Lunch Is The New Prime Time

FedEx departs from there 2009 $379 Million dollar traditional budget and goes to the web with a Web series aimed at small business. Full article here

The Web has become the small business hub because it is cheaper to advertise and operate there, according to Richard Honack, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

“Lunchtime is the new prime time,” Pacheco said. The company aims to reach small-business owners as they eat at their desks, surfing the Internet.

Video on the web is growing, it’s faster, cheaper, targeted, and interactive. It is what we have been preaching at our startup Station X so be forewarned your business will need a video strategy going forward

Build A Community Takes A Plan

Online Media, Social Media, whatever you want to call it, is all about community. Richard Millington an online community builder currently working for the United Nations Refugee Agency has some great tips.

• Early Achievements. Casinos are designed to give people small early payouts. Games like WoW let people accelerate through the early levels quickly. Early achievements work suck people in for the long haul. Find a way to let newcomers achieve something with a limited amount of effort.
• Newcomer of the month award. Tell each member they’ve been entered for the newcomer of the month award. Create a hall of fame and a criteria. Makes it competitive.
• Buddy System: A little cheesy. But why not pair new members up with a buddy for their first 21 days? Or give them their own groups. If they go missing, the buddy can chase them up.
• Newbie Rituals. Have something every newcomer passes down to the next person. Maybe a secret password? Perhaps an eBook which everyone can contribute a page to?
• Weekly Newcomer List. Everyone gets a chance to write a sentence that best describes them, introduce themselves to the group, highlight what they wan to contribute.
• Introduce new members to groups. Ask newcomers what their interests are, then specifically introduce them (CC e-mails!) to people with similar interests.
• A topical primer. Send all newcomers a quick overview of the hot issues in the community. Then invite them to offer their fresh perspective. Be sure to respond to their posts. This gets them caught in the whirlwind of discussion (which keeps people coming back!).
• Assign a role. Give newcomers a sense of responsibility over something. Perhaps something simple, like ideas for improving the joining-process. Or encouraging new members to be engaged.
• Have a graduation. What can you offer once they’ve stayed engaged for 21 days? Why not have a mini-graduation for new members? Let them customise their pages more or join more elite groups? Give them a badge for their profiles. They can even brag about achievements.

Read more on his blog here

Is Your Brand Worth Talking About?

Here is great article from The Wall Street Journal on building brand image in Online Media.

Today, the best way to establish your brand among big-hitter rivals is to make it remark-worthy and generate conversations free of charge. See how Red Bull took on big-ad-buying Coke and Pepsi with a product that sold at a higher price for a smaller pack size and built it to a billion-dollar brand with little advertising? The new axiom, call it Mahesh’s Law, is this: your marketing IQ is inversely proportional to your marketing budget.

There are some great points, but remember Online Media is not free. Sure the services like Facebook and Twitter are free, but it takes a lot of time and talent to make great content that is remark-worthy.

Dodge makes bone headed mistake over ram logo

I always have NPR on in the car, call me a nerd but I always get good nuggets of information. Today the story I heard was about Lake Mary High School in Florida that was being sued for using the Ram logo for their school logo.

From the Orlando Sentinel-

Angry comments from Orlando area residents have  worked their way north, and corporate spokesman Mike Palese says he wants people to understand why the company had to do it.  While the company is sorry for the flap, business is business.

”We did not choose this course of action,” Palese said. “It is a course of action we have to take to protect our trademark rights.”

“If we don’t approach these kinds of things with dilligence, we can lose our trademark rights.”

Now I understand Chrysler has all the legal right on their side but I think they missed a great opportunity to build their brand. What would I have done? Here are a few options

1. Let them use the logo and send the school a Dodge car to have at ball games and functions
2. Send Chrysler designers to the school and help them redesign a new logo
3. Help pay for some of the changes for having to change the logo on gym floor etc.

High school students are impressionable and will be future buyers, and Chrysler just left a bad impression that the school and town will never forget. What are your thoughts? Am I wrong? Did the school get what they deserved?

Faith In Your Ideas

Two years ago I started the journey to build an internet start up. My goal a company dedicated to making great video content for the web. I put together a great team and Station X was born. We were the first client of Innovate Arkansas and even got a bit of funding from the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority. I did the business plan and made the pitch to Fund For Arkansas’ Future a local VC fund. Our presentation was a success but in the end they did not invest. Our next killer app is content, something investors have a hard time putting a value on. So we have struggled to do the best with what we have. At times I feel like giving up.

Today I found this article in Tech Crunch

Where Did VCs Go Wrong In Online Video?
Yesterday’s final implosion of video site Veoh, which declared bankruptcy after burning through $70 million of venture capital, was a long time coming. A lot of so-called smart money went into Veoh: investors included Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, Intel’s venture arm, Spark Capital and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. And it was hardly an isolated incident. Joost, another high-flying video startup launched by the founders of Skype, went through $45M in VC money before ending up in a fire sale. Who’s next?…

The article then goes on to say..

Content is King

“The real barrier is content and the model necessary to make more of it. Cable TV suffered from this same fate early on”, states Broadband Enterprises’ Matt Wasserlauf.

We’re still in the early days of online video content and history is repeating itself. The film industry initially recreated theater and added a camera to record plays; early TV recreated radio and added a camera as well. Online video content has much room for improvement, but what is missing is the kind of investment required to create compelling content. VCs keep throwing out cliché after cliché and just show their lack of understanding of that fact. Sure, some of the aggregators such as Veoh did scale quickly but it wasn’t all that defensive. Despite all of this, VCs seem to be making all of the same mistakes over and over again: investing in the technology and not in the content.

So my faith in our original idea has been reaffirmed. I have reached back out to IA and Fund For Arkansas’ Future and will try again. I will keep you posted.

Super Bowl 2010 Commercials

If you have not seen all the Super Bowl 2010 commercials you can see them here

Sure some are funny, some are smart and some are just plain bad. Here are some of my picks:

Best:

Funniest:

Favorite Beer Spot:

CareerBuilder.com beats Monster.com by a mile:

Just freaked me out:

WTF? Who wants a 55 cal beer? Free advice to any good craft beer, get Sammy Hagar to sing in your commercial “I can’t drink 55!”

iPad, The Next Big Thing?

If you know me, you know I am an Apple Fan Boy. I have been waiting for this device ever since I saw a PC tablet. While I watched the announcement I found myself wondering if Apple had Jumped the shark.

I was disappointed because as a power user I wanted it to do Final Cut Pro, Adobe CS and other power apps. But as I read more about the iPad I saw what Apple is aiming for. Apple is looking to change the way we use computers and consume information. Most of my daily computer use could be handled my the iPad, and so many times I have tasks too big for the iPhone and too small to drag out the laptop. Also I get a little nervous hauling around my 17in MacBook Pro everywhere. Drop it or loose it and there is $3K gone.

Education is the biggest market I see, imagine no more books! For power users like myself hopefully the iPad will grow in functionality or there will be an app for that.

My Dream Computer

Saw this on Gizmodo I have always wanted a device like this, if it has a web camera and a FW port for a camera this would be the perfect mobile unit for video bloggers.

Star Trek

So my Dad said he bought his first color TV just to watch Star Trek, and there have been many versions over the years but I think this new Star Trek will be the best. I predict it will relaunch the franchise for the next generation(no pun intended).

Terminator Salvation Trailer

As a film maker and editor I love movie trailers, sometimes I like them better than the movie. So I will start commenting on trailers. How much do I like trailers? I get upset if I am late to the movies and miss the coming attractions

This is one of those movies I hope with all my heart is a great film. The trailer is great!