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October 31, 2005
A spin on spam is spim.
When your IM is attacked, it's called "spimming." 70 per cent of spim is porn-related, according to a report from the market research Radicati Group. Nice.
Spim is growing at about three times the rate of spam, because of the proliferation of Instant Messaging. Pew Research found that nearly 40 percent of IM users under 30 have gotten spim, along with 27 percent of users aged 30 to 49.
According to Pew, here are some quick tips to avoid spim:
>> Never post personal information on IM.
>> Never respond to a message sent unsolicited by a user you don't know.
>> Be careful posting your screen name on Web sites.
>> Do not click on links in messages that appear to be sent by someone on your buddy list.
>> Check out IM Logic's Threat Center to find out about the latest threats.
>> Set your preferences on your IM client to only accept messages from your buddy list.
And here's my warning spin on IM - especially for people who use IM to talk to their friends and co-workers during their regular work hours. Your conversations can be captured in e-discovery, if your company ever needs to. Take it from a girl who worked at Enron, was called into an attorney's office for a defendant, and saw some of her e-mail referenced in discovery. That can really be unnerving.
And a note to marketers and policy makers: Your company's electronic privacy policy should be updated to cover blogs and IM.
10/29/2005 10:36
Byron is leading a conversation on good blog design. It's deja vu for me all over again, because Marqui has sponsored the Blog Business Summit all year long. He's a great presenter and gives good design tips. His presentation will be posted here. (Actually, all presentations from the day will be posted there.) Inspiration, creativity and design of a blog... where is your inspiration going to come from? It'll come from your travels, your experiences at shows, your competition. Simpler design and functionality are best. Apple took at 45 button remote and put the essential functionality into a 6 button iPod. Nice example. Be influenced by minimalism, simplicity and usability. He showed a beautiful example of a minimal, beautiful blog here, called graphicPUSH. Think of your consumers. Make it simple for them to read about you, to learn about your products, and use blogs to make it simpler for them to find you.
10/29/2005 10:30
Robert Scoble just started his presentation at the Blog Business Seminar by pointing out a great resource for anyone interested in the latest and greatest news about technology. It's a site called Tech.Memeorandum and per the description on the site, it is "auto-updated every 5 minutes with the most relevant items from thousands of news sites and blogs." BTW, as a side note...Scoble says he currently reads about 1,400 feeds/blogs a night. He also says that with better technology he could probably do 10,000. Can you say overachiever???
10/29/2005 9:52
1) Know what people are saying about you... 2) Responding to what people say about you in a timely manner In my presentation this afternoon, I'll talk about my Six Rules of Engagement in the blogosphere: 1) Develop thick skin 2) Be absolutely honest 3) Have a point of view 4) Do your research 5) Engage your detractors 6) Drive to closure
10/29/2005 9:49
1) Syndication will extend your reach. 2) Google will love you - so your awareness will be up. 3) Blogging is easy. 4) Blog tools are relatively inexpensive.
10/29/2005 9:36
Steve Broback is speaking to an audience of (mostly marketing) people in Seattle who haven't started blogging yet. 99% of the content in newsreaders are blogs - because of syndication, or RSS. So newsreaders pick up blog content very easily. This is a "non-trivial advantage" to blogs - getting the word from your blog out to newsreaders. A great question was asked - who ARE all these people who are blogging? There isn't a very good demographic cut of bloggers, but anecdotally (he didn't have a source) he's read that many geeks are blogging - technically proficient people who (more importantly) spend money. Advantage 1: Syndication is a huge boost. Everyone will be reading syndication soon, Microsoft is building syndication into Windows. Blogs are preferred content providers for syndicators.
10/29/2005 8:25
We're here in Seattle today at the Business Blogging 101 seminar. We're here with our friends Byron, Steve and Molly. Uber Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble is here, too. He's always very entertaining. It's a nice way to spend a rainy Saturday. We'll be blogging the event, and showing Marqui's new blog module built specifically for business blogging at lunchtime. I'll be speaking on a "Blog Management: Strategies and Tactics" panel this afternoon. As always, Tara and I will blog what we hear. It's a great way to share the excitement in real time with those who couldn't make it to the party.
