Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
MONSTROVILLE NEEDS HELP!
I'm putting out a call for my buddy Von Kreep at Cartoon Funland. He needs a hand to finish some wicked animation goodness. I've made an arrangement where if some Loogaroo Flash Animators help out on Monstroville "pro bono", he'll spread some of the love back on some paying gigs coming down the pipe.
I only mention this because I know there are some animators kickin around No Funswick that are bored and looking to work on something cool.
Any takers? Hit me up - gfowler@loogaroo.com
respect,
gene
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
CHECK THYSELF BEFORE THY WRECK THYSELF
My long time buddy Mark Cappello and I used to do fun stuff together about 10 years ago. Let the visuals come to life, go on. Let it all in.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sorry, There's No Way To Save The TV Business
Henry Blodget|Jun. 12, 2009, 1:32 PM | 20,108 |96
The traditional TV industry--cablecompanies, networks, and broadcasters--is where the newspaper industry was about five years ago:
In denial.
There are murmurings on the edges about how longstanding business models will come under pressure as Internet distribution takes over. But, so far, the revenue and profits are hanging in there, so the big TV companies don't really care.
Specifically, the TV industry's attitude is the same as the newspaper industry's attitude was circa 2002-2003: Stop calling us dinosaurs: We get digital; We're growing our digital businesses; We're investing in digital platforms; People still recall ads even when they fast-foward through them on DVRs; There's no subtitute for TV ads. And traditional TV isn't going away: Just look at our revenue and profits!
After saying all this same stuff for years, the newspaper industry figured out the hard way that, eventually, reality intrudes, that you can't stuff the genie back in the bottle. And over the next 5-10 years, the TV industry will figure this out, too.
Here's the problem in a nutshell:
As with print-based media, Internet-based distribution generates only a tiny fraction of the revenue and profit that today's incumbent cable, broadcast, and satellite distribution models do. As Internet-based distribution gains steam, therefore, most TV industry incumbents will no longer be able to support their existing cost structures.
Specifically, TV business models for the past half-century, from broadcast to cable to satellite, have been built on the following foundation:
Not much else to do at home that's as simple and fun as TV
No way to get video content other than via TV
No options other than TV for advertisers who want to tell video stories
No options other than cable--and, more recently, satellite--to get TV
Tight choke-points in each market through which all video content has to flow (cable company, airwaves), which creates enormous value for the owners of those gates.
And now, slowly but surely, look what's happening:
Other simple and fun options emerging at home: Internet, video games, Facebook, IM, DVDs
New ways to get TV content other than traditional TV companies: Hulu, YouTube, iTunes, Netflix
Video-story options for advertisers beginning to emerge: Hulu shows, for example (But NBC, et al, making a lot less per viewer now than they do on TV)
More options for getting video content: telcos, cable cos, wireless cos (soon)
Fewer choke points in each market: With an Internet connection anywhere in the world, you will soon be able to get to almost anything. And not just to your computer--to your television.
Thus far, the TV industry has reacted to these changes the way most people would: By trying to port its existing model to the new world and maintain its hold on power and money. This is why we're getting so many ridiculous, consumer-unfriendly TV solutions, such as:
Market-based control over what you can and can't watch (thanks to contracts with local cable companies),
No live-streaming of lots of popular video content despite the fact that this would grow the audience (same reason),
Time-shifting of popular shows (don't want to cannibalize more profitable TV audience)
Hoarding of video libraries that could be easily available, watched, and monetized online
Single episode downloads that expire after 24 hours
$150/month "triple-play" solutions that come larded up with absurd taxes, fees, and service-charges, most of which go to pay for crap we don't want.
All these Band-Aid solutions will eventually fail. Why? Because eventually the cable-satellite-airwavemonopoly over TV content in local markets will be circumvented by simple, global Internet distribution.
You won't have 5 channels, or 50 channels, or 500 channels. You'll have millions of channels. You'll be able to watch anything you want, live or taped. You'll be able to watch it wherever you want--TV, computer, mobile device. You won't have to sorry about "slinging" video content around or programming your DVR. You'll just plug a pipe (Internet) into a box (device) and watch.
This is where the future is going. That's obvious. The only question is how long it takes us to get there--and who gets killed along the way.
A lot of this content, by the way, won't--and shouldn't--be free. But you won't have to pay your cable company for the dozens of channels you won't ever watch just get the ones you do. You may have to maintain subscriptions with several different content-aggregation companies (a pain) but this will be a lot better than paying for things you don't want. And whatever content you do pay for will--and should--cost a lot less than it does now.
And what will happen to the companies?
The best content creators will do just fine. Video storytelling won't go away. Compared to the people who produced Battlestar Galactica, the Sopranos, and West Wing, etc., the folks who post to YouTube generally suck at it. So great content creators won't have to worry about them.
The lousy content creators will disappear. No big loss. And no big change.
The cable companies will become dumb pipes, and they'll get disintermediated. We won't need Brian Roberts to negotiate a deal with the Tennis Channel for us (or, rather, to prevent us from getting the Tennis Channel because of some contract dispute). We'll just go direct.
The phone companies will remain dumb pipes.
