It’s a nutty week, so indulge me here if I spend a post on some lazy aggregation instead of original thought. I’ve been meaning to gather some of the more interesting bits of publicity around our newly-launched book. To start, two random online marketing notes:
Our book site is FriendsWithBenefitsBook.com. I count myself very lucky that there’s currently nothing more than a domain squatting page at FriendsWithBenefits.com. I recently talked to an author who failed to renew her personal domain and had it snapped up by a porn star who shared her name. What could she do? I didn’t have a lot of good ideas, save the fact that most porn careers are surely short-lived.
I did a couple of short TV pieces with GetConnected, talking about business blogging. I know, I know, I’m as surprised as you that we’re still talking about this stuff in 2009:
There have been a bunch of reviews of the book, all surprisingly positive so far. I’m still waiting for one that tears a strip off the book. After all, the negative ones are more fun to write. This one initially had promise of satisfying my need for abuse:
I really wanted to dislike this. It was sent to me by the publisher without my requesting it and I’m sure I groaned out loud when I opened the package and saw the subtitle. Social Media? I HATE social media!
Aaargh! OK, I’ll read the damn thing, I thought. Maybe there’s enough fodder here for a scathing review - tear the skin right off the authors and roast them on a spit! That’ll teach that publisher not to send me junk when I don’t want it. I sat myself down on the couch and started reading.
Hmmm. Something’s wrong. Where’s all the crap about getting 4 zillion Facebook followers? Where are the shady tricks, the spammy tactics? What’s WRONG with these people?
I guess I’ll just live in hope. Here, also, is an interview that Julie and I did for The Engaging Brand podcast.
Lastly, last night I sat on a panel on social media and ROI for the International Internet Marketing Association. I typed up a few notes, and then heavily marked them up before and during the panel. I said I’d share them with the audience, but I wanted to annotate them with links first. I’m using Flickr to do this, but you have to visit the actual pages to see the Flickr Notes I’ve added.
Incidentally, I was looking around for a tool like Flickr Notes that would enable me to add linked notes to a much larger image. Flickr only permits you to work with the 500-pixel wide image, and I could do with something twice that size. No, sorry, I have too much self-respect to make an image map.
UPDATE: Long time blogger and podcaster Joseph Planta did an interview with us about the book.
Just a mini link round-up, as there’s a few items I’ve been meaning to mention:
Rebecca, along with about 25 other local bloggers, is participating in a Blogathon on July 25. It’s “24 hours of blogging every 30 minutes for a cause”. An excellent idea, and had I a more formidable constitution (and time to recover), I’d do it too. I’ll just have to satisfy myself with donating to the cause. You should, too.
Capulet is currently a cog in the giant advocacy machine that is TckTckTck. More on that later, but in the meantime, they’re hiring for a blogger/online campaigner role. It would be a kick-ass job for the next six months.
Over the past few days, I’ve encountered a number of excellent charts and graphs. And, as regular readers know, I love a good chart:
Where does the average American’s after-tax income go to? On Reddit, people were remarking that $1800 was too much for ‘apparel and services’. I disagreed–it felt about right if I add in clothes, shoes, haircuts and such. Maybe I’d be a bit below that figure, but not by much.
Not a chart per se, but a fantastic list of the songs people have deleted from their Last.fm account. These are, presumably, the songs that people are embarrassed about other people knowing they like or listen to them. As Paul points out, these are the guilty pleasure songs.
It’s a busy day, so I thought I’d hit up some six-year-old blog posts and see which links are still alive and interesting. It’s not surprising that the link decay rate is at least 50%. What is shocking is how of the broken links go to mainstream media sites. All links but the last one go to external sites:
Remember SaveKaryn.com? She parlayed her debt-ridden slackerdom into a book deal, and now she’s written a novel, too.
Speaking of Kiva, I’ve already received most of my first Kiva loan back. I’ve loaned $25 of the returned money to Rika Ally Ibrahim, a Tanzanian juice and clothing seller who wants to expand her inventory. Maybe you want to help her (or any of the other worthy folks on Kiva) out, too?
Traces of Hope is an alternate-reality game being launched by the British Red Cross. I’m both fascinated by and skeptical about ARGs (plus, I have a bit of a crush on ARG guru Jane McGonigal). I suspect that they’re way more effective for social marketing for causes than for corporate promotion. I may write a little section of our book on ARGs, just so I have an excuse to do more research about their efficacy.
And to my Jewish readers, let me say “shana tova umetukah”. Or, at least, that’s what Wikipedia says I should say. I was going to go with ‘mazel tov’, but what do I know?