10/28/2005 19:40
Todd Cochrane - one of our original bloggers - has written a heartfelt response to the Forbes (registration required) blog coverage here. He represents the beauty of the blogosphere. I love the ability to post a response to an article in real-time... and have it heard. What is more powerful than being able to express your opinion freely? I believe in blogging and bloggers. I am thrilled to be counted as one. Thank you, Todd, for making us proud.
10/28/2005 13:40
Interesting response from Jeremy Pepper about the Forbes piece. One could say that Lyons "started it" by using negative words such as "bashing" and "attack," but there certainly is some irony here...many of the rebuttals to the article have been extremely harsh. Bloggers launching angry (and in some instances) personal attacks on a reporter... to prove that bloggers don't attack people. Interesting indeed. That being said, I still think the article is overly critical of blogging. I also believe another point has been proven with Jeremy's post: the blogosphere is self-cleansing.
10/28/2005 11:18
Earlier this year, Marqui was interviewed by Forbes writer Dan Lyons. He said he was working on an article about blogs and business and wanted more details on Marqui's PayBloggers program. As you can imagine, we were thrilled at the opportunity to talk with Forbes and eager to see what angle he would take since so many publications (e.g, Business Week) had already covered this topic. Okay, now imagine our horror this morning when we saw that a large chunk of Dan's article comes off as extremely anti-blogging. Not surprising, the piece has already caused a great deal of (justifiable) outrage in the blogosphere and many well known bloggers have already posted responses. So far, I like Dan Gillmor's response the best. I'm really not sure why Dan Lyons decided to take this particular angle but if he was looking to stir things up, he has certainly achieved his goal. For Marqui's part, I'd like to make it VERY clear that we do not agree with the overall tone of the article, nor do we endorse ideas such as "bashing" or "discrediting" bloggers. Based on all of my conversations with him, I think Dan Lyons is an extremely sharp guy. And I still believe Forbes is a great magazine...but what on earth were they thinking with this article?!
10/24/2005 12:10
When was the last time an ad made you smile? Here's the latest viral ad making the rounds. It's a beer ad (Carlton Draught - from Australia), so no one under 18, please.
10/24/2005 10:30
I found a very interesting article on blog adoption stats by Chris Shipley last week. Interestingly, one of the quotes that caught my eye was this:
" The biggest challenges faced by business bloggers are maintaining enthusiasm (42%), encouraging adoption (36%) and dealing with technological problems (30%). Editorial policy (14%) and dealing with inappropriate comments or content (14%) are less of a problem than getting management support (18%)."At Marqui, when we speak at events, we counsel corporations considering blogging to spread the work across at least a couple of people in an organization to help in the "maintaining enthusiasm" challenge. The fact that Tara and I share the load is of great comfort to both of us. It's not that we don't have enthusiasm, it's that we both have (more than) full-time jobs to do in addition to blogging. Sharing the writing priveleges helps. "Editorial policy" challenges can be mitigated by simply having a strong mission for your blog. Ours is "A Center for Marketing Excellence." That mission helps us define what we write about every single time we do. Thank goodness we've never had to overcome the "getting management support" challenge at Marqui. I have spoken to many about that, and have blogged about the strong arguments for jumping in the fray many times before. Planning your blogging adventure is as important as embarking on it. We have a white paper that helps outline some successful first steps available for download here. Consider it a helpful marketer's roadmap to blogging success.
