So I'm still annoyed about the whole thing with Getty Images. So I happened to do a quick search on "Getty Images Licensing Compliance" and came up with a number of posts addressing "the Getty Images Extortion Letter".
This article, How to Respond to the Getty Images Extortion Letter, is great. It's from the Art Law Journal. It provides a comprehensive explanation of what's going on as well as a template letter for your response.
Here's another post from a hacker/security site with a more extensive cataloging of Getty Images extortion racket.
My takeaway?
I'm not going use Getty Images any longer and I recommend you avoid using them as well.
Showing posts with label resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resources. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Getty Images' Scammy Image Licensing Shakedown
An interesting thing came across my desk at the start of the year. One of my first pieces of email was from a colleague in Germany emailing me in regard to a marketing-related legal problem. It seems that Getty Images had contacted them and claimed that we were using one of their images and that they didn't have any record of us having acquired the license to use it.
To start with, this was rather surprising because in all of the years that I've been using stock photography, I've never actually used Getty for stock images -- unless, perhaps, their images were subcontracted by some other agency. Or, perhaps, one of my vendors might have contracted with them. But personally, no interaction on my part.
Since the correspondence came from Germany, it took me a bit with Google translate to get to the root of the issue. Rather than walk you through the forensic work, let me summarize. Getty was hounding our German office for licensing on:
Getty Images Scammy Shakedown Behavior
I should point out that the emphasis in the correspondence from Getty was on paying them. Again,
this is from Google Translate, but here's an excerpt from the email:
Is it reasonable to expect you to retain proof of a licensing transaction from over 15 years ago?
I would say no. Frankly, I didn't actually think that that brochure was even available outside of an archive of old electronic files that I inherited when I joined the company. At the same time, most companies have document retention policies that would typically specify the destruction of many of these kinds of materials, so having proof of licensing for something this old would surprise me more than the latter.
Further, who's to say that rights to this image are only available through Getty. Is it possible that this image came from some other collection of images? Is Getty playing the -- this is a small enough issue that you won't devote the time and effort to validate the claim and just pay us? This aspect reminds me a lot of another Silicon Valley nightmare, the patent troll.
Based on all of this, I would highly recommend avoiding Getty Images. While the front end of their business may be legitimate, the tail of the beast shows some pretty scammy behavior. As they say, caveat emptor.
For the record, I should note that I have used (and licensed) stock photos from a variety of sources since the early 1990s. I value the stock photos and the work of the photographers that produced the images that communicate in our work.
To start with, this was rather surprising because in all of the years that I've been using stock photography, I've never actually used Getty for stock images -- unless, perhaps, their images were subcontracted by some other agency. Or, perhaps, one of my vendors might have contracted with them. But personally, no interaction on my part.
Since the correspondence came from Germany, it took me a bit with Google translate to get to the root of the issue. Rather than walk you through the forensic work, let me summarize. Getty was hounding our German office for licensing on:
- An image in a PDF of a brochure that was created in 2001, (Feb/March of 2001 from the metadata in the PDF file).
- The image is basically a minor 1.75" x 2.75" image on the second page of the brochure
- The content is a street in China, shot from traffic
- The brochure was for a subsidiary company that is no longer an active business entity
- The brochure lived on the web because our German web site was very slow in updating their web site
- When the German web site was updated late last year by our Global operations team, the existing assets were migrated to the new site.
Getty Images Scammy Shakedown Behavior
I should point out that the emphasis in the correspondence from Getty was on paying them. Again,
this is from Google Translate, but here's an excerpt from the email:
Please note that this matter is not done with the removal of the image material alone.My contacts in the industry tells me that part of the driver behind this Getty essentially outsources this licensing validation process like those debt collection agencies and selling debts.
Even in the case of unintended use, the use of photographic material without a valid license is deemed to be copyright infringement pursuant to § 97 of the Copyright Act and related rights (UrhG). The purpose of this notification is to determine a previously acquired license or to achieve a fair settlement of the matter if no valid license is available.
Please complete the following steps within 14 days of the date of this message:
- If a valid license was obtained before using the artwork, please provide the Getty Images sales order, invoice number, or other license information. If the artwork is recorded on behalf of a third party, e.g. An advertising agency or a web designer, please notify us of the company name and ask the third party to contact us directly to check the existence of a valid license. As an end-user, it is ultimately your responsibility to clarify the facts.
-If you do not have a valid license for use, you will not be able to use the image material in the future
You need to set the current usage immediately
Remove footage from your site. You will also find an offer in the appendix
Compensation for the unlicensed use of the relevant image material. If the amount to be paid is not received within 14 days of receipt of this message, we will take further steps. Please note the information on the transfer in the attached offer. Payment can be made online by using the above URL and the access code.
Please note that we only charge the average license fee for the commercial use of licensed images, which is on your website. Getty Images, additional costs of EUR 300.00 per image have been incurred. We do not currently charge for these costs as we are aware that this unlicensed use of our image material may have been unintentional.
We would also be happy to help you find a consistent solution for the use of image material as soon as the amount has been paid.
As the world's leading provider of digital media, Getty Images strives to protect the interests, intellectual property rights and the livelihoods of photographers, filmmakers and other artists who entrust Getty Images with the licensing of their work. Getty Images hopes for a friendly settlement of the matter and is grateful for your cooperation.
Getty Images is aware that you may be hearing from our company for the first time. On our website (www.gettyimages.com) you can find out more about us and how to license and protect our images. We also provide information on copyright on our website. If you have any questions regarding this letter and the attached FAQs, please contact our Copyright Compliance Team at 0800 000 7228. We are very anxious to help you clarify this issue.
