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Survey Shows Made in USA Matters

posted on September 13, 2012

Back in July, the USA Olympic team hit a bump in the road when the news broke that their all-American athletic wear had been made in China. Considering the patriotic nature of the games, it’s not surprising that folks were upset but how do they feel about the origin of everyday items?

According to a shopper survey by Perception Research Services International (PRS), that “Made in USA” label is important enough to influence their buying decisions.

76% of those surveyed, said seeing a “Made in the USA” label made them more likely to buy the product but patriotism wasn’t the reason for the decision.

Most shoppers said the shopped USA in order to help the economy. PRS says it’s more likely that the real motivator is concerns about the quality and safety of products made overseas.

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Zuckerberg Says Facebook Social Search is a Definite Maybe

posted on September 13, 2012

When asked if Facebook is going to launch a social search engine Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded with a definite maybe.

Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012, Zuckerberg talked about the possibility of developing a unique social search engine on Facebook. An engine that would take advantage of the enormous data pool filled with profiles, status updates, likes and shares to deliver truly customized results.

For example, say you’re looking for a new lunch hangout near work. You can Google it (or Bing it) and find out what’s nearby based on your location and you can get reviews from sites such as friendseat and citysearch.

What Facebook aims to do is personalize those results by telling you which lunch location is popular with your friends and co-workers. All the data is there, it’s just a question of building filters.

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Will It Ever Be Acceptable to “Bing It”?

posted on September 13, 2012

An article in Fast Company caught my eye with its title ‘Even Inside Microsoft, Users Rarely “Bing It”‘.

Ouch.

But watch this video of the product placement on the TV show “Hawaii Five-O” and see how it sounds.

For me it sounds very forced and if I said that to anyone I doubt they would whip out their Windows Phone because they understood what I meant. First, they have to have a Windows phone but that’s another issue.

So how does it sound to you?

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Yelp Offers Local Merchants Gift Certificate Option

posted on September 13, 2012

Yelp, a leading local review site has added to their offering for local businesses by allowing business owners to offer gift certificates through the site. Now in addition to promoting offers small, local players can give a full cash equivalent gift certificate option to customers.

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127 Rockin’ Content Marketing Tips – A #CMWorld 2012 Cheat Sheet

posted on September 13, 2012

Great conferences can be frustrating.

They inspire you, cram your brain with creative ideas and “ah-ha!” moments, jam your wallet with the biz cards of new friends, expand your waistline and kill your per diem. (That’s the fun part.) Then it’s time for goodbyes, the hassles of travel, playing catch up at the office and wondering where all that momentum went.

If, like me, you’ve been trying to keep up with the flood of valuable insights from Content Marketing World 2012, here’s a cheat sheet to help you out. It’s a mashup of highlights from fellow attendees, blog posts that stood out, and a couple bonus links for your listening pleasure.

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Following the Trend, iTunes Reduces Text and Highlights Images

posted on September 12, 2012

I worry a lot about the demise of the English language. First it was text speak (brb, cu l8tr), then it was limited character updates, now it’s images as a replacement for text. It’s truly frightening.

Take a look at the new iTunes home page which is coming in October.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think this is a nice change from rows and rows of song titles. It certainly is more interesting to look at and I’d probably find my favorite song faster. . . (remember, it’s all about faster and thinner!) but it does take up a lot more room on the page.

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You Can Never Be Too Thin or Too Fast: iPhone 5

posted on September 12, 2012

You can never be too thin or too fast. If that’s not Apple’s motto, it should be.

Earlier this morning, Apple held a press conference with all the fanfare we used to dedicate to rocket launches. It was all about iPhone 5 and iOS 6 with a few new iPod and iTunes upgrades thrown in for the average man. I watched via Engadget’s live blog and though the bloggers did their best to keep it entertaining (good job, fellas!) there really wasn’t much to get excited about this time around.