10/20/2005 15:46
I don't think I've ever mentioned it here, but I recently moved from downtown Portland to a slightly more rural area of Oregon: Newberg. In case you haven't heard of it -- and I'm sure you probably haven't -- it's a cute little town right in the middle of Oregon wine country. Of course, that's the nice thing about Newberg -- it IS wine country. The unfortunate part is that the length of my commute has now tripled. This usually isn't a big deal; I just schedule calls to keep myself occupied while I am driving (yes, I am one of those people). However, this past Tuesday night, I actually restrained myself from dialing and enjoyed the scenery...and noticed some intriguing examples of creative marketing at work. At least, I *think* they were creative. Some folks might just call them bizarre... This sign for sale – Like most cities, Portland has the usual assortment of individuals panhandling for money at major intersections and metering lights. But on this fine Tuesday, I noticed a well dressed gentleman carrying a professional-looking sign that read "Your Ad Here" and included a number for interested advertisers. Now, I'm not certain about the legality of this sort of thing , but it certainly got my attention. In fact, I was stuck at that metering light for at least five minutes and there wasn't much else to look at, so maybe it's a great way to advertise to a completely captive audience. Really stupid name – Not 10 miles down the freeway, I was greeted by a huge sign heralding the presence of a new furniture store. The name of this fabulous new furniture paradise? Stupid Prices Furniture. I'm not exactly sure whether "stupid prices" are a good or a bad thing, but it was certainly eye-catching. And now I'm actually blogging about it, so they are getting publicity to boot. And this is relevant how...? – Only a stone's throw from the Stupid Prices store, I came across a massive digital sign displaying the current time and temperature. I would expect to see this sort of thing in front of a bank or maybe a real estate company...but it was a sign for a funeral home. Doesn't that seem a little odd? But again, it attracted my attention. In one regard, I guess these are all potentially viable marketing tactics since they did stand out from the crowd but I have to wonder if they truly deliver the desired results. All I can say is that the next time I see the fellow at the metering light, I won't be able to resist calling the number and asking how much it costs...
10/17/2005 10:03
Janet and I usually try to avoid using Marqui's World as some sort of platform for Marqui sales pitches, but we've been a little quiet the last few days and I wanted to briefly explain why. Well, we've been hard at work prepping for the launch of the latest addition to our software suite: a corporate blog module. (The formal announcement went out this morning, if you'd like more details.) Okay, I'll leave it at that since I don't want this post to be too annoying/salesy. We will now return to our regular programming of (reasonably unbiased) insight on the wild world of marketing...
10/10/2005 10:10
For those marketers interested in the most current thinking about technology and marketing trends, I offer a very interesting white paper on Web 2.0. Written by Tim O'Rielly, a publisher of many excellent books on technology and trends, the paper is a companion piece to the compelling and very well-attended Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco that I blogged last week.
10/6/2005 10:29
Mary Meeker – Morgan Stanley www.morganstanley.com/techresearch (slides are available there)
Rat tat tat tat tat! This was a fast, phenomenal presentation.Global Internet data points – she thinks the new datapoints are “amazing†especially when you put them all together. The innovation that comes out of China in 5-7 years will be stunning, because of the sheer number of people under the age of 30 who use the Internet there. The pace of change is accelerating – from M&A to reorganizations. Significant infrastructure builds – big ideas like organizing the worlds' information and making it accessible – require significant development in systems. Broadband internet and mobile internet – two cycles we're just entering into. Global innovation is happening around the world around these two areas. Broadband in US only at 25% penetration – (in Korea, it's 70%). But at 25% penetration, the opportunities to grow and make money are huge… Mobile phone to Internet users ratio: 3.6:1 in China, US lags all top seven countries at .8:1 (at the rate of Iraq) So US companies are buying non-US companies with the intention of bringing new technology into the US now – this is a relatively new phenomenon. (eBay + Skype example) Impressed by WiFi usage ramp Involvement of municipalities in hot spots and enabling WiFi is great. Communications: 44% and rising of US Online Usage – voice, IM, e-mail, etc. New form of client-server – Mobile-PC enables you to keep informed in the future. SFO – Search, Find and Obtain. Marketing and Advertising and Sales will converge in then near future because of this phenomenon.
How will people find you in this new online world??Changes are just beginning. The original internet (1.0) was just a warm up act for the pace of things to come.
10/6/2005 9:57
Your Marqui reporter here, on the site of the Web 2.0 conference in SFO. Here are some pretty raw notes from this morning's sessions.
(This is a great morning - so I've been listening more than typing.)Terry Semel – CEO of Yahoo Two areas where companies spend 40% of their energy on their sites: 1)Communications products – like e-mail, RSS and other online communications options 2)Content (Marqui can help with all of those - and save energy, by the way.) Jonathan Schwartz – President of Sun Web 2.0 and Open Source - Power is in the community The power is in the distribution of a product – Sun has technology, Google has distribution power, which is the essence of their announcement this week. They're working together, which is significant in itself. The power of distribution has shifted. Blogging: takes a lot less time than 1:1 interviews. There's an incredible power in community. Most folks in the software world know they make choices based on beliefs – developers don't buy things, they join things. If you wire yourself off in an office, how do you create community? To me, transparency is a competitive weapon. I'm never unauthentic. The day I become unauthentic, why bother reading my blog? I'm careful about what I say. There's a good body of law about what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say. The attorneys don't review his posts before he posts them.
