I’ll admit it. I don’t read as many books as I’d like to these days, but I’m able to plow through about one a month. Because of my graduate school experience at USD and my professional interests, the books I choose to read have changed a bit over the past few years – but I’m still interested in variety. Lately, I’ve been reading books on marketing, social media, and technology to keep up with trends, and to help me process what I find daily in my Google Reader. Here are a few of my recent favorites:
Googled: The end of the world as we know it, by Ken Auletta
I’m only about halfway through this one, so I’m still getting to some of the good stuff. Basically, Auletta opens up the hood on one of the most powerful and fascinating companies in the world and the result is an easy, fast read that provides lots of history on how and why Google is such a force in business.
Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business, by Erik Qualman
Again, I’m only part of the way through this one (noticing a trend here?), but it’s clear that this is a great book for marketers and non-marketers alike. Using recent (2010) case studies and relevant examples, Qualman does a great job of explaining why businesses should embrace social media (just in case there are any holdouts left these days). One item that jumped out at me was the subtitle; notice he says “transforms,” as in, it’s constantly changing. Read it now before this is all old news. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a powerful video that was created along with the book.
Of course, I still like a good biography now and then, especially if it involves musicians. Since I’ve seen CSN in concert twice now, I figured I’d give this one a go:
Crosby, Stills, & Nash: The biography, by Dave Zimmer and Henry Diltz
If you like old stories about old rockers, which I do – this one’s for you. Endorsed in the preface by Graham Nash himself, this seems to be a pretty accurate, raw, and real version of the CSN story. Again, only halfway through, so don’t tell me how it ends.
I’ve been a fan of Netflix for quite some time now. I started my first subscription a few years ago and I’ve watched a lot of movies since. I get a lot of junk mail, so I still enjoy seeing that red Netflix envelope when it arrives. I’ve even started streaming movies and TV shows at home since I recently won an iPad at a conference, and to be frank, I’m not that impressed.
First and foremost, the video quality just isn’t very good. I’m sure there are some very technical explanations about streaming high definition content, bandwidth restrictions, and the like – but the bottom line is that the picture quality is lacking. When I pop a DVD in the machine, it works great most of the time. Why can’t I get that on my iPad?
Second, the streaming movie selection is still severely lacking. The Netflix blog says, “The fact is that Netflix members are already watching more TV episodes and movies streamed instantly over the Internet than on DVDs, and we expect that trend to continue.” Really? I find that hard to believe. Only 6 (yes, six) out of the Netlfix Top 100 movies are available for watching instantly (as of Dec 9, 2010). A quick scan of the popular new releases (titles such as The Karate Kid (the new version), Iron Man 2, and Avatar) shows that none of these can be watched on my iPad. Even movies that were previously available for streaming (e.g. Step Brothers) are no longer available.
Finally, and this may be related somewhat to my first point, I’ve experienced a lot of freezing or pauses in the playback while streaming. This might have something to do with the strength of the wireless signal in my house – but it’s still worth mentioning.
All this and a rate hike too? Yup, Netflix announced recently that they’ll be raising my monthly plan by $1. Will that money go toward solving some of the technical issues? We’ll see.
As an aside, I’ve gotten a kick out of the famous Netflix recommendation engine. This might need a little tweaking too. Here’s an example: Netflix recommends the 1966 surf classic The Endless Summer for me, based on my interest in SNL: The Best of Chris Farley. Huh? Yeah, because nothing says summer, surfing and traveling around the world more than Farley trying to keep his pants pulled up and not giggle at David Spade during SNL sketches.
The real question is, why hasn’t Netflix gone social? When I’m on Pandora and logged into Facebook, I can see all my friends who like the same weird songs I do. Why doesn’t Netflix adopt a similar model? Personally, I think they’re missing a huge opportunity.
Netflix, you still have a ways to go. You can start by bringing Step Brothers back to the streaming catalog – along with most other good movies that are still DVD-only options. At the same time, get some engineers to figure out how to stream a better quality product.
So what do you think, dear reader? Am I way off base here?
Think you can’t track social media success? Take a look at this list…
NOTE: If you find this blog post useful please bookmark it. I am planning to include here the latest info on Twitter tools. For some time now, I am doing my best to participate in a Twitter chat dedicated to social media measurement, #smmeasure, as a means of exploring what practitioners do and of discovering new tools. Last Thursday (November 4) the discussion who brought together marketing/communications practitioners, bloggers and representati … Read More
After spending 2.5 days at the Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education organized by the American Marketing Association, I’ve definitely come away with a ton of new ideas, energy, and renewed focus. Below is a quick summary and my top 3 takeaways from the great event.
