In The Future, Everyone Will Have An iPhone App



While watching football this afternoon I read that noted PR and social marketing pro Brian Solis had his own iPhone app. After initially thinking how ridiculous this was I fired up the App Store on my iPod Touch and downloaded the app. After all, the price is right (free).

And what I found surprised me. Not only was the app well designed but the RSS aggregation was as good or better than the best for-pay RSS aggregators for the iPhone (I use Byline but there are several others out there). Of course all you get is Brian’s stuff but this idea is the next logical extension of making your website mobile and your content more sticky. Built with Mobile Roadie, one of the growing online app builders for the iPhone tuned for musicians, the result is a very professional extension of Brian’s considerable personal brand.

So I think that in the future everyone will have their own iPhone app. Or at least they could if they wanted to build one.

Update, 12/14/09: Via Jeremiah Owyang is another batch of personal brand iphone apps from Guy Kawasaki, Tim Ferris and Jeremiah himself. Built with MotherApp, these look very similar to Brian’s app. I expect to see all A and B-list bloggers to have their own apps before the end of January.

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Great Windows 7 Demo Spots

This is just great marketing, showing off key features of your new OS in 7 second chunks (get it?). My favorite so far is:


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Engagement is not a fad

It’s hard to believe there are less than 80 days left in 2009 but this time of year spawns Top 10 lists of all sorts. I ran across this one of the Top 10 Brand and Marketing Trends of 2010. Value, increased customer expectations and interconnected consumer communities are the first 9 trends but the author has saved the best for last:

Engagement is not a fad; It’s the way today’s consumers do business

I’m not sure how many marketers really get how fundamental this shift is, particularly with packaged goods. True authenticity, or the clever manipulation thereof (think Betty Crocker), will be difficult for “manufactured brands.” In the wine world I spend much of my time in these days, that means those cute, critter labels are in for some tough sledding while wines made by real people that can deliver true value will thrive (Chile, Spain and Italy should do very well). Or those that are industrial will need to develop a strategy to humanize their brands (think Stormhoek).

Check out the entire post here.

Drawing by Hugh Macleod of gapingvoid.com

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Best Buy In 3-D Is Not What You Would Expect



One of the most impressive things about what Best Buy is doing online these days is they are experimenting with a number of emerging technologies. They have an interesting Twitter strategy and their open API initiative called Remix is very innovative. But the experiment that really has me fascinated is their augmented reality play, Best Buy in 3-D.

It seems like 3-D is the next online gimmick but most of what I’ve seen so far are Google Maps mashups. Best Buy in 3-D uses your webcam, now built into most laptops, to make their Sunday supplements more interactive. Hit their site, authorize it to use your webcam and then hold up the ad. Since we no longer take the Sunday paper I have not tested this yet but will do so this Sunday.

Nice innovation, BBY.

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Trade Shows Are Toast



[caption id=”” align=”alignright” width=”202” caption=”Image via Wikipedia”]Steve Jobs at Macworld[/caption]


And it took Steve Jobs to give it a proper send-off:
Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple announces final MacWorld, Steve Jobs won’t deliver keynote - Engadget

Apple gets conversational marketing and is abandoning traditional outreach in favor of high-touch venues like their retail stores. I also expect to see them cut back on print advertising this year and focus on their important constituencies: mainstream consumers, media professionals and developers with online and broadcast channels.

I’m going to miss the Stevenote at MacWorld, but we’ll still be hearing from him in other venues next year, I expect.
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There Are No Marketing Secrets



[caption id=”” align=”alignright” width=”202” caption=”Image via Wikipedia”]The Wall Street Journal[/caption]


I’ve been a long-time reader of the Wall Street Journal but haven’t subscribed to the print edition for some years now. My work gives me access to the online edition but I rarely spend much time consuming the content online; there’s something about leafing through the paper that is lost in it’s electronic format. So I took advantage of an offer to trade some expiring frequent flyer miles to restart getting the version on paper. The first edition arrived yesterday.

Immediately I thought the timing was fortuitous as there was a feature on “marketing in a web 2.0 world”. The piece is a nice overview of conversational marketing and I recommend reading it if you are not quite up-to-speed yet (linked below). But the premise of being “secrets” doesn’t really fly with me since the collective wisdom is fully open source at places like Chris Brogan’s blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah, Jaffe Juice and countless others. Or you can hang out on Twitter or Friendfeed if you want the real-time version. I also believe that what we are doing in social media now will become integrated into the practice of public relations and marketing over the next few months as the ressession continues to shift money from broadcast media to online search and ultimately the social web.

But there was an interesting quote in this WSJ piece that I found particularly interesting:
So who should direct a company’s forays into Web 2.0 marketing? A number of managers identified an ideal set of skills for an executive that go beyond those of a typical M.B.A. holder or tech expert. We coined the term marketing technopologist for a person who brings together strengths in marketing, technology and social interaction.

The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World - WSJ.com

I like the term “marketing technopologist” and will use it in my social profiles. I think it encapsulates what I’m trying to do for my clients and my own personal brand. It’s also ironic that I would have probably not read this story if I didn’t get the Journal in print. So I guess I was wrong… print still lives.

And to borrow a phrase from Adam Curry, “There Are No Secrets, Only Information You Don’t Yet Have.” And you better get informed with social media if you are a marketing or PR professional. Just sayin’
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