Net

Advice to Start-ups : Do Not Sponsor Big Conferences

I am surprised to see how many new web start-ups that are sponsoring big conferences like Web2.0 Exp, Web 2.0 Summit, Digital Hollywood etc you name it.

I have only one advice to these companies:

If your target audience is not conference attendants (and they very seldom are) Do not waste your marketing budget on these events! It's a total waste of money. Your potential users/customers are most likely not early adopters, partially half-converted Internet savvy media people and developers. If I would be an investor I would be very upset to see resources wasted like this.

Believe me, if you as a start-up would instead pay anybody on the street $50 to become a user - I bet that it would be a better return of investment that paying outrageous sponsorship fees for web conferences.

Go where your users are. And they are everywhere. The big challenge is to aquire real users - Go and get them!

Technorati Tags: Web2expo, Web2.0expo, Marketing, Advertising, Start-ups, Web2expo

"All Marketers are Liars" - Seth Godin speaks at Google

                 

Here is a very good and entertaining video wih Seth Godin, the author of six bestsellers, most recently, All Marketers are Liars. The video is a part of the Authors@Google series. The bottomline: Be personal & relevant and most of all: Tell a story - don't sell blue boxes! It's amazing how  many companies and advertisers that still don't understand that.

Tony's Lessons Learned during the First Bubble

Tony Perkins has put this confession about what he learned from the fist Internet Bubble Online. I can certainly agree with many of his points. Especially

the only way to create a real company is to have lots of real (that is, paying) customers. More often than not, Internet entrepreneurs design products they like, but forget that the rest of the world isn’t made up of geeks like them. Just because your web-based service is popular on Slashdot doesn’t mean it’s going to hit it big with regular folks.

Although the blogosphere is a great place to evangelize your product and your company - it is not where most of your potential costumers hang out. The fact that your company has received a positive or event great review in Techcrunch does not necessary equal new customers and success. Unless your target audience typically consists of Techcrunch readers.. Moreover, many well know or even less known companies occasionally receive (or constantly) bad reviews throughout the Blogosphere, but they still have millions of customers and are doing very well anyway.

I would add another advice to some start-ups. Don't waste your marketing budget on sponsoring on sponsoring web 2.0 events and conferences, unless (again) that is where the majority of your potential users/consumers hang out. To sponsor these type of event often comes with a very heavy price tag ,a budget that could be better used for actually acquiring and attracting new users - where they actually hang out...

Technorati Tags: AlwaysOn Media, AO, Consumers, Start-ups

Singer Makes Music Video on Nokia N93

Last year. when I worked on the Anyfilms.net campaign together with Hyper Happen for Samsung Mobile, I covered how the new vide enabled cellphones is changing or is going to change the way movies & videos are produced and consumed. Now PSFK, is reporting about how singer Robert Dickinson, has made a music video of his song "Oceans" on a Nokia N93 phone.

The video is very good actually. This will certainly not be the last one produced by a mobile. Check out the Anyfilms Blog I ran (no longer active though) for more on coverage on the cross-over between movie making and cellphones..

Do you know of other music videos or movie shot on cellphones?

Technorati Tags: Anyfilms, Hyper Happen, Mobile, Movies, N93, Nokia, Rob Dickinson, Spreadsheets

Web2.0 Summit - The Bubble That Burst?

I am so happy I didn't waste my time and money on the overhyped Web2.0 Summit wrapping up its last day today.

1. First of all, I know many of the companies and people there already.
2. Second I just came back from the Valley the week before,
3. Third there seems to be nothing new and

4. Fourth and the most important part: this is not the place where you find your users.

5. I actually have to work...(too)

Sponsoring these type of events is just a real waste of VC money (even if many of them are happy to sign the check). Some of the companies sponsoring these event should feel a shame of themselves for throwing up so much money on worthless exposure. If any of them reads this post - spend it on your users instead, or to get new users!

Manley has a good summary of what he learned.

True Web2.0 in my eyes is so disruptive that it does not need a conference.. .since it's all on the web anyway. Drinks and fun you can have anyway for less than $3000...

Technorati Tags: VC, Venture Capital, Web 2.0, web2.0conference, Web2.0summit

Windows Vista Viral Marketing Campaign

Windows Vista is just about to launch their official a viral campaign called Clarification.The focus of the website is the cartoon personification of Demetri Martin (best known from Trendspotting reports in the Comedy Central Show) appearing as a young man with psychological problems who has been send to an institution. It's really funny.

The question is just where Windows Vista comes into the picture...I started something, thinks that the connection is that Windows Vista is going to make the man the you man less crazy.  Regardless of Microsoft's intentions with the site, it looks like it can become very popular with teenagers.

One point that they did miss (unless I missed something) is the possibility do copy & paste the video episodes and spread them through blogs etc. Anyway, very entertaining and very non-typical Microsoft marketing message.

I am more concerned that Windows Vista will drive me crazy when I need to install it....but I guess there might be a fitting institution for guys like me too...


Technorati Tags: windows vista, vista, viral, viral marketing, clearification, microsoft, psychology, demetri martin, daily show, trendspotting, windows vista campagin, advertising, marketing

Podcast: PR in China

China Businesscast has an interesting interview with PR Expert Vanessa Seow of Beijing based Weber Shandwick. Vanessa shares here opinion on what makes the Chinese PR industry different from PR elsewhere.

Listen here or subcsribe here.

Via Dan Wei.

Spreading Zecco

Last week I broke the news about Zecco - the finanical community that is going head-to-head with brokerage industry giants like E*trade and Charles Schwab by offering zero commission trading.

It created quite a buzz and according to my tools I could see that the financial guys really did pay attention and it sparked quite a debate. It' got picked up by Om , Techcrunch (see what some thought about Techcrunch first not covering the story , to finally cover it with quite a dry/negative review)  Market Watch and many others.

Stay tuned for some more interesting coverage ahead (and not only from Zecco ;).

David Winer, Maxthon & Gnomedex06!

This is awesome! Chris Pirillo a.k.a known as "Lockergnome" probably our biggest, pro-active and most passionate evangelists out there, and organiser of the the famous Gnomedex, was using Maxthon as the default browser for all the presentations at Gnomedex06!

Now some of them are available at Podtech.net. Watch them here at PodTech.net . Or what do you say about seeing David Winer talking about " How to make money on the Internet" with a huge projection of Maxthon in the background.

I especially like the one with Farecast, where they guys got a bit confused at the set up and Chris comes in and says " BTW, I use Maxthon as my browser so it opens up as a background Tab.."

This is marketing at it’s best:

1. A real usage in the right context
2. A natural part of the presentations
3. In front of a highly demanding tech, nerd and geek audience (where the majority is probably Firefox users)

We love you forever Chris! There is nothing more passionate than this...

Hacking Hezballah

An IDF Intelligence Unit, managed to hack al-Manars live station broadcasts planting Israeli PR messages in the transmissions. Messages like: “ Nasrallah, your time is up” and “Your days are numbered” etc appeared on the TV screen. Who said hacking cannot be good?