Viral Sheep

Not being able to sleep tonight… (should not have had so much green tea I guess) I stumbledacross this delightful video that simply made my day. If this is not the best promotion to watch the sheep herding competitions, I do not know what is…

As you watch it, you will see that the sheep are tied to LED lights and made to do amazing things. This is a promotion by Samsung for their LED products.

That is right kids, this is how viral media begins… I share something I find funny or entertaining or controversial, show it to you, where you pass it on to a friend and so forth, so… pass this on!! :D

MBA in Recession

As my undergrad career comes to an end, I have the fortune of having been accepted to MBA Programs in the US and can look forward to continuing my studies come September. After taking my GMAT and receiving a respectable score, compiling recommendations, and ensuring my CV/Resume is up to snuff I decided to look at schools that would best fit my profile.

The availability of information on the net is astounding. I found many websites such as beatthegmat.com where I could get some suggestions from people who went through the process of applying to different MBA Schools. School rankings everywhere from the Financial Times and BusinessWeek offer a glimpse into what makes a good MBA program, though if you look carefully, the rankings are somewhat misleading… not much separates the top 30 schools.

Having been accepted, I decided to look on the net how other people are fairing. Given there is a recession, money is short… this would mean less applicants right? WRONG. the GMAC uses many sources to convince people that an MBA during a recession is the best option – since you are not going to be earning as much money now, why not study during the hard times and reap the benefits after the lows? Very good idea, and recession applications are usually much harder it seems because of the influx in applicants. This made me feel better about my position…

However, this recession is different. This recession is based on the lack of credit, and the lack of confidence in giving any credit to anyone. Many foundations offering scholarships receded, including those that funded Harvard, Wharton and MIT MBA prospects are no longer offering funding. Loans are impossible to come by, and those who have jobs right now, are not really interested in giving up their jobs right now to study. Many students as a result have had to give up their current MBA dreams because of this – no cash to burn ANYWHERE.

Despite this, the GMAC still posts all over that right now is the BEST time to get an MBA degree. What they do not mention is “if you can afford it”. GMAT exams cost $250, and 2008 represented a record year for GMAT tests. Scores are higher, everyone is more competitive as more experienced individuals are applying because of the recession.

The GMAC has made more money this year from GMAT exams than ever in part to their posting on all of the ranking websites convincing people now is the time to apply. Fortunately for all those who will not be able to pursue and MBA this coming year, the GMAT lasts for 5 years, so if they cannot afford the degree now, the future is still bright for better times to come when credit is no longer such a big issue.

Stumbling Across the Net

There are some internet sites going around right now that I find pretty interesting. If you need a place to waste time, there is nothing better than Failblog and FMyLife to waste your time. Failblog is simply a user who used to post funny pictures and videos (s)he found on the internet and wrote the word “FAIL” on them. The site became very popular and now people are actively sending pictures to be posted on the site. Many people also comment and actually contribute a lot considering the purely comedic value of the site.

FMyLife however I find very interesting. It is a place to anonymously post stories in your life that you need to tell everyone, but dont want to tell anyone who knows you. A relatively new phenomenon, using mediums such as facebook and WOM, the site is now frequented quite often by many. It offers a spot for all technographic segments which is perhaps why it has become so successful. Creators post stories concluding in the trademarked “FML”, Critics comment on the stories, Joiners can join the site and receive updates, spectators such as myself can look over content to get a kick out of them. I imagine the operators of the site are the collectors – this is the only mismatch I can think of in this case…

A site I have been using recently is stumbleupon. I noticed it while working on a corporate website I manage. Looking over the analytics of the site, I kept on seeing traffic that frequented specific pages on my site. Curious by nature, I decided to look into this site and see what was driving traffic to me. People post interesting topics onto this website to share with the world. These posts are archived in categories and if I search “renewable energy” surely enough my website appears pointing to a couple of pages of interest.

What does this mean for e-marketing?

Well, with Failblog and FMyLife, the importance of appealing to the majority of technographics is necessary to achieve critical mass. By only appealing to one or two technographic, it would be impossible to gather enough momentum to create a site that is considered successful. While it is difficult to determine how many visitors fall into each category, it can be seen that many sites succeed when the tailor themselves to attending to all of the different groups. The best exception I have found to date is deviantart which is a site for artist to share their work and comment. This site is really just frequented by these two technographics, though one can argue otherwise…

EDIT – Check out PopJam… it is a more Web2.0 version of Failblog allowing anyone to post content rather than a single user posting suggested content. It is developed to appeal to all Technographics also using rating schemes and a competition style format where users who submit the most content and receive the most “LOL’s” is the winner. Still trying to figure out the incentive other than being considered “e-popular”…

Facebook Looks Like Twitter?

Following up on my previous article about Instant Updates on websites:

In response to Twitters massive recent growth, Facebook decided to mimic the styling and implement much of the same technology as Twitter in hopes of regaining market share being lost to them. In my opinion, e-marketing wise this might not be such a good idea – Facebook is admitting to Twitter’s strength and feels it is necessary to offer a response to them. Though the web world is vastly different from the offline world, it is not always a good idea to respond to an up and coming competitor since it gives them more awareness and more visibility – essentially free advertising.

On another note, Twitter and Facebook are not really competing with each other and thus does not essentially require a response. The development of facebook into the new “twitterbook” how I like to call, it was not necessary to do this update. Is this an e-marketing strategy failure, or a move to success? One can hardly feel the success with the overwhelming ranting of people against the new updates. However, I know in the long run, I will learn to like this new facebook, and hate the next update… so goes the trend.