We look forward to hearing from you soon. In all correspondence, please always state the name of your company and the reference number, as indicated on the attached claims for damages. This information will help us to speed up the examination of the matter. Please note that we will initiate further legal action if you do not respond to this letter.
If you have any questions, or if this notification has been mistakenly notified, please contact us at 0800 000 7228 or e-mail us at: copyrightcomplianceDE@gettyimages.com.
Is it reasonable to expect you to retain proof of a licensing transaction from over 15 years ago?
I would say no. Frankly, I didn't actually think that that brochure was even available outside of an archive of old electronic files that I inherited when I joined the company. At the same time, most companies have document retention policies that would typically specify the destruction of many of these kinds of materials, so having proof of licensing for something this old would surprise me more than the latter.
Further, who's to say that rights to this image are only available through Getty. Is it possible that this image came from some other collection of images? Is Getty playing the -- this is a small enough issue that you won't devote the time and effort to validate the claim and just pay us? This aspect reminds me a lot of another Silicon Valley nightmare, the patent troll.
Based on all of this, I would highly recommend avoiding Getty Images. While the front end of their business may be legitimate, the tail of the beast shows some pretty scammy behavior. As they say, caveat emptor.
For the record, I should note that I have used (and licensed) stock photos from a variety of sources since the early 1990s. I value the stock photos and the work of the photographers that produced the images that communicate in our work.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
An Interesting Cross-section of Marketing Spending
I came across this post, The Battle for the Marketing Cloud, on Pandodaily yesterday. Mostly, it's an overview of the current dynamics of the market for marketing software. However, there's an interesting tidbit in this, an overview of marketing program spend percentages -- it's something that you might find useful in presentations and benchmarking your own programs.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Customer Portal: Zendesk Looks Promising
The latest candidate in my customer portal software search is Zendesk, and I must say, I like what I'm seeing. Essentially, Zendesk is a pretty straightforward customer support ticketing system with support for web, email, phone, chat, Twitter, and Facebook. It has self-service help, community help, forum, ideas, and knowledgebase functionality. It's cloud-based. It already has some pre-built integrations with Salesforce.com. But here's the best part -- instead of charging you for the number of customers that you have accessing your portal, Zendesk just charges you by the customer service agent seat.
Salesforce.com's closest offering is desk.com which provides similar (but appears to be more limited) functionality. However, desk.com caps your monthly customer page views. They also offer a flex agent seat, enabling you to allocate temporary agent status on a billable hour basis. And, while I like the potential flexibility that this offers, it's still difficult to shake the feeling that, rather than flexibility, this is a calculated move enabling them to keep one hand on my wallet.
So if you're looking for a customer portal solution, I still don't have a definitive suggestion for you. I can safely say that Salesforce.com's customer portal has priced itself out of the market in my book. Perhaps the only thing funnier was when I got pricing from Jive. With Jive, it seems like they dove into the madness pricing pool that Salesforce was swimming in and enjoyed it so much that they decided to jump back in.
Like CRM and many other enterprise software applications, many solutions claim to offer the same features, so realistically, it's best to work with your potential users to understand their requirements and then compare products with some hands-on time. That being said, I'm pretty impressed with my initial evaluation of Zendesk as a potential solution for my customer portal application.
Salesforce.com's closest offering is desk.com which provides similar (but appears to be more limited) functionality. However, desk.com caps your monthly customer page views. They also offer a flex agent seat, enabling you to allocate temporary agent status on a billable hour basis. And, while I like the potential flexibility that this offers, it's still difficult to shake the feeling that, rather than flexibility, this is a calculated move enabling them to keep one hand on my wallet.
So if you're looking for a customer portal solution, I still don't have a definitive suggestion for you. I can safely say that Salesforce.com's customer portal has priced itself out of the market in my book. Perhaps the only thing funnier was when I got pricing from Jive. With Jive, it seems like they dove into the madness pricing pool that Salesforce was swimming in and enjoyed it so much that they decided to jump back in.
Like CRM and many other enterprise software applications, many solutions claim to offer the same features, so realistically, it's best to work with your potential users to understand their requirements and then compare products with some hands-on time. That being said, I'm pretty impressed with my initial evaluation of Zendesk as a potential solution for my customer portal application.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Salesforce.com Customer Portal Pricing FAIL
Salesforce.com has a pricing problem. They do a great job of positioning the roadmap of their platform as social and engaged with the customer. They've got some great features for engaging with customers -- ideas, answers, knowledgebase, communities, sites and Chatter. But with all these cool features, and despite all of their talk about bridging this connection, they've built a giant wall between these features and you taking advantage of them -- pricing.
The inherent problem with most of these features is that, in order to make them available and meaningful for your customers, what you really need is Salesforce.com's Customer Portal product. Salesforce customer portal product has been around for a long time. It is as it sounds, a way for your customers to be able to log in to a Salesforce window and for you to share unique information with them.
Historically speaking, Salesforce's pricing model for this service is to treat those customers as users and those portal visitors as seat licenses. Perhaps their strategy was to protect the pricing on their full priced CRM seats from some aspect of license cheating using Portal, but the cost of a customer portal seat license was expensive. As their customer engagement offerings have expanded and features have started to eat into customer portal functionality, Salesforce has opened up a new method of pricing -- a shared pool of logins, kind of like a family plan. In this way, you essentially pay per login for your customers to access the special content that you want to share with them.
Ironically, their overall pricing model reminds me of the one that Oracle uses to calculate your annual service and support costs.
