Marketing today: Blogging

Gadget 'how to' for Spaces

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:53:08 GMT

As I've mentioned in this blog before I think the next evolution of the web will be aggregated content. We have spent the last two years scattering content all around the web; reviews, comments, profiles. But what I really want is my content to accrue back to me, Marty. I have reviews on Amazon that accrue to Amazon's content but that doesn't help me share it with my peeps. Until the content management sites improve content sharing features gadgets are the band-aid that will allow aggregation to happen. I do have to give a shout out to Facebook here. They have received some well deserved flack for their new service Beacon but the experience has improved. It was very clear to me that the Yelp posts I made were about to appear on my Facebook page. And once I got to my Facebook page it gave me the option again to remove the posting from my profile.

Back to gadgets... Case in point, notice the Yelp gadget I added to my Space on the right column. This allows reviews I post on Yelp to accrue back to me and share it with my peeps through my blog. Just about any Space, blog, MySpace page, etc can receive these gadget, your page just has be able to post HTML. I have to admit when I posted this gadget this morning it wasn't the easiest process. I am lucky enough to share an office with the expert Product Manager for Spaces so he helped me out. But recognizing that most people don't have that luxury (OK, no body except me does) I thought I'd share the process so it's easier for you.

Once you are signed in to your Space go to Customize, then select Add Modules.
Make sure you are on the Modules tab. Scroll down to Other section and select Custom HTML. Make sure it says Hide in the right column. If you ever want it to go away come back here and click Hide. It will change to Show and the module is hidden.
Click close and Save in the upper right. If you want to move the location of the module on the page click Customize and select Rearrange or Hide Module on the drop down menu. You can then click on the module and drag it wherever you want it to go.
Click on the down arrow in the upper right corner of the module and select Setting to change the title from Custom HTML to whatever you want.
Now you are ready to embed the code. Click edit and it will bring up the HTML text box. Copy and paste the HTML code from the gadget page (the code comes from the gadget provider, in my case Yelp). Make sure you are embedding Flash code or MySpace code. Spaces doesn't read JavaScript. The yelp Gadget defaulted to JavaScript so double check this if something isn't working right.

Walla! Happy content aggregation.

Technorati tags: gadgets, Yelp, marketing,

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, Spaces, How-to

Launch Day around here!

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:14:07 GMT

Wow, it's my first launch on the Spaces team and I've been amazed at how effectively the team has executed. I was in the backseat for the most part (well.. all parts) of this one so it was a great way to learn through observation. For those who don't know how a product team works, there are two sides. The peanut butter and the jelly. The peanut butter is the product team - they build it, make it strong, test it, retest it and flip the switch to launch it. The jelly is the BG (business group) which I'm on. We run the business side, marketing, monitization, strategy. That stuff. Neither peanut butter or jelly is as good alone as they are together. Peanut butter can be eaten alone but would it really get the love it gets when it's with jelly? No way.

Anyway, the launch effort is a execution of both the peanut butter and the jelly. The product team has build some fabulous new features that can be seen here. And the business group has got the word out. Read some reviews here and here and here. Take a look. Give it a try. What I love is the feature upgrades are all driven from customer feedback. Voice of the customer is being heard. That's always a good thing.

Happy Launch Day!

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces

Have you Googled Marty Collins?

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:11:51 GMT

Sometimes I just love the simple things that make me laugh. On my site statistics for my blog it sometimes shows URL's that linked to my blog so I can see where traffic comes from. Last week there was a Google search for Marty Collins that linked to my blog. I still get curious when I find out people actually Googled my name. And the first thing that comes to my mind is, did they mean 'me' Marty Collins or a different Marty Collins? And did they find what they were looking for?

Last week a Google search showed up with my name and it was the same afternoon I had just given a speech to about 250 people at a luncheon. So it's not too hard to imagine that someone saw me at that luncheon and went back to their office and Googled me. Maybe they thought I was good, bad, cute, annoying. Who knows. But that search got them 1,400,000 hits. Did they have any idea the Marty Collins they found was the right one?