The wireless companies will become dumber pipes.
The competition between the multiple dumb pipes will eventually, we pray, result in lower prices for consumers for the only thing we will really need: Ubiquitous high-speed Internet access.
Box and device companies will remain box and device companies. Unless Apple somehow creates a new global chokepoint via the iPhone.
Networks that produce live news, sports, and entertainment will offer the content direct to consumers. But they'll no longer get paid big carriage fees from cable companies.
A few clever online aggregators--YouTube? Hulu? Cable companies? Netflix?--will create nice video portals and build powerful new businesses. At these portals, you'll be able to sign up to watch anything in the world on any device you want. You'll be able choose among multiple subscription models (monthly, a la carte). You'll also have a basic "what's on" option in case you just want to watch TV.
When will this happen? Over the next 5-10 years. And it will leave today's TV industry looking like today's newspaper industry.
And from this TV consumer's perspective, it can't happen soon enough.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Maybe I've been wrong all this time?
It’s not clear that company blogs are a good idea, despite arguments for social media generally.
I’ll give you the bad news first, dispelling some common myths about what corporate blogs can achieve, but then I’ll show you how a corporate blog can significantly increase revenue, even without 10,000 RSS subscribers.
If you follow this kind of thing, you’re already familiar with the Oct ‘08 Forrester poll that measured how much people trust various types of media.
Specifically: Only 16 percent of respondents said they trust company blogs. In fact, blogs came in dead last
in the list of 18 types of corporate communication including print ads, direct mail, and radio, the average consumer is more likely to trust a random postcard or spam email than a blog! (Well, a corporate blog.)
So you have to ask, “What’s the point of a company blog that no one trusts?”
The traditional metric of marketing success is, “How many leads did we generate?” Branding is good and all, but at the end of the day revenue requires leads and sales. Does a company blog produce leads?
My experience is: Not usually.
At this point I’m supposed to trot out the usual examples of Joel Spolsky, Seth Godin, Bob Walsh, Jeff Atwood,Eric Sink, Dharmesh Shah, and even Moby, because, gosh darn, those blogs generate tons of leads and/or product sales and/or influence for their authors.
See?!? Yay blogs!!!
But these examples don’t prove corporate blogging is worthwhile for you.
Why not?
- These bloggers produce outstanding, unique content, or at least they did as they rose to celebrity status. As Penelope points out so well, you’re not that good, not that consistent, and not that committed.
- These blogs are venerable and had much less competition for attention when they were building readership. You’re competing in the modern, overcrowded blogosphere; you won’t have thousands of daily hits for a long time, if ever.
- These blogs are written by one person with a voice, a personality, and a perspective, not by a “company” trying to sell something. Will your corporate blog have those properties? Can you resist the urge to sell?
- In many cases the writers were already famous. Moby was famous before he started blogging. Seth Godin was a best-selling author first, then captured and recycled that audience through blogging. You and your company are not a best-selling authors or platinum recording artists.
- For every success story there’s a hundred companies with blogs no one reads. The odds aren’t good. Blogs are too much work for this much uncertainty.
So again I ask you, ” What’s the point of a company blog?”
Actually, a corporate blog can significantly increase revenue, even without tens of thousands of subscribers, even without generating piles of new leads, even though strangers don’t trust them.
It’s all about cultivating your cheerleaders.
Your “cheerleaders” are those rare people who are not only fans of your company, but who put their own reputation on the line on your behalf. This is the guy who single-handedly convinced his boss to open her wallet during a recession. This is the woman who took it upon herself to install your software on every computer in the company. This is the woman who emails her friends every few weeks about how awesome your Web site is.
My assertion is that one cheerleader is more valuable than thousands of leads. Here’s evidence; all of the following happens regularly at my company:
- One cheerleader can get your software installed on 800 seats at a company that your advertising, marketing, and sales reps have never cracked.
- One cheerleader can promote you 50 times in forums and blogs and Tweets and emails — and that’s word-of-mouth promotion, not advertisement, which that same Forrester study showed was by far the most trusted form of communication.
- One cheerleader can change jobs every two years, purchasing your product everywhere he goes, leaving new cheerleaders in his wake.
Here’s where the blog comes in. What if the point of the corporate blog is to cultivate cheerleaders? Specifically:
- Write convincing and insightful articles supporting what cheerleaders are telling their co-workers and friends. Help them
“prove” their points. Help them be successful in spreading the word. - Write articles that could shift a person from being a “power-user” to being a “cheerleader.”
- Highlight cheerleaders in posts. Show the Internet at large how insightful they were at implementing your product or service. Give them something they’re proud to put on their resume. This encourages others to go the extra mile so they too can be recognized.
- Humanize the “corporation” so that people will want you to succeed. No one cares about some random, faceless company; cheerleaders fight for good, honest, smart people. Let your corporate culture shine through with stories, funny incidents, internal debates, philosophy, how you’ve dealt with failures, and highlight employees.
- Track which articles are being spread by your readers and what commentary they add. Discover empirically which aspects of your philosophy, attitude, product features, and behavior motivate your cheerleaders; that in turn helps you recruit new ones.
