Marketing on the edge: Let's spam!

There is a wide variety of fully ethical ways to advertise your products on the web. Yet over 70 % of all e-mail traffic is spam. If you thought spam is something only hackers burried deep in their dark nests are capable of, it seems that you were wrong.

User-friendly spamming for dummies

Ever wondered how to advertise on Twitter? Use the TweetTornado! This targeted advertising service looks almost just as professional as any other - how to videos, support, terms of service etc. Their software will enable you to spam on Twitter fast and easy.

Simillar situation can be found on the e-mail spam underground market. Transparent price lists, translation services, support, metrics... just like AdWords. A 1,000,000 e-mails for $100? That's a bargain! Conversion rate might be very low, but ROI counts!

"Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him." (Pittacus)

This entry is not meant to promote spamming, my point is to show how alarmingly easy it is to do something like that. Do not forget to consider the ethical side of your behaviour and the rules of reciprocity.

Article source.

Ever wondered why is spam called spam? It's because of this Monty Python's video!

F*** My Life: Making money on people's misery

A few days ago, I've stumbled upon this rather controversial website that seems to be a favourite of some of my Facebook friends: F*** My Life. This site enables individuals to share their most embarrassing moments anonymously and comment on them. The lenght of shared "anecdotes" is very limited, which reminds me of Twitter.

Apart of self-critically admitting that only a few things cheer one up more than reading about other people's misery ;-), I find quite interesting, how you can make money on that.

Of course there are ads by Google. It's funny in a way what Google chooses as best targeted ads for this site's audience. 3D sexy chat for loners and a book telling you how to be popular with a very interesting banner:

On top of that, authors are proudly announcing that they declined offers made by others who wanted to buy & use the content of this site. Instead, they are enabling everybody to share the content for free through an API... of course only as long as there is a link back to the source. Clever? Maybe... smells kind of sneaky if you ask me.

Microsoft Office 14 on-line to include banners

A whole new playground for advertisers is probably going to open up in 2010. Microsoft's upcoming Office package (version 14) will be available as a bundle of offline applications just as we know it, but there will be an on-line ("cloud computing") version as well.

It seems that the on-line version will be available free for everyone and supported by ads. In this move, Microsoft is in my opinion trying to secure the dominant position of their office package by making it available for anyone anywhere. At the same time, Microsoft is likely going to re-emerge as an important advertising channel, thus fighting Google on two fronts.

The reaction of consumers is hard to predict, could be positive if the level of aggression of ads is controled, so that they do not disturb users concentrating on work. Microsoft also should not forget that Google is offering their package free of advertising. Anyway, Microsoft's decission to try out a new revenue model hints at being sick of fighting software pirates. Moreover, from ad-supported to free and free of ads is just one step, as we've seen in many cases.

Google to launch "behavioral advertising" (read "spying")!

Google is currently testing the long denied technology for user preferences tracking. The system will track user behaviour across the immense Google partner network. Data on visited sites will be associated with your unique browser ID and stored in Google's database. Mined data are then going to be used for advertising purposes (so called behavioral advertising). According to Google, this is going to be beneficial for advertisers (providing them better targeting options) as well as for internet users (ads shown will be more relevant and thus add more value).

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!

This is a serious privacy disaster! It is equivalent to being followed whenever you go! Sure, more relevant ads are a nice thing, but for what price? How safely will be the data stored and who assures it's not abused? Google is playing with fire here, as it's good image might end up in Microsoft's levels in a few years... What made them change their attitude and start experimenting with a technology they have been refusing so far? Global economic downturn and decreased advertising revenues?

Sure, Google offers an opt-out. You can go to a specific site (note: you can also edit your ad preferences there) and download a plug-in to your browser that insures that you're not being spied on. What a convenient solution! Moreover, they made the announcement silently on their blog. How many people do you think will know that they are being followed and that they can opt-out?

In my opinion, if Google dares to do something like that, it should certainly be on an opt-in basis. I'm pretty sure that we are about to hear more about this story in the media soon. Read more here.

Is Google going to delete my blog?

New world marketing @ Nokia Ideas Project

Nokia recently launched a website called Ideas Project. It is a virtual room for sharing (BIG) ideas, responding to them and elaborating on them. Surprisingly, these do not have to be related to mobile communication in any way.

To speed up the launch of this website, Nokia invited a couple of visionaries to present various ideas. Some of them are really interesting and inspiring, I recommend browsing the site. An example of what dragged my attention are Jerry Michalski's ideas on marketing and social media:

In the new world, he says, you develop your product with your audience from the start and if you actually have to spend any money on advertising, maybe there's something wrong. Well, very provocative, indeed. Reminds me of Apple. But I'd not underestimate the role of advertising as not everyone is engaged on-line and not all product categories  have the ability of creating a global hype like consumer electronics.

One may argue, why did Nokia launch such website? Did they do it, so that they can be part of the on-line massive collaboration trend shaping the future and thus part of the future as well? Looking at the user submitted ideas signals rather a new channel for harvesting ideas on Nokia's products and services. But if it's just a mere new channel, why making it so blurry and unintegrated with other listening channels?