Google Ad Thinks Like Apple

April 24, 2012 By

I love this Google ad so much. For one thing, I am a dad, so I do connect emotionally to it, but more than that I love the fact that it is centered on data.

I used to work for the hard disk manufacturer Quantum Corp many years ago. The folks at Quantum were always obsessed with the mechanics of the drive; the rotation speed, data density per platter and error rate. These are all wonderful things to have in a quality disk drive and when you are selling primarily to computer makers like Dell and Apple I suppose it makes good marketing sense. I always wanted Quantum to do a consumer campaign that centered around what I knew what was truly important, the data that lived on those drives. Much like the Intel inside campaign, this would be an effort to get consumers to specify Quantum for their hard drive. Consumers buy based on emotion and what they are emotionally connected to is their data.

I also love that this ad does not talk about features and specs, but focuses on the utility of Google+ and the automatic upload feature. This is a very Apple thing to do by the way. Look carefully at any Apple and you will see a greater emphasis on the utility than specs and features. This is one of the great secrets of Apple’s marketing, they understand people care a lot more about what a particular product can do for them than they do about specs. Other companies can try to compete on specs, but they never tell or show you how their product can change your life.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Social Networks, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Connected World Radio: Post-PC Era

March 20, 2012 By

Post PCWelcome back to Connected World Radio!

We are back and will be on a weekly schedule. The show will also have a loose format consisting of social media news, a tip and a tool. I always want the audience to come away with something tangible and useful they can use right away.

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Filed Under: Audio, Blog, Connected World Podcast, Mobile Computing, Podcast, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Google Goes Radically Transparent: Unedited Meeting Video

March 12, 2012 By

Google ImageI’m old enough to remember the days when Google was the scrawny upstart and the king of Internet search was Yahoo. Oh, how times have changed. Yahoo now struggles to survive and Google is a giant. One of the downsides of Google’s meteoric rise is that it’s lost a little big of their original mojo. Google controls so much now it seems like just another large, dominant company. It’s lost some of it’s personality and charm. Many even view Google with suspicion and wonder about it’s “do no evil” credo.

Just recently, Google has done something I think is pretty extraordinary. They have posted an 8 minuet video of an engineering meeting on Google search. Completely unedited and unscripted. It’s not particularly thrilling viewing as it’s filled with technical talk about how the spelling corrections work in Google search, but it’s a fascinating look inside one of the world more important companies. It helps people realize there are actual people behind the giant company, people who care about the product they are producing.

So much of what we see from large corporations are heavily produced and edited video and productions. The message crafted. Can you imagine Apple doing much a thing as this? Not in a million years. People like behind the scenes stuff anyway. I wish more companies would have the courage to do things like this. It is moving much closer to what I call talking in a human voice. Being this way and realting better to your customers and prospects is one of the largest strategic advantages smaller companies have against their larger rivals who often are not capable of doing it. Bravo to Goggle on this move.

Filed Under: Blog, Branding, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , ,

Barnes & Noble Almost Pull Off A Gutsy Marketing Move

July 1, 2011 By

Missed It“Missed it by that much….” – Maxwell Smart (Agent 99)

When I saw the headline, “Barnes and Noble offers 30 free e-books to switch to Nook” I thought, oh yeah, now we’re talking. When you are competing with the industry leader who has a stronghold on the market, you need to do something pretty dramatic if you’re going to get a leg up. Giving 30 free e-books to switchers would have been just the kind of bold, ballsy move that could have changed the tide, at least a little. Alas, it turns out Barnes and Noble isn’t that gutsy after all and this promotion isn’t going to do a damn thing. The 30 free books, you see, are chosen by Barnes and Noble and span a wide variety of titles from cooking to history to fiction. Great, you gave me 30 books, of which if I am lucky I might be  interested in one or two. They claim it’s a $300 value. Some value.

