about internet marketing

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an Internet marketing firm. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing. Download her newest e-book, “Content is Queen: How Article & Blog Writing Will Increase Your Sales.“

Companies love positive feedback. They share it on Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter, post it on their website and use it as marketing fodder. But what about when feedback is, well, less than pleasant? What can you do with a handful (or more) of irate customers? Do you ignore them? Bury them out back? Not in today’s social atmosphere.

Rather than try to sweep these unhappy customers under the rug, look at them as a challenge and an opportunity to improve your brand and leverage them for some publicity.

Why You Want Angry Customers

Well, maybe you don’t want angry customers, but let’s be honest — you’ll never have 100 percent customer satisfaction. No one does. So use those unhappy customers to better understand what you’re doing wrong, and learn from the experience. And while you’re at it, turn the angry customers into brand evangelists.

There are several ways to connect with unhappy customers in a meaningful way:

• Hold a panel or forum in person; give them a tour of your facility and hold a venting session
• Work virtually; host an online panel to get feedback from them
• Work one-on-one to understand their concerns and address them individually

In-Person Events

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Dell recently held its first Customer Advisory Panel event at their headquarters in Round Rock, TX. They invited two groups of 15 bloggers and social media gurus. One group was full of people who had negative experiences with the company and who were vocal about their displeasure. The second group was made up of people that Dell considered brand evangelists; people who loved Dell and told others.

The attendees started the morning with their gripes; customer service issues came up again and again. The heads of customer service and marketing were present and actively engaged. As they listened, they took notes, then asked questions and they promised they would make changes.

That type of customer empowerment is important. Now, whether they’ll go through with the promised changes is another story, but it was clear that Dell understood it was time to start paying attention to the public’s perception of its brand, and make some changes to keep their customers.

Nestlé is another company that has been successful at holding an event to let people engage with its brand directly. After a resurgence in interest in the Nestle Boycott a few years ago, Nestlé decided to invite a group of bloggers to what it called its “Happy, Healthy Gathering” in 2009. Mommy bloggers, who’d been tweeting up a storm about the company’s stance on breastfeeding in third world countries, were invited to tour the facilities and give their input on the company.

Whether the event truly changed perceptions remains to be seen, but it did a great deal to show that Nestlé was putting in the effort to reach its audience.

Disclosure: I was one of the bloggers invited to participate Dell’s Customer Advisory Panel.

Virtual Panels

Virtual panels are decidedly less effective than in-person ones. But they can be good replacements for focus groups. Pssst is General Mills’ online testing ground for new products. The company sends participants coupons and free products to try, and in return they are asked to fill out surveys. The program is so successful that bloggers who write about saving money are gladly turning others onto joining Pssst.

Similarly, the Starbucks Passion Panel was designed to get customer feedback — for better or worse. The community of Starbucks drinkers gives their input via surveys and forums.

Passion Panel member Jennifer Boyd said, “Being on the Passion Panel means that I have access to direct input and discussion with other members. It enables me to give my opinion on Starbucks’ current and future products through surveys. The panel is a great way to engage with their loyal customers and solidifies a relationship with a consumer to a brand.”

Wal-Mart’s Elevenmoms platform is another example of how a mix of online community, shopper experience and in-person visits can work together to help the company gather new insights. John Andrews, former Senior Manager of Emerging Media for Wal-Mart and founder of the Elevenmoms, said the community succeeded in getting Wal-Mart’s attention in a few areas where it was lacking.

When the iPhone was launched in Wal-Mart stores, the Elevenmoms were invited to go through the purchase process. Some had no problems, but others did. It took one blogger two hours to buy a phone. Each blogger published her experience, and Wal-Mart took the feedback to its operations staff, who took notes and improved the purchase process.

“The Elevenmoms used direct social media interaction to improve the shopping process,” said Andrews.

Other feedback caused Wal-Mart to reconsider its layaway strategy. Having canceled the layaway plan due to costs, Wal-Mart got some flack from the Elevenmoms, who felt it made it easier to make big purchases. As a result, Wal-Mart developed its Site to Store platform, which provided the benefit of layaway online, so that local stores didn’t incur extra costs.

Disclosure: John Andrews now works with Collective Bias, a company with which I have collaborated on projects.

One-on-One

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Solving a customer’s problems and changing their perception individually is the least cost-effective method, but a little work goes a long way. And it starts with customer service personnel being properly trained to solve problems, and not to simply stick to “the script” at all costs. Look at Zappos or Disney for great examples of how service reps are empowered to solve problems.

Disney empowers each of its “cast members” (staff) to solve a guest’s problem. From the street sweeper to the reservation specialist, everyone has the ability to turn a negative situation into a good one. That might mean replacing a fallen ice cream cone, upgrading a guest’s hotel room, or simply answering politely the most commonly asked question on Disney property: what time is the three o’clock parade?

Disney is so good at customer service, they’ve opened the Disney Institute, a customer service training program helps other corporations use the same techniques that has made Disney such a success.