Here's the problem with this model. First, if your just dipping your toe into implementing a customer portal, there is a steep entry cost. You need to make some sort of guess as to how many customers will use your portal and pay for that. Imagine your traffic to low and you're pricing sucks. Imagine your traffic too high and you're saddled with a massive annual boat anchor. Customer portal -- it's an exciting way to engage with your customers, unless your customers include your own internal finance group.
Common sense tells you there must be a better way. Common sense tells you that, until you reach a certain threshold of visitors in your community (and that number should probably be a lot), you probably want to just pay for certain features. When you go to the salad bar, you don't want to pay for the salad you build leaf by leaf, you just want to have a salad. And if the salad bar was part of a bigger meal, you'd probably also expect to pay less the salad bar than for the other parts of your meal.
The Solution is Out There
There are paths to make the platform you envision work. After searching for a while, I've come across a number of different possible solutions. Depending upon your requirements, there probably is an alternative. Surprisingly, if your requirements are to spend even more money, there are solutions for that as well.
In this case though, my real take home message is my complete and utter disappointment in Salesforce.com. Ultimately, I feel like all of the stuff that they've been pitching on their community capability is kind of a bait and switch. I would love to be able to manage all of this functionality from a single, integrated platform, to manage my community from within Salesforce, but when doing that costs more than having my sales team work with customers, I call that a FAIL.
The inherent problem with most of these features is that, in order to make them available and meaningful for your customers, what you really need is Salesforce.com's Customer Portal product. Salesforce customer portal product has been around for a long time. It is as it sounds, a way for your customers to be able to log in to a Salesforce window and for you to share unique information with them.
Historically speaking, Salesforce's pricing model for this service is to treat those customers as users and those portal visitors as seat licenses. Perhaps their strategy was to protect the pricing on their full priced CRM seats from some aspect of license cheating using Portal, but the cost of a customer portal seat license was expensive. As their customer engagement offerings have expanded and features have started to eat into customer portal functionality, Salesforce has opened up a new method of pricing -- a shared pool of logins, kind of like a family plan. In this way, you essentially pay per login for your customers to access the special content that you want to share with them.
Ironically, their overall pricing model reminds me of the one that Oracle uses to calculate your annual service and support costs.
Here's the problem with this model. First, if your just dipping your toe into implementing a customer portal, there is a steep entry cost. You need to make some sort of guess as to how many customers will use your portal and pay for that. Imagine your traffic to low and you're pricing sucks. Imagine your traffic too high and you're saddled with a massive annual boat anchor. Customer portal -- it's an exciting way to engage with your customers, unless your customers include your own internal finance group.
Common sense tells you there must be a better way. Common sense tells you that, until you reach a certain threshold of visitors in your community (and that number should probably be a lot), you probably want to just pay for certain features. When you go to the salad bar, you don't want to pay for the salad you build leaf by leaf, you just want to have a salad. And if the salad bar was part of a bigger meal, you'd probably also expect to pay less the salad bar than for the other parts of your meal.
The Solution is Out There
There are paths to make the platform you envision work. After searching for a while, I've come across a number of different possible solutions. Depending upon your requirements, there probably is an alternative. Surprisingly, if your requirements are to spend even more money, there are solutions for that as well.
In this case though, my real take home message is my complete and utter disappointment in Salesforce.com. Ultimately, I feel like all of the stuff that they've been pitching on their community capability is kind of a bait and switch. I would love to be able to manage all of this functionality from a single, integrated platform, to manage my community from within Salesforce, but when doing that costs more than having my sales team work with customers, I call that a FAIL.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
We Have Met the Idiots in Marketing
So the other day I found myself returning to the Pragmatic Marketing site, downloading papers and reading some of their content. If you haven't been there, it's an interesting visit and there's a lot of worthwhile content worth exploring. Essentially they are selling training for product marketing and product management, but they have a lot of content that helps explain the often misunderstood role of product management. Let me start by saying that the site is definitely worth a visit.
But one theme that really stuck in my craw was this notion of marketing being all about promotion, that marketing is the department with the coffee cups and t-shirts. I know what you're thinking, but while I recognize that a percentage of the business world believes this, what really annoyed me is the implication that we marketers also believe this. Like we're sitting around saying, "give us your silly new product and we'll take care of giving it the make-over. We'll make it pretty." Really.
Not to say that there aren't idiots and incompetents among our ranks. Or those that only see things in terms of promotions and programs -- "a t-shirt for every milestone!" But don't go hanging this on the neck of everyone with a marketing title. If I hada dollar 38 dollars for every time that I've tried to get the engineering and product development people business focused on market needs, I would have pretty substantial chunk of money -- maybe not as much as Mark Zuckerberg, but enough to pay for a really nice wedding in my back yard this Saturday.
But it isn't just me who feels this pain -- product managers, a target audience of the Pragmatic Marketing site, feel this pain intimately. The downloads on the site are a siren song to their unfulfilled sense of order, calling to the underlying frustrations created by mediocre products and things that don't sell. And it's not their fault. Organizations often evolve cultural bureaucracies. Entrenched processes and the politics of people often prevent innovation -- or even streamlined process methodology -- from taking root.
Product and Marketing as Food
Like any great product, building an amazing dish isn't simply the result of one technique, one method, or one process. It's the synthesis of these in the right combination that brings everything together. Sourcing great ingredients is important, but without care, great ingredients can be overcooked or poorly seasoned. Every dish doesn't need to be finished in butter. Elegant plating may add to the appeal of a dish, but it won't rescue bad food. If the dining area isn't clean or is otherwise inhospitable, no one will enjoy the food. And your Mom may be the best cook in the world, but she's probably not getting $100 per person for dinner because there's no business around her, nobody invited guests.
