About two years ago, I purchased a VPR Matrix Notebook for review on Designtechnica.com. They must have missunderstood the spelling of my name because Ian Bey was put into their system instead of Ian Bell.
All of the sales catalogs they send me now say Ian Bey. Its no big deal, and I shop at Best Buy a lot, so I am all open for them sending me coupons in the mail. But something else is starting to happen. I am getting junk mail now from companies like Sony, Sprint etc all made out to “Ian Bey”. It just occured to me today that Best Buy is the only company that has my name in their system spelled this way. So did they sell my information to marketers? Are they selling YOUR information too?
How else would you explain all of the junk mail made out to Ian Bey? This scares me. It should be illegal to grab someones information off their credit card for resale purposes. Wait a minute, it is illegal I think? I must have missed some fine print somewhere. Anyways, the next time you are in Best Buy, ask them about this and make sure your name is off any of their lists.
Anyone else think the installer to update iTunes for the PC is a little whack? It should update iTunes, not make you re-download the whole iTunes and Quicktime package all over again. It wants you to add your e-mail address all over again, and forces you to uncheck the newsletter opt-in box all over too. I just want to update my previous version of iTunes, not download a 40mb package that installs the full version of Quicktime and iTunes. I have never been impressed with Apples programming on the PC side. But alas, I need iTunes, so here I am!
News.com is reporting that Dell is selling AMD chips. The catch? They are selling them in their retail packages, not in their systems. Why? Because of course that would ruin their deal with Intel. You know, one of these days Dell will figure out that what their XPS line really needs in order to compete with the specialty makers VoodooPC and Alienware, are AMD based gaming systems. Right now their XPS systems are like the wannabe posers of the student body, second-string it you will.
Michael Singer points out:
Dell is the only major North American PC maker to exclusively use Intel processors. Consumer product lines from other companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Lenovo and IBM, offer both Intel and AMD chips.
I had to laugh at analyst Roger Kay though. He says:
So why is Dell selling only individual AMD chips and not a Dell Dimension with “AMD Inside”? Because, says independent analyst Roger Kay, Dell is still selling to its original demographic: PC gaming enthusiasts.
Roger needs to be burned. He clearly doesn’t understand the market. Most PC enthusiasts use AMD, its as simple as that. Casual gamers might use a Dell, but that systems primary purpose won’t be for gaming. In fact, the majority of hardcore gamers build their own systems.
Brandon has posted his latest Podcast on our site, you can pick it up here. In this episode he reviews several new Logitech products including their new Z-4 speaker system. I reviewed their older Z-3 speaker system in December 2003, and was very impressed with the sound quality of this little 2.1 setup. The thing that bothered me was that the cable length between the two speakers was just two short, it was hard for me to put a speaker on each corner of the desk as a result. It sounds like Logitech fixed that with their Z-4 system. I still use their older Z-3 system in my office, I think it sounds great and I like the faux woodgrain siding.
On another note, I would like to commend Brandon King on a job well done. I thoroughly enjoy listening to his Podcasts and look forward to them each week. It is probably the most underrated Podcast out there, simply because we have done a bad job marketing it. His knowledge of technology is amazing, and I love how he has the confidence to talk about it in a format like this. Plus he talks about things that actually matter, and products people actually buy (I am sick of hearing about the Treo 600/650 on every other Podcast out there).
I know that we will have to start marketing Designtechnica soon, but I just love keeping it a “secret” that people discover. I love hearing thieir comments about the site, like its a hidden treasure they found. Thats probably why we have some of the best writers in the industry, content matters and so does the quality of that content. Sorry for tooting my own horn. I just love the folks that work for us, and I think Brandon is doing a fantastic job. You can check out all of his Podcasts here. I am scared that our success will taint the site someway - I am not exactly sure how, but a million thoughts are going through my head right now. In a way I like keeping it our little secret so to speak.
PaidContent.org links to a press release by 24/7 Real Media which addresses their Advertising Predictions for 2006. Here are the predictions; I posted my thoughts below each one:
1. Consumer-generated media will become increasingly attractive to advertisers
- This has always been true and will continue to be true. Podcasts and blogs are very attractive media types. The problem here though is that there are simply too many of them. There needs to be a blog network with the professionalism of Tribal Fusion (just an example) that uses IAB standards and accounting practices. A media buyer will never take a blog ad network seriously that uses their own proprietary ad forms and sizes.
Another problem with blogs is the sheer page views volume levels. We all love page views, but it is possible to have too many. Look at Engadget for example. Their typical reader probably gives them more than 10 page views per visit. This is bad because it drives the click-through-rate down, and I mean way down. The sweet spot here is 4 page views per visitor. You can argue with me on this, but a couple facts stand. Frequency capping on most ads are limited to 2-4 views per visitor, ask any media buyer and they can typically confirm this. I was told by a media buyer once that Engadget was selling their ads for dirt cheap rates, like $3/CPM or less and this was because their CTR (click-through-rates) were so low. You can also figure that out by the large number of network ads they are running on their site; they simply have too many page views per visitor. My opinion! 