Likewise, Zappos is also famous for its customer service tactics. The reps don’t use scripts, and seem to genuinely care about solving problems. Many customers are pleasantly surprised when their shipping gets upgraded and they get their shoes even faster – at no additional charge.

By providing instant happiness to the customer, these brands can prevent a lot of the bad karma that comes down the road when an unhappy customer becomes an enraged customer who tells everyone he knows about how bad the company is (no one wants their own version of DellHell).

Conclusion

No matter how you interact with unhappy customers, the point is not to brush them off, and make sure you learn from it. Don’t just pretend to listen and then go on doing business as usual. Take the feedback as constructive criticism that can help you determine your company’s future. How you handle your failures could make you or break you.

More Business Resources from Mashable

- HOW TO: Evaluate Your Social Media Plan/> - Why Your Next Business Card May Be Virtual/> - HOW TO: Improve B2B Sales Productivity with Social Media/> - HOW TO: Use Social Media for Lead Generation/> - HOW TO: Use QR Codes for Small Business Marketing

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Viacom v Internet: round one to Internet

Cory Doctorow at 10:02 PM Wednesday, Jun 23, 2010

Google's won the first round of the enormous lawsuit Viacom brought against it. Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion for not having copyright lawyers inspect all the videos that get uploaded to YouTube before they're made live (they're also asking that Google eliminate private videos because these movies -- often of personal moments in YouTubers' lives -- can't be inspected by Viacom's copyright enforcers).

The lawsuit has been a circus. Filings in the case reveal that Viacom paid dozens of marketing companies to clandestinely upload its videos to YouTube (sometimes "roughing them up" to make them look like pirate-chic leaks). Viacom uploaded so much of its content to YouTube that it actually lost track of which videos were "really" pirated, and which ones it had put there, and sent legal threats to Google over videos it had placed itself.

Other filings reveal profanity-laced email exchanges between different Viacom execs debating who will get to run YouTube when Viacom destroys it with lawsuits, and execs who express their desire to sue YouTube because they can't afford to buy the company and can't replicate its success on their own.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that YouTube was protected from liability for copyright infringement by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA has a "safe harbor" provision that exempts service providers from copyright liability if they expeditiously remove material on notice that it is infringing. Viacom's unique interpretation of this statute held that online service providers should review all material before it went live. If they're right, you can kiss every message-board, Twitter-feed, photo-hosting service, and blogging platform goodbye -- even if it was worth someone's time to pay a lawyer $500/hour to look at Twitter and approve tweets before they went live, there just aren't enough lawyers in the universe to scratch the surface of these surfaces. For example, YouTube alone gets over 29 hours' worth of video per minute.

Viacom has vowed to appeal.

In dismissing the lawsuit before a trial, Stanton noted that Viacom had spent several months accumulating about 100,000 videos violating its copyright and then sent a mass takedown notice on Feb. 2, 2007. By the next business day, Stanton said, YouTube had removed virtually all of them.

Stanton said there's no dispute that "when YouTube was given the (takedown) notices, it removed the material."

Calling Stanton's reasoning "fundamentally flawed," Viacom said it was looking forward to challenging the decision in appeals court.

Judge sides with Google in $1B Viacom lawsuit
(Thanks, Mike P!)

(Image: Viacom, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (2.0) image from mag3737's photostream -- used with permission)

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And yet, The Hollywood Reporter finds the movie market gurus slightly embarrassed at what they call the “family stampede.” Family films have well outpaced pre-release projections repeatedly since May, and the studio bosses are puzzled over why these movies “outperform” their guesses. "The simplest answer is that the tracking doesn't include the young kids themselves," Disney distribution boss Chuck Viane said.

"It's just harder to get a handle on what kids are thinking," another brilliant marketer guessed. "Tracking surveys are based on what people express in phone and Internet surveys, and you're not going to find the young kids that way." Pre-release tracking surveys focus on parents. "The nag factor is what drives those kind of movies," a studio executive tartly declared. "The parents might be less inclined than the kids to see a picture, but then the kids pester the parents, and the rest is history."

So why don’t the studio bosses start factoring in the possibility of a “nag factor” from young children, wanting to go to the movies with parents who demand quality for their children, and make some movies accordingly? No million-dollar marketing exec has thought of that yet?

"There can be a disconnect in tracking sometimes about how far a picture will reach across all audiences," said Sony distribution president Rory Bruer, whose gone-to-China remake of "The Karate Kid" debuted last month with a much-better-than expected $55.7 million. "There's no doubt that word-of-mouth is important in that aspect." Maybe the studio underestimated the affinity of parents for the first version of the film, released back in 1984. It's well on its way to grossing $200 million.

Sometimes, pre-tracking surveys are wrong the other way, overestimating turnout. Last fall, pre-release surveys suggested the Michael Jackson tribute film “This Is It” could ring up “$40 million or more” on its first weekend. The actual figure was a lot less: $23 million.

