Category: Marketing Trends/News

By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, media-general, People Helping People

The New York Times reports something exciting: two different citizen-journalist initiatves aimed at broadening coverage of the ‘008 election while maintaining journalistic standards–and training the student reporters in them.

One of them, OffTheBus.net, is backed by Ariana Huffington and her Huffington Post. The other, Scoop08.com, has a number of well-known advisors from NY Times columnist Frank Rich to Senator Joe Lieberman.

I wish them both well. The more perspectives shared and the more people with journalism skills, the better I like it.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics-International, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, Publishing

One day after Xing’s

And this is exactly what I was hoping for. Now I can post away, knowing that I have a paper trail showing the integrity of my rights ownership.

Bravo! And hmmm, maybe they’ll reword it to cover what they really need without appearing to make a rights grab.

Those links to the two previous posts again:

My original letter (and the overall context)

Xing’s first response

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Ethics: General, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, Politics

Knowing that any entry in a Wiki can be changed by any reader, I’ve always been a bit suspicious of what I read on Wikipedia. Still, I find that Google often points me to Wikipedia articles, and most of the time, they seem pretty authoritative and accurate (if I’m at all suspicious, I verify with other sources, and it usually checks out).

Now it turns out I was right to be suspicious. Virgil Griffith, a grad student at CalTech, invented a system to track the IP addresses of people who change Wikipedia entries–and the results are scary. While the majority of changes are innocuous–correcting typos and that sort of thing, a number of well-known entities have deliberately distorted facts. A few among many examples:

According to the Wired article (one of several from mainstream news sources, including BBC and ABC),

Griffith thus downloaded the entire encyclopedia, isolating the XML-based records of anonymous changes and IP addresses. He then correlated those IP addresses with public net-address lookup services such as ARIN, as well as private domain-name data provided by IP2Location.com.

The result: A database of 34.4 million edits, performed by 2.6 million organizations or individuals ranging from the CIA to Microsoft to Congressional offices, now linked to the edits they or someone at their organization’s net address has made.

So who’s been playing fast and loose with the truth?

  • The CIA edited entries about Iranian President Ahmadinejad
  • Diebold, the voting machine company, removed incriminating material about its machines and faulty election results
  • Someone at a Democratic Party computer edited the entry about Rush Limbaugh to call him Limbaugh “idiotic,” “racist”, and a “bigot”–and about his audience, “Most of them are legally retarded.”
  • Microsoft listed its MSN as a “major competitor” to Google, whle adding deprecating material to Apple’s entry
  • Wal-Mart toned down criticism of its labor policies
  • Even the Vatican removed passages about Sinn Fein’s Gerry Addams that linked him to a 1971 murder.

    • Needless to say, this raises a lot of ethical questions. As a start, it would seem logical that Wikipedia should keep a running, public list of any IP addresses that altered a particular entry–right on that page. And also, perhaps, each page could display its history, so that previous versions would be visible and readers could draw their own conclusions.

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    Hidden Tech was founded by Amy Zuckerman five years ago, to provide both virtual and physical networking for those of us who work at home or other nontraditional settings and use technology to get our work done.

    Originally it was focused on the hidden economy of the four westernmost counties of Massachusetts, including my home base of Hampshire County–but now there are members in all sorts of places, like Arizona.

    Wile Amy has left the H-T board, she’s still very committed to the concept. She’s recently begun to profile some of the members, and I’m honored that she chose me as the second person to profile.

    Here’s a bit from her article that not a lot of people know about me:

    He has also been living the virtual American dream by operating a successful virtual business owner for the last 13 years — Accurate Writing & More — from a bucolic farm-house setting in Hadley, Mass. He and his wife, Dina Friedman, a children’s book author and academic, came to this lifestyle region in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts (also known as the “Five Colleges” region) “as a compromise between Brooklyn and the Ozarks.” They wanted “fresh air, clean water and an easy pace. Dina wanted job possibilities, friends, others of her ethnicity in the area, so we looked at the intersection of our needs and came to the Valley,” said Horowitz.

    I’ve donated a fair amount of time to Hidden-Tech over the years, mostly as a speaker on various aspects of frugal and ethical marketing–and Amy and I have had some preliminary conversations about a book project. It’s nice to get some recognition. Thanks, Amy, and good luck with the new blog!

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    As a copywriter and editor, I spend a lot of time chopping out redundant words, phrases, and concepts–even though I’m aware of the saleswriting mantra, “tell them what you’re going t say, tell it to them, and then tell them what you’ve told them.”

    Still, for the most part, I try not to be too repetitious.

    But with technology, redundancy is a good thing. Any website should have redundant backups, any e-mail should have multiple routes available.

    This week, I did a live two-hour seminar on book creation and marketing. My co-presenter brought two mini-recorders; I brought a laptop with recording capability. We presold a few copies of the recording and also have a web page up where people can continue to buy the program.

    Thank goodness for our redundancies! Only one of the three devices worked. But it worked beautifully, and as soon as we do some cosmetic cleanup on the file, we’ll have a nice new product.

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    By Posted on Posted in Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Trends/News, Publishing, Uncategorized

    While I’ve been blogging since 2005, at https://www.principledprofit.com/good-business-blog/ , I’ve been publishing the first two of my monthly e-newsletters all the way back to 1997 (I added another one in 2003, and had planned to launch a fourth son).

    At the time I started my zines, I had one website, spam was almost a non-issue, and you could be pretty sure that when you sent an e-mail it would be not only delivered but likely read. At that time, I only had one website: https://www.frugalfun.com , which went live in the spring of 1996.

    But I’ve been thinking for quite some time that e-newsletters have lost much of their effectiveness I know that e-mail deliverability is by no means certain anymore, and you can’t rely on getting a bounce notice if it doesn’t get in.

