Updates

Yup, the news piles up on you if you leave it a few days.

Marketing Gone Wrong

This isn't so much a post about e-Marketing as it is about Marketing itself, but there's some e-Marketing in it, (mainly about how companies cannot control the flow of information).

Pepsi re-designed their logo, (and subsequently updated their ads and packaging.

For the most part, people seem to hate it. So why did Pepsi spend millions to relaunch, yet still end up with something everyone dislikes? This is probably proprietary, but their marketing plan was leaked by somebody who apparently knew somebody who worked on the campaign - Here's a link for those who don't want to hunt for it. If it's true, then the marketing plan was sort of an insult to marketing plans... and yet more proof that companies really can't have total control over their employees, so it's best not to do something so stupid in the first place.

Now THAT's Listening

Most people in business only pretend to listen, which is what makes people who really DO listen stand out.

Even so, this case is pretty extreme.

Making Money Online

For all that talk about how Facebook was dying, there's evidence that suggests only advertisers think so. I tend to agree with that.

There's also talk about business models that work better than social media models. News Aggregation, like Reddit and Digg, as well as more extreme programs like StumbleUpon, simply work better linking to company sites than Social Media like Facebook, making all the focus on Facebook and Twitter as advertising mediums even more foolish. When people are searching for information, they don't mind being given an ad - they just don't want it intruding on their private time! It's not so hard to understand.

Why don't people like ads? Well, I pointed out before that people hate waiting. Yet another reason to dislike ads.

I Hear Voices...

Here's a (long) article about how we're always plugged in and how it detracts from our character building process.

I may poke fun at how big Google is in our lives, but there's really more to it. It's not just Google - though they are a major part of this ongoing trend towards "connectivity."

In that vein, there's a whole bunch of talk about the e-Book revolution with the launch of the new Kindle. Frankly, I never even heard of the Old Kindle, but there you go. Stephen King says that e-Books won't replace actual books, but with books like this, I don't think there's anything worth saving...

Just For Fun

This isn't really about business or anything, but I think it's indicative of the direction our world is going - Wikimapia. Think a map of the world, and being able to see information about any given place (take a look at the University of British Columbia - how has the University of Toronto not edited that yet?)

That's it - I'm aware that some of these topics (namely, Connectivity) likely deserve a full article (which I may do someday) but really, I don't think I have the energy or information to do one right now~