Category Archives: Science & Technology

Seth Godin: “Blow up your home page”

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“Do you really need a home page? Does the web respect it?

Human beings don’t have home pages. People make judgments about you in a thousand different ways. By what they hear from others, by the way they experience you, and on and on. Companies may have a website, but they don’t have a home page in terms of the way people experience them.

The problem with home page thinking is that it’s a crutch. There’s nothing wrong with an index, nothing wrong with a page for newbies, nothing wrong with a place that makes a first impression when you get the chance to control that encounter. But it’s not your ‘home’. It’s not what the surfer/user wants, and when it doesn’t match, they flee.

You don’t need one home page. You need a hundred or a thousand. And they’re all just as important.”

This post by Seth Godin perfectly says what I’ve struggled to communicate to clients and friends as I try to steer them away from traditional “home page” websites… and toward blogs. It’s a hard sell because it’s easy to throw up some bull shit copy from those old corporate brochures we spent so much on, and really hard to engage with your customers in a fresh, timely and relevant way.

Bringo: Talk to a real human

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Call a customer service phone number and end up in automated operator hell. With Bringo, you don’t even need to dial your phone. Just find the company you want to talk to in their directory, type in your phone number, and a couple of minutes later Bringo calls you and connects you to an operator at that company. [via Tech Crunch]

Branding Yourself

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“Personal branding is something I get a lot of questions about. People often ask me what they should do in order to get an established name out there and be seen as a major influencer in their industry. The reason they want this is because the second you accomplish this, the opportunities will come your way and you’d be amazed at the kind of business or money that just lands in your lap.” — Neil Patel at Pronet Advertising

I don’t remember hearing much about “personal branding” before blogs and podcasting. But if there is an “smays brand,” you’ll find it here.

I had lunch today with Chuck Zimmerman and it would be hard to find a better example of this concept. He and his wife Cindy work too hard to say the money “just lands in (their) lap,” but they’ve certainly created a unique brand in the world of agriculture marketing. I’d love to share some of Chuck’s amazing success stories but before he pays for lunch, he makes me sign an NDA.

What’s your brand?

NASA intros offbeat video podcast

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Podcasting News: “NASA has launched a new video podcast, NASA EDGE, that provides an offbeat look at the nation’s aerospace program. The hosts of NASA EDGE offer an unscripted take on the latest events at NASA.”

How easy it would have been for a big old gov’ment agency like NASA to do a boring, lame-ass video podcast. Real easy. I don’t know if this will catch on but somebody gets it.

Unexpected uses of iPods

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Like all good lists, there are 10 of these but my favorites are:

  • Train Doctors to Save Lives: iPods can double interns’ ability to identify heart sounds
  • Bring Criminals to Justice: using iPods to hold copies of wiretap transmissions in a large drug-conspiracy case.
  • Record Flight data: iPods as flight data recorders in light aircraft.
  • Flashlight:  For about $13, you can purchase Griffin’s iBeam, an attachment that will quickly turn your iPod into a combo flashlight and laser pointer.

Overlawyered.com

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From the About Us page of the site: “Overlawyered.com explores an American legal system that too often turns litigation into a weapon against guilty and innocent alike, erodes individual responsibility, rewards sharp practice, enriches its participants at the public’s expense, and resists even modest efforts at reform and accountability.”

Hey, some of my best friends are lawyers.

Improve your swing with video iPod

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Baseball players are using their iPods to do their pregame video studies. According to a story by Jayson Stark at ESPN.com, Astros pitcher Jason Jennings thinks his iPod turned his whole season around. Stark predicts: “One of these days you’ll see a pitcher take a walk behind the mound during a key at-bat, pull out his iPod and take a quick video-refresher course before launching the big pitch of the night. Heck, if NFL quarterbacks can get plays radioed right into their helmets, why not?” [Thanks, Barb]

Unrelated sports note: I’m guessing I might be one of the few people on the planet that has NO idea which two teams are playing in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Chris Pirillo: “Apple gets the consumer”

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“My brother Adam isn’t a geek – and he’s never written to me about any other device (from Apple or any other manufacturer). It’s not even out yet and I already hate the iPhone… largely because someone else didn’t make it four years ago. Seriously. Apple gets the consumer in ways that no other company ever will. It makes my new Smartphone seem so… ancient.”

Apple TV selling faster than iPods

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Despite the fact the product isn’t even out yet, Apple says its upcoming PC-to-TV device is the fastest-selling item on its website, even beating out iPods. Apple TV is poised to become a surprise hit, says analyst Shaw Wu of American Technology Research. “If Apple were to convert 1 percent of those iPod owners to Apple TV owners, it would be a success. That would be a million units,” he said. [LostRemote]

I ordered one, too. Supposed to ship in February. I’ll report here once it’s up and running.

iPod sales drive Apple’s billion dollar profit

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Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2007 first quarter, ended December 30, 2006. The Company posted record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion, nearly double last year’s profit. These results compare to revenue of $5.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $565 million, or $.65 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

Apple shipped 1,606,000 Macintosh computers and 21,066,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 28 percent growth in Macs and 50 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter. [Podcasting News]

“It’s just a fad. I can go down to Target and get a perfectly good MP3 player that will do everything an iPod will do and only pay $30. And why do a need an MP3 player when I can listen to music for free on the radio?”