Tag Archives: Internet

Not Online? Not A Real Brand.

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Terry O’Reilly writes:

A strong sign of television’s slow fall from media supremacy came in 2005, when I was hon­oured to rep­re­sent Canada on the first-ever Radio Lions jury. There we were told of two inter­est­ing trends: that entries in the TV ad cat­e­gory were down and that entries for the “Cyber Lions” category–that’s for online marketing–were up. To put this in per­spec­tive, the Cannes Lions Inter­na­tional Adver­tis­ing Fes­ti­val was founded on tele­vi­sion and film in 1959, and those two media have been the flag­ships ever since. Until now.

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The Three C’s of Web Strategy

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Ten years ago I was edu­cat­ing peo­ple about what they might expect from their web­sites. For many medium and small busi­nesses, it was their first web­site, and they wanted to know how it was going to make them money. Nowa­days, a web pres­ence has become a part of almost every busi­ness’ “price of admis­sion”. Ten years ago, you weren’t cred­i­ble with­out a busi­ness card and a Yel­low Pages list­ing, and peo­ple were already see­ing that before long a web­site would become a part of the min­i­mum cred­i­bil­ity standard.

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McNally Robinson Misses the Plot Twist

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It’s been McNally Robinson - Polo Park, Winnipeg announced today that McNally Robin­son is clos­ing two of its stores and have entered bank­ruptcy pro­tec­tion for restructuring.

For those not in Win­nipeg, it’s worth men­tion­ing that the inde­pen­dent book­seller is a local suc­cess story, hav­ing started here in 1981 and grown to have stores not only in Win­nipeg, but also in Saska­toon, Toronto, and New York as well as online. Many Win­nipeg­gers have a “feel-good” sense about sup­port­ing this local option for their book pur­chases, and it’s a pop­u­lar spot for book launches as well. Most loca­tions also fea­ture a (non-Starbucks) café/restaurant of some sort, the Prairie Ink Café. To be clear, I like McNally Robin­son as a book­store. The loca­tions I’ve been in are all large with a good selec­tion of titles and spe­cial pro­mo­tion for local authors.

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The Main Point of the Internet

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Hugh MacLeod really cap­tures it some­times, even if you some­times have to pause a minute to decide whether you agree or dis­agree, and in what way. That’s how it is when he explains the main point of the Inter­net.
internetpoint556
Per­haps the Inter­net has helped rede­fine “social­iz­ing” as well. But it’s just that — the Inter­net is all about con­nect­ing. What­ever your ulte­rior motive, it’s about con­nect­ing first. And even if the Inter­net really only rep­re­sents a poten­tial cash cow in your mind’s eye, if you don’t con­nect, really con­nect, it won’t ever become that for you. So con­sider what it is you’d like the Inter­net to be for you, then ask your­self: “What kind of con­nec­tions do I need to make in order for that to take place?”

Don’t Get it to Have It, Get it to Use It

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The “It” here being social net­work­ing, aka the Social Web. I often talk to clients who tell me, “Peo­ple say I have to get on Face­book and Twit­ter,” or what­ever hap­pens to be the social media du jour.

socialweb They’ve been put under the impres­sion that these strange tools are the key to online suc­cess with their busi­ness, but they’re still scratch­ing their heads won­der­ing why any­one inter­ested in their busi­ness cares about what they ate for break­fast that morn­ing. Nev­er­the­less, there’s an impulse to rush out and sign up to every­thing they can. But something’s askew.

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Twitter to Unseat Google?

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An article on TwiTip this morning says Twitter will replace Google search. Excuse me? My first response is that this prediction is like trying to convince a gardener that the hoe will replace the spade. It seems we have a need for both, if you ask me. I've been using Twitter lightly for a couple of months now, mostly for following a few Twitter streams that are of interest. This is, in fact, how I found the article with which I'm disagreeing. Twitter is in fact a highly useful tool, provided you apply it to the proper job... and though it can be used in this way, search is not the job to which it is best suited.

The article uses the example of a business professional who needs three images for a presentation the next morning, and can't find the specific ones she wants on a stock photo site.  Turning to Twitter,

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