Google Launches "Google Ventures"

Looking for a little bit of venture capital?

Google wants to help you out, and so it's just launched Google Ventures.

Google Ventures plans to spend about $100 million in its first year, so if you've got a great idea, you'd better contact them now and get in while it's hot.

An eWeek article about the new venture capital fund summarizes it as follows:

Google is setting up Google Ventures, a venture capital fund with the capacity to invest in consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care, and whatever other areas that might harbor the “next big thing.”

You can read more about Google Ventures in their handy dandy FAQ.

I, unfortunately, do not have any super great ideas in my head just at the moment. Maybe you do.

Social Media Searching...oh oh.

Most people assume that Google's view of the web is the Internet. It's not. Search engines don't crawl everything, but with "social search" utilities anyone can surf into the deepest corners of the web to find out more about you.

The idea behind these utilities is to give surfers the ability to 'creep' across all the social media sites (Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn - the list goes on) with a simple search query. Applications such as Spokeo and Pipl will then compile a list of data about the person, giving everyone easy access to know more about your web presence.

Do you think this is the kind of information you want people to have at their fingertips?

Read more at PC World.ca:
People Search Engines: They Know Your Dark Secrets...And Tell Anyone

Wikipedia SEO: Learn from the world's most search engine optimized website

If you've tried searching Google for some type of generic keyword lately, you might have noticed that the first result is a Wikipedia page with information about that keyword.

As an example, Wikipedia is first in the Google search engine results page for the following terms:

• SEO
• Chair
• Charles Dickens
• Baseball
• Computer
• Cool
• Cantaloupe
• God
• Love
• Derek

...You begin to get my point.

So, the question is, why is Wikipedia's SEO so good? Well, the domain has a Page Rank of 9, and its individual pages obviously receive a fair amount of links, depending on the page.

The back links coming in to Wikipedia are a huge boost to it SEO. But the site also features amazing on page optimization. The page title is an SEO keyword, the url has the keyword, the headers have the keyword, and every page on Wikipedia linking to it uses the same keyword. It's consistent.

And, of course, there is an absolute tonne on content on Wikipedia. How many hundreds of thousands of pages is it at right now? The point is: with SEO, content is king, and Wikipedia is the king of content.

If you're looking for a good example of a deep linking / interlinking SEO strategy, Wikipedia is probably the best place to start. When you're writing content on your website and you're wondering whether or not to link something, think back to Wikipedia's SEO. Is this the kind of keyword that would be linked on Wikipedia? Is it a keyword on your website? Then it should probably be linked.

Wikipedia is also a good example of how much text to link. In other words, link the keywords, and don't link entire sentences. If you link a big long sentence, you're diluting the anchor text's keyword density... and anchor text should be 100% keyword dense (as opposed to body content, which should be have a keyword density of about 3-4%) .

Overall, Wikipedia gives a pretty good lesson in SEO. Next time you use Wikipedia to look something up, make sure you pay attention to the SEO.

Google Chrome betters my web experience

Over the weekend I was introduced to a whole new way of surfing the Internet...sort of. Google Chrome, one of the newest web browsers created by the search engine giant, was released back in the Fall of 2008 and after only 48 hours of using it, I'm sold.

I use Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox interchangeably, but Chrome seems to have taken the best qualities of all three and made a pretty solid web application.

There will be those who disagree, but here's my take:

The most noticeable difference between Chrome and the competition, is the speed. We all know Google searches are fast, but who knew that regular browsing could be just as quick? The loading speed of the application and the individual web pages, in comparison to what I'm used to, was what impressed me the most.

That, and these:

• One box for search, address, and history
• Visual browser history
• Tab-based browsing (with an excellent Task Manager - press "shift+ESCAPE")
• Re-open website tabs that you closed by mistake (Ctrl+T)
• Incognito browsing
  

I don't normally get excited about web applications, but this experience was something new. Don't take my word for it, give it try and see what you think. It's FREE and it can be found at:

Google Chrome Download

Thankfully, Chrome will soon be released for Apple users, just visit this page to ask Google to notify you when it's being released.