- Reference other blogs that support your views. Typically the authors of those blogs will start tracking yours and often will return
the favor, sending a crop of potential new cheerleaders to your blog. - Include your cheerleaders in your corporate successes. Talk about how “we” won some award, where “we” means the cheerleaders, too. In fact, use this attitude to rally them to vote so you can win that award in the first place.
Any company can do this, even a one-person consulting shop, because:
- You don’t need thousands of subscribers to cultivate 10 to 100 cheerleaders.
- You don’t need to post daily. This isn’t a news feed, it’s sharing a common passion.
- Your existing customer base contains most (all?) of your existing cheerleaders; getting them to subscribe to the blog is relatively easy.
- You just need to be yourself and talk about what’s important to you personally, whether or not it relates directly to your company.
- Who cares whether topics are “too general” or whether strangers will be drawn in. Your cheerleaders love you; just be honest with them and love them back!
- Nothing prevents you from expanding the scope of the blog later. Of course, you can broaden your topics, write controversial link-bait posts, and appeal to strangers. Just don’t stress about it.
Is a corporate blog necessary for every company? No. There are other ways to cultivate your cheerleaders, but blogging is an easy path to a cheerleader support system.
This doesn’t mean you should stop advertising and otherwise get in front of new potential customers — of course you should! It just means that a blog, as one of your marketing tools, is better suited for cultivating cheerleaders than for generating vast numbers of new leads.
Those cheerleaders are worth the effort.
What do you think? Do you have more tips for corporate blogging? Leave a comment and join the conversation.
This post originally was published July 18, 2009, on Jason Cohen’s blog, “a smart bear.” Check there to see comments and more tips from his readers!
Jason Cohen founded Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, a tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award. He took Smart Bear from start to multiple millions in revenue and 50 percent profit margin without debt or VC, then sold it for cash. He also is a founding member of ITWatchdogs, another bootstrapped startup which became profitable and was sold. He’s also a mentor at Capital Factory (like TechStars or Y-Combinator in Austin). And, he’s the author of Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review, the most popular book (35,000 copies) on modern, lightweight methods for doing peer code review effectively without everyone hating life. He blogs at asmartbear Email him: jason (at) asmartbear (dot) com
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Marketing campaigns that spread themselves
You know these people. They go to every social media conference. They write books on the subject and speak and get interviewed constantly about it. They network CONSTANTLY and rant about companies that don’t “get it.”
Guess what? They don’t get it because a bunch of people sitting around talking about social media is pretty lame. This is why I never have random tweetups unless there is an actual topic of conversation. It just makes life infinitely more interesting. I also like to promote things — *gasp* — outside of Twitter, and to people who wouldn’t even think to use such tools.
The cornerstone of every good social media campaign is a message. I am lucky to have learned this from Whurley, who was tweeting before you were knee-high to a grasshopper (well, not really, but he’s been on Twitter for a long time). If you are new to social media or just want a little inspiration, I suggest listening to this podcast he’s in.
Marketing isn’t about meeting everyone and going to every conference and writing every book on a topic. It’s about sharing your voice and your message with others, and then hearing theirs. If done properly, even an old school TV advertisement can be something customers can embrace and actually champion. If you don’t have a brand or a message people want to share, you will be working a lot harder than you need to reach people.
Rather than go on and on about this for ages, I’m just going to show you three examples of brands that are easy to share:
- Hugh MacLeod’s “Microsoft Blue Monster”
If you can’t tell, that is a tattoo of a cartoon Hugh did for Microsoft. Someone got a tattoo of a marketing campaign. I’ve heard of Apple tattoos as well. Now bear in mind that the first prerequisite to getting your brand tattooed on their ankle is to not suck as a company which is a bit out of marketing’s hands, but having a symbol that people can proudly share with others is key.
- Icanhazcheeseburger and the notorious lolcat
Tons of people can talk about building a community. Ben Huh and the gang at Pet Holdings Inc. just do it by uniting people around funny content. You know you have a happy community of users when someone gets this license plate:
- Amy’s Ice Cream
I actually take pictures of their street signs and tweet them. I posted this pic to Flickr and it was viewed almost 300 times and favorited three times. It’s a tip jar. Rather than containing her employees, Amy lets them have fun with the place. They flip your ice cream like Tom Cruise in “Cocktail” and crack jokes. I know Amy’s Ice Cream is expensive for what it is but I don’t care. The experience, which in part includes the marketing, makes it a place you want to take your friends and family to.
A good brand is a thing of joy you give to someone so they can share with others. It says something people aren’t already hearing and fills a void.
This post by Michelle Greer originally was published Aug. 27, 2009, on her blog, michelle’sblog.
Michelle Greer is a Web marketing strategist/geek in Austin, Texas. Case studies of her work have been featured in Mashable, Yahoo News, O’Reilly Radar, and the Austin American Statesman. You can find her tips on marketing and social media at michellesblog.net, and her ideas about how new and traditional media are changing the lives of marketers are found at MarketIQ. Greer joined the Rackspace team on Oct. 26, 2009, with the title of senior manager for corporate development and has the pleasure of making life easier for new customers by explaining Cloud tools.
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