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Twitter Promotions Responsible for $6.5 Million in Sales, Dell Reports

Bart Salisbury — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:54:53 -0600

Social networking may be on the fast-track to market networking, if Dell’s habits become widespread. Dell reports it is taking advantage of social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to develop networks of Dell followers, within which it promotes its products. And, according to Dell, the practice seems to be working.

Speaking specifically of Twitter, Manish Mehta, vice president of Dell’s online sales unit, says the number of followers of Dell’s tweets now numbers 1.5 million. Furthermore, these followers have spent an estimated $6.5 million on Dell hardware, software, and accessories.

Dell keeps it’s Twitter network active with more than 100 employees sending out tweets over 35 different channels to followers in 12 countries. According to Mehta, “It’s a very vibrant channel for us and it’s growing aggressively. It’s not just our reach and growth that has progressed, it’s that it’s happening globally.”

If Dell’s tweet-related sales are measured against total revenue, it doesn’t seem this approach is much better than mass-mailing. With $6.1 billion in annual revenue, tweet-related sales account for only 0.11% of the total. It hardly seems worth the effort.

Image Credit: Dell, Twitter

New Coke Zero Promotion Helps You Find Your Facebook Doppelgänger

Bart Salisbury — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:03:56 -0600

Just because civil libertarians object to law enforcement’s use of facial recognition software to track us by the millions doesn't mean we can’t have a little fun with it as well. Coca-Cola is offering you a chance to find your doppelgänger, using the app Facial Profiler on Facebook.

The rationale behind Coke’s promotion is to emphasize just how much Coke Zero tastes like Coca-Cola Classic--there doubles, get it? What better way to underscore this by letting you find your facial double. Unless, of course, you find the idea of someone else having your face more creepy than fun.

Coke says the Facial Profiler will introduce a “new social dynamic,” but aren’t quite sure that that dynamic will be. Still, that’s no reason not to leap blindly into it. Throw caution to the wind--the Facial Profiler now has a critical mass of uploaded photos for it to return matches. But, keep in mind, some say doppelgängers are harbingers of death. (Which makes you wonder what exact message Coke is sending out about its products.)

Image Credit: Coca-Cola, Facebook

Sprint Turns Over User GPS Data to Police 8 Million Times a Year

Bart Salisbury — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:00:35 -0600

Let’s face it, privacy is dead. In this increasingly electronic and inter-linked world, with its capacity to capture, store, and analyze data by the digital ton, the minute you step foot into it you’ve surrendered any claim to privacy you ever thought you had.

Sprint, it turns out, has been routinely handing over GPS information on its customers to law enforcement for some time. So commonplace is the practice that Sprint has setup an automated system for law enforcement to check on subscriber whereabouts (apparently even without a court order).

Sprint coughed-up GPS information to law enforcement eight million times last year. Not on eight million users, Sprint is quick to point out. Rather law enforcement can request GPS information on any particular user every three minutes for up to 60 days. (After that Sprint doesn’t say what happens.)

And Sprint isn’t the only one handing out information about you.

Yahoo and Verizon also provide law enforcement access to customer information. Neither company will discuss the nature or extent of law enforcement surveillance for fear their customers would be “shocked” or “confused” by what types of surveillance law enforcement is permitted. Verizon further justifies its secrecy in the matter saying it doesn’t want to commit resources to dealing with customers that might be concerned with its practices.

The willingness, if not eagerness of companies, such as Yahoo and Verizon, and Comcast and Cox Communications, to ‘rat’ you out is easily explained: they get paid for the service they provide. Comcast, for example, in 2007 charged $1,000 for the first month of a wiretap, and $750 each month after. Cox Communications charges $2,500 for a 60-day pen register/trap-and-trace order, with each successive 60-day interval going for $2,000. Yahoo wouldn’t divulge its pricing scheme, claiming it was “confidential commercial information.” All-in-all, it’s better than 30 pieces of silver.

(Law enforcement’s activities here may well be legitimate. But how can we be certain if, as it appears, there is no system for accountability?)

Law enforcement could well be the least of your worries. Sprint confessed it keeps 24-months of URL histories from some devices--not for law enforcement, but for its marketing department. Apparently “marketing wants to rifle through the data.” It’s a good bet Sprint isn't the only one tracking your ever move online.

Odd thing is, according to Jared Newman of PCWorld, no one seems to care; it’s not a “big story.” Jared writes: “Slowly, I'm resigning my expectations of privacy. If law enforcement doesn't get my data, it seems that marketers surely will.”

Image Credit: ChrisJS2008/Flickr

Dance Video Proves Microsoft Stores Officially Uncool

Bart Salisbury — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:53:16 -0600

It’s sort of hard to classify this one. Gizmodo has linked to a video of staffers at the Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo, California, dancing. Not just one or two, and not just a shuffle step or two, but a full-blown, choreographed (?) routine involving all the staffers--and while the store is open for business.