(but you can bet they subscribe to his RSS feeds.)Mitchell Baker – GM of Mozilla Foundation A well distributed, lousy product is not enough. 1990s Netscape, Microsoft fight. Then Netscape did nothing for a long time. Then there was no competition for Microsoft. That became problematic for users. She addressed the challenge of innovation. It's hard to go flat out for the most innovation possible, but if infrastructure isn't in place, sites can break. So how do you manage ‘graceful degradation' of features/functions until the infrastructure can catch up? That's what they think about a lot.
October 6, 2005
At a recent conference the idea surfaced about the impact of blogs on traditional customer response models and if the dynamic between marketing and sales needs to change. My answer is that indeed it does. For web based marketing is moving from search to subscribe and from capture and deliver to building a conversation with the prospect. Implicit in this is the need for marketing to manage that conversation and nurturing the prospect before passing it over to the sales organization.
10/5/2005 14:03
Ok, the next session I'm able to blog is called: Search Ecosystem from Yahoo's Perspective
That should have been my first warning. This is the paid placement of the conference world. I believe it was billed in the printed materials as something else: What's New in the Search Ecosystem: Users, Publishers, and Advertisers Yahoo is telling hundreds of people looking for new information about new trends in search all about themselves. Here's what I'm hearing.Presenters are: David Mandelbrot, Will Johnson, Anne Frisbie Three major constituents they serve: Publishers with content Users looking for content – or producing individually (through blogs) Advertisers FUSE: Find, Use, Share and Expand all human knowledge Find: Search subscriptions – tons of content in the ‘deep web' (behind pay-to-play, or ‘registration wall'). Challenge: to get the deep web content to searchers. WSJ, Consumer Reports alignment – get the publishers to tell them what they have. Users tell them what they'd be willing to pay for. Use: How do people use the information they find? What are users allowed to do with photos, icons, etc.? Yahoo has a Search for Creative Commons – when they get their results, users will know exactly how they can use the results. People can also search for content based on ultimate use. Share: How to get users to share the information they find? How do people take advantage of the knowledge of others, and what they've found useful? My Web 2.0 “Social Search.†Users tag information that they find useful, and can search through a subset (community) or the whole Yahoo community. Expand: Expanding the amount of content that doesn't exist online. Examples are books, great speeches, video, historical documents. Announced Open Content Alliance – with businesses and schools. They're working only with approval of copyright holders, or that which is in the public domain. Uses common formats (like HTML and PDF). Freely crawlable – and is an international effort. Yahoo Publisher Network -
Begin blatant pitch (clothed in some interesting setup)New dynamics in publishing: 1) Small media are getting bigger – blog networks. 2) Big media are getting smaller: NY Times buy About.com (looking to gain more interactive engagements with users). 3) Marketers are becoming publishers 4) Consumers are becoming publishers People are coming into deeper links in sites (vs. home pages), and RSS Feeds are delivering information to people. How do you attract people to gather feeds? Yahoo offers publishers a one-stop-shop for setting up their ads – one-click access. Building platform for syndication.
Shockingly, here's where I realize this part is all commercial. And there are more than 300 people in the room listening to the commercial. Man. Trickery or value to the sponsor? I feel the fingers being tapped around the room. Attendees have paid up to $1995 to attend this conference. Are we learning new, innovative search strategy information in this session? Back to listening again…Advertisers: search marketing is a new media. Marketers are wondering: How do I measure success? How do I incorporate search into my marketing campaigns? Search: Invaluable media contact – people are actively looking for an area that's relevant to your product. They're paying attention, not walking away from the commercial. The advertisers own website is the most influential area for consumers to find information. The longer you've been online, the more you leverage search. Offline media drives online activity: 34% people who see commercials will go online to research. 37% people who see programming on television will go online. Example: Pontiac Solstice roadster on the Apprentice – coupled Yahoo Search with their media placement – Search on “apprentice car†and register.
