How to Crush Your Competition My friend Karl used to call this the “embrace and extend” theory of competition, and when it works, it’s brilliant. I just found a new example of it yesterday (thanks, Jack!) that’s very illustrative. I have been a Firefox user for a couple years now and love the browser and its extensions. I almost never use Internet Explorer any more — although sometimes I “have to,” because there are a couple of web applications I use that just don’t work well in Firefox, like Outlook Web and online banking. Hopefully some of that will change over time as Firefox gets more mainstream, but in the meantime, there’s now a Firefox extension that allows you to…
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Book Short: And It’s Not Just Because I’m In It
Book Short: And It’s Not Just Because I’m In It Debbie Weil’s The Corporate Blogging Book is a good super quick read for any CEO or senior executive who is contemplating starting a blog — or even better, for those who have decided not to do so. Weil’s writing style is great and very informal (blog-like, in fact) – a representative snippet is where she tells readers that there are two types of information to worry about posting on a blog, in her words, “stuff you don’t to reveal and stuff you could get sued for.” And her range of topics is great and deals with issues head-on. Things like fear of losing control, time commitment, and ghost writing are…
Tech on the Brain
Tech on the Brain I heard a good one today — a really good one. A friend of a friend (who of course shall remain nameless) was at a stoplight the other day in front of a big Victoria’s Secret store with a big sign out front advertising their newest product — Wireless Bras. Anyway, this friend sat there for a full traffic light cycle trying to figure out why the heck you’d need a bra that’s wi-fi enabled, and how you’d hook it up to a computer monitor or laptop to take advantage of the feature. Fortunately, it did eventually dawn on this person that this was an ad that referred to the absence of physical support wires, not…
People are People
People are People So after nearly seven years of running Return Path, I think it’s now fair to say that I’m a direct marketer. I’ve learned a lot about this business over the years, and there are a number of things about direct marketing that are phenomenal — the biggest one is that most of the business is incredibly clear, logical, and math-driven. But there’s always been one thing about the field that hasn’t quite made sense to me, and I think it’s because the Internet is once again changing the rules of the game. There are traditional companies in the space that focus on B2C direct marketing. There are others that focus on B2B. It’s been obvious to me…
Solving an Annoying Windows "Feature"
Solving an Annoying Windows "Feature" I was just about to write a quick rant on how ANNOYING it is when Windows downloads a software update and then automatically reboots your computer, shutting down all your open documents and windows and causing you to lose work, when our ace system administrator, Tom Nguyen, told me how to disable the auto-reboot feature. It seems that Windows has been doing this more and more frequently lately, and I’ve heard this as an issue from others as well. So for anyone else who is wondering how to do this, Tom says: Option 1. Click on the Start menu>Control Panel>Automatic Updates>Notify me but don’t automatically download or install them. Option 2. XP prior to Service…
Book Short: It Sounds Like it Should be About Monkeys, Doesn’t It?
Book Short: It Sounds Like it Should be About Monkeys, Doesn’t It? The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson, is a must-read for anyone in the Internet publishing or marketing business. There’s been so much written about it in the blogosphere already that I feel a little lame and “me too” for adding my $0.02, but I finally had a chance to get to it last week, and it was fantastic. The premise is that the collapsing production, distribution, and marketing costs of the Internet for certain types of products — mostly media at this point — have extended the traditional curve of available products and purchased products almost indefinitely so that it has, in statistical terms, a really long tail….
It’s a Sad Day When the Lawyers Take Over
It’s a Sad Day When the Lawyers Take Over With all due respect to lawyers, of course, Google’s recent decision to start making a legal fuss when people in the media use the word “Google” as a verb is NUTS. Someone, get Marketing on Line 1 — and make it snappy. Steve Rubel wrote about it, as did Jeff Jarvis, and the source material is here. For the record, anyone who wants to use any of the following words or phrases as a verb, noun, or any other part of speech, may do so at any time: Return Path, Sender Score, Authentic Response, Postmaster Direct. Oh, and then there’s ECOA, the service we pioneered in 2000 that *is* occasionally (in…
Feeling Less Like a Luddite: Welcome, Meebo!
Feeling Less Like a Luddite: Welcome, Meebo! As I’ve written about on occasion (here, here), it’s easy to feel like a Luddite with the rapid pace of change of the web these days. Anyway, I’m feeling slightly less like one today with the addition of Meebo to my blog. I read about Meebo in David Kirkpatrick’s Fast Forward column last week, and it was such a cool idea, I had to install it right away. Basically, it adds a widget to the right sidebar of my blog which allows readers to Instant Message me any time I’m online if they’re reading my blog (anonymously, I think, and regardless of whether or not they have a Meebo account, although I needed…
Social Computing: An Amusing Anecdote About Who is Participating
Social Computing: An Amusing Anecdote About Who is Participating We learned something about Wikipedia tonight. Mariquita was reading an article on Castro on CNN.com entitled “Castro Blames Stress on Surgery” about his upcoming intestinal surgery. [Quick detour — I’m sorry, Castro blames the surgery on stress? Isn’t it good to be the king? And he’s handing the reins of government over to his oh-so-younger brother Raul, at the tender young age of 75?] Anyway, we were debating over whether Castro took over the government of Cuba in 1957 or 1959, so of course we turned to Wikipedia. Ok, so Mariquita was right, it was 1959. But more important, we learned something interesting about Wikipedia and its users. There were three…
Good Help is Hard to Find
Good Help is Hard to Find We’re having a bitch of a time lately hiring good sales people. We’re growing like crazy this year and are trying to invest more in our salesforce, but it’s not easy. And we’re a good catch. Good brand, healthy company, good comp and benefits, charming CEO, the works. I just traded emails with a friend who is CEO of another online marketing services firm who said the same thing, with the exact same explanation I have: I have been so unimpressed with everyone from our space (weak links drop out, mediocrity churns from company to company, and true talent is retained). Anyway, we have gotten very lucky with a few key hires the past…
Feedburner…They’re Real AND They’re Spectacular
Feedburner…They’re Real AND They’re Spectacular Sometime in early 2004, I met Dick Costolo, the CEO of Feedburner. We met about at the same time he also met Fred and Brad (I can’t remember who met who first), both of whom subsequently invested in the company. We hit it off and had a number of informal and formal conversations over the past two and a half years about online media, the interplay of RSS and email and blogs, and entrepreneurship. Feedburner and Return Path have developed a still-somewhat nascent partnership as well to bring ads in feeds and ads on blogs to Return Path’s Postmaster advertisers. I was recently fortunate enough to be invited by Dick and his team to join…