Ubiquity is a next shiny thing worth watching

I’ve been trying hard this year not to link to items that fall into the shiny object chasing category I’d call “tech-blogger meme-of-the-day.” However, I can’t help myself on this one. Mozilla Labs (the folks behind the Firefox browser) has a concept project called Ubiquity that utilizes an interface concept that will be very familiar and compelling to users of the software called Quicksilver. I’ve never tried to explain Quicksilver, but here goes: It a light-weight utility that I use... [Read the full story]

Do You Have An Online Strategy? (Shameless self-promotional post)

Jon Henshaw, the SEO guru (among many other things) at the web-development firm, Sitening, says some very nice things about the online strategy displayed on the Hammock Inc. company website, Hammock.com. (Yes, I do have a job.) Thanks, Jon. I feel like Sally Field. There are subtle things about the site that Jon notes — simple things that took me years of blogging to figure out and that took several people at Hammock (not just me, but thanks for the credit, Jon) nearly a year to think through. Again, it’s a... [Read the full story]

How magazine circulation remains steady when two weeks ago it was down 6.3%

Folio: is reporting that business-to-business (or “trade”) magazine circulation remained mostly flat during the first half of 2008, according to numbers released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Earlier this month, the same audit bureau reported newsstand sales of magazines was down 6.3% in the same period. If you weren’t living under a rock, you probably read the widespread coverage when those newsstand numbers were released. Beyond Folio, a few B-to-B bloggers and the website of American Business... [Read the full story]

Sorry. This is a test post

Doing a little blog maintenance that requires a post. Sorry for all of the echos this post will generate.  Read More →

The Power of Being Genuinely Sorry

I’ve talked before about answering your social phone. It’s the idea that you’re paying attention to all the social media channels that may be talking about you and your company, and then engaging the people who are talking about you…whether they’re saying something good or bad. I saw an email come in over the weekend that was a correspondence between one of my clients and an upset customer. The customer had a series of very frustrating experiences with my client and chose to Tweet about all... [Read the full story]

Random items from a Saturday afternoon

Here’s a grab-bag of items and thoughts I’ve not had time to post during the past week, which, according to tradition is supposed to be one of the slowest of the year. Not so for me. Nashville tech-related publicity: BusinessWeek.com posted a story on “Marketing to Millennials” that features Nashville startup Facecard.com and a local franchisee of Jersey Mike’s whose nearby unit makes regular deliveries to the RexBlog HQ. Advice for bloggers: I forgot why I jotted down this note, but a recent... [Read the full story]

Creative Face-off: Chiat/Day vs. an 18-year-old student

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the Apple TV’s failure to succeed in the marketplace was (and I couldn’t believe it myself) more a failure of Apple’s marketers and Chiat/Day’s advertising than one of technology and product features. As I pointed out then, compared to the consistently brilliant creative Chiat/Day turns out, the one and only Apple TV creative was weak and its media budget seemed less than a two-day buy for any other Apple consumer-oriented product. Just how bad was the creative? Well... [Read the full story]

Video of the Week: Pride Killer

There were several great videos submitted by readers this week for consideration but this one just spoke to me for some reason beyond them all. I can think of all kinds of applications to life here but the one that stands out the most to me is a simple proverb: Pride goes before the fall. HT to Edwin Crozier for this video suggestion. Here’s a link for the feed readers. You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video  Read More →

2008 hard for Olympics guerilla marketers, but …

The Wall Street Journal has as story about the Olympics organizing committee’s efforts to hide any logos that are not those of the sponsors: To ensure that only the companies that pay millions of dollars to be official Olympic sponsors enjoy the benefits of exposure in Olympic venues, organizers have covered the trademarks of nonsponsors with thousands of little swatches of tape. In years past, many companies tried “guerilla marketing” attempts to grab some ‘un-paid’ media attention, so I can... [Read the full story]

Guest Post: Visa’s ‘Go World’ Should Go Away

Today we have a guest post from none other than my own brother, Mike Seaver…no, not that Mike Seaver…my brother Mike Seaver. Anyway, he’s on the pastoral staff at Crossway Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, but he sent me the following post because he was an advertising major in college and still gets a burn on about media and marketing from time to time. He’s got a take on Visa’s Olympic commercials that I thought was worth sharing here. It’s not specific about social media…it’s... [Read the full story]

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