by
5 Comments

FeedBurner May Suffer Glitches, But PostRank is Not the Answer to Our Prayers

posted on January 27, 2009

Over at RWW, Marshall Kirkpatrick takes a look at whether RSS service PostRank has what it takes to mount a challenge to our dependency on oil Feedburner.

PostRank is one of our very favorite services on the web today. Give it any RSS feed and the service will give you a filtered feed of just the most commented on, linked to, saved and Dugg posts from that feed. It’s really handy, so we’re excited to see what the company can do moving more seriously into the feed publishing and analytics market. Can PostRank pull it off?

Can PostRank pull it off? I’ll let you read Kirkpatrick’s analysis but I’m not putting my money on PostRank.

by
3 Comments

The UK’s $215 Million Googling Error

posted on January 27, 2009

An independent study, of how the firm ETS managed to make a major mess of the UK’s Sats student exams, includes a conclusion that warms my Radically Transparent heart.

Giving evidence yesterday, [Lord] Sutherland said: "I don’t know companies that don’t do that kind of probing, whether it’s by telephone or Googling.

"If you Google, first you get the press cuttings and then you say, ah no, that’s so and so but here’s a serious report that maybe we need to inquire into further – and that’s what wasn’t done."

After awarding ETS a contract worth around $215M, the government failed to take a look at a Google search fingerprint that revealed the company had a track record of failures.

by
3 Comments

Marketing News Roundup, January 26

posted on January 26, 2009

Six short months ago, I was sitting in a hospital bed. Glad not to be there now!

by
5 Comments

If a Picture Says a Thousand Words What about Video?

posted on January 26, 2009

By Danny Brown

Despite the doom and gloom of the last quarter in 2008, online sales still totaled over $25 billion last year. Leading online analysts comScore noted that while these figures represented a drop from 2007, unique visitors to retailer websites actually increased by 5%. So, less spending but more visits—which means you need to be ready for these visitors.

What Do You See?

Visual attraction is still one of the best marketing and advertising tools available, and what could be better than video advertising? It’s instant, it’s attention-grabbing and it shows your product better than any still image ever could. So why are so few retailers using video advertising?

by
18 Comments

Dear Twitter, I’m the Type of User You Can Make Money From

posted on January 26, 2009

Can you imagine how much more than $250 million Twitter would be worth if it ever figures out a revenue model?

I suspect the micro-blogging service must have something up its sleeve, otherwise why would a venture capital firm reportedly dump $20 million into the company–giving it the $250M valuation?

Personally, I hope Twitter can find a way to support itself, before the money runs out. It’s no coincidence the company is seeing incredible growth, the service is becoming an invaluable tool for communication. Heck, some people are even suggesting that it’s becoming an alternative channel for bloggers.

Just the other day, I considered how I communicated with friends and peers before the advent of Twitter. For me, Twitter has become a valuable tool for three reasons:

by
3 Comments

ZunaVision Founders Discuss 3D Video Advertising

posted on January 26, 2009

By Manoj Jasra.

zunalogo2ZunaVision is an up and coming technology that enables advertisers to dynamically display ads inside the 3D space of online videos. Zunavision was developed by 2 students currently attending Stanford University, Ashutosh Saxena and Siddharth Batra. I had the chance to sit down with both of them to get some insight on ZunaVision and their ideas behind developing it.

[Manoj]: What is your educational background?

[Ashutosh & Siddharth]: Ashutosh Saxena received his undergraduate degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur, India) in 2004, and his Masters degree from Stanford University in 2006. Currently, he is finishing his PhD at Stanford University in the area of Machine Learning and Computer Vision.

by
3 Comments

Twitter Mania Takes Hold in the UK

posted on January 26, 2009

By Peter Young

According to Hitwise data released on January 21st this year, Twitter usage in the UK has increased 10 fold in just 12 months – with celebrities such as Steven Fry, Jonathan Ross, John Cleese and Richard Branson even joining the ever increasing list of Twitterers. This follows hot on the heels of Hitwise announcing Twitter usage has overtaken that off Digg in the US.