Category Archives: Business

Corporate blogs as more than a marketing brochure

Too many corporate marketers see a blog as a marketing brochure to spread the same marketing content in multiple formats. Below are three different areas often overlooked by companies considering blogging as a communications strategy. Recruitment Corporate blogs can be a recruiting tool for both active and passive candidates. Job candidates like to know who they will be working with, on what types of projects, and if the company takes good care of its employees. All of this information is best discovered and trusted from individuals within the company. In a larger company the blogs of individuals can be used…

Example product blog: Scooba Clean

I created a sample product blog to demonstrate how a corporation might engage a potential market in advance of a product launch. I chose iRobot Corporation and their latest product, Scooba the floor washing robot. I created a blog named Scooba Clean to show what a product blog might look like in the six months before the product is released. Corporate marketing teams are often a bit afraid to enter the world of corporate blogging. They read reports of mobs of bloggers attacking CBS or Kryptonite and fear for the lives of their brands in the wild frontier that…

Amazon receives customer reviews patent

Amazon.com received U.S. Patent number 6,963,848 this week for “methods and system of obtaining consumer reviews.” Amazon has the full purchase data for an item and can determine when a user has enough experience to review the product. The patent covers the solicitation of a review and what metrics might be used to determine the right time to solicit a review. The patent was originally filed over five and a half years ago in March 2000 and seems to be focused on better competing with a site such as Epinions.com. Some interesting snippets: The predetermined amount of time may be…

Designing the right customer experience

Bain & Company recently surveyed 362 firms and found that 80 percent believed they provided exceptional customer service while only 8 percent of their customers agreed with the firm’s perceptions. Their findings are summarized in “Tuning In to the Voice of Your Customer” in the October issue of Harvard Management Update. Bain found “the ultimate test of any company’s delivery lies in what customers tell others. The best companies find ways to tune in to customers’ voices every day.” I found the article very in-tune with blogging and customer engagement, promoting not only high profit customers but also high profits…

Increased ad sales through free small business web hosting

Advertising networks are becoming web hosts in an attempt to provide a fulfillment destination for click advertising. Bringing more businesses online provides a destination for online advertisements from small businesses such as plumbers and restaurants creating new destinations for local searches. Microsoft and Yahoo! already offer free hosting for businesses and other advertising dependent businesses such as Google, Amazon, or eBay are likely not far behind. What if every pizzeria in town had a website? Local searches suddenly become more interesting, with multiple pizzerias competing for your next purchase with a text advertisement on large search networks. Yahoo! offers a…

VoIP podcast with Om Malik

I use voice over IP applications such as Skype and Gizmo Project but I don’t follow industry developments in the same detail as Om Malik and his broadband blog. Om and I tried out the podcasting abilities of Gizmo Project tonight with a 19 minute discussion of the current state of voice over IP (VoIP). We talk about some of the industry basics, news of the week, and where the industry as a whole is headed. Click here to download the 8.7 MB MP3 file. Topics covered: Skype vs. Gizmo Project Dialing out to a phone grid Microsoft Windows Live…

Web 2.0 wedding proposal

Dave Garr, a Silicon Valley marketing geek, decided to create a special website to propose to his girlfriend Elizabeth last week. The site parodies eHarmony and uses Web 2.0 engagement synergy technologies such as embedded video and a guide to dating milestones using Google Maps. The couple created a TypePad blog to allow friends and family to follow their wedding and honeymoon planning. I like the use of Google Maps to illustrate date locations and points of personal interest. The engagement process was heavily documented for friends and family who can follow along step-by-step and see pictures and video of…

Sony superball commercial

A few months ago Sony closed down part of San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood to film a commercial with over 250,000 superballs bouncing down the hill. Sony wants to emphasize the richness of color in its televisions, and director Nicolai Fuglsig’s use of bright bouncy balls definitely illustrated that point. The high resolution version of the 60 second commercial is about 18 MB and the crispness is worth the wait. You may also watch the smaller 5 MB video below. I have watched the video at least 5 times already. I recommend downloading the zipped archive of the high…

VeriSign acquires Weblogs.com

Michael Graves of VeriSign announced the acquisition of Weblogs.com this evening. SiliconBeat reports Dave Winer sold the service for $2 million. VeriSign plans to maintain the ping beacon in its current form with additional revenue models and ping extensions beyond the current implementation. VeriSign hints at upsell opportunities for ping submission and retrieval and views the weblogs.com ping beacon as a “competing service.” They plan to overhaul the Weblogs.com infrastructure to achieve higher levels of performance and stability. VeriSign also mentions a future statistics service available at Weblogs.com that will display statistics such as total pings received, processed feeds, and…