Michael Myers

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David Letterman’s Top Ten: Signs your obsessed with Facebook

Information Technology Strategy: Class 10 – Mobile 2.0

For this class, we discussed the massive changes that are taking place in the mobile world and what factors are shaping the evolving landscape. I’m in the process of writing a white paper and hope to have it done within a month. For now, it’s safe to say that the following equation holds true. Smartphone [...]

What Zappos can teach us about mobile commerce

When I first heard of Zappos, I throught “No way! Buy Shoes online . . . How do I know how they fit?!?!? That will never work.” Well, after an $850 million acquisition, I stand corrected; in my shoes that I did NOT purchase from Zappos. Turns out, people were willing to buy shoes online. [...]

The future of search is a layered cake

Some months ago I was surfing the net and came upon a post that featured a brief conversation at the end of it. Someone was watching a panel discussion and they were talking about the future of search. (I wish I could find the post.) They were discussing the rise of social search and predicted [...]

Information Technology Strategy: Class 9 – Google

Obviously, Google is a pretty big subject to cover in only one class. You could teach an entire quarter on Google highlighting all that the web giant offers, but . . . I only had 2 hours and 10 minutes. Google, for lack of a better way to say it is the web. Without Google [...]

B2B Social Media Statistics from DemingHill (video)

Flipboard: A personalized social magazine (video)

Robert Scoble interviews CEO, Mike McCue about his latest iPad app, Flipboard. Great concept and makes you want “better” friends!

Geo-fencing according to Location Labs

I found this video from Location Labs talking about three variations on the concept of geo-fencing. The first time I’d heard of geo-fencing was when Sonic restaurants incorporated it into their marketing mix. My take on what could be done with this is below the video. The three types of geo-fences described in the video [...]

A recipe for a personalized Twitter feed

After lecturing last quarter, the host professor asked me; “How do you keep up with all that’s going on?”. I told him that I’d setup a personalized RSS feed via Twitter and because of this, I’d found numerous posts, articles, white papers, case studies and other resources that have proven to be invaluable. I don’t [...]

Full trailer for new movie about Facebook- The Social Network

Information Technology Strategy: Class 8 – Mobile

Last night we started covering the mobile landscape. My goal was to cover the basics but we quickly got into the rock-n-roll. First, let’s talk about off-deck vs. on-deck. In a nutshell, on-deck is the AOL experience for mobile. Think Motorola Razor. The official definition is: A browseable portal of links to content, pre-configured usually [...]

Interactive Twitter-based murals promoting Canada (video)

Awesome example of the collision between the real world and the virtual world by the Canadian Tourism Commission. Queue O Canada!

Just use Google

This post is for all of those businesses whose site search is so bad that you have to leave their site, go to Google, type in your search terms with their business name just to find anything on their site. Search is such an integral part of our online experience . An essential key to [...]

Information Technology Strategy: Class 7 – Crater!

Information Technology Strategy: Class 5 & 6 – Metrics

Monday and Wednesday, Professor Stephen Haag came in and lectured on Metrics. One of the promises of IT is the ability to know where your business is. The trick is measure what is measurable (as crazy as that sounds), essential to the business and most importantly compare yourself to your competition and not just your [...]

Hillel Cooperman on Legos! (video)

. . . Hillel knows . . .

Ozzy Longoria on the future of comics

Several weeks ago I walked into Breckenridge Brewery in LoDo for a networking event. It was roughly 4:30 and the place was dead. As I walked up to the counter I saw an amazing piece of hand drawn artwork being worked on by the man behind the counter. It was shocking. Like finding a walrus [...]

Information Technology Strategy: Class 4 – Facebook will own the universe!

Last night we talked about the monster that is Facebook. Monster you ask? Y E S. Facebook could own the Internet or better yet; become the Internet. But more on that in a little. We started out by watching the Facebook in real life video. This video puts, what is now accepted as online behavior, [...]

Exciting things going on at Layar (video)

Layar is most likely going to be the augmented reality browser. Enjoy!

Information Technology Strategy: Class 3 – Social Media

Monday night we began covering social media and how to develop deep relationships online. We walked through the conceptual model of Findable, Recommendable, Transparent and Collaborative.  From there we moved on to the benefits of social media. Habitual vs. Loyal – Buying from Amazon is a habit of mine. I would just as likely to [...]

Cultural differences in privacy will hinder the mobile/social explosion

I recently read an article in The Economist that talks about the cultural differences between the US and Europe when it comes to digital privacy. It’s a good article and it begs the question, what the coming mobile/social explosion will look like for cultures that have a stronger sense of personal privacy than the US. [...]

Information Technology Strategy: Class 2 – Collision (part 1)

Last night we covered a couple of the technologies that are pushing the virtual world and the real world together. The first, and my favorite is augmented reality (AR). We walked through the definition of the two types or AR; marker and browser. I showed them examples of both; maker here and browser here. We [...]

Augmented Reality from Total Immersion Demo Reel (video)

Good summary video showing many implementations of augmented reality from the Total Immersion 2010, Demo Reel.

Information Technology Strategy: Class 1

Tonight was the first class for the quarter this summer. This class if focused on how business people can use technology to grow their business. We reviewed the syllabus and introduced ourselves. I’ve got a very diverse group and everyone seems  to be engaged. (Yes. I know it’s only the first night.) The majority of [...]

Foursquare check-ins need to extend into the virtual world

I read this announcement today on TechCrunch that Foursquare is going to begin testing ‘add to Foursquare’ buttons on WSJ, allowing you to funnel virtual content into your Foursquare account. Just in case you’ve been living under a very large rock, Foursquare is a company that has turned geo-location/venue based check-ins, into a game. Heinously [...]

Oliver Blanchard on Social Media ROI

The thing that always frustrates business when talking about social media and ROI, is when I tell them it depends on their business model. This makes logical sense but more want there to be a predefined recipe. Not likely but Oliver Blanchard does an excellent job of steering you down the right path. Below is [...]

Why does social media fail?

I got a call from a friend who’s going to pitch some social media work and we got to talking about what direction he wanted to take the conversation. It raised some excellent points that many fail to see unless you’ve been through it. I’ve used this recipe in the past and it has worked [...]

What will social augmented reality look like on mobile?

Wow. That title has a lot of buzz words! I’ve shown several examples of augmented reality over the last several months and have been thinking about how AR might be applied to the marriage of mobile and social. This is what I came up with. . . . You’re at an event (concert, business, etc) [...]

Lego’s excellent use of augmented reality

Lego’s product demo shown below is a great use of augmented reality. Enjoy!

Facebook could own situational advertising

Yesterday Facebook announced that it was simplifying privacy and launched a massive PR campaign to prove it.  Assuming they can get over this little issue of privacy, they stand to own a huge chunk of advertising. Yah. I know. Big deal. Advertising is not cool nor does it work. 2% click-through!?!?!? Are you kidding. But [...]

Green Foam is good for you!

Green Foam is a business a that creates and recycles surfboard cores. The dirty not-so-secret of the surfing industry for years was that in order to create the cores for surfboards required the use of noxious/pollutant materials. When Clark Foam shut down in 2005 after being in business since 1961, it left a huge void [...]

Simon Sinek at TEDx Puget Sound: focus on the why

Simon Sinek makes some excellent points in this TED video but I have to admit, I don’t agree. Just in case you don’t watch the video, his supposition is that why something is done is the most important thing when creating products, services or anything for that matter. I believe intent is important and have [...]

Geocaching the treasure hunt!

The game Geocaching has been around for a while but has recently swung into my view because my kids are now old enough to appreciate. Enjoy!

Mobile; not stupid simple

I keep hearing people that say mobile (web/app) needs to be “stupid simple” for people to use and although I do believe that usability is important, mobile does not need to be stupid simple. It needs to be smart. Smart like a Swiss army knife. For mobile, smart is: Easy to use interface – Usability [...]

Facebook in real life (video)

Almost as funny as the Twitter life cartoon. Enjoy!

Foursquare isn’t important. The behavior is.

Most of the time, when I talk to entrepreneurs about what can and can’t be done, they see the potential limitation as a function of the technology. Well, I’m here to tell you that technology isn’t the issue. Just about anything short of time travel (which Google is currently working on) can be done. Technology [...]

Is a Facebook-only browser called Rockmelt the start of the semantic web?

The web 3.0 video below reviews the concept of the semantic web and frames it in a way that most can understand. It’s worth watching and the focus of the semantic web is context. “Joshua wrote the post” or “Sarah watched the movie”. This is something that Google doesn’t do. They’re trying to do it [...]

The Plecostomus and the myth of the social media Guru

The Plecostomus is a fish that’s commonly referred to as a sucker fish. It uses it’s mouth to adhere itself to the side of the fish tank, feeding off of the algae but the most amazing thing about this fish is that it grows to a size that “best fits” the tank. Maybe other fish [...]

Jack Dorsey of Twitter talks lessons learned (video)

TEDxDU Review

Just got back from attending my first TED event. For those of you keeping score, TED, which stands for Technology Entertainment and Design, has allowed for others to organize conventions under their brand. There are of course guidelines and I thoroughly enjoyed the event. I did however have moments of; “how does this relate to [...]

Augmented reality needs geo-location

After looking at iButterfly’s application (below) and seeing Layar’s recent announcement that they were adding streaming to help people locate augmented reality enabled objects, I realized that geo-location was another element these augmented reality enabled objects needed. I’m referring to the type of augmented reality that a user sees by looking through a browser and [...]

Augmented reality + motion sensor + geo-location = iButterfly (video)

iButterfly is a playful use of augmented reality, motion sensor and geo-location. Enjoy!

Mashable’s Peter Cashmore on Bloomberg (video)

Pete Cashmore talks about open vs. closed and Facebook’s role in the future.

Web 3.0 (video)

Great explanation of the semantic web. Enjoy!

TEDxDU: 2 days left!

Got my invitation emailed to me yesterday!

Jesse Schell discusses Facebook games and more (video)

This is an amazing video from Jesse Schell of Carnegie Mellon. Among other things, Mr Schell talks about the evolving collision of the real world and the virtual world from a gamer’s futurist vision and there is a lot in here that help you understand why Facebook games such as Farmville & Mob Wars are [...]

Blippy + Stickybits + MyBrandz = Product Persona Maps

They always said; you are what you eat. (Unfortunately, that makes some of us a caffeine infused bucket of popcorn with extra butter.) We also know that you are what you buy; at least from a marketing perspective. There are three start-ups that I would like to see join forces in some way to help [...]

Social Media Revolution 2: Refresh (video)

Same Fatboy Slim song with new stats. Promoting book Socialnomics. Enjoy!

Social media & location: a restaurateur’s recipe

I recently had a conversation with restaurateur who has been tasked with creating the social media strategy for several restaurants. It was an interesting talk. I’ve had no exposure to this business model other than sitting down to eat or waiting tables as a youth. We talked about the specifics around this business model and [...]

Social Networking

Just got an email from a friend of mine who’s looking for a new opportunity and how he used Twitter & LinkedIn to get 2 interviews in 30 minutes. The email is below: Unbelievable how fast this online media stuff can connect you.  Looking for a job, got a Twitter feed this morning of best [...]

Foursquareness according to Howcast (video)

Enjoy!

Personal brand and business brand alignment

I recently read a post on Jason Markow’s blog (which you should read frequently; it’s good for you) about narcissism and personal branding. He brought up some excellent points about not sacrificing the business for sake of someone’s personal brand of those involved. His argument was that the business should be able to survive if [...]

