I read two things this morning while, while superficially unrelated, raised the same issue in my warped mind. I’ll share them with you and would love to hear what you think.
The first piece comes courtesy of the 2010 Omniture Online Analytics Benchmark Survey and the second via comScore figures released by the Newspaper National Network and reported by Media Post. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Internet marketing
Guessing = Messing
Filed under Consulting, digital media
Set It Free!
Another late post, I know. It’s this pesky business of trying to do some work. I particularly like it when the work is the stuff I do for free. Yep. I think everyone should have at least one pro-bono account in their roster and I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid on that.
My client is in the process of building and launching a new website. This has been fun – a white sheet of paper, SEO built in from the ground up, lots of open minds (OK, maybe that’s not your idea of fun but I’m digging it). But the real fun is yet to begin since we’re just starting to populate the site with information.
“Where is this all going to come from?”, she wondered on our call. That’s when we talked about a pretty significant paradigm shift she, like most people in digital, was going to have to make.
I told her she had to stop thinking of the site as hers or her organization’s. Instead, realize that it belongs to your community – your users, your members, and those who you want to become part of either of those two groups. We went on to talk about link-building, guest-blogging, and how “viral” doesn’t mean vaccinations.
The important thing here is all businesses have to embrace the Chinese proverb on setting things we love free to see if they return. By opening up your site to the conversations, you don’t lose control – you gain engagement.
Thoughts?
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Filed under Consulting, digital media
Random Thoughts
I know – where I have been all day? In NYC for meetings, thanks. But the train ride gives me a chance to catch up on reading and here are two things which stood out today.
According to the IAB Ad Revenue report, online advertising is up only 11%. The rate of growth is half of last year’s. Despite this, the industry is paralyzed. VC’s won’t fund ad-based business models. I don’t get it other than it’s the usual incredibly high standard to which media businesses have always been held. Anyone know of any other business up that much? Let’s also recognize that with falling CPM‘s that amount of investment bought way more real estate than it did a year ago. I get that a ton of the investment was in search marketing, but that is still a commitment to both advertising and to digital. While I’d still be wary about relying too heavily on a robust ad marketplace to drive my business, as has been the case in other, lesser downturns, a bad year in media is still an OK year elsewhere. Don’t you think Detroit would kill for 11% growth?
Skype coming to iPhones, and eventually to Blackberrys and other WiFi enabled devices is the sound of another walled garden coming down. While Apple has done some things to protect AT&T, eventually you know that those restrictions will ease and the carrier networks will become immaterial in some ways. By the way, I see American Airlines is putting WiFi on more flights but not cell service so we won’t have to delight in the sounds of “oh baby I miss you” at 35,000 feet. Except with the aforementioned Skype on WiFi, well, maybe that isn’t quite true either. Maybe if they block access to Skype somehow but …
The history of media has been that of walled gardens being built and then having the walls knocked down. The broadcasters’ walled system of affiliate distribution was broken by cable. Cable’s walls were broken by the Internet. Walled AOL became web AOL. Carrier nets will go too. Not today, but the cracks are there.
More, less random, thinking tomorrow!
Filed under Consulting, Thinking Aloud
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