Allison Kraus And Demographic Fate

Sitting in Chicago Starbucks, #437, sipping green tea, and cranking out work via laptop. 

 

To muffle the barrista rattle and speaker songs blaring overhead required firing up iTunes and headphones.  

 

The first random shuffle selection: Allison Kraus & Gillian Welch singing "I'll Fly Away."

 

No more than 15 minutes later, "I'll Fly Away" jumps onto the in-house speakers.  What are the odds?

 

One could view that as a cool twist of fate and unseen forces in play.

 

But thought of another way, couldn't technology be leveraged to hit that 'fate card' more readily, a la 'Minority Report'

• Imagine a bar's juke box that suggested songs based on reading your iPod's song collection
• Consider a car satellite radio system that read your tastes via your phone's Bluetooth function and threw in songs or programs that matched past selections

 

Where else could we read preferences, needs, experiences and offer them up so consumers didn't have to browse or even ask?

 

Sure, there's a big brother worry.  But if one could be entertained, or get customized suggestions without having to work at it -- and with the ability to turn it off -- that would be welcome.

 

POST SCRIPT:

 

Fate?  No.   The demographic overlap between Starbucks and a middle-aged song collection?  Yes.

Reality. Parody. Virtual Reality

REALITY: Back in 1976, Blue Öyster Cult recorded "(Don't Fear) The Reaper."

According to former bassist Joe Bouchard, the 'cowbell part' was overdubbed by his brother Albert after the song had been recorded.

PARODY: In 2005, a skit on Saturday Night Live had guest Chistopher Walken pushing for "More cowbell" from Will Ferrell. No link due to copyright issues. We'll let you Google that classic.

VIRTUAL REALITY: Finally in 2009, you can upload any MP3 song, and add your own cowbell courtesy of www.morecowbell.dj

What a wonderful world, wide web.

Twitter: Death by Spam?

If you've spent five minutes on Twitter and follow a crew, you get flooded by a torrent of info, mostly irrelevant, often useless.

Twitter vets filter the noise and recognize the signals.   

With that overload in mind, we were intrigued by Guy Kawasaki's posting about Twitterhawk, a direct marketing tool for Twitter.   

Twitterhawk searches Twitter for your "key words" and allows you to set automatic or manual responses to these messages for $0.05 a pop.  Clearly, this is a company trying to create real value without biting the hand that feeds it.

But what happens when a spammer or group without scruples enters the market?    Twitterhawk could become Twitterhock.  And that would ruin everyone's tweet.

The link to Kawasaki's article:

  http://blogs.openforum.com/2009/05/27/twitterhawk-no-guts-no-story/

The Next Game Changer

In the beginning, there was light.

Then iPhone.  (Not to mention its 20,000 apps in year one.)

Now there's Amazon's Kindle.

Intro'd at the end of '07, this digital book reader can be perused like paper with batteries lasting almost 2 weeks.  

More importantly, Kindle:

• will reach over $400 million in revenues in 2009

• accounted for 4 million of the 38 millions books sold in North America in Q1 '09 -- over 10%, dutiful reader

But similar to iPhone, what sets Kindle apart from mere gadgetry is its breadth and depth of offerings:  almost every word that has ever been published is available immediately (give or take 30 seconds.)  NY Times, and everything on its bestseller list. Out of print pubs.  Textbooks.  Mags.  Dailies.  Blog-o-sphere stuff.

Some fear that Kindle is the "book-killer," but we see it as publishing's saving grace.  Kindle has already changed the way we look at publishing, book promotions and, quite literally, 'books.' 

See the facts for yourselves -- on your Kindle if you have one: 

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007099

The Golden Rule of Social Media

Everyone's leveraging social media these days. Posting to blogs. Updating status. Twittering.

That said, it's important to keep one very simple, and seemingly obvious, rule in mind:

Only say online what you would say in public.

Since many sites are based on friend networks, it gives users the false impression that what they do or say online is semi-private. Yeah, right.

These days, we're separated at most by six degrees, and more often by 3. So keep your bizarro posts to bathroom walls (not that we condone graffiti.)

To illustrate our point, we embedded this video from those College humor nuts (yes, it's safe for work -- we're posting online, remember?)

Watch Real Life Twitter on CollegeHumor

Pfizer Pfreebie

We LOVE Pfizer's new move making their powerhouse drugs (including Lipitor) FREE to people who have recently lost their jobs.

While the impact to their bottom line will be knocked a bit, it will pale in comparison to the PR effect, and the goodwill. Smart move.

Time for us all to start looking at 'marketing' as a way to give everyone unexpected benefits.

As simple as O-Cedar's cause related marketing program donating money to Breast Cancer Network of Strength. Or Samsung putting free power outlet stations in JFK airport. Or the really clever company that paid to fill potholes in exchange for labeling each one with their logo.

What more could be done?

Who's gonna donate wireless beyond coffee shops?

Which liquor company might underwrite cab companies for a night?

And which one of those environmentally challenged dry-cleaning companies will be the first to plant a tree for every order -- clean clothes, green globe?

Now that marketing is seen more and more broadly, let's look at some really worthwhile applications. Yes, beyond iPhone applications.

Happy Belated Cinco De Mayo

Hit the Cubs game with friends yesterday.

Was wondering what the first 10,000 fans would get for Cinco day. Swine Flu?