Web 2.0 for the CIO (part 2)

Back on April 13th, I lectured in Professor McCubbrey’s class on how a CIO could use Web 2.0 for their business. The focus of that lecture really how the social media landscape is evolving and then talk about how a CIO may utilize  these changes. The reason for this method lies in that it’s too [...]

Should you be targeting a market you’re not in?

Imagine a room filled with MBAs, working on developing the next marketing push. At the core of the conversation is trying to determine what the “common man” wants. I’ve been in that room. I was one of the MBAs. The feeling of futility grows the more times you go through that exercise. You do your [...]

Driving qualified leads from WordPress into Salesforce (video)

Saw this great video on Mashable about the latest plug-in for WordPress. Now you can drive qualified leads into Salesforce directly from WordPress! Very surprised this wasn’t written for LinkedIn first. Enjoy!

Building a business, blogging and a lack of passion

I was talking with a friend of mine today and he described a situation where he was trying to help a client understand that based on her business model; she needed to be the one to blog for her business. She replied; “I don’t have much content and was hoping you could blog for us.”. [...]

SXSW check-in visualization (video)

Found this awesome visualization of check-ins at this year’s SXSW, across Brightkite, Foursquare, Twitter, Gowalla, etc on SimpleGeo. Great way to see the coming prevalence of geo-location awareness. Enjoy!

Virtual goods on the mobile web

Recently, there have been numerous stories about social networks, virtual worlds and gaming sites utilizing virtual goods as a way to monetize their offering. The game FarmVille is something many Facebook users are familiar with and the game allows you to “farm with your friends”. It’s currently the most popular game on Facebook with over [...]

Usability on the Touchweb

I’ve been working on redesigning my site, starting with the mobile aspect first and it’s an interesting exercise to go through. The first thing I considered was how navigation works. When I use my iPhone, I don’t necessarily want to use two hands to navigate. I usually have it in my right hand and use [...]

Mobile: a perfect storm

I’m in the process of redesigning my site and yes; I have been for several months. I’ve been rebranded myself as of 4 months ago; focusing on social media, mobile marketing and the impact on consumer goods. The redesign is a difficult process and it would be much smarter to just pick an existing template [...]

Web 2.0 for the CIO (part 1)

I was recently invited to guest lecture by Professor McCubbrey of the Daniels Information Technology and eCommerce department about the implications Web 2.0 has for CIOs. I put together a list of topics that I feel most CIOs (B2B vs. B2C/ product vs. service) need to consider when developing technology/business strategies. The outline for the [...]

Augmented Reality for Deadliest Catch (video)

Augmented reality continues its march into the mainstream. Enjoy!

TEDxDU!

I have been a fan of TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) since 2006 when I stumbled upon a video of a man talking about the intelligence of Octopi. Wikipedia has more background information than I’m willing to get into for this post and it would suffice to say that TED conferences and their speakers provide [...]

ITEC 4700: Course/Instructor Evaluations

I received my first set of course/instructor evaluations for the class I taught this past winter quarter: ITEC 4700 class: Web for Business Success, at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. I had an amazing teaching experience and tremendous students with diverse backgrounds and different levels of expertise. It will be hard to [...]

Is the iPad a mobile device?

Now that the iPad has been released and I don’t have on yet. (Yes. As you can imagine . . . very happy about it.) I’m wondering if the iPad will end up being a mobile device. At first I thought it was going to be a mobile device in the sense that a laptop; [...]

RiP! A Remix Manifesto (video)

I finally got a chance to watch this movie, RiP! A Remix Manifesto, after one of my students recommended it. This is an amazing documentary that highlights many of the issues with copyright in the new world. One of the participants is Lawrence Lessig and has recently written a book called Remix: Making Art and [...]

Location . . . wherever it makes sense

Finally got to watch the webinar that Placecast put on and there was a portion of the presentation that really got my attention. It was the Sonic Burgers case study. They used location based SMS marketing to attract customers which is going to increase in popularity with businesses like Placecast. What they did that I [...]

Google’s version of mobile product search

I recently posted about location based search soon becoming product enabled in the near future. AND then I found this from this little company called Google. Fast forward to 19:15 and behold, an example of what I described. Enjoy!

Be a local with Aloqa (video)

Aloqa is another great example of personalized location based services. Enjoy!

Behold, the power of the Splinternet!

I recently met with a business that was looking for a Director of Digital Opportunities and being a HUGE fan of vague/ethereal titles (no really), I was most interested in the”digital” part of the title. As I’ve mentioned on this blog in the past, there is enormous collision going on between the online world and [...]

Consumer and market trends during the recession from TrendsSpotting

Great information in here from one of the best; TrendsSpotting. View more presentations from Taly Weiss.

Indoor mapping service Micello (video)

People tend to think of mapping as it relates to the outdoors. As you can see from my recent posts, mapping has anything to do with point A and point B. Enjoy the video!

Will the iPhone be the gaming console for the iPad?

I’m on the list! I have an iPad on reserve and very soon I will stand in a long line with many others to get what can only be called the most anticipated piece of computing since . . . well . . . since the iPhone! I’ve also been playing games on my iPhone [...]

Placecast’s location based service demo (video)

Here is a location based service my grandmother would understand. Enjoy the video!

It may be location today but tomorrow it will be product

I’ve been reading up on the latest methods of location determination (LD for those that love acronyms) and I have to say that if mobile is going to get to the level of detail it needs to be, we’re going to have to employ better methods (and maybe technologies) that allow the users precision. I’ll [...]

Webinar on retail going mobile (video)

Kathryn Koegel, President of Primary Impact Research and Placecast hosted a webinar on the 18th. Enjoy the video!

Location, location . . . location

Well, if you haven’t heard about the explosion that is taking place in location related services, you just haven’t been paying attention. (I almost said you haven’t been in the right place. But I restrained myself.) I will attempt to summarize most of what’s going on currently. First let’s talk about money. We all like [...]

Express your love for brands with MyBrandz

Several thousand eons ago I posted about advertising becoming a form of self-expression. (It was actually in 2007 but eons sounds so much more dramatic.) The premise is that with the rise of Gen Y and their love for brands, that people would begin to display “unpaid” ads on their sites to show their support [...]

Pete Cashmore on blogging, Twitter and Location (video)

Web 2.0 design and the touchweb

I’ve been singing the praises of usability for many years and with the rise of the touchweb (mobile Internet on smartphones), usability is going to become even more important. For those that don’t know, usability is exactly what it sounds like; can the majority of users, regardless of their level sophistication, use your website/app to [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 19 & 20 – Final Presentations

The video mashup above sums up the final presentations of the quarter; an awesome mixture of  just about everything we covered in class! One group was tasked with developing a Web 2.0 business model while another group had to outline an up and coming Web 2.0 technology.  The last group presented the cultural implications of [...]

Social media for the entrepreneur

This is a ENORMOUS post. If I weren’t summarizing a presentation I gave last night, I would have broken it into a small miniseries with many guest stars including Betty White. So make sure you go to the bathroom before you start. Last night I got the chance to speak to a class at DU [...]

Amazing data manipulation tool presented at TED (video)

Gary Flake of Microsoft’s Live Labs, demos amazing data manipulation tool called Pivot. Yep. You guessed it. You have to install Silverlight to use Pivot. (Ugh!) Watching this makes me think of Apple for some reason . . . Cool to think about this and Web 3.0; the Internet of things. Enjoy (yet another) video!

Consumer intent through tweets & status updates (video)

Scott Hoffman of Cliqology talks about consumer intent at the Webtrends Engage conference in New Orleans. He used bit.ly to help him determine the trends. The amazing thing is that this does not count tweets and “status updates” (great branding by Facebook!) that don’t use URL shorteners. I’d like to like to know that stat [...]

Going mobile with Icelantic skis

It’s been a couple months since I posted about one of my new favorite companies (even though their skiers), Icelantic. The person responsible for their social strategy is currently in the class I’m teaching and he’s done an amazing job organizing their social effort. I wanted to take some time and explore additional things Icelantic [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 17 – Web 3.0

Last night we reviewed the concept of Web 3.0. It’s the end of the quarter so I let some videos do the talking. Before we watched the videos below I had the students fill out the course evaluation online. This is an interesting feeling. You feel like your future is in their hands as much [...]

Connectivity

Several days ago I walking with a friend towards the intersection of Yosemite and Mineral. We’re talking about something random when we heard the sounds of screeching brakes, followed by the obligatory metal on metal explosion. Someone was turning through the intersection on a red light while someone had gunned it trying to make the [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 16 – Monetizing Web 2.0

Thursday we started off with several of my students asking if my Twitter account had been hacked. And yes, it had. Someone got in and sent out the following message: ‘hi, i’m 24/female/horny… i have to get off here but message me on my windows live messenger name *****@hotmail.com’. They had direct messaged a large [...]

Amazing Online Stats (video)

I recently saw this on Mashable and its got some amazing numbers!

What product means today

I recently posted about Retail 2.0 and the impact the convergence of real world and digital world will have on retail products. Examples of this convergence are QR codes, augmented reality; browsers and “the other flavor” and things like SixthSense. These examples and how they’re applied are bridging the gap between digital and physical. Businesses [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 15 – Twitterville

Tuesday two students presented Shel Israel’s book, Twitterville. They did a great job and took a deep dive into the lessons learned covered in our Twitter class. In hindsight, next time I’ll have the Twitterville presentation and the Twitter class coincide. Seems like common sense but I wanted to get to Twitter earlier than later [...]

Pranav Mistry and his SixthSense technology at TED (video)

One of my students forwarded me this video after we talked about the collision of social media and the mobile Internet. Amazing video and I really like the thought of getting the Internet into the hands of the masses using this tool. Thanks Jason.

ITEC 4700: Class 14 – Social Mobile

Thursday we talked about one of my favorite attributes of social media; mobile. This field is growing by leaps and bounds and provides some of the most compelling marketing opportunities. The first thing we did was talk about  existing technologies that enable location based offerings to be possible. Loki (by Skyhook) – The technology behind [...]

Distimo releases its monitoring tool

Today was a good day. I got to talk to Vincent Hoogsteder of DISTIMO (@DISTIMO). They’re a company that I posted about two months ago and after reading there most recent report on the status of “all things application store” I thought it would be good to get them on the phone and talk about [...]

Moderate, in moderation please

So . . . I’m a big fan of Anthony Bourdain and was recently reading one of his posts about the Hudson Valley episode. In the episode (video below) he sits down with one of my other favorite people; Bill Murray. The focus of his post is a funny incident after the cameras were done [...]

Augmented reality business card from James Alliban (video)

Very cool use of augmented reality from James Alliban.

ITEC 4700: Class 13 – Personal Branding

We discussed personal branding last night and its importance as the walls between customer and business become less distinct. We reviewed the birth of the concept and the evolution from self-improvement to self-packaging. It’s important to select a professional direction and not necessarily a final destination. Remain flexible in your career goals. When building your [...]

Prepare to negotiate

When I posted Retail 2.0 I was asked several times (in person; not sure why some are afraid to comment) what I thought the end result of all that information, technology was for the retailer and my answer was; prepare to negotiate. Most of us in the US of A don’t negotiate unless we’re buying [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 12 – iPhone

Thursday we reviewed the iPhone and how it could impact social media. That is to say that it hasn’t yet although it has experienced tremendous growth and some claim it is behind Twitter’s explosion. It’s the device that’s driving the smartphone explosion in the United States and could be behind the growing number of those [...]

Augmented reality maps at TED (video)

Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Microsoft Live Labs talks about augmented reality maps at TED.