    Also, I know that lots of mail that does make it through gets deleted unread. This is certainly true in my own ebox, where I simply can’t compete with the volume of incoming mail. A few weeks ago I started a big purge and got my inbox down from 2400 to 800–it’s already back up to 1190, after five days on a business trip. And that doesn’t count the approximately 100-2009 per day that I throw out in my spamfilter–or the dozen or so that I try to rescue from the spamfilter but never arrive (9ne of my biggest peeves).

    This month I asked the 8000 subscribers of my two largest zines if the format was working for them–and got very definite feedback that while the content is valued, the long-form single-email text only format doesn’t work.

    But I *know* HTML email doesn’t work. I’ve seen the hideous results when they are corrupted in transmission, and I also know a lot of spam filters automatically catch anything with HTML.

    After thinking it over, I decided to convert to a blog. Yesterday, I sent the first one in the new format–a brief email with a sentence or two about each story and a link to the TOC on my blog (which in turn has live links to all the articles).

    I’m sure it will evolve (and hopefully take less time to set up, now that I can refer back to certain repeating articles, such as the one about my books).

    We’ll see what happens..

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Uncategorized

    While writing the post about slug lines, a thought occurred to me that I’d like feedback on.

    What do other bloggers think about using sigs in blog comments?

    I’ve been ambivalent. On the one hand, I love getting extra inbound links and visibility for my core offerings. On the other hand, I don’t see them used much, and I wonder if they’re offensive.

    So sometimes I’ve posted and sometimes not, and I’m more likely to post on, say, a newspaper comment page than a blog.

    This is the sig I’ve been using, when I use it–looking at it, it occurs to me that one obvious solution is to shorten it, pick one URL per sig, maybe have several versions of say two lines each–what do you think?

    ________________________________________________
    Shel Horowitz, shel (AT) principledprofit.com, 800-683-WORD/413-586-2388

    Marketing & publishing consultant/copywriter, award-winning author of

    * Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts
    People First https://www.principledprofit.com

    * Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers
    https://www.grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com

    * Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World
    https://www.frugalmarketing.com /

    –>Join the Business Ethics Pledge – Ten Years to Change the World,
    One Signature at a Time (please tell your friends)
    https://www.business-ethics-pledge.org
    _________________________________________________

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Trends/News, Uncategorized

    Ted Demopoulos commented that both Joan Stewart and I use a “slug” to identify ourselves in comment posts. In my case, it’s “Shel Horowitz, Ethical Marketing Expert.”

    Ted took it a step farther, and now has his slogan, “Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business,” incorporated as the name he uses when he posts to his own blog.

    You’ll notice that starting with this post, I’m doing the same. We all learn form each other–I never thought of that before Ted’s post.

    So much of marketing is about repetition of the brand. And people do notice.

    Unfortunately for the strength of my brand, I’m a person of many interests and skills, and probably dilute my slogans too much–but I have more fun that way. Fortunately, as I write in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, the real brand is not the slogan but the customer/prospect’s experience of you–and in that regard, I do quite well at creating a very positive impression.

    I can wear whatever hat is appropriate at the moment: ethical marketing expert, master copywriter, author of seven books, speaker, activist, even expert on having fun cheaply–to name a few. Somehow it all works out.

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    By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

    This is the first viral video I’m linking from in a year and a half dong this blog.

    A film that morphs the faces of women from great paintings throughout history.

    Of course, the marketing implications of viral travel of humor or inspiration over the Net have been known for a while–but this one made me think about art in an entirely new way. The paintings really seem to be alive.

    As a marketer, I want to know why this had such a profound impact on me that I was instantly moved to share it not only with my humor email list, but for the first time, with my blog.

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    By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Marketing Trends/News, Other, Publishing, Uncategorized

    …And they should be trying to invest in this.

    In three days at Book Expo America, I saw one technology that could really alter the world.

    Because FedEx’s whole model is based on the need to transport paper around the world quickly–in situations where fax or e-mail isn’t practical for one reason or another. Situations that require a physical signature on an original document. FedEx, DHL, UPS, USPS, and all the other courier services need to know that the real business they are in at least as much about transporting signatures as in transporting large documents that would be unwieldy via electronic technologies.

    Frustrated by the demands of wearying multicity author tours, acclaimed novelist Margaret Atwood was signing for a package on an electronic tablet. I’m sure you’ve done it. Mistakenly, she believed that she was actually creating a physical signature on a piece of paper, remotely–so, she thought, why can’t I sign a book in my house? After all, it’s been possible for years to do author events by video or audio, remotely. Why not a long-distance book signing?

    And now she can. Using two-way videoconferencing, she can interact with a fan or group of fans anywhere in the world, and when a bookstore staffer puts a book under the pen at the other end, she can inscribe and personalize the book.

    Interestingly enough, a lot of the company’s promotional material focuses on the “Green” feature: the amount of carbon saved in not flying. Of course, the author who doesn’t have to slog through international border crossings, airports, hotel rooms, and the rest of the grind may or may not be thinking about carbon offsets. And, of course, it’s going to be waaaay cheaper than a year’s worth of book tours–though once the novelty wears off, readers/fans may not find it as satisfying as a real in-person appearance.

    Atwood’s company is called Unotchit and the product is Long Pen (TM). I couldn’t find any pricing information on the site but I’m sure that in most cases, a bookstore or other venue will install the device and then loan out the writing tablet (and, if necessary, the video cam) to the author, so the equipment cost will be relatively manageable. And I’m guessing, ironically enough, that a lot of those tablets and cams will be shipped by FedEx

    This has huge implications–not only in publishing but in sports, finance, real estate (think about closings with absentee owners), music, international business, and probably dozens of other industries.

    You heard it here first.

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