Google has the ability to control information, so it may scare some people to think that Google has now expanded their reach into the web browsing world. But don't worry, for now only 4% of the web population is using it. Which means, Google probably won't conquer the world for at least another 5 years.

ExecTweets: Twitter Enters Advertising Deal with Microsoft

Twitter's first real monetization and advertising deal is officially official on CNN. As well, Search Engine Journal had a brief post about the new deal.

ExecTweets is a special Twitter page (it has its own domain) that compiles tweets from the world's top executives... or at least the ones who use Twitter. The site also has an About ExecTweets page that tells you all about it.

The page features branding from Microsoft.

The best part of the page is a rotating "Best of Exec Tweets" in the top right corner:

I have to admit, this isn't what I expected would be Twitter's first foray into social media monetization. I'm actually surprised they did it so soon - I expected them to go the route of Web 2.0 giants like Google and Facebook and focus on really streamlining the service first before monetizing it.

I like this better than ads. I was not actually looking forward to random businesses trying to sell me stuff whenever I posted - I just don't think that that the algorithms would be good enough to only send me ads when I really want them.

We'll see how this goes. I'm curious to see what other ____Tweets.com pages start showing up (if any).

Is Twitter a Matter of Life and Death?

The following is taken from this morning's e-version of The Globe and Mail. It provided interesting food for thought this morning as I munched on my toast, so I thought I would share:

"It occurred to me the other day that people like to Twitter because they're afraid of dying.

Twitter, once solely the concern of technophiles and new media pundits, is now a firm part of mainstream culture, both online and off. What does the mass adoption of such a seemingly simple tool say about our values? Is it an exercise of pure vanity, or does the microblog serve some need?

At noon eastern time, Globe feature writer Ian Brown will examine our urge to tweet, 140 characters at a time. Follow his thoughts and share your own using the live blog below, or via his Twitter account @Brownoftheglobe."

I'll be following along with interest. Will you?

23andAda

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!  In an effort to celebrate women excelling in technology, I now present this blog entry, dedicated to Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki. 

You may have heard of these two ladies... perhaps you read an article about them in Vogue magazine or saw them on Oprah. They've found such notoriety because they are the founders of 23andMe, which Time Magazine heralded "the Invention of the Year" in 2008. 23andMe can be described as social networking meets genetic counseling. It "aims to do for genetics what Google did for the Internet: Make it easy and accessible for those curious about their DNA." (Speaking of Google, Wojcicki happens to be married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Google happens to have donated almost $9 million to 23andMe... Coincidence? I think not).

For a one-time fee, 23andMe members can acquire analysis of their personal genome and interact with their own genetic information (and other members' information, if they have permission) within the user-friendly 23andMe website. The data presented by 23andMe can tell members how their risk of contracting particularly diseases compares to the rest of the population, what traits and predispositions they are likely to have, where their ancestors originate from, and lots of other nifty tidbits of information. 

Avey and Wojcicki are not simply concerned with providing the masses their genetic information, they have a more philanthropic master plan. They hope to "collect information for developing and conducting research projects that aim to find the genetic roots of everything from serious conditions like Parkinson's disease to simple physical characteristics like left-handedness." Although it all sounds great, not everyone is a fan of 23andMe. Some individuals have some very serious concerns regarding the legal and ethical implications of the website. However, I think that Avey and Wojcicki created the web-based service with noble intentions and I hope they find continued success and really do make a difference in the end.

A Marketing Lesson from the Runway of Toronto Fashion Week

Toronto Fashion Week has just wrapped up, and amidst the couture clothes and the outpouring of Canadian style is a pearl of a lesson for us marketing folk.

This year marked the tenth anniversary of Toronto Fashion Week. Once again, the bi-annual fashion festival pitched over 40,000 square feet of tents in Nathan Phillips Square to feature the Fall '09 collections of established and emerging Canadian designers.

According to some of my favourite fashion bloggers (Toronto Street Fashion, La Femme, A Wee Bit Skint) L'Oreal Fashion Week '09 was all about going back to basics. Many collections were more focused and streamlined than in past years, making simplicity the word on the runway.

