Andy Boyer

I have to write things down here or I'll forget them.

Category: Marketing (Page 15 of 25)

Metallica Discovers the Whole Interweb Thingy

September 8, 2008 /

Remember when Metallica was visiting Napster, trying to get music downloaders fined?  Well apparently even guys with that kind of conviction can be swayed.

Wired reports that the band launched a promotion on YouTube featuring their favorite Metallica cover songs on the site. Drummer Lars Ulrich introduces
their selections.  They have their own channel, called MetallicaTV.

I don’t have too much of a take on this, other than I think it’s always encouraging when stalwart opponents of common sense eventually come around.  I’d love to give my feedback on the site from a social media perspective…..but I can’t get the channel to work in Google Chrome.  It all shows up fine, but no videos wiil play.   Is this common for other people, or just me?

Which Olympic Athletes Can you be Facebook Friends With?

August 19, 2008 /

So Valleywag reports that you cannot be Facebook friends with Michael Phelps, because has more Facebook “fans”
than Will Smith, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers — 767,885 at last
count! Phelps tells Bob Costas that besides the fans, he’s got about 7,600
pending Facebook friend requests, too. “I can’t accept any more.”

But that makes me curious.  I wonder how many of the thousands of other Olympic athletes you could be friends with.  Sure, the guy who won 8 gold metals is off limits, but how about a 24 year old track and field guy who didn’t qualify for the finals?  What percent of these competitors are happy to communicate with new fans, and what percent think it’s creepy.

I think if I was some obscure archery or triple jump Olympian and got a few requests, I’d think it was cool.  Maybe less so if I was a 14 year old female gymnast.  (that’s 16 in Chinese years).

Let me know if you make Facebook friends with anyone.

A Story About Packaging

August 19, 2008 /

Hey, it’s a slow news week since all of the Marketing world is on vacation.  And I’m still tired from a fun weekend in Oregon.  But I know the rules of blogging say I need to post something tout suite…so here’s what you get for this Tuesday’s entry.  To connect it to marketing, let’s call it a story on how every detail on your packaging or direct mail piece is important.

“In 1878 the French had acquired rights to construct a canal across the
Isthmus of Panama. For numerous reasons, the project failed. However, a
young French engineer, Philippe Jean Bunau-Varilla, still believed that
a canal could be built in Panama. Unable to get any action on the
project in France, Bunau-Varilla went to Washington, D.C., to see if he
could interest any congressmen in the venture. There he found that a
bill was pending to build a canal through Nicaragua, not Panama,
especially since the existence of Lake Nicaragua would cut the costs of
construction. “Bunau-Varilla promptly became a one-man lobby. He
obtained several hundred Nicaraguan postage stamps, which showed a
picture of one of the country’s small volcanoes in full eruption.
Bunau-Varilla wrote a brief letter to each congressman, asking, in
effect, if it was really wise to build a canal–at great cost to the
American taxpayers–through a country which was filled with active
volcanoes. With each letter went one of the Nicaraguan stamps. The
congressmen read the letter, looked at the stamp, and decided not to
vote funds for a canal through Nicaragua.” Two years later, in 1904,
Congress approved the canal project for Panama.”

Of course, this story could also be titled, “Apparently U.S. Congressmen are no smarter or dumber than those of 130 years ago.”

Meanwhile, we think the athletes are real

August 12, 2008 /

So what have we learned about China so far thanks to year’s Olympics.  Well, let’s start with some nuggets from a British paper, The Times of London, in this article.

Let’s set aside all the pre-Olympics Tom Foolery of throwing out journalists, censoring Internet sites, jailing a Japanese television crew in West China, shutting down factories, and trying to magically make the pollution go away.

But in the first week of this Games, we have:

  • Fake fireworks so the TV audience thinks they are seeing something spectacular
  • Lip-syncing of the opening song by a cute 7-year old Chinese girl, because the 7 year old girl who really sang it wans’t “cute” enough.
  • Oscar-style “seat fillers” who sit and watch the preliminary rounds of events, then leave when the ticket holders show up, so it doesn’t look like there are any no-shows.

I’m not exactly sure this is what drove the spirit of the games more than 100 years ago.  So if the games themselves can be fake and manufactured, tell me again why the athletes aren’t allowed to use drugs that enhance their own performance?  Don’t sterioids seem to fit perfectly into this charade?

Does the future of travel involve smaller airports?

