Posts tagged as:

amazon

Google+ vs Facebook, The Old Spice Challenge, and a free marketing ebook

10 links that point to the future of marketing:

Daily Wrap: Scott Berken’s Mindfire Free Until November 3 and more

You can’t beat the price, but act fast. You have about 2 more hours as of this send.

Is It Old?: The easy way to check if that cool web link has already done the rounds

This is fun. Kind of like a Snopes.com for viral content connoisseurs.

Could Google Plus Lose The Battle Against Facebook?

I think the challenge for Google+ has been that it’s very difficult to catch a competitor in a social network by instantly adding complex features when people aren’t already familiar with a simpler version of your tool. Google needs to focus on taking all the info they have on us, giving us good content recommendations, and then making that easier to share — not giving us more complicated ways of segmenting our fans and then sharing our info.

Google+ is not a social network, but it’s not a graveyard, either | VentureBeat

A longish article (by blog standards), but an interesting view of how Google sees the data game differently from Facebook. It makes sense, but I think they still have a big concern around Facebook stealing so much computing time from other sites.

5 Reasons Google+ Could Win the Social Enterprise Battle

An insightful POV on the potential behind Google+. What I like about these advantages is that they’re consumer-centric in that they could go a long way to make my social life both easier and better. Better through making it easier to generate quality content. Early adopters will likely lead the charge on this, and if they find Google+ to give them faster access to better data, then Facebook will have a formidable challenger.

Want to see the connected future? Check out this video. — Broadband News and Analysis

A kind of mini-doc on the future of the Internet of Things, from Ericsson. Part informative, part inspiring, and part reassuring that technology isn’t spiraling out of control.

The Competition Between Google, Amazon, Facebook And Apple : NPR

These four have been popping up a lot in conference discussions. Probably the most spectacular battle going on in corporate America.

You, the Brand. | The Drift from Upstream

A good reminder that while social media has given us the ability to scale our personal branding, the underlying fundamentals haven’t changed.

Deutsche Post Reinvents Services in a Digital World – NYTimes.com

Imagine the post office as a progressive organization able to adapt and, yes, pivot as technology throws it’s business model curveballs. This should be motivation for any brand concerned about changing business models.

How Old Spice Revived a Campaign That No One Wanted to Touch

There’s little more difficult in advertising having to create the follow-up campaign to a runaway hit. This is how Weiden took on that challenge.

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The new new agency, sweet QR code designs, and how hotels are using social media rewards

The latest in new media marketing strategy and tactics:

Building the Agency of Now « Threeminds

Love this voice-of-reason POV on the industry.

The Top 10 Marketing Sites For Social Media Marketing Trends | Fast Company

According to a recent survey by Effie and Mashable, 87% of marketers said social media was “important” or “very important” to achieving their biggest marketing goal this year. So we know social is a key marketing activity for many leading brands. So where are marketers getting their social media information? From this survey, it’s not primarily the traditional advertising publishers, although a few of them did make the list.

Report: Amazon To Use Two-Finger Touchscreen To Keep Table Competitive With The iPad | TechCrunch

The battle to grab market share from Apple, be it from the iPad or iPhone, is going to be an interesting story over the next couple of years, and should offer interesting insights into the power of a brand versus a low price competitor.

Milk Campaign Withdrawn Amid Charges of Sexism – NYTimes.com

Perhaps the most interesting comment is the last line. A seasoned ad exec surprised but the uproar speaks to how much has changed since 2005. That rate of change doesn’t happen in other media platforms.

Judge dismisses Winklevoss case against Facebook – latimes.com

Read the comments on this article. Another example of how the public can be a brand’s best spokesperson.

Sidestepping Apple: From Amazon to Condé Nast, Companies Rethink App Strategies | Wired.com

Even brands as powerful as Apple can only push their will on developers and partners so far. Eventually, they’ll just go somewhere else.