Some of my favourite new Canadian designers like Lucien Matis, Evan Biddell and Carlie Wong (all from Project Runway Canada fame) showed edited, pared-down collections that are infinitely wearable while still being tremendously chic. To reinforce the point, the key seems to be the simplicity of doing something you know how to do, and doing really really it well.

And therein lies the marketing lesson. There is no doubt that our industry is moving in new directions (think social network marketing, online video, viral marketing etc.), but I think there is still something to be said for keeping it simple, classic and focused.

In the world of fashion (or, at least, the world of Toronto Fashion Week) less is definitely more this season. Why not make it your marketing mantra, too?

16 Links to Really Really Really Useful SEO Tips

Want an absolute ton of SEO tips? You've come to the right place.

The truth is that after I initially learned the gist of what SEO was and how search engines basically worked (which can be done by reading one or two articles, assuming you're familiar with the Internet), I learned the most not from SEO "how to" guides or anything, but simply from picking up neat SEO tips here and there, and then fitting them together myself into the bigger picture.

Pasted below are a few lists of tips I'm going to go ahead and recommend. Read what I've posted here, and even though none of them are a guide or a really in-depth look at SEO strategy, you'll still get a good idea about what good SEO really is.

General SEO Tips

Daily SEO Tip Blog (one SEO tip per day, everyday)

52 SEO Tips

Top 100 SEO Tips to Learn Search Engine Optimization

10 SEO Tips

20 Hard Core SEO Tips (these are pretty hardcore... but, uh, not that hardcore)

100 SEO Tips to Promote Your Site

55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

Link Building Tips

SEO Link Building Resources

15 Link Building Tips for New Websites

10 Link Building Tips

131 (Legitimite) Link Building Strategies

101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website

(Oh, and here is a helpful YouTube rap about linkbuilding)

SEO Copywriting Tips

10 Tips for SEO Copywriting

14 SEO Copywriting Tips

20 SEO Copywriting Hints (Not tips - hints)

101 SEO Tips for Writers

What I've learned so far about office moves

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow we're moving part of the offices at MB over across the hall, and creating a lot more space for our firm.

These are the things I've learned so far from an office move:

• Everyone has way too much stuff on their desks.
• It turns out that we did have those computer manuals somewhere.
• You need cleaning cloths because all those places you can't see are absolutely covered in dust.
  
• However many boxes you have, you should have brought/bought more.
• Related to that last point, wiped down recycle bins make great boxes.
• One computer and its wires per box; as long as you keep everything for one computer together, it's easy enough to figure out.
• Moving file cabinets? Get a dolley.
• Now is an excellent time to purge all the stuff you don't need.
• Plan out the changes for the phone and Ethernet wiring well, and you'll be "down" for less than an hour or not at all.
• Now's the time to reconfigure all your extra power bars and outlets. By planning ahead of time instead of just plugging more and more new stuff in as you need it, you can usually save an extra power bar or two.
  
• Getting things for the new office like tea kettles and tall plants is more fun than you'd think.
• Hey, remember the company website? Change your address.
• The normal garbage bags you use are not going to cut it. Get bigger ones.
• A lot of paper will need shredding. Plan for this.
• Keep one note paper, pen, and phone handy because clients will still be calling you.
  

Is There a Place for Product Placement on TV?

I watched The Biggest Loser last night (I know, I know...just consider it a guilty pleasure), and I was blown away by the number of product placements during the show.  I counted no less than six throughout the two-hour episode, three for Subway and three for Extra Sugar Free Gum. Add that to the ads directly preceding the commercial breaks (for trainer Bob Harper's protein powder, for The Biggest Loser book, etc.) and you've got a whole lot of ads in a short space of time.

I am not really sure what to think or how to feel about this. Is it old-fashioned to want my TV shows to be advertisement free? Is it totally unreasonable to expect not to be bombarded with ads while I am a captive viewer?  

