Modern Idea

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (buy it at Amazon)

I read this book a few weeks ago on my way to my brother’s wedding in San Antonio. I had the luxury of Internet access the entire time I read so I livebloged my notes using a service called ScribbleLive. Liveblogging is typically reserved for things like reporting at the WWDC. Why liveblog a book? I don’t know, seemed like a good idea at the time…

How to use this synopsis:

This synopsis doesn’t contain great insight gleaned from the book. It also is not intended to be a simple summary whereby relieving you from the need to read the book—if in fact, you feel that you must read it. I would suggest that you print this out and read it along with the book. The author goes into very detailed stories to reinforce the messages. Sometime I found myself lost from the overall point. If you find yourself often interrupted then I would suggest that you have this printed as a reference. I have tried to summarize the key points in each section and provided page numbers so you can match up what I have summarized with what you’ve read. So, without further adieu… (more…)

You can’t fault them, really. Nearly every large company is paying “Web 2.0 consultants” to develop a strategy to profit off the captive audiences found on Facebook and other lesser social networking sites. Thus far, this has consisted of transparent attempts to persuade people to add commercials to their profile pages. A successful widget strategy must keep in mind that there are 27,977 Facebook applications as of the time of this writing. Guess how many of the top 100 applications are made by traditional product or service companies? Just one—two if you count Hot or Not as a traditional company. Do you?

A successful widget strategy must either provide value or entertain its users—or it will go nowhere. Product marketers and brand managers must put as much effort into one of these two areas as they do their self-serving interests such as determining how to increase the brand impact. (more…)

When are interstitial ads OK? Never…?

In general I concur. Interstitials are considered a form of disruptive advertising and have proven a mainstay due to their relatively good performance. Since the concept was ported from television, the interstitial ad has annoyed hundreds of millions of people. If you have ever seen a full page ad displayed between the time you clicked a link and when the intended website was displayed—that’s an interstitial ad.

A few days ago I was on DownloadSquad’s website looking for a browser plug-in. When I clicked over to the del.icio.us blog I was presented with an interstitial advertisement. Most sites such as c|net display these ads upon arrival. DownloadSquad displayed the ad only after they provided value. They found the information I needed and were then awarded with a set of eyeballs as I went out the door. In my mind this difference makes the interstitial ad OK.

Last week Google made a subtle change that may signal a big shift in their branding. The change was to a simple 16 pixel-wide icon that appears in the address bar.

Can Google Own the Letter “g”? Are they trying to? According to Search Engine Land, the change is meant to represent a “simple, playful and unique brand.” Google wouldn’t admit they are set on owning a single letter, even if that is exactly what they are attempting to do. So let’s look into what it would take for them to do so. (more…)