Gee, no one had searched for apprentice car before. Suddenly, the Yahoo Buzz Index spiked.Pontiac bought ads on that search term, and had more than 5000 people sign up for more information. Interestingly, there were some questions. Maybe I'm the only jaded one here. Sad for me.
October 5, 2005
I'm at Web 2.0, the conference on the future of the web and applications. I'm here to figure out what new trends the strategists are thinking about and talking about, in order to apply at Marqui.
I'm attending this session right now (and this is a long post - sorry):
Strategic Blogging, Avoiding Death by Opinion
Shawna Swanson Employment Law Group head
Matt Kesner Chief Technology Group
Fenwick & West LLP
Lawyers who get IT. What a tagline!
Great name for a seminar. Probably 40 people in the room.
How blogs might come up in discovery in the future. They get two-three calls per day about how to protect the company when entering the blogosphere.
They'll highlight the potential legal issues that may come up for companies and employees who support blogs.
Major risk 1: Harassment issues
Major risk 2: Confidential information
Major risk 3: Privacy issues
Major risk 4: Disparagement issues
eDiscovery is what litigation is all about now. No more do people look at printed documents only. Discovery is now all electronic even IM gets reviewed.
Blogging takes us into wild and woolly space because it takes us into the emerging technologies and communications.
Everyone who contributes to a blog has legal liabilities. Many people don't even know they're contributing to a blog. (Especially when they run across a site that looks like a regular site, but is really a blog.)
The conversation model of blogs is interesting encourages lack of formality that you find in other technologies. Blogging falls somewhere between e-mail and IM in their written formality (or lack thereof).
This informal atmosphere can be problematic when applying the law.
In 2004, only 11 people were terminated due to content on their blogs. So far this year, 50 people are known to have been terminated due to posting on blogs.
There are consequences for businesses if you prohibit blogging. The blogger's bill of rights grew out of Silicon Valley, established a blacklist of companies that discourage blogging.
Legal risks: any time you're engaging in a medium that encourages free communications, you're entering into a risky situation. You can't close your eyes to the inappropriate information posted. Rule: you shouldn't post anything in a blog that you're unwilling to say to 300 people in a crowd, or put in a press release.
Many companies (especially tech companies) think they are not 'with it' if they don't have a blog.
Major Risk One - Harassment: sexual harassment standards apply in cyberspace
Harassment harassment can give rise to liability even if it occurs in cyberspace. (Blakey vs. Continental Airlines, 164 NJ 38 (2000).
Continental required pilots to access flight schedules and assignments through an ISP. An optional crew member forum was available on a voluntary basis. Pilot postings included pornography. Chat posts popped up: 'If the porn bothers you, don't look.' 'Now don't start your feminazi routine with me.'
If a company can prove they regularly monitor blogs for risky posts several times a day during regular business hours, they should feel comfortable protecting themselves against a case. Don't wait until you hear complaints. You've got to be proactively protecting your employees.
If disgruntled employees vent or sabotage even in internal blogs (especially if they are gaining pervasiveness through the company) the employee will likely argue, 'I was asserting my rights to complain, and I have a right to talk to my fellow employees. The employer was trying to stifle me.' (National Labor Relations Act affects non-union employees, too)
But if you can show that a post is disparaging, you can take action. Intention is not relevant. Solid evidence that either common sense or written guidelines have been violated is what is needed to protect the company.
Blogs can actually be considered part of the workplace and need to be monitored.
Major Risk Two: Confidential information
Can apply to both personal blogs and company blogs.
Intentional disclosures:
Disgruntled employees' revenge: revealing an internal list of bugs for an important product.
Fame-seekers: i.e. revealing information about an unlaunched product.
Unintentional disclosures: funny or ironic facts that company believes to be sensitive, or not naming the company, but revealing identifying circumstantial information, such as industry, size and location.
You can lose trade secret cases as a result of not protecting closely held information in any forum. You must be able to show you're trying to keep information confidential.
Instructing employees exactly who has access to a blog is an important step in making sure your employees understand the ramifications of what they might write.
