Building a Corporate Blogging Strategy

The Business Development Institute is hosting an event on Tuesday, May 3 in New York, where senior executives from Fortune 500 companies as well as sales, marketing and PR execs will discuss how to build a corporate blogging strategy and how businesses across the board can leverage blogs to drive new revenue, increase market share and gain critical brand exposure.

There's a live webcast of the event, and they're interviewing Robert Scoble.

Online Behavior: Who Decides?!?

Behavioral marketing is something we've been hearing a lot about for awhile (also discussed widely at the recent Ad:Tech conference). Targeting people based on their online habits isn't new though - its just getting more and more savvy.

I find adware so offensive though....most of the time - no, all of the time. (there's a great discription of adware and spyware here).
Spam on my screen. Spam in my box. Noise everywhere. Go away.

But the argument is that the consumer wins since we don't have to pay for so-called compelling content surrounding the neon flashing lights. You know, the flashing zippy banners that makes it impossible to actually read the content.

If marketers are trying to come up with successful and less offensive strategies for winning over the consumer (or mining information on their customers), then figure out a more personalized way to reach us with things we truly care about -- without the flashing neon pop-up ads, banners and offers upon every click. It's sad if this is really working. (meaning people are actually okay with it in their daily lives).

The "other" book recommendations from Amazon.com they refer to is a great idea - well it works for me.

It's not offensive (you have to scroll down to view your choices rather than it hitting you in the face, so me, the consumer decides when and how I want to view it). 50% of the time, I opt in to another book or DVD choice, even if its not for me, "its something I can use as a gift." Isn't that what they want you to be thinking? Funny how that works.

Opt in isn't new either, but why is that I feel like I have less opt in choices than I did three years ago? They quote Claria in the article, formerly known as Gator. (formerly is right - they had to change their name because they offended so many people). --not to be confused with aggregator NewsGator.

So now, cookies are still legal. And I have no say. DoNotCall is apparently working but after submitting two phones numbers, I'm still getting hammered, so I still have no say and no control.

It's invasive and obnoxious and someone else decides for me how my time is spent (answering calls from people I don't want to talk to, running spyware programs, deleting spam, viruses and garbage on a regular basis).

Google & Craigs List

Google and Craigs List Real Estate -- where on earth was this service a few months ago when I really needed it?

This cool tool allows people to find a house by looking at a map, meaning that the location of the house or flat is overlaid onto a map within Google's mapping service. It shows up visually as a pushpin whereby if you zone in, you can verify price and often a photo of the property.

What CEOs Really Want From Marketing

The next SVMA (Silicon Valley Marketing Association) meeting will discuss What CEO’s Really Want from Marketing.

It will be at Techmart in Santa Clara on May 11, 2005 at 6 pm. Speakers include Mark Schar of Intuit, Jeff Pulver, Client Glenn Reid of Five Across and CEO of Shutterfly Jeff Housenbold.

Google Search Could Lead To Attack

Any idea how much I use Google on a daily basis? With news like this, it makes you think twice about the habits you develop.

ARRRRRGH!!! Says eWeek, a simple misspelling of Google's domain name could lead to a Web surfer's worst nightmare - meaning potential virus attacks, spyware, and trojans. For example, when someone types googkle.com in a browser, pop up windows immediately redirect you to a third-party site, which may download a script.....ouch, enter computer attack.

Bloglines Beyond RSS & Blogs

Bloglines announces a move that brings them beyond the world of RSS and blogs. This is the "feature enhancement noise" since the Ask Jeeves acquisition. Cool application - Bloglines is offering the ability to track packages shipped through UPS, Fedex and the U.S. Postal Service.

Canadian Idol Wins with Blogs

Ron Miller wrote a fabulous piece about client iUpload and customer Canadian Idol," Canada's counterpart to "American Idol," in the latest issue of eWeek.

iUpload's platform is using blogs to give viewers a venue to voice their thoughts and ideas about the show. Canadian Idol is toying with the idea of encouraging people who like to watch the show to get together and take pictures, and then post their pictures to the "Canadian Idol blog," with the best picture winning a prize.

They loved the flexibility of it and the fact that their brand could be ported over to the iUpload platform so easily....everyone blogs to one place which only enhances the Canadian Idol brand.

RSS Ad Networks

Om Malik sits there wondering if Feedster is going to become an RSS Ad Network ala Adsense for RSS before either Yahoo or Google get there. The world is changing and quickly....Google is now adding Ads to RSS. Seems like its going to be a race for now.....

AD:TECH on RSS and More......

AD:TECH, the event for interactive marketing is in San Francisco this week. Adrants writes about a few of their sessions, including two on RSS led by Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.

Other panelists included Royal Farros, CEO of Messagecast; Chris Henger, VP Marketing and Product Development for Performics; and Catherine Paschkewitz, Director of Consumer Marketing for hpshopping.com.

They focused on the use of RSS to distribute opt in information, such as, coupons, specials, special events, news, to customers. And apparently, all the panelists agreed setting up and publishing a blog is the easiest method of producing an RSS feed.

Advertising was also part of this. Pheedo's Bill Flitter was joined by Feedster's Scott Rafer and Syndicate IO's Stuart Watson. I'm sorry I missed this session.....According to Adrants, "Bill showed how an RSS served text ad campaign lowered by an impressive 50 percent, the CPA for Citrix. Flitter explained while graphic ads can certainly be served via RSS, the non-standard nature of the many RSS newsreaders on the market make the their delivery difficult to gauge and Rafer impressed upon marketers to think of the RSS channel as a subscription channel offering self-selecting, opt-in benefits for both consumer and marketer."

There were other sessions I found interesting, including one on Market Segment Insights, where they discussed demographic, psychographic and behavioral make up of Gen Y, Gen X, Baby Boomers and Seniors.

There was a special discussion on the evolution of contextual advertising on Google and how it can help you reach the right audience to achieve additional marketing objectives. They also talked about how best to maximize your Google AdWords campaign.

It was great to catch up with a few East Coast industry friends and new local ones at the evening cocktail schmooze at the Metreon in San Francisco's SOMO, an event filled with a lot of Sony and Electronics Arts people.

The Dark Lord of the Empire's Blog

This CNET post is hilarious on Darth Vader, the dark lord of the Empire, who now has a blog.

"It can be challenging to maintain your dignity as a dark tyrannical overlord when the circuitry in your left leg constantly misfires, threatening to send you off on a mad pirouette without notice," he writes in one post. "It requires a serious effort of will to maintain my poise, the tendrils of my connection to the Force reaching deep into space to feel out my distant quarry and at the same time wrapped around the mechanisms of my own body to keep them working."