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What about the Real Time Web?

This could be an open door for the content business. For instance, currently aggregators have to get their news the old fashioned way, through RSS feeds and news alerts that they retrieve throughout the day. That is not realtime news.  Using The Associated Press as an example, AP could post their stories to a HUB. In realtime, the HUB can update member websites so that they will always have information first, before any aggregator.   It may not take long for aggregators to recognize the new data on the member sites, but they won’t have it first.

The Internet is about to change

I never got everyone's obsession with being the "first" to receive news. With the current incarnations of the real time web only being able to provide raw, barely digestible, incoherent information at best; it's almost always better to wait for a credible news agency to aggregate and process everything into something more palatable and useful before being consumed.

Posted via email from Mike Villar: Rising Internet Star - Lite

Posted in Uncategorized.

By Mike Villar
August 27, 2009

No comments

On being Social Media-Capable

For the next couple of months, I will be part of a project that will introduce, rather brusquely, the concepts of User Generated Content, Social Media and Community to a small company’s very traditional e-commerce culture.

What I’m slightly anxious of is the fact that, from what I feel and what I have observed in preliminary meetings is that the company expects the Social Media, Community and User-Generated Content aspect of their e-commerce business to be built instead of being cultivated.

Additionally, I noticed the following, if I may, “fears” from the company which tell me that their perspective as far as social media is concerned might be skewed just enough to doom the project to failure:

  • Customers will be given a voice. We’re hoping to “moderate” this voice as negative feedback will surely hurt our brand.
  • This is not going to make money is it?
  • Who’s going to manage it?

Continued…

Posted in Branding, E-Commerce, Marketing, PR, Social Media. Tagged with , , , .

By Mike Villar
April 11, 2009

4 comments

Affiliate programs on multiple networks: A longtail strategy

Companies who do their business online aren’t entirely different from those who do theirs offline as far as using sub-brands to position products would go. Honda uses their Acura brand to position their luxury vehicle division, Toyota uses their Lexus brand and, online, Six Apart has their enterprise blogging platform in the form of Movable Type and their hosted blogging platform for professionals and small businesses in the form of Typepad.

The question is, for online merchants planning to launch affiliate programs, which route should they take?

Single, Masterbrand affiliate program or multiple programs for sub-brands / Masterbrand program across multiple affiliate networks?

Continued…

Posted in Affiliate Marketing, program management. Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , .

By Mike Villar
April 1, 2009

2 comments

SalesForce is on a FAIL roll

After posting my last entry about How SalesForce fails in CRM–Or Potential CRM–themselves and publicly airing my disapproval and the profound distaste I felt towards the marketing copy used by SalesForce on their ServiceCloud page via Twitter ironically enough, I get the following email from SalesForce’s Hana Michaelis:

Hi Michael,

Does [Company withheld] have any plans for a CRM or customer support project in 2009?

In times like these over 50,000 companies turn to Saleforce.com’s cloud computing model to empower them to follow up on every lead, win every deal, and keep every customer. Not familiar with cloud computing? Visit this link for a quick video: www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing.

Do you have a few minutes this week to talk about your needs for the upcoming year? Or, if you’re not the best person to discuss this, would you kindly refer me to who is? Thank you.

Regards,

Hana Michaelis
[Number withheld]
[Email Address withheld]

My question is: How well exactly is SalesForce’s much touted ServiceCloud and SalesForce for Twitter integration working for them? Because really, if it works as well as advertised, then they probably shouldn’t be sending me Business Development emails but rather, at the very least, an email from their PR people with some sort of explanation, apology or whatever they call “damage control” in PR parlance.

Anyway:

Update (1:21 am):

SalesForce’s Corporate Business Development sent me this email:

Hi Michael,
I understand that point that you make in your blog. I will make a point to e-mail marketing so that they can be more sensitive on their messaging. However, I think that marketing was just making a generalization that some, not all, support agents do not receive the training that they should. I’m sure that many successful agents and organizations do receive adequate training to make them successful. I apologize if this offended you in any way.

Well, apology accepted. Although I still don’t get how a “generalization” could be aimed towards some, not all support agents.

Posted in Business Development, Marketing, PR, Social Media. Tagged with , , , .

By Mike Villar
March 28, 2009

1 comment

How SalesForce fails in CRM–Or Potential CRM–themselves

There’s been much hoopla about how SalesForce, recently integrated Twitter into their CRM system in a way where companies can monitor and manage Twitter feedback within the SalesForce System.

I think it’s a good first step in aggregating customer feedback, which, more often than not, are fragmented and decentralized. I’ve actually used SalesForce in a couple of companies I worked for before and am quite impressed by this development.

However, something turned me off upon reading SalesForce’s ServiceCloud page which details the SalesForce for Twitter integration:

Continued…

Posted in PR, Social Media. Tagged with , , , .

By Mike Villar
March 26, 2009

2 comments