PIXEL MAVERICK

If you follow my blog you know that I am a huge believer in the power of customer reviews as part of the sales funnel/ decision-making-process.  When it comes to experience purchases like a hotel or a restaurant, a customer review is the most influential information available in my opinion.

“Housekeeping!! …You want me come fruff pirrow?

So, it should come as no surprise that I relied heavily on customer reviews during a recent hotel search for an upcoming Disneyworld trip with the family.

Comfortable bed – CHECK. Hourly shuttles to Disneyworld – CHECK.  Nickelodeon themed rooms were a big hit with the kiddos – CHECK.  Impeccable housekeeping other than the terd – CHE…wait, what the??

I think it is safe to say, we will not be staying at this hotel.

I got a strange email the other day from Boingo Wireless telling me that my monthly service had been cancelled.  It was strange since I do not have monthly service with Boingo and only use their wifi in various airports as needed.

I was a little concerned by the email at first, but after noticing that I had recieved 2 – 3 of these emails from them I chalked it up to just an email database goof by a sloppy provider.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this apology email in my inbox today.

Getting an apology so quickly after the screw-up was nice to see, but really caught my attention was the honesty and the “regular Joe” style copy that they used right from the start.

“Let me start this off with a big fat apology.  We’re deeply sorry (and more than a little embarrassed)…”

I applaud Boingo for taking ownership of the screw-up and just sending out a heartfelt “whoops, sorry” message instead of a standard form letter release from the legal department.

Bottom line, I still do not need your service more than “Pay-As-You-Go” in various airports around the country.  But, you impressed me so I will keep using you for that + I have had a positive experience with your brand now and would recommend it to someone who does need it for PAYG or Monthly.

(Update to original post)

Just when I thought my praise for how Boingo handled the situation was through — I open up TweetDeck tonight and find this.

Well done.  Other companies should take notes.

I recently wrote the following piece for Ploked as a guest writer.  You can find the original post on Ploked here & if you enjoy reading about social media topics, you should check Ploked out and follow it regularly.

The implications of that question might be a little bold today, but not by much.

Think about your normal everyday habits online for a few minutes.

In case you haven’t noticed, your online behavior has changed drastically in just the last couple of years.  How much of your news and information online do you have to GO TO to consume, and how much of your news and information COMES TO YOU?

Yes, ...you ARE very lazy.

Now think about Facebook’s role in facilitating that “bring it to me” behavior.  How much of all that content being served up to you has Facebook’s fingerprints all over it (…on Facebook.com, on your mobile device, via an aggregation tool like TweetDeck)?

Now that we have established your semi-sad dependence on Mark Zuckerberg, what are some of the things supporting the argument that Facebook is becoming the new Internet?

What does Facebook dominate?

1) Scale

Unless you live in a cave, you are probably aware that Facebook is freaking enormous.

• More than 400 Million active users
• More than 50% active users log in every day
• The average user spends almost one hour per day on FB
• The average user has 130 friends
• More than 3 Million Pages (company, brand, etc.)
• 70% of active users are from outside the United States
• More than 100 Million active users access FB via mobile devices

2) Platform

Facebook can definitely play the role of destination site if you like it that way, but its real power is as a platform.

• More than 500,000 active applications
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect
• More than 70 languages are supported and over 300,000 users help translate
• More than 60 Million users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites per month

3) Relevance

Facebook offers a degree of relevancy to YOUR content that is hard to match. Ask yourself this question – what is more important to you?

Information that is streamed to you without a filter other than keywords?

OR

Information that is streamed to you that you know is already pre-filtered by what you have chosen to receive along with  information that is shared from within your personal network?

This is about your personal preferences and trust.  Hands down the pre-filtered content will win your loyalty over the long term every time.  Facebook, 1 – Rest of the Internet, 0.

4) Laziness

We already established that you are a lazy person, but hey, perk up there webslack because apparently everyone else is, too. Go look at the stats above to feel better about yourself.

What does Facebook NOT dominate?

To be more specific, what activities or needs do you still have to rely on other providers/platforms for?  What points support the flipside of this argument that Facebook is not becoming the Internet?

1) Commerce Transactions

Facebook has become an undisputed major force throughout the sales funnel (awareness, research, etc.) due to the same preference and trust attributes mentioned above, but it is not the preferred platform for completing the actual transaction.  There are commerce transactions that occur on Facebook, but for the most part, all significant eCommerce transactions occur outside of the grasp of Facebook.  Rest of the Internet, 1 – Facebook 0 …for now.

2) Search

Real time search is great, but Twitter has Facebook’s number on that for now.  At the end of the day, both Facebook and Twitter are no match for Google.  When it comes to looking for a information about a particular topic in the vast sea of content available, there is no better solution than Google.

3) Sex

As open and free as Facebook is (…haters, insert the focus of your rage here), it does still control the content that is made available for consumption via its channels.  Facebook reserves the right to not allow content it deems questionable to be published on the site.  So, for now, you will still have to drag your lazy virtual self outside of the Facebook bubble and over to AssThumpers.com or ImaNeoNaziIdiot.com to get your freak or severe stupidity on.

Agree or Disagree?

I definitely do not consider myself a supreme expert on this subject, nor do I think that the points made are completely air-tight.  There are big holes in the details, but I feel that the general direction of the argument is sound.

