While seemingly mundane, this is killer for those of us with an already large part of our digital life wrapped up in the Google cloud. Sure there are sites that already do this, but Google has earned my trust for essential info like a flight status:
For the latest information on a flight’s status, simply search for an airline and flight number, and the first result will tell you whether your flight is on time or delayed as well as the estimated departure and arrival times.
Peter Kim has a thought provoking post on a quote from Lester Wunderman:
“We are living in an age of repersonalization and individualization. People, products and services are all seeking an individual identity. Taste, desire, ambition and lifestyle have made shopping once again a form of personal expression. A computer can know and remember as much marketing detail about 200,000,000 consumers as did the owner of a crossroads general store about his handful of customers. It can know an select such personal details as who prefers strong coffee, imported beer, new fashions, bright colors. Who just bought a home, freezer, camera, automobile. Who had a new baby, is overweight, got married, owns a pet, likes romantic novels, serious reading, listens to Bach or the Beatles. New marketing forms which will link these facts to advertising and selling must evolve – where advertising and buying become a single action.”
Spot on.
Crazy thing is that the quote is from November … of 1967. That is real thought shaping.
Peter makes the point that the quote (which helped to spur the direct marketing industry) can be applied just as fittingly to social computing and media today. Perhaps if we all go back and re-read and re-digest (or grok for you Heinlein fans out there) Wunderman’s words, we can spur the evolution of the next form of marketing which is surely ready to birth.
If my daughter ever gets detention for doing something like this, I’ll be the first to take her out for ice cream (or whatever the kids consider cool these days):
Now this is a sad story…if it’s true. According to this alleged school report, one student received a detention for using Firefox—as opposed to IE or Safari, we assume. And while there could be plenty of explanations for why the school would want to control student browsers, we loved the teacher’s write-up of the event:
Today in class [name] had a program launched called Foxfire.exe. I had told [name] to close the program and to resume work but he told me that is was just a different browser and that he was doing his work. I had given him two warnings but he insisted that it was just a “better” browser and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I had then issued his detention.
Absolutely sad.
Wired has the story:
Update: Earlier today we posted a story of the Pennsylvania high-schooler who received detention just for using Firefox in lieu of another Internet browser. Looks like this one was a hoax. Apparently the kid actually got in trouble for mouthing off to a teacher after being asked not to surf the Interwebz when he was supposed to be doing a written assignment in Microsoft Word. The supposed faux detention slip is a forgery the kid made after scanning the original.
Google is making a small tweak to Google Reader that increases its “stickiness” even more and competes directly with popular applications such as the FeedHead app within Facebook:
So, we’ve linked up Reader with Google Talk (also known as chat in Gmail) to make your shared items visible to your friends from Google Talk. Once you’ve logged into Reader and been notified of the change, these friends will be able to see your shared items in the Reader left-hand navigation area under “Friends’ shared items”. We’ve provided an option to clear your shared items in case you don’t want your friends to see what you’ve shared in the past. We’ve also added a Settings page so you can choose which friends you see and invite friends who aren’t yet sharing to try it out.
Google Reader is the most popular web-based feed reader on the market and this sort of viral saring will only increase its foothold as RSS, and feed reading in general, continues to climb the mountain to mainstream acceptance.
This also gives a glimpse of the eventual social features that Google will surely build into GMail, GCal, Google Docs and Reader as they continue to move further into the social web.
Marketers would be wise to mind the meme (or at least The Social).
Here’s a screen shot of the profile creating option within Google Reader:
BTW, you can grab the feed or see my shared items from Google Reader here. Feel free to share yours in the comments here as well!
And here’s more on Google’s social profile options for inviting friends:
MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Handbook is tremendous. I’ve had the handbook for over a month now and haven’t posed a review yet because I’ve taken the time to actually read and ponder all 272 pages. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of such handbooks or “how-to’s” that pertain to marketing, but the Landing Page Handbook is definitely an exception and proved worth the hours of time I put into reading the whole thing.
Here are the specs from the site:
Research Data & Useful Stats — See how your landing page-related stats compare to 3800 of your peers. Useful for pitching upper management for tests and budgets. Step-By-Step Instructions — Practical guidelines for each step of landing page design, including copy, graphics, layout, buttons, typeface, video, audio, and top four types of testing. Plus, “skunk works” tips. Creative Samples & Case Studies — Use as design aids and inspiration for your new landing pages. Includes multivariate test results and real-life marketer’s stories. ( Click for a list of brands featured….) Specific help for — Search marketing (PPC and SEO), business-to-business marketers, ecommerce sites, email marketers, offline advertisers and even bloggers.
Besides the case studies from major brands, the most enlightening part of the handbook had to be chapter 2 (“Landing Page Design, Layout and Copy Fundamentals”). That sounds like it would be just a rehash of tips and tricks, but the chapter lays out a number of insights and examples (and helpful charts) that describes, in detail, a successful landing page strategy for higher conversions. If the handbook had been composed of just chapter 2, I would have been happy with the time investment.
However, all 270+ pages are useful for both online marketing newbies and veterans alike. That’s not an easy balance to find, but MarketingSherpa found the magic for this publication.
You can find out more about the Landing Page Handbook here.
Flickr announces that they have opened up a stats interface for Premium Members.
We’ve introduced a new feature for our pro members: stats!
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you — we’ve launched another of our most often requested features. Yay!
We’ve designed stats on Flickr to give you all sorts of insight into how people arrive at your photos. If you’re a pro member you can activate your stats now.
There’s more information about stats on Flickr in the FAQs and we’ll be happy to answer your questions and take feedback in this Help Topic.
Very cool for metrics junkies!
AdItAll is an interesting entry into the online video creation space. Aimed at more corporate type companies with little time to adequately create, produce and edit a professional style video, AdItAll combines editing tools typically found on user generated video content sites with a marketplace of various available clips:
As an example, I chose a clip geared towards an office environment which took me to an AJAX pop up to see the video, price (most looked to be in the $300 range for a 10-15 second clip) and choice to edit…
The editing screen includes a number of options and allows the potential buyer to experiment with the soundtrack, voice over, individual frames, images, etc. All in all I was quite impressed with the editing options here…
AdItAll isn’t for everyone, but it certainly is an interesting option for companies looking to include a short and professionally produced (and customizable) web clip on their sites. I don’t see many affiliates using this, but I do see the potential for an affiliate network or CPA network to grab a couple of vids for $300 to enhance their affiliate recruitment or site conversion improvement metrics.
What purpose does Twitter serve for online marketers? Can you successfully “market” something on Twitter?
Yes and no.
Yes: you can market yourself, your ideas, your brand and your positions that down the road equate into real world bottom line numbers.
No: marketing products or services directly on Twitter in a pure performance marketing sense is incredibly difficult. I’ve been on Twitter for over a year and have 500+ followers and people that I’m following (which is a fairly substantial number in Twitterland). I’ve not seen anyone successfully sustain the ability to direct market products or services.
Twitter is an amazing tool for networking, sharing info or marketing yourself or your ideas. It requires patience and the realization that not all marketing is constrained by notions of direct results. Sometimes, the best types of performance marketing are the ones that build on organic interest… the type of interest you can generate on Twitter.
My Twitter account is literally exploding. I blame and thank Jeremiah Owyang (check out the comments and get to adding if you’re a fellow Twitter-er).
Breaking news (oh, and Shawn… if the Affiliate Summit thing doesn’t work out, Bush definitely needs someone who can handle the press the way you did):