You see, the real problem is if I already have an Amazon Kindle, I have all my books already stored there. I don’t have access to them on the Nook and this creates a nice lock in for Amazon. Now if you allow me to take 30 of my favorite titles over, and make it even better, the rest of my titles for a nice discount price, you will be able to generate switchers. What would this cost Barnes and Noble? Plenty to be sure but what’s the value of a new lifelong customer? This game is hardball and either you step up and play or you’re going to be out of the game soon.

The same thing can be seen in the tablet wars. Apple is the dominant player with the iPad. Competition is coming now from various Android tablets and most recently HP. But the HP tablet starts at $500 and many of the Android tablets are close to the same price point. That’s the same price as the iPad and like it or not, those tablets are just not as good as the iPad yet. Price being equal, people are going to choose the iPad. If these alternative tablets are going to make any headway, someone is going to have to through down a price like $300. This is not about profit or loss at his point, when you are trailing a dominant player like Apple, you’ve got to grab market share anyway you can.

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Connected World Radio: Lessons from Pottermore

June 24, 2011 By

PottermoreWe look at the lessons gained from JK Rowling’s stunning announcement of Pottermore.com. eBooks will be available for the first time for the Harry Potter series but Mrs. Rowling cuts out the middle man opting to go straight to the consumer via her new website. Welcome to the new world of direct one to one relationships between business and consumers.

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The App Bubble

May 28, 2011 By

bubble burstI well remember the first Internet Bubble. Companies were being formed right and left. You could get millions of dollars of funding for quite literally an idea scratched out on the back of the napkin. It did not matter how silly the idea seamed and few questions as to any actual business model. If it was cool, that was enough and everyone was sure they would figure out a way to make money eventually. Of course that’s why they call it a bubble. Bubbles are temporary and unstable. The Internet Bubble popped  and all of Silicon Valley imploded with it. I was there and it was ugly.

I can’t help but feeling we are inflating a new bubble, an app bubble. Cell phones are now smart phones, handheld computers really and a vast wave of applications are being developed for them. There are  getting to be too many apps and they are getting a little silly. Witness Dryer Bro, an application that tells you when your dryer load is done. You have to put your iphone down on the dryer and the accelerometer determines when the shaking has stopped and sends a text message to, well, your iphone which is sitting on the dryer. Actually the app says it sends a text to a group of “bros” you determine so I guess they can go get your laundry…or tell you that it’s done. You can see, this is where apps have jumped the shark. In the coming Internet of Things you don’t think dryers and washers will notify us of their status themselves? Seriously, where is the business model? The core killer technology? There’s just no there there. TechCrunch reviewed this app and gave it a rave review. Remember when we all bought into that Pets.com and Webvan were surely going to be the next great thing?

Apps are all the rage but many of them are just dumb or terrible. There will be another popping of this app bubble soon and it will be a good and cleansing thing. As the popping of the Internet Bubble shook the industry back into the reality of serious ideas and real business models so will the app bubble pop clear out the apps based on, dare I say, nothing but air? Hopefully we will be left with fewer apps that are more valuable and backed by solid technology.

Filed Under: Blog, New Media, Technology, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , ,

LinkedIn Moves Past Classifieds For Job Searching

April 6, 2011 By

linkedinlogoNew data is out that shows social network LinkedIn has now moved past traditional newspaper classifieds in a survey of how the generation of millennials will search for jobs. Frankly I’m surprised it has taken this long. Newspaper want ads have been a pretty terrible way to look for a job for years now. Newspaper classifieds have been hammered hard over the years by the likes of Craigslist and this is the other shoe to drop, now taking revenue from the want ad section.

What makes LinkedIn so good for job searching is the same thing that makes the Connected Age so powerful, it’s the connections. Personal connections have always been the best way to find a job, Internet or no. Now applicants have a larger pool of connections to call on. In addition, the entire LinkedIn profile, if done correctly, serves as it’s own resume including recommendations. The other thing smart people are doing is climbing the social graph. Find an individual in a company you want to work for and look for those six degrees of separation.

LinkedIn is a great social network because it has locked in on such a great niche market. LinkedIn knows exactly what it is and it’s tireless at fulfilling that mission. It’s the secret to their success.

