Author Archive

Facebook and the Art of User Retention

Here’s something you won’t hear everyday, I deactivated my Facebook account last night. While that’s news on its own, there’s more. I didn’t do it because I’m dissatisfied with Facebook and it isn’t a permanent thing, rather perhaps I did it because I’m too satisfied with Facebook. I simply found myself spending too much time on Facebook when I should have been writing, or working on my startup, so I went into my Facebook account settings to disable the account. Here’s what happened next.

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MySpace and Skype: A Partnership of Dwindling Expectations?

MySpace and Skype recently announced that Skype will serve as the backbone of MySpaceIM, the web-based instant messaging client for the MySpace community. The announcement came in front of a high-spirited crowd at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco.

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Two Kinds of Names for Your Facebook Application

Let’s face it: there are some Facebook applications that never get installed even though they’re good, while there are others that get installed even though you don’t expect them to, and part of it is just in the name.

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3 Strategies for Addictive Advertisements

Ever notice yourself actually hoping to hear or see certain ads (i.e. certain beer and car commercials, mac vs. pc commercials, etc.)? This is called addictive advertising and here are three steps to help you get there.

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Speak Your Customers’ Language Part 2: The Pitch

Yesterday we discussed the importance of speaking your customer’s language. Let’s expound upon this concept with an example from a company that sells an instructional DVD on integrating Russian kettlebells into a baseball training program, since I recently bought the DVD myself, solely on the strength of their sales letter.

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Speak Your Customers’ Language

People in the marketing profession are often instructed to speak their customer’s language. While no one doubts value of the above it is rarely defined how one might actually do it. So let’s see if we can’t breathe new life into this old maxim. Why is it important to speak a customer’s language?

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3 Ads That Guarantee Results

Here is a collection of advertisements that guarantee results. Truly great ads for which the marketing firm deserves a lot of credit.

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What is Blogging All About?

I watched a clip from Loren Feldmen the other day, discussing what blogging is all about and I decided to share some thoughts on why I blog and what I think it’s is all about.

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What Content Reddit Users Are Clicking On

People like to dump Digg, Netscape, and Reddit all in one basket and label then as “social news sites”. In reality, however, not all these sites are the same, and not all of then are as news driven as others would have you believe.

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Software Makes Social Media Success Easier

While in theory socially driven news sites and social media communities are supposed to be a one person one vote democratic platforms this isn’t always the case in practice. In reality, and as pointed out earlier, every socially driven community has community leaders who can make or break your chances of success. Luckily for you these leaders are now easy to identify.

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