The Long Tail is so BIG, you can't possibly navigate it by yourself. Even with great filters, its just too big a job on your own.
It must be a collective effort. With each person surfing individually and sharing with the group. This sharing from person to group will introduce people in the group to new things that they will then share with new groups(if its worth sharing). This cycle from individual to group and back to individual is the future of the Long Tail Surfing.
Enabling this cycle is the future of internet retailing.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Blogging for an A
It has been a long time since I have blogged. I have been consumed with another project that has consumed all of my free time. Should be launching it soon.
The time off has made me think about how I blog. And I have decided to change my blogging habits. Before, I only blogged when I felt like I had something really intelligent to say. I took a long time to think about a post because I wanted get it just right. And sometimes it took a long time to write those posts as if I were writing a small Thesis for some Masters Degree I will never get. I feel like this way of blogging has limited me and my ability to get my thoughts out. A lot of great thoughts have fallen by the wayside.
But that's all going to change starting now. From now on, blog post will be:
The time off has made me think about how I blog. And I have decided to change my blogging habits. Before, I only blogged when I felt like I had something really intelligent to say. I took a long time to think about a post because I wanted get it just right. And sometimes it took a long time to write those posts as if I were writing a small Thesis for some Masters Degree I will never get. I feel like this way of blogging has limited me and my ability to get my thoughts out. A lot of great thoughts have fallen by the wayside.
But that's all going to change starting now. From now on, blog post will be:
- Shorter
- More frequent
- A way for me just to get my thoughts out on a given topic
- Written in the moment
- To the point
- More of a brainstorm
- How I think the digital world IS changing
- How I think the digital world SHOULD change
- An exploration of my thoughts
Friday, July 31, 2009
The World Needs Another Search Engine.....
....Like It Needs Another Energy Drink.
There are a million energy drinks out there, but no one, no matter what they try, can even put a dent in Red Bulls sales.
The search world is the same story, just with different players. Google owns search(67% worldwide) and not even Microsoft's Bing will put a dent in Google dominance. Everyone else can see this, so why can't Microsoft?
Maybe the same people behind Bing are the same people who thought the Zune was a good idea?
Microsoft is in the business of trying to compete with companies who already own a category. They need a new business.
Microsoft needs to be in the innovation business, and they have the money and power to do it.
Monday's post will be an idea on how Microsoft can innovate.
There are a million energy drinks out there, but no one, no matter what they try, can even put a dent in Red Bulls sales.
The search world is the same story, just with different players. Google owns search(67% worldwide) and not even Microsoft's Bing will put a dent in Google dominance. Everyone else can see this, so why can't Microsoft?
Maybe the same people behind Bing are the same people who thought the Zune was a good idea?Microsoft is in the business of trying to compete with companies who already own a category. They need a new business.
Microsoft needs to be in the innovation business, and they have the money and power to do it.
Monday's post will be an idea on how Microsoft can innovate.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Obamarketing
I may not agree with all of Obama's policies, but I do recognize that he is doing a great job marketing them.
I recently read Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition by Jack Trout. Jack Trout explains that one way to differentiate is to point out your competitor's weaknesses and position yourself as the better alternative. And this is exactly what Obama is doing to pass the health care reform bill.
Two simple phrases have become the slogans to push his campaign forward and have backed Republicans into a corner that they aren't sure how to get out of.
"We must act now" and "We can't do nothing." More than defining his own position, these statements define the position of all of his competition in the minds of the public. If Obama is FOR taking action, anyone opposing him MUST be AGAINST taking action. And if Obama is FOR doing something than anyone opposing him must be AGAINST doing something and therefore FOR doing nothing.
In the human mind, only one Brand in a given category can own a specific position at a given time. There can only be one first man on the moon, one "King Of POP", one original, and in this case, only one Brand OWNS doing something.
Its not that Republicans want to do nothing. They want to solve the problem too. But since they are fighting against the Brand(Obama) who OWNS doing something, it appears in the minds of the public, that Republicans OWN doing nothing.
People don't see all of the other things that they should be thinking about with this big decision(expense, the future of our Country). All they see is "We have to do something". Which makes it possible for Obama to pass anything he wants because anything is better than doing nothing.
So how do Republicans fight back. It will do no good for them to try and fight the "We Can't Do Nothing" battle. They already lost that. They have to fight on another front. How about a Trillion Dollar front?
I would attack the price tag for the Health Care Bill, but not the way they are currently doing it. Republicans have been sure to let us know that the Bill is going to cost us a Trillion dollars, but what does that really mean?
Saying a Trillion doesn't really have any impact on the mind. Sure we know its big, but we have never seen that much money, so we can't grasp how big it is. All we know is that its more than a Billion which is more than a Million.
They need to find a way to have it register in the minds of the people how big a Trillion dollars really is.
