Archive for April, 2007

AMA: I’m beginning to see the problem

After some fun in-person events, I recently joined the American Marketing Association. Rather than complain from the outside about how traditional marketers aren’t "getting it", I figured I’d help change from within.
I’ve been an AMA member for a month or two now and already have to raise a red flag. Since my induction into the [...]

Pitching Bloggers

Ben started a great conversation about how to pitch (or not to pitch) bloggers.
A communications expert is quoted in the paper advising companies to "cultivate popular bloggers in much the same way they traditionally have sought to make contact with reporters for newspapers, TV and other media."No, no. Please do not do that. Reporters [...]

Clue Unit iPod Giveaway

As a thank you to you, dear listener, we’re giving away a brand spanking new 4gb iPod Nano (red), courtesy of our friends at eModeration. 
All you have to do to win this tasty iPod is to answer a few questions. In the age of google, the questions should be easy to answer.
Better hurry, [...]

The Clue Unit Podcast Updates

I’ve been remiss in sharing the posting of new Clue Unit podcast episode updates. To help you out, here’s a link to the the last three episodes:
Clue Unit #10Kathy Sierra and Cyberbullying Followup and "How To Hire A Community Manager" - April 9, 2007
Clue Unit #9Kathy Sierra and Cyberbullying - March 30, 2007
Clue Unit #8Starting [...]

Onramps and Access Points

Tara posted an interesting thought recently about Twitter’s creation of multiple access points (aka "onramps"), rather than additional features.
As time has gone along, they’ve continued to build onramps before features. In fact, their lack of features has probably helped rather than hindered their growth. It’s as simple a concept for new users today as [...]

Tail wags the dog, RIAA-style

Spike points out a fantastic story about the RIAA suing music fans (not surprising) for trading files that were approved for sharing by the record label’s marketing department (surprising). Story here.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has become notorious for suing anyone from high school students to retirees for downloading music from the [...]

Disappointed with Amazon

I’m more than a little disappointed with Amazon today. If you know me,  you know my crazy deep love for amazon. They’ve had minor mis-steps over the years, but nothing as big at the current one:
Ads.
Amazon is a commerce site, a store; they sell goods. And the last time I checked, they were doing pretty [...]

Announcing MyEvilCyberTwin.com

You’ve really gotta love Agile Web Development. Yesterday morning, I showed Alex a new site - MyCyberTwin.com. (Hat tip: Jenn!) This site allows you to create a bot that will chat with live people for you. We both joked about how it was interesting technology, but couldn’t figure out the point. Why would you fill [...]

Happy The Shield Day

If it’s not been made painfully obvious in the past, I’m a huge fan of The Shield - in my opinion, the best TV show ever produced.
You can imagine my school girl-like glee when I realized last night that tonight is the new season premiere. If I had a paper calendar these days, I [...]

Need a Community Manager?

In my travels through the Web, conferences, user group meetings, blogs, and various other connection points, I run into quite a few people who ask both "How can I become a community manager?" and "How can I find qualified community manager types to hire?"
This is going to be the topic of an upcoming Clue Unit [...]