so just in case you were under a rock somewhere, a word about this blog's sponsors... they bought Keyhole this past week as well as registered the domain Gbrowser.com leading to speculation of exactly why that is. Since IPO, GOOG (today at 190.64) has more than doubled. Good enough reason to want to work there, right? Yet it's interesting how a weird tall poppy syndrome has developed amongst the seeming faithful as evidenced by support for a very vocal blog about deliberately not attending a (lucrative) job interview there this week. Is Google the next Microsoft?
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Yahoo and Adobe announced a partnership to incorporate Yahoo search into Adobe products.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Thursday, October 28, 2004
CEO blogs
It was expressed in one of the meetings I had to this week that blogging was more about people indulging in verbal diarrhoea about anything and everything rather than necessarily a trusted media resource.
The point of view was chiefly that if you were seen as a technical expert and you wrote this book that was practically the bible in your field of specialty, writing a blog would be a risk or even suicide given that you don’t live up to the expectations everyone already had of your worth as expert in your subject-matter. What more if you were a CEO?
Writing a book is different to being subject-matter expert in an online forum, different to penning an article for a magazine or newspaper commentary, and certainly different avenue of expression to writing opinions on matters-of-interest or expertise for immediate publishing online.
Blogging may be consumer-generated but it is still a form of media, subject to the whims of the participating network. Still, there do exist a set of guidelines for ease of traversing the blogosphere when you already have a brand of some repute.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Vogroll
Oh yeah... blogosphere is abuzz with this one.
A vog manifesto has been written. Vogroll 3.0 beta has been produced further down south. Ask me why I love Melbourne... many reasons... this being one of them.
A vog manifesto has been written. Vogroll 3.0 beta has been produced further down south. Ask me why I love Melbourne... many reasons... this being one of them.
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Blogosphere
whew! what happens when working on the company gets in the way of what Stephen Covey calls "minding the big rocks"? well, a few days go by since the last blog, is what!
Okay... radar-ing the following for recommended reading:
Okay... radar-ing the following for recommended reading:
- Get down and get Taggy - Great starting point for me as am currently looking into cross-site tagging
- The question of paying bloggers to blog (as suggested by Marc Canter) suitably given a once-over by Jason Calanis
- What's in the Secret Sauce? Or try out some recipes from the IT Kitchen
- Lastly, David Temkin gets $5m in B-round funding and (woo-hoo!) Laszlo goes open-source
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Advertising gets personal
I frequent the movie theatre right next to where this enterprising lady has placed her ad. There's a certain upbeat demographic that goes out of their way to visit the Randwick Ritz, reknowned locally for its old-world decor and cheaper than your average commercial movie ticket prices.
I put together a marketing campaign for a local retail chain late last year and explored billboard advertising as part of the mix. For a few thousand each month, depending on the estimated number of eyeballs, you get solid exposure for four weeks in the space of your choice. It is more an awareness exercise rather than a strategy for acquiring new bums on seats for most businesses, as a general rule.
But this lady's personal spin on an advertising medium that's more an ad brief filler rather than the main course just goes to show that if the message stands out enough, you'll get written up about and the money you spent in procuring the advertising in the first place can be justified when enough tongues are set wagging about your offer.
How to set tongues wagging in general? I've re-read Jay Conrad Levinson recently and he still provides the most diverse array of answers to this question that I encourage you to read and pass on.
I put together a marketing campaign for a local retail chain late last year and explored billboard advertising as part of the mix. For a few thousand each month, depending on the estimated number of eyeballs, you get solid exposure for four weeks in the space of your choice. It is more an awareness exercise rather than a strategy for acquiring new bums on seats for most businesses, as a general rule.
But this lady's personal spin on an advertising medium that's more an ad brief filler rather than the main course just goes to show that if the message stands out enough, you'll get written up about and the money you spent in procuring the advertising in the first place can be justified when enough tongues are set wagging about your offer.
How to set tongues wagging in general? I've re-read Jay Conrad Levinson recently and he still provides the most diverse array of answers to this question that I encourage you to read and pass on.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Monday, October 18, 2004
Google Desktop Search
Tried it out for a couple of days... why not? it goes with everything else I use... gmail, blogger, google... It does searches on IE & Outlook & most things XP or Win 2000 but... I am a Mac user after all, eventhough I use an XP notebook to lug around for work.
Most impressed by? Doing a regular Google search and then having the results from my notebook appear in the rankings. Neat. Gotta love this integration feature.
So I uninstalled the little feller today and out pops the screen "please tell us why you uninstalled Google Desktop Search" and I typed in "My allegiance is to Firefox. It doesn't work with it!"
*Sigh* I realize this is beta but hurry up with the modifications, please! You have one eager-beaver beta-user of things mostly Google earnestly blogging you a request!
Most impressed by? Doing a regular Google search and then having the results from my notebook appear in the rankings. Neat. Gotta love this integration feature.
So I uninstalled the little feller today and out pops the screen "please tell us why you uninstalled Google Desktop Search" and I typed in "My allegiance is to Firefox. It doesn't work with it!"
