or search out the other two products at whichever one store they choose. It was so much easier when I was just made the best links possible.
If there is an SEO explanation for this policy, I would love to know. HubPages?
I have now linked to three different aquarium stores and submitted my page for publication. My readers will now have to either buy from three different stores or search out the other two products at whichever one store they choose. It was so much easier when I was just made the best links possible.
If there is an SEO explanation for this policy, I would love to know. HubPages?
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Promoting Music on Twitter
As a former musician and promoter, I'm always looking out for ways to promote music over the Web and through social media such as Twitter. So when I saw this article in TechCrunch by Robin Wauters about music-related Twitter apps, I was intrigued. I wondered how many of them were actually useful, so I test-drove a few.
When I came across Twiturm I was excited, as it hosts MP3s for you and puts them in an easy-to-browse format. But then I realized that Twiturm doesn't do much but automate a process that almost anybody could do themselves, and host MP3s when there are myriad other services that do the same. Plus with no SEO credit to your main site, I ask....what's the point?
Now, if you just want to share music with your followers and see what others are listening to I like Blip.fm. AND they have a widget. Nice move on the URL Killer, Blip.fm! Blip.fm is using Twitter for social ranking of songs - and they have a lot of on-site functionality too. I also like the fact that Blip.fm allows me to invite a subset of my Twitter followers to receive my Blips - or do they? My Twitter widgets are showing my blips...hmmm.
A similar app is Twisten.fm. which also has a widget:
Then there's tra.kz - which claims to be "URL shortener for all things music". What makes it so? Each Tra.kz URL has a Tra.kz prefix, so you know it's related to music.
Some of these music applications for Twitter are more useful and innovative than others. And yet what looks simple and of limited utility one minute can revolutionize social networking the next (just look at Twitter). When it comes to these apps time will tell, but musicians and promoters should take notice: Twitter is the new marketing frontier for your music.
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When I came across Twiturm I was excited, as it hosts MP3s for you and puts them in an easy-to-browse format. But then I realized that Twiturm doesn't do much but automate a process that almost anybody could do themselves, and host MP3s when there are myriad other services that do the same. Plus with no SEO credit to your main site, I ask....what's the point?
Now, if you just want to share music with your followers and see what others are listening to I like Blip.fm. AND they have a widget. Nice move on the URL Killer, Blip.fm! Blip.fm is using Twitter for social ranking of songs - and they have a lot of on-site functionality too. I also like the fact that Blip.fm allows me to invite a subset of my Twitter followers to receive my Blips - or do they? My Twitter widgets are showing my blips...hmmm.
A similar app is Twisten.fm. which also has a widget:
Then there's tra.kz - which claims to be "URL shortener for all things music". What makes it so? Each Tra.kz URL has a Tra.kz prefix, so you know it's related to music.
Some of these music applications for Twitter are more useful and innovative than others. And yet what looks simple and of limited utility one minute can revolutionize social networking the next (just look at Twitter). When it comes to these apps time will tell, but musicians and promoters should take notice: Twitter is the new marketing frontier for your music.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
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Monday, February 16, 2009
UPDATE: HubPages
by Isaac D. Van Wesep
UPDATE: I'm starting to like my HubPages. I discovered I could lower the number of ads on my pages by un-clicking the "could be commercial" box in the settings of each page. By grouping my pages into groups it's almost as easy to navigate from entry to entry as in a blog. I haven't yet begun to promote my Cambridge Restaurant Reviews because the grouping function isn't working perfectly for me yet. Also it's too bad I don't have more page layout options. Oh well, maybe in the future.
here's a link to how to add Google Analytics to your hubpages.
On a similar note, I'm bumping up this link (from the Comments section) to an article about HubPages vs. Blogs. It's from Larry Freeman. And here's some more info bumped up from "Comments" from Ryan, another HubPages team member, about why to write hubs instead of blogs:
1. You can write about anything and aren't confined to one topic area. Your traffic potential is only based upon each individual Hub, not the overall collection.
2. There's no pressure to write every day and you can write whenever you feel like it.
3. There is some strong residual income potential as you write more and more Hubs, as long as you're writing the right type of everygreen content (content that will be relevant for a few years). What you made last month you will most likely make this month (and then some).
4. You can easily make a one-page article with our ridiculously easy-to-use tools and you'll never have to manage you ads...ever.
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UPDATE: I'm starting to like my HubPages. I discovered I could lower the number of ads on my pages by un-clicking the "could be commercial" box in the settings of each page. By grouping my pages into groups it's almost as easy to navigate from entry to entry as in a blog. I haven't yet begun to promote my Cambridge Restaurant Reviews because the grouping function isn't working perfectly for me yet. Also it's too bad I don't have more page layout options. Oh well, maybe in the future.
here's a link to how to add Google Analytics to your hubpages.
On a similar note, I'm bumping up this link (from the Comments section) to an article about HubPages vs. Blogs. It's from Larry Freeman. And here's some more info bumped up from "Comments" from Ryan, another HubPages team member, about why to write hubs instead of blogs:
1. You can write about anything and aren't confined to one topic area. Your traffic potential is only based upon each individual Hub, not the overall collection.
2. There's no pressure to write every day and you can write whenever you feel like it.
3. There is some strong residual income potential as you write more and more Hubs, as long as you're writing the right type of everygreen content (content that will be relevant for a few years). What you made last month you will most likely make this month (and then some).
4. You can easily make a one-page article with our ridiculously easy-to-use tools and you'll never have to manage you ads...ever.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
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HubPages: An Inbound Marketing Opportunity?
by Isaac Van Wesep
While surfing the web on Sunday afternoon, as I often do during the bitter Cambridge winter months, I came across HubPages - a content publishing tool that encourages people to join by offering to set up money-generating on-page ad accounts from Google, Amazon, Kontera, and eBay. Each content page is part of a HubPages community ranking system to help people find your blog from HubPages and on the major search engines.
This content hosting service is one of the offerings that differentiates Hubpages from its competitors - Rubicon Project and Pubmatic - in the ad network management space.
I wondered if HubPages represented a opportunity for inbound marketing. HubPages uses a lot of effective methods to drive traffic. So after doing a little digging (Hubpages has been Techcrunched, has a blog, and is a venture-backed Bay Area startup with a lot of team members from the recently-sold-to-Microsoft MongoMusic), I signed up for an account. Below is the widget HubPages offers to help me promote my Hub Pages - nice! I love my "URL Killers", as some of you know...
HubPages offered to invite people in my various contact accounts, another good promotional tool. Then, I was taken to my page - which, of course, needed to be filled with awesome content. I decided to go with Cambridge restaurant reviews, to add a little spice to my blogging life.
Once published, I was unhappy with the fact that my HubPage was absolutely peppered with weird text ads and banners. Moreover, I was warned not to try and benefit from clicks on these ads via AdSense until I had built up an acceptable level of content. Dang! Still, I pressed on and started a second HubPage about another restaurant.
Now I'm off to promote my new pieces about the East Coast Grill and Restaurant Dante. According to HubPages, I'll need at least 1,000 visits before I'll have optimized ads on my pages, but I'm chiefly concerned with how many people visit both pages and how many come back later or link to them. While I can't use Google Analytics on these pages, HubPages does have an anlytics suite of its own.
I'll keep you updated.Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
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While surfing the web on Sunday afternoon, as I often do during the bitter Cambridge winter months, I came across HubPages - a content publishing tool that encourages people to join by offering to set up money-generating on-page ad accounts from Google, Amazon, Kontera, and eBay. Each content page is part of a HubPages community ranking system to help people find your blog from HubPages and on the major search engines.
This content hosting service is one of the offerings that differentiates Hubpages from its competitors - Rubicon Project and Pubmatic - in the ad network management space.
I wondered if HubPages represented a opportunity for inbound marketing. HubPages uses a lot of effective methods to drive traffic. So after doing a little digging (Hubpages has been Techcrunched, has a blog, and is a venture-backed Bay Area startup with a lot of team members from the recently-sold-to-Microsoft MongoMusic), I signed up for an account. Below is the widget HubPages offers to help me promote my Hub Pages - nice! I love my "URL Killers", as some of you know...
HubPages offered to invite people in my various contact accounts, another good promotional tool. Then, I was taken to my page - which, of course, needed to be filled with awesome content. I decided to go with Cambridge restaurant reviews, to add a little spice to my blogging life.
Once published, I was unhappy with the fact that my HubPage was absolutely peppered with weird text ads and banners. Moreover, I was warned not to try and benefit from clicks on these ads via AdSense until I had built up an acceptable level of content. Dang! Still, I pressed on and started a second HubPage about another restaurant.
