Like so many good ideas WAZE was born out of a frustration. Originally an idea that would allow crowdsourcing to improve the GPS maps of Israel (where it still has one of the most complete maps of the country). The producers of the GPS device that was attempting to be improved issued a cease & [...]
August 25, 2010 By
Donuts, Coffee & Porn:A winning customer offering
Dunkin Donuts is currently running a competition on their Facebook business page wall. Upload your picture, add some comments and maybe they will select you to be featured as the Fan of the week. Seems simple enough, perhaps a little too simple, certainly not over imaginative. Unfortunately for them it has backfired quite badly as [...]
August 23, 2010 By
Facebook Places: A Hot Potato for Location
Last week Facebook revealed its new location play, Places. My friend Aaron Strout wrote a good analysis of the service and I joined the discussion in the comments. My initial thoughts were fairly disparaging about Places. It seemed to me that Facebook had jumped in with both feet and missed the mark badly. There is [...]
August 20, 2010 By
Laughter:The Way to your users hearts
Smart Marketing, at least the way I like to describe it is something that makes you look or listen or watch twice (at least). Something that you want to share. Something that juxtaposes the expected messaging about a product or service with a visual or a message that is completely unexpected. Recently a friend forwarded [...]
August 18, 2010 By
Are tech companies lazy or smart?
Early adopters are the people who can make or break an idea. They take the risks on ideas, technology, trends etc. Sometimes they are rewarded by being the first to see results from their adoption, sometimes they are left disappointed because their adoption leads to a deadend. Google Wave was one such platform. Touted as [...]
August 16, 2010 By
No Excuses
Some of you will know that I am in the process of challenging myself to make some serious lifestyle changes right now. I am doing a twelve week fitness challenge. You can read about that on my posterous blog. During this process I am rediscovering some long held but long suppressed beliefs. Mainly that the [...]
August 13, 2010 By
Stop filling the gaps with BS
As a writer words are very important to me. As a marketer even more so. We all know that jargon, acronym’s & obfuscation has become the norm in business these days. Somehow, someone decided that it would make them sound smarter if they used words that were drawn from other fields and make their field [...]
August 11, 2010 By
I Quit!
Ok not me specifically. This week has seen a couple of Social Media stories of people departing their jobs that seem to have captured people’s imagination because of the dramatic or humorous way in which they were done. Most of what I have seen online about these departures plays up the drama and humor without [...]
August 9, 2010 By
How Community Builders benefit Social Media
Amongst the myriad of cliches trotted out in blog posts, presentations and books about Social Media the world the word community seems to be gaining a lot of traction. Companies, consultants and others want to build communities. Social Media manager jobs are being retitled “Community Manager”. This makes me wonder, do communities need managing? Still [...]
