Microsoft Hungry! Must Feed!

Mircosoft isn’t done yet.

A week after Yahoo! denied their takeover attempt, Microsoft is now going after Facebook, according to Epicenter.  Apparently, they need to spend a ton of money.  If I had tens of billions of dollars, it would be burning a whole in my pocket.

In all seriousness, Microsoft went from trying to buy a proven commodity in Yahoo! to trying to buy what could be a flash in the pan in Facebook.  Microsoft is desperate to get in on the digital ad and promo business.  Yahoo! would have made a good partner for them and they could have done some great things.  Facebook and Microsoft together will accomplish just as much as they could apart, nothing but pissing users off with annoying ads or invading privacy.

What it could do, however, is make Yahoo! jealous.  It wasn’t long ago that Yahoo! tried to buy Facebook.  If Microsoft succeeds, it could temp Yahoo! into a deal with Microsoft.

Obamania

Barack Obama has achieved such success in this year’s election process partly because the of his campaign’s extremely effective online promotion plan.

It all starts with his website. It’s clean, well-designed and very user friendly. But his success goes far beyond an aesthetically pleasing website. It’s the content of the site that really drives this campaign.

The site has a blog that is updated not just daily, but hourly at times. His email newsletter always uses the current political situation to promote donating to Obama and points readers to landing pages where they can easily donate.

There’s the popular Barack TV that shows highlights of Obama’s speeches and appearances.

There’s even an Obama Mobile page. Ringtones featuring clips of Obama’s speeches set to music can be downloaded.

It doesn’t even stop there. Obama even has a social networking page where supporters can team up, meet up, and even compare who is the biggest Obama supporter.

There’s so much on the Obama website that it would take too long to list and describe it all.

The Obama online strategy is so effective that it has turned his campaign into the most successful grassroots campaign ever, rivaled only by Ron Paul. This election is history making not only because of the candidates, but because every campaign in the future will copy Obama’s online promotion plan. It’s that good.

Microsoft Fed up with Yahoo!

For weeks now, Microsoft has been bullying Yahoo!.  Microsoft knows that buying Yahoo! is the key to beating Google not only in online search, but also in online advertising.  Yahoo! has resisted the whole way, even with Microsoft threating to go to their stock holders.

On Sunday, May 5, Microsoft got tired of the games and decided to withdraw its offer for Yahoo!.

So what does this mean in terms of digital promotion?  It means that Google will forever be king.  I know that there are Google haters out there that are just waiting for the search giant to step on the toes of internet users and betray its motto, “Don’t be evil”, but they will be waiting a long time.  Google is a company of geniuses.  They understand how to pace themselves and make software that is ready for people to use.  Yahoo! and Microsoft are giants in their own right, but they just have never gotten it.  Google makes stuff that works and is easy to use.  Because of that they now are the dominant force.  Sure, Microsoft and Yahoo! could make better software and try to get back what they lost, but that’s not how they know how to do it.  All they know is brute force.  Microsoft realized this and tried to buy Yahoo! because they knew it was the only way they could overcome Google was to muscle Google out.  Microsoft buying Yahoo! would’ve been the same as Barry Bonds going to BALCO.

To bad for Microsoft.  Without the muscle that Yahoo! would’ve provided, Google will dominate the world, still.

Who Says You Can’t Make a Million Dollars with Adsense?

Markus Frind earns $10,000 a day.  Wouldn’t you like to make that much?  Of course.  So how did he do it?  Google.

Frind, owner of the world’s largest free dating site plentyoffish.com, makes $5 to $10 million annually and gets 45 million vistors a month (Source: dosh dosh).

Dosh Dosh has pulled a bunch of quotes on various topics from interviews with Frind and links to all the articles.  It’s really an incredible story and just goes to show how much just one person can make on the internet if they’re savvy enough

Take Advantage of Social Networking

Doshdosh.com has a new post about the seven characteristics of successful social networking promotion pages.

