imported from Blogger – Page 13

July 29, 2002

Thought

iVillage is doing the right thing.

Pop Go Those Blasted Pop-Up Ads, iVillage Decrees says the New York Times.

It’s good to see one of the original niche content sites setting a positive trend and formally moving away from pop-up ads:

Now, iVillage, a network of Web sites for women, says it is heeding its readers’ complaints and plans to eliminate most pop-up advertising by Sept. 30 on all its sites.

IVillage said a survey of its readers in March indicated that “92.5 percent of iVillage women found pop-up advertising to be the most frustrating feature of the Web.”

It seems that more and more these days, publishers’ desperation to make an ad dollar is turning them into carney hucksters, using any tactic they can to foist whatever product they have on an unsuspecting public.

Hopefully, other publishers will follow iVillage and we will see the emergence of more contextual, likable advertising online.

July 27, 2002

Thought

Ooh, it’s 1998 again!

I thought I’d taken a ride in the way-back machine when I read this InternetNews article (Miller Launches Branded Calendar)

Here’s a quote:

“Miller Brewing Company is extending its brand to a free online entertainment calendar that it’s hoping will become a central part of consumers’ social outings.

… the Miller Time Network online calendar offers local information on music, bars, clubs, sports, food and movies. The calendar also lets users download local maps, buy tickets for events or send invitations to friends.”

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea — it just seems that the appetite for these funky branded apps has decreased considerably. Hope it works for them so I can brush of my “misheard lyrics” site business plan.

July 25, 2002

Thought

Fascinating article in the New York Times on the increasing elusiveness of privacy in a world that continues to move online.

Here’s a quote:

These days, people are seeing their privacy punctured in intimate ways as their personal, professional and online identities become transparent to one another. Twenty-somethings are going to search engines to check out people they meet at parties. Neighbors are profiling neighbors. Amateur genealogists are researching distant family members. Workers are screening co-workers.

In other words, it is becoming more difficult to keep one’s past hidden, or even to reinvent oneself in the American tradition. “The net result is going to be a return to the village, where everyone knew everyone else,” said David Brin, author of a book called “The Transparent Society” (Perseus, 1998). “The anonymity of urban life will be seen as a temporary and rather weird thing.”

July 19, 2002

Thought

For you “data junkies”, After the Dot-Bomb might be worth a look.

Here is the abstract of the in-depth article that follows:

In the excitement of the “dot-com” rush of the 1990’s, many Web sites were developed that provided information retrieval capabilities poorly or sub-optimally. Suggestions are made for improvements in the design of Web information retrieval in seven areas. Classifications, ontologies, indexing vocabularies, statistical properties of databases (including the Bradford Distribution), and staff indexing support systems are all discussed.
Thought

Is Internet Radio Dying?

Unfortunately it may be. For a look at the whole mess, check out this Knowledge@Wharton article.

July 17, 2002

Thought

This Wired article offers some good advice for getting people to respond to your e-mail requests — don’t cc, but rather send the message to one person.

The problem seems to come from people a) overwhelmed by their inbox and to do lists, and b) a feeling that “someone else will deal with it”.

Once stated this is pretty obvious, but I still receive (and send) messages to groups of associates expecting individual action.

Lesson learned.

July 16, 2002

Thought

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results were announced yesterday.
Thought

Watch you mouth! At least if you want to make sure your e-mails get to the intended recipients.

Strom has an article about the perils of on-the-server spam filtering to the free flow of conversation. Note that they couldn’t even spell out the word “viagra” in full in this article that originally went out by e-mail because the message would likely have been filtered out of many inboxes.

July 14, 2002

Thought

By the way, the entire redesigned site is less than 200K! I know some homepages that are larger than that. Here’s to less.
Thought

I should have been outside enjoying the sunshine today, but inspiration hit and an entirely redesigned website is the result. Enjoy.

January 31, 2002

Thought

Have you Googlewhacked? This News.com article points to a new online sport — “Googlewhacking” — which is the art of finding search terms that give a “1 of 1” result on Google.com.

Here’s one I just did “meatball rangerover”.