First, a great idea from Springwise (a site I recently discovered when they wrote aboutDreamBank). IncSpring (no relation to Springwise, and, arg, the brand misspelling rages on unabated) is an online marketplace for unused brands. Back when we did more brand development for clients, we left a ton great design work on the cutting room floor. We could conceivably post some of that work on IncSpring.
Yet another greatest hits album from Sarah McLachlan. The hugely-popular singer has released just five albums of original material (plus one Christmas album of covers) in twenty years. On the other hand, Wikipedia lists 14 re-releases, ‘b-side’ albums, remixes, live concerts and so forth. As I’ve said before, she is extraordinarily mercantile with her meagre back catalog. Hilariously, Ms. McLachlan’s website claims that the new album features songs “personally selected by Sarah”. Not surprisingly, she chose all her hits.
Zoocasa looks like Canada’s Zillow. I like its functionality a lot, and that’s a fun (if slightly American-sounding) name. I expect they’re focusing on urban regions to start, as I just did a search for Pender Island and its listings were woeful (compare with, say, MLS.ca). I’ve got an email in to them about the comprehensiveness of their listings and when we might expect to see more exhaustive ones.
UPDATE: Via Gillian, I just watched the trailer for The Lucky Ones. Rachel McAdams: hottest Iraq war veteran ever. The trailer feels a bit muddy to me, like it doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be. And, speaking of Ms. McLachlan, the trailer features her ballad “I Will Remember You”.
Lately, I’ve been so busy that I’ve had less time to devise fully-formed blog posts in my head. As such, I’m going to occasionally lean on the link round-up crutch. Also, I get pitched much more stuff these days, and some of it seems noteworthy. I might have more to say about these topics, but I don’t have time to say it.
Standardized testing fail - This Wall Street Journal article received a lot of attention on the web last week. I’m unsure about the validity of its arguments, but fresh perspectives on education are always welcome. It reminded of of this great half-hour talk by Malcolm Gladwell, which apparently draws from his forthcoming book. He would, I gather, strongly disagree with the WSJ piece.
TravelMob launch - TravelMob just launched, which seems to be a group travel planning site–a bit like TripHub. Julie used the latter for a holiday last year, and sung its praises. I suspect there’s a market for planning aids of this sort. A web design note: they should host their blog on their own domain, to enjoy increased SEO benefits.
Kickin’ it EE style - Friends Hop Studios and Boxcar Marketing are sponsoring the Expression Engine Roadshow, in Vancouver on September 26. It’s at Havana, where the old theatre company Julie and I managed used to perform. I know almost nothing about Expression Engine, except that it seems to inspire Applesque ardor among its users.
Allergies and Tide - Jason writes to point to this message thread on Tide’s marketing micro-site MyTalkingStain.com (launched with this slightly-amusing Super Bowl ad). I can’t access it at the moment, but he notes that “P&G has (seemingly) ignored but a decent number of people are coming across it when trying to determine why they’re breaking out in rashes from new detergent”. Assuming the site hasn’t been permanently removed, I’ll be curious to see how (and if) Tide responds to these consumer concerns.
I’m on the slow road to wellness (go away, neon phlegm, you’re needed elsewhere!). In the meantime, I wanted to mention a few good-cause projects that friends and colleagues are working on:
Kris has contributed some prints to the Art of Giving art exhibition and silent auction at the Orb gallery. It’s not a fundraising event per se (the event name seems a tad misleading), but 20% of the proceeds go to charity.
Joe has assembled a wiki that is “a collection of case studies/examples of nonprofits & social change makers using popular social networks for social change.” A very useful resource if you’re in that space. The wiki is part of Joe’s preparation for the talk he’s giving in Vancouver tomorrow night.
Anywhere.fm looks like a slicker alternative to MP3Tunes, which I’ve been reasonably happy with over the past year. I prefer Anywhere.fm’s music player and their price (currently free). I sent them an email last Wednesday to inquire ask a couple of questions. They haven’t replied to me. That’s very uncool for a startup, particularly when the message came from one of their competitors’ paying customers.
Scrivener is a OS X tool for writers (thanks, James). I haven’t tried it yet, but I promise not to judge it on the lousy name. I just remembered that I grew up with a girl whose last name was ‘Scrivener’.
The folks from GiveMeaning have started a blog which looks useful to anybody engaged in online fundraising.
Steve mentions a new show by Ronnie Burkett (more info and photos). I saw Burkett’s extraordinary Tinka’s New Dress about a decade ago, and it blew my mind. It’s on my top five lists of theatre-going experiences.
