Category archive: Blogging

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Café Press combines contextual ads with tags

I’m flying to California this morning. While I’m there, I will be attending the Techdirt Greenhouse conference, which promises to be a great event. Techdirt is a corporate intelligence company whose employees author one of the best blogs around. Yesterday, they had a must-read piece on Café Press‘s newly announced combination of contextual advertising with tagging.

While most people think of the company as a place to simply sell t-shirts, not enough people recognize how CafePress really catalogs timely events. Within hours of any major news event, it seems that someone, somewhere will have set up a Cafe Press store to sell items related to that event. Of course, with such rapid setup of timely news-related products, regular contextual advertising doesn’t necessarily work. So, instead, CafePress is offering a program where people can define specific tags, and immediately have ads for related products show up. In other words, rather than contextual ads, the ad topic can be very narrowly defined by the site owner. This certainly makes sense for the type of timely content on CafePress, but you could see it make sense elsewhere as well—where the context of the words on a site might not necessarily correctly suggest what ads should be displayed.

Like I said, Techdirt is a great daily read, and one I wouldn’t be without; add its feed to your RSS reader and you’ll see what I mean.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Delta 'customer service' in action

Mike Landman blogs about his experience with Delta Airlines, and one of the most appalling cases of bad customer service ever blogged.

Flying in first class, Landman was sitting next to a passenger who got so drunk that he spilled red wine all over his seat, all over his iPod, and all over his $100 noise cancelling headphones. Delta continued to serve this passenger alcohol. When Landman explained to Delta what had happened and asked for a refund, the response from Delta’s Manager of Customer Service read like something from The Big Book of Exactly Wrong Customer Service (not an actual book...yet):

Mr. Landman, we can certainly appreciate your feelings and regret your disappointment.  Since you completed your trip and the fare you paid is correct, we must respectfully decline your request for a refund.

As Landman replies:

I particularity like the fact that I completed the flight as justification that in fact it must not have been that bad. Apparently I was to do one of 2 things:

1. Jump out
2. Not return home

Then, apparently, my dissatisfaction would have been proven by my actions, not merely my words.

Delta continues:

However, in the interest of your goodwill, we will mail our Transportation Credit for $250.00.  The voucher is valid for one year from the date of issue, and can be used toward the purchase of a future Delta ticket...

In other words, “Our airline gave you the worst travelling experience of your life. Please come back for more!”

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Benetton blog a slam dunk

You, like me, may not agree with some of the opinions expressed on the Benetton blog - a blog sponsored by the Italian clothing company - but, as David Weinberger says, it’s a great example of marketing by not marketing.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

VNU Blogs & Social Media Forum

I’m on the advisory board for VNU’s Blogs & Social Media Forum, which takes place on May 17 in London. I’ll also be participating in the Making the right connections workshop, with Stormhoek CEO Jason Korman and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein’s Global CIO, JP Rangaswami. (I actually met JP Rangaswami in the check-in line to fly back from Innovate Europe in Zaragoza last year, having an all too brief chat. It’s my good fortune to end up on a panel with him.)

It should be a great event, as we try to rip to shreds the traditional conference format and do something much more participatory and conversational, all while exploring the impact of blogs, RSS, and wikis on business and industry. Sign up today!

Monday, February 27, 2006

EA Podcast No 2: Perez Hilton

When I think of emergent branding, I think of Perez Hilton. Born Mario Lavandeira, the Miami native decided that, after a spell as an actor, he’d try to make some money doing something he was really nuts about: taking to the web with a one man show named in quasi-homage to Paris Hilton. If she could be famous for being famous, surely he, Perez Hilton, could be famous for doling out online scoops about the escapades of her and her fellow celebrities.

Lo and behold, Perez has gone and done it, building his one man online show into a brand of his own - it emerged from everything he did, no overpaid Madison Avenue ‘brand strategists’ necessary.

How strong is his brand? Strong enough to bring in even more readers than the weekly celebrity magazines. Strong enough to pay his rent in New York and LA. Strong enough to get him showered with free clothes from the likes of Ben Sherman, VIP trips to Sundance, Amsterdam, Hollywood awards parties, and all the hottest hangouts on both coasts. Strong enough that, as well as counting Paris and contemporaries like Lindsay Lohan as readers, Perez is now hanging out with them in ‘real life’. Strong enough to be regarded as a threat by PR flacks and other celeb bloggers who don’t like to be beaten at their own game by a shameless upstart. (Gawker threw the term ‘scum’ Perez’s way recently; surely nothing to do with the consistently higher traffic he is able to pull with far less investment and resource behind him than the Nick Denton-backed operation.)

The offline extension of the one man show has been something spectacular to behold; Perez may not like the word ‘blog’, but the network effect of the blogosphere has pushed the life of this self-proclaimed media whore and entrepreneur into lucrative overdrive.

I called Perez in LA yesterday, from my home in London, to ask him about his new reality TV show; the real reason he’s so harsh on Nicole Richie; the legal threats from Colin Ferrell, Britney Spears, and Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, and the utter explosion of his self-made career as figurehead of “Hollywood’s most hated website”. To quote the man himself, “I’m glad I didn’t say anything I’ll regret!” You be the judge of that.

Engagement Alliance Podcast No 2: Perez Hilton - Download this podcast (size: 23MB, run time: 28:20)

Links to the people, blogs, companies, and articles mentioned in this podcast:

"EA Podcast No 2: Perez Hilton" continued...