Marketing platforms: the who, what and where

Since the late nineties businesses have been thinking of the Internet as a marketing platform and for the most part have been relatively successful at leveraging it. When ecommerce happened even the naysayers expanded their concept of the Internet from a cost center to a method of generating revenue. I thought I would take a [...]

Demo of Jack Dorsey’s new venture, Square (video)

We’re getting closer to Jeremiah Yang’s 5th era of social networking, social commerce. Don’t believe me? Watch this entertaining yet educational video on Jack Dorsey’s Square.

ITEC 4700: Class 11 – YouTube

Last night we reviewed YouTube. We took a look at the Icelantic Channel and took a look at the built in analytics specific to an individual video. Pretty amazing information given that it’s free. Leave it to Google. Unfortunately there are no English Pirate speakers in this demographic as there were on their Facebook account. [...]

Talking with Twalkin

This morning I had a chance to try out Twalkin. I know. I know. Another Twitter app with a goofy ‘tw’ name but this is yet another way people can use Twitter to network and organize. The focus, as you may have guessed is enabling Twitter users to connect on the phone. It has a [...]

Clay Shirky discusses the Internet as Medium (video)

Great Google ad from the Super Bowl (video)

Saw this ad yesterday from Google and it really speaks to how search plays into our lives. Enjoy!

Trust in peers on social media is down

A recent report by Edelman (featured on AdAge) shows that people don’t trust their peers as much as they used to. In fact it’s down 20% from 2008 (45% to 25%). As a matter of fact if you look at the overall “trust-O-meter”, all forms of media are down when it comes to trust and [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 10 – Naked Conversations

10 classes down this past Thursday. I can’t believe how quickly it’s going. Two of the students did a presentation on Naked Conversations, a book by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble. The book focuses on how blogging is transforming businesses and they used the online tool Prezi for their presentation (below). Pretty cool collaborative, presentation [...]

Apple. Your advertising partner.

I recently read the article in BusinessWeek entitled Why They Can’t Be Friends with Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt on the cover. Sadly Bill Gates was left off the cover and for the most part is an afterthought when it comes to the web and mobile space. (That “Bing thing” may be worth talking about [...]

Seth Godin & Tom Peters on Blogging (video)

The topic of blogging came up the other day and I was curious to hear why people blog. For some it’s therapy and for others it is selling what they do. For me it’s more along the lines of what Seth Godin says in this video. Enjoy!

ITEC 4700: Class 9 – Facebook

Yesterday was Facebook. Most are very familiar with Facebook as a user but most are not using it for business. I do have a student in class that uses Facebook for their fan page functionality. Chris demoed (yep; that’s how it’s spelled) the “back office” functionality of Facebook fan pages and discovered that out of [...]

Owyang is on the Cluetrain

For those of us that read the Cluetrain many moons ago, we are increasingly amazed at how well it has held up to the rapid changes the Internet has experienced over the last 10 years. (This book is amazing and is required reading for my class at DU.) At the time of its release, most [...]

Retail 2.0

I know. I know. Stick ’2.0′ on the end of anything and it means it’s soooooo different. Most times it is different and this time is no exception. If you’re selling consumer product goods: brace yourself. I’ve posted about the virtual world colliding with the physical world if smart phone growth this year is any [...]

Banksy and Shepard make a movie! (video)

I’m a huge fan of street artist Banksy and Shepard Fairey and use their imagery in my posts often.  This trailer is very funny and I look foward to seeing this award winning (uh . . .) film. Enjoy!

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity (funny yet amazing video)

I don’t talk much about creativity in this blog but I try to inject creativity into every business process I participate in. Legos are the metaphor I use to get people to understand how mediums/campaigns/partnerships/etc & last but not least: mobile and social can be brought together to create successful products/services. Enjoy the video!

ITEC 4700: Class 8 – Cluetrain Manifesto

Thursday night we talked about the iPad and whether there was a market for such a device. We then had a team present The Cluetrain Manifesto. They talked about communicating in a transparent & active voice online. I love the 12 step program according to the Cluetrain authors: Relax Have a sense of humor Find [...]

Esquire breathes life into print through augmented reality (video)

Random thoughts on the iPad part 2

I’ve been having conversations with the technical people I work with and how the iPad is going to fail. They site, the lack of multi-tasking, etc . .  blah . . . blah blah. The fact is, it is going to succeed and in a very big way. How do I know this? Do I [...]

Random thoughts on the iPad

Apple announced the iPad today and a friend at work (a true Mac Fanatic) was keeping up to date on the announcement. I was getting SMS messages about specs, costs etc. Brent rocks! Nice looking. (No really.) Pictures at the bottom of this post. Comes with a docking station to help type when you have [...]

ITEC-4700: Class 7 – Twitter

Twitter! Last night we focused soley on Twitter. Arguably Twitter could be the focus of several classes but hard to do with 10 weeks. We talked briefly about the history of the business and how SXSW 2007 was the tipping point for Twitter. We also discussed how the technology/business was briefly called twitch (as in [...]

Immersive Labs interactive signage (video)

This video reminded me of Perceptive Pixel AND they’ve taken this concept much farther. The impact this could have on marketing consumer products is amazing to think about AND I’d also like to see this type of technology interact with mobile devices.

ITEC-4700: Class 6 – flickr

We covered flickr last night. Yes, flickr is a robust Web 2.0 community. We reviewed its history and evolution from a tool set to its current function. We reviewed the community and functions like image tagging (rollover image and see the magic), geo-tagging. We also tried to export an image into my blog after tagging [...]

How to monetize the coming collision between mobile and social

Social media is pushing the adoption of mobile web in the US.  (Twitter happened because of the iPhone!) Everybody put your helmets, shin guards on and brace for the impending collision between mobile and social. This year mobile internet useage is up 110% nationally and 148% internationally. Gartner predicts that within 3 years web enabled [...]

ITEC-4700: Class 5 – Wikipedia

Last night we reviewed Wikipedia as a business (cleverly using Wikipedia) and we looked that the other businesses that Wikipedia has created. Wikibooks – A collection of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Wiktionary – Their version of a dictionary. Wikiversity – Content around learning resources and learning projects. Wikinews – User generated news. Wikispecies [...]

The recession has pushed us towards social commerce

For may of us, the recession is not over. In fact, it’s still in full swing. Unemployment may hit 11% this month and 17% are underemployed. Just in case you’re wondering what underemployment looks like – think of a PhD serving you food at your favorite eatery. I’m wondering if all this “good news” is [...]

ITEC-4700: Class 4 – blogging

Had a great class on Thursday and talked about blogging and how it can be used to build your business. We specifically covered its impact on SEO and transparency. Blogging can cover all four levels of online relationships: finable, recommendable, transparent and collaborative. We also talked about Google’s battle with China and how microblogging is [...]

Icelantic, the social ski

So I’m in the line at Wahoo’s waiting to order a shrimp enchiladas and I see an ad for Icelantic skis.  The artwork adorning the top of the skis was so striking I mentioned it to my wife and told her that I wished they sold snowboards. Fast forward 2 months to my first class. [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 3 – social objects, social graph, social capital

Tonight was our third class and we discussed the concepts of social objects, the social graph and the social capital; what can I say, it was a social night. We reviewed the importance of identifying and tying experiences to your product/service. We talked about the rules of building social capital according to Chris Brogan: Listen [...]

QR code building by Teradadesign + Qosmo

Teradadesign + Qosmo of Tokyo covered the facade of a building that when viewed through an iPhone app, shows ” virtual interactions”. (This is one of the ways I hoped this would go when I posted about QR codes and augmented reality being combined.) Enjoy!

How do objects become social?

Social objects are any reason for two people to be talking according to Hugh MacLeod. (Great definition and for marketing purposes let’s focus on products/services.) A social object could be the Puma shoes you built using their Mongolian BBQ. It could be Comcast’s customer service on Twitter. It could a snowboard or an iPhone. All [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 2 – Conceptual Model cont’d

Class last night was good. We ran through the conceptual model (four tiers of increasing engagement) I developed to define the relationships that businesses can have with customers online. The questions were good and we reviewed the need for SEO. At the end of class we had a conversation about their businesses and how deep [...]

Will Android apps live in the clouds?

As you all know, Google’s Nexus one was released Tuesday and as I read the review on Engadget, I noticed that there is only as 1g of memory. The only explanation for this that I can think of is that Android apps will at some point be essentially shells with the meat of the application [...]

ITEC 4700: Class 1 – Conceptual Model

I taught my first class at Daniels College of Business last night. (Web 2.0 for Business Success.) It was awesome and I had a good time. I’ve got a tremendous group of students with a diverse set of interests. We scratched the surface of the artist formerly known as Web 2.0 and then walked through [...]

Two flavors of augmented reality and how you can use them

I’ve posted about the two types of augmented reality shown in the videos below. I wanted to talk about how you can/will be able to use these in the near future. First; the examples. This is an example of an augmented reality browser. As you can see there is information associated with a physical item [...]

Happy New Year!

Will Google include Twitter Lists in PageRank?

When Twitter Lists was introduced it made sense solely based on organizing those you follow and I’ve also posted about the lists being the foundation for niche social networks. Currently I’m fortunate enough to be on 4 lists. @TheNextWeb/tech-bloggers-and-journos @AMauiBlog/social-media @jmarkow/worth-following @B2Bbloggers/socialmedia As I look at these lists I believe that Google will start to [...]

Merry Christmas!

I’m taking a little holiday break. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

What can Avatar teach us about timing?

It’s late. It’s 1:32 am and I just got back from seeing Avatar. (If I need to tell you what Avatar is, you may want to just dip your toes into popular culture a little deeper.) I can’t sleep. As you’ve heard, the movie is amazing. I’ve heard it described as the Star Wars of [...]

For sales: Twitter is networking, blogging is the follow-up call

I had yet another conversation that started with, “I don’t get Twitter”. Fortunately (for me) the conversation ended with an, “Oh. I get it.” The analogy I used for this person (who’s in sales: aren’t we all?) is that it is best to think of Twitter as networking, except that it’s a one to many [...]

Anthony Bourdain’s Alternate Universe (video)

As a marketer, I’m curious to see how well Anthony’s brand extends to this medium (online animation). As a fan I’m looking forward to the series. More info here.

Business methods on Twitter must evolve with Google real time search

If you’ve used Twitter for any length of time, you’ve realized that Twitter’s strength is that it’s conversational. People pepper their conversations on Twitter with explanatory items and descriptions but keep it conversational to appeal to those they’re talking to. People optimizing content for Google enter data points that hopefully connect them with the information [...]

Google makes location real time with QR codes

I recently went to Google Maps to search for a costume store near us. (Insert joke about me dressing up as a somewhat less-than-superhero, here.) I was surprised and happy to see that there was a link encouraging people to ‘Check out how to use your phone an QR codes‘. For those of you that [...]

Transparency killed MySpace

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about how she was “leaving” her MySpace account. The only thing left that she liked was the music service but had other sources for that. She also said she was “growing out” of her MySpace persona. I’ve never had a MySpace account and this comment [...]

A day in the life with my iPhone and a mobile search white paper from Taptu

I’ve just finished reading a white paper by Taptu entitled Exploring the Touch-Friendly Web by Peggy Ann Salz of mSearchGroove. In it, she outlines how a student uses his iPhone during the course of the day and it made me think about how I use the device. I didn’t think of myself as a super [...]

