Blogging

• The Crazy Korean Cooking girls are indeed crazy, but this soup looks tasty http://bit.ly/1HrtV7 #
• @kiyanwang I'd like a tool to simply & consistently describe then syndicate content to have it aggregated into discoverable OER channels in reply to kiyanwang #
• Kudos to Talis who have launched an angel fund for Open Education projects http://bit.ly/XrVm2 . Thanks to @kiyanwang for the heads up. #
• Some myths about iTunesU dispelled http://bit.ly/57anx and a boost for reusable content. Read the other posts in the thread for context. #
• Good luck with that Mr Murdoch http://bit.ly/aT7nj #
• The surest way to true happiness is of course the elimination of suffering. Here's a how-to guide that you can follow http://bit.ly/TbDvv #
• Take part in the Science of Happiness project this week http://www.scienceofhappiness.co.uk/ #
• RT @bentoth: Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines http://bit.ly/AsWkR #

See the original post:
My Twitter updates for the week 2009-08-10

First off, this post will not be a political rant, just an appeal to common sense.

The U.S. House has passed the economic stimulus package, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (that’s a link to the full 647-page PDF document, which isn’t as easy to find as you might think).

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the total cost of the bill at $3.27 trillion over the next ten years, making this by orders of magnitude the largest spending bill in history. The Senate is poised to vote on the bill as well.

Given the magnitude and complexity of the bill, the only responsible course of action at this point is to give both congress and the American public some time (the bill was not publicly posted until 11:00 p.m. last evening) to examine the legislation, comment, and then act in a thoughtful and informed manner.

Regardless of your political persuasion, you can’t possibly state categorically that you are in favor of or opposed to this bill unless you have managed to read and absorb its 647 pages in the last 16 hours.

Given that much of the spending won’t happen this year or even next year—and that even Barack Obama’s “economics adviser Larry Summers cautioned against raising expectations too high, (saying) ‘I think this is a key part of what’s going to be a multipart strategy to contain this decline…the problems weren’t made in a week, a month, a year. It’s going to take time to fix.’”—there is no compelling argument to rush through passage of this sweeping legislation.

Please, call your senators and let them know that this is an occasion for careful consideration, not a rush to judgment.

John Boehner expresses the same thoughts a bit more emphatically here:

Original post:
Off Topic: Stimulus Can Wait

As a quick follow-up to the recent review here of the excellent SEO/SEM book Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets by Andrew King: I neglected to mention that there is also a companion website to the book at http://www.websiteoptimizationsecrets.com which features sample chapters, chapter summaries, full-color figures, worksheets, videos, and a blog.

In addition, Andy and I had a little back-and-forth about the SEO value of backlinks as well as the risks and benefits of paid links on the Website Optimization blog. In the end, I think we are both right: inbound links are always important, but not always the most critical factor in search ranking, and paid links are okay if used very selectively.

Again, bottom line, I highly recommend Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets for anyone who wants to maximize the business value of a website.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

See the rest here:
Book Review – Website Optimization – Follow Up

The presidential election now upon us offers an interesting contrast in marketing approaches. One candidate is all about brand, image, and soaring rhetoric that appeals to the heart. The other is (significantly) less flashy but appeals to our more practical side. He’s the candidate of rational, “value” buyers who carefully consider the offerings then choose the one that offers the greatest benefit for the lowest price—an appeal to the brain.

From a product standpoint, Obama is like the iPod. Never mind that there are lots of MP3 players that offer matching or even superior functionality, at a lower price, without the limitation of compatibility only with a closed network—the iPod is cool! So much so that “iPod” has become to “MP3 player” what “Kleenex” is to “tissue.”

McCain on the other hand is the “off-brand” that peels buyers away from the big name through an appeal to value. A classic example is Dell Computer. When the company first got started, IBM was the premier, established brand in PCs. But Dell eventually wiped them out of the market with a better product, lower price, and direct appeal that bypassed traditional channels.

There’s no question that McCain represents the better “value” in this election: lower taxes, smaller government, free trade, free market healthcare reform, and on foreign policy experience…no comparison. But on brand, Obama kicks. He’s the candidate of hope and change, of mega-crowds, a uniter-not-a-divider (wait, wasn’t that…ah, never mind). McCain, in contrast, appears to many people that he really is your father’s Oldsmobile. Or worse, your grandfather’s. And his choice of a running mate who, fairly or not, comes off as not exactly Mensa material has arguably hurt McCain more than Obama’s past connections have impacted his image.

Sometime late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning (barring any hanging chads), we’ll know: are the majority of us brand buyers or value shoppers?

*****

Originally posted here:
McCain, Obama, and Marketing Part 2: Brand vs. Value

LinkedIn yesterday announced a new service that enables market researchers and investors to conduct market intelligence research using LinkedIn’s network of over 30 million professionals worldwide, approximately half of whom are IT and business decision makers.The news was quickly picked up by numerous bloggers including Doug Caverly, Bill Holmes and Layne Salter (an indication of how adept the PR folks at LinkedIn are with interactive PR).

Essentially, companys that want to conduct market research among difficult-to-reach B2B and IT decision makers will now be able to slice and dice profiles of LinkedIn’s large member base to reach groups with very specific attributes. From the participant side, “LinkedIn members who participate in a survey can choose from a variety of rewards including gift cards from Amazon, Starbucks, Best Buy, or make a donation to charities.”

This is all good—vendors can get valuable feedback from the right sample groups based on accurate LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn gets another revenue stream, and participants get token rewards. But it seems to me there may be an opportunity missed here.

People join social networks for lots of reasons, but I’ve never of anyone joining for the purpose of collecting $10 gift cards or Starbucks coffee coupons. Among the top reasons people join are to get recognition and to form new relationships. Bloggers often join, for example, in order to both drive more traffic to their blogs and to connect with like-minded readers and other bloggers.

So…any company can spend some money on gift cards and use the new LinkedIn offering to collect market research data. But the really smart ones will find a way to tap the motivations of LinkedIn members and create a mutually benefical social experience that provides not just data, but understanding.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The rest is here:
LinkedIn B2B Surveys – Will They be Social?