Twitter Marketing Hell: New Site by Steven Hodson
Steven Hodson has to be one of my favorite people to read online, and over the holidays he put together a “Wall of Shame” for bad twitter marketers. I hope he lets me write for him on this one, as I have plenty of good examples, not just from my Techwag Twitter, but from my [...]
Does AccountingWEB get SaaS?
Let me start this post by saying I’m a big fan of AccountingWEB (in the UK, I don’t particularly follow the US edition). For the accountants in business and in practice or anyone interested in the sector it’s one of the key resources to read – they cover everything from tax to technology, but it’s [...]
Build the Brand or the Business? – O2 and BT
When it comes to the real principles of marketing I’ve always been guided by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Their books like Positioning, Marketing Warfare, or The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing are essential reading. Even though some of the material is over 20 years old, it’s still perfectly valid in today’s market. Jump in [...]
Note to Conference Organizers: Keep in Touch With People
Image via Wikipedia Over a number of conferences I have been at lately, one of the hallmarks of all of them was what could I do for them rather than what I would learn from the conference. Once the marketing folks realized that I would not provide them with anything, it is like we no [...]
A TechCrunch Mention Isn't a Go-To-Market Strategy (Except When It Is)
First a disclaimer – this post isn’t intended in any way to start a flame war with the mega blogs out there. Hell, in the past I’ve written for ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington is a good buddy of mine (he must be, we’re Facebook friends!) Rather it’s a plea for startups to really [...]
Yes, I Like Wine Tasting, but Hate Bait-and-Switch
The title of the email was appealing: You’re Invited to a Wine Tasting at the Ritz Carlton But then inside the email: Harness the Power of Virtualization: From Datacenter to Desktop Tuesday, October 6 Ritz Carlton San Francisco San Francisco, CA Oops.. no, thanks. Even though the event site talks about an “exclusive executive briefing [...]
Has Twitter Finally Killed Summize?
Since today appears to be Twitter-day (which day isn’t?), I’m adding my 2 cents. Summize has always been fast and reliable. In fact in the days of the worst Twitter outage, with Reply and other functions disabled, Summize was the savior of the Twitterverse. But now that Twitter acquired Summize, I’m seeing it dead quire [...]
Channels – Direct or Partnered, Take Your Pick
I had a little online tete-a-tete with fellow SaaS commentator Dennis Howlett recently about market strategies for SaaS accounting companies. Dennis comes from an accountancy background and, from where I can stand at least, seems to have generally been supportive of vendors partnering with accountants as a major part of their go-to-market strategy. In his [...]
Cluetrain at 10 awesomeness
A quick hit on a Friday afternoon: In the last 24hrs, I’ve had a “Cluetrain at 10″ panel come together for Defrag. I’ve blogged about how much The Cluetrain Manifesto affected me, and I’m really glad to say that three of the four authors (Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger) are now people I count [...]
Radian6 – Aggregating Opinion
I’ve long been a proponent of new web plays looking to find an offering that aggregate rather than create content. In this world there is no end of data available to us but what we lack is ways to aggregate that data, obtain analysis from it and, at the end of the day, derive insight [...]
Using eBay as SaaS Marketing Tool?
This listing on eBay is hilarious, almost makes me wonder if it’s a true listing or carefully planted advertising for Google Apps (and SaaS in general). But the seller appears to be real, has been on eBay for ten years… Here we go, get Microsoft Office w. Outlook for $75, because: It’s brand new and [...]
Not Owning Your Domain is Crazy. No, It’s a Crime.
Remember the Shel Puppet? Loren “138Media” Feldman created an instant hit by mimicking Media-expert Shel Israel’s video show. The imitation, i.e. the puppet received sponsorhip while the original series was floundering. They irony of all was that Loren owned the domain shelisrael.com, which was simply available for purchase due to an oversight by its rightful [...]
Helping Atlassian $timulus Package Towards the Finish Line
Quick update on the Atlassian $timulus drive I previously reported about: at 2pm on the last day of the promotion, they are at $93K – the $100K donation is realistic… but they may need a little push. So I decided to put my money (well, a little) where my mouth is and have just purchased [...]
Atlassian Stimulus Package Supports Charity. Two Days Left To Get Your (Almost) Free Confluence or Jira Licence.
This must be do-good-week. Amongst all the talk about Ashton Kutcher’s challenge to CNN, how the follow-on Oprah show pushed Twitter to never-seen height, little attention was paid to the small fact that this initiative generated over $1 Million donations to Malaria No More. Ashton started with his $100,000 check and was soon joined by [...]
Two Days Left for Under the Radar Online Registration – Get Your Discount Here
We’re at the final countdown stage for the Under the Radar: Clarity in the Cloud conference – it’s coming up this Friday, April 24th, 8:00AM – 6:00PM @ the Microsoft Campus, in Mountain View, CA. If it’s named a conference, it has to have a keynote or a panel, and that’s what you get at [...]