Here's hoping that you work in an environment that has a holistic understanding of product and marketing, that can see the bigger picture and puts things in context. But whether you do your you don't, check out the Pragmatic Marketing site. There's some thoughtful content there -- regardless of whether the place you work will adapt to it.
But one theme that really stuck in my craw was this notion of marketing being all about promotion, that marketing is the department with the coffee cups and t-shirts. I know what you're thinking, but while I recognize that a percentage of the business world believes this, what really annoyed me is the implication that we marketers also believe this. Like we're sitting around saying, "give us your silly new product and we'll take care of giving it the make-over. We'll make it pretty." Really.
Not to say that there aren't idiots and incompetents among our ranks. Or those that only see things in terms of promotions and programs -- "a t-shirt for every milestone!" But don't go hanging this on the neck of everyone with a marketing title. If I had
But it isn't just me who feels this pain -- product managers, a target audience of the Pragmatic Marketing site, feel this pain intimately. The downloads on the site are a siren song to their unfulfilled sense of order, calling to the underlying frustrations created by mediocre products and things that don't sell. And it's not their fault. Organizations often evolve cultural bureaucracies. Entrenched processes and the politics of people often prevent innovation -- or even streamlined process methodology -- from taking root.
Product and Marketing as Food
Like any great product, building an amazing dish isn't simply the result of one technique, one method, or one process. It's the synthesis of these in the right combination that brings everything together. Sourcing great ingredients is important, but without care, great ingredients can be overcooked or poorly seasoned. Every dish doesn't need to be finished in butter. Elegant plating may add to the appeal of a dish, but it won't rescue bad food. If the dining area isn't clean or is otherwise inhospitable, no one will enjoy the food. And your Mom may be the best cook in the world, but she's probably not getting $100 per person for dinner because there's no business around her, nobody invited guests.
Here's hoping that you work in an environment that has a holistic understanding of product and marketing, that can see the bigger picture and puts things in context. But whether you do your you don't, check out the Pragmatic Marketing site. There's some thoughtful content there -- regardless of whether the place you work will adapt to it.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Some Interesting Marketing Reading
I came across this site while doing a search for examples that I could use to explain why multiple contact channels could be confusing to customers. It turns out that it's easy to find information that explains the importance of multiple contact channels when it's "for customer support, contact us through our toll free number or email or on our Facebook page or Twitter." Unfortunately, finding an explanation for why it's confusing to say "for customer support, contact Bob at this number, Fred at this number, or Carol at this number" turns out to be a difficult search.
Needless to say, in the process, I came across this site, Customer Innovations. There are some great examples of the psychology of customer experience here. Dive in and you'll probably spend a while reading!
Needless to say, in the process, I came across this site, Customer Innovations. There are some great examples of the psychology of customer experience here. Dive in and you'll probably spend a while reading!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Corporate War Stories from the Battle of Salesforce.com
Among my other activities, I've been actively involved in projects evaluating and administering Salesforce.com over the past four or five years. And while I would love to be able to characterize the whole thing as easy and fun, in reality, the experience has been quite a bit less than that.
I'm not talking about the software platform here -- Salesforce.com is, hands down, one of the most amazing software tools that I have worked with. Instead, the battle has been a culture war, shaped by a cast of players with a variety of agendas, concerns, and a tremendous amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt. I've spent a fair amount of time analyzing, reflecting, and explaining, so maybe some of this will be helpful for you.
Knock Knock
Part of the challenge comes from the way that Salesforce.com first gets through the door. In the old days, your average sales guy in smaller companies used ACT to manage their contacts. In that kind of environment, CRM and Contact Management are often interchangeable words, and from the IT side of the world, it could be considered a personal preference decision software dictated and configured by individual sales guys. It's these same sales guys, or their front-line marketing colleagues, that start the wave to bring Salesforce.com into the organization.
I'm not talking about the software platform here -- Salesforce.com is, hands down, one of the most amazing software tools that I have worked with. Instead, the battle has been a culture war, shaped by a cast of players with a variety of agendas, concerns, and a tremendous amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt. I've spent a fair amount of time analyzing, reflecting, and explaining, so maybe some of this will be helpful for you.
Knock Knock
Part of the challenge comes from the way that Salesforce.com first gets through the door. In the old days, your average sales guy in smaller companies used ACT to manage their contacts. In that kind of environment, CRM and Contact Management are often interchangeable words, and from the IT side of the world, it could be considered a personal preference decision software dictated and configured by individual sales guys. It's these same sales guys, or their front-line marketing colleagues, that start the wave to bring Salesforce.com into the organization.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Down the Web Hosting Rabbit Hole - Bluehost Terms of Service
I've been doing some research into web hosting providers for a couple of different projects. One of the projects involves looking at a simple shared hosting provider for small business and web development. A couple of quick searches on Google will produce a series of top ten web hosting provider sites, each with reviews and some categorizations for specialization (my expectation is that there is some sponsorship-based promotions driving a number of these). You can also find links on the Wordpress and Drupal sites pointing to preferred hosting providers.
I don't really want to run through the list of all of the providers that I looked at; rather, I want to point out what came up as a big surprise to me with one -- Bluehost. Over the course of my review and analysis, I was pretty impressed with the offering from Bluehost. They're listed on the Drupal site and they rank up well across a host of the different top ten sites. They offer a wide range of software easy-install scripts for everything from content management to business tools. But one of the biggest differentiators for me was that, unlike most shared server providers, they offer SSH shell access to your server root. All in all, their service looks impressive and their cost seems very reasonable.