Mobilizing your Brand

This post was originally featured as a guest post on think (here). I put it together for a good friend of mine, Jason Markow (@jmarkow). His blog focuses on helping entrepreneurs. The content of the post is based on a lecture I’ll be giving at the Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association on January 13th. (I’ll [...]

iPhone vs. Android

There has been a lot of hype around the Android release and Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted as saying that Android was “about to explode”. Sounds great, but . . . I have to lived through the “Linux on the desktop” hype so it’s really hard to imagine that Android or BlackBerry will ever [...]

NEWS FLASH! Typing on a handheld device sucks

Saw this video on TechCrunch the other day and aside from the fact that they should have found someone who could type on an iPhone, I was surprised this is still a point of conversation. When people talk about making the device easier to use they are speaking about input. Typing on a mobile device [...]

Happy Thanksgiving!

I loved this picture as a child and have been longing for simpler times lately. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. UW8YKXBJTC4W

Can Facebook avoid becoming the next AOL?

For the younger readers, AOL was is this company that focused on providing the Internet with training wheels. They utilized what was something called “dial-up” (Internet via your phone line) and would send you a seemingly endless stream of CDs (those little circular things that play music and sometimes have software on them), to get [...]

A danceable tune from my friends at Creare Group (video)

This is about as creative as you can get selling SEO.

The future of mobile advertising belongs to. . . .

With the acquisition of AdMob, most would believe that mobile advertising will belong to Google. (Heck without the acquisition, people thought they had it in the bag.) Google now has a massive amount of competitive information about Apple’s in-app ad serving, which is currently, very successful. Google has owned the most potent form of mobile [...]

I don’t want to be like an Aye-aye

With respect to an iPhone and how you hold it, it’s important to remember: vertical = camera/phone call horizontal = data I’ve been very surprised at the number of apps that don’t rotate the screen to allow the user to hold the device so that the majority of the screen can be utilized for data [...]

Lotame partners with users for social advertising (video)

I’ve been talking about businesses partnering with users on advertising many moons and found a business that does just this on social networks. They are called Lotame (low-ta-mee) and I mentioned them in an earlier post this week. I have included a video that describes the service. Sounds amazing and they offer some free reports [...]

O iPhone-only-social-network, where at thou?

Why is there no iPhone-only social network? Nothing against iRovr but their traffic doesn’t look very compelling. Michael Arrington wrote a pretty good piece about this back in February of 2008. His focus was on iPhone users finding each other via GPS and triangulation. This is the kind of service that Brightkite offers although I’m [...]

The many flavors of advertising

So there I was. Minding my own business, when I was asked by a friend, what contextual advertising was. I politely explained the concept and this of course lead to a much larger discussion. So I decided to write up this little advertising map. (This is of course advertising according to me and is therefore [...]

Twitter lists: another building block of the niche social network

I saw a tweet this morning from @kim about a search engine for Twitter lists. It’s aptly named List Browser and was created by Dave Winer. For those of you that haven’t heard of Twitter lists yet, they’re a way of organizing the people that you follow. The hopes is that you will categorize your [...]

Behold Distimo!

I discovered a great resource for tracking analytics across arguably the three primary app stores; Apple, BlackBerry and Android. The company is called Distimo and is based out of the Netherlands. They were founded in May of this year, have four employees and among other things, produce a free monthly report. Some of this months [...]

Excellent post by Rich Goidel

A friend forwarded me this post, entitled Go-to-market Paradigm from Rich Goidel today. It’s an excellent description of where marketing is today. I don’t say this often. Not sure I’ve said it yet. This is a must read — so go now! http://www.goidel.net/go-to-market-paradigm

Google Kills Garmin & TomTom (video)

After watching this video you will be excited about what Google Maps Navigation can do for you — for free if you have one of their new phones. Then you’ll feel sad for the kids at Garmin and TomTom because of the dump their valuations took. But don’t feel too bad, one of those companies [...]

Will mobile advertising ever work? I mean REALLY work.

A few months ago I posted about the impressive efficacy of iPhone ads with 50% of AdMobs traffic coming from iPhone apps which comprised 1/6th of their overall distribution. (When I asked AdMob why they thought it was so high, they mentioned a deeper level of engagement, etc. Curious to see if this trend continues.) [...]

Twitter the political tool

We are all familiar with Twitter as a communication tool. A form of personal RSS. What has become more evident in recent months is Twitter’s ability to wield political influence. In April, the people of Moldova used Twitter to help organize their revolt. Moldovans used #pman; an acronym for Piaţa Marii Adunări Naţionale which is [...]

Web 2.0 for Business Success

Web 2.0 for Business Success is the title of the class I will be teaching at University of Denver this winter! I’m very excited at the opportunity to teach at my alma mater and hope that some of you will be able to sign up for the class. We will be covering the evolving online [...]

48% of all mobile phones that AT&T sells, are iPhones

I repeat: 48% of all mobile phones that AT&T sells, are iPhones. That’s what the manager told me at the AT&T store where I bought my iPhone.  He also said that Blackberry makes up 25% of their remaining sales. Those numbers are amazing when you think about it. Almost 75% of their business comes from [...]

iPhone apps should also work in iTunes

First things first, Apple should change the name of the iTunes to iStuff, or something as equally incredibly creative as iStuff. Why would they do this? For the same reason they aren’t Apple Computer anymore. They’re just Apple; because they do more than computers. iTunes is now much more than music. As I spend more [...]

RockMelt: A browser for Facebook

A short while ago I blogged about the increase in walled gardens online (much to Google’s dismay) with Facebook leading the way. The premise is that Facebook is becoming its own environment (much like the iPhone/app market)  and that Google doesn’t have all access to the content created within Facebook. (Facebook also offers text based [...]

The iPhone; physical digital tool

Well. I finally did it. I was finally fortunate enough to buy an iPhone. I have been waiting for three things: my T-Mobile contract to expire the video camera functionality the iPhone to do all of this! While it doesn’t (yet) do everything listed in the link in number 3, I couldn’t wait any longer. [...]

When a Tweet isn’t a Tweet

I recently reviewed Twitterville by Shel Israel and in that book he mentioned the fact that Astronaut Mike Massimono did not physically Tweet from space back earlier this year. When I initially read that an astronaut was Tweeting from space, I like, most others wanted to believe that he actually pulled his mobile out (or [...]

Augmented Reality & QR Codes: Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together

Above are graphics that are used to trigger augmented reality. The idea is to hold these up to your webcam while you’re watching yourself on your computer through a specific website and the item will come to life. (Video example below.) The first icon is from GE for their Smart Grid campaign and the second [...]

SocialMobileMobileSocialSocialMobile

I read on TechCrunch a couple of weeks ago that 25% of Facebook users access Facebook via their mobile device. I then read this post from Merrit Colaizzi on the fact that mobile and social media are now a “hot couple”. I’m sure members of mig33 would argue that this has been true for a [...]

Amazing Virutal Reality from Najork (video)

Saw this video tweeted from Jeremiah Owyang who said: “Imagine if street art and digital art were combined.” I agree and look forward to this evolving type of art work.

A Trip to Twitterville

This is my third book report and again, the spoiler alert is in effect. I recently finished the book Twitterville by Shel Israel who also co-authored a great book on blogging entitled Naked Conversations. Twitterville is well written and describes in detail much of the world that we are only now beginning to see. It [...]

Will iPhone Apps Replace Mobile Sites?

Businesses have been asking me (for a long time) if they should create mobile sites (WAP) for their business. I think they should be asking themselves if they should be producing iPhone applications instead. I believe that applications can provide a much better experience than mobile sites. I thought maybe mobile sites could be designed [...]

I’ve got Soul, but I’m not a Soldier cont’d

My ears are still ringing this afternoon. Got a total of 4 hours sleep. I feel so young! The marketing side of me was watching last night as well and there were several things I’d like to see The Killers do to help build their brand. When I started going to concerts people held up [...]

I’ve got Soul, but I’m not a Soldier

Tonight was a magical night. At 9:09pm on 9.9.09 my wife and I were at Red Rocks, watching roadies try to fix a part of the stage.  10 minutes later The Killers had blasted into their first song Human. 20 minutes later, a rust colored 3/4 moon rose above the horizon to the east. All [...]

McKinsey Global Survey: Business Benefits of Web 2.0

Enjoy this audio piece from McKinsey on the business benefits of Web 2.0. [audio:http://michaelmyers.biz/CRUCES/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Deriving_value_from_Web_2_0_2432.mp3] Article can be found here; must join to read.

Wikipedia Prepares to Monetize

I read on the 26th that Wikipedia is now going have subject matter experts review various entries. There have been editors that reviewed entries for overall quality but never an assigned subject matter expert reviewing the entries. I wonder which entries will reviewed and how the decision was made to review those. (For those that [...]

iPhone Monetizing New Web: Why is Ad Interaction so Much Higher?

Way back in April I posted about the potential for the iPhone to monetize the new web and the fact that the level of ad interaction within apps was much higher than mobile advertising. (50% of AdMob revenue comes from iPhone ads while iPhone ads only comprise 1/7th of their inventory.) I initially thought (and [...]

Embrace the Brand Challenge

I’ve been reading Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz and it has some great insights. (Book report coming soon!) In one section of the book he mentions Harley Davidson, Apple and Nikon as brands that have a rabid fan base via word of mouth. These are brands that we’ve all heard of and when [...]

Advertising or Marketing Online?

I’ve been talking with a couple of friends of mine about the business of agencies. One is starting an agency and the other is going to sell theirs. The first person is only interested in creating beautiful sites based in Flash and the other has been working on honing search engine marketing (SEM) expertise. They [...]

Child’s Play on the iPhone

It seems like there is a huge potential market for iPhone games focused on 3 – 6 year olds. Kids too young to use the phone but want it in their hands at all times. I have to hand mine over to my son every time he sees it. The issue I have in handing [...]

The Internet for the Low Low Cost of . . .

Well  . . . since the Internet has swung into the collective consciousness, it has primarily been a cost free medium, except for the price to access it. (This is what happens when academics run the world. Not complaining. All of the online growth would not have been possible if businesses would have charged for [...]

What’s the Difference Between Viral and Social?

I got an email from a friend on Friday informing me that I had to see this amazing video and the sheer amount of calculus involved to pull it off was stunning. (Video at the bottom.) The video is well done and very funny. Makes me want to set up a huge Slip ‘n Slide. [...]

Creativity According to Hugh MacLeod

This is my second book report and again, the spoiler alert is in effect. (My first was Surfing with Malcom Gladwell.) For those of you unfamiliar with Hugh MacLeod, you need to go to his blog gapingvoid as soon as you get done reading this. (You should also stop at Amazon and buy his book.) [...]

Augmented Reality for Twitter with TwittARound

I posted a video by Layar featuring augmented reality. I suspected it wouldn’t talk too long before there was one for Twitter and  . . . here it is. The potential of augmented reality is just starting and would be a great way to visualize conduit marketing.

Another Brick in the Convergence Wall: On Demand Gaming

I’ve been talking about the Internet being the convergence of all things entertainment, communication and information for a long time now. Recently the entertainment genre got a whole lot more interesting with OnLive. OnLive is a company that rabid gamers heard about earlier this year at the Game Developers Conference. They are essentially an online/on [...]

Google and the Walled Gardens

(The title of this post sounds like a really bad band.) This is going to be one of those long posts with a lot of links, in order to connect the dots. Work with me . . . We’ve been hearing about recent shifts in the online landscape and I wanted to take some time [...]

What to do when you’ve been hacked.

Or maybe this post should be called; what I did when I was hacked. Either way . . . I was recently hacked and wanted to share my experience to help those unfortunate souls that this happens to. There are lots of ways to get hacked and in my case it was Malware. (Malware? is [...]