The UK doesn't think so. The past three months have seen a trial ban of product placements on all UK television shows - a ban which the government hopes to extend until 2012. To culture secretary Andy Burnham, it's a question of ethics, trust, and quality. "My priority has always been to make sure we maintain levels of trust between audiences and broadcasters, and protect the standards of broadcasting for which Britain is known worldwide."

So maybe that's that's the catch. Perhaps American broadcasters (and, by proxy, Canadian television which broadcasts American shows) are not as concerned with the "standards of broadcasting" than their friends across the pond. This would explain the staggering 117,979 individual placements across America's top 11 TV channels in the first three months of 2008, according to to Nielsen Media Research.

Where this leaves me, the viewer, I am not totally sure. I do think it's probably true that viewers as a whole are savvier these days (a key argument used by those in the UK who want the ban reversed), but I don't think this is necessarily something to be proud of.  

What I do know is that last night's episode of The Biggest Loser left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. And I can say for a fact that I will purposely NOT chew Extra gum or eat Subway any time soon.

The Sci Fi Channel Rebrands Itself "Syfy"

The Sci Fi Channel is changing its name to Syfy, and they're adding the new tagline "Imagine Greater".

The reason given in the New York Times article about the Sci Fi name change is that "Sci Fi" couldn't be trademarked. Syfy is a wacky made up name, so it can be:

“We couldn’t own Sci Fi; it’s a genre,” said Bonnie Hammer, the former president of Sci Fi who became the president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. “But we can own Syfy.”

I believe a good portion of the rebranding, however, comes from the fact that the Sci Fi Channel wants to move into broadcasting mystery television shows, action and adventure, fantasy, and a variety of other genres that don't quite fit "Science Fiction." I don't quite agree with this. I think most people are comfortable watching a mystery show on a channel called "Sci Fi," and wouldn't be too put out by it. Same goes for fantasy. "Syfy" seems too generic to me, like "TNT" or "Spike." And I don't want another generic TV station. I liked the Sci Fi channel because it was the only one of its kind in its niche, and I really hope it stays that way. (Although I didn't like Sci Fi because I thought they didn't always take the best care of their flagship shows.)

I will say that I'm a fan of the new tagline. "Imagine Greater" captures, to me, what the station is all about. "Imagine" has science fiction and fantasy connotations, which is great, and the whole phrase promises the viewer something more, something better, and something that they haven't before encountered. Works for me.

Overall, it's not too bad a change. It beats the Pepsi and the Tropicana rebranding, at least.

Hot Topic: The State of Canadian Marketing

In Friday's Globe and Mail, Arlene Dickenson (of Venture Communications and Dragons Den fame) offered some interesting insights, opinions and predictions about the state of Canadian marketing. Here are some of the highlights from her one-on-one interview with the Globe's Jennifer Wells.

How do you see the next year playing out — in the current economic landscape, that is?

Marketers have never been under more scrutiny for the value of what they're delivering to the businesses they serve. Marketing companies and ad agencies that don't understand how to support that relevancy and make the work they do meaningful in terms of driving the business forward are going to fail significantly in the next five years.

Revenues, even roughly?

Our gross revenue this year will be about $40-million.

You're the sole owner.

Yup.

You just want to be in control.

It's not about control. ... We've built a business whose time has really come, and now is not the time to try and insert that into a culture that doesn't appreciate the model. The model we have is very different. It's one profit centre. And it's not just one profit centre across all disciplines, it's one profit centre across all geographies. ... If you operate from that foundation, then you win. I think if you're reporting back to New York about your profit margin and your margins are getting squeezed and that means you lay people off and you can't then service the clients the way they deserve to be serviced, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy that you lose the business because you are trying to protect margin.

You don't call this an advertising agency.

No. It's a marketing communications company. Advertising is a discipline in the toolbox of marketing. … I think we have to look at marketing in terms of how you communicate to the consumer in all aspects of communication, not just in one discipline called advertising.

You blog.

Yes.

You haven't blogged in a while.

(Laughs.)

The idea of a blog is to do it frequently.

I know, I know. Mea culpa.

Twitter?