“Despicable Me” is a great example of the “out-performed expectations” story line. The Universal cartoon with the inept bald-headed villain who learns to love and parent three young girls grossed $56.4 million in its opening weekend, although the “experts” expected a much lower $30 to $35 million weekend.

"People think it was a whole host of things contributing to the big opening," one executive told the Hollywood Reporter. "You had some fresh-looking characters, funny trailers and a huge boost from running those trailers with other hit family films over the past several weeks." Surveys had suggested “tepid” interest from consumers.

Anyone watching NBC or Universal's cable channels were subjected to repeated on-screen promos during their favorite shows. NBC also ran a 30-minute “behind the scenes” infomercial on the opening night of the film, since Friday night TV in the summertime isn't a hot spot for advertisers.

Only one R-rated movie has grossed over $100 million this year, the Leonardo di Caprio horror flick “Shutter Island.” It has just been squeezed out of the top ten by “Despicable Me.” Three movies have grossed over $300 million to top the 2010 list: “Toy Story 3” (a daring G), “Alice in Wonderland” (PG), and “Iron Man 2” (PG-13). Three more movies have grossed over $200 million: “Twilight: The Eclipse Saga” (PG-13) and the family cartoons “Shrek Forever After” (PG) and “How to Train Your Dragon” (PG).

Why can’t greedy Hollywood just look at the math and put their money where the American public’s eyes want to go?

Here’s what should follow: more respect from the movie awards shows for these animated films. “Toy Story 3" drew rave reviews across the board. The St. Petersburg Times said it “isn't merely the best movie of the summer -- even with summer just kicking in -- but an immediate candidate for best of the year.” Don’t bet the mortgage.

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Old Spice’s marketing gimmick—a macho guy played with a wink by Isaiah Mustafa—has reached a crescendo on TV and the Web. Tricia Romano on the evolution of black male sex symbols.

From the moment the Old Spice commercial featuring Isaiah Mustafa aired in February America swooned. Who, we wanted to know, was this dashing, tall, dark and handsome figure with impossible abs, a gleaming smile, and a twinkle in his eyes? (Oh, yes, and riding on a horse. One mustn't forget the horse).

Mustafa quickly became a household face—if not name—as the original commercial eventually racked up 13 million views on YouTube.

He's hot enough to make celebrity lesbian Ellen DeGeneres giggle like a school girl when he visited her set, causing her to beg him to recite his Old Spice lines.

Old Spice Guy Hangs Up His Towel

And this week, on the heels of its second installment in the series (featuring Mustafa swan diving into a jacuzzi and landing on a motorcycle), the company invited people to ask questions of "Old Spice Man" on Twitter which Mustafa answered in 30-second clips on YouTube. The result was an instant viral success—the Old Spice YouTube channel was ranked No. 1 on the website. (At least one person wasn’t impressed: Sockington the cat—who has resisted using his popularity for commercial purposes—threw up his paw: “HELLO @OLDSPICE much interest at your viral marketing campaign at sockington hq/litterbox I AM A CAT WITH 68 TIMES MORE FOLLOWERS discuss.”

Sockington’s dissent aside, the success of the Old Spice commercials hinges not only on the clever, almost absurdist imagery and writing, but on Mustafa and his inherent sex appeal.

The Root argued this week in an essay called, "Why The Old Spice Guy Is Good For Black America" that "the success of the Old Spice Guy ... might actually be a sign that being a black man in America is getting slightly easier." Cord Jefferson points out that not so long ago, the black man's role in advertising was as a scary figure to contrast against the white so-called gentlemen; or more recently, as a subservient figure.

I'll go one further than Jefferson: The Old Spice Guy isn't just good for Black America, Mustafa's place in the pop culture pantheon is good for all of America.

As Farai Chideya, former NPR journalist and host of forthcoming radio show, Pop and Politics Radio, explained to me, "You have certain black actors who could sell things, but they usually did them in these nonsexual ways, like Bill Cosby and Jello. Then you had people who were sexual like Billy Dee Williams, who pitched a brand for a black audience," she said. "This is something new where it's for a mainstream, general mixed-race audience."

Caption: Mustafa filmed video responses to some of his lucky Twitter followers, including actress Alyssa Milano.

The choice of a black man as the desired sex object for a national advertising spot aimed at mainstream America, which is to say white America, is particularly perfect right now. It's hard to say whether Mustafa and Old Spice would have paired up 10 or 20 years ago, unless he was a famous star athlete like O.J. Simpson. One could argue that having a handsome black president has softened a lot of people’s ideas of what’s attractive and sexy—Obama’s shaky polls notwithstanding.

Interestingly, Old Spice had another black spokesman before Mustafa: Terry Crews. The hyperactive ad series featured the ex-NFL linebacker topless and yelling in an intense (and funny) way. Chideya says of Crews: "He's not as handsome as Isaiah, but he's also really funny in a way that's more within the black vernacular." Of Mustafa, she says, "This guy is no doubt black, but he's someone who is the modern, urbane, living-in-a-post-racial-Fort Greene kind of a guy."