Simple does not Equal Usable

I posted a short while back about Jakob Neilsen’s site and the question of how usable it is. My argument was simple; the nature of the Internet has changed since Jakob put the site up and the Internet/browser today is closer to an application than a brochure. I received some nice comments and one question [...]

CRUCES’ 2nd Anniversary

Today is the 2nd anniversary of this blog. The first post, CRUCES defined, was spent establishing what this blog was to be about. As I read it now, I stuck with my original intent with two exceptions: The iPhone – I expanded my conversation to include this change to the marketing/business model landscape Guest authors [...]

Flying the Social Skies

It was reported today by Real Business that United Airlines shareholders have lost $180 million dollars in valuation because of a music video on YouTube telling Dave Carroll’s story about how United broke his guitar and then didn’t do anything to resolve the situation. The song is called United Brakes Guitars and is a catchy [...]

Spacey Explains Twitter to Letterman (video)

Hot Wheels ROCK!

I’m going to be doing a series of posts focusing on my favorite brands (highlighted by the ads to the right) and the types of marketing campaigns I’d like to see them do utilizing some of the new methodologies I’ve posted about. The first brand I’m going to do is Hot Wheels! When I was [...]

Does the 80/20 Rule Apply to Online Products?

Depends on your audience. If you’re running a business with users that are technically astute, then it’s more like the 99/1 rule. Businesses like Brightkite built out their product by tapping into collaborative users and listening to everyone may prove to be more important than someone with a more traditional online business model. Older models [...]

Is Transparency the Same as Humanity?

Back in late January, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch fame posted a story called Some Things Need to Change where he tells the story of someone spitting in his face at the Digital, Life Design conference in Munich. Now for those of you who don’t know who Michael Arrington is, it is safe to say that [...]

Is Jakob Nielsen’s Website Usable?

For those of you that don’t know who Jakob Nielsen is, click on this link. For those of you that don’t want to leave the comfort of my site, I will simply say he is one of the founders of web usability. For those of you that don’t know what web usability is, it would [...]

The Man Brand Needs a Mean Motor Scooter

Summer is in full swing and once again, I’ve seen many men on scooters. Unfortunately they all, for the most part, look very uncomfortable. Not with the quality of the ride but with the fact that they’re on a glorified moped (also known as a scooter). Watching some poor emasculated sot whiz by, hoping you [...]

Independence Day!

I’m enjoying a long holiday weekend. Everyone enjoy your time off and stay safe.

If You’re Hungry for New Shoes, Try Puma’s Mongolian Barbeque

If you have narrow feet and want your own customized shoes, go to Puma’s Mongolian Barbeque. The site launched in 2006 (yes, that was three years ago; I’m just getting around to it. I’ve been busy!) and allows you to customize your shoe just about any way you’d like it; except allow you to order [...]

Jeremiah Owyang Talks About the 5 Eras of the Social Web (video)

Found this great video of Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang talking about the 5 Eras of the Social Web.

Why Can’t I Stream Movies from Netflix Without Being a Member?

Why can’t I stream movies from Netflix without being a member? I understand Netflix not wanting to send a non-member a DVD but I’m not talking about that. I just want to stream a movie and don’t really want to join. This is not because I don’t like the company but because I can’t plan [...]

Twitter is Delivering on the Promise of Niche Social Networks

For those of you living under a very heavy rock, buried deep underground, there is this service called Twitter which has recently garnered a lot of attention. It uses what is called “micro-blogging” (140 characters or less) to tell others that follow you, what you’re up to. A personal RSS feed. Very simple idea and [...]

Someone Needs a Girlfriend!

My site was hacked last night. Why would someone hack my site?!?!? I don’t have a million viewers. I’m not Michael Arrington. I haven’t pissed anyone off . . lately (that I’m aware of). So if you’re accessing this site with IE; you won’t see the difference. If you’re accessing it with Firefox, Chrome or Safari it [...]

The Semantic Web and the Impact of Social Media (video)

The Corporate Social Graph: The Scorpion and the Frog

It has been a while since I posted about the Corporate Social Graph and felt it was time for an update with a focus on transparency. The overarching premise of the CSG is that online businesses are expected to behave more like individuals and that they need to inhabit social outposts on the Internet (abiding [...]

Layared Reality (video featuring augmented reality)

Saw this amazing video featuring a different application of augmented reality than what I’ve posted before. The company is called Layar and launched this today for the G1. Wouldn’t this be great on a much larger screen? Like the screen of an iPhone!?!?!

Opera Fans Unite!

This looks interesting. If this works, it would “mobilize” Jeremy Owyang’s 5th era of he social web; shared social experience.

Convergences

Convergence is a term that gets thrown around quite a bit and just to be sure we’re all on the same page, I went to Webster’s and found this: The merging of distinct technologies, industries, or devices into a unified whole. That’s pretty clear and I’m willing to bet that this definition was not included [...]

iPhone OS on a Full-sized Multi-touch Screen

Don’t kid yourself; hoax or not, this is where the iPhone is going.

Twitter in Real Life (funny video)

My Own Little Slice of Facebook

Tonight was the first night that Facebook users (that aren’t celebrities), could get thier own personalized URL. In a fit of “nerding out”, I was logged in and watching the countdown. When the clock struck 10:01, the screen reloaded and I was given the option to select my URL.  Facebook made this very easy and [...]

What’s a QR Code and Why Should I Care?

QR stands for “quick response” and marketers always care about response time. QR codes are essentially bar codes that mobile phones can scan to allow the user to access information such as URLs; thus bridging the gap between the real world and the virtual. The technology to enable your phone is free and can be [...]

Irony is a Dish Best Served Timely

Just read on CNN that the one millionth word to the English language has been added. The word is (drum roll please); “Web 2.0″ which sounds an awful lot like a term instead of a word, but what do I know. Why is this ironical? Because Web 2.0 is dead. TechCrunch posted a while ago [...]

Get FFFFOUND!

Several months ago I found an image bookmarking site called FFFFOUND! and I love it. As a kid I looked through Life magazines collection of greatest photos of the 20th century at least a million times. FFFFOUND! is eye candy for the fat kid. FFFFOUND is dope for the drug addict. It is an amazing [...]

Now You too can Have Opposable Thumbs on Your Feet!

I’ve been talking about online personas enabling marketers to create personalized marketing and questioned whether it will live in your browser or your social network. I ‘ve also listed the challenges and in the end the benefits of having multiple personas. Now, three companies that don’t rhyme with Poogle, Fritter or Pacehook are creating an [...]

11 Twitter Case Studies

Just read a report by MarketingProfs called Twitter Success Stories. This report features 11 case studies showing how various businesses utilized Twitter to help market their business. This is a great report and some of the best examples are: Kogi Korean BBQ (@kogibbq) was founded in November 2008 and specializes in Korean BBQ tacos. These [...]

Does the Long Tail Apply to the iPhone App Store?

Read this article the other day about the realities of making money with iPhone applications after reading this one about a developer making tons of dough. The truth is that most don’t make much money and the question that I have, is whether or not, Chris Anderson’s theory of the long tail will be applicable [...]

Media is Actually a Triathlon (video)

Great video of Clay Shirky talking about the rules behind new Media.

Your Dog Wants Breakfast (video)

Great video Featuring Josh Bernoff of Forrester talking about Del Monte collaborating with customers to create new business opportunities.

What’s Social About Advertising?

Just finished reading a report by the IAB that defines social advertising and lays out some best practices. In the past I’ve posted about businesses partnering with customers to enable personalized advertising (also known as “ads customers actually want”). I’ve also recommended that business need to create tool kits that enable customers to create quality [...]

Marketing is Education

I know. I know. Bear with me. It could end up being “one of those posts” but you’ll have to keep reading to find out. I’ve seen a lot of analogies lately (as there always is) about what marketing is now. Here are some of my favorites: Marketing is listening Marketing is a conversation Marketing [...]

Seth Godin on Leadership and Tribes (video)

Great presentation at TED by Seth Godin on leadership and tribes.

Squirrels with FacePal are Following Owyang

I read a post on TechCrunch about one of the Twitter founders, Jack Dorsey starting a company, code-named squirrel that is going to enable individuals the ability to collect payments like merchants. The system is enabled by the iPhone and a physical piece that allows the user to swipe (not steal) a persons credit card. [...]

Interesting Video About the Future of Mobile

This guy’s accent makes this sound very smart.

iPhone Monetizing New Web, Part 3: The Details

I’ve recently posted about businesses utilizing iPhone applications to help monetize new web and aside from giving you some advertising details below, I wanted to clarify my recommendations. In order to take advantage of all that an iPhone application offers and help monetize your business, I suggest when someone hits your site from a mobile [...]

Converging in on Your Online Persona

I’ve posted about the creation of online personas and where they may live (the browser vs. the social network) and recently read (and commented on) a post entitled Firefox Could Be the Real Facebook Challenger by Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web. This is an excellent post and sites several reasons for Marshall’s belief that [...]

Mobile Ad Search

Almost a year ago I posted about mobile discovery and the challenges of measuring conversions. With the recent (and really good) news about advertising on iPhone applications (going from contextual on a mobile site to behavioral on an application) and GeoTweeting adoption growing, I’ve been thinking about the other side of conduit marketing; the business. [...]

GeoTweeting: The Start of Conduit Marketing

I talked the VP of Network Development for Schmap, Donald McMillan today. I posted about their GeoTweeting service and wanted to talk with them about their plans for the future; specifically what I’ve been calling, conduit marketing. At a high-level, they see the future of GeoTweets as something that ads value and more specifically things [...]

The iPhone is the Concept Car

Ever wonder why auto makers don’t release concept cars as production cars? (Wow. I sound like Andy Rooney.) Well, I have. I’m not really a car guy and sometimes I do end up at car shows and see the most amazing cars but rarely do they end up in the showroom. Some recent examples are: [...]

Little Dead iPhone Apps

Just read a report by Greystripe, that talks about how iPhone app users are NOT utilizing their applications. The reports lists the following items of interest: Users spend about 9.6 minutes at a time with their apps, accessing them nearly 20 times before they are abandoned. 44% of iPhone app users have an income of [...]

Seeqpod Get’s Hit by an Asteroid!

The asteroid in case, is the economy. Kasian will tell you that they were hit with an opportunity. I talked to Kasian Franks, CEO of Seeqpod yesterday and his company, like many companies, are finding ways to survive. I originally posted about Seeqpod here and then followed up here when the site went down. Seeqpod [...]

Join the Team?

Just talked to a friend of mine that recently joined a marketing organization and was told after he joined that he would have to stop blogging. When he asked why, he was told that it would take traffic away from the company blog. Again, this is a marketing organization, and one that sounds like it [...]

iPhone Monetizing New Web: Part 2

I recently posted about iPhone applications potentially being the key to monetize Web 2.0 sites. I recently found a report by AdMob for March 09 that indicates that half of all their total ad responses (out of 6000 sites and 1000 applications) came from applications on the iPhone and G1 (HTC Dream). This is an [...]

Seeqpod Dead?

Went to login into Seeqpod today and the site is “gone”. For those of you that don’t know, Seepod is a search enabled web based MP3 player. I then did a search on Google and saw that they filed for bankruptcy on April 3rd. With the recent Pirate Bay verdict I would not be surprised [...]

Need Mobile? Embrace Twitter!

Been talking with a friend about “what to do with Twitter”. You may have heard of it. Along with not knowing how to use Twitter for their business they have also been wondering what to do in the mobile space. Should they create an iPhone application? Are adoption rates high enough to warrant action? Should [...]

