Internet Marketing Blog

Microblogging In Plain English

I am a huge fan of the microblogging service Twitter (which, by the way, explains why I was so upset when my estrategy Twitter account just up and stopped working and Twitter ignored my pleas for help. I'm still fairly bitter about it, but, you know, sometimes you just gotta move on. I have another Twitter account, so if you want to follow my Tweets, go to twitter.com/derickson.). I am also a huge fan of plain English. Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows, therefore, that I'm also a huge fan of Common Craft's In Plain English series of videos. Their latest is about--tah dahhhh!--Twitter. Enjoy:

See also:

 
• Social Networking In Plain English
• Social Bookmarking In Plain English
• Wikis In Plain English
• RSS In Plain English
• GoogleDocs In Plain English

Marketing To Millennials Presentation

This is a presentation for a seminar Pat Lilja, my colleague at Tunheim Partners, and I conducted on Wednesday for some public health people who are interested in how to reach the Millennial generation. We will have video of the session soon.

New Word Of Mouth Networks - Teens Talk Online

I haven't fully digested the new Pew Internet & American Life Teens & Social Media report, but the summary makes clear that teens' online behavior is creating new networks that will require online word of mouth marketing to be an increasingly crucial tactic within overall Internet marketing strategies.

The Pew study shows that they are prolific online content creators:

• Of the 93% that are online, 64% of them have created content online.
• 39% of online teens share their creations online.
• 33% create or work on others' blogs or web sites, be it for friends, groups they belong to, or classroom assignments.
• 28% have created their own blog.
• 27% have a personal web site.
• 26% create mashups.
• 55% have created a social networking profile at sites like Facebook and MySpace.
• 47% have uploaded photos.
• 14% have posted video online.

Teens share their online content and that sharing builds the foundation of their word of mouth networks because that content is a virtual conversation starter. The Pew study found:

• 89% of teens who upload photos say that people post comments about those photos at least sometimes.
• 72% of video posters say those videos elicit comments at least sometimes.
• 76% of teens who use social networks say they leave comments on other people's blog posts.

It seems clear that teen marketing for the short term, and, as these kids grow up, overall Internet marketing for the long term, will depend upon tapping into these online word of mouth networks.

Google Buys Jaiku - Is Jaiku Now A Twitter Killer?

Mashable reported yesterday that Google had acquired the microblog service Jaiku and asked the obvious: Why not Twitter? (Robert Scoble says Google's going to couple Jaiku with their social networking service, Orkut).

Microblogging services such as Jaiku, Twitter, and Pownce combine the publishing technology of blogs  with the ability to update your microblog via a standard web interface, through your Instant Messaging client, or from your phone using text messaging. Each post is limited to 140 characters--the size limit of text messages; thus the term microblogging.

Mashable said: "This is somewhat surprising news considering the perceived dominance of Twitter in the so-called “lifestreaming” space. Additionally, Twitter is co-founded by Evan Williams, who was the creator of Blogger, which was previously acquired by Google. In a world where price is no object for Google, it’s interesting that they would opt for Jaiku and not Twitter."

One reason may simply be feature sets: Pownce allows you to share files and events through your Pownce blog while Jaiku lets your plug in your own RSS feeds so you can automatically update your Jaiku blog with other online content and the service allows you to create communities of interest. Twitter offers none of these features.

I wonder, though, if Google's preference for Jaiku over Twitter points to something fundamentally fatal about Twitter itself.

I love Twitter and I use it all the time but the service has had some well-documented scaling problems. Anyone who has used Twitter for a moderate amount of time has run into the cat or bird error notice when trying to perform some routine function.

I myself am a victim of Twitter's technical snafus. I haven't been able to post to my Twitter account for about three months and my pleas to Twitter about it have been either ignored or unheard.

You'd think that scaling issues wouldn't be obstacle to overcome, considering the resources Google could bring to bear to fix any technical problems. But then when you look back at how long Twitter has been having these problems, you gotta wonder if their technical problems are so deep that Google trying to fix them wasn't worth the effort.

Regardless, with the resources that Google will no doubt invest in Jaiku, Twitter has got to be worried.

Emoticons - An Essential Online Communication Tool :-)

Emoticons
Originally uploaded by d.rex

The humble smilely face :-) emoticon [and it's opposite: :-( ] turn 25 years old today.

The text symbol for happiness,  approval, and humor was invented by Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman twenty five years ago today as a tool to avoid misunderstanding of text-based online communication within emails and online forums by clarifying that the writer intended the preceding text to be a joke or ironic.

The smiley face and frowning emoticon inspired many more emoticons, which have now become standard practice for clarifying online text-based messages used in emails, online forums, chat rooms and instant messaging, and text messaging.

Though the use of them might seem cute, silly, or juvenile at times, as anyone who has had an email disasterously misunderstood can testify, emoticons are an essential tool for clear communication. Though the emoticon was invented for use in old school email and obsolete Usenet newsgroups, they will not be fading away anytime soon in the multimedia age. They remain a central component of clear communication not just for email, chat rooms, and instant messaging, but also and increasingly within mobile communication mediums such as text messaging.

Do not think of emoticons as something just the kids use. They can certainly be a great device to use in marketing campaigns targeted at younger demographics, but properly and appropriately used, they can be an essential tool in delivering a crystal clear marketing message to any audience.

Emoticon Examples