VIA Interaction

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Drop b2b e-mail early, B2C late in the week

eROI has released a new study of e-mail effectiveness:

Best Day for Emailing Is a Moving Target @ Media Buyer Planner: "Overall, the majority B2B marketers should be getting emails out at the beginning of the week (Monday to Wednesday morning), whereas consumer-driven campaigns do best toward the end of the week (Wednesday afternoon to Saturday), according to eROI."

eROI has a nice e-mail blog and a lot of data and research.

Here's another nice resource: Email Wars: Fighting the battle for deliverability.

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/28/2005 08:26:00 AM

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Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Beyond the Browser

Yahoo has bought the guys that make Konfabulator widgets - tiny little interface widgets that sit on your computer desktop and display information like traffic, weather or winning lottery numbers.

This is a small part of the next-generation Internet in which we will be sharing information using applications other than the Web browser. (I used to use Konfabulator until the registration nagging got to me.)

There's more information in Washington Post's "Acquisition of Pixoria Moves Yahoo Beyond the Browser."

Internet portal Yahoo Inc. said yesterday that it has acquired Pixoria Inc., a small software company that makes tools that allow computer users to check traffic or weather information via the Internet without having to open a browser window.

For Yahoo, it's a step toward a possible next version of Web use in which consumers have customized information streamed to their computers instead of having to use a browser to go find what they want.

'We think this is where the Web is headed in its next generation,' said Toni Schneider, vice president of Yahoo Developer Networks. 'For us, it's great -- we can reach beyond the browser, beyond what we can do in a one-size-fits-all Web site.'

Also, check out the announcement at Pixoria.

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/26/2005 07:33:00 AM

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Monday, July 18, 2005

Podcasting - will it become more than buzz?

I'm not quite sure I understand podcasting. I get what it does--I built my own radio broadcast station as a kid--but I'm not sure where the value is.

Maybe for time-shifting traditional radio broadcasts like This American Life or Rush Limbaugh.

The Washington Post checks in today with Mainstream Media Is Tuning In to 'Podcasting':

"The result demonstrates how a new technology can remain part of an underground culture only for so long before corporations adopt it. Indie podcasters say Apple's decision has brought them new listeners, but they complain that the iTunes Web site heavily promotes big-name podcasts while leaving out their homegrown shows.

" 'We invented podcasting,' said Todd Cochrane, who hosts his own podcast known as 'Geek News Central' out of his home in Honolulu. 'The people who are coming in now are jumping over the fence and joining the party. It's funny how Apple is so focused on the commercial shows and how little they are emphasizing the grass-roots side of podcasting.' ..."

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/18/2005 04:28:00 PM

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Thursday, July 14, 2005

Right in front of our eyes

When we talk with clients about how much they should be spending and which medium, we have to defend Web spending less and less.

That's because the Web, in ten or so short years, has become a primary source of information on all manner of topics.

CBS news is revamping its Web site, because "It is clear to us that the public has moved to the Internet as the place they go when they want to get information because they can get the news whenever they want it and how they want it," said Larry Kramer, president of digital media at CBS.

Fortune looked at the making of Netscape from a business perspective, and I don't think they are far off in calling it "The Birth of the Web."

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/14/2005 10:03:00 AM

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Wednesday, July 06, 2005

New BuzzAcronym: AJAX

An engineering friend and I used to commiserate with each other about the difficulty of building Web applications. In addition to the obvious browser-level incompatibilities between Netscape Navigator and Mircosoft Internet Explorer, there were nuances and subtleties about the way they implemented CSS and the way their JavaScript interpreters worked that made building a robust, cross-browser application exceedingly difficult - and expensive.

Those nuances and bugs created what for developers is a surprisingly common problem (that most managers probably don't know about): the software simply did not do what the manuals said it could do.

My friend came up with a nice little catch-phrase about that: "JavaScript is not your friend."

The world has changed in the last few years. Netscape Navigator is no more, and the Mozilla organization and even Microsoft have moved to more standards-based browsers.

JavaScript is also more robust. In conjunction with CSS and XML, you can create quite complex user interfaces (under the hood, at least) that make it easier and simpler for the person using the interface.

The combination of those technologies in client-side application development is is known as AJAX - short for Asynchronous JavaScript plus XML. Information Week has an article about it, Fuel For The Web, in its July 4 edition.

The big breakthrough for AJAX is that it enables Web pages to make "behind the scenes" requests for information to supplement what is already available on the client side. In other words, Web applications behave more like traditional GUI applications.

The HTTP protocol that the Web is founded upon is based on a simple request-response model. That's why checking out of an e-commerce store requires seven screens and seven trips back to the server.

Flash and Java were intended to solve this problem, but neither has really taken off. Java suffered the same client-side problems that JavaScript and CSS did. Flash has earned a place in the designer's tool kit, but not in the interface developer's toolkit - at least not yet. And in my opinion, the development environment for Flash is one of the most confusing and difficult to master that I have worked with in 10 years of dabbling in software development.

As the Information Week article points out (mostly in criticisms from the Java and Flash folks), there are still myriad challenges posed by AJAX when it comes to cross-browser implementations.

But the developer base should be larger (just try and find a Flash designer who can also master programming), and the end result is likely to work better on a wider variety of platforms than Flash or Java now provide. Despite Flash's claims of ubiquity, we have never implemented a Flash-centric site that did not suffer from incompatibility problems.