Attendees included folks from higher education from around the country (and a few I met from other countries). From what I could gather, most of the participants were from the east coast (as shown by the big map displayed at the readMedia booth. Note: the map continued to fill up and most of the biz cards were pinned to the wrong coast).
Credit: Amy Mengel, readMedia
First, my top 3 takeaways from the week:
Measuring your efforts is key. At the symposium I attended in Chigago in 2008, measuring social media efforts was still a bit of a mystery to most people. Some argued it could be done, but few believed it could be done with any accuracy. Obviously, many things have changed and there are more ways to measure than ever. I heard it said best this week: you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Mobile is one of the highest potential segments for higher ed. Read below for some impressive examples of mobile apps on campus.
You’re not alone. I heard lots of people all expressing similar frustrations regarding centralized control of marketing functions, getting faculty buy-in, branding, logo policing, and more. Incremental progress is the way to go. Many of the presenters talked about 2007/2008 as the year they started some of these initiatives – they’re just now presenting results at a conference. Be patient, be realistic.
Ok, so on to my summary of the experiences I had at the conference. Day 1 started with an “interesting” keynote from Marita Wesley, director of creative strategy development for Hallmark Cards. Many people didn’t get her presentation style, as she blew through about 200 slides in a 45 minute talk, often spending no more than 2-3 seconds on a particular slide. Still, I grabbed a few nuggets from her presentation on trends in 2010 and beyond – including a few interesting books to check out.
The breakout sessions that followed were great for me (we had 4 great choices for breakouts, so it was sometimes difficult to prioritized and decide which to visit). First up was a session on mobile apps on campus with Lisa Lapin and Tim Flood from Standford University. The school embraced mobile technology early on, and as a result, they’re pretty far out ahead with their iStanford application (12,000 registered users). Follow the link for a great look at the features of the app.
Rounding out the morning, I sat in on the presentation by Michigan State and their branding company, 160over90. I had a chance to talk with the folks from 160over90 and was really impressed with their work (not to mention the college-themed party they threw on Monday night, complete with foosball tables and a movie reel of college movies like Revenge of the Nerds and Rudy)!
The lunch keynote was Spencer Frasher from Google, who mainly talked about the importance of search in all types of marketing (surprise).
Day 2 of the conference was again very valuable, starting with a presentation by Teri Thompson, VP marketing for Purdue University. Since Teri came from industry, her stories and examples were a bit different from the others we had heard throughout the week – and they were all great.
Tuesday’s lunchtime keynote, Macalester College President Brian Rosenburg, was also very engaging, and quite possibly created the most buzz from those on Twitter. Just take a look at the video and you’ll see what I mean. Over 60,000 hits on a low-budget masterpiece that has inspired some great conversations and press for a college of only 2,000 students. Definitely a social media win!
Tuesday afternoon, Joe Hice from NC State stole the show, again talking about location-based services on campus. Everyone was floored by this one, since they’re light years ahead of most for-profit businesses (at least from what I’ve seen) regarding their adoption of mobile apps and the full integration of mobile in their entire strategy. Well done, NC State!
Tuesday ended with more networking and all those drawings that I never seem to win. You know, drop your business card for a chance at a $100 iTunes gift card – that kind of stuff. This time, I actually won something… big… like a 32G iPad from PlattForm Advertising! I mean, I never even win the $25 bag raffle at Trader Joe’s, so this was a complete surprise. Thanks again, PlattForm!
So, yeah, I actually won two grand prizes. Did I mention the $200 Apple Store gift card I picked up from Zone 5? I actually won by scanning a business card with a QR code – pretty neat idea and had people talking. Now I can actually go buy a few accessories for the new iPad!
Day 3 started with a great presentation by Dave Kissel from Zocalo Group, a “sustainable word of mouth marketing” company. Dave focused on the use of social media and provided stories from outside higher ed to show how the fundamentals are still the same. Finally, we wrapped up the conference with what was more of a conversation between everyone in the room about their best practices, burning questions, and predictions led by Rachel Reuben, Michael Stoner (great blog, by the way, which he used to help create the content of his presentation), and Fritz McDonald.
Some conference attendees wishing they could stay in SD a little longer!