Gotcha - the Bluehost Terms of Service Agreement
More often than not, you don't expect to find surprises in contract forms like user agreements and terms of service. For a web hosting provider, you probably expect things like no hosting illegal content, copyright-infringing material, or porn. You might also expect no spamming, malware, or other malicious activities. What surprised me in Bluehost's terms of service -- and you probably would not expect to find in a ToS -- was a prohibition on profanity. That's right, if your site contains profanity, they can shut down your service.
I was so surprised by this that I did a deeper Google search and found multiple complaints and concerns about Bluehost and profanity. One even included a transcript from an online chat with their customer support regarding the policy. To be fair, I haven't had an opportunity to contact Bluehost regarding their policy -- I was looking for an email address to request a comment, but I couldn't find one. Some of the complaints expressed concern or suspicion that the policy (or it's interpretation) might be shaped by Bluehost's location in Utah.
Ultimately, I don't really care to explore what drove this policy or the moral prism by which web site content might be interpreted. As someone who publishes a blog that's often targeted to business readers, I am very conscientious about the content that I publish and how it might be picked up or read in the workplace. And as a professional spokesperson for numerous businesses, I also understand the importance of keeping communications with certain frameworks. That being said, as a writer, I reserve the write to use whatever language I deem appropriate and I'm not about to have my web site hosting provider function as a censor.
And that's why what I would say to Bluehost is, in the words of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to Michael Arrington, "F*ck Off!" I will be taking my web hosting business elsewhere.
I don't really want to run through the list of all of the providers that I looked at; rather, I want to point out what came up as a big surprise to me with one -- Bluehost. Over the course of my review and analysis, I was pretty impressed with the offering from Bluehost. They're listed on the Drupal site and they rank up well across a host of the different top ten sites. They offer a wide range of software easy-install scripts for everything from content management to business tools. But one of the biggest differentiators for me was that, unlike most shared server providers, they offer SSH shell access to your server root. All in all, their service looks impressive and their cost seems very reasonable.
Gotcha - the Bluehost Terms of Service Agreement
More often than not, you don't expect to find surprises in contract forms like user agreements and terms of service. For a web hosting provider, you probably expect things like no hosting illegal content, copyright-infringing material, or porn. You might also expect no spamming, malware, or other malicious activities. What surprised me in Bluehost's terms of service -- and you probably would not expect to find in a ToS -- was a prohibition on profanity. That's right, if your site contains profanity, they can shut down your service.
I was so surprised by this that I did a deeper Google search and found multiple complaints and concerns about Bluehost and profanity. One even included a transcript from an online chat with their customer support regarding the policy. To be fair, I haven't had an opportunity to contact Bluehost regarding their policy -- I was looking for an email address to request a comment, but I couldn't find one. Some of the complaints expressed concern or suspicion that the policy (or it's interpretation) might be shaped by Bluehost's location in Utah.
Ultimately, I don't really care to explore what drove this policy or the moral prism by which web site content might be interpreted. As someone who publishes a blog that's often targeted to business readers, I am very conscientious about the content that I publish and how it might be picked up or read in the workplace. And as a professional spokesperson for numerous businesses, I also understand the importance of keeping communications with certain frameworks. That being said, as a writer, I reserve the write to use whatever language I deem appropriate and I'm not about to have my web site hosting provider function as a censor.
And that's why what I would say to Bluehost is, in the words of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to Michael Arrington, "F*ck Off!" I will be taking my web hosting business elsewhere.
Monday, July 6, 2009
A PR and New Media Test Case - Where do you get your news
Techcrunch had an interesting post about PR. Michael Arrington fired out an interesting post about this article by Clair Cain Miller in the New York Times (now behind the NY Times registration engine - I would have used it as source material for more direct quotes but I'm a bit too busy to go through the reg process, so you and they now get the "to the best of my recollection" version of quotes).
The article centers around the launch of a company named Wordnik, and it highlights some aspects of how their PR team operates. According to the article, the launch of the company (and a great deal of modern PR) was being done strictly using word of mouth communications across social networks. One section has an exchange between the PR pro and the client. The strategy goomer says, "we should let someone at fill-in-the-blank know something." And the PR goomer says, "I'm linked to Big Named Tech Goomer there on Facebook or Twitter. I'll send him a note."
While they try to spin it differently, there's an aspect of this type of PR that is pretty much the same as PR used to be -- some people with a big Rolodex of people talking to some other people who are characterized as notable, influential or may otherwise possess some large 'potential' audience. The real difference is simply in the names and the communication platforms.
No More Gatekeepers
In Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin frames the concept as the end of the gatekeepers -- when everyone can publish, you are no longer limited by the traditional gatekeepers, the publishing media that got to choose what they published. The Internet enables this technology, and it gets rolled up into RSS, blogs, and a host of methods for pushing your 'news' out into the stream. As an example, the article cites Redfin, and notes that they didn't do any media outreach -- they simply published news on their site.
From that basic premise, you have an interesting problem. One theme of Michael Arrington's post surrounds a section of the article where, in preparing for the launch, the Wordnik team0 decides to avoid the tech blogs. Here's the quote from the original article:
PR and Bloggers vs the Main Stream Media
A couple of weeks ago, On the Media had a clip on Michael Arrington and Techcrunch that was pretty amusing. OTM took aim at Arrington for posting stories that might originate from little more than rumors shared between VCs at a Silicon Valley lunch. The question was whether Arrington and Techcrunch handled these types of rumors (stories that could potentially be used to manipulate stocks) appropriately, along with how that decision was impacted by any financial connections, etc. You can make your own judgment about how impartial some of the mainstream publications are, but what I liked about Arrington's comment on OTM could be boiled down to loose quote, "When I hear it, I call one of my friends there at the company. If they say that it's true, or worth looking into, I publish. As news unfolds, we update."
