• Quote of the Day: Final
    Gord earns back-to-back honors with this sage advice... "Spend more time thinking like a consumer and less time thinking like a marketer." FYI, from what he's told me, this is the premise of the book he's writing. Git r done, Gord, git r done.
  • Time to Buzz Off
    Another great SIS is now in the books. Kudos to David Berkowitz for programming an excellent conference, Gord Hotchkiss for being our master of ceremonies and to Nick, Lou, Carla, Jon, Tameka and the rest of the Media Post gang for organizing everything. Keep an eye out for my 12/26 column where I recap the top buzzwords dropped at the summit in the context of a year-end review and '08 outlook. I haven't done the final tally but here are the buzzwords that, at first glance, have a lot of tick marks next to them... Consumers Universal Big …
  • Mobile Search 101
    What are the first steps marketers should take when it comes to a mobile search strategy? iCrossing's Rachel Pasqua says to grab a Web-enabled mobile phone (preferably a PDA or Blackberry), open the browser and type your site's URL in. What's the user experience like? What content gets deleted, what images and text remain? What's the navigation like? Is it an experience that you think your target market will tolerate? Then do the same via Yahoo, Google or other search engine on the same phone. See what content the engines pull out, see if the site still looks …
  • The Mobile Tipping Point
    One of the big questions from the audience was when mobile marketing will reach a tipping point. Here's what each panelist said... Bob Heyman - GPS enabled phones for localization Rachel Pasqua - better browsers (like Opera) that fit screen size Greg Sterling - better user-experience so more people adopt mobile Web Jordan McCollum - more handsets like the iPhone
  • Are Microsites Dead?
    Apparently the widget guys think they are. "Why would someone want to go to the Bourne Ultimatum microsite when they can bring Bourne Ultimatum clips, images and info on their own page?" said Ben Pashman. Well if the Bourne Ultimatum microsite offers the chance to win prizes, exclusive clips to download, a forum, inside information and other premium contnent -- then I think users will actually go to it. And if they can buy Bourne Ultimatum merchandise there, then that's all the more reason to keep the property around. Both Pashman and Eurekster's Steven Marder then went on …
  • Are Microsites Dead?
    Apparently the widget guys think they are. "Why would someone want to go to the Bourne Ultimatum microsite when they can bring Bourne Ultimatum clips, images and info on their own page?" said Ben Pashman. Well if the Bourne Ultimatum microsite offers the chance to win prizes, exclusive clips to download, a forum, inside information and other premium contnent -- then I think users will actually go to it. And if they can buy Bourne Ultimatum merchandise there, then that's all the more reason to keep the property around. Both Pashman and Eurekster's Steven Marder then went on …
  • Widget Quote of the Day Redux
    I'll see Tameka's widget quote and raise her this one... "The only time kids use email is to communicate with adults." -- Ben Pashman of gigya referenced some focus groups they've run that revealed the need to give young people tools (eg, widgets) to use for communication and brand interaction.
  • Widgets: What's in a Name?
    Bill Flitter of Pheedo kicked off the session titled "Widgetmania: The Search Value of Shared Content" with an old instructional video of a factory that produced "widgets" so we could all reminisce about the amorphous nature of the word that was once used to refer to any product. Ben Pashman of gigya defined today's widgets as "Any little piece of content that can be grabbed and shared and personalized." He stressed the importance of tracking widget usage through the following key metrics: -Installs by location -Impressions -Interactions -Lifecycle -Viral distribution patterns Steven Marder of Eurekster
  • Widget Quote of the Day
    I'm piggybacking on Aaron's "Quote of the Day" post with my own. This one comes from the Widget and Search panel, where Gigya's Ben Pashman said that the traditional marketing infrastructure and planning process isn't ready to fully harness the power of  widgets. Campaigns are designed to run for a give period of time and then shut off. But a widget campaign can run indefinitely -- and should be designed as such. "Widgets are potentially evergreen," Pashman said. "And that's a good thing."
  • Universal Landing Pages?
    Jon Moody from Lenovo suggested that marketers might use universal landing pages as consumers get more used to (and prefer) multiple content formats at a glance. It also might help from an SEO perspective if you have one page all geared towards 2-5 keywords using various types of content optimized for those terms (images, video, reviews, etc.) The key is to make sure your call-to-action doensn't get lost in the landing page clutter.
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