*Sigh* I realize this is beta but hurry up with the modifications, please! You have one eager-beaver beta-user of things mostly Google earnestly blogging you a request!
Sunday, October 17, 2004
The Always On Business
Always On = Broadband
Always On means OnDemand Connectivity
Are you "Always On"? Yet another buzz word in an already buzzed-out medium. I refer you to the 10 Major Trends Emerging in the Internet's First Decade of Public Use.
Always On means OnDemand Connectivity
Are you "Always On"? Yet another buzz word in an already buzzed-out medium. I refer you to the 10 Major Trends Emerging in the Internet's First Decade of Public Use.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Gonzo
"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro'..." HST
I've recently just picked up a copy of Chris Locke's marketing book. Yes, bit late in the day compared to everyone else, but thankfully it was no Cluetrain Manifesto.
Not here to critique the book. I'm musing more on the irreverent style of writing and how, although seeming to say so little and waxing lyrical on points repeated over and over, I was still curious to read on till the end to see if there truly was substance, as in: things I have not already heard about before. To be fair, he wrote it back in 2001. But my point of reference in business is colored by the Sydney experience, remember (I live here, for now)?
Hence, my point to write all this. The market here has glossed over The End of Business As Usual. The internet as a conversational tool is only being taken seriously fairly recently by the PBLs and NewsCorps of this world. Broadcast advertising is here still king!
Most things better-off-obsolete in business here die a slow death... the Gooru brand value proposition I consider euthanasia.
I've recently just picked up a copy of Chris Locke's marketing book. Yes, bit late in the day compared to everyone else, but thankfully it was no Cluetrain Manifesto.
Not here to critique the book. I'm musing more on the irreverent style of writing and how, although seeming to say so little and waxing lyrical on points repeated over and over, I was still curious to read on till the end to see if there truly was substance, as in: things I have not already heard about before. To be fair, he wrote it back in 2001. But my point of reference in business is colored by the Sydney experience, remember (I live here, for now)?
Hence, my point to write all this. The market here has glossed over The End of Business As Usual. The internet as a conversational tool is only being taken seriously fairly recently by the PBLs and NewsCorps of this world. Broadcast advertising is here still king!
Most things better-off-obsolete in business here die a slow death... the Gooru brand value proposition I consider euthanasia.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Brand strategy
So it maybe a post-boom e-marketing primer... but a manifesto's finally been written defining viral / buzz / word-of-mouth marketing.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Communications
The team had a meeting last night about the next steps in our bootstrapping process. The conversation turned to how we're going to get "bums on seats", keep them loyal to the brand, and get them coming back for more. The comment was made that investors can well understand how customers were generated by injecting huge sums of money into a "bells & whistles" marketing campaign, that included a few TV & radio ads, billboards, promotional events, and a good PR stunt that will generate a write-up in the local rag. But what will go straight above their heads is how a site can take advantage of the many-to-many medium that is the Internet and come up with a loyal band of users who keep logging back for more. The discussion then goes to Reed & Metcalf's Law as good enough reason to incorporate our social networks strategy into our current build. But the erstwhile CEO of our hosting partner shakes his head and says he cannot see how grey hairs in corporations & VCs would be convinced that this adds value to what he thought was our core offering. Here I resist pointing out that the last lot of VC funding in the States went to social network sites. Then, again, since the dot com bust, here in Australasia, there has been considerable reluctance in venturing into anything IT-related.
It seems relevant to me, as I muse about this that I come across an article w ritten by Doc Searls back in January of 1996. He included 19 rules, all of which still very much applies today, and for the zednet train-of-thought this evening, two of them stand out:
Rule #12: The purpose of marketing communications is not just to tell & sell but to learn & earn. Every company needs to learn from customers and to earn their interest and loyalty. If they don't, they'll talk to nobody and sell nothing.
What better way to learn about customers than creating online communities that relate to the core values of your brand?
Rule #16 reads: Information isn't data -- it's the communicable form of knowledge. Derived form the verb to form, information literally changes what we know. The goal of a communications strategy therefore is to inform and to become informed. It must work both ways -- an exchange that makes a difference for both parties.
Blogging is the new PR. Weblogs provide a way for customers to respond back. They give feedback and any company wanting to get the message write had better be prepared to listen.
Who has time to blog these days was another question thrown in last night? My answer is who can afford not to have time to blog?
It seems relevant to me, as I muse about this that I come across an article w
Rule #12
What better way to learn about customers than creating online communities that relate to the core values of your brand?
Rule #16 reads: Information isn't data -- it's the communicable form of knowledge. Derived form the verb to form, information literally changes what we know. The goal of a communications strategy therefore is to inform and to become informed. It must work both ways -- an exchange that makes a difference for both parties.
Blogging is the new PR. Weblogs provide a way for customers to respond back. They give feedback and any company wanting to get the message write had better be prepared to listen.
Who has time to blog these days was another question thrown in last night? My answer is who can afford not to have time to blog?