(Laughs.)

What is your view of all of this? Is there a point at which we've just got too many secondary pursuits going on that don't contribute to any big thinking?

I completely think that's true. The art of storytelling, that moment when you're sitting with someone and they're telling you something and you're really and truly engaged and you're listening to the story and you're thinking, that's fascinating. ... It's getting lost and it's getting lost because we're having these short sound bites that are being attached to people and personalities that don't really mean anything.

Interesting. Is the art of storytelling being lost in our 2.0 world? Some food for thought (and, perhaps, for a future blog post)

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Facebook Has a New Homepage. Again.

Facebook has reinvented itself yet again, this time taking aim at social networking competitors such as Twitter and Friendfeed. The most significant overhaul is the renovation of the News Feed that users see when the first login. As of this week the News Feed has moved to a real-time format, meaning that updates are instantaneous as opposed to occurring every "10 to 20 minutes" as they did in the past.

I first discovered Facebook's new homepage when I logged in this morning. Not even done my first coffee of the day, I must admit that the new format was confusing and I felt quite disoriented. At least I was greeted by a message from the always-friendly Facebook folk. "You're looking at the real-time stream of posts from your friends and connections. Control the stream using the filters on the left. To hide posts from friends in this stream, click the "x" in the upper-right corner of a post."

Smack in the middle and occupying more than a third of the page, this "real-time stream of posts" definitely takes center stage. I am not sure how thrilled I am about this, especially given that I primarily use Facebook for messaging friends, making plans, looking at pictures and, of course, the occasional creeping.

While I may not love it (at least not yet) I understand what the new Twitter-esque Facebook homepage is trying to do. By changing the News Feed to a real-time format, Facebook is cleverly positioning itself as a solid alternative (as opposed to just a compliment) to other real-time social networking sites. This format also has the advantage of encouraging users to stay logged on all day, as opposed to only checking in periodically, to see what their friends are up too.

Although I am still not totally convinced, it looks like Mark Zuckerberg has done it again. Reinvention seems to be the name of the game at Facebook, and a lot of people seem to be excited by this change. Are you one of them?

Spelling Mistakes and Typos as an SEO Marketing Tool? Who knew!

Here's an interesting stat: experts estimate that approximately 21% of all Internet searches are misspelled!

By incorporating spelling mistakes and intentional typos into your website (usually via HTML, which hides these errors from viewers) you can actually boost your website's traffic. Elementary school teachers everywhere must be cringing.

Using a typo generator is a good way to find out all the ways a given keyword or keyword phrase has ben be misspelled. Here's an (extremely long!) example:

arketing articles mrketing articles maketing articles mareting articles markting articles markeing articles marketng articles marketig articles marketin articles marketing rticles marketing aticles marketing aricles marketing artcles marketing artiles marketing artices marketing articls marketing article mmarketing articles maarketing articles marrketing articles markketing articles markeeting articles marketting articles marketiing articles marketinng articles marketingg articles marketing aarticles marketing arrticles marketing artticles marketing artiicles marketing articcles marketing articlles marketing articlees marketing articless amrketing articles mraketing articles makreting articles marekting articles markteing articles markeitng articles marketnig articles marketign articles marketin garticles marketing raticles marketing atricles marketing aritcles marketing artciles marketing artilces marketing articels marketing articlse marketingarticles narketing articles jarketing articles karketing articles mqrketing articles mwrketing articles msrketing articles mxrketing articles mzrketing articles maeketing articles ma4keting articles ma5keting articles matketing articles magketing articles mafketing articles madketing articles marjeting articles marieting articles maroeting articles marleting articles marmeting articles markwting articles mark3ting articles mark4ting articles markrting articles markfting articles markdting articles marksting articles markering articles marke5ing articles marke6ing articles markeying articles markehing articles markeging articles markefing articles marketung articles market8ng articles market9ng articles marketong articles marketlng articles marketkng articles marketjng articles marketibg articles marketihg articles marketijg articles marketimg articles marketinf articles marketint articles marketiny articles marketinh articles