Now I'm off to promote my new pieces about the East Coast Grill and Restaurant Dante. According to HubPages, I'll need at least 1,000 visits before I'll have optimized ads on my pages, but I'm chiefly concerned with how many people visit both pages and how many come back later or link to them. While I can't use Google Analytics on these pages, HubPages does have an anlytics suite of its own.
I'll keep you updated.Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
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Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tweet Later, Automation, and the Twitter Metamind
It seems like only yesterday I had but a vague sense of what Twitter was good for. But now I know: It does promotions, it does P.R., it teaches, it tells jokes, it does cool mashups with other media. And other than the 140 character thing, there's no limit to what people will be able to do with Twitter in the future.
Right now my favorite Twitter app is Tweet Later. Why? Because of the automation. Tweet later doesn't automate much: you can schedule Tweet publishing across multiple accounts, and - here's the cool one in my eyes - autofollow and autogreet new followers. This capability is pretty mundane, but it points to things to come. With automatic responses that depend on inputs, Tweets become like so many neurotransmitters in the giant metamind that will be Twitter.
Ahh, a little far fetched? Perhaps. But the practical applications of treating Tweets and Twitter accounts as a group through automation are not so 'out there.' For example, using keywords and other organizational tools such as #hashtags, an application could start trawling the web for similar-minded people. Once it encounters a candidate, the two applications could request and exchange more detailed information about each other, and decide automatically whether or not to enter into a following arrangement. Here's another: since Dell computer and other companies are doing promotions on Twitter, a smart application for consumers might let them search Twitter for deals on a certain product. It could search the Twitter space for keywords, query candidate accounts for details about their offers, and select the best deal.
I can't wait.
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Right now my favorite Twitter app is Tweet Later. Why? Because of the automation. Tweet later doesn't automate much: you can schedule Tweet publishing across multiple accounts, and - here's the cool one in my eyes - autofollow and autogreet new followers. This capability is pretty mundane, but it points to things to come. With automatic responses that depend on inputs, Tweets become like so many neurotransmitters in the giant metamind that will be Twitter.
Ahh, a little far fetched? Perhaps. But the practical applications of treating Tweets and Twitter accounts as a group through automation are not so 'out there.' For example, using keywords and other organizational tools such as #hashtags, an application could start trawling the web for similar-minded people. Once it encounters a candidate, the two applications could request and exchange more detailed information about each other, and decide automatically whether or not to enter into a following arrangement. Here's another: since Dell computer and other companies are doing promotions on Twitter, a smart application for consumers might let them search Twitter for deals on a certain product. It could search the Twitter space for keywords, query candidate accounts for details about their offers, and select the best deal.
I can't wait.
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Tuesday, February 10, 2009
User-Generated Content in Inbound Marketing: A New Whitepaper
Central Sq. Inbound - the Cambridge-based inbound marketing website - has published its first whitepaper: User-Generated Content in Inbound Marketing. The paper is intended for those who are new to inbound marketing and want a crash-course in user-generated content. It also includes a case-study of Hubspot's Link Love campaign.
Get the Whitepaper Here.
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Get the Whitepaper Here.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
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Friday, February 6, 2009
Central Sq. Inbound Offers Entry-Level Inbound Marketing Solution
After five years at the helm of a concert promotion company, an MBA in entrepreneurship, and years in the social media and SEO spheres, I've decided to offer a line of low-cost inbound marketing solutions to small and medium sized businesses through Central Sq. Inbound - a new inbound marketing consultancy.
There are thousands of small businesses in new England that are missing huge opportunities on the web. At the same time, many of these businesses are feeling the pinch of the recession, and have little cash to spare. With SaaS SEO analytics companies charging as much as $3,000 a year for access to tools that experts can find on the web for free - businesses need a more cost effective way to get into inbound marketing.
Central Sq. Inbound's "The Teaser" solution ($299) offers:
Thanks
-isaac
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There are thousands of small businesses in new England that are missing huge opportunities on the web. At the same time, many of these businesses are feeling the pinch of the recession, and have little cash to spare. With SaaS SEO analytics companies charging as much as $3,000 a year for access to tools that experts can find on the web for free - businesses need a more cost effective way to get into inbound marketing.
Central Sq. Inbound's "The Teaser" solution ($299) offers:
- A customized Web Marketing Diagnostic
- Our self-tought Inbound Marketing Crash Course - teaching you what every entrepreneur should know about inbound marketing and the social mediasphere
- A blog with optimized titles and URLs, plus Google Analytics embedded and running properly
- A Twitter account
Thanks
-isaac
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Monday, February 2, 2009
Hubspot Launches Free Trials - Product Review
In a move that everybody can smile about, Cambridge, MA based Hubspot Inc. is offering free trials of its SaaS SEO suite. Hubspot offers small and medium sized businesses "tools for search engine optimization, business blogging, website content publishing, lead tracking and intelligence, marketing analytics, and competitor analysis. HubSpot is web-based, does not require any IT staff, and is designed to be used by a marketing person, not a techie."
Couldn't have said it better myself. What I can say is Hubspot has a great set of tools. I had the pleasure of using them in depth when one of my clients purchased the service. Their methodology and philosophy of inbound marketing are, in my opinion, right on the money, and any startup without a full-time web marketing guru on the payroll will get their money's worth, and then some. Hubspot adds new analytics tools regularly, and each one is seamlessly integrated with the others. Even though you could cobble together a similar set of tools for free, and I've experienced some very strange and annoying data "events" with Hubspot - I still strongly recommend giving hubspot a try.
Hubspot has for a long time offered a variety of free tools that are pretty cool. Check them out if you haven't yet. And if you're new to web marketing, when you sign up for the free trial be sure to read the "methodology" section for a great crash course.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Thinking SEO's Analytics: Wordstream Launches SaaS SEO Tool -
Venture Beat reports that Boston-based company Wordstream released its (apparently) eponymous SaaS SEO suite today. Like Clickable, Searchforce, and Hubspot, Wordsream offers keyword discovery, and PPC & SEO campaign management tools over the web.
It may seem redundant to say that Wordstream's philosophy is data-driven - after all, they do PPC managment, right? PPC data - from Google or Yahoo - better well be 100% accurate and complete. But what about keyword data beyond your PPC campaign? My experience using web analytics tools is that when asked the same question, no two analytics tools give the same answer. This fact adds a sense of foreboding to any SEO campaign. In contrast, Wordstream takes a creative approach to keyword discovery & analysis that uses a database of 100% accurate data from your own new and historical website traffic. Mmmm mmm mmm those are good data!
Wordstream takes a thoughtful approach to website design - and I have to say websight design becuase in Wordstream's world keywords, website information architecture, people's search patterns, their behavior on-site, and page layouts are all inseperable. I agree with this 100%, but it's a tough ideal to achieve alongside relentless anlytical rigor. Wordstream does a good job of this. I especially like the keyword segmentation tools, the fact that Wordstream relies heavily on your new and historical web site data for many of its analyses, and the focus on the relationship between keywords and site architecture.
Wordstream's PPC and keyword tools look really good - and I'm sure there are a lot of other applications in the pipeline. But why don't they focus more on organic SEO and social marketing? As Hubspot consultant Colleen Coyne put it: Inbound marketing is to PPC what diet and excercise are to liposuction. Wordstream has very little to say on the subject of inbound marketing, nor do they appear to have hit the ground with any inbound marketing of their own. And their three biggest reasons for organic SEO failure (Poor Workflow Prioritization, Hopeless Time Sinks, and Insufficient Information) usually dog people who approach organic SEO from a purely quantitative - rather than social - perspective (think I'm wrong about this? leave a comment!).
My guess is that Wordstream is - for now - leaving the inbound marketing to the creative people working within companies, while providing them the analytical tools they need to do their job. A good marketer doesn't need help from an SEO management service to create great content. This is an exciting product and I'm looking forward to testing it out.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Hubspot TV Personalities get Used in Online Experiment
Last week I promised to embed an instance of SayTweet - one of a few Twitter applications that goes beyond the typical interface/badge design. It was easy enough to do - but with more experience I could have gotten the speech bubble to show up where I wanted. This could be a great app for a customer-facing web page, or to represent a panel of people tweeting during an event. I needed to use a picture of people who tweet a lot, and also make sense to have tweeting together. So I picked @mvolpe and @karenrubin from Hubspot TV.
Mike and Karen - since you're public figures now I think this falls under fair use :-)
If you want to embed or share this SayTweet badge you can...
Embed this dynamic badge in html:
or with this: http://saytweet.com/canvases/show/1696
...and if you want to see my tweets you can just follow me on Twitter.
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Mike and Karen - since you're public figures now I think this falls under fair use :-)
If you want to embed or share this SayTweet badge you can...
