We all know that Apple has very little interest in opening up its iPhones to 3rd party developers. But the folks over in Cupertino have no problem with using a 3rd party ad for the phone — that is, using a community-created video, which :
You can bet that this video will get huge amounts of views around teh Interwebs…for free.
My cousin recently got married and posted the album of wedding pictures online through a service called Snapfish. I hate this site — it makes you register and login to view these images. Why should I have to login to view these public photos?
Alternatively, Flickr lets users upload photos, tag, and share them with a private audience or the general public. There is no need to authenticate oneself before viewing photos anymore. Snapfish should change the way it shares photos so that it’s open to anyone. If an uploader wants to make his or her photos private, the site should send a unique link to each recipient.
…and that’s my Friday rant.
About two years ago, Bill Gates published a “Sea Change” memo. He does this to refocus Microsoft on a particular priority. With one of these memos in 1995, he focused the company on the importance of leveraging the Internet in its software. In 2002, he published another memo to focus the company on software security.
I remember when this memo came out. I was working at Ensynch (a Microsoft partner) and this memo sparked a lot of excitement in the Microsoft community. It’s funny how long it can take for something like this to be adopted in the general population.
It’s now 2007 — two years after this memo was released. I realized today that I no longer use any local programs on my computer. To clarify, a local program is a piece of software that you install on your computer — you can access it usually on- or offline and the information is stored on your hard drive. Internet access is so ubiquitous now that everything I do now is accomplished online:
The term that’s been coined for this shift in how I use software is called “Software as a Service” or SaaS. I didn’t realize how useful this model of online software is until my imminent departure from DelCor. In my last job, I had to make sure I deleted a lot of personal files so that my information remained secure. When I leave DelCor tomorrow, I won’t have to do this because all the personal stuff that I did while in my office resides online.
This way of using software also proves beneficial in extending the lifespan of my PC. I no longer have to worry about system requirements, hard drive space, etc with my relatively older machine. As long as I can still use Firefox on the computer, I can accomplish all my tasks through the Web.
Five Sites to Get you Started with SaaS:
SaaS is without a doubt, the future of software — expect to be charged for the use of some programs in the future as well.
Do you have any other favorite SaaS sites? Share them in the comments.
I have a Lifestream.
What’s that? Well, it’s an RSS feed of basically everything I write or look at online. I’ve combined my blog’s feed with my Google Shared feed and my Twitter feed. I’ll also add in my Flickr feed once I finally get around to uploading my pictures into Flickr (Facebook photo albums are way too closed off from the rest of the Internet for me to use).
So if you’re already subscribed to my RSS feed, you’ll start getting posts that won’t be written by me. These are from my Google Shared site. You can also monitor the posts I think you’ll find interesting by looking at the “What I’m Reading” widget. For those of you who haven’t subscribed to my feed yet, take a second and click the “Subscribe to my Lifestream” link or add the following address to your favorite RSS reader:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheFreshMarketerLifestream
Also, if you have any problems subscribing, post a comment or send me an email and I’ll help you get it setup.
P.S. If you want any individual feed, here are the addresses:
Google Shared:
http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/09913530811447969166/state/com.google/broadcast
Blog:
http://freshmarketer.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/1219701.rss
I don’t think I can fight it any longer. I’m going to have to start using Twitter again. It seems as if everyone is using it now, even if I still believe that no one really cares about what I’m doing at any given moment during the day. I still think Twitter’s a great tool for people going on trips, etc. I just don’t believe that anyone really cares that I’m:
Anyway, if you care, my Twitter page is here.
Here’s another great video from Michael Wesch (see previous post):
Talk about a great way to virally advertise Digital Ethnography at KSU. If you want to study this, where do you think your first choice would be?
A great new video is flying around the Interwebs, by Michael Wesch:
It’s all about tagging now.
The other day, I was asked by a coworker to explain the difference between categories and tags. After trying to explain it for a couple minutes, the ultimate conclusion from the coworker was that a category and tag are essentially the same. That’s really not true. The best way I can describe a tag versus a category is:
A Tag:
A Category:
It seems to me that categories are obsolete in today’s environment. Even for this blog post, I’m given the option by WordPress to categorize AS WELL as tag the post based on the topic of my discussion. My vote is that we get rid of categories. We really don’t need them anymore, right?
Duncan Riley at the TechCrunch blog says that information has been devolving for the past 12 years. I disagree. It seems to me that information has needed to become less categorized due to the way we’re able to access information now using search, etc. If we’re able to find the information that we’re seeking more quickly and with a higher success rate, isn’t this an improvement? Why does he call it a devolution?
By the way, if you haven’t seen Wesch’s other famous video, you can view it below:
If you haven’t noticed it before (especially for anyone who reads this blog via the RSS feed), I have a widget that’s entitled “What I’m Reading”. This can be a misleading title. Allow me to explain:
This widget is powered by Google Reader, which is an RSS reader that I use to go through my RSS feeds. As I cull through almost 200 posts each day, I “share” posts that I think people who read this blog will be interested in reading as well. These “shared” entries end up on my “What I’m Reading” widget. This means you’ll only see posts relevant to this blog’s topic in this widget. I set this up mostly for my lovely family, who often asks me about the next cool thing on the Internet. Instead of sending around emails about what’s happening, I can easily send them to my RSS feed. Now, what would be really cool, would be to figure out someway to combine my blog’s feed with my Google Shared feed. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know.
Want to read more of what I’m reading?
If you click on the RSS icon 
next to the widget title, you can subscribe to a feed of what I’m sharing. If you subscribe, expect about 10-20 posts a day on cool technology, hot marketing topics, and other nifty things I find online.
Want to Setup Your Own Google Share Feed?
Read this link, and then email me if you have any other questions.
A lot of people might argue that women don’t enjoy the game of football. I’d totally disagree. Some of the most die-hard football fans I’ve come across are women, however it’s pretty apparent that the NFL doesn’t put a lot of effort in marketing to this group. It’s exciting to hear about what the Ravens are doing not only to attract more women fans, but to help them form a community (from Jackie at the Church of the Customer Blog).
This Ravens community is a win-win for the team and its fans. Female Ravens fans find a place to belong, to ask questions about football, get access to exclusive events that matter to them, etc. The team attracts a greater attendance, more TV viewers, and sell more merchandise. The team also enables a football game to become more of a couple’s event — which is something that I haven’t seen any other team try to do.
I’m a die-hard Redskins fan. We should have a similar community. Jackie submitted a name for her Steelers, and I’ll try my luck at naming a community for the Skins:
Although, I’ve always been partial to the name “The Redskinettes” (and now that the cheerleaders aren’t called that anymore, that name’s available).
Hey all — remember me? It’s been a little hectic the past couple weeks, but I have a good reason why:
I got a new job.
I’m the newest Online Marketing Manager at The Motley Fool (www.fool.com). “Wait a second,” you’re thinking to yourself, “Didn’t you mention The Fool in a previous post?” Yes, I did. I’ll fill you in on the details of that later, but meanwhile, I wanted to let everyone know I’m still alive. A lot of interesting stuff has been happening in the past couple weeks that I want to talk about, but first need to make sure I wrap things up at DelCor properly and prepare for my new job. More to come, stay tuned.
Future Posts:
What I’m Reading