Shout outs are in order to tons of other people I met this week, but the list is pretty long (and so is this blog post). Amy Mengel created a killer Twitter list of AMA attendees who tweeted using the #amahighered hashtag. Some of my favorite tweets came from Michael Perrone, Ray Witkowski, Amy Mengel, Rachel Reuben, Michael Stoner, and so many others! Thanks again to everyone for sharing great ideas and stories. I hope you all enjoyed our fair city and had some time to get out and see the sights. See you in Chicago in 2011!
Facebook made another big announcement yesterday regarding its Facebook Places application. They’re now giving businesses the chance to offer several different types of deals for people who check in using their smartphone. As usual, Mashable did the best job of summarizing the announcement and what it means for consumers and businesses. Read the Facebook blog post to see some interesting comments.
A Fast Company article this morning asked the obvious questions: does this mean the end for Groupon and Foursquare? I asked the same question about Foursquare in my blog post from about a month ago when the popular location-based application went down for several hours over a couple of different days. I argued that no one really cared, despite the amount of press and endless discussion created by the outage.
Photo credit: Tony Avelar/AP
As a consumer, I think there is a great opportunity for businesses to use location-based deals. For some reason, though, I still don’t see many businesses taking advantage of Foursquare deals. Perhaps it’s a lack of familiarity with Foursquare and its capabilities? Maybe they don’t recognize the potential for offering deals? In an effort to educate businesses, Facebook has created a video to help them their own deals.
Regarding the question on Foursquare’s future… I typed “foursquare” into my Google search bar today and the first suggestion was “foursquare down.” Is Google trying to tell us something? Is Foursquare going down?
*Please note that (as I understand it) you must have a hosted WordPress.org site, not the free WordPress.com version to use this, or any, plugins.
1. First, you must find the plugin you’d like to use. I found the “fblikeplugin” to be pretty easy, but to be honest, I didn’t do too much looking around after I saw the recommendation from Search Engine Land’s blog.
2. Next, download the application and save the file (hint: remember where your downloads go – or save it to your desktop). This is a .zip file, but don’t let that scare you – you won’t have to do anything with the actual file except upload into WP.
3. Go to your WP dashboard and click on “Plugins” on the left hand navigation. Click “Add new” and then “upload” along the top.
4. Select the .zip file you downloaded, and then click “Install Now.”
5. You should now have the plugin installed. Go take a look at your site and recent posts to verify. Pretty easy, huh?
One thing I noticed were the defaults put the button both above and below your content. You can edit the default settings and do some minor tweaking of the plugin by clicking on “Settings” and then finding “FBLikeButton” on the left hand navigation.
As far as plugins go, this is one of the easiest I found – and very likely one of the most useful. So do you “like” any of Rock Out Karaoke’s recent blog posts?
I’ve seen a lot of talk over the past couple of days about Foursquare being down and somehow that’s a big problem worthy of several news stories and blog posts. Sure it’s a hot topic, so everyone is jumping onboard – but I propose that if Foursquare went away tomorrow, most people wouldn’t even notice (except the VC’s who funded the $21.4M for the startup).
If you haven’t heard, Foursquare is a location-based application you download to your smartphone that allows you to check in at restaurants, bars, stores and other businesses, sharing that information with your “friends.” Straight from the Foursquare home page: “We’re all about helping you find new ways to explore the city. We’ll help you meet up with your friends and let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people.”
Just to see what it was all about, I downloaded Foursquare several months ago. Since that time, I’ve checked in a modest 62 times to earn a total of 5 “badges”. Foursquare has brought absolutely no value to my life, yet I continue to open the app when I’ve got some downtime at a new restaurant. Perhaps the best function I’ve found on Foursquare is the “see nearby tweets,” where I might find someone talking about something interesting.
My mix of “friends” on Foursquare is pretty diverse – a friend from my hometown back in Texas, a web designer I’ve worked with but never met in person, a local on-air radio personality, and a handful of folks from Twitter I may have met once or twice. I’m not sure they’re too interested in knowing where I’m having lunch.
With the rise in popularity of location-based check in services from Yelp, and more recently, Facebook Places, people have many different options to share their location and activities with their friends. I think Facebook Places actually has the best chance of survival of these types of services, since the personal connections are much deeper and the user base is so much broader.
With approximately 3 million Foursquare users, I wonder how many of those people really noticed a few hours of downtime over the past couple of days? I don’t know anyone in my inner circle who uses the service on a regular basis, and further, I don’t know of any businesses who put much time and effort into Foursquare promotions.
What about you? Did the Foursquare downtime ruin your day or did you even notice?
Googled: The end of the world as we know it, by Ken Auletta
(Not so) Deep Thoughts 