Microsoft Apologizes for Amy Winehouse Tweet

While I can see the protesters points, this is a pretty blurry line. Magazines have always written cover story articles about dead celebrities, and obviously they’re trying to sell magazines. Of all these examples of companies who combined tribute with commerce, the Amazon example is probably the most sincere, and seems to have ruffled the fewest feathers.

15 Creative QR Codes [PICS]

I’m still not convinced QR codes are ready for prime time just yet, but if you’re going to do them, these examples of creative looking QR code designs would be a great start. At least these make me want to use them.

Social Media Platform For Hotels Offers Web Site Visitors Incentives

There’s been a lot of talk of loyalty programs of recent, and the merger between that and social media is obvious. Hospitality businesses are well-suited candidates for this type of program, and this is one of the offerings in the hotel business.

How Blogging Can Get You More Social Fundraisers | Inspiring Generosity

I think this goes way deeper than just non-profits. Blogging can create perceived value and expertise for a brand, even if it’s primarily for search and inbound traffic.

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The future of advertising, Amazon’s making movies, and your phone as your wallet

The latest trends in content development and social media:

The Future of Advertising | Fast Company

This article has already been making the rounds, and to most people in the industry — digital or traditional — it’s probably something they’ve heard before. But it’s a good summary of much of the issues currently happening in the industry.

Amazon starts movie production site Amazon Studios – Yahoo! News

This is a good way for Amazon to dabble in movie production without getting stung. They’re already selling movies online, and given they’re notorious for their data learnings from visitor activity, they’re likely trying to see if they can be the gateway for produced content that they can feature on their site. If they can then get good at predicting what people want (the way Netflix is so fanatical about), then they’ll be in a place to control the entire movie development and distribution system. And that could be worth a lot more than $2.99 a view.

Guitar World Turns iPad Into a Daily Music Teacher: Tech News «

Two weeks ago at AdTech I mentioned in my presentation that I’m curious how publishers are attacking the marketing content development space, as they’ve been doing content for years, and would really seem to know their audience better than most people buying or creating ads to run in their publications. Here again is another example of a publisher doing something that any guitar manufacturer could have done. And they’ve done it very well. This is really more about creating alternate types of content than a marketing campaign, though, and advertisers will probably soon be able to sponsor something like this. Still, for any brand wanting to connect with guitarists, it’s difficult to see why they wouldn’t have benefited greatly from beating Guitar World to the punch on this.

Google Goggles App Brings Users to Ad Features – NYTimes.com

Like Facebook Places, i think here we’re looking at a mobile technology that’s been around for a while, but the ubiquity of having this on everyone’s phone will enable a quicker segue from early adopters to mainstream users. Google has also done a great job with the UX, making this much simpler than any of the QR code scanners I’ve used.

How to Leverage Design, Conversion and Retention in Mobile

As the headline implies, this article covers a lot of territory. Instead of trying to encapsulate it, just read it if you’re at all interested in mobile. One stat that stands out is that most free apps only have a 5% retention rate after 30 days. Also, note the emphasis on consumer feedback and conversation data in the first developers development methodology.

Next Google phone will be mobile wallet: CEO – Yahoo! News

Most people probably don’t think of mobile transactions as a safer way of paying than credit cards. That should be a major incentive for adoption. And Google is once again (it began with search) simplifying the user experience around this. Their payment system is described as ‘tap and pay’. That’s a great description for something people are probably concerned is difficult to use.

Is Facebook now more popular than Google? | Buzz Study

The data mentioned in this article doesn’t do much for me, especially given the unpredictability of sentiment ratings in conversation analysis. But what I find surprising is that Facebook’s new social inbox is the largest single project Facebook has ever produced, and it had only 15 engineers. It’s not only what you do, but how fast and with how few resources (read: budget).

Google CEO: Android Is for Touch, Chrome OS Is for Keyboards

I really like the simplicity of the way Schmidt explains this. It’s marks a clear, simple delineation everyone can understand, from their top developers to the average consumer.

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