Embed this dynamic badge in html:
or with this: http://saytweet.com/canvases/show/1696
...and if you want to see my tweets you can just follow me on Twitter.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
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Monday, January 26, 2009
10 Twitter Tips from Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg and investor in Twitter, offers these 10 tips to increase your followers on Twitter:
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- Explain to your followers what retweeting is
and encourage them to retweet your links. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile. Track your retweets using retweetist. - Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you. Your bio is the only place you have to tell people who you are. Also, your bio is displayed on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you.
- As @garyvee says, “link it up.” Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you live online. Also, check out the great feedburner-like badges from TwitterCounter for your blog.
- Tweet about your passions in life and #hash tag them. Quality content coupled with an easy way to find it never fails. If others enjoy your content, they’ll add you. Learn more about #hash tagging here.
- Bring your twitter account into the physical world. Every time I give a talk, speak on a panel, shoot a podcast, present slides, or hand out business cards, I figure out a way to broadcast or display my twitter account.
- Take pictures. Pictures are heavily retweeted/spread around. This one from US Airways Flight 1549 has been viewed 350,000+ times. For mobile pics use iPhone apps such as Tweetie or Twitterific, both which support on the go uploading.
- Start a contest. @jasoncalcanis offered a free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers…brilliant.
- Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences.
- Reply to/get involved in #hash tag memes. search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. Look for the #hash topics and jump in on the conversation (see #4 for links to #hash instructions).
- Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.
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Thursday, January 22, 2009
SEO Toolbar from SEObook - An awesome free tool
I don't know how many people have heard of this thing yet - but the SEO Toolbar from SEObook is an incredible tool. Right in Firefox, you have fingertip access to whatever site you're looking at. I don't know how high-quality the data are, but I have installed the tool and will be comparing its results to Hubspot's and Google's tools, so I'll update you in a week or so.
On the toolbar you have site traffic data from Compete.com, SEMrush data on keywords, keyword competition, PPC expenditures (estimated, I assume), and more. Add to that Page Rank, yahoo link data, the ability to compare sites right in the toolbar, and everything can be exported as CSV.
I recommend you go to the SEO Tools website and download the plugin, and start messing around. There is a very quick and fast video overview you should watch. Discover it now so when it starts to cost money you'll know if you want to pay for it, and you'll know how to use so you won't waste any time.
Sweet!
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My Cousin Bobby Spils Starts a Wicked Cool Music Blog
Big up to my cousin Bobby for starting his own blog. Bobby knows EVERYTHING about the big classic rock bands. I'm trying to help him learn about blogging and how it fits into the social fabric of the web. Visit his blog and drop him a piece of free advice!
Keep on Rockin' Bobby!
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Keep on Rockin' Bobby!
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Web Video Kung Fu: YouTube tries to close a gate on Hulu
Eric Shoenfeld reports in TechCrunch that YouTube is doing a deal with major media content providers to give them a piece of ad revenues gleaned from YouTube's videos, and allow them to post their own advertising on videos containing their content.
This is not a surpsise to anybody who read our entry on Hulu from a few weeks ago. You Tube still has some isues to deal with, however. For example, advertisers for important brands may be reluctant to have their brands associated with the ususal dross on YouTube. In other words, Hulu may represent a better option for those firms with a lot of capital tied up in their brands.
For the rest of us in marketing, this development for YouTube doesn't matter a ton. But it's good to know anyway, right?
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This is not a surpsise to anybody who read our entry on Hulu from a few weeks ago. You Tube still has some isues to deal with, however. For example, advertisers for important brands may be reluctant to have their brands associated with the ususal dross on YouTube. In other words, Hulu may represent a better option for those firms with a lot of capital tied up in their brands.
For the rest of us in marketing, this development for YouTube doesn't matter a ton. But it's good to know anyway, right?
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Thursday, January 15, 2009
ATT & the American Idol Spam Text: Wrong-Headed SMS Marketing
I was dismayed to read this article on Gizmodo today. Essentially, AT&T has sent spam SMS messages to a "significant number" of their mobile phone customers. Youch!
The Gizmodo article frets that other mobile operators and even third parties will follow AT&T's lead on this. Perhaps. But it's funny that AT&T would resort to such tactics when so much innovation is happeneing within voluntary SMS groups such as on Twitter. As recent posts on this blog have described, Twitter and voluntary SMS marketing can be very effective. AT&T's scheme sems just plain lazy.
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The Gizmodo article frets that other mobile operators and even third parties will follow AT&T's lead on this. Perhaps. But it's funny that AT&T would resort to such tactics when so much innovation is happeneing within voluntary SMS groups such as on Twitter. As recent posts on this blog have described, Twitter and voluntary SMS marketing can be very effective. AT&T's scheme sems just plain lazy.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Live Events & Twitter: A Perfect Match
Last Friday, I got the chance to see first-hand the gurus of Twitter marketing - Mike Volpe and Karen Rubin - tape an episode of Hubspot TV. Besides having a lot of fun, I was struck by how big a part Twitter played in Hubspot TV. Throughout the show there's live feedback from fans via Twitter. Also, Twitter is in the news a lot on Hubspot TV, and the hosts (@mvolpe and @karenrubin) are both active twitterers.
Hubspot TV is a natural partner for Twitter. In fact, live events in general go great with Twitter. Check out this graph of Twitter activity on Superbowl Sunday vs. the Sunday before (the original file is here):
If you want to get the most out of the partnership between your events and Twitter, there's a lot you can do.
Step number 1 in starting a good relationship between your event and Twitter is to set up a special event account. The most basic way to do this is to create a new account on twitter such as myevent. Participants can then begin their tweets with @myevent to tweet to everyone following myevent. There are also applications that can help you greate Twitter groups. Start your search at this blog entry on Event Manager Blog.
Assuming you have a lot of fans tweeting during your event, how do you translate that into traffic? Put a tweet log of your event on your website, and you gain a large volume of user-generated content - increasing your relevance to search engines. Inbound marketing practitioners will tell you that new, interesting content is they key to driving traffic to your site. That kind of content can be expensive to create, so don't miss an opportunity to let your users create some for you. For a somewhat pessimistic article on the need for (and high cost of) great content - read this.
Let's look at links from tweets: another source of SEO. Most Twitter users are on the web or on a computer when they tweet. Only 5% use SMS messaging (see my previous post), and over 50% are using the Twitter website. Encourage links to your site in tweets (be creative!), and receive a bit of SEO credit every time somebody clicks.
Inbound marketers will also tell you that facilitating the spread of your content across the web - via links, embeds, or other - is another critical success factor. If you can get Twitter users to talk about you, your chances of being discovered by new people go way up.
On a more general note, it helps to educate your customers about cool things they can do with new technology on the web. According to inbound marketing theory, a blog where you establish yourself as an authority in your indutry is an important part of success. You might as well be spending at least part of that time teaching people how to use the tools that will help spread the word.
Until next time...
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Hubspot TV is a natural partner for Twitter. In fact, live events in general go great with Twitter. Check out this graph of Twitter activity on Superbowl Sunday vs. the Sunday before (the original file is here):
If you want to get the most out of the partnership between your events and Twitter, there's a lot you can do.
Step number 1 in starting a good relationship between your event and Twitter is to set up a special event account. The most basic way to do this is to create a new account on twitter such as myevent. Participants can then begin their tweets with @myevent to tweet to everyone following myevent. There are also applications that can help you greate Twitter groups. Start your search at this blog entry on Event Manager Blog.
Assuming you have a lot of fans tweeting during your event, how do you translate that into traffic? Put a tweet log of your event on your website, and you gain a large volume of user-generated content - increasing your relevance to search engines. Inbound marketing practitioners will tell you that new, interesting content is they key to driving traffic to your site. That kind of content can be expensive to create, so don't miss an opportunity to let your users create some for you. For a somewhat pessimistic article on the need for (and high cost of) great content - read this.
Let's look at links from tweets: another source of SEO. Most Twitter users are on the web or on a computer when they tweet. Only 5% use SMS messaging (see my previous post), and over 50% are using the Twitter website. Encourage links to your site in tweets (be creative!), and receive a bit of SEO credit every time somebody clicks.
Inbound marketers will also tell you that facilitating the spread of your content across the web - via links, embeds, or other - is another critical success factor. If you can get Twitter users to talk about you, your chances of being discovered by new people go way up.
On a more general note, it helps to educate your customers about cool things they can do with new technology on the web. According to inbound marketing theory, a blog where you establish yourself as an authority in your indutry is an important part of success. You might as well be spending at least part of that time teaching people how to use the tools that will help spread the word.
Until next time...
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Twitter Applications - What Lies Beyond the Interface?
