This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Internet Data
Recent reports have shown socialmedia sites to be female concentrated. What about the rest of the internet? Women may be using social networks more but that still doesn’t account for all the other types of websites.
While social networks may be big with females, internet usage in the United States seems to be split about 50/50 with men and women:
News outlets are the primary focus with males.
CNet, Reuters, IGN, Time, Drudgereport are all predominantly male.
Shopping destinations are the primary focus with females.
JCPenney, CBS, Pronto, Pogo, Overstock are all predominantly female.
*All stats from Quantcast except for MTV, BBC.co.uk, Simplyhired, Pronto, Newsweek and Fancast which come from Google Ad Planner.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
Appeared originally as a comment on MJ Newham’s wonderful blog at http://martin.newham.ws on a post called Future Of Print.
There are two types of readers: situational and experiential.
I happen to be both so I understand why dead archives are needed as well as digital files. My solution: bamboo. Bamboo is stronger than tree paper, only takes 2 years (give or take) to grow to maturity, and still retains the tactile sensibilities that tree paper does.
I feel that Kindle is the wrong direction. What Kindle is trying to do is recreate a book experience in digital format. The digital format is something separate and needs to be treated as so. The whole point of a digital library is to be able to take many “books” with you at once. Kindle doesn’t make this easy. Plus, it’s not aesthetically pleasing. That’s aim number one with a bookjacket.
The iPhone trumps the Kindle in many ways with the Stanza app. This app isn’t trying to recreate a book reading experience in digital. It makes your reading experience as easy as possible for the medium that you are using. It’s size makes it easy for me to read on the go, which speaks to the whole issue of portability. If you’re concerned with text size, don’t be- there is a feature where you can increase the text size to whatever suits you. I personally would rather read less on a “page” to gain more space in the physical world. I am a man and do not always carry a bag. I don’t want to be seen carrying some unfortunately huge thing when I’m going out, yet I always want to read AND listen to music on my way to some place.
Dead plant books will still be around, just like cds & dvds will still be around. They will all exist in a special limited edition collectors format for those who really need to have a physical copy of something to cherish. Remember, we like having physical copies of stuff. It adds to our definition of who we are. Not everything that we consume should make the cut though.
Digitization is the implementation of zen Buddhism in our physical lives.
*addendum: vook.tv along with the mythical Apple iTablet will most likely bring us a more truer digital ‘book’.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
Sometimes not everything goes according to plan. When Tagged.com recently changed their registration process traffic to their site spiked. In this case study I take a look at the spike in relation to the circumstances surrounding it. I answer whether or not the spike was a reaction to events or the spike itself affected Tagged.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced today that the state of Texas had reached an agreement with Tagged, Inc., a socialnetworking site that was accused of tricking users into providing access to their address books. As part of the agreement, Tagged has to pay $250,000, which includes the cost of the state’s investigation.
After Tagged had access to a user’s address book, the socialnetworking site sent messages that appeared to come directly from the user, offering to share photos with the recipient. When a recipient tried to view the pictures, which often didn’t even exist, they were prompted to sign up, giving Tagged access to their address book and continuing the deceptive practice.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
While most of you were obsessing over the Kanye West meme taking the internet by storm, Twitter quietly rolled out an update to their brand image. They killed off the Spam Owl and replaced him with their happy-go-lucky mascot Twitter bird. This comes right on the heels of an update to their TOS many of you have already received by now.
This most recent change is just an extension of their homepage image revamp that focuses more on search and trending topics now.
One thing we know for sure with Twitter is that most of what they implement is done without fanfare in stages. Just as the TOS has been implemented over the course of the last week, the default avatar isn’t changing all at once. In fact, it’s changing over time into many different flavors: purple, dark blue, baby blue, lime green, dark green, orange, dark red so far.
Even with the staggered rollout, established users with their own custom avatars are already having issues:
We’ve already seen the Fail Whale go the way of the dodo in place of a generic 503-error page. Only time will tell what images will replace the other now iconic characters of Technically Wrong Robot, and Maintenance Caterpillar & Chill Ice Cream Cone. What other image changes and default avatar colors have you spotted?
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
On June 8th 2009 Microsoft took an unprecedented move in advertising their new search engine Bing. They subsidized all commercials on Hulu for a limited time period. In exchange for that they produced something akin to a telethon meets an infomercial- the Bing-a-thon. The Bing-a-thon is something that has never been done before online.
Microsoft is getting it right with the marketing of Bing. They understand that search should be easy. They understand that in order to learn about something it should be fun. People don’t want to be lectured. We want to be entertained. Disguise learning in entertainment and you have just created an educated consumer. Here’s what some of you took away from the Hulu Microsoft Bing-a-thon:
Some of you were:
Compelled
destroytodayThe Bing a-thon is like a gruesome car accident. I keep wanting to look away, but can’t seem to close the window: http://bit.ly/zHpPT
RobLaughtonis bing-a-thon really made by the one of the most powerful company in the world? It’s sooooo bad, yet strangely compelling……
latitude46Bing-a-thon is simply terrible, but I just can’t look away. God help us all.
JaysonElliotWatching the live “bing-a-thon” on Hulu right now. I can’t tell if they’re attempting irony or not. It’s all too self-referential.
