After “reading” the latest Diesel Magazine I can see why the print business has been suffering. It’s not just a series of pictures and descriptions, it’s interactive, has a pretty cool soundtrack, funky dance moves and creative cinematography. Based on a dance scene from the movie Bande à Part (1964), the clothing line is modeled by the dancers. At any point you can scroll over the video and open blurbs about the products and models onscreen. To me, seeing models moving in the outfits is more persuasive than when I flip through a magazine and can only see one still image that was selected out of hundreds and then photoshoped, in a pose reserved for models in magazines.
Will online magazines be replacing print? I believe that day is close at hand, as the internet reaches more phones and the technology to simulate the experience of a magazine improves there should be little reason for companies to pay the costs of printing. Also there are so many opportunities to mix together different forms of advertising. As the debut music video for Josep Xorto’s single A Hundred Lovers, people have even more reason to watch. Advertisers can take advantage of adspace in new ways, and all pages have the opportunity to be interactive, engaging readers on many levels.
I never thought I’d see the day where I created a Twitter account, Facebook has everything, right? Still, Twitter has 105,779,710 registered users so I signed up and began exploring. Favorite finds have been the Tower Bridge in London which tweets about passing boats and Ivy Bean, a 104 year old lady who has over 55,000 followers.
My first week with Twitter just happened to coincide with some major events in Twitter history. The Library of Congress announced appropriately through a tweet on Wednesday that all tweets since 2006 are going into the archives. While the details of how much user specific information will be released are unclear, the research possibilities are tremendous.
Like the LOC, Google is updating its real-time search to include all tweets since 2006 and will also include posts from MySpace, Facebook and Buzz. This is useful for looking at the impact of an event over time, natural disasters, politics, news reports can all be viewed as a timeline, spiking as word spread and then slowly tapering. Using a feature like this to see how effective and lasting your ad campaign was could help marketers better target audiences and see what is being said about them.
Other changes are expected as a result of the two day Chirp conference going on now in San Francisco. Chirp is the first official Twitter conference as their blog announced
…we plan to host a collaborative day for developers and enthusiasts who want to spend time coding alongside Twitter engineers, talking in depth with Twitter employees, meeting with investors, and in general talking shop.
At Chirp they unveiled their first step towards turning their 180 million unique visitors per month into profit. Called Promoted Tweets, companies can pay to appear at the top of search results, and already interest has sparked in over a dozen companies from Amazon to YouTube.
On Friday Twitter announced they has acquired Tweetie which will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and made available for free in the iTunes app store. They also acquired Loren Brichter, the creator of Tweetie, and hope to eventually launch Twitter for iPad with his help. While Twitter may have saved money in development, the 37% of active Twitter users tweeting mobily were the exception according to CEO Ev Williams
Careful analysis of the Twitter user experience in the iTunes AppStore revealed massive room for improvement. People are looking for an app from Twitter, and they’re not finding one. So, they get confused and give up. It’s important that we optimize for user benefit and create an awesome experience.
All this consolidates into more accurate search results on Twitter, the ability to Tweet no matter where I am, and the knowledge that my tweets are recorded in the largest search engine and library in the world. Oh joy.
The latest technology, the iPad, is thought by some to be a toy. Mervis Diamond Importers is offering a diamond encrusted iPad for $19,999 and treating the iPad the way a teenage girl treats her cell phone; as something to bedazzle. With Chitika labs estimating 752,586 have been sold (today at 10:33am) there’s an incredible opportunity for buyers and advertisers alike. As Ian Schafer reports after his first 36 hours with the iPad:
This is not a content-creation device or at least that is not the iPad’s primary purpose. You can get some of that done, but primarily, this is a content-consumption device. That means it is not a laptop replacement for many of you. But are you surprised? This is an additional device. It’s not as much a game-changer as it is a game-inventor.
Most apps currently available were designed without the iPad to run tests on. You won’t believe it when you see apps like Pacific Defense in action.
Incorporating augmented reality in an inventive way, it takes full advantage of the iPads screen size and light weight design. The future looks bright for the iPad and competitors and advertisers alike are racing to grab their slice of the pie, or should that be the pad?
The reality for most small businesses is that quality SEO service is usually outside of their budget range. We’re often approached by customers who aren’t sure what to expect to pay for an SEO campaign. Many think that SEO, PPC, and social networking are simply add-ons to their existing website. Unfortunately, we have to turn down a number of prospective clients who do not have the budget to properly execute an effective SEO campaign.
Yesterday, Techcrunch announced the launch of DIYSEO.com, a low-cost SEO solution for small businesses.
The product is primarily targeted towards small businesses who have little resources to put towards the web, including real estate agents, small car dealers, restaurants, lawyers and part-time entrepreneurs. Offered at $49 a month, the program first has the users fill out a questionnaire, answering questions about the nature of their businesses, who their major competitors are, and more. From these answers, DIYSEO will recommend keywords, where to add links on the web, and other search engine optimization techniques. Users can choose basic strategies or more in-depth SEO services.
The site is geared towards small business owners who have no knowledge of SEO best practices, Meta tags, anchor text, or link building. The tools they provide have drop dead simple instructions so even the most novice website publisher can optimize their site themselves.
The site essentially provides what we teach in our consulting sessions, a detailed explanation of the SEO tactics we use, as well as tutorial on best practices and a link building strategy. The site also provides a way to track your progress as you complete each SEO task.
All of this sounds great. Any SEO is better than no SEO. But can this service really deliver? The most important part of SEO, link building, takes time and diligence to be executed properly. If you’re operating in a market that has significant competition, how will you outrank other sites that are optimized just as well as yours? In a year or two the market will become flooded with services like DIYSEO, and when that happens, those services will become less and less relevant as everyone will have completed basic optimization techniques. As much as this sounds like a good idea, I’m skeptical this type of service will have any significant impact for businesses that really need it.
There are many forms of advertising available to producers, and debate over which is the most effective has yet to be resolved with hard evidence. However, some larger companies are turning to meaningful marketing where the consumer experiences the brand as something that improves their life. As Seinn Schlidt explained,
“Companies that practice meaningful marketing are twice as likely to deliver sustained success and four times less likely to require significant price discounting.”
Benefitting the consumer is harder than it sounds because the direct brand promotion and declaration of superiority is eliminated.
Pepsi is reaching out to the Hispanic market with an initiative called “Yo Sumo” roughly translated as “I count.” Hispanics can post their stories on the pepsiyosumo.com website sharing their experiences. Pepsi partnered with Eva Longoria Parker, who will direct and produce the documentary, to bring the stories to life in a creative and compelling film. The biggest debate revolves around the translation of yo sumo. Blogger Lauramartinezruiz complained
“”Yo sumo” should be translated as I count. I count should be “Yo cuento”. Yo sumo is: “I add up” (I add up 1 plus 1, etc.)”
It is unfortunate because the rest of the campaign was appealing.
As part of Coca-Colas Open Happiness campaign, a video was made of a special vending machine called the Happiness Machine distributing free cokes, pizzas, and a 12 foot long sub. It went viral and topped a million views in merely 13 days. As Ravi Sawhney blogged, they’d tapped into “that everyday life magic of the emotional connection that bonds people with your brand.”