marketinb articles marketinv articles marketing qrticles marketing wrticles marketing srticles marketing xrticles marketing zrticles marketing aeticles marketing a4ticles marketing a5ticles marketing atticles marketing agticles marketing afticles marketing adticles marketing arricles marketing ar5icles marketing ar6icles marketing aryicles marketing arhicles marketing argicles marketing arficles marketing artucles marketing art8cles marketing art9cles marketing artocles marketing artlcles marketing artkcles marketing artjcles marketing artixles marketing artidles marketing artifles marketing artivles marketing artickes marketing articoes marketing articpes marketing articlws marketing articl3s marketing articl4s marketing articlrs marketing articlfs marketing articlds marketing articlss marketing articlea marketing articlew marketing articlee marketing articled marketing articlex marketing articlez nmarketing articles mnarketing articles jmarketing articles mjarketing articles kmarketing articles mkarketing articles mqarketing articles maqrketing articles mwarketing articles mawrketing articles msarketing articles masrketing articles mxarketing articles maxrketing articles mzarketing articles mazrketing articles maerketing articles mareketing articles ma4rketing articles mar4keting articles ma5rketing articles mar5keting articles matrketing articles martketing articles magrketing articles margketing articles mafrketing articles marfketing articles madrketing articles mardketing articles marjketing articles markjeting articles mariketing articles markieting articles maroketing articles markoeting articles marlketing articles markleting articles marmketing articles markmeting articles markweting articles markewting articles mark3eting articles marke3ting articles mark4eting articles marke4ting articles markreting articles markerting articles markfeting articles markefting articles markdeting articles markedting articles

markseting articles markesting articles markerting articles marketring articles marke5ting articles market5ing articles marke6ting articles market6ing articles markeyting articles marketying articles markehting articles markething articles markegting articles marketging articles markefting articles marketfing articles marketuing articles marketiung articles market8ing articles marketi8ng articles market9ing articles marketi9ng articles marketoing articles marketiong articles marketling articles marketilng articles marketking articles marketikng articles marketjing articles marketijng articles marketibng articles marketinbg articles marketihng articles marketinhg articles marketijng articles marketinjg articles marketimng articles marketinmg articles marketinfg articles marketingf articles marketintg articles marketingt articles marketinyg articles marketingy articles marketinhg articles marketingh articles marketinbg articles marketingb articles marketinvg articles marketingv articles marketing qarticles marketing aqrticles marketing warticles marketing awrticles marketing sarticles marketing asrticles marketing xarticles marketing axrticles marketing zarticles marketing azrticles marketing aerticles marketing areticles marketing a4rticles marketing ar4ticles marketing a5rticles marketing ar5ticles marketing atrticles marketing artticles marketing agrticles marketing argticles marketing afrticles marketing arfticles marketing adrticles marketing ardticles marketing arrticles marketing artricles marketing ar5ticles marketing art5icles marketing ar6ticles marketing art6icles marketing aryticles marketing artyicles marketing arhticles marketing arthicles marketing argticles marketing artgicles marketing arfticles marketing artficles marketing artuicles marketing artiucles marketing art8icles marketing arti8cles marketing art9icles marketing arti9cles marketing artoicles marketing artiocles marketing artlicles marketing artilcles marketing artkicles marketing artikcles

You can also prioritize and abridge this list by entering these keywords into the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to get the search volume, then plug the most popular into your website.

Who knew that spelling mistakes could be so useful?!

Personal Branding Online

As more and more people are doing more and more social networking, the lines between work and play, home and office, are blurring. I've got coworkers and friends on Facebook. I've got coworkers and friends on LinkedIn. I follow both business contacts and old university friends on Twitter.

Being aware of your personal online brand is important. It's important for you, and it's important for the company you work for. For example, if you post something like, "I hate my company! It sucks!" Well, when someone finds that, you look bad, and your company looks bad. Nobody wins. (Except for your company's competitors, but they won't want to hire you now.)

The thing about the Internet is that what you say just kinda sticks. That random comment you made in 10 seconds way back over a year ago is still there, ready to be quoted word for word.

