Chocolate Blog
Paul highlights the blog behind the phone. This is a terrific example of a PR blog. Like Paul, the transparency here is great. It describes the program and highlights their intent. Love the links etc. Great work by H&K.
The blog is definitely a “blogvertisement” or PR blog (“Prlog“) that uses blog features to promote the phone. What is missing here is community activation (as far as I can tell) – that is, activating the community of early “chocolate phone” adopters by providing them with a platform on which to engage and participate. It also doesn’t link to citizen recommendations on the product.
That said, it’s a great example of what it is and not ashamed to be that. It does highlight – in case anyone was confused – that their is a difference between commercial and marketing blogs and citizen blogs.
Web 2.0 Marketing is, well, different…
In case you were wondering how different, Murdoch sums it up well:
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHAT HAS SURPRISED YOU THE MOST ABOUT THE MYSPACE EXPERIENCE?
Rupert Murdoch: The speed at which it has grown. It has had no marketing. Not a penny has been spent marketing it before or after the purchase, and it just grows faster and faster every week. Now we’re taking it out to other countries.
Thanks to Mark for the pointer. If his story was a few days late, mine is ancient… Oh well…
The point I think is that brands that have communities can establish stunning momentum and marketing efficiency over those that don’t. But all brands have communities. For so many those communities are sleepers or false in nature. (For some of my purchases I just want to buy, for others, I want to join — the vast majority of companies today miss the join bit).
One of the priorities then becomes activating the community – and a big part of that comes from empowering communities with tools and platforms on which they can participate. Activated communities have a low cost of customer acquisition.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Job in Silicon Valley But Didn’t Know Who to Ask
Lots of great tips here from Guy. The key one for me is admit your mistakes. It’s tough moving through an interview – if you don’t answer a question well, don’t hesitate to take another swing at it. Some others:
- Get on Linked-In. So many of the folks I know are now recruiting through it.
- Don’t use a goofy email address.
- Be early for the interview. Guy makes this point well. Being late due to traffic means you didn’t plan or you aren’t that interested.
- Show massive enthusiasm.
You’ve Seen the Cover… Now Reality
BusinessWeek’s cover on Web 2.0 zillionaires irked me. Total hype and lousy reporting. All about selling mags on the newsstand, not informed commentary. Seems Kevin Rose is bringing the story back down to earth himself:
“I’m not a multi-millionaire, I’m not a millionaire or even a thousand-aire. … I can’t even afford a couch in my new apartment.”
Another View On Technorati’s Numbers…
Kevin Burton has an alternate view on Technorati’s numbers. He makes some fair points – there is no way that there are 50 million active blogs.
But I don’t agree with Kevin that for a blog to be active post needs to happen every day: “lets be generous and say that a blog has to post at least once per day to be considered active”. Why? I’d be OK with a couple of times a week.
