I really like where Skype is focused right now. The enterprise and more functionality over the wireless network. How Skype Plans to Dominate Business Telephony |
| Skype, a division of eBay is likely to announce tomorrow that the beta version of its Skype for SIP offering will interoperate with Cisco Systems’s Unified Communications 500 system. |
| These are a few of the many moves made by Skype to expand its business to the corporate market. |
| “We are pretty big on video calling,” Silverman said. The company is putting a lot of resources into building better video conferencing experience, because he believes that person-to-person video calling is going to be as big as video. That absolutely makes sense because today the definition of communication is constantly changing. In the past, the world was all about voice, then instant messages and now video calling. People are sending messages and status updates via Twitter and Facebook. The communications are now multimodal.Read more at gigaom.com |
great stuff from the Blog Maverick… If you are an entrepreneur who is looking for capital and is sending letters or emails of introduction, leave out the Bullshit. Say who you are. What you have. What makes it different than the competition. What you want to accomplish. How you plan on getting there and how I can help. Everything else will usually hurt more than it will help Read more at blogmaverick.com |
Riding the Wave of Progress in Advertising |
When Jake Robinson got his MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia two years ago, he could have done as many of his classmates did: put on a suit and tie and a pair of wingtips and become a banker or consultant.
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| But Jake is not a suit-and-wingtips kind of guy. He is a T-shirt-and-flip-flops kind of guy. |
| ake grew up in Potomac and spent his summers in O.C. When he was old enough, he began crewing on a sport fishing boat. He’d seen those motorboats that advertised parasailing and Jet Skiing, little white tubs plastered with vinyl signs. |
“I just thought it was time to upgrade the technology,” he says. As a project for business school, he started thinking of an alternative, something like a floating JumboTron.
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Jake ended up finding two investors closer to home who helped pony up the $1 million it took to construct the custom-designed vessel, the SeaBoard.
Read more at www.washingtonpost.com |
I wish more companies in DC would “organize to win.”
“the brave may not live forever - but the cautious do not live at all.” (Branson) So, Mr. Big Brand: organize to win. To do anything else is a waste of your time, your talent and your momentum. Ignore apparent risk, buy the assets you need to matter, avoid the compromises that your competitors have made and do something worth doing. Read more at sethgodin.typepad.com |
just a rant from the mobile diner kitchen! Twitter also has something that many companies (many of which have huge arsenals of lobbyists) are trying to build now — an active community! Twitter founders Evan Williams (1,129,147 followers), Biz Stone (964,023 followers), and Jack Dorsey (927,253 followers) could easily start a movement in response to a misguided attempt by a lawmaker to cripple the popular social networking website. On a related note, @Ev, @biz, @Jack already have relationships with lawmakers on twitter. They already engage in direct conversations with key policymakers without spending a dime at a fundraiser. Not to mention the attention Ashton “Mr. Twitter” Kutcher (2,858,856 followers) would draw to the legislation. He is already using his Twitter fame to mobilize around causes. Let us not forget his talent for publicity - his achievement of 1,000,000 followers before Larry King did and his appearance on Oprah was all over the news! |
Twitter will need to play the traditional Washington game at some point in the future. It is a fact of life. However, they can play it differently. Once again, they have millions of users who can carry (tweet) their messages to Congress. Ashton will lead their battle and not the lobbyists. Read more at www.mobilediner.com |
NBC should reap mulitple benefits from this effort. NBC Tips An Ear To Web Chatter |
The network wants to learn from and manipulate Web talk. |
NBC Universal last month sent an e-mail to blogger Jace Lacob asking if he would like to post a few exclusive clips of NBC’s new primetime shows on the TV review blog “Televisionary,” which attracts 115,000 unique visitors a month. |
Now, in addition to courting well-known TV bloggers, NBC is seeking fans of its shows who write about them on social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter or on personal blogs. Like blogger Lacob, they now get special previews, clips and invitation to tapings to keep them chatting online–and tuned into shows. The video promotions are loaded with a post-roll advertisement that helps loop ad dollars back to NBC when they are played. Read more at www.forbes.com |
once again, thinking beyond the traditional strategies… well done. | Could one secret to Creigh Deeds’ stunning triumph over his better-known and better-funded opponents Terry McAuliffe and Jim Moran in yesterday’s Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia have been a tactical Google ad buy aimed at voters in that state’s Washington DC suburbs? |
| Deeds placed visual ads in high-profile online publications like the Wall Street Journal, Martha Stewart Living, and the Post itself. Those ads, though, weren’t served up to just any-old-body; they were geo-targeted to only Northern Virginia and Washington DC — the latter to capture commuters who work in the District but vote in the commonwealth. Google calls the technique a “network blast.”Read more at personaldemocracy.com |
These are very wise words. Just because a few on the condo board are raising hell, doesn’t mean there is a big problem. | The moral of the story is that on the internet, volume is not engagement . Traffic is not reach. When you see things written about a person, place or thing you care about, whether its positive or negative, take a very deep breath before thinking that the story means anything to anyone but you.Read more at blogmaverick.com |
Free Press (with approx $5 million operating budget) has beaten them on the ground by utilizing new media channels to win major policy battles (for instance, P2P case last year). Comcast needs to change their menu… Comcast’s lobbying budget soars |
The Center for Responsive Politics, which maintains a database on lobbying spending, says Comcast spent $12.5 million in 2008, a huge bump from $570,000 in 2001. |
The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the cable industry’s primary trade group, more than doubled its lobbying to $14.4 million over the same period. Read more at www.philly.com |
MySpace is not for everyone but there is still tremendous value here. If they “play to their strengths” and reinvigorate their efforts in the under-34 demographic — they will reap the benefits… |
Losing Popularity Contest, MySpace Tries a Makeover
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| While Facebook is adding users, MySpace is losing them. Many user profile pages on MySpace are either cluttered or neglected, resembling a strip mall with pockets of empty storefronts. The users who remain tend to be younger and poorer, putting a drag on advertising revenue from blue-chip clients. |
Audio and video are expected to be even larger parts of the site’s strategy in the future. While Facebook increasingly serves as the world’s phone book, MySpace sees itself as a media platform for culture, akin to a television. Its popularity among musicians has bolstered MySpace Music, a site that lets users create playlists and swap songs. Plans for an international music expansion and a mobile song product are under way. |
David Berkowitz, a director at the digital marketing agency 360i, said it might make sense for MySpace to double down on the under-34 audience. “A lot of sites do very well when they have that concentrated focus,” he said. Read more at www.nytimes.com |
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Skype focusing on the enterprise…