That being said, here are: 50 Tips to Brand Yourself Online

I would say that the biggest "tip" I can add is, overall, be active. Stay in control of your personal brand online. The more you're actively branding yourself, the less significant all that other stuff will be. If you're an e-commerce specialist and you also really enjoy Lord of the Rings, what do you really want business contacts to see? Well, you may post on a few forums related to your love of Tolkien, but those posts don't help you in the business world, so you need to balance those off with posts related to what you do at work. Tweet about e-commerce sometimes (but make it interesting, obviously). Answer a few questions on LinkedIn. Comment on blogs. Or, heck, guest post on a blog. Just make sure that when I Google your name I find something that really positively sells who you are and what you do.

Now, for some, that will be a tonne of stuff related to Lord of the Rings more than "e-commerce" (or something else stereotypically "business-y"). The point is to be in control, and to that end, active.

We're joining the Twitter conversation

After plenty of posts about it on this very blog, Marketing Breakthroughs has finally joined Twitter, the world's fastest growing social networking site.

If you're not already tweeting away or following other twitterers, you should be. Twitter is a unique micro-blogging site that keeps users in touch via short updates (sort of like Facebook's status updates) but is far simpler. Instead of posting photos, writing on "walls" or sending messages, Twitterers just tweet - posting 140 character or less updates wherever or whenever the fancy strikes. Updates are instantaneous, and users can follow friends, relatives, coworkers, and just about anyone else in the world.

Here at MB we'll be tweeting brief updates, marketing tips, news, links, articles and more, all in 140 words or less. Follow us on Twitter for instant updates from our team. Can't wait to see you there!

Snickers and 'Snacklish': Great marketing ploy or just another stupid idea?

Confectionery giant Mars has just launched a major marketing campaign for its best selling candy bar, Snickers, that is centered on a make-believe language called 'Snacklish'. Apparently 'Snacklish' is a "humorous way of speaking that revises everyday words and phrases for a Snickers-centric world. To underscore their origin, they are printed in the typeface and colors of the Snickers brand logo."

Interesting. I've never been to a "Snickers-centric world". I have no idea what a "Snickers-centric world" would look like. And from the sounds of it I don't ever want to go there, either.

'Snacklish', like most made-up languages, is based on various plays on words. For example, basketball great Patrick Ewing will become 'Patrick Chewing'. A taxi will become a 'snaxi'. And rapper Master P is now 'Master P-nut'.

According to Snickers, the possibilities are endless. Endless, yes. But also totally pointless.

The new marketing campaign will be rolled out in stages. The initial stage, unveiled this week, includes outdoor ads as well as content on the Snickers website and social networking sites like Facebook. Television commercials are then scheduled to begin appearing next week. And there will be more content on snickers.com in the spring, including a way to translate regular language into the Snickers lingo.

Sounds like they've thought of everything. And I imagine this campaign is costing a pretty penny too. I can't help but wonder, however, what's the point of all this. Do the people at Snickers really believe that 'Snacklish' will take off? Will I be more likely to buy a Snickers over my usual bag of M&M's just because my last name could somehow be reconfigured to "Peanutrowski."

For my sake, I hope not.

Twitter through Facebook

Twitter is obviously the latest and most popular social network to arise from the sea of new web platforms we've seen in the past year.

Of course, Facebook is still up there, and it's taking Twitter on at its own game: Facebook's Response to Twitter (the press conference for these changes was liveblogged here)and you can find a post by Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook changes here).

I'm fine with this. I find Twitter too limiting, and it would be much more convenient if I could get my tweet fix through Facebook. I also wouldn't mind if you could do more than write 140 characters of pure text. If you haven't noticed, that's pretty limiting. If only social networks that actually allowed more than 140 character of pure text actually become more popular.

I don't think Facebook is going to beat Twitter at its own game, but I wouldn't mind if the Twitter application for Facebook was made better. Hopefully some type of agreement can be reached, because right now the Twitter app for facebook sucks. I tend to just import by tweets as status updates. That's alright, I suppose, but I'd like to see something a bit more powerful.