I found an interesting article on ReadWriteWeb about which applications people use with Twitter. I was surprised that more than half still use the plain old web. I wonder how active those users are. Only 5% use their phones - which I do use pretty often.
But all of the applications on the list, from what I can tell, are merely interfaces for Twitter. some, like NetVibes, combine Twitter with other media. But I want to find the applications that do more. What does that mean? I know it when I see it.
The Apps section of the Twitter Fan Wiki is a great place to look for simple applications that you can use creatively, and it's where I looked for cool Twitter apps.
For example, the SayTweet Twitter Badge lets you "Create a Twitter badge using your own picture! Upload a picture, tag users in that picture, and have their tweets appear in speech bubbles. Embed the badge in your blog, website, or MySpace!" This is a great way to keep in the top of mind in your market. If your company has in-house bloggers or industry gurus with big personalities, embedding their Twitter feeds into a photo - especially a funny or captivating one - delivers a powerful new live-action advertisement. I will embed one in this blog some time this week, I promise.
Tweet What You Spend is an application that lets you record expenditures through Twitter to an account where you can later manage and analyze your finances. This is an example of functional uses for Twitter. There are similar applications for tracking what you eat. Expect to see more services which - like these - use Twitter as part of their service.
Finally - be sure to take a look at a brand-new application called Social. this allows you to create twitter groups around events. It's about time this kind of segmentation technology arrived, and it's very powerful.
My exploration of the world of Twitter Apps continues, and I will keep you updated.
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But all of the applications on the list, from what I can tell, are merely interfaces for Twitter. some, like NetVibes, combine Twitter with other media. But I want to find the applications that do more. What does that mean? I know it when I see it.
The Apps section of the Twitter Fan Wiki is a great place to look for simple applications that you can use creatively, and it's where I looked for cool Twitter apps.
For example, the SayTweet Twitter Badge lets you "Create a Twitter badge using your own picture! Upload a picture, tag users in that picture, and have their tweets appear in speech bubbles. Embed the badge in your blog, website, or MySpace!" This is a great way to keep in the top of mind in your market. If your company has in-house bloggers or industry gurus with big personalities, embedding their Twitter feeds into a photo - especially a funny or captivating one - delivers a powerful new live-action advertisement. I will embed one in this blog some time this week, I promise.
Tweet What You Spend is an application that lets you record expenditures through Twitter to an account where you can later manage and analyze your finances. This is an example of functional uses for Twitter. There are similar applications for tracking what you eat. Expect to see more services which - like these - use Twitter as part of their service.
Finally - be sure to take a look at a brand-new application called Social. this allows you to create twitter groups around events. It's about time this kind of segmentation technology arrived, and it's very powerful.
My exploration of the world of Twitter Apps continues, and I will keep you updated.
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008
SEO & Statistics: Part One - The Sales Funnel & Google's Website Optimizer
Yesterday I was thinking about paid search marketing. In the past I've criticized paid search as being a game with two winners: the web surfer and Google. But according to my friend Brett Ackerman, a web marketing consultant with Trionia - a Massachusetts-based web marketing firm - many companies do get a positive ROI from paid search.
A big part of making money from paid search is analytics. In paid search marketing, the "sales funnel" is a series of steps that goes from typing a keyword into a search engine all the way to the final "conversion" step, which might be buying something or registering. The goal is to maximize the number of people who convert - obviously - but achieving that maximum is an elusive goal.
Most web sales funnel optimization programs have these elements:
Google will tell you which version is getting the highest rate of click-through. You can get more sophisticated - for example by shuffling different elements within the pages with other elements - for a multivariate analysis.
Set this up for each step in your sales funnel, and you're likely to see some interesting results.
But Website Optimizer assumes that preferences at one step of the funnel are independent of preferences at other steps. That's okay - you can get far with that method. But wouldn't it be better if you assumed that preferences are dependent on each other? Also, if you could measure the overall conversion rate - from keyword to conversion - of random combinations of versions, you might find an optimal combination that would be hard to recognize using Website Optimizer.
I don't know any tools that can do this, but i am going to look for one. Stay tuned...
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A big part of making money from paid search is analytics. In paid search marketing, the "sales funnel" is a series of steps that goes from typing a keyword into a search engine all the way to the final "conversion" step, which might be buying something or registering. The goal is to maximize the number of people who convert - obviously - but achieving that maximum is an elusive goal.
Most web sales funnel optimization programs have these elements:
- A definition of "conversion" that is aligned with your business objectives
- multiple versions of each step in the funnel (i.e. keyword, ad text, landing page, and conversion page)
- a way to deploy multiple versions of each step randomly
- A way to record and measure visitor activity
Google will tell you which version is getting the highest rate of click-through. You can get more sophisticated - for example by shuffling different elements within the pages with other elements - for a multivariate analysis.
Set this up for each step in your sales funnel, and you're likely to see some interesting results.
But Website Optimizer assumes that preferences at one step of the funnel are independent of preferences at other steps. That's okay - you can get far with that method. But wouldn't it be better if you assumed that preferences are dependent on each other? Also, if you could measure the overall conversion rate - from keyword to conversion - of random combinations of versions, you might find an optimal combination that would be hard to recognize using Website Optimizer.
I don't know any tools that can do this, but i am going to look for one. Stay tuned...
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Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Hulu embedded
And there I went expecting Hulu videos to not be embeddable - just because an "old media" company was involved. But why wouldn't they recognize the value of embeddable video? I have to say I'm impressed with this combination of professional content, "complete" content, and usability. Could you see your ad here? now if they could just provide rich targeting and make the price accessible to SMB's... this is a win. here goes - from the "embed" function on the hulu site:
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Hulu Vs. YouTube: Whose videos are better for embedded ads?
You may have noticed that YouTube videos now come complete with ads that pop up at the bottom of the videos. Pretty slick, and not too intrusive. But I'd like you to take a look at the video clip I've selected here and see if you think the ad is targeted well, and also if you think you'd want your product associated with the video.
Now take a look at this video. Do you want your ad associated with it? do you think the ad along the bottom is targeted (when I checked it I got the same ad as the previous video).
My guess is that most advertisers will shy away from letting YouTube place ads on user-generated videos. Apparently this is why YouTube is now scanning videos for adult content.
But the second video I asked you to watch has an ad on it, and includes the word "Shit" in the upper left corner. Plus it's not the greates video anyway. So Youtube still isn't ready for you, the online marketer, just yet.
So what about Hulu - NBC and News Corp's video site? Hulu shows only professionally made content, which should be free of "bad" videos. Seems promising. But Hulu seems to work only in the U.S. for time being (I couldn't watch a video today since i am in a Paris cafe at the moment).
Embedded ads on video is certainly an area to watch closely in 2009. We'll keep you posted.
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Now take a look at this video. Do you want your ad associated with it? do you think the ad along the bottom is targeted (when I checked it I got the same ad as the previous video).
My guess is that most advertisers will shy away from letting YouTube place ads on user-generated videos. Apparently this is why YouTube is now scanning videos for adult content.
But the second video I asked you to watch has an ad on it, and includes the word "Shit" in the upper left corner. Plus it's not the greates video anyway. So Youtube still isn't ready for you, the online marketer, just yet.
So what about Hulu - NBC and News Corp's video site? Hulu shows only professionally made content, which should be free of "bad" videos. Seems promising. But Hulu seems to work only in the U.S. for time being (I couldn't watch a video today since i am in a Paris cafe at the moment).
Embedded ads on video is certainly an area to watch closely in 2009. We'll keep you posted.
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Amobee: A REAL mobile advertising solution?
Mobile marketing and advertising is always a day away, it seems. But the day may come this year when you, the web marketer and advertiser, can finally dive into the mobile space and get the ROI you need.
At long last, the hardware is catching up to the promise of web on the phone: the iPhone, G1, and Blackberry Storm all have the 3G juice, onboard CPU power, and screen size to make surfing the Web reasonable. And mobile operator's fee structures are becoming more amenable to mobile ads as well - offering all-you-can-eat web access and unliimted SMS messaging.
Some mobile ad firms are stepping up with innovative offerings, as well. Amobee, a mobile ad startup, offers you several ways to to target customers on their phones. for example, Amobee can intercept SMS messages and insert appropriate ad content into the message, so that the receiver sees not only the SMS, but a relevant, targeted ad message as well. Check it out here.
Amobee also offers advertising through Mobile Media (MMS) and mobile applications (WAP). Now all we need is mobile operators to join the game, and mobile marketing will become a reality. We'll keep you posted.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008
YouTube Surfers Beware: Actns/Swif.T virus affecting embedded YouTube vids
Just passing along some important info for Internet Marketers cruising YouTube -
This warning came from Crunch Gear today:
"....The virus is called Actns/Swif.T and seems to contain a redirect to a phishing website embedded within a SWF file.
