From the monthly archives:

June 2007

Denny Strigl may go down as the Dick Rowe of mobile communications. Mobile phones are on their way out, huh?

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With apologies to Meg Whitman, Marissa Meyer holds the title. At least today, anyway. Meyer is the VP of Search Products & User Experience for Google. She keynoted an event yesterday discussing the future of search – though really she was talking about the future of Google. While it’s likely that the search engine you use five years from now won’t be Google (or, at the very least, not the Google you’re using today), it’s well worth reading how Meyer sees that future unfolding.

Notable elements:

  • 1800Goog411 – Voice-activated search. Very cool. Get ready for the age of device-independence.
  • Universal Search – Elimination of the silos separating image search from news from web from whatever, and so on. It could overwhelm the typical user with the sheer volume of results. But, if the results could somehow know what’s most important to the user, maybe having video, text, images, news and the like about a single topic side-by-side would provide tremendous utility. Which brings us to…
  • iGoogle – Personalized home page on Google, incorporating RSS feeds and widgets (which Google calls Gadgets). As search results get increasingly broad, iGoogle should enable Google to understand what you’re looking for specifically when you type in a term like “java” (tropical island, programming language, coffee?). If your Gadgets and RSS feeds indicate a preference for one item over another, then your search results will likely incorporate those preferences. Allows for more targeted advertising, too.

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Been thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs lately, mostly thanks to "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die", which I reviewed last week. Too many marketers worry about the base needs, such as safety, and fail to address higher-order needs like esteem and self-actualization. Clive Thompson has a great piece in this month’s Wired that helps explain the appeal of Twitter. Social networking is about connection between people. It’s about belonging. It’s about the social, not the networking. Hell, Clive even notes folks who connect to the machine when they can’t connect to people.

More importantly, this need to connect will increase over time as people who grew up with the tools enter adulthood. Andrew McAfee talks about how kids (sorry, younger demographics) view social networking relative to email (And thanks to Anne for the link). Steve Rubel seems to think it’s more about the tool and how it needs to make it easier for folks. It’s probably true and it probably will. But that’s not the point.

If you’re in marketing today and you’re selling anything less than the power of connection, the power of belonging, you’re short-changing your audience. Wake up and join the club.

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On shrinking and growing…

June 25, 2007 Strategy

The Gap has a big problem and it’s one you’re lucky not to have. As Seth Godin wrote the other day, the Gap is trying to shrink its way to greatness. It can’t be done. Unfortunately, as a public company, closing 500 stores in one fell swoop could crush their earnings for [...]

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Book Review of the Week(ish) – Summer Reading List Edition: Week 2

June 19, 2007 Book Reviews

Most business books do nothing to help you succeed in business. They help their authors succeed in selling books. But that’s it. “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die”, by Chip and Dan Heath, meets a higher standard, explaining why messages about illegal kidney harvesting, low-cost airlines, effective presidential [...]

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You’re only as old…

June 18, 2007 Strategy

Lots of arguing about age going around. Dave Winer takes issue with Fred Wilson who has a been riding this thing for the last week (here, here and here. Oh, and here). As someone who’s too young to be a fogey (I hope) and too old to be a kid (I fear), [...]

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