Major Risk Three: Privacy Issues
If you have a policy (signed by employee) about using company computers, lines, etc., the company has a right to look at Internet usage, e-mail, personal blogs, etc. and monitor them. Otherwise, employees can assume the right of privacy online.
Employers need to investigate claims of wrongful conduct such as harassment - and that now involves blog content.
BTW: Anything displayed to a monitor can be capture-able by a forensic IT search. So your Instant Messages, the way you traverse the web, etc. can be exposed. There are increasing requests for blog files most hosting providers will release information without a subpoena.
Major Risk Four: Disparagement
Blogs are especially problematic because people are more informal, and may publish defaming or disparaging comments. These statements are available to a far reaching audience, including current and potential customers.
Talk to your marketing folks when you find your competitors disparaging you - because litigation is often found in the response to disparaging information.
Again, monitoring blogs for potentially damaging statements is important here.
I love it when the lawyers in the room recommend talking to marketers! What a turn-about. It's a good day.
10/3/2005 12:28
I'll admit, I've been in B2B marketing for a long, long time. So long, in fact, that I was stricken when I heard of a new marketing offer this morning: the "advergame." What's an advergame? It's an online game snippit that can get a buzz going for your company. It can be like a movie trailer for your own product. Sounds like fun, huh? These unique, interactive experiences can have quite a viral effect on a product launch. At Anvil Media's client day today, we heard about an example of a viral advergame, KONAMI's Death Jr PSP (Sony's little portable player) game launch. Some tips: 1) Get the simple, specific URL (in this case, deathjr.com) – it simplifies the experience and builds that critical link to your brand. 2) Leverage your in-house list to get a buzz started. 3) Create a micro site and encourage lots of interaction with prospects KONAMI created a mini-game that had characters from their full game. Try it out here. Note: if you're male, age 18-35, you'll probably love it. If you're not, then caveat emptor! Their description of Death Jr. left me shaking my head – you roll a hamster around with a canister of C-2 on its back, and blow up the bad guy. Go figure. But hey, KONAMI brought us Frogger back in the 'olden days.' (And that's now available for your cell phone.) In this morning's example, the Death Jr. advergame was passed around to ‘tens of thousands' of people within days. The KONAMI experience was set up so that each prospect got to play the game five or six times (and get hooked) before they were prompted for information (e-mail and zip code) in order to subscribe for more information about the game. At that point, participants could pass the game along (it has to be easy to do so - with a low barrier to entry), get newsletters and character e-mails to continue to pique their interests (and probably cross-promote). KONAMI also enabled chat rooms and other peer-to-peer networking opportunities to fuel the excitement. The results? It was the most talked about PSP title launch for any game, sales were ahead of six- month plan (135%) within one month. There were 30,000 new subscribers within 45 days of launch, and they're still averaging 186 new subscribers a day. Check out adverblog.com for other examples of advergames.
10/3/2005 12:06
This morning I attended Anvil Media's client day – which is a ½ day seminar for clients of Anvil - a great idea for a service company. I spoke about viral marketing (and the ongoing results of our winter 2005 “payblogger†program) with Kent Lewis (Anvil Media), Jen Maxwell (Maxwell PR), and Ryan Buchanan (eROI) who covered the wildly popular Kettle Chips “Crave†campaign. Ryan next talked about some e-mail marketing techniques – his presentation can be found here. Meanwhile he made some suggestions of strong, tested offers. Consumer audience: • Contests • Viral send-to friend • “Advergames†(more on this in another post today) • Tips/cheats/first news B2B audience: • Register for event/web seminar • Download whitepaper • Download case study • Learn more offer (w/ two part guide) • Online survey • Try product demo Email marketing and lead capture go hand in hand – once you've established a profile of information on your prospects, you're able (with the right tools) to personalize a dynamic conversation with your clients and prospects with new offers. And here's a little nugget from eROI's Q2 email report that covered results from more than 100 companies.
Avg. deliverability: 89.6% Avg. open rate: 23.4% Avg. click through rate: 3.7%How do your campaigns compare? And, by the way, it shouldn't end there. How about download rates? Subscriber rates? Lead to close ratios? We're going to be discussing more models for measuring successful campaigns from the marketing handoff through the sales process here. Stay tuned.
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