Tag: MARKETING

Google has started running an advertising experiment inside its Goggles mobile visual search application. This merges offline marketing with the mobile Web. Google is working with five brands -- Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines -- to offer print ads, movie posters and other media that will support Google Goggles. When you take a picture of any such ad, using Google Goggles on ...

In Ray Ozzie's recent farewell note to his teammates in Redmond, he stressed the importance of looking to the future. "[...]The first step for each of us is to imagine fearlessly; to dream," he said, adding "It's the dawn of a new day – the sun having now arisen on a world of continuous services and connected devices." Microsoft's new slogan certainly runs parallel to Ozzie's focus on ...

One of the first things you learn about writing for the Web is that you have an incredibly short amount of time to make a first impression; it's usually said to be around three seconds. So, if you've grabbed your visitor's interest or managed to get your message across within those three seconds, you did a good job. But how do you know if you did? Clue is a new Web app from the fine folks at Zurb ...

For most people, "Google" has become synonymous with "search". Heck, Cambridge dictionary lists it as a verb. But as we all know, Google can do lots more than just search. You've got Gmail, and YouTube, and Maps, and the calculator, and a whole bunch of other Web properties. While Gmail is enormously popular, not all Google projects fare so well (cough Wave cough). Even most of the search ...

Touration is a simple to use web app for creating visual tours of your Web pages. If you go to their page and click Show me how it works you'll get a demo tour that would explain the concept in about 10 seconds, but the gist of it is that you get callouts that walk you through page elements, one by one. They also offer a demo of the editor, which is really simple to use -- which is a large part ...

Hulu isn't the only online video service shaking things up with ads this week. The Wall Street Journal has YouTube on the record saying they're about to roll out the skippable ads they've been planning since November, so users can jump past an ad a few seconds after it starts. That can't make advertisers happy, right? Well, it might actually be better for everyone. As Hulu is finding out, ...

Loopt was the first location-based social app out of the gate for iPhone -- remember that absurd demo with the guy in the double-popped collars? -- but it was soon passed up by competitors like Foursquare. Now Loopt is playing catchup by introducing LooptStar, a "loyalty card" system that allows businesses to reward repeat customers. Anyone who's used Foursquare will notice that this LooptStar ...

Using email as a promotional tool is tricky. Yes, there are great tools, a la MailChimp, for sending out emails in bulk and managing huge campaigns. What if you have just a handful of emails to send out every day, though? "Personalized bulk mail," if you will? Tout is a service created to exactly this end. It's very simple (too simple, perhaps). It lets you set up a bunch of templates and quickly ...

Cover Browser features an enormous collection of book and magazine covers, especially retro stuff. It's kind of cluttered, but that's understandable for the sheer amount of covers it archives. Magazine and book covers are meant to catch your eye instantly; after all, when you go to a dead-tree bookstore, how many books are competing for your attention at the same time? And what's the first ...

There was almost no end to companies looking to track your social media efforts at this year's SXSW, and MutualMind is another runner in the race. MutualMind adds some CRM flavors to the mix, providing you with specific data on campaigns and accounts and some metrics that, in theory, allow you to make adjustments to your strategy. As any marketer will tell you, social media marketing is a fluid ...

Lugiron is one of the many companies I found at SXSW hitting the social media space with metrics and analysis for their clients. Currently they are in private beta with some undisclosed companies, but I'm eager to see how their solution plays out when the public beta goes live later this year. It sounds compelling: tie together your social media profiles (Twitter page, Facebook page, etc.) with ...

It's bundle time for Mac software lovers. If you're not familiar with them, there are a few companies out there that collect a bunch of great (and sometimes not-so-great) Mac software titles into a bundle, and sell them at a highly discounted rate. It's attractive to buyers because you can often get a few apps you really want for below retail, and attractive for software vendors because they get a ...

In exchange for just one search on Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, Microsoft will grant you free WiFi access on hotspots nationwide (but mostly in airports and hotels). Apparently the offer began in September but perhaps they've been steadily unrolling it across the country as they only just announced it officially yesterday. It's an interesting approach to marketing, and no doubt not ...

A marketing firm in Knoxville, TN, is suing its former client, a pizza place, over negative comments left on Facebook and Twitter. Even if this lawsuit weren't doomed to fail, and even if the marketers, Low and Tritt, had asked for less than an absurd 2 million dollars from The Pizza Kitchen, this would still be a terrible, useless bit of litigation. Without this lawsuit, I would never have heard ...

What do you get when you take a gaggle of enthusiastic, early-adopting online marketers and introduce them to one of the world's largest directories of job-seeking college students? We're about to find out, now that Facebook is acquiring FriendFeed. The move should mean improved versions of the real-time status and conversation features that Facebook was already moving toward, but that's not all ...