Ask.Com Ad Campaign Futility

Augustine: "if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow." -- absolutely agreed. It is harder than ever to stand out these days with new web 2.0 websites springing up daily. The key is to start with something simple, yet remarkable enough that users are compelled to share it with friends (they know best what their friends are likely to like). And the next key is to continue to innovate and build so that the remarkability is sustainable. This could be extremely difficult, BUT web services have a built in customer feedback mechanism and power users/lead adopters are usually the ones that have the best ideas to share about how to improve a web service. So by putting in place the business processes to incorporate such ideas rapidly into features, a site can leverage continuous user innovation to help it continue to grow virally.

One other example from the field... a colleague at American Express was able to prove an early hypothesis of mine -- cut above-the-line advertising by half and there will be NO detrimental effect on website traffic or new cards acquired. His budget was cut by 80% in last year's belt tightening, BUT to everyone's surprise the website traffic showed NO decrease, and the rate of customers signing up for cards on the website showed NO decrease -- i.e. traditional advertising IS being ignored more completely than ANY industry reports are willing to admit.

from Alan Meckler by Alan Meckler

I think Ask.com is terrific! I think it was smart for IAC to purchase it a few years ago.

Recently the folks at Ask have been pushing a billboard and television ad campaign to stimulate readership. The billboard campaign was ridiculous. However the tv ads are terrific.

I doubt, however, that any ad will grow traffic to Ask. Our short Internet history has shown one thing: if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow.

The IAC management comes out of the old media tradition. While it has made terrific Web site purchases over the years, these ad campaigns seem to be coming from their old media training. I suggest they use the ad dollars for some more solid Web deals.

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Alarm Clocks -- from Seth's Blog

Augustine: something as simple as this, yet because manufacturers don't have business processes whereby such obvious customer feedback gets directly to product development people who need it, they have not built this in. Web 2.0 services have the luxury of immediate (and intense) user feedback and the good ones turn these into bug fixes or new features rapidly. Obviously it is a lot harder for traditional product companies to incorporate "rapid user feedback" but simple changes to business processes and organizational structure can bring them closer to this "customer-driven innovation" nirvana -- and save them a lot of time and resources on wrong product "guesses" - a la Palm's Folio.

from Seth's Blog by Seth Godin

For twenty cents or so, alarm clock manufacturers can add a chip that not only knows the time (via a radio signal) but knows what day it is too. Which means that they can add a switch that says "weekends." Which means that the 98% of the population that doesn't want to wake up on the same time on weekends as they do on weekdays will be happier (and better rested.)

This isn't as complicated or expensive as my idea four years ago.

So why doesn't every alarm clock have this feature? Because most people in that business are busy doing their jobs (distribution, promotion, pricing, etc.), not busy making products that people actually want to buy--and talk about.

There are very few products and services that wouldn't get a lot better if people just tried to make them better.

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Iron Sulfate Dumped Into Sea May Slow Global Warming Or Do Completely the Opposite

from Gizmodo by Yuri Baranovsky

In an effort to slow down the effects of global warming, scientists from Germany, Italy, India and Chile are planning to dump 20 tonnes of non-toxic iron sulfate into the sea. The iron particles -- which will be spread around a 1,000 square kilometer area -- should theoretically create conditions for large amounts of phytoplankton, algae and microorganisms to grow and, ideally, help soak up the carbon dioxide that's slowly causing our planet to roast.

The process -- called carbon sinking -- could potentially restore plankton, improve the quality of the water and, on a very good day, slow climate change. On the other hand, since it's more or less untested, it could also result in nitrous oxide and methane being shot into the atmosphere, making things worse. So, you know, cross your sustainable fingers. [Hindustan Times via TreeHugger]

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iUnlock Reloaded: free iPhone unlocking for dummies now available

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Cellphones

Wake the kids, phone the neighbors, the graphical new version of the iPhone unlocking software is now out, official, automatic (or as much as it can be) and free. Developed by the iPhoneDev team, the new software makes opening up your iPhone to any GSM carrier simple as pie. According to the Dev Team, "This new version needs only be copied over to the phone and executed, it's full automatic. No more needs for fls or extract bin files out of the nordump. It should also cut the time down to max. 3-5 minutes."

We'll bring you more just as soon as we get hands-on with the new wares (eh hem, all our iPhones seem to be unlocked at the moment) and as long as Apple doesn't drop the hammer with a new iPhone firmware release. We know it's coming, and chances are it will wreak havoc with the unlock.

Download
EU mirror
US mirror

Update: Not so dummy-proof Instructions and more after the break.

Update 2: GUI version is now out.

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Giant email leak from MediaDefender -- MAFIAA hitmen

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

700 megabytes of internal email from MediaDefender, a group of entertainment industry enforcers, has leaked onto the net. The emails detail MediaGuardian's procedures, their internal response to being outed for posting a fake download site to entrap users, the plans to induce users to link to their entrapment site, and the way the company sought to insulate their clients in the motion picture industry from negative publicity arising from their entrapment efforts. There's plenty more there -- 700mb is a lot of mail -- and I'm sure we'll see all kinds of interesting things in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately for Media Defender - a company dedicated to mitigating the effects of internet leaks - they can do nothing about being the subject of the biggest BitTorrent leak of all time. Over 700mb of their own internal emails, dating back over 6 months have been leaked to the internet in what will be a devastating blow to the company. Many are very recent, having September 2007 dates and the majority involve the most senior people in the company. Apparently this is not the first time that a MediaDefender email leaked onto the Internet.

According to the .nfo file posted with the Mbox file the emails were obtained by a group called "MediaDefender-Defenders". It states: "By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services," and "A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account"

Link (Thanks, Christian!)

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