AJAX is worth following closely.

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/06/2005 11:46:00 AM

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Live surgery as online marketing - who'd have thunk it?

We've seen Webcasts as effective marketing tools for technology companies trying to explain complex products.

What I'm not sure we would have anticipated is the value of Webcasts of surgical procedures as effective marketing tools for hospitals.

A West Hartford Webcasting company has discovered that in the course of presenting live surgery Webcasts intended as physician training tools. Instead, according to an article in The New York Times, they found patients were the most interested: About 70 percent of viewers are consumers.

From the article (emphasis mine):

Slp3d charges $35,000 to $40,000 for the Webcasts, which the hospitals are willing to pay if they think doctors will refer patients to them as a result. And consumers thinking about getting treatment may decide they want the doctors on the computer screens to provide it.

Methodist University Hospital said it received 80 inquiries from potential patients after its Webcast showing a device that allows surgeons to repair a spinal disk hernia through a thumbnail-size incision in the lower back.

With Webcasting, of course, there is the risk that the operation may not go as planned. Last September, for example, a broadcast from Italy to cardiologists meeting in Washington showing a new procedure to insert an aortic heart valve in an elderly woman was terminated when problems arose. She died soon afterward. Cardiologists at the meeting, who were aware that the procedure was a last resort for a patient believed to be too frail to survive regular surgery, said they did not view the result as a public relations disaster for the Italian cardiologist or the manufacturer of the new valve.

But consumers, especially those with the medical condition on display, may not be so forgiving. Thus slp3d and the hospitals have been Webcasting procedures that are relatively new but less daring than those seen at medical conferences. Mr. Joel said excessive bleeding in one case and the discovery of a tumor during a diagnostic procedure were the only instances of Webcasts featuring unexpected drama.

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/06/2005 07:35:00 AM

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Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Where eyeballs go, advertising will follow

One of the benefits of using an RSS reader to collect news and blog items is that it behaves like an email newsletter subscription (you get only content that you want) while enabling you to avoid the spam and junk mail that you have to wade through in your inbox.

However, as The New York Times is reporting (Marketers See Opportunity as a Web Tool Gains Users, advertising-supported syndicated XML is on its way.

(Indeed, Feedster already will insert an ad, if it has sold one in the context of your search, into its XML feeds.)

From the Times article:

"THE fledgling R.S.S. business is starting to attract some attention from those catering to Internet advertisers.

"Google, Pheedo, Feedster and Yahoo Search Marketing are all peddling advertising options for R.S.S., an increasingly popular way of having a personal computer automatically retrieve information from the Internet.

"For example, R.S.S. users interested in local weather could view forecast updates on their computers without having to visit a particular Web site.

"Some big companies, like Verizon, are starting to buy space in the R.S.S. information streams, which are selected anonymously and pulled from Web sites by a PC.

"R.S.S. may be getting bigger soon. Microsoft has announced that R.S.S. - the abbreviation stands for Really Simple Syndication - will be integrated into its next Windows operating system. Microsoft's announcement makes it more likely that R.S.S., used for years only by the tech-savvy, will become more of a mainstream computer tool. R.S.S. was helped last year when Yahoo put it on My Yahoo pages.

"R.S.S. is somewhat like TiVo for the Internet. By letting people have content pulled from Web sites and fed to their own computers automatically, they can then store it for later viewing. The growing number of R.S.S. users has some online publishers - they are now the biggest group of suppliers of R.S.S. feeds - starting to worry that R.S.S. could take eyeballs away from their existing advertisements on the Web.

"The washingtonpost.com, part of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, for example, is considering ways to insert ads into its R.S.S. feeds, which currently include only headlines and links to articles on the paper's own site. 'Anytime a medium attracts a large audience, people begin to think through and figure out ways to deliver ads to that audience,' said Tim Ruder, vice president of marketing for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. 'R.S.S. won't be any different in that regard than any other medium.' ..."

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/05/2005 11:26:00 AM

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Friday, July 01, 2005

Consumers, Long the Targets, Become the Shapers of Campaigns - New York Times

Consumers, Long the Targets, Become the Shapers of Campaigns - New York Times:

WHEN Crest introduced a toothpaste line two years ago, it used focus groups to help pick three flavors: cinnamon, herbal and citrus. This time around, the new Crest flavors will be chosen by customers.

Crest, a division of Procter & Gamble, is asking people to go to the Web to vote for their favorite from a short list of contenders: lemon ice, sweet berry punch or tropica exotica. Samples of the flavors are attached to some Crest products.

Marketing executives say the campaign reflects an increasing interest by companies in involving consumers in their advertising. The trend is another way to break from traditional advertising that viewers increasingly can tune out with TiVo and other digital video recorders. Marketers say the Internet has also made interactive campaigns easier to conduct.

'This comes with the inherent declining power of traditional media advertising,' said Clive Chajet, chairman of Chajet Consultancy, a brand consulting firm in New York. 'All marketers today are seeking different ways to market their products.' Crest is running television and magazine advertisements about the promotion, which were created by Saatchi & Saatchi, part of Publicis Groupe. It also is sending e-mail to four million consumers on the company's e-mail list. Voters must go to Crest.com to register and vote. Then, they receive an e-mail message from Crest urging them to vote every day....

posted by Tim Beidel at 7/01/2005 09:38:00 AM

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