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Articles from The GottaQuirk eMarketing blog

The ROI of Blogging? Intangible 2007-09-06 09:02:13 Apart from keeping Rob company via Instant Messaging (MXit) on my mobile phone while lying in bed during the wee hours of the morning, this is when I, the newest QuirkStar, read most of my RSS feeds. One such feed found at Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang struck a cord with me and will be the foundation of my first post here on GottaQuirk. I celebrate two years of blogging this Sept 2007. It’s been a fast period of my life, that for sure. I first started blogging to understand the tools, share my ideas, so I could then deploy at my corporate job, boy, I didn’t realize the personal and professional benefits it would bring.I also celebrate two years of blogging as Your Web AddiCT this December 2007 but unlike Jeremiah I do not ever want to do a corporate job, another reason for being at Quirk: it ain't no corporate job :) Ditto to it being a fast period of my life too. Actually, I started blogging from mid 1999 to November 2001 (the same time Quirk was born) to flex my HTML m ... Blogging

One Way to Make a Killing 2007-09-06 06:45:57 From severe addictions to online role-playing games to political riots in Second Life we’ve seen quite a few weird activities in virtual worlds, with some of them bordering on being distinctly disturbing (I don’t know about you but the thought of a rabid mob attacking my virtual offices with a volley of gunfire and an exploding pig isn’t going to make me sleep any better). Now comes this story courtesy of The Times (with the full story at The Times Online): ‘Shoot ‘em ups’ just got real. Well, in a financial sense anyway. Fill somebody with enough lead in Kwari and you get money - their money to be precise. Similar to poker, players enter the game with a pot of money and if they get killed a portion of that money transfers to their killers. Frikkin’ fantastic. Not enough that we have 10 year old kids burying people in cement in Grand Theft Auto and listening to 50 Cent rap about how people should ‘get rich or die tryin’ but n ...

Electronic Spiders to trawl over your Facebook 2007-09-05 07:45:43 During my daily routine of logging into countless user accounts on either end of the Internet, I was quite surprised to see a message from Facebook asking me to edit my search listing settings. The social media giant announced this morning that the site will be indexed by Google, Yahoo! and MSN within the next few weeks and users profiles will be displayed in search results, depending on their search listing settings. You'll also be able to search Facebook even if you're not logged in - the result will look like so: I wonder what this will do for: People searching - Perhaps the massive social database coupled with the indexing power of search engine spiders will finally prove to be a decent people search utility. I can just hear people saying “Google me”, or “Are you in The 'Book'?” instead of “Ok, give me your number and I’ll miss call you so you can get mine”. eMarketing in general  - Ooh, the potential. If you’re r ...

Quirk welcomes a new Star 2007-09-04 08:26:31 Quirk has a reputation for employing people of the highest qualifications and skill levels in the industry. That's why we've employed Rafiq to do the dishes ;-)  Welcome aboard laddie! You'll be hearing from Rafiq in a bit so keep an eye out. Comment on "Quirk welcomes a new Star" ...

The Future is Blog? 2007-09-04 03:13:07 Synovate recently released statistics on American blog usage, you can read more about  the stats on WebProNews. It seems Web 2.0 certainly is going out there with unbridled relent! That’s good news for the competitive WebPR ilk. Let’s take a look at what they’ve got for us, shall we? Apparently 8% of Americans currently have their own blog. 46% of readers are regulars to certain blogs whilst the rest search for different blogs. When it comes to the frequency of reading blogs, 39% read less than one a month. 28% have a monthly read and only 15% read them daily. 43% claim to have seen advertising on blog sites and a third have actually clicked through onto an advertisement on the page. As to why they read blogs, half said that they find them entertaining and 26% said that they read them to research areas of interest. 65% of readers look to blogs for opinions, 39% are seeking news and 38% are looking to be entertained. That said, the senio ...