Think about that for a moment -- millions of dollars in investment and stock, thousands of web site impressions, the success or failure of some emerging companies and technologies might potentially revolve around whether Michael Arrington has a good feeling about the news. Techcrunch and Michael Arrington have become gatekeepers. All because he started his blog. And people read it. And it didn't suck. And it had news that was interesting to some people. And so a bunch of the people who were at the old party, the one with the bland food and the boring entertainment, went to the new place with the spicy content and the happening atmosphere.
The Evolution of a Gatekeeper
The voices that people listen to are not always the voices are polite, on message, or even accurate. When I was in the PC components industry, one of the review sites that mattered was Tom's Hardware. While it was always great to see them review your product or compare it to others, they often got things wrong. Still, they had a strong audience following among PC power users.
As a reader and a content consumer, I benefit from the Gatekeeper function that Techcrunch provides. For me, the content and editorial brings me news and opinion that I might otherwise miss, and it's one of the few sites that I try to follow everyday. Admittedly, I've not tried to push some Yet Another Web Startup Company through the promotional gateway, but maybe that's the underlying question that's missing from the conversation between the article and the Techcrunch post. Is Wordnik a purple cow or another me-too solution to an unimportant problem? Ask my gatekeeper.
It's probably also worth noting that, if it weren't for Techcrunch, I wouldn't have had any exposure to the original article -- or if I did, it didn't rise above all the other noise to reach my attention.
The article centers around the launch of a company named Wordnik, and it highlights some aspects of how their PR team operates. According to the article, the launch of the company (and a great deal of modern PR) was being done strictly using word of mouth communications across social networks. One section has an exchange between the PR pro and the client. The strategy goomer says, "we should let someone at fill-in-the-blank know something." And the PR goomer says, "I'm linked to Big Named Tech Goomer there on Facebook or Twitter. I'll send him a note."
While they try to spin it differently, there's an aspect of this type of PR that is pretty much the same as PR used to be -- some people with a big Rolodex of people talking to some other people who are characterized as notable, influential or may otherwise possess some large 'potential' audience. The real difference is simply in the names and the communication platforms.
No More Gatekeepers
In Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin frames the concept as the end of the gatekeepers -- when everyone can publish, you are no longer limited by the traditional gatekeepers, the publishing media that got to choose what they published. The Internet enables this technology, and it gets rolled up into RSS, blogs, and a host of methods for pushing your 'news' out into the stream. As an example, the article cites Redfin, and notes that they didn't do any media outreach -- they simply published news on their site.
From that basic premise, you have an interesting problem. One theme of Michael Arrington's post surrounds a section of the article where, in preparing for the launch, the Wordnik team0 decides to avoid the tech blogs. Here's the quote from the original article:
Ms. Hammerling, while popping green apple Jolly Ranchers into her mouth, suggests a press tour that includes briefing bloggers at influential geek sites like TechCrunch, All Things Digital and GigaOM.To which, Arrington counters with this:
But Roger McNamee, a prominent tech investor who is backing Wordnik, is also in the room, and a look of exasperation passes across his face at the mere mention of the sites.
“Why shouldn’t we avoid them? They’re cynical,” he says, also noting his concern that Wordnik would probably appeal more to wordsmiths than followers of tech blogs. “That’s where I would be most uncomfortable. They don’t know the difference between ‘they’re’ and ‘there.’ ”
Without missing a beat, Ms. Hammerling changes course, instantly agreeing with Mr. McNamee’s take. “I love you for that,” she intones. “I’ll leave the tech blogs out. Let them come to me.”
Instead, she decides that she will “whisper in the ears” of Silicon Valley’s Who’s Who — the entrepreneurs behind tech’s hottest start-ups, including Jay Adelson, the chief executive of Digg; Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter; and Jason Calacanis, the founder of Mahalo.
The result? Not much. Wordnik is flatlining at an abysmal amount of traffic. Comscore and Quantcast don’t even register the site as a blip.So much for the great power of content, social networks and end of the gatekeepers, right? Techcrunch is a gatekeeper. Well, that's where all of this gets kind of funny.
Compare Wordnik to Topsy, another recently launch service. Topsy launched on TechCrunch exclusively. The domain now has 577,000 results on Google, compared to 56,000 for Wordnik. And the traffic difference is stunning:
PR and Bloggers vs the Main Stream Media
A couple of weeks ago, On the Media had a clip on Michael Arrington and Techcrunch that was pretty amusing. OTM took aim at Arrington for posting stories that might originate from little more than rumors shared between VCs at a Silicon Valley lunch. The question was whether Arrington and Techcrunch handled these types of rumors (stories that could potentially be used to manipulate stocks) appropriately, along with how that decision was impacted by any financial connections, etc. You can make your own judgment about how impartial some of the mainstream publications are, but what I liked about Arrington's comment on OTM could be boiled down to loose quote, "When I hear it, I call one of my friends there at the company. If they say that it's true, or worth looking into, I publish. As news unfolds, we update."
Think about that for a moment -- millions of dollars in investment and stock, thousands of web site impressions, the success or failure of some emerging companies and technologies might potentially revolve around whether Michael Arrington has a good feeling about the news. Techcrunch and Michael Arrington have become gatekeepers. All because he started his blog. And people read it. And it didn't suck. And it had news that was interesting to some people. And so a bunch of the people who were at the old party, the one with the bland food and the boring entertainment, went to the new place with the spicy content and the happening atmosphere.
The Evolution of a Gatekeeper
The voices that people listen to are not always the voices are polite, on message, or even accurate. When I was in the PC components industry, one of the review sites that mattered was Tom's Hardware. While it was always great to see them review your product or compare it to others, they often got things wrong. Still, they had a strong audience following among PC power users.