August 11, 2008 /

I may be completely wrong in this, but I think  Alaska Airlines is capitalizing on a way to get us stubborn Americans to travel more.

Last week you may have seen my 14 million word play-by-play on the Vineman Triathlon in Healdsburg, CA. Because of my pride in the fact that Rich had finished the race, I kept last week’s posts to a minimum so the story would stay on top.

But there was another personal story from that trip I wanted to write about. In order to get to California wine country, I did not have to go through megalopolis SFO, or the dingy Oakland Airport, or even the small and semi-charming Sacramento runways. I was able to fly from Seattle, directly into the little berg of Santa Rosa on a Horizon Airlines turbo prop.

Santa Rosa is a mere 15 minutes from Healdsburg and I went down Thursday on the extremely convenient 5:55pm flight. The airport has one “gate” if you can even call it that, so getting in and out was a breeze. To add to its charm, it’s named after Charles M Schulz and has famous Peanuts comics on the walls.

Returning home was even better. I headed home Sunday on the even more convenient 8:35pm flight. Since only one plane leaves every hour or two, and each plane is only a 70-80 seat turbo prop, you have no check-in or security pressure. You get to the airport about 30 minutes early, watch the plane arrive, wait for everyone else to go through security, then jump through yourself. This convenience allowed me to see another old friend of mine who lives in Healdsburg mine on Sunday afternoon, cruise to the airport about 8:00 for the 8:35 flight, hang out on the airport patio with my friend until it was time to leave and never feel an ounce of pressure.

This made me think about what I like and hate about air travel. Traveling from SeaTac or SFO is a jarring experience. It takes hours to check in. But I positively loved the freedom afforded me on this Santa Rosa flight. Why can’t we have more regional airports, say in Everett, North Bend, Olympia, etc..that only take me to other small tourist towns so I can have a long weekend without feeling like I’m crossing the Russian border? I don’t know the economics, but I hope it doesn’t cost that much to run a tiny one gate airport.

Ironically, I was sitting in the Santa Rosa airport thinking about all this, when I saw another old Seattle friend of mine, a former co-worker who had come down from Seattle on the same flight I was about to board to head back home. I couldn’t believe that the world was so small that in the Santa Rosa airport, I could see someone else from Seattle. But obviously I am not the only one to appreciate flying into a place like Santa Rosa.

Alaska/Horizon has the right idea – in a world of chaos, we want to travel places where it’s easy. I hope to see them pick more “single gate” airports leading to tourist cities I want to explore.

Lake Union Kayaking

August 10, 2008 /

The Spring Creek team hit Lake Union for a little kayaking Friday afternoon. and we decided to take some pictures and show how a small business, say a Lake Union Kayaking company, could use something as simple as a blog to climb to the higher parts of Google.

Local businesses usually do a great job of owning their own name on Google Searches.  But that only works to attract people who ALREADY know your name.  If you have no awareness, you need to know what people are looking for.  For example, say you suddenly win a million dollars and want to buy a big, fast boat.  Well you are going to Google, big, fast boat, not Evinrude or the name of some other boat company.   If you are Evinrude, you need to win the words that people type in when they don’t know who you are. 

Lake Union Kayaks could be our name if Spring Creek Group owned a kayaking business where you could rent boats on Lake Union. 
Or, we could call it Spring Creek Kayaks. Either way, we want our blog to have pictures titles “LakeUnionKayaks” and have the term sprinkled through the post.

So this post is boring, but consider it a simple test to see how high we could get in a Google search on Lake Union Kayaks, without much effort.  Plus, it gives everyone a chance to see 4 of the 7 members of the growing Spring Creek Group having a litle Friday afternoon fun.

Over the next few days, we’ll add a few links to this post from Facebook, the Spring Creek Group Blog, and other relevant places to make this become an article people stumble upon when looking for places to row boats on Lake Union.

Editor’s notes:

Monday,.8:30am: After about 2 days online, Google now makes the 11th most relevant post for “Lake Union Kayaking.”  Today I’ll add a link from Facebook to see how that helps.

Qvisory – “Tools for Life”

August 7, 2008 /

I encourage everyone to take a quick trip over to Qvisory.com,.a extremely socially conscious and responsible project headed up by Eileen Quigley, the former head of RealNetworks’ philanthropic arm, RealImpact.