January 25, 2002

Thought

This E-Commerce News article called “E-mail Campaigns: From Trash to Cash” is brilliant. AMR Research did an indepth analysis of what is happening in permission-based e-mail marketing and came up with some answers that we’ve been saying all along.

Here are some highlights:

1. “The world of e-mail marketing is constantly changing,” the report said.

2. AMR concluded that the outsourced model is the best choice for at least some, if not all, of a company’s e-mail campaign needs.

3. AMR found that response rates to targeted campaigns are seven to 12 times higher than response rates to mass mailings.

4. Fifty-five percent of respondents reported response rates of 11 percent or more when mailing to in-house lists, while just 26 percent said they had the same level of success with purchased lists.

5. Unfortunately, what works today will be old by next week. The word “free,” for example, used to result in high response rates. Now, unless it is coupled with “shipping,” it is a surefire way to make sure the e-mail gets trashed, according to AMR.

6. “Marketers need to make sure the e-mail systems they choose can not only send both types of messages [HTML and text], but they must also be able to detect what format the recipient is capable of receiving. This functionality is known as sniffing, and it should be a key criterion of your selection process,” AMR said.

(Internet.com did a good article on this study as well. Similar story but some different quotes and stats make it worth a look.)
Thought

November 17th? How did that happen?

Pardon the two month gap in postings. I doubt we’ll get any insights from that time online anytime soon.

Such is life.

We now resume regular transmissions.

November 17, 2001

Thought

Those of you with a technical inclination might be interested in Scott Rosenberg’s discussion of the inside story on Salon’s move to paid content.
Thought

Yes, in fact, I have fallen of the edge of the world.

Or at least that’s what it feels like as I do final preparations for my “Strategic E-mail Marketing” Seminar for the CMA.

I’m doing (at least) three of these over the next six months, but since this is the first one, it is a MAJOR undertaking to pull together everything you need to know about e-mail marketing in one day.

This explains the lack of posts for the last month or so.

October 18, 2001

Thought

Another example of advertising beyond the web is Adbank’s use of P2P networks to distribute ad-laced content. The Globe And Mail did a feature on them back in October, which may still be on their site (they only archive articles for a limited time).
Thought

Instant Messaging may be a new advertising frontier.

A lot of adults are still a little unclear about the value and pervasiveness of Instant Messaging (applications like AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, and MSN Messenger). But ask a teen about IM and you’ll discover that this is an essential part of the Net for them. (For those really not in the know, Instant Messaging or IM allows you to chat with “buddies” via a small application that is always on in the background when you are online.)

An interesting company called ActiveBuddy is getting a lot of press lately for their IM “bots” that allow companies to deliver marketing messages and content via IM. I suggest we keep an eye on ActiveBuddy and the use of new online technologies as ad-bearing vehicles.
Bert Is Evil

The Internet continues to intersect with the “real” world in strange ways.

This article on Wired News explains the strange story of a small group of people with too much time on their hands creating a cult around the idea that Bert from Sesame Street is evil. They built parody sites, photoshopped images of Bert at the JFK assassination, standing behind Hitler, corrupting his poor pal Ernie at a strip club — you get the idea.

Someone decided to put Bert and Osama bin Laden together in a photo. Which is where the story turns bizarre. It turns out that bin Laden sympathizers have downloaded pictures of bin Laden from the Net to create posters to use at protests.

So when the media showed up to take photos of the protests, they captured the “Osama and Bert” images on the real world posters of bin Laden supporters.

What is truly strange is that the “Bert Is Evil” creator has decided that this was too much and he’s closed his site. Of course now others are taking the previously removed content and reposting it. And heated discussion has broken out in this subculture about what should be done.
Thought

The battle to use mass advertising metrics online continues.

Tom Hespos’ ClickZ article about the New York Times offering “session” ad buys rather than impressions is very interesting.

Basically I’m against mapping frequency, reach, GRPs and other mass ad concepts onto the Internet because they were initially created as crude approximations to overcome the lack of exactness that the Internet should provide marketers with. I’d rather see us use DM pricing models for most online advertising.