As a reader and a content consumer, I benefit from the Gatekeeper function that Techcrunch provides. For me, the content and editorial brings me news and opinion that I might otherwise miss, and it's one of the few sites that I try to follow everyday. Admittedly, I've not tried to push some Yet Another Web Startup Company through the promotional gateway, but maybe that's the underlying question that's missing from the conversation between the article and the Techcrunch post. Is Wordnik a purple cow or another me-too solution to an unimportant problem? Ask my gatekeeper.
It's probably also worth noting that, if it weren't for Techcrunch, I wouldn't have had any exposure to the original article -- or if I did, it didn't rise above all the other noise to reach my attention.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Search Engine Land
This is the source of the original Techcrunch post that I ran across on Twitter this morning. I haven't had time to dig into the site in great detail, but I building your library of SEO resources can be extremely helpful since the rules are somewhat dynamic.
Here's the Link -> Search Engine Land
Here's the Link -> Search Engine Land
Monday, June 22, 2009
Answers to 10 Questions About Google Analytics
While I was going through, finding items to follow on Twitter, I came across this link published by one of the Google entities.
Top Ten Myths About Google Analytics not only debunks some issues that Google probably hears from enterprise customers, it offers some helpful tips for configuring and using Analytics. If you don't know about Analytics, you're missing a very powerful tool for monitoring traffic on your site -- oh, and it's free!
Top Ten Myths About Google Analytics not only debunks some issues that Google probably hears from enterprise customers, it offers some helpful tips for configuring and using Analytics. If you don't know about Analytics, you're missing a very powerful tool for monitoring traffic on your site -- oh, and it's free!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Science, The Brain, and Influencing Behavior
Recently, a couple of items came up that seemed oddly harmonic with a blog post that I've been working on regarding marketing and influencing behavior. Here are a couple of links and a couple of comments.
1. Jonah Lehrer was on Fresh Air the other day promoting his book about the science of the brain and the decision process. He's one of the guys behind the RadioLabs broadcast that I linked to. His blog is The Frontal Cortex and it's worth checking out.
2. Once again, I can't say enough good things about John Moore's blog, BrandAutopsy. I went ahead and added him to my new Twitter account, and that reminded me to go check his blog again where I found this great post on Nudges.
3. John's post lead me to the Nudges Blog. It's put together by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, and it's an excellent read. There's tons of great stuff about influencing decisions and behavior. They've also added a couple of new terms to my vocabulary -- Choice Architecture and Decision Architect. Check it out -- they may influence the way you look at what you do.
1. Jonah Lehrer was on Fresh Air the other day promoting his book about the science of the brain and the decision process. He's one of the guys behind the RadioLabs broadcast that I linked to. His blog is The Frontal Cortex and it's worth checking out.
2. Once again, I can't say enough good things about John Moore's blog, BrandAutopsy. I went ahead and added him to my new Twitter account, and that reminded me to go check his blog again where I found this great post on Nudges.
3. John's post lead me to the Nudges Blog. It's put together by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, and it's an excellent read. There's tons of great stuff about influencing decisions and behavior. They've also added a couple of new terms to my vocabulary -- Choice Architecture and Decision Architect. Check it out -- they may influence the way you look at what you do.
Friday, December 12, 2008
A Brief History of the Current Financial Crisis
Recently, so many topic threads running through my thoughts and conversations seem to lead back to the current financial crisis. While I'm not an economic expert and this doesn't directly fall under the umbrella of marketing, I wanted to share a few links to some of the things that I've been reading, looking at, and listening to in recent weeks. While you may find a couple of these articles or posts that have some political-spin roots associated with them, my purpose in including the link isn't so much a political one as a looking at good simplified explanations of some of the issues.
The first couple of links come from the NPR radio program This American Life. If you haven't heard this one before, you are in for a treat. Each week they pick a theme and explore it through a number of interesting interviews, stories, audio essays, and radio diaries. Earlier this year, they put together a show that attempted to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis -- but in a typical' This American Life' approach, take you inside the industry to meet and understand the people, understand what their jobs were, and to try and understand who, if anyone, was knowingly responsible for the crisis. If you want a simple, easy-to-understand explanation of the sub-prime crisis -- with interviews from people ranging from those that worked directly with home-buyers to those on Wall street, this program is a must-listen. Here's the link to the page where you can listen to it or download the podcast:
Another interesting article comes from the Conde Naste magazine Portfolio. This article was written by the Michael Lewis, author of the book Liar's Poker
, a book about his experiences working on Wall Street back in the 1980s. The Portfolio article, The End of Wall Street's Boom, tracks through some background on the sub-prime, credit default swaps, and C.D.O.s or Collateralized Debt Obligations. This one is packed with food for thought.
Finally, moving into the political end of the spectrum, I'd point you to two posts from The Daily Kos, both from the author Devilstower.
The first couple of links come from the NPR radio program This American Life. If you haven't heard this one before, you are in for a treat. Each week they pick a theme and explore it through a number of interesting interviews, stories, audio essays, and radio diaries. Earlier this year, they put together a show that attempted to explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis -- but in a typical' This American Life' approach, take you inside the industry to meet and understand the people, understand what their jobs were, and to try and understand who, if anyone, was knowingly responsible for the crisis. If you want a simple, easy-to-understand explanation of the sub-prime crisis -- with interviews from people ranging from those that worked directly with home-buyers to those on Wall street, this program is a must-listen. Here's the link to the page where you can listen to it or download the podcast:
355: The Giant Pool of MoneyThe next episode in the financial crisis story from This American Life was put together around the time of the Wall Street bailout. Same guys, this time providing an update and an explanation of a lot of financial terms that you'll hear in the discussions about all of this. Another excellent show:
365: Another Frightening Show About the EconomyThey also have a blog that tracks the ongoing, day-to-day issues associated with the financial crisis, http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/. Also worth a look.
