Marketing 2.0

Brand Autopsy: Video Recap: MySpace or Facebook? Or Both?

Here are two good summaries comparing Facebook and MySpace for those of you considering which site best fits your target market.

Brand Autopsy: Video Recap: MySpace or Facebook? Or Both? .

Twitter Ad Agency Starts Up

Here's a video report from Ad Age on the use of Twitter as a marketing tool in the entertainment industry.

Advertising Age: Original Video: 18982295001.

New Domains

Good article on the new domains that will be available soon.

Strike in Second Life

More evidence that real and virtual worlds are converging - IBM workers conducted a strike in Second Life. This article from the Globe and Mail details the use of social networking for labor activism.
Link: globeandmail.com: STRIKE!* (*banana suit optional).

Second Life in the Classroom

Interesting article in the Ithaca Journal about a new course at Cornell that deals with the business being conducted within Second Life. While $1.5 million in transactions take place everyday, there's no regulation similar to the "real" world. Professor Bloomfield refers to it as the "financial wild west."
Link: The Ithaca Journal - www.theithacajournal.com - Ithaca, NY.

A Mansion in Second Life

How much would you pay for a home in Second Life? How about $3.1 million? Coldwell Banker has created a virtual model of one of its premier listings and so far it has attracted several thousand visitors. Whether the SL demographic is consistent with luxury home buyers, well I do wonder about that. What's interesting here is the use of virtual worlds and new media to supplement a very traditional sales process. When the technology advances a bit you can imaging walking into Coldwell's virtual listing world and walking through many houses to find the right choice.

Link: Real $3.1 home causes a stir in virtual world, Second Life - Aug. 9, 2007.

The Boss Puts The iPod to Work

Here's another sign that iPod is the new king of all media. Many companies are now using pods as training tools for their employees. It's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal on how major corporations are downloading content such as language lessons, sales tips and messages from the CEO to their staff.
Link: The Boss Puts The iPod to Work - WSJ.com.

Backing Up

I recently had a problem with my main computer, an older G4. It's been in the shop for two weeks (don't get me started on that) and I have been unable to access important data and applications from my hard drive. Although I back up about every six months, this was a good reminder of what can happen if you suffer a hard drive failure. How often do you back up?

Guy Kawasaki had a similar problem recently and he offers several good resources for Mac users on his weblog.

Link: Signum sine tinnitu--by Guy Kawasaki: Prevent Dumbness: Hard Disk Specials.

What Can You Do With RSS?

Robin Good offers an excellent overview of the many traditional and new applications for RSS technology. For example, it's the underlying technology facilitating media sharing sites such as Flickr and Jumpcut. There's lots more in Robin's summary.

Link: What Can You Do With RSS? - Robin Good's Latest News.

Google Goes Video

It's another sign than 2006 is shaping up to become the year of video. Web pundit Robin Good predicted it and now we have Google launching a video download service. This is going to be big. You will see all kinds of content currently available only on cable television or locked away in the archives somewhere suddenly available for download. Think of the marketing opportunity for studios and production houses to generate additional revenue on content produced and paid for in the past. The archives are going to be opened up like never before. I saw a sure sign of this the other night when I found an old episode of Dragnet for sale on iTunes. Two dollars per head for an episode that ran about 40 years ago. As Dire Straits might say, "Money for nothing and chicks for free."

Link: CNN.com - Google announces video�expansion - Jan 6, 2006.