market

Will OLPC be the TiVo of PCs for emerging markets?

With the dust-up this week about Intel leaving the fold of OLPC, it got me to thinking: Will One Laptop Per Child become the TiVo of PCs for emerging markets? In other words, they spark the revolution but gain relatively little from it.

TiVo of course almost single-handidly created the DVR category and market. Their technology was very well executed, they created a user experience that is still unparalleled in terms of ease and joy of use, and with continual roll-out of innovative capabilities that kept stretching the definition of the product.

But ultimately their business model proved insufficient to … Read more

$15 Official Super Deluxe Search Marketer's Kit

Like many companies, Netconcepts recently celebrated the holidays with a little staff get together and mystery gift exchange. There were the usual, but always popular gifts of coffee, tea, chocolates, and wine, as well as a very popular Atari console ... and as we did the "you can open one or steal one" gift rule, it certainly was the most fought over gift.

Unfortunately due to timing, Stephan wasn't able to make it as he was out visiting our friends in Seattle and participating in a great SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday otherwise he might have been torn between the Atari and the unique gift that follows and shows that even search geeks have a sense of humor (twisted as it may be).

Every search marketer has their bag of tricks and tools, but why settle for a bag when you can have a kit ... or more accurately, a box with built in carrying handle? And at $15 or less, the cost limit for our gift exchange, within range of even the budding search marketer.

What comes in a Search Marketer's Kit? I thought you'd never ask. Luckily, each item in the kit comes with its own identification tag.… Read more

Net users are becoming their own reputation managers

With everyone becoming a producer in the YouTube age, self-branding ("The Brand Called You") has evolved from a fancy to a necessity.

Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame have shrunk to 5 seconds of microfame, and in the contained public arena of social networks, amateur paparazzi--thanks to the viral nature of social media--have the power to grant celebrity status. That, in a nutshell, is the thesis of Clive Thompson's poignant piece for Wired on the rise of "microcelebrities."

As Facebook walls make personal communications open to the rest of your trusted network, even your … Read more

Blue Iris, better than green

Fashion faddies may take note of Pantone's color of the year, Blue Iris (No. 18-3943). I'll be using it in my new logo not because it's hip, but because I admire its qualities. Pantone's Leatrice Eiseman stated, "Blue Iris brings together the dependable aspects of blue, underscored by a strong, soul-searching purple cast. Emotionally, it is anchoring and meditative with a touch of magic." Blue Iris is "supposed to answer several needs, hopes, desires, that kind of thing."

Tongue out of cheek, I had a hope and desire that "green" … Read more

The shrinking brand: marketing in a small world

Here's another trend for 2008: From micro-loans to micro-vacations, micro-celebrities to micro-trends, speed dating to speed cooking: the "long tail" world of consumers is becoming smaller and shorter. Products, services, and experiences are being deconstructed in easier-to-digest, easier-to-afford bits, allowing consumers to collect even more experiences, as often as possible, in an even shorter time frame. Shrinking attention spans have prompted the rise of what Wired Magazine calls "snack-size media," and the hyper-personalization of online communication has led to new formats (micro-blogs, widgets, feeds, texting, etc.) that challenge long-held marketing conventions.

The emerging "economy … Read more

In between years: Trends and snippets

Soccer and innovation: I blogged about " what Ronaldinho and FC Barcelona can teach you about innovation" before "el cl?sico" on Sunday, and, well, there was a certain risk that my bold claim would backfire. Madrid slammed Barca in its own backyard 1-0, and while I'm flattered that my favorite Fox soccer analyst Bobby McMahon is linking to my post, his comment still stings a little...

Monarchy 2.0: Queen Elizabeth has launched a new channel on YouTube--the Royal Channel--that will broadcast her traditional Christmas address, at 7 a.m. PST Tuesday. According to … Read more

Trends 2008: The end of marketing?

Robert Stephens, founder and chief inspector of The Geek Squad, contends that " Marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable." Does marketing smell bad? Or is it perhaps even dead? There have been a number of articles recently that question the marketer's ability to make sense of his/her somewhat wishy-washy role. BusinessWeek reveled in the "short life of the CMO," and McKinsey Quarterly provided some stats that reveal how much today's marketing executives are grappling with the new social media environment, arguing that "many chief marketers still have narrowly defined roles … Read more

Ten games for search marketers

Games always seem to capture a lot of attention this time of year, in part because of kids and toys for Christmas or adults and getting together for the holidays. It would seem that search marketers enjoy games, too. While this often revolves around contests or challenges to get a site to rank No. 1 in the SERPs, at PubCon this year, SEOmoz even got some search marketers to unplug long enough to play an SEO version of Werewolf.

With only a week before Christmas, I couldn't help but wonder what games might be dancing around in search marketer'… Read more

Investors look to emerging markets in China, Israel

HALF MOON BAY, Calif.--Homesick entrepreneurs longing to return to China or Europe may find the motherland is offering more than a warm embrace: funding by eager investors.

China's stock market has climbed fivefold over the past two years, and efforts are under way to create an emerging market that would cater to younger companies.

"The China market has turned over five times, so it's very, very hot. But there've only been a handful of local companies that have done an IPO," said Kuantai Yeh, managing director of Intel Capital and a panelist Friday at … Read more

Web strategy for open-source businesses (Learning from JBoss)

Talk with John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM, and he'll tell you that his website is one of his most valuable business tools. It's often the beginning point to a customer relationship and is also often the source of a deal closing. Few understand web strategy as well as SugarCRM.

JBoss might well be among that few. I was reading through an internal presentation from JBoss and continually find myself impressed by how well Marc, Rob, Bob, and the others grok'd the importance of the web to their business. JBoss knew who was hitting its website, what they were doing there, and how to nurture that initial interest into a sale.

Take a look at the slide to the right. IBM is the master of selling to the CIO and pushing its technology down into an enterprise. Open source generally works in the opposite fashion. You start with the developer/architect and "bottom-up" adoption of technology until it's pervasive enough to catch the CIO's attention...and her wallet.… Read more