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This warning came from Crunch Gear today:
"....The virus is called Actns/Swif.T and seems to contain a redirect to a phishing website embedded within a SWF file.
The site apparently installs Antivirus 2009, which is malware. We’ll pull our most recent YouTube embeds, but be careful because this one appears to have just broken out today. If you find yourself being automatically redirected or experience other weird pop-ups, especially for something called Antivirus 2009, don’t click on anything."
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Monday, November 10, 2008
Why Android Will Make me Eat My Words...A long time from now!
Last week I wrote with some disappointment about Google's new phone OS, Android. Sometimes I just don't like half-baked technology. Usually, Google technology is an exception to this, because while Google technology is often half-baked, it's also often free. Can't argue with that.
I also can't argue with Android. Not because it's free (I'd never endeavor to install it on my own phone), but because it's open-source.
My friend Jason Karas (CEO of Carbonrally.com) took me on a tour of his Android Phone and the Android Market the other day, and it's actually very exciting.
Like the iPhone, 3rd parties can create applications for Android. But unlike Apple's API, Android is completely open source and access to 3rd party applications is unrestricted. Being completely open source, Android applications can alter fundamental properties of the underlying system software. This promises to make Android a constantly evolving solution, and the Android Market an ecosystem of innvation that could ecplise Apple's admittedly slick devices and operating systems.
Who knows where Android will go? Only the "collective" knows for sure.
How can the web marketer use Android or the Android Market? If yous business is in the mobile telecoms or web media spaces, and your customers are techies, you might add an application to the Android Market. It's cheaper to do so than for the iPhone, and you can design without Apple-imposed limits on function.
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I also can't argue with Android. Not because it's free (I'd never endeavor to install it on my own phone), but because it's open-source.
My friend Jason Karas (CEO of Carbonrally.com) took me on a tour of his Android Phone and the Android Market the other day, and it's actually very exciting.
Like the iPhone, 3rd parties can create applications for Android. But unlike Apple's API, Android is completely open source and access to 3rd party applications is unrestricted. Being completely open source, Android applications can alter fundamental properties of the underlying system software. This promises to make Android a constantly evolving solution, and the Android Market an ecosystem of innvation that could ecplise Apple's admittedly slick devices and operating systems.
Who knows where Android will go? Only the "collective" knows for sure.
How can the web marketer use Android or the Android Market? If yous business is in the mobile telecoms or web media spaces, and your customers are techies, you might add an application to the Android Market. It's cheaper to do so than for the iPhone, and you can design without Apple-imposed limits on function.
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Thursday, November 6, 2008
I Road-Test the Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu
I've been working with a K-12 school in Cambridge to implement a laptop program for their 6th grade class.Apart from concerns over student safety, network security, and other logistics issues, the cost of laptops is a big issue. For that reason, and a host of others I won't mention here, I was happy when Dell released its new 9" laptop, the Mini 9 (pictured right).
I ordered on, and it took four weeks to arrive since the Mini 9 is on back order due to demand.
It's pretty amazing that Dell can get a computer to market at this price point at at this level of performance. Compared to the other $400 laptop I purchased recently (an Everex Stepnote running a terrible linux distribution dubbed aspirationally gOS), the Mini 9 is awesome.
The one I ordered runs Ubuntu. Windows Vista is an option, but given the limited CPU and ram in the Mini 9, I couldn't see how it would be fast enough for even basic tasks. As it is, the Mini 9 with Ubuntu is slow to repond to commands and - occasionally - keystrokes. But the applicaitons do eventually open.
The desktop on the Mini 9 is a modification of the normal Ubuntu desktop and built for tiny screens (the Mini 9 has a 9" screen). They did a good job of managing screen real-estate and the most popular applications.
Unfortunately, the Mini 9's keyboard is also 9", which is just too small for an adult to type on. Yes, you could plug in a USB keyboard, but then what's the point? I would hate to write an essay on this thing. In fact, I wouldn't use this computer for anything - sitting uncomfortably between my 13" Macbook and my 3" iPod Touch.
This could be a great computer for 6th graders, or possibly the professsional who finds herself often without a laptop because her regular one was just too big to lug around. But who is that? I don't know her.
In spite of the keyboard, which is the deal-breaker, the Dell Mini 9 is way cool and is yet another brilliant size/power/cost compromise from Dell. The Mini 9 also represents the best of what's on offer in the world of subnotebooks/netbooks.
Watch out for the upocoming innovation that will put the Mini 9 over the top: interntal 3g broadband. Rumor has it that feature will be avaiable around Christmas.
I ordered on, and it took four weeks to arrive since the Mini 9 is on back order due to demand.
It's pretty amazing that Dell can get a computer to market at this price point at at this level of performance. Compared to the other $400 laptop I purchased recently (an Everex Stepnote running a terrible linux distribution dubbed aspirationally gOS), the Mini 9 is awesome.
The one I ordered runs Ubuntu. Windows Vista is an option, but given the limited CPU and ram in the Mini 9, I couldn't see how it would be fast enough for even basic tasks. As it is, the Mini 9 with Ubuntu is slow to repond to commands and - occasionally - keystrokes. But the applicaitons do eventually open.
The desktop on the Mini 9 is a modification of the normal Ubuntu desktop and built for tiny screens (the Mini 9 has a 9" screen). They did a good job of managing screen real-estate and the most popular applications.
Unfortunately, the Mini 9's keyboard is also 9", which is just too small for an adult to type on. Yes, you could plug in a USB keyboard, but then what's the point? I would hate to write an essay on this thing. In fact, I wouldn't use this computer for anything - sitting uncomfortably between my 13" Macbook and my 3" iPod Touch.
This could be a great computer for 6th graders, or possibly the professsional who finds herself often without a laptop because her regular one was just too big to lug around. But who is that? I don't know her.
In spite of the keyboard, which is the deal-breaker, the Dell Mini 9 is way cool and is yet another brilliant size/power/cost compromise from Dell. The Mini 9 also represents the best of what's on offer in the world of subnotebooks/netbooks.
Watch out for the upocoming innovation that will put the Mini 9 over the top: interntal 3g broadband. Rumor has it that feature will be avaiable around Christmas.
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Why Android and Chrome are less promising than Gmail and Gdocs
My friend and CEO of Carbonrally.com - Jason Karas - called me yesterday on a phone running Google Android to discuss some upcoming meetings. He was excited to be talking on one of the first Android Phones, but I had to ask if it was really as cool as he expected.
"A little cludgy" was his review. Not too glowing. But Google has a habit of releasing products WAY before prime time, and in a lot of ways that's good for users, especially if the offer's free. For example, I think we are all grateful for Gmail and Google Docs, and those of us in the SEO community have certainly benefitted from Analytics.
But Google's style of public Beta testing presents a challenge for web marketers who want to use Google's services to their advantage. So far, the main way marketers reach customers through Google is via Google Search. Higher-level interactions - such as building applications for Android or Chrome - are too risky to promise a decent ROI. Now Slashdot reports that Google has opened Android's source code.
This may make Android more popular with techies, but I ask you this: has any Google product besides Google's various storage/search solutions ever won a large market share? Take a look at gmail's market share here, and Chrome's unfortunate tale here.
Will building applications for Google's operating systems (Android and Chrome) ever be profitable? Probably (as long as Google follows through on making them great, complete, products). But they need to get a lot less "cludgy" first. So far there is little evidence that Google follows up on its Beta tests. Has Google docs gotten any better since its indroduction? Not that I can tell. Same goes for Gmail.
This is okay for Gmail and GDocs, since they're mainly used as parts in a user's diverse productivity architecture. for example, I use Gmail, but my Gmail account is routed through Entourage, along with several POP and Exchange accounts. Likewise, I use GDocs to collaborate with colleagues, but Word and Pages to create final documents.
Android and Chrome are meant to be the foundation for productivity, since they are operating systems. And in this way they are fundamentally different from previous Google offerings. And i can't use a Beta test as my operating system! Maybe the versions of Chrome and Android we have today really will be updated and made whole...but maybe not. Google' record so far doesn't give much hope that either OS will be widely adopted.
Maybe Google should take a closer look at Apple's strategy with their iPod OS and API: a great, solid platform with a flexible API for third parties.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008
YouTube surpasses Yahoo in monthly searches
According to the most recent Comscore Data Report - You Tube got more searches than Yahoo in September. Video campaign, anyone?