If you disagree with me, call me out on my errors and explain where I went wrong.  If you agree with me, say so and drop your knowledge into the holes I left.

I came across a site called Linkbait Generator that is supposed to help bloggers come up with titles that will generate more traffic.  The concept is pretty simple — you enter your desired topic and hit submit and the site generates a suggested Linkbait Title.

Sounds genius, so I thought I would test it out using some topics that are trending positive recently.

Topic Attempt #1 — “Real Time Search”

Attempt #1 — The Results

…Huh?  OK, well I know that using numbered list approaches is usually a good way to generate traffic.  Is that all that Linkbait does though — take your topic and then drop a numbered list approach in front of it?  Surely not cuz that would be really lame to so overly simplify how to build a powerful title, …Right?

I figured I should not let one (1) attempt define this so I would test this out with two of the most LINKBAITY words out there since the beginning of the Interwebs …”FREE” and “SEX”.

Attempt #2 — “FREE SEX”

Attempt #2 — The Results

OK, at this point I am definitely seeing a SUCK trend here.

To be sure, I performed the final proof-of-stupidity test to confirm that this is officially lame.

Final Attempt — “10 Ways Linkbait Sucks”

Final Attempt — The Results

Official lame SUCKness confirmed.

At least they are equally lame for all topics.

I don’t debate that a good title will help build traffic for a blog post, but at the end of the day the value is in the content itself.  Write good stuff consistently and an loyal audience will follow.

If a company is worth Billion(s) it should not have technical issues so frequently.

Oh wait, nevermind …

Absolutely the funniest parody video I have seen in awhile.

There are a couple things that make this even funnier …

1. That even though this is a joke, nearly everything he says is 100% true
2. The more this video goes viral, the more money Google makes

So, the joke is on you suckers …index that …Google teleport now.

At the very end of 2008 an opportunity knocked on my door & I took it.  I made a very tough decision to leave IMC2 to pick up my family and move them halfway across the country (literally) to join The Martin Agency.  Although my family is ravenously homesick for quality Mexican food and we still have our subscription to D Magazine, …I think I made a wise decision.

The Martin Agency — Agency of The Year 2009

Now, can someone tell me why the hell East Coast people have not learned about real queso?

Considering that most movies about popular 80′s TV shows do more damage to the legacy than good …the upcoming A-Team movie seems destined to ruin a show that the 10-year old me considered a masterpiece combination of brilliant writing and well timed ‘SPLOSIONS!

The A-Team legacy is BA Baracus’ (aka Mr. T) source of money, and nobody messes with BA’s money and lives to tell about it.  The director of the movie better hope that BA can parlay the movie hype into some dollar bills or he is in for an ass kickin sucka.

Who knows though, it has Liam Neeson (credibility) Jessica Biel (extreme hottness) and that dude from The Hangover (humor) so maybe this one has a chance.

Thanks to BrandFlakesForBreakfast I found a cool new online service called Flavors.me that allows you to aggregate your social feeds (Twitter, Facebook …).

You are probably thinking …”So what!?“  There are a hundred social media aggregators out there (TweetDeck, Brizzly, etc).

True, but this one takes it a little bit in reverse and is akin to your social buzz business card.  It pulls in all your various outbound feeds and aggregates them onto a simple splash page that you can personalize with an image background.

The site is still in beta, so there are a few issues with it currently.  The Facebook feed seems a little buggy, and it is missing several social partners (LinkedIn…) that I would have expected to see in the setup options.  The admin for your personalized page is very simple/ intuitive, so the overall setup took me maybe 10 minutes.

Great potential with Flavors.me so go check it out and apply for an invite to participate in their beta.

In the spirit of New Years Resolutions, goal setting, and all of the self-improvement statements filling up pages and blog posts this week …here are my goals for 2010 (apparently pronounced “Twenty-Ten”).

As a disclaimer, these are mostly personal improvement goals …and not the “increase client X profitability by 10%” professional type goals.  That being said, many of my personal goals will have a direct influence on my professional goals so win win I guess (Side Note — Avoid using the term “win win” in 2010 since it is extremely lame and makes me sound like a douchey account guy).

1. Procrastinate Less (…off to a bad start since I did not write this post until Jan 3).

2.Avoid credit cards like the plague & eliminate my existing bad debt.

3. Complete at least two internal projects (organizational improvement, research study, etc) in addition to client work at The Martin Agency.

4. Complete at least one DYI project at home (one seems like a low goal — but then again I am a terrible handyman).

5. Blog more.  At least three posts per week.

6. Go to church.

"Hmmmm? Haven't seen you here since your son's baptism sinner."

7. Reduce Starbucks addiction from 7+ per week to 3.

8. Teach my son how to ride a bike w/out training wheels.

9. Train for and run in at least one 10k.

10. Make my wife be selfish for a change.  A girls trip, photography class, a spa day …anything as long as it is something just for her.

11. Attend at least one advertising, digital, or social media conference.

12. Purchase a few quality sports coats — I will embrace my entry into middle-ageness (35) with class …but still young enough to rock those coats out with jeans.

13. Take my family on a trip to NYC via train.

14. Purchase a quality pair of rain/snow boots.  We are not in Dallas anymore.

15. Join at least one extracurricular group or activity for work — social media club, VCU Brandcenter, something.

So that is it.  I will check back to this post in 6 months to see how well I am sticking to my goals.