While Obama braves the fast-moving political tide (we love him, we are irritated and disappointed with him, we loathe him, we love him again), here is this other stunningly handsome, funny black man on our TV, transcending color lines, with—it should be noted—a Muslim name.

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By Tess Alps: Why is TV-dissing such a big part of internet orthodoxy? Clay Shirky has been out promoting his new book, Cognitive Surplus, which states that internet activity is displacing TV among the young and that this is a good thing. There have been newspaper reviews like this and yesterday he was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme.

To be fair to Shirky, he doesn’t say that all TV is “bad”, but he believes that being online is better – connecting, creating, sharing. I would have to be a philistine not to recognise the many positive benefits that the internet has brought us, and I share Shirky’s idealistic hope that it will promote democracy, knowledge, peace, love etc.

My problems with his book are three-fold: I dispute some of his facts, some of the distinctions that he draws and some of the science that he employs.

Facts first: is TV viewing declininTo be fair to Shirky, he doesn’t say that all TV is “bad”, but he believes that being online is better – connecting, creating, sharing. I would have to be a philistine not to recognise the many positive benefits that the internet has brought us, and I share Shirky’s idealistic hope that it will promote democracy, knowledge, peace, love etc.

My problems with his book are three-fold: I dispute some of his facts, some of the distinctions that he draws and some of the science that he employs.g for the first time ever among the young? Not in the UK or Europe, and TV catch-up services online are extra. TV viewing is booming in developing markets. Anyone who has watched the World Cup coverage will have been moved to see young African children joyfully watching their first TV football match.

Secondly, to position the internet as an alternative to TV is meaningless – and I don’t say that lightly, because Clay Shirky is clearly a very intelligent person. The internet is a vast and transformational technology, but it is not a homogenous medium.

Many human activities that once took place offline can now be conducted online, including watching TV. A growing percentage of young people’s time online is spent watching TV and video – and then talking about it, as a quick glance at Twitter will prove. Sadly, there is about a 1:99 ratio between people who create things online and those who just consume them, much as in the real world; and TV inspires online creativity.

Finally, a bit of science. The word “passive” is often used to denigrate TV viewing. There might be less physical movement than twitching with a mouse but the brain is deeply engaged watching TV. The brain is a complex organism; the very title of Shirky’s book indicates he overvalues rational and cognitive processes over emotional intelligence and education; action over feelings.

We have just finished some neuroscientific research looking at the difference in the brain activity between watching TV and browsing websites (largely text based) and the differences are marked. TV is much stronger in areas such as emotion and long-term memory encoding and web browsing is stronger for visual attention. So they are different – but complementary.

Watching TV is a mostly shared experience; the real-life conversations within families that TV provokes are enormously valuable. Entertaining people and promoting happiness is a noble pursuit; TV is the master. But we should also recognise TV’s vast role as an informer, educator and promoter of democracy every bit as important as the internet.

Most of the time, the ease that the internet brings to human endeavour is brilliant, but I can think of areas where it has casualised and arguably cheapened some things. What’s the exchange rate between an online click on a petition and a Jarrow marcher? Birthday wishes on Facebook take a mere two seconds.

I could reverse what Shirky does and make unfair comparisons between the best of TV and the worst of the internet: is it better to watch Survival and Dispatches or to play to World of Warcraft and poke a friend? But I’d rather value both these massive cultural treasures for all the good they can do, separately and together.

Tess Alps is chief executive of Thinkbox, the marketing body for UK commercial TV

By Tess Alps: Why is TV-dissing such a big part of internet orthodoxy? Clay Shirky has been out promoting his new book, Cognitive Surplus, which states that internet activity is displacing TV among the young and that this is a good thing. There have been newspaper reviews like this and yesterday he was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme.

To be fair to Shirky, he doesn’t say that all TV is “bad”, but he believes that being online is better – connecting, creating, sharing. I would have to be a philistine not to recognise the many positive benefits that the internet has brought us, and I share Shirky’s idealistic hope that it will promote democracy, knowledge, peace, love etc.

My problems with his book are three-fold: I dispute some of his facts, some of the distinctions that he draws and some of the science that he employs.

Facts first: is TV viewing declininTo be fair to Shirky, he doesn’t say that all TV is “bad”, but he believes that being online is better – connecting, creating, sharing. I would have to be a philistine not to recognise the many positive benefits that the internet has brought us, and I share Shirky’s idealistic hope that it will promote democracy, knowledge, peace, love etc.

My problems with his book are three-fold: I dispute some of his facts, some of the distinctions that he draws and some of the science that he employs.g for the first time ever among the young? Not in the UK or Europe, and TV catch-up services online are extra. TV viewing is booming in developing markets. Anyone who has watched the World Cup coverage will have been moved to see young African children joyfully watching their first TV football match.