Dubbed, “Tools for life, ” the site helps young people (and old ones too) achieve their work, money and life goals.  Here’s what they said in a recent email:

Our mission is to help young people build their economic future and
gain more control over their lives. Today’s 18 to 34 year-olds face
significant challenges in our evolving economy. We’re providing them
with information and tools to help manage and meet their money, work,
and health goals. And we’re advocating for change to ensure that their
voice is heard in Washington, DC, in board rooms, and in state capitols.

I have long been an advocate of our school system shifting gears and actually teaching things that people need to know – little things like how credit card companies make money, how to fill out tax forms, why interest only mortgages are a bad idea, what happens if you eat fast food and chips every day, etc….So, I think this is a great project.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Big Move in the Scrabulous vs Hasbro Battle

July 31, 2008 /

So, just when you thought Scrabulous was dead…..when you thought they had no letters left to play, the team of Rajat and Jayant came back with “Quartzite” for a Bingo Triple Word Score.

It seemed like the war was over when the guys behind Scrabulous bowed to the legal pressure from Hasbro and pulled their wildly successful application from Facebook.   I stated that I hoped Hasbro would simply pay the guys what the game was worth and buy the application – and the users – from them.

But instead, the tables have been turned and the guys from Hasbro must have the same look as the Seattle City Council Members who were shocked that Clay Bennett was moving the Sonics.

In a Kasparov-ish type move, the Scrabulous guys have relaunched Scrabulous as “Wordscraper.”  Now at first look, the board and the game sucks.  Then you look at the rules, and you see that in Wordscraper, you have the ability to create your own board.  You can create ANY TYPE of board you want.  Maybe you want 20 Triple word score spots.  Or…….maybe you want the board to look just like a real Scrabble board…….In just a few minutes, if I wanted, I could make a board that looked like a real Scrabble board and use that for every game moving forward.

This my friends, is what it looks like when 2 smart guys take a winnable battle against a board room full of people without a creative thought in their head.  Congrats to the Scrabulous – I mean Wordscraper – guys who just played the death blow in this silly Facebook battle vs Hasbro.

Bonanzle Review – “The Best eBay Alternative We’ve Seen”

July 30, 2008 /

Bonanzle, a young and exciting company we recently started working with, just received a fantastic review from Ecommerce-Guide.com.

An alternative to Craiglist and Ebay, Bonanzle is designed to make it easier for people to buy and sell products online.  Given the state and direction of the economy today, any way to make it easier to move used merchandise is positioned to do well.  Some choice quotes from the article:

“You get Bonanzle
— an eBay alternative that is quite simply, the best I’ve seen in my
four years of reviewing and writing about start-up marketplaces aimed
at taking sellers away from eBay.”

The Bonanzle platform was designed in-house from
the ground up, so not only does the site look very different from other
alternative sites, but this is the reason why the tools and features on
this site are so radically different.

The best way to experience Bonanzle is simply to log
on and try it. What you will find is that Harding and his team of
self-titled “action-minded experts” have managed to offer sellers more
features in this one site than any alternative to date, yet keep the
entire site and selling process simple, compact and super-easy to use.

Check out the whole article, and please Digg it or add it to Delicious if you would be so kind.

Facebook Jails Scrabulous, Worker Productivity Rises 4000%

July 29, 2008 /

One of the most prolific time wasters on Facebook has been sent to Application jail.

In a move that shouldn’t surprise many people, Scrabulous, the blatant rip off of the board game Scrabble, finally suffered the legal ramifications that everyone could see headed its way.  According to the report from Silicon Valley Insider:

“Last week, Hasbro, manufacturer of the board game Scrabble, filed a
lawsuit against developers Rajat and Jayant Agarwall, who founded the
popular Facebook app two weeks ago. SAI’s Michael Learmonth says that a
DMCA takedown notice likely
ended the game’s two-year run. This is the same tactic Viacom used
against Google’s YouTube last year.”

Now, if a bunch of medium sized brains from Hasbro were able to sit in the same room, they would offer the developers the cash it would cost for them to redevelop the game themselves, plus some premium for every install they’ve already generated, and simply add Hasbro branding all over the place.  In my experience, while Scrabble is a tedious, obnoxiously long game for the dining room table, it is perfect for an online asynchronous world where you can take a few weeks to complete a match with a friend from across the country.  So here’s hoping someone makes sense of this whole thing before I find another similar way to waste a few minutes a day, like Chess or Risk.

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