Still, I do understand that some marketers want to use the Internet as a branding tool and studies have found online ads are in fact an effective way to brand. So the NYT new model of allowing one brand to “own” a session (one unique user travelling through five pages of the NYT site) offers a unique way of measuring the “brand exposure” provided by the site. Since ALL ads the user sees on ALL the pages of a given session belong to one brand, it is hard to see how the user could miss the message.

It’s also good to see that publishers have not given up on innovations that aren’t anti-reader (see previous anti-pop-up ad rants).
Thought

Word of mouth is a powerful tool.

Last week I posted my “Big Red Fez homework” comments on the AIMS Discussion List (see below for BRF details). I included an Amazon.com associate link so that I could track the effectiveness of my recommendation.

Here is how we did in the three days after the posting was published:

1. ADL sent to 3200 AIMS members includes link to Godin book.

2. 49 people clicked on the link (5 people clicked more than once).

3. 21 people bought the book and downloaded it.

4. To date no one has sent me their homework.

That means I had a 1.7% clickthrough, and a 43% buy/browse ratio. Not bad I’d say. I made US$2.02 in referral fees by the way.
Thought

The IAB has published a useful guide to some of the more common industry terms.

You can find it here.

October 14, 2001

“Big Red Fez” Homework

The e-Book version of Seth Godin’s new book “The Big Red Fez” inclines me to give all imho* readers some homework:

1. Buy the Big Red Fez e-Book through Amazon.

You should do this for three reasons: a) to experience online shopping via Amazon.com — some of you STILL haven’t done this, b) to experience an e-Book (yes you can print it out, but use Adobe eReader to understand the e-Book concept), and c) it only costs US$2 (no shipping or customs to worry about).

2. Read the book:

The book provides a screen capture of something that either impressed or irritated Seth on one page, and his analysis on the opposite page. These real world examples are very powerful and many will leave you shaking your head at how any company could be so bone-headed.

3. Think about YOUR site:

Now turn this new found knowledge on your own site. I’m sure if you can look at YOUR site with the same critical and customer focussed eye that Seth would, you’ll find MANY things you could easily improve on your site.

4. Report back:

Tell me what you found wrong on your site, what you did to fix it, and what the results were.

September 28, 2001

Thought

VeriSign may also be a player in authentication services according to this article on CNET.com.
The Tragedy of the Commons

Forbes’ article The Tragedy Of The Commons by Nobel Laureate Daniel McFadden starts out with the simple but articulate explanation of “the tragedy of the commons” that I’ve long looked for, then moves to a sold analysis of how this situation plays out with online content and services, but cops out in the end by not offering a long-term solution.

For those of you not familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons, I take the liberty of copying McFadden’s explanation:

Immigrants to New England in the 17th century formed villages in which they had privately owned homesteads and gardens, but they also set aside community-owned pastures, called commons, where all of the villagers’ livestock could graze. Settlers had an incentive to avoid overuse of their private lands, so they would remain productive in the future. However, this self-interested stewardship of private lands did not extend to the commons. As a result, the commons were overgrazed and degenerated to the point that they were no longer able to support the villagers’ cattle. This failure of private incentives to provide adequate maintenance of public resources is known to economists as “the tragedy of the commons.”

McFadden goes on to discuss various options for how content and service providers are going to get paid enough to induce them to put quality content online. The arguments against the four alternatives he lays out (ads, paid via ISP, paid via monopoly, paid via PBS style organization) are solid. But just when you expect an “aha moment” he copes out with this:

The solutions that resolve the problem of the digital commons are likely to be ingenious ways to collect money from consumers with little noticeable pain, and these should facilitate the operation of the Internet as a market for goods and services. Just don’t expect it to be free.

So, is this a fifth model — user pays via micropayments — that he has not fully analyzed, or is it a hope that someone will come up with a way of making the first four models work? An insightful analysis of the value of micropayment models is much needed to round this out.

And of course, it goes without saying that my access to his article was made possible by the fine people at IBM who had banners all over the pages I read.
Thought

The Sun Microsystem’s backed “Liberty Alliance Project” appears to be an open-source counter proposal to Microsoft’s Passport. I say “appears” because at this point not that much is know about the details of either system from a practical perspective.