The tips all come back to the same  point really: If you are going to be a part of a social network, act like a member of that network, not an advertiser; have conversations with people, follow the rules of the community, support the community, and don’t over focus on being an advertiser or promoter.

It seems that companies feel like they have to infiltrate social networks to gain from them, but that’s not the case.   You don’t have to be sneaky at all.  You just have to be a member of the community that brings value and isn’t in everyone’s face about your product.

Promotion Parody

America’s finest news source, The Onion, released a new video on their website this week poking fun at how long the Iron Man trailer has been circulating around the net.

The video is hilarious and does bring up a good point about how digital promotion can go overboard sometimes.

Dosh Dosh

Sometimes I just sit and surf the internet.  Most of the time it’s pointless.  Sometimes I find something worthwhile.

Yesterday I found a blog all about digital promotion.  Doshdosh.com is simply put a blog about “how to make money online.  Stories range from how to use certain Web 2.0 sites to money and cost issues to promotion philosophy.

Don’t be put off by the cute design and female anime characters, this blog has some serious information.  

Captain Obvious Strikes again!

 

After what seems like an eternity, the inevitable has happened.  Myspace has teamed up with s couple of major labels and opened Myspace Music.

Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Brothers (better hurry up EMI) have all jumped on board to let Myspace users download and stream  their music through the site.

Myspace has made itself the standard promotional platform for budding musicians.  I know that in my job (Music Director for KCSU FM) I check Myspace every day to get info on bands.  If a band doesn’t have a Myspace page, they might as well not exist.  Myspace annouced two years ago that they were getting into the music business, but pending lawsuits apparently keep Myspace Music from becoming a reality until now.

All I have to say: It’s about time!  There are probably very few 18-24 year olds who haven’t used Myspace to listen to a song from their favorite band.  For years Myspace had been promoting bands effectively for free, so why the major labels had such a resistance to this at first is beyond me.

Future notes for record labels: Do what’s obvious.  Keep it simple, stupid.  Occam’s Razor.

Hey! You Got Your Digital Promo in my TV!

Top Chef is one of my favorite TV shows. It’s certainly the best reality show on any channel these days. While watching the latest episode, I caught a whiff of some digital promotion in the kitchen.

Across the screen flashed a number to text message so I could vote in a poll during the show. Later, another ad asked me to join the mobile fan club by text message. The real kicker was when a full blown commerical came on asking me to text message Bravo so I could download the Top Chef game to my phone (after paying $6.99 of course).

Text message voting and mobile updates are not unheard of, but before the first half hour of the show was through, I had been bombarded by every possible angle of mobile digital promotion. Later in the show, Bravo would plug its website, especially the blogs and video features.

Of course all this promotion led me to check out their web site, which was promoting the show and telling me to go watch it. So I went back to the TV, which in tune was telling me to go back to the computer. I was so confused I didn’t know what to do.

This situation led me to ask: When cross promoting, is it more effective to promote from a traditional medium to the web or from the web to the traditional medium?

Google is Stalking Me

I’ll start this blog off with one of the weirdest forms of digital promotion.  It’s certainly the one that make me feel the most uncomfortable.

Gmail is Google’s mail client and is a pretty slick piece of software at that, but I can’t help but feel like somebody at Google has been going through my email every time I log on.  Why?  Because Google’s Adsense displays adds that correspond with keywords in the email.

An example.  I had written an email to a tattoo artist and he wrote me back.  I used the word tattoo a few times in the email.  When I read his reply, text ads along the sidebar were displaying ads for online tattoo sites and tattoo parlors.

Creepy, yes?  Wait, you say, of course you got ads because you sent it to a business email, right?  No, Google does this with every email.  I could send my mom an email about taking out the trash and I bet a Waste Management ad would pop up.

I think this is a case of digital promotion going too far.  Google doesn’t need to analyze my email for keywords.  They should just throw up random ads.  I don’t care if they make less money.  My privacy is more important.