The Shoe Blogger: Manolo Blahnik takes blogging (and sales) to new heights

The self-called 'shoe blogger', Manolo Blahnik, proves that a blog doesn't have to be informative (or useful) to be immensely popular. Manolo's Shoe Blog has a devoted following, a large proportion of which are Gen-Y females who are brand new to the world of blogs. In fact, Manolo's blog is so popular that it's dwarfing the notoriety he reached by his (or, more accurately, his shoes') many appearances on the soles of Sex and the City's fashion-savvy starlets.

I first heard about the blog in the most unlikely of places. In the line at Starbucks a couple weeks ago two girls behind me in line were chatting about shoes, and one of them dropped the the name of the shoe blogger. The other girl gasped, jumped up and down (I know this because her purse swung out and hit me in the back), and gushed "Oh my gosh, I am just SO addicted." Naturally, I checked it out as soon as I got home. I am officially hooked too.

Perhaps the most fun part of Manolo's blog is the "Gallery of the Horrors" featuring all sorts of hideous and hilarious shoes. Also fun is the "whose shoes" guessing game, which offers daily posts of celebrity soles for readers to guess at. (The answers are then posted the following day)

But the shoe blogger isn't just infamous amongst young women. "When someone writes the history of blogs, there'll be a special chapter devoted to the one the call 'the Manolo," writes Guy Brighton of Fashion magazine.

Some say he's a pioneer, and his main achievement is tapping into a demographic that has been slow to catch on to the blogging phenomenon. But perhaps he's just a smart businessman, for Manolo sales are higher than ever.

The Skittles Twitter Social Media Viral Campaign

Have you checked out the Skittles homepage recently? Oh you haven't? At all? Well, check it out, okay?

It's generating a lot of buzz because it's basically just a snapshot of a search for "Skittles" on Twitter. The Skittles Twitter marketing campaign is generating a fair bit of buzz online. Some of the Skittles buzz has been negative. Some of the Skittles buzz has been a bit more back and forth on its analysis. I'll aim for the latter.

Here are my thoughts:

1. What's the point of showcasing a search for Twitter on the Skittles homepage?

From the user's perspective... I can't think of much. Mostly, this Twitter viral campaign just opens itself up to pranks. Say something silly, mention the word Skittles. Easy prank.

But, then again, to be fair, I can't argue with the amount of buzz that Skittles has generated.

2. Why collect my age?

Seriously, this is really annoying. When you go to the Skittles homepage you have to put in your age. To heck with that. I'll just, you know, go to Twitter and search Skittles. My computer cookies won't even save it, so I have to do it every time. That's just annoying.

3. Does this connect me to the brand in anyway?

I don't think so. Mostly people are just spamming the word Skittles now. It's not like I'm seeing actual conversations or reviews about Skittles. I'm seeing this:

It's pretty hard for big name brands to use social media in a viral marketing campaign that works to actually connect brands to people. I certainly applaud Twitter's efforts. But I think other companies have done it more effectively (the connectivity part, that is). Jeep has user-generated photos from Flickr. That's actually pretty cool.

I think that eventually, as some of the spam and buzz dies down, the searches that the Skittles homepage shows will be more relevant. It will actually be discussion about the Skittles brand, which might be neat to show, completely unfiltered, on the Skittles home page. For now, though, there's a lot of spam and/or junk.

4. Has Skittles reached its target audience?

Skittles is supposedly targeting teens and younger adults on Social Media. So, honestly, yeah, I think they have. They're targetting people using social media, and a lot of the buzz has been on social media (Twitter, a lot of blogs, etc.).

5. Is this actually good for Skittles in the long run?

Any publicity isn't necessarily good publicity, but there is really nowhere near enough negative buzz for this to be considered "bad" for Skittles. I think this is probably a pretty great thing for Skittles' brand recognizability, overall.


In closing, I... don't actually really like the taste of Skittles. But maybe if I felt ambivalent towards them the campaign might... MIGHT influence my choice next time I'm choosing an impulse snack in the grocery line.