Thanks @dancall1 for this great video mashup of 2010’s best in films. @stevenltaylor, this is dedicated to you.
Dec 6, 2010
The Brutal Decline of Yahoo [INFOGRAPHIC]
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It was THE company in its heyday. It was set to take over the world — the destination where people globally went to everyday. There was a time when every Yahoo! past and present bled “purple”. But the company has, over time, made some catastrophic errors in how it managed its NEW acquisitions; in deprioritizing development of community properties; in making the wrong assumption that display media was the ad model here and in the future; and don’t forget in handing over the search market to Google when it clearly had the upper hand. My hat off to Carol Bartz–the highest paid female in the U.S. at $40 Million–you have your work cut out for you!
Dec 3, 2010
iPhone vs Android vs Blackberry Users
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I just saw this tweet and I thought I’d post it ’cause it’s worth remembering. …. btw I totally see this as a toy:) Would I go to Android? Most definitely!! Would I go back to back to a Blackberry? Probably not but that’s just because I’m so used to this beautiful interface. 
Nov 12, 2010
The Merging of Pure Play Media and Social Media
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Why social rocks?
My first foray into social media some years back, I was confronted with a channel that seemed so vastly different than what I’ve come to know in my years as a digital marketer. I became enthralled with the notion of relationships driving business; with transparency and authenticity integral to delivering value.
Willy Loman’s character in Death of a Salesman is about a man who is self-obsessed with the notion of greatness, and even in his later years convinces himself that success is directly attributed to “greatness, popularity and personal charisma”.
Contrary to that notion, many successful businesses have been built on a simple handshake, the unspoken trust built from years of understanding customers and responding to their needs. Customer relationships have been at the core of convergence. This is not new… but in the digital space, it is the absolute core to business sustainability.
And I have bought into that. I have come to emerge as a purist in social media and while I understand this continues to be a test and learn channel, I have not necessarily given up the principles that have accompanied the true merits of this channel: credibility, community, engagement and its undeniable result: sustainability.
Nowadays you can buy social… but that’s counter-intuitive to why social exists
In recent instances I have come into contact with social networks that have tried to sell me media across blog networks, consideration into networks with strong exposure to the long-tail audience.
While that piqued my interest, it became apparent that “access” to niche bloggers, particularly ones with influence, would really mean buying ads on their sites. There was no real opportunity to engage with these influencers, nor develop a really strong program to build brand engagement among the follower base. It was simply pure play media. The argument that comes back to me from the media sales guy, “…but it’s still media, and it doesn’t come free!”
The Quest to Monetize Social Networks
It seems to have been the age-old question. If these networks are to exist and be maintained, how are they going to make money? One of the reasons that Yahoo! reduced its investment in 360, Geocities, and Answers was that it struggled to combine online ads into a user-engagement environment ie the two environments could not effectively co-exist. Ad performance was poor because users didn’t want them there. There are some networks doing an ok job at monetizing the medium:
I’d be interested to hear what other people think. Do we expect that emergence of more ads in our social footprint will be accepted by users in the long run? Or will it necessitate yet another change that undermines this trend?
HessieJ.com 