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Monday, September 29, 2008
Amherst College: Today's Customers are Wired to the Gills
In case you had doubts, or you need some data to convince a doubter, the future of marketing is here, and its mobile social networking. Here are the Data to back it up, form a survey from Amherst College on this year's incoming freshmen. Of the 432 freshmen:
Whoever you market to today, these people will soon be your customers. Ignore their habits at your own risk.
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- 98.6 freshmen had Facebook accounts, and accounted for 3,225 posts
- By the end of the first day of class, 370 students had registered 443 devices.
- Only 3% of freshmen registered desktop computers
- The study predicts 50% of freshmen will have an iPhone by 2012. (!!!!)
- only 1% of students set up a landline.
- Students from the classes of 2011 and 2012 are more likely to have Macs than PCs. [of course - Amherst College students probably don't care much about the price of their laptop! - ed.]
Whoever you market to today, these people will soon be your customers. Ignore their habits at your own risk.
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The State of Location-Based Social Networking On The iPhone
Here at Porter-Kendall, we normally scour the web for news on new web media technologies, and then give you summary & opinion from a web marketer's viewpoint. But in this case we just have to pass on a link: here's a great article in TechCrunch reviewing the six major location-based mobile networking applications for mobile phones.
Mark Hendrickson does a great job of profiling each app, and comes to a conclusion that we share here at Porter-Kendall: that none of these apps is ready for prime-time.
If you're a local business that wants to play in the web marketing sphere, location-based social networking may be very attractive. It might be worthwhile to create profiles of your business on these networks. but don't spend a ton of time just yet. Keep up with your local marketing efforts, but keep an eye on these tools to see what develops.
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Mark Hendrickson does a great job of profiling each app, and comes to a conclusion that we share here at Porter-Kendall: that none of these apps is ready for prime-time.
If you're a local business that wants to play in the web marketing sphere, location-based social networking may be very attractive. It might be worthwhile to create profiles of your business on these networks. but don't spend a ton of time just yet. Keep up with your local marketing efforts, but keep an eye on these tools to see what develops.
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Tiny URLs & Analytics -You Need Cli.gs!
I'm pretty sure most web marketers have heard of Tiny URL and Dwarf URL - two services that let you convert really long URLs into short ones, so you can include said URLs in your Twitter and other SMS messages. These URL-shortening services are indispensable for Twitter.
A new player on the block - cli.gs - gives you short URLs as well as analytics. If you already use another analytics tool on your site, you might not need cli.gs's - but you might, depending on if your analytics tool recognizes traffic coming from SMS-embedded links.
Even if you do already use another analytics tool that tracks traffic from phones, we recommend using cli.gs's analytics. Why? Becuase in our expericence no two analytics tools give the same results. To boot, there's no evidence that the typical tools such as Google Analytics give accurate cell-phone traffic data.
So use cli.gs instead of Tiny URL or Dwarf URL, and set up analytics for each URL you send throuh SMS & Twitter. Here at Porter-Kendall we do not believe that data for data's sake is valuable, and we don't recommend spending hours poring over analytics. Nevertheless, good data ARE important. And good mobile traffic data are hard to come by.
I created a small URL with cli.gs for this post: http://cli.gs/gZ1v5E. I discovered that Cli.gs does track some important data: traffic, referrers, links from blogs, and hits from Googlebot, Google bot Mobile, and Yahoo slurps.
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More People Text than Talk -- Finally!
I'm a huge fan of texting. Why? For one, I hate voicemail, and the more SMS messages I receive/send, the fewer voicemails I receive/leave. For me it's all about efficiency and the fact that I don't yet have the ability to choose which voicemails I listen to first. Hence, I don't listen to any of my voicemail, so the only way to leave me a message is to text me.
My family hates me for this, but I now feel vindicated: According to LifeHacker, the New York Times ran a poll that found that more SMS messages were sent than cell-phone calls made in the U.S. last year. Finally!
But what does this mean for marketers? Embrace the SMS! Twitter allows businesses to deliver messages to users en masse. We discussed how to use Twitter to market your business in a previous post. Read it! Because the jury is back with a decision: SMS is a growing force in mobile marketing.
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My family hates me for this, but I now feel vindicated: According to LifeHacker, the New York Times ran a poll that found that more SMS messages were sent than cell-phone calls made in the U.S. last year. Finally!
But what does this mean for marketers? Embrace the SMS! Twitter allows businesses to deliver messages to users en masse. We discussed how to use Twitter to market your business in a previous post. Read it! Because the jury is back with a decision: SMS is a growing force in mobile marketing.
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Saturday, September 27, 2008
Android and the G1 - yet another API to wrangle?
As I'm sure you all know by now, Google has officially released its new cell phone OS - Android - and T-Mobile has released a phone that uses it: the G1. As I'm sure you also know, Google's play with Android is to compete with the iPhone.
Gotta love Google - but is Android a sign that the company is finally maturing and being forced to compete in markets where it doesn't have the edge? Methinks so - because Blackberry still has a great enterprise solution, the Palm Treo and T-Mobile Sidekick still kick butt for freelancers, and the iPhone rules the roost in web-enabled phones.
But here at Porter-Kendall, we're concerned not with analyzing Google, but with learning about new tools for marketers. And marketers want to know if Android represents a platform that will become important in the current wave of mobile networking.
For now, I expect Android's appeal to be limited to early-adopters who are interested in the platform's flexibility and openness. It doesn't offer a compelling advantage over Blackberry, Treo, or iPhone for the average business or personal user, at least in the U.S. So while you could build an application for Android, you're probably better off focusing your energy on the other Big Three platforms. Or - even better - building a web app that is optimized for mobile use but doesn't care which platform is running on the phone.
If you're a marketer active in the mobile space already, your mesages can be communicated to an Android phone through Facebook, Twitter - and the like - without any tweaks to your current process.
So why does Android deserve any mention at all? Well, you can't ignore Google, even if they do come to market with an offer of dubious merit. Second, Android really does represent a new platform that may gain traction with consumers and businesses over the next year or so. And that means there are now 6 major mobile platforms in the U.S.: Nokia's S60, Palm, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, and Android.
My recommendation? Unless you have a compelling reason to design an application for a specific mobile platform, don't bother. All mobile phones are headed toward full broadband Internet connectivity & large screens. Design a web app that can be easily viewed on any phone, and make it easy for people to bookmark your app there.
"But i want my page or app to be available in [whatever platform's menu]" you say? If so, you'll have to build something for that platform's API. But don't forget, there are a lot of ways to connect mobile users to your offer: email, SMS, twitter, etc... And these modes of connectivity may be more effective than having an icon on a phone's menu. After all, an icon just sits there, waiting. Active engagement through the above-mentioned channels is still very powerful. And focusing your resources on great content is still priority #1.
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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Livebar: Another URL-killer?
I'm adding Livebar from Liveworld to my list of "URL-killers" -- web applications that bundle content across URLs. The first on my list was Meebo Chat - a promising application that I reviewed here. Livebar does something similar: it allows users to communicate to each other either on a site or across sites.
One HUGE drawback to Livebar is the fact that it can cost thousands of dollars to implement. Ouch! Compared to the free Meebo Room, your site's Livebar would have to add significant traffic to your URL in order to make sense. Liveworld touts livebar as an instant and inexpensive way to overlay a social network to your existing site. We'll see...
So why would you implement Livebar?
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One HUGE drawback to Livebar is the fact that it can cost thousands of dollars to implement. Ouch! Compared to the free Meebo Room, your site's Livebar would have to add significant traffic to your URL in order to make sense. Liveworld touts livebar as an instant and inexpensive way to overlay a social network to your existing site. We'll see...
So why would you implement Livebar?
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Monday, September 15, 2008
Netshare: Another Casualty at the App Store
Mobile Crunch reports that another iPhone app, NetShare, has been banned from the app store permanently. NetShare didn't violate any part of Apple's developer's agreement, so many are calling the ban arbitrary.
I wonder how many hours it took NetShare's developers at Nullriver to create the app? Maybe they knew in their hearts their app would be banned, since it allows people to link their computers to the iPhone's 3G connection. Maybe they didn't care Netshare was banned. But we web marketers have no such luxury.
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I wonder how many hours it took NetShare's developers at Nullriver to create the app? Maybe they knew in their hearts their app would be banned, since it allows people to link their computers to the iPhone's 3G connection. Maybe they didn't care Netshare was banned. But we web marketers have no such luxury.
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Podcaster App Denied: Developers Beware!
Apple's API for the iPhone and iPod touch is without a doubt an incredible benefit to consumers and marketers alike. On this blog I've talked about using applications for platforms such as iPhone and Facebook as marketing tools. But some recent news adds another wrinkle to the decision to spend resources developing such applications:
Webmonkey reported today that Apple has denied the application Podcaster access to Apple's app store. The reason? Podcaster mimics the functionality of Apple's iTunes software. Now, the funny thing is that this reason is not listed as one of the restrictions on developers. You'll need a developer account to view the full agreement, but the writing is on the wall: tread carefully.