Secondly, to position the internet as an alternative to TV is meaningless – and I don’t say that lightly, because Clay Shirky is clearly a very intelligent person. The internet is a vast and transformational technology, but it is not a homogenous medium.

Many human activities that once took place offline can now be conducted online, including watching TV. A growing percentage of young people’s time online is spent watching TV and video – and then talking about it, as a quick glance at Twitter will prove. Sadly, there is about a 1:99 ratio between people who create things online and those who just consume them, much as in the real world; and TV inspires online creativity.

Finally, a bit of science. The word “passive” is often used to denigrate TV viewing. There might be less physical movement than twitching with a mouse but the brain is deeply engaged watching TV. The brain is a complex organism; the very title of Shirky’s book indicates he overvalues rational and cognitive processes over emotional intelligence and education; action over feelings.

We have just finished some neuroscientific research looking at the difference in the brain activity between watching TV and browsing websites (largely text based) and the differences are marked. TV is much stronger in areas such as emotion and long-term memory encoding and web browsing is stronger for visual attention. So they are different – but complementary.

Watching TV is a mostly shared experience; the real-life conversations within families that TV provokes are enormously valuable. Entertaining people and promoting happiness is a noble pursuit; TV is the master. But we should also recognise TV’s vast role as an informer, educator and promoter of democracy every bit as important as the internet.

Most of the time, the ease that the internet brings to human endeavour is brilliant, but I can think of areas where it has casualised and arguably cheapened some things. What’s the exchange rate between an online click on a petition and a Jarrow marcher? Birthday wishes on Facebook take a mere two seconds.

I could reverse what Shirky does and make unfair comparisons between the best of TV and the worst of the internet: is it better to watch Survival and Dispatches or to play to World of Warcraft and poke a friend? But I’d rather value both these massive cultural treasures for all the good they can do, separately and together.

Tess Alps is chief executive of Thinkbox, the marketing body for UK commercial TV

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There’s a reason Prince made it onto Time’s 100 Most Influential Celebrities list.  His musical legacy is easily apparent, and his opinions are still making headlines.  Recently, the purple-clad eccentric has endured great scorn for his statement, “The Internet’s completely over.”  Just so you know he’s serious, Prince has banned his music from YouTube and iTunes, shut down his own website, and announced his newest album 20TEN will only be distributed as a free CD inside the British paper the Daily Mirror (much to the chagrin of my wife and sis-in-law, huge fans).

After blasting online music distributors, Prince calls the technology itself a fad that’s on the way out:  “The Internet’s like MTV.  At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.”  Obviously, he’s out of touch; MTV was a diversion, not a tool that expanded the potential accomplishments of virtually every business and individual in the world.   Nor were millions of people physically addicted to MTV and its content.

 Though his statement is demonstrably false, there’s something to the sentiment behind it.  I’ve rarely bought mp3s online that I could buy on a physical format for two reasons:  first, lower sound quality (to bring the file sizes down, they remove frequencies and decrease the audio’s resolution), and I prefer the limitation of having to choose and listen to one CD at a time.  Just browsing through a collection of mp3s ripped from the same CDs, I appall myself, getting so easily bored and skipping through music that I find exhilarating when I commit to it.  Despite an age difference of three decades, Prince and I find solidarity in this anachronism.

But aside from personal taste, the problem with online mp3s is that the music industry has long been plagued by piracy– much more than TV or film due to smaller file sizes.  Despite the option of cheap, convenient, buffet-style digital music stores, pirates are still ubiquitous, and they cost record labels serious money.

For those conservatives not familiar with the concept of receiving a good or service without paying for it, online piracy is the unholy union of the West’s appalling entitlement mentality, anti-corporate zealotry, and a warped sense of economic progress.  For the uninitiated, here is a list of what I’ve dubbed the Six Levels of Piracy:

Level 1:   Listening to burned CDs from friends (technically illegal, but akin to the virtuous Before Christ residents of Dante’s Inferno)

Level 2:  Downloading mp3s from music blogs which host songs without permission from artists

Level 3:  Paying for a Rapidshare Premium account but not paying for music

Level 4:  Downloading torrents

Level 5:  Leaking content onto torrent sites

Level 6:  Openly promoting piracy

What online pirates (generally anti-corporation leftists) fail to realize is that music distribution, like any business, has costs that need to be made up when selling its product:  payroll for songwriters, artists, producers, and recording engineers who actually make the music; manufacturing, packaging, and shipping CDs; promotion, marketing, and expensive ads called music videos; plus administrative and legal costs and taxes (most labels are international and have to pay European VAT taxes).  Then, retailers buy the music and have to sell it at a higher price to cover their own costs and make a profit (profit is how these people stay in business and make sure we can still have music in the future).

Artists such as 9 Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor have fueled pirates’ costless fantasy world, lamenting,

“Wait – you sell for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it? Who the f**k made that rule? Oh! The record labels made it because artists are dumb and they’ll sign anything.”  