In regards to Podcasts, the potential is there, media buyers are having a hard way to track them and report the metrics to their clients, and it’s as simple as that. Another problem is that Podcasts are getting way too popular and are thus losing their initial appeal - an amateur show that is very personable to the listener. BusinessWeek and even Cisco have their own Podcasts, they either sound like a radio show, or an advertorial. Companies like advertising on the web because they can track their campaigns, it’s really the only medium that lets you track so precisely. Podcasting is something new, it’s hard to track, and might just be a fad. Why bother? I heard that Volvo is advertising on some blog Podcasts. People would have you think they are solely interested in the Podcast, but if you pay attention, it’s always added-value when it comes to Podcast spending.
2. Advertisers will continue shifting traditional ad spending to the Web due to increased Internet consumption and better targeting/reporting capabilities
- Very obvious here, print media will continue to lose to the web until online publications start charging readers for their content, only then will the playing field level. People want their information now, not 4 weeks from now when the latest issue comes out. The internet is like picking up the New York Times and being able to read every paper ever published, including their competitors in a single edition. People like second opinions nowadays and that’s what the web provides. I hit MSN, CNN, Wall Street Journal Online and other news site until my daily craving is satisfied. A single newspaper doesn’t do it for me.
3. Advertisers, cable providers and interactive marketing experts will collaborate to address “The TiVo Effect”
- Contextual television ads. Could the big networks lose out to the likes of Comcast? Either break the commercial skip button feature, or start paying for ads on TiVo. The cable providers would love to control the ad revenue here, but really it adds another layer that users can do without. There is simply no way we will be able to avoid those ads.
4. Brand advertisers will drive the next wave of growth for the paid search market
- No comment
5. Best practices in localized mobile marketing will be perfected overseas in 2006
- Then it will hit the U.S. Parents, time to hold off on buying your children a cell phone. The cell phone industry is fairly unregulated. For example, someone steals your phone and racks up $30K in calls to El Salvador. Tough luck, you now owe Cingular $30K, you just don’t get protection for your mobile account like you would on a credit card. Now give a full-featured phone to your kid who is in high-school. They have no idea that the ring tone they just downloaded for today cost $2 bucks, or that they racked up another $5 in SMS messages today. Add video games and video content and it’s a nightmare for parents - but hey, that’s what these cellular carriers want.
6. Online advertisers will employ holistic targeting methods to deliver better results and reduce reliance on high-profile, high-CPM ad buys
According to 24/7 RealMedia: Next year, advertisers are going to take a more holistic approach to reaching their audience. Rather than purchasing high-CPM ad buys on high-profile, heavily trafficked sites, advertisers will merge behavioral, demographic and geographic methods to generate better results across a wider range of niche sites. In addition, audiences will be segmented similarly to the offline market so that tried and true methods, perfected over decades, can be applied to the online world.
- This is ad network crap, don’t believe it. If your online publication is high enough profile, companies will advertise on it, and at your rates. Ad Networks will never replace the sales department for a large legitimate business. If you have a large online site and most of your ads are network ads, you are losing out big-time. Hire a good salesman (and don’t you dare try to get ours ) or build up enough confidence to call these companies and close the deals yourself. Most ad networks are a scam that depend on quantity instead of quality. I love Tribal Fusion, but I know they are using our Designtechnica brand for their Consumer Electronics channel to close these deals with IBM and other CE advertisers. Then they probably turn around and run IBM’s ads across their whole network, and eat up the profits. You can’t tell me that Verizon is really spending big money with Advertising.com to be on Dictionary.com. There is no such thing as a targeted niche channel; there simply are not enough impressions there to satisfy these networks appetites.
7. Technology and better data access will transform online advertising success to a formulaic equation
According to 24/7 Real Media: Online advertising will become a pure math equation in 2006 and see the emergence of a new “CPx” (Cost Per [variable]).
Only for ad networks. When you are competing with other networks for remnant crap inventory for your publishers, you are forced to adopt a model like this. For the rest of us, CPM works.
8. Japan will be the next frontier for paid search and interactive marketing
- You mean they actually have internet access in Japan? How will they be the “next” frontier? Stop listing the obvious here…
9. Mobile carriers will adopt new ad models to boost revenue beyond usage
- You mean other than sending SMS advertisements to our phones at 3AM in the morning? I will go back to smoke signals if my phone wakes me up in the evening with video commercials.
10. Performance-based pricing models will demonstrate the true value of search engine marketing (SEM) as a lead generation channel
- Big companies will eat this up and the little ones will be left with advertising to people in the Ukraine at 2AM in the morning because that is the only time slot where they can actually afford to pay less than $2/keyword on Google. Users will continue to get paid results on MSN and Yahoo, and these two companies will wonder why no one is using their search engines anymore.