The River

A tidbit from a piece I wrote about LookSmart’s earnings. A new Furl.net is coming this week, says new CEO David Hills. New functionality will let users search across all of the public URLs that users have saved. Interesting stuff.

Bill Flitter at Pheedo has a great post about the nature of blogs and blogger best practices.

From the post:

1. This is a NOT a medium where a message can be forced.
2. It takes time and attention to effectively reach out and build relationships.
3. Blogging is NOT a direct response medium. It’s a relationship medium.
4. Blogging ROI is NOT measured as a cost-per-lead but as a cost-per-influence.

So, you know how you run anti-spyware applications to get rid of nefarious pop-up ads spawned by rogue code that has infected your system? Well, it turns out you will soon be able to rid yourself of spyware — for free — if you agree to accept pop-up ads. This is the result of a deal between contextual ad player WhenU, which delivers its ads through a network of desktop software apps, and Aluria Software, the same company that partners with America Online for anti-spyware offerings. It’s all part of WhenU’s aggressive PR offensive.

The whole arrangement seems ironic on some levels. Here’s a spyware scanning (and killing) program that’s supported by adware. As you probably know, many people don’t draw a line between the two.

Though this may be perceived as a strange partnership, especially by some anti-spyware crusaders, if Aluria really feels like WhenU is “squeaky clean” — and its president, Rick Carlson, assures me it does — then why not let consumers have the application for free, if they’re willing to view ads? Just so they understand what they’re getting into. The software isn’t available yet, so it’s unclear exactly how they’ll disclose the ad support.

Meanwhile, I contacted “spyware hunter” Ben Edelman, who has spoken out loudly against WhenU in the past. He’s been discussed here and here. What did he have to say? A very mysterious “no comment.”

“I have no comment as to this release, or as to any other matter pertaining to WhenU,” he wrote. When I probed, he replied, “I’m sorry, but I have no comment as to the reason why I have no comment on any matter pertaining to WhenU. I look forward to speaking with you on other matters.” Hmmm…

UPDATE: Just to be clear, the WhenU page I link to above lets you download the free initial scanner. If you find things on your hard drive that are questionable, however, you can either buy the full Aluria software now, or wait until later (it says November 15) to get the free, ad-supported version from WhenU.

Yes, indeed, it is true. The New York Times chronicles (free reg.) how the blogging phenomeon is impacting the world of advertising and marketing.

From the piece:

The biggest fear is an uncontrolled message slipping out, said Steve Rubel, vice president for client services at CooperKatz & Company in New York, a public relations agency with clients including the Association of National Advertisers, J. P. Morgan Chase and Wendy’s. “Do they allow comments or do they not? Is there an implication if it is a publicly traded firm? Who is the one who should blog for us? How might that choice be received in the company?”

I read quickly, which can be both a blessing and a curse. It helps me plow through the hundreds of blogs I try to keep up with, but it also makes it impossible for me to immerse myself in a good story for very long. I keep finishing the books! (And I don’t hardly remember any plots, which makes me feel really old and can be a bit embarrassing.)

Anyway, along the way, I’ve amassed a few volumes I’d like to get rid of before I take off to the left coast. I’ve been selling them on Amazon.com, so, if you’re interested, you’re free to peruse my Marketplace listings and buy them that way. (Warning: these books include chick lit, beach reads and dot-com boom business tomes.)

Alternatively, for any of the $1 and under books, I’ll send them to you for shipping and handling costs only (about $1.75/book to the U.S. unless it’s a heavy one). You can pay me through PayPal.com for that.

Just e-mail me at books (at) mcnigel (dot) com and let me know which one you’re interested in and the address to which you want it (or them) shipped. First come, first served. I’ll figure out the shipping and handling and send you a bill via PayPal to the e-mail address you specify. As soon as the postage and envelope are paid for, I’ll ship.

This is probably more of a hassle for me than just throwing the darned things out or donating them somewhere, but I figure if you’re willing to e-mail me that probably means these books will end up in a good home. And that’s always nice.

I’m starting to get excited about the trip across the country in a few weeks. Am considering a Dave Winer-style travelogue complete with moblogging. We’ll see.

I went to AAA.com today and saved a TripTik® (map pictures don’t work on the linked pages, unfortunately) of the planned journey. (FYI, the service is for AAA members only.) I have such fond memories of those TripTiks from my childhood, when, on big family road trips, I’d follow the highlighter marks, flip the pages, and read aloud descriptions of the countryside.

From: Stanhope to Pennsylvania border
Description: This byway takes you through the Allamuchy Mountain Park. Gray, rocky mountains peek over the top of evergreen forests leading to and from the park. A pastoral setting comprises the majority of the byway, gently meadering over hills. The Delaware River borders the western portion of the route, providing attractive views of the water.