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New MacBook Air And The Future Of Mobile Computing

October 20, 2010 By

Macbook AirApple has announced their new MacBook Air and it’s truly a bold and revolutionary step in mobile computing. Apple has stated this is the future of MacBooks and the way all laptops should be someday. This is a pretty radical statement considering how the MacBook Air is put together. To me, this is a radical leap into cloud based computing for Apple. The machine has no optical drive, so installation of new applications will likely hinge on the also newly announced Mac OSX App Store. With limited solid state storage and no hard drive, customers will likely have to rely on cloud based storage for many of their larger files.

Gone are the days of large, powerful laptops designed to handle the work of a desktop on the road. Trends are moving toward smaller, lighter devices driven more from the power of the Net. As notebook computers eventually started to outsell desktop machines, I think we will see these smaller devices, call them NetBooks or tablets or what have you start to outsell typical notebooks. With this, I believe we will also see a resurgence of desktop machines as people give up trying to use one machine for home and mobile use. I have already made this move, as I gave up my laptop for an iMac at home and a small pc based netbook when mobile. Of course I still also have my smart phone when I want complete pocketability.

Apple had no entry in the super small and light portable and the iPad doesn’t quite substitute yet for one. The new MacBook Air fits the bill perfectly. The original Air was maligned with problems and never took off but I think this new model will see much more popularity. As with everything Apple, it’s a bit overpriced but drop dead beautiful and elegant. I think the real legacy of Steve Jobs will be the way he singularly blends cutting edge technology and art. Seth Godin always talks about making products remarkable. It’s an important lesson for all business and Apple gets an A+

Filed Under: Blog, Mobile Computing, Technology Tagged With: , ,

Kids and Ease of Use in Technology

April 4, 2010 By

Any parent with kids probably realizes this, but kids are incredibly savvy with technology. They have no fear or preconceptions about anything, so they are willing to jump in and try anything. It’s one of the things that’s so beautiful about kids, before they get tarnished by the world.

I learn so much from watching my kids work with technology. I learn about the future. Having kids is like living with your own personal crystal ball. I also learn a great deal about user interface and ease of use in tech products. My daughter, when she was just nine, picked up my iPhone and knew just what to do with it, no instruction needed. That’s when I knew it was a most amazingly built device. I think every technology company should have kids employed in their labs to do their user testing. If the 5 year old can master it, you’re ready to ship.

Tyler Gray realized the same thing and put it further to test with his iPad and his 5 year old son Cash. I’ve included the video in this post, and here also is a link to the original Fast Company article.

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Filed Under: Blog, Mobile Computing, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Goodbye Neighborhood Video Rental Store

March 21, 2010 By

It used to be we had small neighborhood mom and pop video rental stores. That gave way to the large, big box, mega retailers like Hollywood Video and Blockbuster. Hollywood Video is in Chapter 11 and now Blockbuster is hanging by a thread. Netflix was the first nail in the coffin. Now there is iTunes, Amazon.com, Boxee, and Roku among others. There’s just to need to drag yourself down to a Blockbuster and put up with their silly return rules, let alone hoping the title you want is even available.

RedBox has been a massive hit without large stores because they put their vending machines where people already are, like the supermarket. No extra trip or hassle required. And at $1 a movie, Blockbuster doesn’t stand a chance. It’s interesting that Blockbuster has watched all this go on in the past few years but has not been able to do much of anything about it. They’ve experimented with a few things, but halfheartedly and they have been failures. Someone at corporate didn’t want to hurt the mainline retail business, which was really bad strategy because that business is dead now anyway and they have nothing to show for it.

Blockbuster has misread and misunderstood most every new business reality of the digital age. There CEO talks a good game but somehow I doubt they will have the boldness and smarts to actually do what it takes to catch up. The only thing they have going for themselves is a still strong brand name. If they can just find the guts to capitalize on it.

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Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Technology, Video Tagged With: , , , ,
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