Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 14
I don't have to tell you how dreadful things are in this industry of ours. And yet, here's a confession. If I woke up tomorrow and found out that, miraculously, advertisers were rushing back, the dailies were hiring, and weekly mags (including our own)were gaining their old girth, my first response would be immense relief. And my second would be disappointment.
It would be as if this really interesting movie that we're both watching and participating in suddenly ended. And there we'd be, adrenalin rushing, contingency plans in hand--and all of a sudden it's just back to the comfortable old routines. Again, I don't want to sound callous, but these are very interesting times to be in the game. All kinds of opportunities are going to come out of this. The money's a mystery, a course. That's part of what makes the movie scary.
Posted by: Heather Green on January 13
That's the title of the story I did today about a complaint that a couple of consumer groups filed with the FTC about mobile marketers.
US PIRG and the Center for Digital Democracy argue that industry players don't provide enough disclosure about what kind of data they collect and what they do with the data. And though the industry policy is opt in when it comes to collecting data, the groups say people don't understand that they're agreeing handing over data when they download an application.
Mike Wehrs from the Mobile Marketing Assn. says that the industry has moved to protect privacy through industry and plans to do more, by setting up a complaint system and coming up with standardized privacy guidelines that could provide shorthand refers to more complete privacy policies online.
It's worth paying attention to the consumer groups. Afterall, they're the ones who helped put behavioral targeting in hotseat, er spotlight.
Posted by: Heather Green on January 12
Quick note. In a report appropriately entitled Rose Colored Glasses Come Off, Citigroup released the results of a survey of IT CIOs in the U.S. and Europe.
The news? US CIO's expect their IT budgets to contract 2.7% this year, the first decline in five years. Europeans expect theirs to contract by 1.9%. Only 21% of CIOs expect their budget to grow in 2009, Citi says.
If they are spending, where is the money going? Security, server consolidation, and virtualization, says Citi. Software barely edges out hardware in terms of budget spend, and CIOs indicate that
both are less likely to have their budgets cut than external IT services and storage.
Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 09
Catch this: 92% of Internet users, according to a new Nielsen-WebVisible survey, say they're satisfied with search results. But 39% of them frequently can't find companies they're looking for. In other words, they find what they're looking for--even if it ends up coming from a different company.
For business owners still unsure about the importance of establishing a strong, search-optimized Web presence, those numbers should make a strong case. (This reminds me that I should stop postponing an SEO consultation for my blog.)
Other notes from the study:
Only 44% of small businesses have a Web site. Of those that do, 61% spend less than three hours a week marketing their Web site. This explains the difficulty search engine users encounter when looking for small businesses online.
Of small businesses that have a Web site, 51% believe both the quality and ability of their site to acquire new customers is only “fair” or “poor.”
At the same time, their answers reflect the shifts we're familiar with. 23% of respondents say they advertise less in the Yellow Pages than they did two years ago, and 41% have lowered their spending on local newspaper ads.
For more information, here's the release:Download file
Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 07
We're trying something new. It's a Twitter stream on the side of our VoxStimuli blog. The idea is that people who want to suggest or debate an idea about Obama's stimulus package can Twitter it. And by including #voxstimuli in their tweet, it shows up immediately on the blog.
I'm a little discouraged, because I Tweeted my latest idea:
stevebaker No.1 stimulus priority for me: Winterize homes. Saves consumers $, reduces oil buys, creates jobs, cools earth #voxstimuli
And after a rainy commute into NYC from New Jersey, it's still the latest item. So this is your chance: Pile in. Question: Should we have Twitterstreams on our other blogs? Does it make sense?
