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Now you too can embrace the inner Elf, via ElfYourself™. Because we all, secretly, really do want to wear green tights and don a pointy hat.
Seth Godin has an interesting take on Google and Adwords marketing:
“Every day, hundreds of millions of people do hundreds of millions of searches on Google. Each search is its own “channel.” Each search represents a distinct marketing vehicle, a chance for an individual to directly connect with a marketer.”
Remember the pages-and-pages of classified advertising in your local rag? At a fundamental level, it’s very much the same thing.
Most folks are selective readers by default. We seldom read every single word of every single page in a magazine or paper. Rather, we’ll skim over less self-relevant information and focus on that which actually interests us. One wouldn’t necessarily read all job placements if one is after a motor vehicle, for example.
Google has simply added contextual search to help facilitate and speed the ’selective read’ tendency. Multiply that over millions of searches a day and you have a wining formula that pits one advertiser against the next for front-page billing.
Richard sends out a heart-felt plea to his lost love in Connie, I Miss You:
“It’s been all downhill since then. My mailbox is full of spam now, and the only notification I get is a little number in a red circle. No longer do I hear her beautiful voice telling me “you’ve got mail.” I’m constantly bombarded by popup adverts and unwanted porn and I have to look up the news myself.”
In this age of instant messaging, spam, 2.0 hype and incessant viral marketing it’s easy to forget how simple online life used to be.
No constant interruptions care of yet another Facebook application or 2.0 group chat, where being “Linked In” meant you were one of the chosen few to actually have some kind of Internet connection and Email applications greeted you with a gentle loving care.
Where spam was that very occasional and quaint chain email about puppies forwarded to you by Great Aunt Dora and IRC involved a VAX, an acoustic coupler, three different user manuals and just a hint of luck.
Some might suggest we’ve come along way — and to a point that’s true — but in some ways I cannot help but feel we’ve hardly progressed at all.
".. there are no “new” privacy issues raised by Google’s acquisition of Jaiku; it’s simply the same old ones over and over again that we seem unable to deal with in any kind of open dialogue in the mainstream press." — why the NY Times got it wrong.
Blending performance art with packet sniffing, the software tracks Internet activity then creates an electronic three-dimensional world to view and explore.
Finally, the appropriate "gift" to send when that someone special posts yet another ill-defined, crudely written, grammar challenged and assumption rich sudo-expert how-to-blog article. ∞
"This evening, through a perfectly innocent series of events, my left nipple became stuck to the inside of my freezer door." — best twitter update this week, bar none - thank you Mr Orchard.
"Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine who lives near Boston, has been quietly enjoying the attention." — way to go, knucklehead - ruin a perfectly good concept by publically anonuncing the blogger.
My usual assortment of
goodies carried as of July 28. Yes, I read Hawking, doesn’t everyone?
Chris Cabanillas, aka RestiffBard
writes:
I know Go Daddy to be a legitimate business. I know this primarily because I use them as my registrar for, now, two domains. All the same, their website design creeps me out. Not only are they trying to sell you something but it feels like they’re trying to sell you […]
"Last Friday Joyent made Connector free + open. Free in that anyone can sign up for a complimentary 2 User/ 2 GB plan." — Luke gives us the low down on what’s on offer.
