Month: February 2007

Defensive Domain Registration

Does anyone seriously believe that registering yourbrandsucks.com is a winning move? I have no argument with registering a brand domain across multiple countries and extensions as a trademark play, but the old defensive tactic of the mid-90s, when PR people and lawyers went nuts trying to nail down mercury, is still with us today.

The first thing an interactive marketer should do upon arrival at an organization is find out who owns the list of registered domains. Find that list, and take a red pencil and start crossing off the ones you won’t be renewing. Sure, it’s short money to own yourbrandreallysucks.org but how about yourbrandreallysucks.net, .gov., .tv …. I’ve seen lists with several hundred names on it. Domain costs and management can begin to add up.

This reminds me of the dirty word filter lists we used to install in online forums so the community couldn’t develop a case of potty mouth: the list was actually incredibly creative and inspirational and has enriched my toilet tongue immensely. My favorite variation on domain names involve animals and suggested acts that are illegal in many states.
Yet still some people think locking down the obvious terms is a winning proposition. I tell them to follow old King Canute down to the seashore and start yelling at the tide not to come in.

Now a more interesting discussion is what to do if a hate site does pop up? How do you defuse it? Ignore it? Or … encourage it?

Times’ Sulzberger: Newspaper Will Be Around For a Long Time

The New York Observer Media Mob: Times’ Sulzberger: Newspaper Will Be Around For a Long Time

The item reported in Ha’aretz — the Israeli newspaper — based on an interview with NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger at Davos, is sparking a clarification.

“So let me clear the air on this issue. It is my heartfelt view that newspapers will be around–in print–for a long time. But I also believe that we must be prepared for that judgment to be wrong. My five-year timeframe is about being ready to support our news, advertising and other critical operations on digital revenue alone …whenever that time comes.”

Note to self — put cell phone on mute when fleeing police

Cape Cod Times: Breaking News Updates
Police track man by cell phone ring

EAST DENNIS – The second time Eric Nolan was arrested over the weekend, he was nabbed because police repeatedly rang his cell phone as he tried to hide in the woods …

Social Media Marketing Survey

SNCR

I found the link to this Jos. Jaffe survey on Conversational Marketing via Strumpette. It’s worth looking at, even completing.

“Purpose of the survey:
To assess the awareness and knowledge of senior marketers of conversational marketing and their priorities for including it in their marketing and communications strategies and measurement.Introduction:
New communications tools are changing the relationships between organizations, consumers, and employees. They’ve enabled the creation of virtual markets and new relationships between individuals and brands. Some organizations are initiating and participating in conversations with their customers, employees, partners and industries.

This is referred to in this survey as conversational marketing.”

Digital Influence Mapping Project: Hong Kong Bloggers

Digital Influence Mapping Project: Hong Kong Bloggers Pt 1

Ogilvy PR’s John Bell is doing the China thing and blogging some interesting stuff about Chinese blogs. One interesting point is that Hong Kong bloggers sometimes run a mirror inside of the Great Firewall to insure uninterrupted readership within mainland China. Bell writes about the difficulty of identifying influential blogs through western measures such as Technorati. Good stuff.

“We are holding an Asia Pacific regional meeting of our Digital Influence team in the region. This is super-exciting due to the caliber of folks in the region. And the meetings are a lot more fun than they sound. We shared our videos from BlogHer and Vloggercon, as well as our really comprehensive approach to digital influence with each other. There are tremendous insights from each region.”

New York Times Sneeze-Fest

I’m definitely allergic to the New York Times. Anytime I read it (and some magazines) I sneeze at least once per page. The ink? Dust from the paper? Is it some sort of over-saturation allergy from spending my early years at a couple daily newspapers? Like doctors and nurses getting allergic to latex gloves?

Apparently, according to this discussion between allergy sufferers, it could be both combined in one.

The flakiest utility

For the past few months the household’s Internet connection has been very undependable, dropping for hours at time and necessitating a trip upstairs to the Westell DSL modem, which gets unplugged, recycled, and then spazzes for the rest of the day, gaining and losing its connection every few minutes.

The hysterics this engenders is amazing. The gamers upstairs can’t play Xbox Live and shoot virtual foes in Halo or Call of Duty. My wife can’t check her email from her downstairs desk, and me, I just use my EVDO connection to bypass the whole mess and ignore the howls for a better internet connection.

Being the household’s IT manager is the fact of my weekends and sorting out a bad Internet connection is always a predictable hell of Control Panel, Network Settings, 192.168.1.1 trips to the Westell’s admin console, and eventually, a long phone call with Verizon support.

If any other utility was as freaky — say if the electricity browned out a few hours every evening, or the satellite TV went snowy — there would be hell to pay, and last night, the household finally mutinied on me and demanded a “Better Internet.”

So I got on the phone with Verizon and spent 90 minutes as they ran diagnostics and I read back screens and did what they told me too. I stated, right from the beginning, that I suspected the modem was due to be replaced or upgraded, but of course they had to walk me through the scripts: “Are you sure it is plugged in? Are you using the Verizon supplied cable? Are there any other devices connection to the wall jack? Is there a 2.4 ghz wireless phone in the house. Are you running Windows XP? Is there a firewall active?”

The upshot was the modem is grabbing “too high of an internet address” — something in the 150 range — and I indeed need to buy a new modem.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad phone experience — they were able to run remote diagnostics on my line and device and spare me the usual hell of trying to play human modem between what was on my screen and their ears, and I never had to crawl under the desk, phone wedged between shoulder and ear, feeling blindly for ports and reset buttons.

Now, if only FIOS would come to town …. Or, if I could get Lenovo to foot the tab for a T1 to the house. Connectivity on Cape Cod is getting better. Ten years ago I had the first ISDN line installed on the Cape and drove the AT&T technicians insane.  That went away when Comcast offered cable modem connectivity, and then Comcast went away when the news that the new switch up the street by the Ropes Field had brought DSL within installation distance.

I want more. I want more speed, more stability, and a happy household of fully wired spouse and offspring so I can regain my precious downtime and not worry about viruses, low ink cartridges, and printers that won’t network.

Whereabouts week of 2.12

2.12 – Cotuit

2.13-15 – RTP

2.16-19 – Cotuit

Switzerland bans some GPS devices for speed camera warnings – Engadget

Switzerland bans some GPS devices for speed camera warnings – Engadget

Loyal reader Brian M. sends along this Engadget tidbit for the “Weird” “Swiss” tag. Nothing that happens in that bizarre country will ever surprise me. Still, I miss the place.

“On January 10th a law went into effect banning the use of a navigation device to warn of speed surveillance locations, and police now have the authority to stop drivers using their GPS units for such a purpose, confiscate and destroy the device and fine the driver — we hate to see what they do to people who read books and feel emotion. As far as we can tell, it’s not actually illegal to own such a device, just illegal to use it for such a nefarious purpose, but at the same time Swiss government has issued a list of “illegal” navigation systems for retailers to remove from their shelves, including devices from TomTom, Garmin, Mio, Navman, Medion, Route66, Packard Bell, Sony and ViaMichelin.”