Sunday Times' Top 10: Part 2 2007-09-02 04:10:07 Carrying on from yesterday’s post, here are the remaining 5 entries in the Sunday Times top 10 virals list. My pick of the bunch, the buck-toothed buccaneer strutting his stuff. Featuring Ronaldinho at the peak of his prowess and popularity this Nike clip eventually found its way into every football lover’s inbox. The beautiful game has mass appeal and in a short time we have already seen a number of other successful virals. As for the remainder, once again I’ve left them in here as links: I remember being showed this John West Salmon ad in varsity. For days I couldn’t stop laughing at the sight of a bear doing a Muhammad Ali foot shuffle. 300 million views and counting. Trojan Condoms made it big with their video of pelvic powerlifting. Er, the less said the better. Diet Coke and Mentos surely increased sales for the two brands - even if the surge in purchases was due to consumers wanting to try the experiment in their own back yards. Min ...

Sunday Times' Top 10 2007-09-01 04:30:50 A couple of weeks ago the Sunday Times published what in their opinion constitute the top ten virals to be found on the Net. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the article online and I may be a little late on it but I do feel it worthwhile to take a look at what made the cut. My pick of the bunch - Quicksilver's Dynamite Surfing. What’s a surfer to do when there are no waves? The sheer “coolness” of this concept has done wonders for the brand. I didn’t want to crowd this post too much so instead of embedding the rest I've left them in as YouTube links: Too erotic for the traditional media this Agent Provocateur clip of Kylie riding a bronco was a guaranteed hit online. The Dove Evolution ad focuses on celebrating real beauty instead of glamour - something that we are desperately trying to communicate to each other in our media bombarded world. By tapping into this need to communicate with a powerful branding message Dove has achieved some s ...

Stupid Ugly Shoes. Stupid Ugly Company 2007-08-31 10:45:53 I hate Crocs. I am a Crocs hater. They are stupid ugly shoes. Whatever excuse you might think of for wearing them, I can assure you that your excuse is stupid and that your shoes are ugly. As a rule, I try not to think about Crocs. In fact, Crocs and the idea of Crocs don’t belong in my head any more than they belong on my feet. Unfortunately for me, they were forced upon my consciousness by Andrew’s recent purchase of a pair. (Andrew, let me take this opportunity to tell you that your new shoes are stupid and ugly. Oh, and happy birthday for Sunday) Ok, so the shoes are stupid and ugly but they certainly do sell well. Surely that suggests that Croc Inc, the business entity responsible for this abomination, must know a little bit about marketing? You’d think so – but it seems not. Predictably, as happens when stupid ideas get seeded among the masses of people who all want to be “different,” a website popped up committed to the praise of these stupid ...

SearchStatus 100% Clean 2007-08-31 08:07:40 You've probably gathered that we're pretty proud of SearchStatus here at Quirk. Well, our chests have just puffed up a bit more following the news that SearchStatus 1.21 was tested by the Softpedia labs and that no malware was found, resulting in the app being given the 100% CLEAN award. Not that we ever had any doubts - in Craig we trust. You can also take a read through Softpedia's product review here. Comment on "SearchStatus 100% Clean" ...

The two lesser known additions to the new Google Earth 2007-08-31 03:07:39 Although everyone is raving about Google Earth 4.2’s big new additions, which include the high res photos and the “Sky” feature, there are also a couple of less publicised but vitally important new features. Important mainly to marketers that is, because they enhance the experience we can offer our users. The first is my favourite, in fact when I heard about it I got this geeky tingling feeling... Videos! Up to now all you could show on your placemarks were static images. With GE 4.2 you can embed YouTube vids. It’s awesome, just think about the possibilities… To check it out, download this placemark which I found on the Google Earth blog. You need to have Google Earth installed to run it, which you can download here. The second addition is not quite as cool as it is useful to users (and that helps us marketers as well!). It’s the addition of more placemark icons which really enhance the experience on the layer. Take for example a tourism related ... Google