Via an email from my Dad I received a powerpoint called Whats a Trillion that illustrates just how big a trillion dollars is. I am not sure who authored it, but who ever did, great job. Here are a few slides from the presentation. I can't guarantee how accurate it is, but it gets the point across.
$1,000,000
$100,000,000
$1,000,000,000
$1,000,000,000,000 (The Death Blow)
I don't think anyone can look at that picture without thinking about how much money that is and without thinking about the repercussions of what is about to happen.
These pictures are great, but I would take it to another level. If the Republicans want to win this battle, they need to make these pictures real life and make a spectacle of it. Hire a bunch of semi trucks loaded with pallets stacked with money( or fake money, cause no one has a Trillion to do this with). Alert the press so all of the cameras, helicopters over head and reporters are there. Have the semi trucks pull up in front of the white house and with fork lifts, start unloading the pallets of money. Have it shut down traffic and stop everyone in their tracks. That would make people realize how much this is going to cost and will shut down the "We can't do nothing" Campaign.
I recently read Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition by Jack Trout. Jack Trout explains that one way to differentiate is to point out your competitor's weaknesses and position yourself as the better alternative. And this is exactly what Obama is doing to pass the health care reform bill.
Two simple phrases have become the slogans to push his campaign forward and have backed Republicans into a corner that they aren't sure how to get out of.
"We must act now" and "We can't do nothing." More than defining his own position, these statements define the position of all of his competition in the minds of the public. If Obama is FOR taking action, anyone opposing him MUST be AGAINST taking action. And if Obama is FOR doing something than anyone opposing him must be AGAINST doing something and therefore FOR doing nothing.
In the human mind, only one Brand in a given category can own a specific position at a given time. There can only be one first man on the moon, one "King Of POP", one original, and in this case, only one Brand OWNS doing something.
Its not that Republicans want to do nothing. They want to solve the problem too. But since they are fighting against the Brand(Obama) who OWNS doing something, it appears in the minds of the public, that Republicans OWN doing nothing.
People don't see all of the other things that they should be thinking about with this big decision(expense, the future of our Country). All they see is "We have to do something". Which makes it possible for Obama to pass anything he wants because anything is better than doing nothing.
So how do Republicans fight back. It will do no good for them to try and fight the "We Can't Do Nothing" battle. They already lost that. They have to fight on another front. How about a Trillion Dollar front?
I would attack the price tag for the Health Care Bill, but not the way they are currently doing it. Republicans have been sure to let us know that the Bill is going to cost us a Trillion dollars, but what does that really mean?
Saying a Trillion doesn't really have any impact on the mind. Sure we know its big, but we have never seen that much money, so we can't grasp how big it is. All we know is that its more than a Billion which is more than a Million.
They need to find a way to have it register in the minds of the people how big a Trillion dollars really is.
Via an email from my Dad I received a powerpoint called Whats a Trillion that illustrates just how big a trillion dollars is. I am not sure who authored it, but who ever did, great job. Here are a few slides from the presentation. I can't guarantee how accurate it is, but it gets the point across.
$1,000,000
$100,000,000
$1,000,000,000
$1,000,000,000,000 (The Death Blow)
I don't think anyone can look at that picture without thinking about how much money that is and without thinking about the repercussions of what is about to happen.
These pictures are great, but I would take it to another level. If the Republicans want to win this battle, they need to make these pictures real life and make a spectacle of it. Hire a bunch of semi trucks loaded with pallets stacked with money( or fake money, cause no one has a Trillion to do this with). Alert the press so all of the cameras, helicopters over head and reporters are there. Have the semi trucks pull up in front of the white house and with fork lifts, start unloading the pallets of money. Have it shut down traffic and stop everyone in their tracks. That would make people realize how much this is going to cost and will shut down the "We can't do nothing" Campaign.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Advertising is Dead
Social Media is quickly changing the way we communicate with consumers and because of it, the old model of advertising is dead.
Advertising has long been about guessing what your customer needs. Using demographics and other customer profile data, advertisers have tried to narrow it down to "Target" consumers and show them an ad that they will respond to. But in the end, its just a guessing game because advertisers don't really know what the customer needs. They just try and guess as best as they can. The problem is, its a one way communication.
Social Media has opened up a two way communication. Now we can get feedback from consumers like never before. Anthony Power has always said that "Marketing is the alignment of solutions and needs to everyone's benefit." Rather that guessing what a customer needs, why not just ask them?
Social Media gives us the ability to have our customers tell us their needs. This is marketing.
This allows us to not just advertise to them, but to truly market to them, to everyone's benefit.
Advertising has long been about guessing what your customer needs. Using demographics and other customer profile data, advertisers have tried to narrow it down to "Target" consumers and show them an ad that they will respond to. But in the end, its just a guessing game because advertisers don't really know what the customer needs. They just try and guess as best as they can. The problem is, its a one way communication.