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Webmonkey reported today that Apple has denied the application Podcaster access to Apple's app store. The reason? Podcaster mimics the functionality of Apple's iTunes software. Now, the funny thing is that this reason is not listed as one of the restrictions on developers. You'll need a developer account to view the full agreement, but the writing is on the wall: tread carefully.
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Monday, September 8, 2008
To Tweet or not to Tweet
Last post I talked about the variables that affect how many reads your tweets can get. In this post I'm going to talk about the kinds of Tweets that keep readers coming back for more.
Most people who have signed up for Twitter don't really know what to do with it. When I first signed up (a year ago), I only remembered to Tweet when I was bored (e.g. "Isaac is standing in line waiting for Red Sox tickets" or "Isaac is waiting for his friend to come outside"). judging by the tweets that come through my Twibble desktop widget, most other people don't know what to Twitter about either.
Marketers who want to make Twitter a part of their program need to consider what kinds of Tweets they'll be making, and whether that content is compelling enough to keep people coming back.
One of the best uses for Twitter is the event update. Even as far back as 2002, in my past life as a concert promoter, we were sending mass SMS messages to band's fan's cell phones. this was very effective, because we knew we were giving people info they wanted, and the SMS messages were actionable - that is, recipients could do something about what they read.
Twitter is the modern verison of this technique, and is very effective in terms of mass messaging. One big drawback, though, is that Twitter allows users to follow twitter feeds on the computer - not on their cell phone. this feature means most tweets are not read in a timely manner, if at all.
The kinds of Tweets you want to be making are ones that:
...And today's tweeters should ask themselves the following questions before jumping into a Twitter initiative:
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Most people who have signed up for Twitter don't really know what to do with it. When I first signed up (a year ago), I only remembered to Tweet when I was bored (e.g. "Isaac is standing in line waiting for Red Sox tickets" or "Isaac is waiting for his friend to come outside"). judging by the tweets that come through my Twibble desktop widget, most other people don't know what to Twitter about either.
Marketers who want to make Twitter a part of their program need to consider what kinds of Tweets they'll be making, and whether that content is compelling enough to keep people coming back.
One of the best uses for Twitter is the event update. Even as far back as 2002, in my past life as a concert promoter, we were sending mass SMS messages to band's fan's cell phones. this was very effective, because we knew we were giving people info they wanted, and the SMS messages were actionable - that is, recipients could do something about what they read.
Twitter is the modern verison of this technique, and is very effective in terms of mass messaging. One big drawback, though, is that Twitter allows users to follow twitter feeds on the computer - not on their cell phone. this feature means most tweets are not read in a timely manner, if at all.
The kinds of Tweets you want to be making are ones that:
- Drive some user action that profits you
- Are/Seem exclusive to Twitter (promo codes are good incentives to pay attention to Twitter. Offering new information on Twitter first can encourage people to receive your tweets on their phone).
- Are a real part of your marketing plan, not an afterthought.
- Aren't annoying
...And today's tweeters should ask themselves the following questions before jumping into a Twitter initiative:
- Will my tweets be timely? Actionable?
- How will I convince followers to follow on their phone, instead of online?
- If not the phone, can I help my followers by encouraging them to use one or more of the myriad Twitter viewers and plug-ins available on-line?
- What is the tech-savvyness of my followers? will they devise a system that works for them, or will they "set and forget"?
- Do my followers already follow lots of others online? Are they active on Twitter? If so, it's more likely they'll see your tweets because they're looking at their Twitter feeds more often.
- Do we have enough potential followers to make this all worthwhile?
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The Palin Twitter Bump: Is Twitter Mainstream Yet?
Sarah Palin's speech at the RNC convention last week swept the nation's TVs and radio stations -- and the world of Twitter as well. According to Venture Beat, major media is making a place for Twitter, and Twitter's users are becoming more mainstream - not just technophiles.
But for Marketers who have to decide how to allocate precious resources, the jury is still out on the efficacy of making Twitter part of your marketing plan.
One startup I know responded to user's calls to create a Twitter feed for their website, and dutifully complied. Now the staff spends around 30 minutes a week maintaining the feed: agonizing over the content of the tweets, and making sure to tweet about every piece of news that already goes out through regular channels.
And how many followers do they have? Around 15. And how many of those followers actually read each tweet? I don't know, but I suspect the number is very small.
In broad strokes, four big considerations you should make are:
- The resources spent creating Tweets
- The number of "followers"
- How many tweets followers actually read
- How much you sell as a result of tweets.
How can a marketer predict the "tweet/read" ratio (the ratio of tweets written / number of readers) for their company's proposed Twitter feed? I'll tackle this issue in my next post....
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Saturday, September 6, 2008
Where is Multiverse Places for Facebook?
in an attempt to actually install Multiverse Places on my Facebook profile, I discovered that Places does not run on Mac OSX. Nor could I find Places when I searched the applications list on Facebook. So where is it?
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Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Multiverse Launches Virtual World - 'Multiverse Places' - on Facebook(R) Platform
Multiverse, a leading provider of virtual world development technology, today announced a virtual world application built on the Facebook Platform: Multiverse Places. This is taking the Meebo Room concept to the next level.
But given how clunky virtual worlds feel, it's not likely that building a marketing initiative in Multiverse Places will be effective for any but the most MMOG-oriented firms...for now.
Check this video, supplied by Multiverse:
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But given how clunky virtual worlds feel, it's not likely that building a marketing initiative in Multiverse Places will be effective for any but the most MMOG-oriented firms...for now.
Check this video, supplied by Multiverse:
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Adding Feedburner to Blog Entry Suffixes
Feedburner don't fail me now...
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OTEP's "Special Pets" is the New "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails
I couldn't resist - this is a crazy song but it IS good. OTEP's "Special Pets" is the New "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails. Plus OTEP is an example of artists that can make big things happen for web businesses they believe in. Bands like OTEP (with over 200,000 unique visitors to their MySpace page) have devoted fans. Find an act that fits your mission and you may develop a great partnership.
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Monday, September 1, 2008
New Google Chrome: Once again IT's ON!
Google Chrome arrives for Windows on Wednesday. This is Big. From what I understand Google Chrome isn't really an operating system (it doesn't control hardware, for example) - but once this thing is available for Linux I'm seeing visions of laptops running micro-distributions such as Puppy with Chrome on top.
With picassa, youtube, gears, gmail etc... you won't need more than a 1 gig flash drive.
Oh yeah...
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With picassa, youtube, gears, gmail etc... you won't need more than a 1 gig flash drive.
Oh yeah...
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
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The Firefox Coop...Do We Need Another Aggregator?
Firefox, you know I love you. But your new Firefox 3.0.1 is not compatible with some of my favorite add-ons. And that includes The Coop, a promising new app created with the new Firefox Ubiquity.
The Coop claims to be a cool new tool to see what your friends are doing online. So add this to your embedded Twitter, Digg, Facebook, and myriad other toolbars. Images of The Coop's sample page look nice, but the 13" screen on my Macbook can only handle so much data. Would I add the Coop to my browser? Not sure.
After all, don't we have to choose a few tools and work with them? We can't keep on adding stuff, can we? But given the rate at which info aggregators are springing up, I don't even know if we'll ever come to rest on some standard. And anybody interested in marketing through the social web should probably jump in now rather than wait for things to settle down.
I tried to see what the Coop was all about, but no luck this time. If you're still running Firefox 3.0 you may have better luck. I'll be keeping an eye on this, and keep you posted.
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The Coop claims to be a cool new tool to see what your friends are doing online. So add this to your embedded Twitter, Digg, Facebook, and myriad other toolbars. Images of The Coop's sample page look nice, but the 13" screen on my Macbook can only handle so much data. Would I add the Coop to my browser? Not sure.
After all, don't we have to choose a few tools and work with them? We can't keep on adding stuff, can we? But given the rate at which info aggregators are springing up, I don't even know if we'll ever come to rest on some standard. And anybody interested in marketing through the social web should probably jump in now rather than wait for things to settle down.
I tried to see what the Coop was all about, but no luck this time. If you're still running Firefox 3.0 you may have better luck. I'll be keeping an eye on this, and keep you posted.
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Meebo Chat Room on Facebook: Representing a Nascent New Layer of the Web?
I was once again trying to get my Meebo chat room to work on the new Facebook when I came across an article by Eric Eldon about the number of people using the Meebo Chat application on Facebook.
Eric asks how such technologies will make money. How about a streaming radio station embedded in a Meebo chat room, with thumbs up/down voting by the people in the room, for starters?
