todaytest 07/02/2007

Go Big or Go Home: Why Being Bold is Critical to Getting Noticed | Copyblogger  Annotated

Why Bold Works

Why does being bold work better than being humble and understated, as I think many of us would prefer to be? Here’s why:

• It stands out. Again, there are more than 83 million blogs out there … how will you get noticed among the cacophony of all those blogs? If you think bigger and bolder than all of them, you will get noticed.


• You’re more clickable. If your headline is in someone’s feed reader, or they see your headline on another blog among a list of links, they will be more likely to click on you if you’re bold. It’s almost irresistible.


• People talk about you. It’s good if people start talking about you. They read your bold post, and they talk about it on their blog. “I just read an interesting post on Zen Habits about why ….” And even if they disagree, that’s still good news. Whether people disagree with you or not is immaterial — you want them talking about you.


• People link to you. When other blogs talk about you, they link to you. And that’s the most important effect of al

How to Write a Persuasive News Release » Copywriting Blog By Copywriter Michel Fortin  Annotated

The most profitable and often overlooked free publicity generator is the news release (also called "press release", although news release is a better term).

News releases are not only great marketing tools but also far more credible and believable than advertising since they appear to come from an objective third party.

While publicity is the most powerful promotional tool there is, it is the one that is the least effectively used.

Go Big or Go Home: Why Being Bold is Critical to Getting Noticed | Copyblogger

Go Big or Go Home: Why Being Bold is Critical to Getting Noticed | Copyblogger  Annotated

Why Bold Works

Why does being bold work better than being humble and understated, as I think many of us would prefer to be? Here’s why:

• It stands out. Again, there are more than 83 million blogs out there … how will you get noticed among the cacophony of all those blogs? If you think bigger and bolder than all of them, you will get noticed.


• You’re more clickable. If your headline is in someone’s feed reader, or they see your headline on another blog among a list of links, they will be more likely to click on you if you’re bold. It’s almost irresistible.


• People talk about you. It’s good if people start talking about you. They read your bold post, and they talk about it on their blog. “I just read an interesting post on Zen Habits about why ….” And even if they disagree, that’s still good news. Whether people disagree with you or not is immaterial — you want them talking about you.


• People link to you. When other blogs talk about you, they link to you. And that’s the most important effect of al

todaytest 07/01/2007

VentureBeat » XLNTads and Spotzer, two different ways to make ads cheap  Annotated

XLNTads and Spotzer, two different ways to make ads cheap

VentureBeat » Pluggd begins delivery of better audio search  Annotated

Pluggd, a Seattle company, has delivered a widget that lets you search audio (and soon, video) on third-party sites in more sophisticated ways.

Video Ads in Web Video: Success! ~ Chris Pirillo

todaytest 06/30/2007

WeblogMatrix - Compare them all

• eine sehr schoene uebersicht von blog_anbietern und dessen services
   - post by pierro

Online Journalism Review's Blog Software Comparison Chart  Annotated

• (tags: blogs comparison) - post by pfflyer
• compare and contrast. - post by daveforhan
• Blog software comparison chart This chart is a companion to the article  - post by aaronkurtz
• Blog software comparison chart - post by groper
• This chart is a companion to the article "Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?," published July 14, 2005 - post by ycc2106
• (tags: blogs comparison)  - post by ycc2106

Blog software comparison chart

Updated May 18, 2006: This chart is a companion to the article "Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?," published July 14, 2005 in the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. Do note that this chart reflects only standard features of the tools' installation, and not every possible extension, plug-in modification... or hack.

Functionality

Blogger

TypePad Basic

TypePad Plus

TypePad Pro

Blogware

WordPress

Movable Type

Expression Engine

iMedia Connection: Dissecting 3 Kick-Ass Emails  Annotated

Many companies flood you with communications as soon as you give them your email address, but that new relationship is easy to damage.

In this article:
Award-winning emails
A fundraising email from WBFO
Occasional emails from Innocentdrinks.co.uk 
A follow-up email from Rentalo.com 

Award-winning emails
Before I talk about the three emails I have chosen for this article, let me just say how hard it was to unearth any really good emails. I went through emails of all kinds, from a variety of sources, including lists of so-called "award-winning" emails. I looked at promotional emails, customer service emails, retention emails and more. Some were B2B, others were B2C.

I found it a depressing search.

The underlying weakness I saw was that almost every email I read failed to take advantage of the very personal, one-on-one potential of email as a medium.

I saw too many emails that simply thrust their message into the reader's face, as if email were some kind of mass, broadcast medium.

iMedia Connection: Chicken Soup for the Confused Mobile Marketer  Annotated

In This Article: 
So what's so great about mobile anyway? 
What would Sprite do? 
What would Google do? 
What would Yahoo! do?  
Finally, some agreement 

So what's so great about mobile anyway?
Here's a guarantee you can take to the bank: Some of the mobile players that are all the rage today won't even be a memory a few years from now. How do I know? Because nobody knows for certain what the mobile market holds.

If you're an advertiser or a brand that has tried to engage mobile users, you've doubtless been beset by an array of business models, confusing jargon and mobile firms that insist they know how to turn your campaign into gold.

But if you confused a sales pitch with mobile wisdom, shame on you. There's a reason why mobile is classified as an emerging ad platform: The answers are still in the embryonic stage.

One thing is true about mobile, it's small. Very small. But mobile isn't just a smaller interactive world, it's a different planet altogether.

Door Is Open to High-Tech Offerings That Meet Thresholds - New York Times  Annotated

VC Nation

Door Is Open to High-Tech Offerings That Meet Thresholds

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By BRAD STONE

Published: June 29, 2007

DAN NYE is perhaps the most publicly accessible chief executive on the planet. Anyone can contact the head of LinkedIn, a social network based in Mountain View, Calif., simply by visiting his personal profile page on the service and sending him a message.

todaytest 06/21/2007

Method Arts | A Consortium | How to Plan a Party in Five Minutes  Annotated

Back in August, Mark and I were chatting via IM and he asked if I was going to An Event Apart. I told him I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t quit my job yet, so there were

todaytest 06/20/2007

Digital Digressions: What Marketeers Forget When Thinking of Web 2.0  Annotated

No longer is it about 'what do we want to communicate - it's about 'what do we want to facilitate!'
Web 2.0 is a dialogue, it's a start of a love-affair, it's a discussion that takes twists and turns depending on who is having the conversation and what the topic is. It's fun to talk to someone if they show they listen to what you have to say and respond accordingly. It's even better when they can put you in touch with other people just like you. It's extremely boring when you feel like you are talking to a wall. It's really that simple - but what it means is that smokescreens become harder to maintain. After all, not everyone is David Copperfield and besides, if everyone's rating everything and all views are public - you don't even want to be David Copperfield, you have to be you and be good, because what goes around comes around.

todaytest 06/16/2007

J-Board - a Job Board for Everyone  Annotated

SmartSheet Raises $2.69M in Funding  Annotated

, the web-based spreadsheet creation service, has raised $2.69 million in a Series A-4 of funding, led by Madrona Venture Group.

SmartSheet, which won Business 2.0’s Best of Show award earlier this year, has a good management team, some members hailing from Onyx Software. The edge that SmartSheet is looking to develop is its interactive capabilities, and auto-tracking tools that are beneficial for team projects and collaborative efforts. The social aspect of SmartSheet includes its wiki, which furthers the ability for the