Viral Marketing, Mobile Marketing and More | Viralsphere

Google's Schmidt Cheering On Mobile

2009-03-09T22:39:00.003-05:00

Among other interesting comments about the online ecosystem, the economy, Microsoft, Yahoo and Twitter, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt had this to say about Mobile while speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference: The fact of the matter is that mobile devices are going to be the majority of the way that people get information. The argument is relatively simple: You already have them. They're

Change Has Come To Whitehouse.Gov

2009-01-20T13:12:00.002-05:00

Any Obama supporters that are interested in the intersection of politics and technology should go check out www.whitehouse.gov. I think the reality of the new administration has finally hit me: we own their web site. Here's the first post on the "changed" whitehouse.gov blog: Welcome to the new WhiteHouse.gov. I'm Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and one of the

Just In Time For The Inauguration: Ustream iPhone Viewing Application Ready To Download

2009-01-20T01:31:00.002-05:00

Just received this update from Ustream - the first streaming video application for the iPhone. The Ustream iPhone Viewing Application was pending approval from Apple and was approved in time for the Inauguration. Now any user can watch the Inauguration from their iPhone. Presently, the Ustream application is WiFi only to ensure the highest quality broadcast on the iPhone, but stay tuned for

McCain Green Screen An Irresistable Call To Mashup

2008-09-07T23:06:00.002-05:00

The We Cannot Turn Back Speech - Obama

2008-08-29T13:48:00.004-05:00

Well, it took about 5 minutes for someone to email me the cynical, bitter and somewhat desperate column by David Brooks in today's Times. Yes, he even caps it with a reference to the now mostly forgotten Jeremiah Wright - which served as a reminder of how cheap and pointless opposition politics was last Spring. Of course the 08 DNC convention in Denver was pomp and circumstance. Of course it was

Obama VP Text Thing - Wrap Up

2008-08-26T14:33:00.005-05:00

The campaign didn't disclose how many messages were sent, but Nielsen used it's resources to estimate that 2.9 million opt-in recipients were texted on Friday night. According to MobileMarketer, Nic Covey of Nielsen Mobile Insights had these fine comments about the whole thing: >> “This weekend’s VP message may not itself give Obama a great edge, but the ability to communicate with supporters

And That VP Text Message Drove CNN Crazy

2008-08-24T22:50:00.004-05:00

The political satire site 236.com pulled together snippets of Friday morning's text-from-Obama vigil on CNN - worth watching for the last frame when a normal campaign email arrives via BlackBerry causing a small false alarm on camera.

Karen Krivit's Kape Kod

2008-08-22T08:27:00.005-05:00

If Karen Krivit, or anyone else who may be interested, would click this link, she would see a custom map showing many wonderful places to go when she and her cool family come visit the Cape! >> View Larger Map >>

The Candidates Olympics Outreach A Failure So Far

2008-08-17T15:16:00.002-05:00

I agree with Jack Myers here - he really hits it on the head with this commentary. >> The Olympics accomplish what our leaders should at least try to do: they inspire us; they encourage us to believe that we can all get along; they impose a positive and uplifting spirit on a global stage. I expected the McCain campaign to focus on polls and newly implemented negative campaign strategies. The

Yahoo's Shared Search Resources Yielding Cool Apps

2008-08-14T07:50:00.004-05:00

Yahoo's BOSS program was designed to give developers less-restricted access to their search technologies and resources, and was expected to facilitate a great deal of exciting search engine front-end innovation. It's working.

Obama Camp To Baloon SMS Database with VP Pick Alert

2008-08-12T07:53:00.011-05:00

The Obama Marketing Team (aka his campaign) seems to have learned something about SMS opt-in lists that most advertisers have yet to discover. The biggest news of the pre-convention summer will go public via text message, in a bid to heighten the effect of the announcement and giant-size the opt-in list. Illustrating the team's increasing mastery of marketing 2.0, it chose the highly anticipated

New DMA Report Examines Mobile Marketing Offers and Results

2008-07-20T20:47:00.006-05:00

The new DMA report is good news for SMS text-based mobile marketers, indicating that people recall and respond to SMS offers at a comparatively high rate. Here's a quick list of the most common business categories that sent mobile offers, according to the surveyed consumers: entertainment/music/video -- 44%food/beverage -- 21%telecommunications/mobile -- 21%beauty/personal care -- 15%automotive/

SMS Coupon Company Gets Some Local Props

2008-07-20T19:20:00.003-05:00

The local papers love this stuff - SMS coupons from a new Florida text messaging company. Read the article in the Seminole Voice online, here. The provider is called PlumReward

Yes in deed in fact,...

2008-07-10T16:37:00.001-05:00

Yes in deed in fact, Jott is better in typing than I am by far. listen Powered by Jott

Jott is a Pretty Sweet Mobile Application

2008-07-10T16:26:00.002-05:00

Have you tried Jott.com yet? Jott allows you to also set up links to other online applications so you can send info to them from your cell phone. The next post was published by calling Jott and speaking into my cell phone. Jott is better at typing than I am.

