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October 2007 Archive
The following posts were made in October 2007. You may subscribe to the RSS feed for this archive if you would like to take your time reading through our posts.
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Posted on October 31, 2007
Think Globally - Search Locally - The Masses Have Arrived
BY JAMES CLARK
Greg Sterling has an excellent post, Internet Now The Primary Local Medium on the Search Engine Land blog. Here's an some data from the post:
Overall respondents identified the Internet and search engines in particular as their dominant information resource for local:
--Search engines: 74 percent
--Print yellow pages: 65 percent
--Internet yellow pages: 50 percent
--Traditional newspapers: 44 percent
--Print white pages: 33 percent
--Television: 29 percent
--Consumer review websites: 18 percent
(Percentages are greater than 100 because respondents were permitted to select more than one answer.)
I can read all the survey data and reports out there, but the truth is I use a simple barometer as to what is mainstream on the Internet or not. That barometer is my wife - if she's doing it, the masses have arrived.
Just last week, I had a great moment of observation. We were getting ready to go out for dinner, the babysitter was late but just about to arrive, the mac and cheese was cooking, I'm getting my daughter to finish her homework - it was basic multitasking chaos. Part of the chaos was her attempt to find a phone number for a store that she needed to return something to. As I'm watching this all unfold, I see her grab the big fat yellow pages book, starts thumbing through looking for the number and says out loud - "What am I doing looking in this stupid book, I'll just Google it." So I watched her go over and search for the store. She found it and turned to me and and said - "This is so cool, come look at this. Did you know you can search for a local business and Google will give you a map, it's number plus other info like when it's open, and other people's reviews?"
I just started laughing, and told her - yeah I know about that - it's something Room 214 does for businesses - it's called Local Search.
Her response - "Wow, you've got to tell more people that you can do that."
Good point and I always do what my wife tells me to. So hey, if you're looking for a great local search visibility strategy give us a call. 303-444-9214.
We've got a great case study with The Barking Lot Inc., a Chicago dog boarding, doggie daycare facility in Chicago. Here's a screen shot of what Google presents for local search content:
Also, read up on Greg's post - the stats for the local search don't lie. The masses have arrived - where's your business?
Posted on October 25, 2007
What's a Logo Worth? In Boulder Cycling Circles - Must Be A Lot
BY JAMES CLARK
Seth Godin asked the the question "What's a Logo Worth?" on his blog today.
He's got a picture of a Mongol pencil and states - "Apparently, it's not not just a pencil, it's a lifestyle."
Seth, you've got to come out to Boulder, Colorado and witness the most amazing logo lifestyle ever - cycling jerseys.
Boulder has a huge road biking community, and what amazes me is that everyone gets all logo'd up to go for their bike rides. Cyclists are a bit of an elitist crowd - okay I called them elitist and maybe that's not nice but they are riding around on $2K bikes. So the funny thing is these cyclist wear the most obnoxious logo cycling jerseys you ever seen. Why is it that logo cycling jerseys are fashionable? Okay, I know that's what the professional teams wear, but I also know they make normal black cycling jerseys, because I've seen them hanging on the racks at the bike store. Strange thing is I rarely see them on people actually riding road bikes.
It's a running joke here in the Room 214 offices. When someone comes back from a walk to get lunch we report back on what companies the cyclists are representing. The other day I saw someone riding in a Fat Tire cycling jersey, followed by someone in a Subway jersey, followed by someone in a Frasca (local restaurant) jersey.
So in Boulder road cycling circles the logo must be worth being taken seriously. God forbid you show up in plain black cycling jersey and shorts. The guy in the full-blown Subway bib-shorts and jersey will laugh his ass off at you.
Posted on October 23, 2007
RSS Advertising is Targeted and Measurable
BY JAMES CLARK
The battle around web site advertising now rages around what a site's true hit statistics are. Advertisers are seeking accountability by relying on ratings panels from Neilsen/NetRatings, but site owners are seeing major flaws in the ratings panels system. Check out this article How Many Site Hits? Depends on Who's Counting in the New York Times to get a good view from both sides of the debate.
I say let them battle it out, because the real advertising value, measurement and trackability is in RSS feeds. The recent article RSS Ad Response Tops E-Mail in InternetNews.com shows how RSS advertising is more targeted and more effective than e-mail advertising, and e-mail blows away banner advertising based on impressions.
It makes sense since RSS is a consumer controlled subscription-based information channel. The future of RSS advertising is tremendous. Through our own Castlock RSS platform we are successfully testing advertising scenarios that offer highly targeted text and image advertising based on RSS feed content. So we are not just sending out the same advertisement through the feed, but have a cadre of ads ready to be distributed based on the content of the feed. So imagine if CNN could tell Toyota, that they run its ads only in content tagged with a specific set of keywords. Now you're talking targeted advertising.
So go ahead and battle it out over page views, and leave RSS to the professionals who know the value of targeted, highly converting RSS advertising. We'll see you all at the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Posted on October 22, 2007
Colorado Rockies Ticket Crisis - The Need for a Syndicating Press Room - The Four Mistakes
BY JAMES CLARK
If there was a case study for an organization to use RSS feeds in its news room to help in a crisis situation, it's the Colorado Rockies and the ongoing debacle of selling World Series tickets.
Today the servers of the ticket vendor hosting the online-only sale crashed - what a shocker. Everyone predicted this would happen.
So they had and continue to have thousands of excited fans trying to get information on what the heck happened with the ticket servers going down. People keep coming back to the website to see if any new information is posted about when the tickets will go back on sale, thus perpetuating the server load situation.
The solution would be to have an RSS News Feed in place and all ticket sales updates will be broad-casted through the feed. That way I could get the update the moment new information is posted.