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
This I too believe!
Our brand Gooru gets me excited. Why? 'Coz I believe it is a maverick in this market.
I echo Tom Peters in that "Markets Matter Most" and this side of the Pacific is ripe for the picking. The Australasian market is rife with mediocrity. In technology terms, we are at least two years behind the rest of the world in most things internet.
Tom Peters writes "Everything is up for grabs! Volatility is thy name!" and he urges everyone in business to do exactly as the title of his latest book suggests: Re-Imagine!
This is the cure-all for mediocrity in business. This is the culture our brand Gooru promotes. Our team lives and breathes this belief.
Every Friday, our core executive team made up of techno-savvy contrarians rip apart each and every aspect of the project, driven by the belief that if anything does not stand up to close scrutiny then how well will the market receive the solution presented as an alternative? These meetings promote best-practices and provides a good balance of strategic and tactical to further hone our brand vision of attracting exceptional people and helping them crystallize their passion and purpose.
Whatever shakes the status quo can only make the general population stronger. You either hold on to old, tried-and-tested ways of doing things or you stick your head out to potentially get hit by a pole. Your reflexes get sharpened along the way, and narrowly missing a decapitation does not lessen the beauty of the possibilities you've got glimpses of just by venturing to exchange ideas and seeing what else can be done better out there.
Having worked in business development and as a marketing consultant in this side of the world in the finance, IT&T, media and retail industries, I agree wholeheartedly with Tom Peters that "boring begets boring" and "energy begets energy".
This a point illustrated somewhat in my breakfast meeting this morning. I met with two of my reps at IBM. Meetings with that bunch tend to include some process-oriented conversation shop-talk and it is rare to talk about anything even remotely out-of-the-ordinary. Today, I decided to be more animated than usual, gesticulate with my hands a lot more, flash my eyes and sound really excited about what I had to say. (Of course, I was fresh from an Anthony Robbins "Unleash Your Power Within" four-day weekend but I digress...) All of a sudden, the meeting that was boring didn't seem so boring and a lot more enthusiasm emerged from both IBM-ers. The information exchange flowed a bit better, I got a commitment on three things I have been waiting almost a month to get through the paper mill over there, and by the time the meeting was over, we were all laughing as we made our way back to work.
Perception is everything in the market place and I have the attitude that any situation can be changed into a WIN/WIN when you look hard enough for that.
I echo Tom Peters in that "Markets Matter Most" and this side of the Pacific is ripe for the picking. The Australasian market is rife with mediocrity. In technology terms, we are at least two years behind the rest of the world in most things internet.
Tom Peters writes "Everything is up for grabs! Volatility is thy name!" and he urges everyone in business to do exactly as the title of his latest book suggests: Re-Imagine!
This is the cure-all for mediocrity in business. This is the culture our brand Gooru promotes. Our team lives and breathes this belief.
Every Friday, our core executive team made up of techno-savvy contrarians rip apart each and every aspect of the project, driven by the belief that if anything does not stand up to close scrutiny then how well will the market receive the solution presented as an alternative? These meetings promote best-practices and provides a good balance of strategic and tactical to further hone our brand vision of attracting exceptional people and helping them crystallize their passion and purpose.
Whatever shakes the status quo can only make the general population stronger. You either hold on to old, tried-and-tested ways of doing things or you stick your head out to potentially get hit by a pole. Your reflexes get sharpened along the way, and narrowly missing a decapitation does not lessen the beauty of the possibilities you've got glimpses of just by venturing to exchange ideas and seeing what else can be done better out there.
Having worked in business development and as a marketing consultant in this side of the world in the finance, IT&T, media and retail industries, I agree wholeheartedly with Tom Peters that "boring begets boring" and "energy begets energy".
This a point illustrated somewhat in my breakfast meeting this morning. I met with two of my reps at IBM. Meetings with that bunch tend to include some process-oriented conversation shop-talk and it is rare to talk about anything even remotely out-of-the-ordinary. Today, I decided to be more animated than usual, gesticulate with my hands a lot more, flash my eyes and sound really excited about what I had to say. (Of course, I was fresh from an Anthony Robbins "Unleash Your Power Within" four-day weekend but I digress...) All of a sudden, the meeting that was boring didn't seem so boring and a lot more enthusiasm emerged from both IBM-ers. The information exchange flowed a bit better, I got a commitment on three things I have been waiting almost a month to get through the paper mill over there, and by the time the meeting was over, we were all laughing as we made our way back to work.
Perception is everything in the market place and I have the attitude that any situation can be changed into a WIN/WIN when you look hard enough for that.
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Curiosita
"I want to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."
This is my signature, one I stole from Einstein. It is my favorite quote of all-time: it captures the essence of what I am most passionate about. It embodies the thirst to learn more and, in the process, be more.
This is my signature, one I stole from Einstein. It is my favorite quote of all-time: it captures the essence of what I am most passionate about. It embodies the thirst to learn more and, in the process, be more.
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