No More Subscriptions!
Call me crazy but I decided my one new years resolution would be no more subscriptions to services or magazines.
Not a week goes by without someone asking me to "Join" of "Beta" the next better, faster, sleeker service. None ever seem to integrate. The mantra seems to be "upgrade" – read: "leave your existing service, come to mine". So, no more subscriptions for a year…
Which means, not subscribing to Google’s new hosted domain service. Interesting idea but I am not sure what value it really adds over the already pretty sleek offering from Network Solutions.
Subscription creep = complexity.
The Blog In The Corporate Machine
The Economist (subscription
required) speaks to the fact that while bloggers can be vicious, but they
can also help companies avert disaster. What is interesting is the number of measurement companies they point to – Biz360 also offers good services in this
area.
The spread of
“social media” across the internet—such as online discussion groups, e-mailing
lists and blogs—has brought forth a new breed of brand assassin, who can
materialise from nowhere and savage a firm’s reputation. Often the assault is
warranted; sometimes it is not. But accuracy is not necessarily the issue. One
of the main reasons that executives find bloggers so very challenging is
because, unlike other “stakeholders”, they rarely belong to well-organised
groups. That makes them harder to identify, appease and control.
Steve is quoted. There is alot of
focus right now on issues tracking as it relates to blogs. This is a critical
activity for any communications team and will drive all kinds of new revenue
streams for the measurement companies. What is equally important is the need for
a focus on measurement of the effectiveness and reach of social
networking/media/communications – whether it is happening to you, or you are
driving it in the market.
Are You Generation C? Are we masters of the Youniverse….?
… or are you a HEDI? Entertaining read…
GENERATION C
Aka Masters of the Youniverse. The C stands for content, but it may as well stand for control freak. Rarely satisfied with their lot, this tribe (mostly male, mostly 25-40) “create their own content”. It’s also C for conceited, as they all think they’re hot enough to write a novel, make an iMovie, be a garage-band star, become a citizen journalist (blogger). In fact, they’re the personification of gravanity (graffiti meets vanity) – the arrogant desire to make your mark in the public domain. Some fancy themselves as minipreneurs and indulge in eBay trading. Others settle for insperience – bringing luxury experiences into their homes via cineplexes, boom-boom rooms and spa-ties.
Olympics Blogs…
With the Olympics a day or so away, take a look at these two blogs. Both are excellent implementations from different directions.
The first, Visa’s Journey to Torino blog engages Visa Olympians in the run-up. Rather than purely a branding event, Visa is showing the depth of its work and relationship with the athletes.The other, Coke’s, is from the perspective of people attending the games. It’s great to see blogs being used by such large marketers as an integral part of their communications efforts.
Southwest also made it’s first forray into the blogosphere today – their “Adopt A Pilot” blog supports a great community effort they have underway in which pilots engage actively with students in classrooms. It shows lots of promise.
disclosure: The Lark Group provided counsel to Southwest on this blog at its early stages and we work closely with RD2 – a terrific brand and design agency based in Dallas. And, per my previous posts, The Lark Group worked closely with Visa and their agency, Fleishman-Hillard on The Journey blog.
State Of The Blogsphere
David gives a great update on the momentum in the Blogsphere… This says it all:
We track over 75,000 new weblogs created every day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every second of every day – and 13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created. In other words, even though there’s a reasonable amount of tire-kicking going on, blogging is growing as a habitual activity.
In October of 2005, when Technorati was only tracking 19 million blogs, about 10.4 million bloggers were still posting 3 months after the creation of their blogs.
