There’s a really dumb story in the news right now. (You’re thinking, “Just one?”) Well … I have one in mind that I think is really dumb. But what if I write a post about how dumb it is? I have no illusions about the effect of this blog, but to some very small degree …
One of my concerns with asking customers to do a transaction on a mobile device is the trouble of online forms. If you think online forms are a pain when you have a big monitor and a full-sized keyboard, try completing a form on a silly little device with a keyboard made for gnomes. I …
Continue reading ‘Is PayPal the solution for mobile commerce?’ »
At the SIPA marketing conference in Miami I gave a presentation with that title. The presentation is based on my own experience as well as quite a few interviews with marketing and IT professionals. Some of the slides might not make sense on their own (like the ones about the bicycles), but if you’re interested …
On top of all the other bad economic news, the postal service is about to raise its rates, which is going to have a very bad effect on lots of companies. It might put some out of business. So what’s the solution? Is it time to de-regulate the mail? I know some people think mail …
Continue reading ‘Deregulated postal service coming to a mailbox near you?’ »
I’ve posted a few times here about the problems with display ads and ideas about ways to measure their true effect. Part of the problem is that web designers marginalize them — quite literally, by lining them up in the right column — and people have learned to ignore them. If you look at those …
Continue reading ‘Test confirms it — Display ads really do work’ »
At the SIPA Washington conference I heard some interesting comments about how quality free content is a gateway to paid content. Miles Galliford said that in a session on “developing online communities” and one of the other speakers said similar things in a general session. And it seems to make sense — as if there’s …
Zuckerberg has said that he’s building a new web where “the default is social,” and new Facebook apps are bringing that to life as they pop up on other sites. Those apps allow you to see what other people say about the site, or whether any of your friends like it. We are witnessing a …
News has gone through a few interesting changes over the years. Papers used to be openly partisan — supporting a political party or an ideology. Then we had the growth of organizations that claimed to be dispassionate and objective. The “independent” newspaper. Of course they never really were objective, but they tried. Now the news …
Continue reading ‘The coming death of so-called “objectivity” in news coverage’ »
At the coffee pot just now I was speaking with a colleague about an old Starbucks drink called chantico, which was a very rich, very strong, very sweet hot chocolate drink. It was delicious, but you could only drink one every other week or so if you wanted to live until next month. They discontinued …
Continue reading ‘Did Starbucks create a “have it my way” monster?’ »
Some publishers are making big news these days by deciding to switch from an ad-supported model to a paywall — where visitors have to pay a fee for access to content. I don’t think it’s a good idea. To oversimplify things, there are two kinds of content. “Commoditized” content — i.e., stuff everybody else has, …
Continue reading ‘How newspapers might survive the new world’ »