Wayman Tisdale, 1964-2009

Wayman Tisdale, 1964-2009
Title: Let's Do It Again
Artist: Wayman Tisdale

Former Indiana Pacer Wayman Tisdale, one of the very small number of professional athletes to boast musical careers that stand up in their own right, passed away yesterday morning at 44. He had been battling bone cancer since 2007.

I got to know Tisdale for he unique bass playing style while listening to a station on Pandora. I've never seen him in person. We are lucky to have his recordings now that he has passed on.

10 To Dos for Social Media (Twitter, Linked In, etc.)

1) Ensure all your social network (Linked In, Twitter, blog) profile pictures are the same.
2) Participate! Nothing happens without action on your part
3) Participate regularly and with relevance.
4) Participate
5) Set up some automation ( http://www.TweetLater.com )
6) Add your Twitter updates to your blog/Facebook
7) Add your blog feed to your Facebook page
8) Set up a Facebook Business page for your business
9) Add your Linked In/Twitter url to the signature of your emails.
10) Organize your Twitter "universe" into lists using http://www.TweetDeck.com or similar.

Google Profile Cards Arrived, Thanks iPrint

Google recently rolled out profile pages... as a bonus for setting one up? Some free profile cards from iPrint mine just showed up.

A Brief History of Internet Marketing: Part 2

This is part two. See part one

Online sponsorships and banner ads were some of the first avenues for advertisers to reach Web site visitors with HotWired introducing graphical banner advertisements to the Web in 1994 (Fain, Penderson, 2005). These banners quickly became so pervasive that as early as 1998 the term “banner blindness” was coined.

Several studies “noted that a participant in a usability test overlooked an animated banner containing the information she was looking for. It may be that people searching for specific information on the web tend to ignore large, colorful items that are clearly distinguished from other items on the page. Ironically, they miss the very items the page designers want them to see and that would in fact help them reach their goal. We have dubbed this phenomenon "banner blindness" (Feist, 2002).

One year after the development of web banners, JavaScript was officially released by Netscape in 1995 (Champeon 2001), Internet marketers quickly found ways to manipulate JavaScript to produce pop-up windows and pop-under windows. There have even been lawsuits in connection with receiving these advertisements, “Miami attorney Andrew Tramont said AOL blocks customers' access to its services during the time that the pop-up advertisements are on the screen. About 2.5 million AOL hourly plan subscribers since 1994” (CNN, 2000).
As the Flash player became more ubiquitous and approached a 99% installed base Flash ads entered the marketplace and Web site visitors and advertiser were given new options serve audio and video for the first time inside of advertisements.

“Sponsored search has evolved to satisfy users' need for relevant search results and advertisers' desire for qualified traffic to their websites, and it is now considered to be among the most effective marketing vehicles available. ... In 1998, GoTo, later Overture Services, was the first to combine these elements. Yahoo! acquired Overture in 2003, re-branding it to Yahoo! Search Marketing in 2005. BeFirst - now MIVA - followed with a similar product in 1999. Google adopted the model and modified it to incorporate click feedback in 2002. In 2005, Ask Jeeves adopted it, and MSN Search extended it to support behavioral targeting.” (Fain, Penderson, 2005)

The latest forms of Internet communication involve Social media , the interactions between people and like minded groups of customers. Social media involve blogs and social sites like MySpace and Facebook. In the case of MySpace and Facebook brands often create profiles via these services to attract fans and as a method of informing and influencing. Along with these developments in Internet Marketing company's of all sizes are reallocating their budgets to accommodate these new media into the traditional marketing mix of print, directmail, TV, radio, outdoor and event marketing.

As the traditional marketing mix expands, marketing budgets reallocate to incorporate the new mix of opportunities. Reports this year from the UK indicated that as much as half of marketing budgets will be moved into Internet marketing for 2008 (Leggatt, 2008). In the U.S. the hospitality industry reported that for 2007 “a remarkable 68% of hoteliers ... shift(ed) their budgets from offline to online marketing activities, representing a huge shift from traditional methods” (HeBS Team, 2007) .
From very humble beginnings Internet marketing has quickly come to the center of the marketing mix for many organizations both small and large.

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(c) 2008, Rob Ainbinder

A Brief History of Internet Marketing: Part 1

The Internet: New Medium, Budgets, Challenges and Opportunities
(c) 2008, Rob Ainbinder

Abstract
The evolution of the Internet and Internet Marketing in particular has fundamentally changed the way we market, how we market and the allocation of marketing budgets.

The evolution of the Internet and Internet Marketing in particular has fundamentally changed the way we market, how we market and the allocation of marketing budgets. We have transformed from an era of one-to-many mass communication into an era of one-to-one mass communication. At the same time that these new mediums have arrived marketing budgets have had to be adapted to encompass the new mix of opportunities and challenges. A brief discussion of the evolution of these new marketing vehicles and their impact on marketing budgets will be discussed in the pages that follow.

Some of the earliest electronic advertising by today's standards is considered to be spam. A message was posted on Usenet promoting an immigration law firm and so began electronic advertising (Fiest & Everret-Church, 1999). The Usenet is one of the oldest structures pre-dating the Internet. With the Usenet's introduction community organizers quickly discovered the need to make announcements and summarize communication on the Usenet forums. These early “newsletters” were entirely text only messages. The discussion groups we use today, were largely influenced by these early discussion groups.

The introduction of HTML, e-mail protocols and messaging platforms that render this code gave the marketer and the recipient an increasingly more content richer experience with graphics to support branding, product pictures and video to support sales. Even as e-mail was developing their were more developments happening online.

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(c) 2008, Rob Ainbinder

Fun fact: the President loves scallops

So, the President loves scallops. I guess we share something in common.

What will the first 100 days bring?

For the first time in our Nation's history an African-American has been elected to our highest office. For the progress of racial equality that this election represents, I am proud to be an American. President Obama has a difficult road ahead. Any President would in these times. Like the changing of the seasons, we know from history that no Party stays in favor for too long. What will President Obama do in his first 100 days? Few know the concrete answer. Only time will tell.