Social Media has opened up a two way communication. Now we can get feedback from consumers like never before. Anthony Power has always said that "Marketing is the alignment of solutions and needs to everyone's benefit." Rather that guessing what a customer needs, why not just ask them?
Social Media gives us the ability to have our customers tell us their needs. This is marketing.
This allows us to not just advertise to them, but to truly market to them, to everyone's benefit.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Worse Than Spam
The Windows Live team isn't fooling anyone by trying to pass promo spam off as a tech support email.
The only thing worse than SPAM is when the company spamming you, acknowledges within the spam itself, that they aren't supposed to spam you and trys to pass the spam off the as something else.
Today, I received this email from the Windows Live Team.
They acknowledge within the email, "your settings do not allow Microsoft to send you promotional information", yet they are emailing me anyway?
Maybe they think that they are fooling someone by disguising it as "contacting you regarding your communication preference settings". As if this makes it non promotional.
But at the end of the day, they sent me this email to promote the changing of my settings so that they could send me promotions. Lame attempt.
I don't actually use this account for anything real. I use Gmail. But I guess it fits, since I only use this account to fill out forms that I think I might get spammed from. And I did.
The only thing worse than SPAM is when the company spamming you, acknowledges within the spam itself, that they aren't supposed to spam you and trys to pass the spam off the as something else.
Today, I received this email from the Windows Live Team.
They acknowledge within the email, "your settings do not allow Microsoft to send you promotional information", yet they are emailing me anyway?
Maybe they think that they are fooling someone by disguising it as "contacting you regarding your communication preference settings". As if this makes it non promotional.
But at the end of the day, they sent me this email to promote the changing of my settings so that they could send me promotions. Lame attempt.
I don't actually use this account for anything real. I use Gmail. But I guess it fits, since I only use this account to fill out forms that I think I might get spammed from. And I did.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
I've been #twitterjacked
Over the weekend, I discovered that I had been #twitterjacked. An account by the name @lncjmsjones76 had been stealing my tweets (@ljjones) and republishing them as if they were his own without giving any credit to me. It was easy enough to do, as I am sure the person just grabbed my Twitter RSS feed and used a robot to republish it to his account.
Like anything rising in popularity, Twitter has experienced its own forms of spam and nefarious behavior. We have seen many accounts set up to impersonate famous people. While some were created out of respect for the famous person, many have been set up with the intent to deceive.
The great thing about Twitter is that everyone is willing to look out for the people in their network. I was alerted to the fraudulent account by a friend of mine named Anthony Power (@apowerpoint). I had sent him an @reply a few days ago, and over the weekend, he received the same exact @reply from @lncjmsjones76. Realizing someone was stealing my tweets, he sent me an email with a link to the account.
What I can’t figure out is why steal my Tweets. I would like to think that it is because my Tweets were so full of wisdom that they are worth stealing, but I am sure that’s not the case. I was probably randomly picked by someone too lazy to tweet themselves who was trying to build a profile. The weird thing is that I couldn’t see any objective in creating the profile. The profile looked liked it used a fake name that it had created from my initials and there wasn’t even a link to a website.
After doing some investigating, I contacted Twitter and they suspended the account for me, but not before I had a little fun with it. Knowing that it was all automated, I figured I would post a few tweets proving that the account was a fraud. So I tweeted and an hour later, this tweet showed up in the other account.
If you think you have been #twitterjacked, grab one of your tweets that’s a few days old and plug it into the Twitter search. Do it both, with and without quotes around it. If you do find that someone is doing something suspicious, report it to Twitter through their @spam account.
Like anything rising in popularity, Twitter has experienced its own forms of spam and nefarious behavior. We have seen many accounts set up to impersonate famous people. While some were created out of respect for the famous person, many have been set up with the intent to deceive.
The great thing about Twitter is that everyone is willing to look out for the people in their network. I was alerted to the fraudulent account by a friend of mine named Anthony Power (@apowerpoint). I had sent him an @reply a few days ago, and over the weekend, he received the same exact @reply from @lncjmsjones76. Realizing someone was stealing my tweets, he sent me an email with a link to the account.
What I can’t figure out is why steal my Tweets. I would like to think that it is because my Tweets were so full of wisdom that they are worth stealing, but I am sure that’s not the case. I was probably randomly picked by someone too lazy to tweet themselves who was trying to build a profile. The weird thing is that I couldn’t see any objective in creating the profile. The profile looked liked it used a fake name that it had created from my initials and there wasn’t even a link to a website.
After doing some investigating, I contacted Twitter and they suspended the account for me, but not before I had a little fun with it. Knowing that it was all automated, I figured I would post a few tweets proving that the account was a fraud. So I tweeted and an hour later, this tweet showed up in the other account.
If you think you have been #twitterjacked, grab one of your tweets that’s a few days old and plug it into the Twitter search. Do it both, with and without quotes around it. If you do find that someone is doing something suspicious, report it to Twitter through their @spam account.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