Obama Buzz Spreading With The Aid Of Digital Artists

2008-04-02T15:46:00.004-05:00

A top politician is reaping the rewards of widespread online digital expression, and a growing wave of artists are connecting to the campaign through their own creative efforts with fantastic results. This post provides some good commentary and links to see for yourself. That the combination of poster art and politics is as old as the printing press is not the point - viral spread and

Classical Viral - Literally. Free Music For All The Right Reasons

2008-03-08T17:37:00.003-05:00

Tasmin Little is an extraordinary violinist - and she's taking extraordinary measures to draw new listeners to classical music. You remember - classical music - I know, we haven't heard much lately, but as it turns out it didn't die. Not at all. Want proof? Go here: Tasmin Little's Web Site Containing Free Music That You Are Guaranteed To Enjoy For Ever More. She introduces each piece in

Facebook Releases P2P Advertising Platform

2007-11-07T09:24:00.000-05:00

Facebook publicly released their new ad platform, based on the concept of fan-sumers – facebook users promote the brand (or their usage, purchases, satisfaction, etc , with the brand’s products) to each other. This is the outline of the new platform: 1. Users endorse products or brands, 2. brand messaging (like an ad) gets included in the users’ feeds, and 3. friends can click to the brand’s

Searchles - Video Feed Widget

2007-09-16T23:15:00.000-05:00

Testing out a widget from the community news/video aggregator site Searchles.com - with an embedded video player that handles a video playlist. I think the best feature here is the ability to edit the items in the playlist, turning the whole thing into something of a video feed widget. For example - copy this embed code snippet and paste it into your site or blog - boom, you're hosting the same

APEC Presents: Aussie TV Comedy Group "The Chaser"

2007-09-07T19:51:00.001-05:00

Comedians are now jumping onto the bandwagon of hilarity that was formerly the province of top Western government officials (Bush referring to APEC as OPEC, calling the Australians Austrians, and almost walking off the stage, literally). This year an Aussie comedy group got through two checkpoints dressed as Osama Bin Laden, bearing ID cards clearly labelled with the word "JOKE" - catapulting

The Other Debate '08: Crush On Obama vs "Obama Girl vs Giuliani Girl"

2007-07-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

The release is off to a good start - 9AM EST and already over 200 views according to YouTube. I have to agree with "friendlier" though - a little less old school R&B and something more web/music 2.0 would have been cool. But the video is funny and really good natured. Folks are going to like it. I guess time will tell: the original Crush On Obama is standing at over 2.3 million views right

Obama Girl vs Giuliani Girl in DEBATE '08

2007-07-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

After a long wait, the movie release date has arrived. No, not Harry Potter - it's Debate '08, another music video from Barelypolitical.com. Following up the Obama Girl video Crush On Obama, the team at Barelypolitical today released the music video pre-billed as Obama Girl vs Giuliani Girl. Stay tuned, there's more to come...

I Found My Run Mapper - Cool!

2007-05-20T18:16:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Ross at Byte.org, I found the right web application to work out great routes for the rest of the running season. Guess they thought of everything, including community and viral spread of course. If you walk, run, bike, or all three (among other modes), you may really enjoy it. var mmf_type = "run"; var mmf_border = "1px solid #999999"; var

Fastfood and Adsense Irony

2007-04-19T13:23:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is, the study we've all contemplated authoring - juxtaposing fastfood ad-agency images vs. the actual product - with the added irony of contextual text ads automatically selected by Google at the top of the page. Proof that Adwords text ads do indeed have a branding effect? Link to the study here.

Cookie-based Data Likely Overstating Uniques by 150% : Comscore

2007-04-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

Comscore released a new cookie study that is pretty strong evidence of the further erosion of the ability to use cookies to track anything unique. President/CEO Dr. Magid Abraham says that with 7% of computers accounting for 35% of all cookies "just one set of 'eyeballs' at the site may be counted as 10 or more unique visitors over the course of a month. The result is a highly inflated estimate

So Much For BuzzMetrics

2007-04-11T23:59:00.000-05:00

Rafat Ali accuses Nielsen's new BuzzMetrics research product of being just so much "hooey" - and provides compelling proof. Buzzmetrics is the “advanced text-mining algorithms"-based “filtered blog buzz” research" developed to measure buzz in the blogosphere, to monitor consumer-generated media, and to provide backup for social media consulting. I'll let you know if Nielsen responds - wonder if

Blog Ads Blog Readers Love

2007-02-05T20:17:00.000-05:00

B.L. Ochman has a unique skill set. She creates ad campaigns that are so irresistible the target audience has no choice but to participate. This time its women living life in the fast lane, juggling work and family, on behalf of Author Karen Quinn's Wife In The Fast Lane book promotion. Cool thing is, her blog ads promote her online one-liner contest, but her blog ads have developed a following