In response, let’s think up a little analogy that progressives like Mr. Reznor can understand.  If the benevolent feds charge NASA with building a new shuttle that will collect tons of pure gold on a distant planet, the astronaut who pilots the shuttle will not receive the majority of the gold.  Congress funded the building of the ship. They authorized the mission. They took the financial risk, so they will reap the majority of the financial reward. The astronaut will still get copious amounts of money; it’s just that most will be from the speaking tour after the mission. 

Regardless, Reznor and fellow ‘90s sensations Radiohead have tried a novel idea—allowing customers to set their own price for albums. In 2007, Radiohead released a self-produced album, In Rainbows, and before it hit stores, anyone could log onto their website and type in how much they would pay for the twelve tracks.  I’ll admit that I paid nothing, mostly because I find Radiohead disgustingly overrated.  The band hasn’t released any sales figures for the experiment, but they’ve said they won’t do it again. 

For bands such as Radiohead, their established fan base (which exists largely because of the evil music industry corporations) can potentially make this donation-based distribution work.  It may also work for smaller indie bands that have low production costs.  But for developing artists trying to go national, a small core of rabid, paying fans likely won’t be able to cover the costs of ambitious, professional recordings, so I doubt that many will adopt In Rainbows’ strategy.  Sites with free song streaming plus ads, such as Grooveshark.com, show potential also, but between the Wall Street Journal, Hulu, and (allegedly) MySpace deciding to adopt subscription-based services for online content, this business model might only yield the results of Keynesianism in time.

Therefore, what Prince says may be true to a point.  Digital distribution of music could end up a bust; that may be the reason that sales of vinyl records are on the rise.  It’s certainly a much more credible assertion than Radiohead’s Thom Yorke predicting that the entire music industry will collapse within “months” (he gets a pass from the press, cuz he’s a courageous crusader against climate change).  Regardless, it’s good to see such a bizarre, entertaining character—read the whole interview; you’ll thank me—retain some semblance of free thought instead of slipping into leftist orthodoxy after so many years in the music business.

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Hacker <b>News</b> Daily

At the same time, there are a lot of very interesting articles on Hacker News. Several times recently I've read a fascinating article elsewhere and submitted it to Hacker News, only to find that it had already been on Hacker News ...

New Harry Potter supports Kinect Xbox 360 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our Xbox 360 news of New Harry Potter supports Kinect.

Sony unveils NEX-VG10 E-mount HD camcorder: Digital Photography Review

Sony unveils NEX-VG10 E-mount HD camcorder: Two months after announcing its development, Sony has launched the NEX-VG10E - an E-mount camcorder that becomes the worlds' first consumer-grade HD camcorder with interchangeable lenses.

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Please join us at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco on September 27-29 2010.

It started as an experiment in New York this past May. We sensed a fundamental shift taking place with technology and media—a shift in platforms, applications, revenue models and consumer behavior—and we wanted to talk about it. Appropriately, we found an old Merrill-Lynch office building and took it over for three days to test a new event format, TechCrunch Disrupt. We had 3 objectives: (1) gather the best minds to debate what’s changing now and what to do about it; (2) showcase the hottest new startups we could find and (3) have fun and meet a ton of new people.

The response was more than we could have hoped for. Charlie Rose opened the show. Mayor Bloomberg stopped by for a surprise visit. Carol Bartz even made me blush (sort of). Twenty five new startups launched on stage. Over 100 other startups demo’ed their services in the wings. 1,700 tech enthusiasts showed up—rivaling our biggest events to date in San Francisco.

So we’re going to keep blowing it out, and we hope you’ll join us for TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, September 27-29 at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse. The main agenda will run 9 am – 6 pm, but save your evenings for after-parties and lots more networking fun.

Disrupt SF will explore the Third Wave, a phrase coined by John Doerr in his interview with Charlie Rose. If the First Wave was the PC, and the Second Wave was the Internet, now the Third Wave is a combination of the social and mobile layers accelerating everything on the Internet once again from geo apps and tablet computing to social commerce.

Disrupt SF will also feature our new startup competition, the Startup Battlefield, where approximately 25 new startups will participate in a tournament-style launch competition to demonstrate their technology, business and marketing disruptions. One lucky company will take home the grand prize Disrupt Cup trophy (passed on from last May’s winners, Soluto) and a $50,000 check, and others will receive special awards and accolades.

So let the disruption begin. Startup applications are open today, hosted by Producteev, through midnight PST, August 8. We review applications on a rolling basis, so please apply as soon as you are ready for consideration. You can read all the fine print for rules and eligibility here. Just remember our motto: Create, Destroy, Repeat.

The Disrupt SF list of speakers and agenda will be announced on over the coming months, but grab our extra early bird tickets asap (best prices through July 31 via Eventbrite.)

The Real Results series is supported by Gist, an online service that helps you build stronger relationships. By connecting your inbox to the web, you get business-critical information about key people and companies. See how it works here.