Another interesting article comes from the Conde Naste magazine Portfolio. This article was written by the Michael Lewis, author of the book Liar's Poker
, a book about his experiences working on Wall Street back in the 1980s. The Portfolio article, The End of Wall Street's Boom, tracks through some background on the sub-prime, credit default swaps, and C.D.O.s or Collateralized Debt Obligations. This one is packed with food for thought.Finally, moving into the political end of the spectrum, I'd point you to two posts from The Daily Kos, both from the author Devilstower.
Three Times is Enemy Action from Sep 21, 2008I know that there's a lot to read and to listen to here, but I've found all these worth forwarding. They also touch on some other aspects of our role in business that I hope to pick up in a future post.
This post provides a backgrounder on deregulation of the financial industry going back to the S&L Crisis of the 1980s, the Keating Five, etc.
Down the Republican Rabbit Hole from Nov 16, 2008
This is a fun piece targeting some attempts to point blame for the financial crisis on Democrats and to the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act. Like many of the other pieces that I've referenced, this one does a nice job of distilling the architecture of these financial instruments of destruction into a super-simple, plain English explanation that almost works like an elevator pitch.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Understanding Choice - What Controls the Decision-making Process
This last week, KQED featured an excellent radio program on factors that shape the decision-making process. This one hour feature was a Radiolab feature episode put together by WNYC Radio in New York City. If you haven't heard any of these Radiolab episodes, I urge you to look through their archives -- there are so many great ones. Basically, the shows usually do a deep dive into some complex concept, then with a combination of sound effects and excellent story-telling, explain ideas that live at the edge of science, ethics, and modern life.
This choice episode that I'm referencing here breaks down notions of whether choice is rational or emotional, some factors that may affect your decisions, and how there are some ways that your decisions can be influenced and manipulated. It's excellent food for the marketing mind.
I can't find a way to embed the audio stream, but here's a link to the Choice episode page. You can listen to the program or download the episode there. Enjoy!
This choice episode that I'm referencing here breaks down notions of whether choice is rational or emotional, some factors that may affect your decisions, and how there are some ways that your decisions can be influenced and manipulated. It's excellent food for the marketing mind.
I can't find a way to embed the audio stream, but here's a link to the Choice episode page. You can listen to the program or download the episode there. Enjoy!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Resources - More Blogs You Should Check Out
In wandering through the collection of meaningful and linked content, I've come across a couple of blogs that I wanted to point you to.
Enterprise Web 2.0 appears to be a roll-up of news and interviews relating to... well, the subject line pretty much says it all. In my first visit here, I already found four or five posts worth reading, so I would definitely say, check it out. As for me, I'm interested in seeing more case-studies and analysis on how enterprise organizations are dealing with the new media marketing challenges presented in Meatball Sundae, and this looks like a great resource.
Dim Bulb by Jonathan Salem Baskin is a collection of branding, product and marketing analysis. I got here through a John Moore post. There are some interesting posts on the Dim Bulb -- and I found it amusing that Jonathan had written an airline post around the same time as mine (for the record, I like his strategic suggestions and his post better than mine -- you should check it out). His blogroll also lead me to the Enterprise Web 2.0 blog, so I'd include a second hat-tip to him.
Enterprise Web 2.0 appears to be a roll-up of news and interviews relating to... well, the subject line pretty much says it all. In my first visit here, I already found four or five posts worth reading, so I would definitely say, check it out. As for me, I'm interested in seeing more case-studies and analysis on how enterprise organizations are dealing with the new media marketing challenges presented in Meatball Sundae, and this looks like a great resource.
Dim Bulb by Jonathan Salem Baskin is a collection of branding, product and marketing analysis. I got here through a John Moore post. There are some interesting posts on the Dim Bulb -- and I found it amusing that Jonathan had written an airline post around the same time as mine (for the record, I like his strategic suggestions and his post better than mine -- you should check it out). His blogroll also lead me to the Enterprise Web 2.0 blog, so I'd include a second hat-tip to him.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Brand Autopsy - Cool insights into marketing issues
If you're involved in marketing -- or you're just looking for amusing business-related stuff to read on the web -- you should check out John Moore's blog, Brand Autopsy.
I came across his blog about a year ago while I was wandering through some thoughts on branding, and I haven't stopped reading it since. If you haven't seen it, John used to do marketing for Starbucks and Whole Foods markets, and he's always posting cool insights on marketing topics.
When I crawling through a host of blogs on brand and marketing, all too often I found many that were simply shells for selling marketing consulting and services. Even if it helps support is speaking business, this isn't yet another one of those "I created this blog to promote my services" blogs. Whether it's snapshots and analysis from marketing books, brand analysis, or explorations into what it means to make unique connections with customers, his blog really is TRULY worth a read.
I came across his blog about a year ago while I was wandering through some thoughts on branding, and I haven't stopped reading it since. If you haven't seen it, John used to do marketing for Starbucks and Whole Foods markets, and he's always posting cool insights on marketing topics.
When I crawling through a host of blogs on brand and marketing, all too often I found many that were simply shells for selling marketing consulting and services. Even if it helps support is speaking business, this isn't yet another one of those "I created this blog to promote my services" blogs. Whether it's snapshots and analysis from marketing books, brand analysis, or explorations into what it means to make unique connections with customers, his blog really is TRULY worth a read.
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