Google Wave

On Thursday, Google announced Wave.  While the internet is swirling with figuring out how this will change email and social networking, I would like to point a few things out about this. First and foremost, it appears as if it wont be released until late this year and I have not seen how this will work in other browsers such as Firefox or Opera, since the screen shots were from Chrome.  Don’t get me wrong, I dig Chrome but I like Firefox better right now due to all of my plugins and such.  Second, I have to figure that the adaptation rate to this will be fairly minimal as it appears that there might be a fairly decent size learning curve and most people are adverse to change.  Third, I would love to see a full demo in action on Wave since I am still a bit unclear as to how it will help me be more productive in the long.

All in all however, its a great announcement and I am looking forward to seeing more when they release more news.

Technorati Tags:
firefox, google wave, WAVE, email, email client, gmail, google maps, opera, email client, software, google application, business, web, internet, web communication, collaboration

What does your brand say about you?

When was the last time you asked yourself what your brand says about you?  Have you asked a customer?  Have you asked a prospect?

Often software companies are wrapped up with self promotion and wanting to be that cutting edge companies that they forget to stop and ask those around them how people view them in the marketplace.

Slow down.  Stop.  And converse with those that are willing to tell you what you may or may not want to hear.

Technorati Tags:
branding, marketing, software, software marketing, brand, image, marketplace

Memorial Day

Since I can remember, I have always associated Memorial Day Weekend as either a time to be off school, the start of summer, a day of coming back in the car from somewhere, a bbq with friends or family or something else fun.  While those are fine thoughts and memories,  I have in the recent years began to truly appreciate and comprehend why Memorial Day exists.

I have 1 son who is 7 and its great to see him really start to get “stuff”, which is why this Memorial Day I am going to start a tradition with him to participate in activities centered around the true meaning of Memorial Day.  I want him to understand that men and woman, young and old gave their lives so we can enjoy freedom.  Think about that for a second.  Without the sacrifice of these braves folks the people who invented things like the internet, twitter, blogs, cars, eCommerce, the ability to drive to your local grocery store at 2 am for a jelly donut or a bottle of aspirin may not have been born or had the freedom to create these things.

I want to enjoy my Memorial Day weekend with family and friends, but I also want to give back and pay tribute to our fallen heroes.  Whether you can attend a parade, a memorial or even shake the hand of a current veteran all I ask is that you try. If you can’t do any of these things because of something, then try to sit still and quiet for as little as 10 minutes or longer in complete silence and think about what these folks have done for us as I am sure you will gain something from it.

Have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day everyone..and God Bless America.

Technorati Tags:
memorial day, USA, united states, veteran, army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard, heroes, America

scoopler..the real time search engine

I was recently turned on to scoopler a new real time search engine that apparently is in public beta.  So as any curious person would want to do is go and check it out. I went there did several searches on myself and my current company as I know that I put out tweets and FB updates within the last hour or 2 and nothing came up.  Weak sauce!! I then went out and did a search for Seth Godin and it did pop up stuff on him that happend in the last couple of hours.

I poked around it a bit more and so far I am not that impressed with scoopler. Would love to hear if you tried it.

Technorati Tags:
scoopler, scoopler.com, search engine, real time search engine, search

Top 5 Twitter Annoyances

Here are my top 5 twitter annoyances:

5. Having a professional Twitter account and more than 50% of your tweets or people you are following are personal

4. Having thousands of followers and only 42 updates in 6 months.

3. TwitterPorn

2. Doing 10-15 tweets within a matter of 3 minutes

1. RT someone only to replace their link with a link to your own business site.

I welcome any of yours.

Technorati Tags:
twitter, twitter annoyances, top 5 list, things wrong with twitter, tweet annoyances, twitter annyoances, social media, microblogging, business, twitter for business, twitter spam

WordPress from iPhone

I am testing out the wordpress application from iPhone. Seems to work just fine and it’s smooth.

Might have to blog more now.

Earn Money by shrinking your URLs for Twitter

So I am wondering what people think about this concept.  It’s called adf.ly and if you shorten your urls, the users get shown a quick ad before being taken to your page.  The more people that click, the more money you make.

Check it out and let me know what you think: http://adf.ly/29F

Technorati Tags:
twitter, url shrinker, money, new media, digital marketing, buzz marketing, viral

Why Twitter and Facebook for Business

Great post by Ron McDaniel about the importance of using FB and Twitter for business.

My take is this: I think they are essential if the activity is done right in addition to a solid email acquisition strategy.  To me, nothing is more important than email simply because if you have the person sign up and that is what they want to receive, then you have a captive audience and are more than likely to have their attention.  Social Media is all the rage now, but eventually peoples attention span is going to wane.

I welcome your thoughts.

Technorati Tags:
facebook, twitter, email marketing, email, social media, social media marketing, branding, business, marketing, buzz marketing

Twitter’s Long-Term Viability

Article over at ClickZ about the viability of Twitter.  My thoughts are this…if Twitter is to survive, people must start to learn that it is not about the amount of people you follow, but the realistic ways that you engage with folks via Twitter.  It’s not about pushing product or even in some cases self, but its about establishing long term relationships.