Over the past two years, real estate professionals have found creative ways to overcome the real estate crisis, including finding innovative uses for social media. After facing drops in home sales well into 2010, real estate pros have been forced to utilize their offline skills in an increasingly social way online. By using photo and video sharing to enhance listings, along with professional networking sites to hone their sales skills, real estate veterans have made strides in moving inventory in tough times.

Agents, brokers and realtors have found successes in lead generation, sales and brand building through use of mass audience social platforms, including Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter, Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook, YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube, Flickrclass="blippr-nobr">Flickr, Meetup, and LinkedInclass="blippr-nobr">LinkedIn, as well as real estate specific platforms, like Trulia, Zillow, WellcomeMat and Architizer.

Whether they are sharing videos, listings or advice with their communities and prospective buyers or sellers, real estate pros are making progress in using social media for real results.

Attracting Buyers and Sellers

The core goal of real estate pros utilizing social media is to attract sellers looking to list their homes or buyers looking to purchase homes. Naturally, the 1.0 version of social media for real estate is setting up pages on social networks that fit your company’s content and audience.

Corcoran Group, the largest residential real estate firm in New York City, is a fitting example of how real estate agencies are going above and beyond to make themselves available for buyers and sellers. Corcoran differentiates itself by simply being available and open. The “Do More” tab on their Facebook page says it all — you can find them on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Foursquareclass="blippr-nobr">Foursquare, and Gowallaclass="blippr-nobr">Gowalla, among other sites. And if you need more, you can download their iPhone app, where you can find nearby homes for sale or rent and open houses. The app also promotes their Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages. If you dig a little deeper, you can also find Corcoran on Tumblrclass="blippr-nobr">Tumblr, Blip.tv and Vimeoclass="blippr-nobr">Vimeo. Simply put, Corcoran has found a way to be everywhere for its clients. This is the first step to converting fans and followers into buyers and sellers.

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A few weeks ago Ken Fisher wrote a popular blog post about how ad blocking software can have devastating effects to the websites that you frequently visit. Mr. Fischer describes how ad blocking software is responsible for showing false page view data to ad networks. As a result each ad is priced at a lower rate because the number of impressions are significantly smaller. The number of page views is an extremely important metric for websites that sell advertising based on a CPM price model. So it’s only understandable that Mr. Fischer and other online publishers will hold a grudge against ad blocking software.

While I can understand Mr. Fischer’s frustration I cannot sympathize. To be completely honest I use ad blocking software every day. In fact on at least one occasion add blocking software has been responsible for a pretty embarrassing moment. So you’re probably asking yourself why does someone who feels so strongly about marketing block advertisements? It’s simple really, I hate ads.

What? You hate ads? How can you write for Marketing Pilgrim and hate ads? In my opinion marketing is fundamentally organizing people around information. Interrupting people with abrupt irrelevant commands isn’t how you organize people around information. Instead speaking to them on a unique and authentic level is more effective and genuine.

Putting philosophy aside, in my opinion ads are the worst way to monetize content. Generally speaking an increase in on-page advertisements contributes to a degraded user experience. Which can lead to lower user retention levels and decreased page views. Online advertisements are also ripe with fraud and manipulation. Historically click through rates have been at around 2% for most online advertisements. All of these factors and more contribute to the extremely low return on investment.

Online ads add to a decreasing user experience by taking attention away from the site’s primary content and placing it on the ads. This is not the actions of rogue spammers, this is the fundamental method to making any substantial revenue from ads. An excellent example of this in action, is taking a look at Google’s own recommendations for ad placement in the Adsense program. Here we see Google advises users to place ads on every available white-space on the page. This is a huge contradiction for a company that was so widely praised for starting with such a clean user interface.

Most ad platforms have large potential for fraud and manipulation. This is is an issue that not many professionals in IM discuss publicly because, quite honestly, whether they are participating in the fraud or not they still stand to profit off of ad manipulation. To a great extent Google and some of the other larger ad networks have gone to great lengths to minimize the impact of this type of fraud. However, any potential for fraud creates an uneasy market place where advertisers and publishers are continually left wondering if they are being taken advantage of. Google doesn’t help matters by keeping the exact specifics of their pricing model a secret from both advertisers and publishers. What’s even more devastating about these fraud schemes is that they can manipulate entire ad markets not just the individual ads they are targeting.

We reported back in January that the average click through rate for Google Adwords is around 2%. This means that 2% of the site visitors are clicking through on the ads. Most businesses off the Internet wouldn’t be able to survive with a 2% conversion rate. The only way to make substantial revenue from ads on the Internet is to completely dominate the market and control the flow of information. *cough* Google *cough*.

Wow Joe what do you want me to do? Not make any money? Absolutely not! But I do think that more companies and content producers need to experiment with different business models that aren’t reliant on ad dollars. The mainstream media on the internet is already starting to experiment with pay walls and different premium membership options. While I generally agree with the old saying that information should be free, I do think there is substantial room to monetize parts of the web that are currently a free-for-all. For example there are many opportunities to monetize communities and forums that provide quality content and meaningful dialogue to its users. Another potential opportunity is product development. Content developers and publishers should work to create their own products aside from their content that they can offer to their regular subscribers for premium fee.