What’s most surprising about this? That staffers would put up with it? (Pay must be good.) That techno-geeks can dance? (If Texans can line dance, geeks can too.) Or that customers didn’t leave en masse from the spontaneous St. Vitus outbreak

Commenters on the video were less than kind. “Reason number 6751 why I avoid Microsoft products like the plague,” writes cance440. JohnMunsch notes: “If Joe’s Crab Shack ran your local Microsoft franchise.” SunsetChaser sums it up: “O good grief, Does everything microsoft do have to be so cringeworthy.”

Whatever the case, it doesn’t seem a particularly good in-store marketing strategy. Customers seem a bit confused by it. It is a distraction to serious shoppers. And business comes to a standstill during the 4-plus minute routine.

Let’s hope this is one of Microsoft’s ‘working out the bugs’ moment.

Image Credit: bkslavin/YouTube

Twitter Attempts to Shut Down uSocial

Andy Salisbury — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:08:50 -0500

Twitter has made recent moves to get rid of web promotion company uSocial by claiming that their means of advertising count as spam.

uSocial’s CEO Leon Hill claims that the accusations from Twitter are false. “The definition of spam is using electronic messaging to send unsolicited communication and as we don’t use Twitter for this, the claims are false.” He believes that the claims are because of their service, which allows users to buy followers on the popular microblogging site.

“The people at Twitter who are sending these claims are just flailing around trying to look for any excuse they can, though it’s going to take much more than this if they want us to pack up shop,” stated Hill. “We’re not going away that easily.”

So what do you think? Are the folks at uSocial trying to make a buck in a spammy way, or should the folks at Twitter back off? Make your voice heard in the comments.

Image Credit: uSocial

Sony Tweaks its Ebook Strategy

Paul Lilly — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:15:18 -0500

While Amazon's Kindle seems to receive most of the attention surrounding e-book readers, don't count Sony out of the running. On the contrary, Sony has started tweaking its marketing strategy to better compete with the Kindle.

Last week, Sony introduced two new e-book readers at comparatively affordable price points of $200 and $300, with the higher priced model sporting a touchscreen interface. In addition, Sony reduced prices at its online e-book store for new releases and New York Times best sellers by $2 a pop. And finally, Sony has also started offering a handful of newer titles for free from authors such as Brenda Jackson, James Patterson, and others.

"I think the trend toward lower-priced devices will help to encourage adoptions, and it also helps that Sony's best sellers will now be priced at $9.99 -- down from $11.99," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst for Forrester Research. "Even though there are many books priced lower than $9.99 in their online store, just being able to add this price point has psychological appeal."

Epps went to say that while Sony is moving in the right direction, it still needs to do more to make it easier for consumers to find the e-book content they're looking for through its online stores.

Image Credit: Sony

Twitter Followers & Digg Votes for Sale – The Ugly Side of Social Networks

Justin Kerr — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:24:23 -0500

How much is a Twitter account or Digg vote worth? uSocial.net thinks they have the answer to that question with a recently announced new service that will sell social media accounts or votes to companies or individuals having trouble doing it the old fashioned way. $87 USD buys you (or your company) 1,000 followers added over 7 days, or as many as 100,000 over a one year period for $3,479. It turns out money really can make you popular both online, and in real life.

I have to admit however, I find it somewhat doubtful that companies would find these “purchased masses” very responsive, and in fact, uSocial itself claims “we'll Tweet our followers three times a day, every day for a month to go and check out links directly to the content that you'd like promoted.” This type of ad spam would have any normal user searching frantically for the unfollow button, but it certainly points out how modern social media is just as vulnerable to abuse as telephones, or the post office.

uSocial.net is also responsible for launching a program last year that allowed companies to buy votes on Digg and StumbleUpon. Both companies have issued cease-and-desist orders to uSocial, which according to a statement from Digg, have been ignored.

Is this the ugly side of social networking? Let us know what you think.

Redmond Preps Spending Binge to Roll Out 'Bing' Search Engine

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:45:23 -0500

Ready, aim, SPEND! That's the approach Microsoft is planning for Bing, its new search engine, Advertising Age reports. How much coin is Redmond prepared to spend to market Bing (previously code-named Kumo)? Somewhere is the $80-100 million range, Ad Age says, compared to Google's non-recruitment ad spending in 2008 of around $13 million. But, can spending 6-8 times as much as Google give Bing the jump it needs?

Microsoft's ad push (helmed by ad-agency powerhouse JWT) will not, unlike the recent anti-Apple campaign, mention Microsoft's search rivals - instead, the planned ads will ask consumers if search works as well as they'd like.

How about the product itself?

People who've seen the Microsoft product suggest it's useful and has some nifty filtering tools, even though it's not a markedly different-looking interface, at least for text search (some of the multimedia search results, however, do look quite different from how Google currently displays them).

When will Bing shove aside Live Search? The Register says "June," and also suggests keeping an eye on the D: All Things Digital conference this week for more details.