Reading Without My Glasses

Was talking with a fellow co-worker about the Sony “Reader Digital Book” (Can a guy, please get some branding?!?!) and we were discussing the Kindle and how well these devices work under direct sunlight and/or in the dark. I looked at the Sony version probably five years ago and really like the idea for books [...]

Will Ford Get Their Fiesta?

Ford has created a new social media campaign called the Fiesta Movement and the goal is to (you guessed it) sell cars. Ford has found 100 web-minded individuals “Agents” and have given them a Ford Fiesta to test drive. Every month for six months, each Agent will be given a mission starting tomorrow.  Many people [...]

This Ain’t the Mainland

I called Maui Hawaii yesterday in the hopes that I’d be able to talk to Louie Martin, founder of Tropix Surfboards and the Maui Built brand. After speaking with a couple of people at Tropix Central, I finally got him on the phone. I asked him if I could interview him for my blog and [...]

The New Google Latitude

The Google Latitude is another mechanism for conduit marketing. This may be more personal since it is coming less from the broadcast of Twitter to more peer to peer recommendation. They focus on the real time usage but I’d still like to see location based reminders.

Secrets of the Niche

I’ve been SCUBA certified for 21 years and it’s safe to say that I love the Ocean. (Yes there are SCUBA divers in Colorado and as a matter of fact Colorado used to have the 3rd highest certification rate in the United States. Not sure if that’s still true.) Divers are an interesting breed. I’ve [...]

Zappos Puts Shoes on the Map

Zappos has a very unique discovery tool that places clickable images of shoes that people have ordered on a map; real time. Go to: http://www.zappos.com/map and you can see. It’s hypnotic in the same way that Twittervision 3D is  except that it makes you want to buy shoes. When you see a shoe that you [...]

Are iPhone Apps the way to Monetize the New Web?

Just saw this video for the new NIN iPhone application and it begs the question as to whether iPhone applications could be used to monetize web 2.0 businesses. With a combined 30 milli0n iPhones and iTouches out in the wild and new app stores from Android and Blackberry this is going to be one way [...]

If You can’t say Something Nice . . .

In preparation for the ever worsening economy, I was sending out requests for endorsements on LinkedIn this morning and wondered (in the name transparency) if there would ever be a way to allow for negative comments? In recent months LinkedIn has had an explosion in traffic and I’ve received invitations to join former coworkers networks [...]

Ignore at Your Own Risk

I saw Guy Kawasaki Tweet about an article entitled Should brands ignore social media criticism?, and I had to read/respond. Overall it’s a good article and worth reading. One highlight from the post: But what if some brands are paying too much attention to social media? Is it possible that the most vocal on Facebook [...]

Convential Wisdom

Conventional wisdom, when it comes to blogging, states that you shouldn’t allow for comments until your traffic hits “a certain level”. (The premise is that if people come to the site and see a bunch of posts with no comments; the site is a dead site.) My site traffic has not reached this level yet [...]

Map Schmap!

Way back in July (sound familiar?) I posted about Twitter, geo-targeting and location based services combining to create what I referred to as conduit marketing. (Also talked about it here and recently here.) About a month ago I heard of a company called Schmap and how they were using Twitter to essentially create the foundation [...]

Think of it as a Branding Excercise

In these economically conscious times (aren’t they always?!?!?), I keep hearing; How do I monetize my time on a social network? Well aside from advertising (which is the one obvious answer) there are several ways to ways to think about spending time and effort on social networks. To keep it simple and akin to something [...]

Skype on the iPhone: Big Deal . . .

This would have been a much more exciting announcement if the carriers were still raking most of us over the coals with old fashioned calling/data plans. Fortunately for most of us, we’re on flat rate plans so this really does not help us. I have always been a fan of Skype and have posted about [...]

The Return of The Mighty Jane’s Addiction

In late 1991 Jason was hiking through the Sonoran desert in Arizona. The terrain was varied with flat spots and rocky outcroppings. As he came up over a ridge the land opened up into a small valley. In the middle was a small box, standing upright, about 10 inches high. He hiked down the interior [...]

My Swiss Army iPhone

Way back in July I posted about mobile phone security and listed out all of the things that I wanted my mobile phone to do. With the ever increasing emergence of the iPhone as the tool for kids of all ages (including us grown-ups), I thought I would see what apps, out of my essentials [...]

Communities Build Brand Depth

By now we all know that as businesses, we don’t own our brand quite the way we used to. (Actually we never did it just wasn’t as easy to spread the word about brands as it is today via the internet.) We also know that if you aren’t participating in the conversation then you’re losing [...]

Peer Interaction Within Conduit Marketing

Found this video the other day right after I read the news about the iPhone’s coming peer-to-peer capability. The peer-to-peer combined with accelerometer (much like what is in the video above) could make for some very cool marketing experiences. (Smule is a company who has taken this type of thing to a new level.)  This [...]

I Take it Back . . . for now

Recently I posted an interview with the CEO of Bluetunes and made the statement that mobile was going to help push cloud services. TechCrunch recently hosted another round table with several major players where the cloud was the topic of conversation. Most agree that this trend is the very near future and the statement I [...]

Funny Cartoon about Twitter Life!

Advertising Needs to get a Whole Lot Smarter

I was looking at YouTube today to do some research and saw this video entitled Police Report for Rihanna & Chris Brown. Now, I’m not much of a fan and yet I’ve heard a lot about this incident. I was curious to see what information was in this video, so I began to watch. After [...]

Following the Leader: You.

Businesses don’t shape business any longer. Users do. I’m of course referring to the online world and am sure this will extend the tangible world. Some would argue this has always been the way, with businesses putting things out and then users dictating what is popular. Today’s paradigm is a little different with businesses following [...]

Amazing Marketing Tool! (Video)

I can imagine amazing possibilities with the prevalence of webcams.

DOUBLE ENCORE

I met with Dan Burcaw, CEO and Founder of DOUBLE ENCORE, the other day and learned many many things. Back in October 2007 Dan Burcaw, was an Apple employee (on the corporate side of Apple Retail group) and was in Cupertino, California for a meeting.  He was watching a product manager for iPhone, give a [...]

Mobile Marketing Should not be Disruptive

When I think of the promise of mobile marketing and location based services I get excited and a little bit concerned.  A couple of posts down, I talked about tweeting interrupting my experience and I think the same thing could happen with mobile marketing. For example: You’re in the Tattered Cover bookstore and perusing the [...]

Google is Going to Buy Twitter

I read in TechCrunch last week that Twitter is going to be enabling search across all tweets in the near future. From this, businesses will able to enable intent marketing (a term that came up after a conversation with the CEO and founder of DOUBLE ENCORE, Dan Burcaw: interview coming soon!). With intent marketing a [...]

Businesses on Twitter

A couple of days ago, I saw that Twitter is going to begin charging businesses for their Twitter accounts. The industry question around Twitter (and all social networking sites for that matter) has been; how are they going to monetize? Twitter is officially exploding this year and recently raised $35 million in capital. The real [...]

Twitter the Interrupter

When I travel I like to immerse myself in the culture as much as possible. I try to eat what the locals eat (a la Anthony Bourdain), shop where the locals shop and find activities specific to that location. I’m amazed at how some tourists, in a “memory recording frenzy” surround items of interest and [...]

The Death of Marko-babble

I was recently working with a client and we were discussing text content on their site. I asked a question about the content in a specific section and they replied; “Oh. That’s just marko-babble.” I (like many) have suffered from meaningless content over the years and with the evolution of the Internet, have come to [...]

The Future of Fuser

Before the holidays, I interviewed Eric Wu the Vice President of Product for Fuser. Fuser is an aggregator of communications and handles email from Yahoo!, AOL, Gmail, etc and social networking messages from MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Fuser was founded by Jared Polis to solve his communication problem. Jared Polis (now Congressman Polis) sold Blue [...]

All Hands Off-Deck!

I attended my second mobile marketing consumer best practices conference Tuesday. It was a similar cast of characters from last year and the meeting followed much of the same flow. After reviewing the changes to the standards document, MMA members from various parts of the industry spoke about their respective areas of expertise. The first [...]

Surfing with Malcom Gladwell

This is my first “book report” and the standard spoiler alert is in full effect. I recently read Maclom Gladwell’s book Outliers and wanted to talk about it. To start, it was a great book. For those of you that are not familiar with the writings of Malcom Gladwell, he has written two other books [...]

A Service for the Library of Me

I’ve been packing lately and have spent a lot of time looking at my older media like albums, 45s, tapes, etc. This has rekindled my desire to have all of these items digitized and accessible via computer/mobile device from wherever I am. Services like this exist such as flickr and  Bluetunes. The issue is that [...]

Captive Audience

After watching the video below, you have to ask yourself why airlines aren’t clubbing themselves to escape the Sky Mall magazine dynamic. The world is full of consumers who become a captive audience during their flight. Why not sell them something? Why not sell them something they can pick up at the terminal or have [...]

TiVo Needs Bluetunes

I read this recently and thought of Bluetunes and their patent pending upload technology. This technology allows you to upload songs in an incredibly short amount of time. The article sates that TiVo users are unwilling to delete any shows they have (0r have not watched) and suffer guilt because of it. (Oh the agony [...]

Open to Interpretation

I saw the Nutcracker this past weekend with my Daughter and her Cousin AND my Mom. (Wife was home with the baby, listening to him cry. Good times!) It was an eventful day as I had no cash to PREPAY for parking. Prepay? For parking . . . What!?!?!?! So I had to drop them [...]

Merry Christmas!

Unhappy Halloween!

No. You’re not looking at a post from two months ago. Read on . . . So as I look through the analytics for this site I see that a lot of traffic from search results with users looking for Michael Myers of the Halloween movie series, which has a total of 8 movies (if [...]

Multiple Persona Disorder?

I’ve posted about the potential for the browser to become a users online persona or shadow; the representation/summation of that person’s preferences. I’ve also talked about the future of OpenID and dataportability and how these two concepts together will create a marketers dream, which is an online persona that a person can plug into a [...]

Design is Viral

There has been a lot of discussion over the last several months about whether viral marketing exists. The first time I heard this I agreed and used a coffin as an example of  something that would not sell virally. The product is inherently morbid and therefore was a dead end (no pun intended). As I [...]

Bluetunes from the Cloud

I had the good fortune of interviewing Nick Alexander of Bluetunes recently. blueTunes is one of a growing number of companies that are taking advantage of the push towards cloud computing. I had my list of questions ready and was happy to finally speak with Nick. We had managed to miss one another for over [...]

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wall•E Gets it Right

Back in July I posted about Truth in Marketing in regards to the wasteful schwag that had been handed out at the Wall•E premiere. I described the movie as R2D2 falls in love with a trigger happy iPod. My point was that the marketers were not true to the character or the message of the [...]

A Business Model for Twitter that Won’t Work (and then one that will)

Fans of Twitter have openly wondered how they’re going to make money. They have over 2 million users (and growing), a rabid fan base but still no revenue. This is common among Web 2.0 companies; get the audience and then figure out how to monetize later. I keep wondering when the later will be. I [...]

The Keys to Niche Social Networks are . . .

Social objects. You can stop here if you want but I promise there’s more to say. Several months ago, I showed a video of Chris Anderson on Charlie Rose where he explained that he believes we are at the beginning of the social networking movement and that Facebook/MySpace are the online version of Target/Walmart. I [...]

All a-Twitter about Alltop

I have recently had my site (the one your on right now) accepted by Alltop. For anyone that has not heard of Alltop; from the Alltop about page: We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. The interface is a extremely easy to use and the [...]