Yesterday I got a hit from a search on 'Marty Collins auto'. Turns out there is an marketing executive at Ford Co. named Marty Collins. There is also a Martin Car Dealership in Fort Collins, Co. But my blog came up 2nd because I had used the word auto populate in one of my posts. Does that have anything to do with the auto that I'm sure this person was searching for? Not even close. I'm happy my blog came up because that means it's getting crawled in search engines. But it also shows how far search technology still has to go. If I talk about auto populating a field in my blog and someone searches for an auto they get my post. Or maybe they wanted to know what kind of car Marty Collins drives? A Jeep in case you were wondering. No - search certainly isn't that smart - yet!

Technorati tags: blogging, search terms, marketing

Lost my RSS List

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:33:47 GMT

I got a new computer at work last week and had the IT desk transfer my files from old PC to new PC. They did a great job and I was actually impressed with how much of the settings stayed the same. But inevitably I lost two things that I rely heavy on, 1. the auto populate email feature in Outlook. I know no ones emails anymore because they auto populate in the to: line when I compose a mail. But in my computer transfer that feature didn't transfer over. So big bummer, I now have to go find people's email again and type it in. How lazy I've become. This is like cell phone. Do you really know anyone's phone number any more. You put it in your phone contacts and forget it. Now the only phone number I know is my cell phone and my Mom's number because she's had the same number since 1978.

The 2nd thing I lost was my RSS list in IE7. Luckily my Outlook was picking up RSS feeds so I went to my RSS folder and started opening all the downloaded files. But then it occurred to me this is a great time to update my RSS list and find new feeds. So I thought I'd share a few new RSS feeds I've added and I won't bother telling you the one's I've dropped. Here are the new feeds:

10e20: the name came from when they were working in a building on 10 East 21st Street in Manhattan.

Marketing Hipster: I like this blog because he is also customer centric in his writings and does a great job of calling out other smart blogger's. I should do a better job of this.

ParisLemon: okay, this one isn't new but I still like it so I'm carrying it over!

Technorati tags: bloggers

Something to shoot for

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:54:21 GMT

Guy Kawasaki does a great job of disclosing his last year of blogging stats, etc. When I started blogging a month ago I had no idea what success looked like. I'm trained to set goals in terms of metrics, page views, track backs, comments, etc. I don't post ads for revenue so I can honestly say I'm not in it for the money. But when I read Guy's stats for the year I was quite humbled. He gets an average of 6,200 PV a day. But then I thought, how liberating. If Tyra Banks can disclose her weight (don't even think of asking me) then I can find power in disclosing my numbers too. So hear it goes;

Total Page Views since January 19th; 1448

Number of blog entries; 24

Comments; 10

Track Backs; 1

Let's see how I do next month.

Technorati tags: blogging, marketing

Blogger Opinions

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:27:26 GMT

John Edwards was on the hot seat last week for opinions expressed by members of his staff. Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte are campaign workers on Edwards presidential campaign team that have expressed controversial opinions on their blogs. What's really interesting here is that Edwards has come under fire for opinions expressed by his staff over the period of time before they worked for him. This begs the question, is anything a person says or does on the Internet fair game for judgment when it comes to applying for jobs, promotions, dating? You name it. Should we be searching someone's history on the net before dating them? hiring them? I know people who do this now. It's becoming much more difficult to have a separate identity from work to home to play. Some people use alter ego identities so they can be a drunken porn star on YouTube and still keep their day job. But what happens when the drunken porn star's real identity gets exposed? Can he be fired?

There is no standard on how to use extraneous information on blog posts or personal spaces. In my opinion it was the right thing for Edwards to NOT fire the blogger's because of opinions they held. But what if he had? Did he have the right to? No one knows the issues that will begin to emerge as the Internet develops and an archive of our history is stored for all to see, and search.

I think people should be prepared to take responsibility for opinions they express online through whatever channel they may be using and assume that eventually all identities will be revealed (remember Loneygirl15). The responsibility lies equally between all parties to do your due diligence when hiring and be transparent when being hired. Blogs can be an incredibly strong mechanism for driving change, influencing cultures and self expression. But that cuts both ways. Blogger's should be prepared to and expect to defend their opinions; good, bad, right or wrong. This is the right we all have, and the responsibility.

Radical Blog Strategy

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:33:27 GMT

Jon Udell comments on my plans to create an innovative blogging strategy. He has an interesting four part series on PR in the age of blogging.

Microsoft Conversations

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:26:32 GMT

Here is the podcast I recorded with Jon Udell as referenced in my blog on January 30th. I would be interested to hear what others think. I will blog more about my influencer marketing plan as things develop. We had our kick off meeting today.