We drove from Texas to Yellowstone National Park when I was a kid and I haven’t seen such gorgeous scenery since. I’m looking forward to showing off the Rocky Mountains to my Scottish husband, who has now seen both U.S. coasts. A cousin has moved to Colorado so we’ll be staying overnight in the Rockies.

It’s funny how an electronic version of a classic favorite, the TripTik, can still get me all misty eyed. Sure there’s Mapquest and Yahoo! Maps, but they don’t measure up. The TripTik app lets you set up multiple destinations — handy on a long journey like this one. It also provides you with indications of which exits have food and lodging, and warns you of potential delays:

Detour and Construction Info:
Construction/delays possible: INT-70; Milepost 51 to milepost 56.

It’s wonderful, when stuck in slow construction traffic, to know it’ll be over by milepost 56, especially when you’re trying to make good time. And we will be… in just a few weeks. TripTik says it’ll be 45 hours and 39 minutes of driving. We’ll be loading up plenty of CDs with audiobooks from Audible.

internetnews.com’s Roy Mark reports on the guy who’s documenting the dot-com era for the Library of Congress. I bought a URL back in the day, dotcomrelics.com, with some never-realized ambition of chronicling all I’d seen. Am so glad to see someone’s doing it for real. His name is David Kirch, and he’s assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland.

From the story:

“We’re trying to document the history of the era in its own medium,” Kirch said. “I firmly believe that 100 years from now, historians will be studying what happened in the 1990s in the United States from a business history angle. If we want to give them a legacy that allows them to actually understand what happened, we need to collect the ones and zeros now.”

A NYT piece (free registration) describes another instance of folks using Google keywords as marketing. The folks behind teen-novel “Be More Chill” created a constellation of 14 Web sites around the book’s plot device, the “squip,” a tiny imaginary edible supercomputer that gives its eater social advice on the spot. With all the new hormones coursing through teens’ systems, I can see how such a thing could come in handy.

Anyway, at the end of the book, author Ned Vizzini, exhorts readers to find out more about the squip with the words “squip: Google it.” (Just like Motionizer.)

The experience of marketing the book, at sites like iwanttobecool.org, celebritysquip.com and squipnews.com, has led Vizzini and his marketing partner, Adam Collett, to start an “interactive contextual advertising” firm, The Brain Bridge.

Other Web site constellation marketing ideas:

Now, I probably shouldn’t post this because the tenant living in my Manhattan apartment works for the agency that does this type of work for Mazda. (Not that my comments are going to get the agency fired, but…) Anyway, this is the most transparent and offensive thing I have seen lately. If you want to be part of the blogging world, you’ve gotta be genuine. Let’s tick off the reasons I hate this.

1. Non-user-initiated video and audio
   
2. The “blog” launched four days ago and already two of the four posts just happen to be about, or link to, “viral” videos that feature Mazda automobiles.
   
3. This is supposed to be from a 22-year-old photographers assistant, but he just happens to include “M3,” the abbreviation for Mazda’s entry-level vehicle, in his blog’s URL.
   
4. He also just happens, in his profile, to indicate he likes “cars” and all of the films he likes happen to feature car chases. (Eek, while looking at other blogger profiles who said they liked Bullit, I found NetZero’s blog for its fictional presidential candidate.)
   

TimmyGUNZ said…

This commercial sucks. Maybe if it wasn’t for a piece of shit car like a Mazda it would have potential. Only an idiot would ever buy a Mazda!!!

[found via AdRants]

UPDATE: Allan Jenkins reports the comments have been taken down. The “blogger” also reacts to the criticism.

My husband and I are doing a lot of traveling these days, what with the bi-coastal relationship and all. So it’s a great opportunity for me to check out some of the emerging travel search players like Yahoo’s Farechase (IE only), Kayak.com and SideStep (toolbar download necessary).

So, given the above caveats (”IE only” and “toolbar download necessary”) I am probably searching with Kayak a bit more often than with the others. Booked my first flight via Kayak today and enjoyed the user experience. I love that it “remembers” my previous searches, so I can just modify slightly, if necessary — change the dates, for example. This time, to book the cheapest most convenient flight (on Delta), I had the choice of going to Orbitz or to Delta.com. Tried going direct first, and couldn’t find that fare anywhere on Delta’s site. Then, Orbitz.com had it immediately. I don’t even pretend to understand how the airlines do their distribution and pricing. I just want the best fare. Kayak’s Flash interface, which I was using, seems to be a bit of a memory hog. But since that Google Desktop Search app is STILL indexing my hard drive (I’m going on 6 days now, Fred.), things could be slowing down due to that. (Or countless other things!)

What’s fantastic from Kayak’s point of view is that it gets to be solely a search company (and a media company) and can leave things like actually booking the flight, or dealing with CRM things like flight notifications, to others. What a relief, I’d think, not to require a call center to deal with people wanting to change their flights.

Note: I wrote about Kayak on ClickZ News a little while back.