Now back to embedding this chat room (from my homepage at www.carbonrally.com)...
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Eric asks how such technologies will make money. How about a streaming radio station embedded in a Meebo chat room, with thumbs up/down voting by the people in the room, for starters?
Now back to embedding this chat room (from my homepage at www.carbonrally.com)...
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Mozilla Lab's Ubiquity - User-centric automation
Ubiquity, a promising new language from Mozilla Labs, to be used with Firefox 3.0, may make it easier to accomplish a lot of web-based tasks that currently involve a lot of hopping from URL to desktop, to URL. I'll keep you posted on what I find.
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Google Android Opens App Market...will it be as cool as iPhone's?
Yet another API- that for Google's Android mobile OS, is ready for action. Google has opened the Android App Market to developers, in the hope of getting the same kind of response Apple and Facebook have gotten to their own APIs.
But is Android ubiquitous enough, and differentiated enough from the killer iPhone and iPod Touch, to make a real splash? My prediction is it will be slow going for Google. Luckily they've got plenty of cash to spend whicle they wait for widespread adoption of Android.
According to Google: Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. We chose the term “market” rather than “store” because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available. Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it. We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings.
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But is Android ubiquitous enough, and differentiated enough from the killer iPhone and iPod Touch, to make a real splash? My prediction is it will be slow going for Google. Luckily they've got plenty of cash to spend whicle they wait for widespread adoption of Android.
According to Google: Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. We chose the term “market” rather than “store” because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available. Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it. We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings.
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Splash Cast - Killing the URL Pt. 3? or not?
I was looking around for more cool apps that fall into my "URL killer" category. I came across SplashCast on an old article on C|Net by Josh Lowensohn.
Here's an example of a SplashCast:
But SplashCast's model is different from Meebo, Reverb Nation, and similar URL-killers (see previous posts): You've got to pay to make one. The SplashCast website itself is clearly geared toward B2B customers. It's more sophisticated than the Meebo Room, and shows what can be done with this technology. Big things to come!
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Here's an example of a SplashCast:
| Add Alicia Keys to your page |
But SplashCast's model is different from Meebo, Reverb Nation, and similar URL-killers (see previous posts): You've got to pay to make one. The SplashCast website itself is clearly geared toward B2B customers. It's more sophisticated than the Meebo Room, and shows what can be done with this technology. Big things to come!
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Reverb Nation: Killing the URL Part II
Here's another tool that allows you to broadcast your own content across URLs. I have embedded by own custom playlist from Reverb Nation below. You'll probably have to repair the HTML when you try to embed one on your site, like did when embedding these on this blog...
Here's a playlist from OTEP, a new band I really like:
These embeddable badges come in all different shapes and sizes. How long before Reverb Nation allows me to search for new bands from within one of these?
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Here's a playlist from OTEP, a new band I really like:
These embeddable badges come in all different shapes and sizes. How long before Reverb Nation allows me to search for new bands from within one of these?
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Testing the Facebook Button
Testing the Share on Facebook button...so far it's not working properly in blogger. I had to delete the < > tags from a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=" onclick="return fbs_click()"
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Meebo rooms: Killing the URL pt. I
I'm no fortune-teller, but the rapid rise of 3rd party applications, dynamic badges, and now Meebo Rooms may some day rob the URL of much of its importance as an indicator of content. What do I mean by this?
Let's take a look: with my Facebook toolbar installed, I don't need to navigate to Facebook to see basic stats about my friends. On my Mac, a number of widgets allow me to access information without opening a browser.
But the real innovation here is the idea behind the Meebo Room. Below is my Meebo Room, which I first installed on my profile page on www.carbonrally.com:
Admittedly, not many people are chatting. But the more places I embed this room, the more people will see it, no matter what URL they're viewing it on. Entire interactive portals can be embedded this way. This is definitely a step forward in the enriching of the social media space.
The power of the Meebo Room and apps like it is worth 10 minutes of thought, at least. Who knows, you might find the idea irresistible.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
Let's take a look: with my Facebook toolbar installed, I don't need to navigate to Facebook to see basic stats about my friends. On my Mac, a number of widgets allow me to access information without opening a browser.
But the real innovation here is the idea behind the Meebo Room. Below is my Meebo Room, which I first installed on my profile page on www.carbonrally.com:
Admittedly, not many people are chatting. But the more places I embed this room, the more people will see it, no matter what URL they're viewing it on. Entire interactive portals can be embedded this way. This is definitely a step forward in the enriching of the social media space.
The power of the Meebo Room and apps like it is worth 10 minutes of thought, at least. Who knows, you might find the idea irresistible.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Which side of the API are you on?
I have craved a remote for iTunes (PC) for years - and now that Apple released an API for the iPhone/iPod Touch, I have it at last.
I'm finally happy - but think how Apple must feel: The iPhone is now undoubtedly the game-changing innovation it had the potential to be.
I also have Facebook on my iPod Touch. Facebook released their own API a while ago, and just re-designed our profile page's real estate - presumably to make the coming deluge of applications more manageable. If there were any questions about Facebook's innovative power, let them be put to rest now.
So, which side of the API are you on? If your company does business on the web, you might be deciding whether to build an application for Facebook's or another API. Or perhaps you're considering publishing your own. Maybe you're trying to decide between the two.
Considering the cost of building an application for an API such as Facebook's can easily go above $10,000 (and building your own API above $100k) it might not be obvious that it's needed. But if driving online traffic or usage is your goal, a web-application or API is in your future.
So what are the most popular APIs today? Check out Mozilla's Top Firefox Extensions and Apple's list of apps for the iPhone & iPod Touch
To some, all this talk of APIs is old news. But the rise of the API is not about to stop. It's only a matter of time before a "common API" is developed for small & medium sized businesses (SMBs). Customizable applications for SMBs are surely on the horizon as well.
Check out Open social and SocialMedia for some examples of companies building apps for Web companies.
Even if now isn't the time for your company to get into the API game, one day you won't be able to resist the inevitable. Social media isn't a fad - it's going to be the Internet.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
I'm finally happy - but think how Apple must feel: The iPhone is now undoubtedly the game-changing innovation it had the potential to be.
I also have Facebook on my iPod Touch. Facebook released their own API a while ago, and just re-designed our profile page's real estate - presumably to make the coming deluge of applications more manageable. If there were any questions about Facebook's innovative power, let them be put to rest now.
So, which side of the API are you on? If your company does business on the web, you might be deciding whether to build an application for Facebook's or another API. Or perhaps you're considering publishing your own. Maybe you're trying to decide between the two.
Considering the cost of building an application for an API such as Facebook's can easily go above $10,000 (and building your own API above $100k) it might not be obvious that it's needed. But if driving online traffic or usage is your goal, a web-application or API is in your future.
So what are the most popular APIs today? Check out Mozilla's Top Firefox Extensions and Apple's list of apps for the iPhone & iPod Touch
To some, all this talk of APIs is old news. But the rise of the API is not about to stop. It's only a matter of time before a "common API" is developed for small & medium sized businesses (SMBs). Customizable applications for SMBs are surely on the horizon as well.
Check out Open social and SocialMedia for some examples of companies building apps for Web companies.
Even if now isn't the time for your company to get into the API game, one day you won't be able to resist the inevitable. Social media isn't a fad - it's going to be the Internet.
Thanks for reading. Please let us know what you think!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
What is Porter-Kendall?
This is the first post of a new blog: Porter-Kendall. This blog will be about media, the web, marketing, and technology - from the vantage point of a slice of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A couple reasons I'm starting this blog: I (Isaac D. Van Wesep, your faithful author) need a place to experiment with new web media tools, and since I'm using them, I figured I'd publish my thoughts on what I find.
I'm no expert on web marketing - you can find out more about me at my LinkedIn Profile
Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!
A couple reasons I'm starting this blog: I (Isaac D. Van Wesep, your faithful author) need a place to experiment with new web media tools, and since I'm using them, I figured I'd publish my thoughts on what I find.
I'm no expert on web marketing - you can find out more about me at my LinkedIn Profile
Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Thanks for taking my 2009 Twitter survey!
Thanks for taking my 2009 Twitter survey. The results will be posted here on my blog on Friday, March 6, 2009.
If you know somebody who might be willing to take this survey, why not tweet about it? Here's the link to Twitter and to the survey URL.
If you know somebody who might be willing to take this survey, why not tweet about it? Here's the link to Twitter and to the survey URL.
In the meantime, why not see whats going on in the world of web media and marketing by reading my latest blog entry?
P.S. - yes, the date on this blog is a little old - I'm attempting a blogger's version of a landing page. If Blogger lets me do it then it must be okay with Google, right?
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