Blackberry Needs a Rick Rubin

For those of you who don’t know who Rick Rubin is you’ll most likely know many of the artists he has produced over the years. An abbreviated version of list contains Beastie Boys, The Cult, Mick Jagger, Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Tom Petty, Weezer, Neil Diamond, Jay Z, U2 [...]

Did You Vote?

Luxury is Not Quality

I could keep this post very short by just telling you to go find out how reliable Land Rovers are to prove my point, but I thought I would delve a little deeper. My family and I (including my Mom) went to Maui for a vacation recently and we rented a Cadillac Escalade. I’m usually [...]

The Kite is Bright

This past Friday, I had the good fortune of speaking with the founders of Brightkite, Brady Becker and Martin May. I got the ball rolling by walking through the front door and accusing Brady of being Martin . . . Fortunately things got better from there. Once we sat down, they told me they had [...]

Future Marketing

This is a great video for marketers to get a feel for the changes that are occurring now. Enjoy!

Where’s the Monster Now?

For as long as I can remember there has always been a villain/artist/musician. From a theatrical standpoint, this was role invented by Alice Cooper in the 70s. In the 80s Heavy Metal artists such as Ozzy Ousborne,  Judas Priest and AC/DC assumed the role. Ozzy bit the head off of a bat, Judas Priest was [...]

The Impossible Made Possible

Video ads that don’t annoy. I have recently seen a new (at least new to me) type of advertisement on Techcrunch and the Wall Street Journal. It is a video advertisement that automatically plays, which is commonly known as a universally bad decision, but this plays without audio. I was amazed at how unobtrusive this [...]

Christmas Comes a Little Early

I reviewed CNN’s site design back in March with special attention paid to the t-shirts that one could order with the various headlines. At that time I commented that I really wished that Fark would do the same thing and today I noticed they had added the same functionality! This is available for almost all [...]

Generations of the Niche

I posted in late September (just a few posts down) about the Rugby Tournament in Aspen that I’ve attended for the last 24 years. I mentioned the  need for Generational liaisons as partners to help marketers serve a niche. I wanted to expand on the concept of generations with the context of niche. When I [...]

Google Needs an Ocean

Back in August I posted about Helio being acquired by Virgin Mobile closing its doors and felt that in the long run it would be a good thing for users, since the cool of Helio’s design would finally match the cool of the Virgin’s mobile packages. After seeing the G1, I realized that Google needs [...]

John Biggs Agrees with Me . . . Sort of

Just read a post on TechCrunch where John Biggs writes that he believes the new G1 is the device that will help users view their cell as their computer. I have posted about this before here & here and agree that G1 and Android are a part of the inevitable march towards this new paradigm. [...]

The Cultural Needs of the Niche

This past weekend I was in Aspen for the 41st annual Ruggerfest. I’ve been attending this rugby tournament for the past 24 years and recommend it to anyone who has even the smallest interest in Rugby. Rugby is one of the most aggressive niche sports in the world and as with any niche, it has [...]

Snow Leopards with Smaller Feet

Way back in June Apple announced that the new OS was going to be known as Snow Leopard and that the primary focus was going to be a smaller foot print. Many have speculated that this is for a PDA (aka Newton round two) or a tablet. The existence of the Mac Air leads me [...]

LinkedOut

Lately I’ve been receiving invitations from Skype and LinkedIn to participate in surveys (hosted by my favorite SurveyMonkey). The most recent arrived Monday and the email read: mIchael, Thanks for responding to our recent message and survey. . . Now I’m all for colorful spellings (and misspellings) of my name but when I first read [...]

Seeqpod

About two months ago a colleague recommended an on-demand online “radio” that allows users to look for music & videos known as Seeqpod. This service, branded as playable search also allows you to save songs/videos as play lists and then share them. To some It’s another distribution channel and for me it is yet another [...]

Business and Artful Ways

I purchased a Trek Madone this past weekend and now, on some level, understand how an iPhone or Prius user feels. It’s like owning a piece of artwork. To put It simply; it feels different. The only difference is that something can be done with this piece of art other than hanging on the wall [...]

Your Browser is Your Online Persona

After watching the TechCrunch round table on the future of mobile, I’ve been thinking a lot about the browser. It was unanimous at that meeting that the browser is going to be the killer application for the mobile world and I realized that the browser is something I really don’t think too much about or [...]

The Skype Train

I have been a longtime fan of Skype since I read a Wired article where the founders were hiding in Europe to avoid being served a subpoena. The service took off in Europe first with many business people including a Skype number on their business card. I was surprised in 05 when eBay bought Skype [...]

Transparency in Action

I recently called T-Mobile customer service to have them switch me over to the Blackberry Curve and had a very interesting experience. Like most people, calling customer service is one of my least favorite things since it usually means something is wrong. I don’t like it because the vanilla version of a human being I [...]

Is Blackberry Toast?

I was recently given a Blackberry for work. I got the Blackberry Curve to insure that I would be able to use the whrrl mobile application and other similar applications. I was excited to download Skyfire and the Firefox mobile browser . . . and was quickly disappointed. Those applications are not available for the [...]

What can we learn from Anthony Bourdain?

I have been watching Anthony Bourdain‘s, No Reservations since 2005 and love the show. I appreciate his intelligence, eloquence, humor and how I feel a little more worldly after every show. I have always said that you can’t really know someone until you see the place they grew up. Bourdain’s belief is that you can’t [...]

Year One is Done

Today is the one year anniversary of my blog. I started this blog as a collaborative tool and am still working towards this goal. I have been fortunate enough to meet some incredible people because of this tool and it has also served to solidify my thoughts with respect to the future of marketing. I’m [...]

Let’s be Gods. Let’s be Ugly.

This title of this post comes from a line in Ayn Rand’s 1943 book,The Fountainhead and is from a conversation between a woman and the main character, Howard Roark. Her point was that any attempt to create beauty is futile when compared to the beauty of nature and that we should abandon any desires to [...]

State of the Mobile Web

When I blogged from the MMA Consumer Best Practices Industry Forum back in January, I felt like I had stepped into a circus that was in the middle of a performance but needed to move to a new location at the same time. The iPhone had just been released and it was not really discussed [...]

Medium Specific Advertising

I have spoken about how the Internet is well on its way to being the platform for entertainment, information and communication. This of course extends to the mobile Internet as well. I also spend a lot of time talking to people about the importance of “how” something is done. The premise is that what your [...]

The Business World According to Jason Fried

Last night I got to attend a New Denver Ad Club event at the Oriental Theater with guest speaker Jason Fried (freed) of 37signals. I knew very little about Jason and have heard about 37signals from a friend of mine. 37signals is a group that started out as an agency and created products to support [...]

Your Advertising Partner

I read yet another article in the Wall Street Journal this past week about cable customers up in arms about their online behavior being tracked even though they would remain technically anonymous. Not sure what the big deal is if they can remain truly anonymous. They would essentially see your online shadow, would allow you [...]

Why I Don’t Like the iPhone

I have been a fan of Apple for a very long time. The first personal computer my mother owned was a Mac Plus and I became intimately familiar with the cult of Apple and later purchased a 9400 dual monitor set up. I have watched over the years as the company has reinvented itself to [...]

We Are the Engine & the Architect

I was forwarded the video at the bottom of this post this past week. Some of you may have already seen it and I was impressed at how it illuminated the fact that we are building and refining the online world. Some examples of sites/functionality that embody this are: Sites like Digg or Reddit with [...]

Truth in Marketing

I went to see Wall•E with my three year old (almost 4) on opening day. When we bought our tickets the girl handed us the commemorative piece of schwag you see just the the left. It is a piece of rigid board with a small watch made of inexpensive rubber attached. When she handed this [...]

Geotargeting + Location Based Services + Twitter = Conduit Marketing

Recently (and reluctantly) I signed up for Twitter. I only say reluctantly because there is a good chance that a constant feed based on my life will be somewhat less than what I would like it to be. Or it may be more PC to say different from what I think it should be. I [...]

What Starbucks Should Do Now

As most of you heard, Starbucks is actually closing stores to avoid more losses. I have posted about Starbucks inner conflict as of late (not latte) and believe I have some answers as to how they can increase their revenue and get that store back in the Forbidden City in China. The first thing they [...]

Helio Closes Its Doors

Yesterday it was announced that Virgin Mobile would buy Helio for $39 million. Helio has been one of my favorite businesses/products since their inception. I love the design of the Ocean and wish that the iPhone would utilize some of the design ideas. Since the demise of Amp’d there have been questions about the health [...]

Social Objective

I pick up the phone and say hello. I then hear; “What the hell is a social object?” I check the number and realize it is a friend of mine (not at all involved in online marketing) and told him that my definition comes from Hugh MacLeod that states a social object is: . . [...]

Brand Mash-up

I’ve been listening to DJ Danger Mouse’ Grey Album lately and thinking about how the mash-up culture Wired Magazine discussed several years ago will impact businesses. Wikipedia defines a mash-up in regards to music as: A mash-up or bootleg is a song or composition created from the combination of the music from one song with [...]

Mobile Behavior

I just saw this video on MobileCrunch. It’s a demo of how the Firefox mobile browser could work and it looks pretty amazing. As of today people’s mobile Internet behavior is markedly different from terrestrial use. I’m excited about this type of functionality as it will help us shed some light on what people’s behavior [...]

Geotargeting Interacting with Location Based Services

I was recently having a conversation with a client about digital signage and how this could be used in different types of venues. Everything from retail to hotels could easily find a clever usage for this technology as it is. We then started to talk about the potential of digital signage as the “anchor” for [...]

Mobile Security

I have been keeping a list of what functions I want on my cell phone in the very near future. The list as of today is: garage door opener, car alarm, remote control, drivers license, credit card, quality camera, HD recorder, audio recorder, watch, geo-targeting tool, MP3 player; with wireless headphones, alarm clock, organizer, mouse/computer [...]

Mobile Product Placement

I have been thinking about how product placement might play itself out in a mobile video environment. Screen size is the obvious limitation and I’m not convinced that short-from video will be the primary form of accepted video. I have mentioned in the past some of the amazing things that Japan has done on the [...]

The Core of the Corporate Social Graph

I have been talking about the Internet as the delivery mechanism for entertainment, information and communication. I now also think of these as the core of the Corporate Social Graph (CSG). But I also I recently realized that I had left out one of, if not the most important elements that the Internet affords, which [...]

Usability is Marketing

I met with a potential client last week. He was telling me about their business goals and how they needed their online marketing to increase their revenue over the next two years. We talked about SEO/SEM, social media, preroll advertising and what was going to happen with mobile advertising. He was interested in all of [...]

Who is the King?

For many years we had been told that content was king. Quality content was the thing that online businesses must create to keep the attention and develop the loyalty of users. Then in 2006 Chris Anderson chimed in and let us know that content was no longer king; context was. The quote is from Rob [...]

Brand Equity and the Corporate Social Graph

I have been writing about the corporate social graph since February and have discussed its impact on search and how to move towards accurately measuring it. One of the main issues with the developing a CSG is its impact on brand equity. For those of you keeping score the focus of the CSG is to [...]

Mobile Discovery

There has been a lot of great conversation about the discovery vs. search and the challenges that discovery creates. Discovery in regards to search is exactly what you would think it is. Search is looking and finding something specific while discovery is an unexpected find. People do this all the time when surfing the web. [...]

Speaking Freely with SpinVox

“I recently posted about the potential future of the mobile internet and offered up an option that could resolve the issue of screen real estate. Had briefly touched on the solution for what’s some perceive as the other issue, data entry. It’s hard for some to type on a pretty keyboard and harder for those [...]

