Direction for New Media Whistle?
Dave and i are meeting tomorrow for lunch, to layout the direction for a few Northwest Indiana properties for 2011 including this one. Dave is now working diligently on his GetUNoticed site for new media consulting and public speaking. I’ve joined Golden Technologies as Director of Business Development. So both of our worlds have changed and we need a new strategy for our web-based properties going forward.
Recent Posts to check out:
Valparaiso YMCA rebrands as the Y
Press Release and Public Relations
Why New Media Kept Me from Buying the Bose Companion 3 Speaker System
I got into New Media so I could be near where the cools, high-tech toys are called “tools.” Even moreso so I could listen to music all day and be lost in a stream of conscious, creative thought.
In the old office, I stumbled upon a Bose Companion 3 Multimedia Speaker System that I used to keep me sane late at night. Live concerts, rare classics, and the night would go on and on and on…
The new office doesn’t have a Bose Companion 3 Multimedia Speaker System. I stumbled about and only found a couple laptop speakers.
So I mustered up all my courage and went…I can’t believe I’m going to admit to this: shopping.
So to the back of Best Buy I went last Sunday, hunting for my the system that kept me moving during the after-hours.
And there they sat on the back shelf at Best Buy: the Companion3 Multimedia Speaker System – my late night career Novocaine. And to my surprise, it sat next to something even more ostentatious: The Bose Companion 5 Multimedia Speaker System. They looked more impressive, lording inches over the 3′s wimpy offering.
I started testing. The 5 did sound impressive, but not so much more than the 3. So I wondered, “Was the Companion 5 worth the $350+tax price tag?” I already thought the 3 was priced a bit high (Bose wouldn’t do that). So I started checking the box for specs.
There weren’t any specs. Not on the box. Not on the price display.
So I started asking the staff
“Anybody know the specs on the Companion 3 & 5?”
“They don’t publish them,” one of the savvier members noted.
And it dawned on me he was right.
Back when all I did was park cars, walk along the dunes, and listen to music, we used to talk this shop all the time. In fact, my Valet brethren would have slapped me for forgetting this crucial fact.
But times have changed since my valet days.
There’s no way Bose still doesn’t publish their stats.
So, I pulled out my iPhone. In this day of blogs, tweets, fan pages, Diggs, follows, likes, dislikes, instant publishing, syndication and my halfway-decent SEO skills, if Bose started publishing their specs I was going to find it.
And find it quick.
Sure enough: nothing.
I did find the specs for the Klipsch THX Speaker system that was down the top shelf. It was almost a third of the price, good quality, and with 200 watts it was going to fit my needs.
And Bose lost a sale.
With all the information and data Niagraing from social media platforms, spritzing in mist of infomercial glitz and glam with the competition opening up their insides for the shoppers to pick, prod, and probe over will only prove to get a company soooo far.
I don’t care how pretty, petite and allegedly powerful Bose speakers are. Speakers a touch bigger from a company that is going to let me know what I’m getting for the money is going to get my money.
The $90 dollar glass of wine from the dregs of a $10 bottle in this case is allowing people to know they’re getting secure, powerful, magnetic shielded 200-watt THX speakers.
What is THX?
Ever been to a George Lucas or Pixar movie? When they do the impressive sound test at the beginning.
Yeah. That THX.
Would you care for another glass or should I just bring your check?
Are your products / services prepared to handle the scrutiny of online research?
(photo credit: allmustgo by Flickr)
Hand Signals in Turn Signal World
Remember hand signals. No, not that one that every cabbie in Chicago or New York knows. I already know that I am #1, you don’t need to remind me. This morning, I am taking the Girl to school and I see this station wagon. It could not have been very old it looked to be a early 2000’s. So, I was puzzled when the lady rolled down her window, hung her left arm out the window and formed a 90⁰ bend at her elbow. 
I was thinking what the heck is she doing, she was slowly down and the guy behind was losing his mind as I was passing them. Then she glided over into a parking spot. I must admit that it took me a good 10 to 15 seconds to figure out what she was doing. She was using the old tried and true “hand signals”.
This seemingly outdated method of telling someone at 25 to 65mph that you are slowing down to stop or make a right or left hand turn. In an age, where cars are shaped very differently today as when the signals first came out in God knows when and when cars did not have the sophisticated and redundant electrical systems. Now, I am sure some of you can remember being taught to do this on your bike, but the moment you were away from the house you never used it.
As, I learned today some people still use these very antiquated tools, much like some people still use a newspaper, yellow pages or radio and TV. When there are much more efficient and quicker ways to disseminate information to the masses.
As close as she came to an accident using and old and outdated way to alert fellow drivers that she was stopping to turn right into a parking spot much is the way that you will get new business by using the “old” guard media to drive business to you or your business. I chuckle to myself when I hear radio commercials that attempt to drive traffic to websites for computer issues, when the average person will only search for it when they are having issues with their computer not when they are driving in their car.
Much of the online avenues are free or cheap enough that is well worth your while to give them a try. If you think about it the average person is starting online to look for anything whether they are on Google, Facebook or Bing. Your message will last forever online, but the old way once it hits it dies. Sure, the paper may linger around lining the puppies cage or you may get lucky with a catchy jingle but do you want to try your luck at that.
Or, do you want to know when your clients enters your name or product into the search box – you come up in the top 3
Dave
MySpace Users Discover Streams. Does It Matter?
(photo credit” Ben Heine via Flickr)
Twitter. Facebook. Twittter. Facebook. The duo gets in more commercials than Billy Mays.
Blog, blog blog…show that content.
And if you’re really savvy, you’re syndicating on other platforms, still digging, liking things in reddit, and stumbling upon crazy content.
