How many of you subscribe to Coloribus, Luerzer's Archive or other sites that demand payment to view ads? According to Coloribus.com, the site has 10,000 subscribers. It doesn't say at what level, but given their pricing structure, I have to think 10,000 subscribers equals a lot of income. Archive too is a costly item at 99 British pounds per annum. So, why do these portfolio sites draw top dollar when there is a …
This Shit Ain’t Free
Xiaochang Li, a researcher at MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium, rightly wants to define what "free" means in our digitally-driven culture. In 2008, Wired.com editor Chris Anderson proclaimed "free" to be "the future of business" (Anderson 2008) on the web. But the word "free" means to be exempt from something, so in calling these things free, we need to be able to answer the implicit questions of what, exactly, …
Want To Drink For Free? Shop For Mens’ Clothes.
According to The Wall Street Journal, men are purpose driven shoppers who like to get in and get out. To combat that behavior, some high end retailers are popping tops and getting dudes to chill. By offering in-store drinks, a growing number of retailers are trying to get men to shop more like women, who often linger and browse, buy items on impulse, and return time and again to a favorite store. The recession is …
Continue Reading about Want To Drink For Free? Shop For Mens’ Clothes. →
People With Powerful Profiles
Todd Andrlik, the PR man in Chicago who created The AdAge 150, has been making Power Profile posts on his blog. His latest subject is my friend Rob Walker, author of Buying In, the "Consumed" column in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and Murketing, an online journal. Here's one of Walker's responses that I'm particularly fond of: How many hours a week do you spend blogging? Actually I prefer to say "writing for …
Today In Twitterverse: Coupon Finders
CheapTweet and CouponTweet are mentioned in a SmartMoney article on companies utilizing social media to offer price incentives to customers--a very prudent use of the platform, in my opinion. I think we'll see many more Twitter aggregators like the two above. It's simply too hard to find things in the stream. The incoming Tweets come in at a random and rapid pace. So, businesses are being born to meet that challenge. …
Continue Reading about Today In Twitterverse: Coupon Finders →
Free Product Is A Form Of Paid Placement
Companies have been supplying bloggers with free products in return for press, positive or otherwise. K-mart and Chris Brogan hooked up last December, for instance. Now the FTC wants to regulate these instances to ensure consumers aren't duped. According to Financial Times: Revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials by the Federal Trade Commission, now under review and expected to be adopted, would hold …
Continue Reading about Free Product Is A Form Of Paid Placement →
Today In Twitterverse: Finding Kogi
My former colleague, Sloane Kelley, wrote a post on BFG Blog about two small restaurants in California that use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, blogs et al to build their businesses. One of those restaurants is Kogi Korean BBQ, a mobile operation that fuses "the taste of Korean BBQ with the portability of tacos and burritos." Since they operate from a mobile kitchen, customers check Twitter for their present location and …
Continue Reading about Today In Twitterverse: Finding Kogi →
You Don’t Need To Properly Pronounce “Pierre” To Go There
Patrick Cowan of Word Farm is looking to break into advertising as a copywriter. With concepts like the one above he appears to be well on his way. …
Continue Reading about You Don’t Need To Properly Pronounce “Pierre” To Go There →