As any other human being interested in the fate of his kind, I watched the news regarding the celebration of 40 years since the Moon landing. But I couldn’t fail noticing that it really seems to be a PR campaign rather than a celebration. And I’ll try to ... Read more
So many agencies and much more clients! Look at the companies and see the trend: getting new media managers, having teams for online marketing, etc. But what happens if you’re an agency and they come to you and tell you what they want done? You know what they ... Read more
Moonfruit is a London based company that developed a free website builder, which is used by a couple million users. These days, Moonfruit marks 10 years on the market, so the guys thought they should advertise this and run a 10 days campaign. How? Using Twitter. What was ... Read more
In terms of traffic, Twitter went up almost 2,700% in one year, from May 2008 to May 2009. That can only mean everyone is getting a Twitter account. And when I say everyone, I mean especially customers for companies that believe in using social media as a medium ... Read more
Sometimes, I think people either dream with their eyes wide open, or they’re just stupid. A Swedish firm, Global Gaming Factory, acquired The Pirate Bay for 4,6 million euros (about $6,4 million) “in a bid to legitimize the illegal file sharing service”. What does that mean? Because I ... Read more
What we know by now: newspapers are losing audience, sales are going down, internet is growing, it’s a financial crisis, so advertising revenues are falling just as well for the print industry, advertisers go for special projects and online campaigns. Everyone is focusing on efficiency. What is going to happen? Where does the future of media stands? Where are the opportunities in growing your audience? One idea: now it’s the right time to focus on consumer oriented subjects. ... Read more
Martin Sorrell is the CEO of the WPP Group. Someone thought it would be really funny to mock the big chief at WPP. How? By creating him a Twitter account and respond to people, one one hand in a really funny arrogant way. If you want to have some fun, you should follow the guy. ... Read more
When it comes to journalism, we all know that every reporter working for a newspaper has to follow a set of rules in order to publish an article. You might heard of the “inverted pyramid” model, as well as you may know about some of the basic rules of journalism. ... Read more
I have this problem with talk-shows: they always resume to pointing a finger and saying “That’s really, really, really wrong, I mean it, it’s so stupid”. And that’s it. Maybe I’m not watching enough international talk-shows, but the ones I see and there are politicians invited, they alwayshave to be limited at sticking a finger in your eyes. No one comes with solutions, for example. ... Read more
Twitter’s slogan is “What are you doing?”. Lately, I understood what some people do in general and what they do on Twitter in particular: repost the same tweets, ignore everybody, pose as gurus though they’re not and other similar crap they probably enjoy. Twitter is a great marketing tool, but not used in excess. I think it’s time to compile a short list of what you shouldn’t use Twitter for. ... Read more
Washington Post publishes an article from The Associated Press regarding a start-up in San Francisco. AP reports that Steve Brill, formerly known as the founder of Court TV and American Lawyer, is going for a “news business”. What does that mean? His news start-up, Journalism Online, is supposed to get news from all kind of sources and give them to the internet users throughout subscriptions. Users will supposedly pay $300 a year for reading news from publications all over the world. Why do I think it’s going to fail, read below. ... Read more
As you might have heard, Nikki Finke’s blog was sold to Mail.com Media Corporation for no less than 10 million dollars. That’s actually huge for such an ugly blog. I might say, that’s one of the ugliest websites I have ever seen in my 25 years lifetime. Still, DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com is ranked 455 by Technorati.com, which means it’s in Top 500. It probably worth the money ... Read more
I think it was 1994. We had a lame one cassette tape stereo player with radio and some recording options. I was in my room, listening on medium volume “Black or White”, dancing, jumping in the bed, trying to copy Michael’s moves. I was 10 years old and the borrowed cassette tape was the coolest thing I had done that month. “It’s too loud, turn it off! I hate that monkey music!”, my dad yelled from the kitchen. Instead of that, just like Macaulay Culkin in the video, I pumped up the volume to max. ... Read more
I work in media for six years. I learned all about news reporting in a town with 100.000 people. I learned how to do an investigation. I learned how a killer looks like. I learned how parents suffer when their children are taken away by waters. I’ve seen crime scenes, I’ve talked to criminals, I’ve seen how a place looks like after natural calamities. I tried to understand what people want to read, what’s news and what’s crap. And there’s the Iran matter. ... Read more
I’ve just seen the news: Vodafone to pump money in MySpace. I don’t know the sum, but it’s going to be a eight months campaign targeting bands, artists and music fans. It’s about people remixing tunes and uploading them on MySpace using a new application called “Go Mix”. But why should Vodafone go for this extreme measure? It’s kind of hard for me to understand the strategy. ... Read more
Hallmark Channel, you might have heard of it – it’s that really niched channel -, will launch a new service for advertisers. It’s called Fast Break and it will launch somewhere between June 23 – 26. Theoretically, this is good for the advertiser. No competitors during the ad break. Sounds good, right? But what about the TV station? Is it good for the business? We’ll see. ... Read more
A few days ago, one of my friends came up with this theory about local online advertising markets, which is actually a paradox, but it might be true: the more English speakers in a country, the less the traffic on local websites. And the country I live in is the perfect example of that. The explanation is, just as well, really credible, and you can even compare the online situation with other mediums such as television. ... Read more
I blog for almost six years now. I got myself this blog in English not because of some needs to comunicate the big intrinsec values of my personality or the get some consultancy contracts. No. I did it because I’m trying to find new people to inspire me. And if that’s going to happen, then that’s cool. I’m trying to respect my own rules of engagement while blogging and when speaking about blogging. A few small things that power you up to go where you want to be. ... Read more
Everyone talks about websites in terms of “beauty”, “interactivity” and other crappy terms no one cares about. Lots believe that Flash covers almost everything, lot others believe Java Script should do the tricks. I don’t really care about that. For me, the best websites are those with simple and elegant designs and really usable. And this is where the problem appears: cool websites with great design and hot content that don’t respect the simple necesities. ... Read more
Google Blogoscoped, one of the most famous blogs about Google, had this cool idea of making a list with all – I guess, though I’m not sure – the services Google has and, most important, that could bring real money to the company. It’s actually kind of strange that in period of crisis, everyone talk about other people’s money. But hey, it’s Google! ... Read more
When you say Apple, you say either Mac or iPhone. Generally speaking, you say “those white and/or shinny expensive electronic things”. Because that’s the pure truth: Apple products are pretty expensive. But Apple products look cool, feel cool and, most of all, everyone wants one. You don’t have the money to buy one? Well, you keep every penny and, in the end, you go buy some Apple thingie for yourself. That’s what I call good marketing. ... Read more
Even if you do know the answer to this question, what is the probability that you end up here, for your summer holiday? Let’s face it: you’re interested in Romania as much as I am interested in how do snails reproduce. And now, while reading this, you’re probably asking yourself: What or who the fuck is Romania? ... Read more