So next time you see a drop in your ad revenue don’t blame the users, blame the ads. They got you into this mess and they aren’t going to get you out!

Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!

The Academy Awards are not yet over, so I’m going to make my prediction: Inglourious Basterds will win Best Picture.

I know, I know — it’s been Hurt Locker’s awards season, and so far, Hurt Locker’s night. But that is precisely why I’m even more sure that Basterds will take the top spot.

Here’s the thing: The Hurt Locker was an amazing, important film. But did I enjoy it? Of course not. It was very tough to watch, and while gripping, not exactly what you’d call a happy place. Basterds, while violent and shocking and about the Holocaust never you mind, was a damn fun movie to watch. People love that movie. They love talking about it, pulling it apart; they love the characters (Christoph Waltz! What a delightfully evil and charming villain! Shoshana, as badass a heroine as Quentin Tarantino has ever created! The Bear Jew, fetish object for niches across the Internet! Look, it’s B.J. Novak and Mike Myers! And — Brad Pitt!). Oh and Diane Kruger’s not too rough on the eyes, either.

Yes, Inglourious Basterds has had the benefit of the Harvey Weinstein marketing machine, not to mention a pretty smart ongoing campaign of marketing (hello, Rabbis, glad you enjoyed the film!). But none of that would matter if the movie wasn’t good.

Look at previous awards shows — any time there was an ensemble cast award to be won, Basterds took it handily (People’s Choice, Screen Actors Guild). It’s been nominated for the key awards — screenplay, director, picture. So has Hurt Locker, obviously; and as Jason Reitman can tell you, numerous nominations does not an actual Oscar make. But — I think that Oscar voters like to reward the movies that they like. Hold that thought for a moment.

Consider the Oscar screener. Viewed in a home theater, most likely — so on a second watch of Avatar, which is dazzling in many ways but not really in its story, a voter would likely be less impressed than, say, in a giant IMAX theater. And, as mentioned above, Hurt Locker is a great film, an important film, but — yes — a challenging film. (The same way The Messenger is an important but challenging film. Up In The Air is not a challenging film.) Inglourious Basterds, on the other hand, hits that magical sweet spot: An important film (a Holocaust film, lest we forget what the Academy just loves), but still, a damn fun one — and one that is even more fascinating on the second watch, with new details revealing themselves like the little nuggets that Tarantino seems to bury just for the extra-obsessed fan.

And — bias declared — I’m Jewish. And what can I say, Jews seems to be extra-engaged by Inglourious Basterds, for obvious reasons. (See reference to bloodthirsty, revenge-crazed rabbis above; or, just a proud Jewish papa.) If I make a joke about Jews in Hollywood I will certainly not be the first; indeed, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin made one about Basterds just tonight (about how easy it would be for Waltz’s “Jew Hunter” in the Kodak Theater tonight). (Never mind recasting Jews as virile, badass avengers.) I’m not saying that there is bias in voting, per se — I’m saying that some movies strike a real chord. That’s how hits are made. The effect they have on us, as audience even as we’re doubling as critic, is real. If it hits the brain it’s one thing, but if it hits the gut, well, that’s quite another.

Okay, now: Let’s go back to the thought I told you to hold. Cut to the bizarro new Best Picture rules. There are ten nominees — twice as many as usual — and along with the more wild-card, pot pourri nature of the competition, there’s also equally wildcard new voting rules: You vote for your favorites according to rank. So — you can vote for the film you think ought to win, or the film you want to win, or your favorite; or for all the films you’d like to win over the one film you hate. This encourages strategic voting (see Steve Pond’s Oscar picks at The Wrap) — but also frees people up to vote for their second-favorite film second, or their guilty-pleasure film second, or their anti-Avatar film second. You see where I’m going with this. This race has officially been Avatar vs. Hurt Locker, but if there was ever a dark horse that would come up the middle, it’s Basterds.

And now, as the Oscars are almost over, Hurt Locker has kicked ass like a Bear Jew taking aim at a Nazi skull, and there are two big awards still to go: Best Director and Best Picture. Kathryn Bigelow will win Best Director, and should, for a variety of reasons (getting a picture made and overcoming the obstacles thereto is a big part of that). But with votes cast for Hurt Locker across the board, for all the big, pointed awards — well, the way is clear for Best Picture for just a little leeway. Especially when everyone else will surely vote for the other one, be it Hurt Locker or Avatar. And after all, you’re supposed to rank your favorites accordingly, right? Of course right.

It’s just a theory. At this point, no one knows except some dude in glasses a pocket protector at Price Waterhouse-Coopers. But — with minutes to go in the ceremony — I’m making the call: Inglourious Basterds will win Best Picture.

And should.

bill bartmann