Informed
mariogvasquezwatched the bing-a-thon on hulu.com. Sudeikis is funny Olivia was hot. Fred Wilard was awkward. Did learn some cool stuff about bing.com
aznsclboiBing-a-thon over… I’m not sure I’m smarter for watching this… but eh, at least I know how to Bing now.
Repelled
johnyjuiceOMG….wth #bing-a-thon that is time spent I WILL NEVER get back! Thank you #Google for not EVER doing that!
jbruin@AlexBurdz I’m really hoping that MS spent most of that 80/100 mil on ads cause bing-a-thon was an epic disaster
Interested
arturotthe Bing-a-thon is awesome, haha so cheesy but actually very fun. I hope they make the entire event available later on.
bajanxWhat an idea by Microsoft having a Bing a Thon on such a recognized website like HULU. How much will this help popularize “THE BING”?
{The interesting thing to note here is that Microsoft made it easy to share the telecast in Facebook and Twitter AND the message that was shared was updated according to what was happening on the Bing-a-thon. Notice the same bit.ly link.}
{Of note here is that some found such value in the automated shared message that they reshared it. Some (myself) changed the message & left the automated link only to have others share that message as well.}
My conclusion? Microsoft made the right decision to market Bing the way they did. People were clearly informed. These are the people that are likely to use Bing over and over again. The people who were compelled (as well as the promoters/sharers) are likely to tell their friends of the funny cool thing they saw and interacted with. Bing has a funny name. It can make you think of Friends‘ Chandler Bing or evoke a sound. The bottom line is this: Microsoft wanted to educate its consumers and brand Bing’s personality at the same time. Mission completed.
Only time will tell if people adopt Bing as their default search engine. Right now people have turned the proper noun ‘Google‘ into a verb by saying ‘google it’. I can definitely see people adopting Bing in the verb sense. They may say ‘bing it’ if someone wants to know specific information about something or ‘bing’ as a verb may just eclipse ‘google‘. Google may provide tons of search results but that’s also its downfall. Microsoft may not say Google in their ad but they might as well, as I’m sure many of you have felt the same frustration:
Microsoft’s differentiator? Their tagline:“It’s not just a search engine. It’s the first ever decision engine, from Microsoft.”
While Google is focusing on Wave, Microsoft is taking this chance to make search more relevant. Yes, many of us are excited for real-time email etc etc BUT frankly I’m more excited with relevant search. The internet has become our default for information. I’m hard-pressed to find anyone who actually uses encyclopedias and dictionaries in dead-tree format. I already have Twitter for real-time info as well as instant messages. E-mail and document editing are fast enough for me now.
Make your customer’s life easier in a timely and relevant way and you’ve won their hearts. I’m sure Google has something up their sleeve for semantic web but until that day you can just Bing me.
For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.
There’s a scene in The Wizard of Oz I can’t get out of my head. The flying monkeys have attacked; the Scarecrow has been torn apart. What’s left of the Scarecrow laments: “First they took my legs off and they threw them over there! Then they took my chest out and they threw it over there!”And the Tin Woodsman looks down and replies: “Well, that’s you all over!”
The title of the article is meant to invoke a sense of what is to come, not to just talk about advertising but branding and marketing.
In this article I’ll take a look at what I feel is coming down the pipeline for these areas. The future isn’t set in stone and neither are these predictions. Companies are already starting to track your habits. In the future it will just get more intuitive. Read the rest of this entry »
First off, I’d like to thank ALL OF YOU for visiting, subscribing AND reading this website so far. Without your support I would have no desire to continue to grow this venture to greater heights. That being said, I’d like to apologize.
In my excitement for reorganization with adding/moving user pages, some of you may have received a post that was inadvertedly sent through the RSS feed entitled “Damien Basile”. I have an ego, but not THAT big of an ego to name a WHOLE POST after myself.
I am your average high-end internet socialmedia user- creating content, giving feedback, networking with people, connecting with friends and consuming multimedia. The one thing that falls by the wayside for me personally is reading blogs via my Google Reader. Here’s how I overcame this stumbling block to keep up to date on all the blogs I read.
This application solves that annoying problem of not being able to text message others photos.
Instead of sending the photo straight to your friend’s phone, it sends a link to a web page to see the photo.? This may not be the most ideal answer iPhone users have been looking for but it is a necessary workaround for now. Just remember that you have to check your friend’s photos on a webpage just as well, so now they’ll know exactly what you do to view their photos.
One caveat: Make sure to only have one phone number saved for a contact you intend to use and that it is a mobile phone number or the app will crash.
While most of you were obsessing over the Kanye West meme taking the internet by storm, 
Google Stumbleupon For Blog Reading
© Mark Knol
I am your average high-end internet social media user- creating content, giving feedback, networking with people, connecting with friends and consuming multimedia. The one thing that falls by the wayside for me personally is reading blogs via my Google Reader. Here’s how I overcame this stumbling block to keep up to date on all the blogs I read.
Read the rest of this entry »
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tags: automation, blog, blog reader, browser toolbar, commenters, consumer, consumers, experiences, experiment, filofax, follower, friends, functionality, giving feedback, glance, goodies, Google, google reader, knol, media, network, networked, networking, one thing, personalities, personality, reading, reading experience, social, stumbleupon, stumbling block, tech, technology, update, wayside
Posted in featured, technology | 5 Comments »