And so on…
But not MySpace? Never MySpace! Why not MySpace?
MySpace is simpler to use and allows you to share more content simply and easy. Try embedding video on your Facebook page.
So Why Did MySpace lose out?
If I had to guess, I would say MySpace became the victim of allowing their users too much control over the look of their pages. And when you have enough friends who have no creative eye yet spend hours designing their pages as if the do, the typical result is volumes of horrific-looking pages that afterwhile you just don’t want to look at anymore.
MySpace’s look gets substituted for their user’s lack-of-creative-vision, and eventually the lack of a structured look and feel left for the stigma that MySpace was for “14-year-olds and crack dealers.”
MySpace “Stream” to Help Users “Discover”
It looks like after getting slapped silly by Facebook in 2009, MySpace might be trying to fight back. They’ve restructured, cleaned house, rallied their employees, and according to TechCrunch, MySpace will be running with a new theme:
“Discover and Be Discovered”
And to go with the discovery theme, MySpace have added a new feature to help users see what content their friends are viewing. The new MySpace feature sounds like it’s going to be called, “Stream.”
What songs are your friends listening to? What Videos are they watching? The Stream will tell you.
And MySpace is going social with helping users find that content by pounding the pavement and streaming events via UStream. The most recent was their coverage of the Alice and Wonderland premiere. Included are interviews with the cast: Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne Hathaway…
Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV
MySpace has always been a place for music and has always been the one-stop shop for content. Of all the Social Media Networks, MySpace has been the leader in these areas. And it looks like they’re going to focus on playing to their strengths in 2010. In short, they’ll work on being a better “MySpace” instead of trying to be more like Facebook.
The question will be: “Is it too late for users to discover the new changes in MySpace?”
What Google Buzz Will Have to Fix Before I Use It More
Google Buzz has been the (insert pun here) for the last week. It’s been applauded, it’s been shunned. It’s been called everything from the next big platform to a copy of Yahoo! Update and Yahoo!..oh what was that name…oh yeah, Yahoo! Buzz!
How to Use Google Buzz
After playing with Google Buzz for hours while on break between lectures at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, I’ve realized that I can sum up how to use Google Buzz accordingly:
- The initial offering of Google Buzz is integrated in to Gmail. Thought it might get separated later.
- Initital user experience feels like Facebook, (in)complete with a stripped down, generic user experience.
- Because if its integration to gmail, one can use gmail filters to segment data like Twitter lists.
- You will get updates to both your Inbox and Your Buzz filter until you set filters. I believe the reason this is done this way is because some email clients – iPhone – aren’t set up to use the Buzz feature.
- Syndication: you can use tools like Ping.fm to syndicate messages to Google Buzz via Twitter or GTalk
At this point Google Buzz is, in the words of Jack Johnson, “another one just like the other one.” With my use of Ping.fm, Hootsuite, and FaceBook, I’ll use Google Buzz as just another syndication platform.
What Google Buzz Has to Fix Before I Use It More
- Security: If you’re a Gmail user, you followed a minimum of 20 people whether you wanted to or not. And if that 20 was a mix of personal and professional contacts, then your life has been rudely integrated. I was following an ex-girlfriend and colleagues at the same time. Rumor has others who were in abusive relationships were automatically thrown back together. You can unfollow people, but if they followed you first, they could see you other social media profiles. I wrote a detailed post on Golden Technologies internet marketing blog about how to make your Google Buzz accounts more secure.
- Direct Communication: Once you’ve reset your email address to private, only those who know your email address can write you directly on a post. That’s because the only way to reply directly to someone on Google Buzz is to write “@(gmailusername)@gmail.com” and then Google modifies it to the Google Buzz profile. The downside of not having an email system dedicated solely to the social network platform like Facebook has.
- Segment Data: Unlike Facebook where you can make your settings so only replies to your posts and replies to your comments are emailed to your inbox, Google Buzz sends it all. And it’s a little hard to set the filter so I’m afraid if anyone replies to me via Google Buzz will get filtered to the labels I’ve set up.
- Engagement: Google Buzz is connected to Picassa, Flickr, GTalk, and Twitter as in, “you can syndicate to Google Buzz,” you can’t reply back through those channels. Once there’s a platform that lets you do that, they platform will get my devotion.
Google Buzz instantly popular because it is piggybacking off of the hundreds of millions of Gmail users. Overnight, Google Buzz had over 100,000,000 users – whether they wanted to use it or not. The amount of users offset the fact that the application is three years behind the times.
The question will be whether or not the Google Buzz’s reach and integration can be improved in time to counteract the building relationships that are being formed between Yahoo!, Facebook, Microsoft, and Linkedin, but whether it will be integrated soon enough anyone for anyone to care.
(photo credit: Ben Tremblay via Flickr)
Is all this new stuff going to work for me?
New Media – Inbound Marketing – Search Engine Optimization – World Wide Web – Click thru – Internet marketing – 
Affiliate sales – Blogs and Tweets – social media engagement – reputation management – search marketing ….
On and on they go, after a while it seems so much talk and so little action or results. I was talking to a small business owner a couple weeks ago about this whole paradigm shift and the question struck me as one worth repeating to our readers here as we delve into this niche further:
Entrepreneur – “Steve, why should I care about any of this new stuff? I need to sell my products for a good margin and keep my customer happy enough to come back and buy again. I don’t have the time to tweet and blog, much less inbound or outbound whatevers.”
Now before I launch into my own thoughts on the matter, what say you? How do we who have played in this space a bit over the last 40 – 50 months (the entire life cycle of the industry) answer this small business entrepreneur?
H/T to Hubspot for image
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