Guest Post from Matt Garton: Travel Search Marketer

Opportunities and Pitfalls in the near-term evolution of Search Engine Marketing. In one fashion or another I’ve spent the last decade making a very good living from marketing through Search Engines. As the CEO of a venture backed startup, later as a VP of Business Development, and today as the owner and founder of a [...]

Ironic

Kind of ironic that the same day that TechCrunch announced that Google took its AdWords for TV out of beta, CNN posted a story asking if the future of future of TV is the web. I’ve posted about this before and the answer is; yes.

Android vs. iPhone

On March 6th, KPCB announced the creation of a $100 million dollar fund, aptly named iFund which is aimed at funding the development of applications for the iPhone. KPCB is the also the firm that funded Google, which coincidentally launched the Android project several months ago with the goal of creating an open platform so [...]

Data Portability will make MySpace/Facebook as Relevant as AOL

I recently posted about the impending rise of the niche social network. This has already begun and does not get much press due the shear number of MySpace and Facebook users. The Data Portability Project (DPP) is a collection of businesses that are working to create standards that allow users to update their profile, media, [...]

The Evolution of CNN.com

CNN is one of the resources that I keep open during the day and today I saw a new icon next to some of the latest news stories; highlighted below. I clicked on the icon and apparently CNN now sells t-shirts featuring news headlines. I selected the Sinkhole gulps entire lane of highway and the [...]

Q & A about the Corporate Social Graph

A couple of months ago, Hayden Sutherland of Ideal Interface contacted me in regards to the potential of the corporate social graph; a concept we had come up separately and had been thinking about. After several emails, Hayden presented me with some questions to get my opinion on the details surrounding the corporate social graph. [...]

Please Touch that Dial

For many years marketers have been developing strategies and tactics that focused on distribution. The goal of television, radio and print was to get as many eyeballs and “earballs” on the material. Overtime this created a generation of the promotionally challenged; people that don’t see or hear advertising. It’s something we don’t even think about. [...]

More Like a Social Caterpillar

I wanted to briefly talk about a few technologies & trends that I’m excited about. Voice-to-text: I have mentioned SpinVox several times in recent posts and believe that this technology, will change how the mobile Internet is utilized. (I have requested the free SpinVox trial and am waiting to be “approved” and will post about [...]

Deep

For those of you keeping score, my first four posts focused on the kinds of relationships businesses can have with their clients online. These relationships in my mind went from the as shallow as possible to as deep as possible. We started with the concept of findability and the fact that the Internet is a [...]

Surfing with My Eyes Open

When I surf the Internet, I search using Google or Ask’s images tab. I have found that by looking at the “raw materials” that make up a site, I can get a better sense of the site’s quality. The other thing that is brought to light by this is the fact that I don’t like [...]

The Mobile Internet

I was talking with a friend of mine about the MacBook Air and how amazing it is. We collectively wondered how thin a laptop could get before we, as tactile people, could not deal with it. (This is one of the reasons I prefer the Helio Ocean over the iPhone.) I have also been thinking [...]

Blog as Living Totem

I have been blogging since the middle of last year and have been reading blogs since 2005. I think about this every time I post. Am I using the right media to make this stick? How will I be doing this in two years? The following option is one possible direction/analogy. There are the standard [...]

Peronalized Marketing

OpenID + Data Portability + Mobile Number + Persona Control = Personalized Marketing The original idea behind OpenID (much like Microsoft Passport) was to provide a single login to allow user-members to go from site to site without having to sign-in to each one separately. Now that browsers keep track of your login information the [...]

Verizon Wins Key FCC Auctions

I just found out that Verizon has won the coveted C-Block spectrum. There has been a lot of speculation about who had won the FCC specified, open spectrum with Verizon leading the pack with respect to the rumors. Google is not in the business of managing mobile networks and most likely entered the auction to [...]

The Corporate Social Graph and its Impact on Search

I was recently talking with Matt Garton of Travel Connexxions about Search Engine Marketing and usability. We discussed niche search engines and the push toward improved usability with Ask leading the way. Currently when you search on an item the results will bring back sites, blogs, images, videos and news. This is more thorough for [...]

Trent’s First Step

I heard on the radio yesterday that Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was releasing an all instrumental album/cd/8 Track/whatever you call it now, entitled Ghosts I-IV. I was very excited to hear this even though, I haven’t been an active fan since The Downward Spiral. I’ve always wanted him to release an instrumental collection [...]

Scapegoat: The Return to Niche

I recently had the good fortune to sit down with Eric Lyon, one of the founders of Scapegoat to talk about their goals, their brand and their desire to return to niche. Eric along with Jason Olden have been consultants under the name Sid Factor Seven since 2002 and have worked with companies such as [...]

Tivo Long-term?

With the advent of the Internet becoming the platform for on-demand video entertainment, I’m beginning to wonder what TiVo is going to do long-term. If I can go to the Internet and watch the show that I want to watch, when I want to watch it, why do I need TiVo? I’m sure this is [...]

Pulling a 360

I went snowboarding yesterday. It was awesome. The temperature in Denver was 75 degrees and the temp on the hill was mid 40s. I ended up having a conversation on the lift with a 20 year old from Florida who had come out here to work. Somehow the subject of TV came up and he [...]

My Search Assistant

I have been looking through the metrics for this site in Google Analytics and I’m seeing some worrisome things in regards to the amount of time spent on the site when someone arrives via specific searches. For example, when someone searched for the Bellandi Group and ended up at my site. They stayed less than [...]

A Corporate Social Graph

I have been thinking about the social graph concept quite a bit lately and decided to find out exactly what a social graph is. What I finally settled on was the “official definition”: Social Graph is the network of connections that exist through which people communicate and share information. Applications like photos and events are [...]

Temporary Brands

I am not loyal to brands. I like to experience the product or service and the thought of the brand is secondary. When I shop, I look for shirts with no logo on the front. I have always declared that I don’t want to be apart of the” shopping army”. Not sure how I got [...]

Open Letter to Sir Richard Branson

Dear Sir Richard Branson, I recently had the good fortune of flying on Virgin America and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The airplane was clean and the lighting was cool and I loved the in-flight entertainment system. I loved it because I and an associate of mine, Jody Heyroth, thought it [...]

What Should I Call My Music?

The last CD I bought was Wolfmother’s debut in 06. The last album I bought was Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking in 1989; just to have it on vinyl. My question is; what would I be buying now? This question makes me feel old. It’s not a CD. Is it an album? It’s a download but [...]

Humor & Transparency

The Super Bowl was yesterday and about half of the way through one of the commercial breaks I realized that I was watching with a new set of eyes. I usually watch the big game and Fox did an amazing job as they have for several years presenting the game in the context of America [...]

The Starbucks Backpedal

On January 7th, BusinessWeek featured a story announcing the departure of Jim Donald who had been the CEO of Starbucks since 2005. This announcement came out three days before a story in time magazine indicated that a fight between McDonalds and Starbucks was imminent. This article makes the obvious point that the two companies are [...]

Update from the MMA

Last week I attended the MMA Consumer Best Practices Industry Forum in Denver. It was an interesting gathering of marketers and carriers. (Mobile advertisers were absent.) We collectively reviewed the changes to the CBP and various guest speakers offered up their expertise on various subjects. The goal of the CBP is to help the industry [...]

Discovering NIN

The first time I saw Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was in concert for the Pretty Hate Machine tour in 91. It was at the Gothic Theater in Denver and I remember thinking at the time as he swung out over the audience on a long rope; ” if he falls, they will eat [...]

OBEY Karmaloop

Back in college a friend of mine showed up to class one day with a small black and white sticker of Andre the Giant with the words OBEY printed right below his face. At the time this did not mean much to me as I was mostly concerned with school and when would I be [...]

Ooma + Fuser + iPhone + SpinVox + meebo

We have recently done a small piece of work for a company called Ooma. (I have had them in the top right hand corner of my site as a featured product for the past month.) They are purported to be the Vonage killer (if Vonage doesn’t implode first) and the VoIP space has recently become [...]

The Mobile Japan

We have all heard of the success that NTT DoCoMo‘s i-mode has had since it’s introduction in 1999. The strength of that business and the adoption of the mobile phone as a data-based tool instead of simply a telephone, is a key to the company’s dominance. i-mode rules due to the Japanese culture’s adoption of [...]

Adopt an Android

In early November Google introduced Android; the Open Handset Alliance with the declaration that in the future, every phone will be the Gphone. The goal is to open up the mobile market and allow for mobile devices to offer more robust Internet based offerings similar to i-mode in Japan. Borrowing a page out of what [...]

Do Not Forget About Quality

For years I have been someone who said that I would provide all my information to an “ad management organization” if they could promise me that I would only see ads that are relevant to me. The promise of behavioral advertising. I would like to formerly retract that statement. I have recently come to the [...]

Will Advertising Kill DRM?

On November 15th, Ethan Smith of the Wall Street Journal authored an article describing the latest business model created to combat the troubled music industry. The new company, aptly named Recrd Lbl (Record Label) utilizes advertising to generate revenue enabling users to download the artist’s music for free (much like Spiral Frog). The company is [...]

Me & My Google Shadow

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, and explaining, the incredible marketing tool that Google is currently building. It’s a behavioral advertising model that will extend into your PC and mobile phone (and eventually radio and TV). I’m also sure that Google will utilize “peer recommendation” as a key element to behavioral advertising. [...]

The Death of the Home Page

In one of my earlier posts about findability I used a search on nike shoes as an example of how even the best companies don’t fully understand search tactics. My point was that people are searching for products or services; not companies. Consumers will only take the time to find out about companies after they [...]

Advertising as Self-Expression

I recently received an email from Juliana Stein who is the Communications Manager of Oceana informing me that I could now support the not-for-profit by having Oceana ads on my site. The email had a link to all of the ad options and the code I needed to insert the ad. That started me thinking. [...]

Summary: Building Deep Customer Relationships Online

I thought I would summarize the last four posts in a video. If the volume is too high or low please let me know mm@michaelmyers.biz

Collaboration and the Rise of the Prosumer: The Fourth Level of Online Customer Relationship

In my last several posts I have described at a high-level what kind of online relationships businesses can have with their customers. From your businesses visibility online (findability) to having your product/service recommended to other potential customers (recommendation) to being as honest with your client base (transparency); businesses are figuring out how to utilize the [...]

Transparency: The Third Level of Building Deep Customer Relationships

My last two posts I have covered the first two steps in creating deep customer relationships; findability and recommendation. I would now like to turn my attention to the next step which is transparency. In their groundbreaking work, The Cluetrain Manifesto, Chris Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger proposed that businesses behaving as walled gardens [...]

Recommendation: The Second Step of Building Deep Customer Relationships

In my last post, I talked about the importance of findability in regards to building deep online relationships. I would now like to talk about the next level of relationship that businesses can foster with their client’s; a relationship where customers turn into advocates for the businesses they frequent. Chris Anderson wrote in his ground [...]

Findability: The First Step in Building Deep Customer Relationships

There has been a lot of talk (for a long time) about Web 2.0 and what it means to the online market. The term was first used by O’reilly Media in 2003 and is used to describe a group of technologies that enable online communities. Many in the web industry are sick of the term [...]

CRUCES Defined

The goal of this blog is to help shed light on changes taking place with respect to the online market place. I refer to this as the LivingMarket and define it as the combination of marketing strategies (social media, SEO/SEM & traditional) along branding channels such as IPTV, mobile, web and advertising that appeal to [...]

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