It would have been nice to get updates during the online buying process. Hey, I'll admit, I wasted an hour of my time trying to login and get tickets. It would have been nice to get periodic updates that the servers are down, etc.
Instead, the Rockies are using media communications tactics from the 80s. Press conference with local news organizations. Lame.
Okay, so now I'm going to go off. The entire process of getting tickets has been one bad decision after the next. Now I know Rockies management has done their best and would have never wanted to be in this situation, but hey they put themselves here.
First Mistake - they should have never done an all-online ticket sale.
Reasons - (1) any scalper, any where in the world can now log in and try to buy Rockies tickets and then sell them on the aftermarket. That does Rockies fans no good at all. (2) because of the scalpers outrageous prices, they are going to sell out the tickets, but not fill the stands. Seriously, how embarrassing will it be for the Rockies to have a bunch of empty seats in the stands because scalpers bought a ton of seats and couldn't unload them for $2K a seat.
Second Mistake - they should have put the World Series tickets on sale the moment the Rockies won the NLCS, or even won the play-in game against San Diego.
Reason - because only true hardcore Rockies fans and a few ambitious scalpers would have logged in to buy them. But they waited until the end of the Cleveland and Boston series to put the on sale. So what happens? Now you have a ton of Red Sox fans, and there are a ton of them, trying to buy their way into Coors Field. Once again, it will be embarrassing for the Rockies organization to have the stands packed with a ton of Red Sox fans. It's not as if they could have sold out to just Rockies fans, but now there will be a huge Red Sox contingency at Coors Field - that just plain stupid.
Third Mistake - not doing a presale to ColroadoRockies.com fan members, with a cut off for fans to have been signed up by Oct. 1.
Reason - this would have driven a large number of fans into a communications medium (email) that keeps the Colorado Rockies directly in touch with the devoted and willing fan. What a wasted opportunity from a marketing perspective. They could use that email list to run promotions, sell 2008 season tickets, etc.
Fourth Mistake - not having day-of-game ticket sales.
Reason - Hope springs eternal. By releasing a small lot on the the day of the game you keep hope alive for all fans. If they are just willing enough to brave the lines and withstand the wait they too can have a shot at going to the game.
A friend of mind once told me the only difference between heaven and hell is that in hell there is no hope. The Colorado Rockies have unwillingly put its loyal fans in a ticket buying hell.
Hey, here's an offer from Room 214 to the Colorado Rockies. We'll put an entire RSS strategy together for you, syndicating press room, podcasts, vodcasts, searchable feeds, etc. if we can get a few tickets to the World Series games.
Posted on October 12, 2007
Ravelry – Social Media for a Niche Market
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
Earlier this week, after putting my name on a waiting list almost 2 months ago, I finally received my coveted Ravelry invite. For those of you who are not familiar with the site, Ravelry is a social network service for knitters and crocheters. As a knitter and social media lover, I was very excited to be able to finally check out this site, still in beta, and thus inaccessible without a username and password.
The site is put together quite well, and even in this early stage, incorporates most of the successful components of other similarly-structured web communities, and comes chock-full of Ajaxy goodness. One of my friends, also a knitter, commented that Ravelry is a lot like Facebook, but for knitting, and I am inclined to agree. You create your profile, list your projects, both current and past, whether they were completed, project details such as yarn type/amount used, any alterations, etc. While this is a cool way to easily keep all of your project info in one place (it also includes a queue section where you can list potential future projects available online or in print formats), the fun comes in when you see how this info is shared.
You can friend fellow knitters, searching for them by name or location, and the site will list people who have completed the same projects as you. You can view any user's page and you thus have access to what groups they belong to, projects, yarns available for trade or sell, their queue, and their blog activity if they have linked their blog. Once you link your blog, people will see a list of most recent posts on your page. If you write a blog post about a project, you have the ability to link the post to the project it references, and anyone checking out one of your specific projects can see the details you submitted as well as read any insights you had on your blog. If you have photos of the project, you simply upload them into Flickr and drop them onto the appropriate project page. Everything is simple, intuitive, and well-done. The ability to mark favorites and leave comments, send emails, and participate in forums help round out the main features of the site.
Overall, I think the site is pretty awesome, and I hope it won't turn out to be a fleeting fad. If you are a non-knitter, you might wonder what kinds of success this site could have, or how many people would actually have a desire to sign up. Hobbyists have a huge presence on the web, and if you search for knitting blogs, you will find that they are quite numerous. There are also online-only free pattern sites, and having their own social networking community will probably see the online presence for knitters rise.
The thing that makes Ravelry interesting to study from a non-knitting perspective, is how they were able to achieve popularity. At the time I signed up in mid-August, I was number 25,117 on the list. When I received my invite almost 2 months later, there were over 15,000 people in line behind me. This means that, since the site's inception in March, over 40,000 people have signed up for a site that has not used any sort of traditional marketing techniques. The creators of Ravelry needed some beta testers and so solicited their friends and a few well-known knitting bloggers to try it out, providing them each with a few invites to give to other people. The site creators thought that they would just get a handful of testers and were shocked when thousands of people expressed interest in joining. Word of mouth from prominent bloggers and pleased beta testers disseminated the existence of Ravelry all over the internet. Sure, 40,000 people isn't anywhere near the number of people on Facebook or Myspace, but Ravelry has not been around for nearly as long, has not really promoted itself, is still in beta, is targeted to a very specific market, and does not yet contain advertising. It is also noteworthy that the current signup rate has not dropped, although they are now able to dole out the invites at a faster pace than initially.
One might wonder if a site with such targeted appeal will be able to survive--only time will tell. But they have many, if not all, the ingredients for a successful site, including an enthusiastic and savvy user base. Check out a post from earlier this month from my colleague James for more info on the benefits of focusing on niche markets.