Not Your Father's Napster: Sharing Music With NapsterLinks

2006-10-28T11:10:00.000-05:00

Napster released a feature to allow the spread of tunes and (hopefully) the acquisition of subscribers. Here it is in the Plain-Old-HTML version. Also comes in IM/Email and Mini-Player flavors. Wolvesville - Manuel Barrueco (with Steve Morse). An Improvisation On Etude No.1 by Villa-Lobos (And, btw, that's one of the worlds sweetest/toughest classical guitarists in an improvised duet with the

Blogging At The Speed Of SMS: Twitter Releases An API

2006-10-10T22:56:00.000-05:00

I'm sure SMS blogging will soon take its place next to web-based blogging and perhaps one day render it obsolete. SMS blogs have the potential for so much more urgency and immediacy - the universe of applications for sending dispatches from the heart of whatever-scene-you-like (once bloggers realize the potential of severing themselves from the computer) is mind numbing. And now Twitter has

Portable Storefronts Plus Social Networking Sites Equals Viral Sales

2006-09-29T08:48:00.000-05:00

The Canadian tech company Musicane.com is promoting their twist on digital content merchandising - hosting the storage, display and transaction using a player that easily embeds in your blog or social networking web page - cool! But why not expand that to all Ecommerce! From: MARKET WIRE | Date: September 26, 2006Musicane (www.musicane.com), an online service that provides content creators and

Breaking News! PR is not three times more effective than advertising, at best it's one to one.

2006-09-28T09:47:00.000-05:00

Katie Paine from MeasuresOfSuccess.com reported on a study that puts PR into perspective and makes a whole lot of sense: Breaking News! PR is not three times more effective than advertising, at best it's one to one.: "For years, there’s been a myth out there that there is some sort of multiplier for PR that assumes that PR is x times more effective than advertising. The most frequent number used

Snakes On A Plane - The Accidental Viral

2006-04-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

OK, so there is actually something to say - in pre-release, this movie is a kind of tabula rasa on which people may say, think or create anything they please. Rob Thomas, writing for the Madison WI Capital Times, makes the observation: >> It's a phenomenon that also must have studio heads scratching their heads and wondering how it happened, how a film essentially created its own viral

Snakes On A Plane

2006-04-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

After you've typed the phrase Snakes On A Plane what is there left to say?

Harnessing User Generated Media in Viral Campaigns: Watch Out For Potholes

2006-04-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

As reported by Barry Graubart at Content Matters - Chevy launched a viral campaign relying on users to edit and post their TV commercial based on pre-produced video objects. Given the current user-gen-media environment, where satire and humor is king, I imagine Chevy entertained the notion that perhaps, just perhaps, some users might leverage the opportunity to create something more (or less)

Grassroots Marketing - Political Season Heating Up and Public Affairs Marketer Finds That Now Is The Time

2006-04-04T07:43:00.000-05:00

Grass Roots Enterprises is leading the PAC in public affairs marketing, with some interesting accomplishments last year, including Viral, International, Podcasting, Persuasion Online Ad, Humor and Blog Ad. I guess it's time to start the "Interesting Political Marketing" blog category at Viralsphere leading into 2007. Oh, and since my Mother-in-law Marian Harris (www.marianforohio.com) is running

Relationship Marketer Releases Hosted Viral Campaign Builder

2006-03-31T15:10:00.000-05:00

Marketing service provider Responsewave released a hosted solution for quickly setting up and deploying viral campaigns focused on acquiring leads using friendly viral email tactics based on "recommendation principles" - complete with automatic incentive reward and utilization tracking. The company says: >> Responsewave’s viral marketing campaign builder enables the user to easily build, test

Ironic Run-Of-Network Search Listing Of The Day

2006-03-30T02:26:00.000-05:00

Run of network search ads automatically insert your search query into the text of a generic ad. They end up being a calculated risk on behalf of the advertiser, running the gamut from the silly to the sublime. Somewhere in the middle they're unintentionally truthful and randomly instructive. I think I'll start collecting them - here's the first in a series:

Viral Marketing 2006 - Report Released By MarketingSherpa.com

2006-03-29T13:15:00.000-05:00

This year's article, complete with circles and arrows. Entertaining, and primarily a survey of what marketers are doing, what they think they're doing it for, and what they think it's doing for them. >> SUMMARY:Viral marketing online is a decade old this year and it's getting hideously same-old, same-old boring. Which spells trouble, because viral's all about not being boring. Here's some help

From The Archives - The John Cleese Experiment

2006-03-29T11:17:00.000-05:00

Someone recently asked me to dig this up - great example from last year. Irony and comedy and the infamous "third button" (don't press it, ok?) combined to make this effort successful on behalf of data backup service provider LiveVault.com http://jon.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/5/4/649821.html