GooPhone + iPhone = GuiPhone 2007-08-30 03:05:58 I recently read that Google has launched an AJAX search platform specifically for the Apple iPhone. The mammoth search company has launched the traditional text based search, and an image search for the iPhone. When thinking this over I thought, “So they want to keep iPhone users using Google? Fair enough.” But as time passed I remembered Alice’s blog post on the GooPhone. In short, the proposed GooPhone handset and service (using VoiP technology) will be free to the public. However, users will be subject to a barrage of advertising (free lunch sold separately). If we boil it down, it may get to the point where the consumer has the option of either buying the glitzy iPhone for an arm and a leg, or using the GooPhone for free but paying for it through the cunning use of ads. Although the iPhone search engine may not be a massive breakthrough for the search giant, it seems to me that the Apple handset may just be a guinea-pig for Google’s mobile search vent ... Iphone

Don't be the first thing searchers find 2007-08-29 06:07:55 Real effective SEO is not about being the first thing users find on the SERP's. It’s about being the LAST thing they find! What an absurd thing to say. Counterintuitive at first perhaps but its all just common-sense really. Think about how users behave when they’re looking for something on the web. Think about how YOU behave when you’re searching for something. - Enter a search phrase. - Scan over the top few results – the ones above the fold - If any of the title/description combinations catch your eye, click on one - If not, scroll down the page - Nothing look like what you’re really after? Revise or refine your key phrase and search again - See something that looks close to what you’re after? Click the link and visit the site - Still not what you’re after? Click the “back” arrow - Next one – click - Back - New search - Click - Back - Scroll down the page - Click - Hhmm…this looks interesting. - Skim or scan the ...

Domain Your Baby 2007-08-29 01:29:49 According to a recent WebProNews article, parents are starting to select baby names based on whether they can get a matching domain name for the potential name. Parents are obviously looking out for the best interests of their children, looking to give them a head start in life. The question is: does being the John Smith who you’ll access when you type in johnsmith.com give that John Smith an advantage over the other John Smiths in the world? Does it make that John Smith the John Smith? Unless your child is going to pursue something in the arts field where their name becomes somewhat of a brand, I really doubt that they’re going to need their own domain named after them. The whole thing just goes to show the degree to which people are seeing the Internet as a definitive space. And in a world where no two URLs can be the same, what is to become of the name? Imagine if this concept really takes off. Suddenly all the popular names will be taken up and they will start gettin ...

27Dinner on Liquid Fuel 2007-08-28 04:09:45 Maybe it was the Stormhoek wine. Maybe it’s the fact that I finally felt as if I’ve acclimatised to this chaotic world known as eMarketing. Or maybe I sensed that eMarketing in itself has matured beyond what was once a fledging, clumsy puppy-dog industry into an adolescent youth full of promise for the future. At the end of the day, what I know is that I walked away from last night's 27Dinner a lot more content than I have done before. Dave’s work really seems to have paid off and the dinner itself has evolved. The last time I went there were plenty of ramblings about how the marketers were taking over and how the geeks should take the event back. Today, despite there still being an obvious divide (yes Henk, many of us marketers realise that we are indeed evil :)), the atmosphere was casual and there was no specific feeling of cliqueness, that I could detect at least. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I knew a few more of the attendees, or that so many of the at ...

More Easter Eggs 2007-08-27 10:27:13 My previous post was on the topic of Easter Eggs… Easter eggs are normally created by wannabe-creative programmers with too much time on their hands. They place random hidden items – like text, images, and even pages – for people to find by accident. In some cases hidden messages have been placed in books, Movies, Games, and even bonus materials on CD’s or DVD’s. The message is out there; you just gotta read the signs… Google has a few - Check the video below for some examples of Easter Eggs: So not wanting to be outdone, I’ve decided to do something as well. Keep watching this space… Comment on "More Easter Eggs" ...