No, this still does not mean I will use twitter just because facebook is using a similar style (reading my earlier posts will show my twitter sentiments) in fact, my time on facebook has substantially decreased since I have been “updated”. However, a lot of my friends are saying they are spending more time on it, following my theories developed in my earlier post Reality Time

Best Viral Ads

Some of the best viral content out there was made to spark curiosity in the public – This video depicting Ronaldinho (Still think Messi is better) hitting the cross bars on a goal 4 times sparked a lot of controversy as many football fans went crazy over whether it was real or not. This drove a lot of traffic to NikeFootball.com and according to the Times holds the highest ROI on a youtube video to date!

Quicksilver did another amazing video that was even tested on mythbusters because it sparked so much controversy as to its reality.

Trojan did one as well, there is an entire series of them including gymnastics.

Dove evolution needs no explanation.

Another video made by a blogger who gained world recognition over night by creating a prank on his friends which grew and grew. It became very popular with Obama Activists. Rick on the other hand is happy he is still selling records and making money from them because of viral media.

My personal favourite – A grafitti artist tagged Air Force One and created a HUGE controversy where the US Air Force began investigating – Is it real of fake?! :)

What do all of these adds share in common?

They are all there to try and get users to comment on it, spread the word to others, essentially to instigate interaction amongst others. The success of doing this on youtube is that it can easily be transferred from user to user, it is a talking point, it is short, memorable, and does not look too much like a corporate add, though they could very well be one!

CNN Takes Over the World

In case you did not notice the completely biased coverage during the elections in the US, you should have noticed that CNN is using every single social media network available! There is the CNN WordPress Blog which is actually wordpress’ most frequented blog, there is the CNN Facebook Page, the CNN Twitter Page (where they even use Tiny URL to link to their pages), and CNN also used Youtube with their famous Youtube Debates.

Now CNN monitors the comments online and gets people to comment on stories polls and such. However… is this really the way to go for the news? Everytime there is a new event or “hot topic” CNN makes a new facebook page or twitter blog – Even Larry King has a twitter and facebook page… and I distinctly remember Larry King mentioning “that twitter thing” on his show. He obviously does not update it himself… and if he does… I would be VERY surprised.

What does this mean for emarketing?

Well, does it really make sense to use every single resource available on the web because it is there? CNN has always been one of the leaders when it comes to incorporating technology into their broadcasts. I was enthralled by watching Anderson Cooper playing around with the touch screen on TV (though the hologram Capitol Building was a little much) even though I do not approve of a lot of their broad casting material when it came to the elections.

CNN uses a lot of mediums, but I believe they OVER use them. While it does generate a lot off traffic for them and a lot of content… I personally get sick of hearing on CNN “check our facebook page about xxxx topic” – Is it really necessary to have all these different mediums to transfer news? I can think of soooo many ways CNN tells me how screwed up the world is… one is enough for me I think… :)

EDIT – A list of the Web 2.0 features used by CNN

No Twitter for Hitler

What if Hitler had Twitter? A funny video of how addicted people have become to twitter.

It is also a look into how free content made by individuals is developed and the problems they face when they exceed critical mass. Should Twitter higher a professional developer and stop all of these intermittent cut offs that have people like Hitler ranting??

Reality Time

In case you have not noticed, the internet is moving more and more to instantaneous updates of content. You look at all the “Breaking News” websites that have us always so paranoid that the sky is going to fall on our heads, they all offer ways of being the first to know about the latest news around the world.

The whole instantaneous trend began with emails sent out by news websites called “ALERTS” (further increasing paranoia) to keep people up to the minute and keep people glued to their brand of news (CNN is notorious for this). Soon after, every day people wanted to keep track of website updates, keep people excited about the website content, and also actually save money. Every time people loaded the website, they used valuable bandwidth… so having a system to tell people when new content is published and what it is about seemed attractive enough. Thus the rise of RSS feeds…

Now this was quite a while ago in internet history… it even seems primitive in some respects. Yes, now we have the wonderful twitter that posts real time updates of people using a system that updates a webpage without having to refresh it. As if people needed to know EXACTLY when an update is made, as if tweets were THAT important in our lives that we cannot wait 5 minutes.

What does this mean for emarketing?

The internet age is becoming so instantaneous that all of the common applications we use on the net are now in real time. All the news sites, and the major social media sites are pushing forward the instantaneous update feature. This in itself promotes people to actually spend more time on their sites since there is always something new. Before if I was on a website, I read what I wanted and moved on, but now as I am reading on CNN.com, I am getting flashed with news updates every second, each seeking to get me to spend more and more time on the site.

This technology as a whole lends itself to a lot of the technographic segmentation theory. The internet world is subdivided into several categories, more or less like marketers subdivide their consumers into demographics, psychographics and other mediums. By instantaneously updating, the technology encourages creators to put forward as much information as possible, critics to continually evaluate the content created since there is ALWAYS something new and so forth.

The instantaneous nature of this platform. E-commerce sites can take advantage of this, especially in places where people can write comments about products. This promotes realtime conversations between two unrelated individuals, to such an extent, some websites already have people who communicate with viewers directly on the website offering assistance. I have yet to come across them… but I have heard they are popping up every now and then…

Midterm Questions

As per my previous post, my Midterm Review Questions!!

Click Here

Interim Evaluation

PROFESSOR EVALUATION

23-2-2009: This is very good – keep up the good work. Weaving in some course concepts to your analysis can help with the rigour of some future posts.

What I Will Do: After the midterm I will post my Midterm Preparation “Cheat Sheet” under the E-Marketing Class Section

I will try and make sure this is a relevant blog for e-marketing and keep the content meaningful, fun and easy to read for my viewers :)

Che.