I have formed many great cyber friendships with folks and feel that if done right twitter can and will sustain itself only to those people from whom can make it easy to establish a relationship with.

Technorati Tags:
twitter, twitter spam, social media, social media marketing, viability, digital marketing

Sanity check: The four stages of a typical Twitter user

Blog post over at TechRepublic on the stages of Twitter.  I am at Stage 4.  How about you?

Technorati Tags:
twitter, stages, techrepublic, twitter stages, digital marketing, social media, social media marketing

Must-have features your website is missing

Reid over at iMedia has an article on the must haves for you website. Its a pretty comprehensive list and my only addition would be “real voice”.  Keep it real and don’t talk to folks from a marketing/sales perspective.  Engage with them in a conversation.

Technorati Tags:
website, value statements, resourcces, feed back, communication, website, branding, voice, web development

3 excuses (and rebuttals) for stagnant email programs

Great article over at iMedia about going beyond the basics of email marketing

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, basics of email, preference centers, email data, segmentation

PlayStation phone “could happen”

What? A playstation phone?

What’s next a Prius moped?

Check it out.

Technorati Tags:
software, playstation, phone, new invention, sony, engadget

Will share-to-social work for e-mail marketers?

Great article over at DM News on whether or not share to social is detracting from email marketing’s effectiveness.

My take….no way. Email is email and IMHO will always be needed.

The history of text messaging, the 160 character limit and Tweet messages

Got this from a tweet of Rod Trent: Great little article.

Interesting stuff if you are turning into a twitter nut.

Technorati Tags:
twittter, 160 character, history, social media, social media marketing, text messaging

Facebook Connect Now Live On Digg

Post from TechCrunch.

Guess what…you can now cross post to digg and facebook.

Who is Digg again? 

URL Shortening Holds Promise…and maybe some pitfalls

ost over at Email Responsibly on the use of URL shortening services for social media tracking things.

My take is this..while I agree that there could be pitfalls like a service going out of business which is inherently a risk, I am also at risk for services like Twitter or Facebook being sold to companies who want to take these sites to completely bastardize them for monetary gain.

Nothing ventured is nothing lost….I like taking risks.

Technorati Tags:
social media, url shortening, facebook, twitter, tracking, url tracking, marketing, revenue tracking

White Papers in powerpoint?

Curious as to everyone’s thoughts on producing a white paper in ppt format rather than the traditional word/pdf format?

Let me know your thoughts

Making Web 2.0 Work for Your Enterprise: IT Deployments

Great white paper over at IT Toolbox written by Oracle.

(Note: registration required)

Technorati Tags:
white paper, whitepaper, oracle, web 2.0, enterprise, branding, ittoolbox, IT marketing, software marketing

What kind of data center can you build with $500 million?

Nothing like a little stimulus package thing happening: http://bit.ly/10cG3q

SpringSource acquires Hyperic, takes on IBM and Microsoft – CNET News

Interesting news from CNET: http://bit.ly/qrIOR

7 deadly sins of email marketing

Great post over at iMedia today on the 7 deadly sins of email marketing.

How many are you doing?

Technorati Tags:
email marketing, email, software, marketing, bad email, brading, frequency, spam, unsolicited

Happy Star Wars Day

Apparently today is Star Wars Day according to wikipedia. I need to tell my son this. Anyone have any campaigns centered around this today.

Common mistakes IT marketers must avoid in a tough economy

Another great post from My Educated Guess which talks about 2 mistakes that IT marketers have to avoid in a down economy.

One of the points that they make is having a misaligned ROI program which I agree with to a point. I think one of the things marketers should do upfront with other parts of the business is establish what the success metrics are going to be for a particular campaign and stick to them.  Depending on the sophistication of your CRM system in determining direct or marketing influenced revenue will also have an impact.

I think it goes without saying that as you are laying out your marketing strategy for the year, that you determine the depth and breadth of your marketing campaigns and come to a resolution that lead nurturing is an essential piece of your overall strategy. Sure the sales guys will want to see everything, but that does not mean that you have to give it to them especially if the prospect is only there to gather information.

In tough times, marketers tend to push the panic button because the rest of the business is doing so and then the marketing organization is left to talk people off the edge.

Be smart about your marketing programs, but most of all set realistic expectations and don’t waiver from them.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, software marketing, email marketing, campaign management, campaigns, ROI, ROMI, marketing leads, IT marketing, social media marketing, CRM

Are your emails converting?

Great post over at My Educated Guess about going back to your roots for email marketing in the IT space.  While I was not able to make it to the summit I am quite sure that their breakout session was nothing short of great.

I have recently returned to software marketing after a year absence and can tell you that the past year, I spent at a large Fortune 50 company helping turn around their email program.  I learned a ton and will certainly put into practice all of the neat tips and learning to maximize the email effort at my new company.

Email is not a new thing, but its a thing that needs to be constantly looked at and evolved in your organization.  What was a best practice a year ago is not anymore.  Companies need to go back to fundamentals.

Technorati Tags:
techtarget, email, email marketing, software, IT marketing, software email, best practices