This InfoWorld article gives a good overview of the announcement of Liberty by Sun and its partners. It also makes the obvious conclusion that this is still largely vaporware.

While it is still too early to tell what will come of these “universal log-on” services, it is important for us to watch this area develop. The proliferation of log-on schemes and user ID/password combinations is one hindrance to web usability that would be nice to do away with. Authenticated surfing may not please privacy advocates, but it should make content sites happy if they can start offering the bulk of currently free content as “free when authenticated” in the future. A lot of the “1–1 Marketing” hyperbole comes closer to reality when you can recognize people and their associated profiles on each visit. If Passport and/or Liberty succeed, I predict that we won’t see ANY content sites that offer more than headlines without authentication.

September 26, 2001

Thought

It’s always good to get straight forward tips on keeping the user front and centre in all business thinking.

IBM’s developerWorks has a good article on how to respond to usability complaints called

The cranky user: What’s with the attitude? If you have to deal with feedback on your site, this is worth a review. (I’m tempted to see how Peter “Cranky User” Seebach would respond to some harsh words about this article, but I couldn’t think of much to complain about!)
Thought

It is understandable that people will grab at any solution to a complex problem, but sometimes we create unintended results in our race for quick fixes.

Case in point is the current move to limit personal freedoms, particularly on the Internet. Talk of Carnivore and Echelon — once considered urban legends — is now common and often positive. New legislation looks at enhancing the amount of information officials can collect without warrants and talk of national “identity” cards is being raised in the US and Great Britain.

Add to this biometric surveillance and you have the makings of a very dangerous loss of freedom of movement — online and off.

September 25, 2001

After September 11, 2001

It’s time to resume regular programming.

My last post was made on September 11th at 9:14 am. It’s been hard to find a context that makes my usual commentary relevant since then. But I’m ready now. Hopefully, you are as well.

While I chose to respond to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US with silence, others in the weblog community turned weblogging into a vital source of voices outside the mainstream media.

This CNET article provides some insights into the use of Weblogs since September 11 as did Wired News.

In the days that followed the attacks, I used the following quote to sign off on my e-mail correspondence.

“History is merely a list of surprises.
It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.”

– Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

September 11, 2001

Sometimes Marketers Get Carried Away

Sometimes marketers get carried away and forget why they are doing what they are doing.

Take for example the E-mail Sign Up Page you get at KraftCanada.com after clicking on the “Recipes by E-Mail” link.

My guess is that someone at Kraft thought that e-mailing recipes full of Kraft products would be a good way to increase use in the kind of consumers that care enough about Kraft to visit there web site. Then someone else suggested make the page “interactive” by collecting information on my particular interests and the kind of Kraft products I use.

Probably the next person to look at the page said something like “why don’t we make this the core of our integrated offline/online CRM initiative.” At that point they added a lot of demographic and geographic questions.

So now when a consumer clicks to get recipes by e-mail, they have to answer over 30 questions on their household and shopping habits. To make matters worse, the form requires that you tell them if you have kids at home, what your age is, whether you are female or male, and (sin of sins) what your street address is!

So, instead of making consumers value them and their products for the many new ideas they email each week, Kraft probably alienates 90% of the people who attempt to sign up. A wasted opportunity.

Compare this to the P&G run S Mag sign-up (you need to click on the “subscribe” link near the top).
Thought

It’s time to look at the big picture for e-commerce, not just the profitability of e-business divisions.

This editorial called “The Bottom Line on E-Commerce” in Interactive Week makes two good points about Bricks and Clicks e-commerce.

1. E-Commerce is starting to become profitable for those doing it right. Examples include 1–800-Flowers.com, Ameritrade, eBay, Expedia, Homestore.com, Monster.com, Northwest Airlines, Office Depot, Priceline.com, Register.com, Travelocity.com and United Parcel Service.

2. Profits from online ventures may not be the best way of looking at online success for Brick and Click retailers since e-commerce also has positive and in many cases measurable impact on offline sales and service costs.