The GottaQuirk eMarketing blog The GottaQuirk blog is a great resource for information about internet marketing. It’s an up-to-date resource on the happenings in the fast-moving eMarketing industry. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 2 4686

Articles from The GottaQuirk eMarketing blog

Word of mouth: Feeding the flames 2007-06-11 07:26:58 A few of months ago I had some important, and sombre, news to tell a room full about 20 of my former co-workers. After breaking the story to a few people, I soon realised that the story had crossed the room (and been altered slightly) before I had a chance to. Wildfire did not seem like a strong enough word. Pandemic would to be more appropriate. Pandemic – Viral Marketing, well isn’t that a coincidence? A meme is the measurement for smallest amount of transmissible social information. They’re the building blocks of communication and therefore cognitive understanding, and inevitably logic. These tiny packets of information are easily replicable, and multiply to infinite numbers (see Small World Project). These memes are travelling at an ever increasing speed over the Internet and mobile phones. I’ll never forget learning of Steve Irwin's death via a badly Photoshopped email. How did I hear the jokes before the news? How long would it have taken me to find out ...

There's never been an iPod... 2007-06-09 04:22:45 Most viral clips that are found floating around on the net require either a good deal of humour or a lot of sexual content to accentuate their viral natures. And while these may raise a lot of brand awareness and create an emotive reaction, sometimes they get so far away from what they're advertising that viewers often can't remember what the clip was actually promoting in the first place. This clip for the new iPhone is pretty cool in the sense that it just focuses on how clever the product itself is, rather than how good its marketing is. Ultimately, the product design is its own marketing. It's a formula that worked startlingly well with the iPod and Apple seem to be following the old adage that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Comment on "There's never been an iPod..." ... Ipod

VibeAgent: New player in the online travel sector 2007-06-08 01:47:40 Last weekend marked the beta-launch of a new player in the online travel market. Normally, that wouldn’t warrant a post. Let’s face it, online travel sites are popping up all the time. This one though is a little different. It’s like Tripadvisor meets Facebook…at a travel agency. Called VibeAgent, the concept is simple. Take the social networking element that makes sites like Facebook so popular to collect user reviews, from trustworthy sources so that users can find a travel solution they like. Then link that up to a booking system to finds the best current rates. They’ve already signed up some big brands like InterContinental Hotel, Priceline and Venere so expect this one to go big. Why I think this will work: I normally base my travel decisions on what other travellers have said. When those “others” are people I trust, the opinions carry more weight. Once I’ve made my decision, I normally go off to another site to fin ...

A £400 000 Logo for the 2012 London Games 2007-06-06 06:58:54 The London Olympics organising committee launched the official 2012 logo on Monday…and boy does it suck. In fact, it is so poor that in the last two days it has spawned thousands of blog posts and newspaper articles criticising its design. For a taste of the raging online debate, see here, here or here. It is even been reported to have triggered several epileptic fits! I especially loved this comment from the creator of one of the many anti-logo Facebook groups, ‘Perhaps it's just me, but it also looks like a cubism picture of a woman with big hair and numerous earrings giving a blow job to a guy wearing a London t-shirt.’ However, I think Seth Godin probably put it best in this post. Wolff Olins was the design company responsible – they got paid the princely sum of £400 000 for their efforts. They must have one hell of a salesman on board, because I can’t imagine the amount of ‘jazz hands’ and tap-dancing that went into that sell. ... Games

Fighting your demons with social networking 2007-06-06 02:04:57 With Facebook and MySpace effectively monopolising the everyman’s social networking industry, the inevitable way to viably get on the social networking bandwagon would be to make them more specific or specialised. WebTribes Inc. has started a number of support communities for people with specific issues: AddictionTribe is for people so are suffering from an addiction, generally drugs or alcohol. OCDTribe is for those suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. AnxietyTribe is for people who are struggling with anxiety in their lives. DepressionTribe is for those suffering from depression. MyHIVaidsTribe is for people who are trying to cope with HIV and AIDS. Forums for these ailments are particularly popular and I guess that WebTribes’s primary intention is to create a community in which everyone supports each other as they battle through a similar predicament. One of the greatest burdens associated with suffering from disorders like depression or ...

FNB embraces open source 2007-06-05 05:03:45 While reading my RSS feeds this morning I was very much surprised to see a post on Digg about a South African bank that is switching to Linux. Sure it’s great news for the Linux community to see that FNB plans to convert 12000 desktop clients in over 680 branches to use Novell's Linux product, but when I read the actual article on Tectonic I realised it was even greater news for the open source community. I would like to quote a section of the article: "Marius Agenbag, managing director of Ubusha Technologies, said, ‘Novell was chosen based on the freedom and flexibility it afforded the customer. While much of the overall solution uses standard technology, a fair amount is being customised for FNB's unique needs. Without access to open source code and adherence to open standards, those changes and customisations will not be possible’." This is where the true power of open source is demonstrated - not in the fact that it is cheaper/free like most people ...

Are Hollywood and Silicon Valley dating? 2007-06-04 07:59:24 The QuirkStation's latest recruit, Damian, recently burst onto the sacred turf of Gottaquirk (thanks for that Nic) with his blog post on the future of film. Being a bit of a cinephile (please look at the Wiktionary definition before calling the cops on me) I eventually came across this article in the New York Times: Comedy Business Turns to the Web. It turns out that Will Ferrell, he of Mugatu and Ron Burgundy fame, has recently been thinking along the same lines as Damian. Two months ago he invited a small production crew and a camcorder to the guest-cottage in his Los Angeles home. Included in this crew were Ferrell's production partner, Adam McKay, and McKay's 2-year-old daughter, Pearl. 45 minutes later they had sufficient footage to complete a sketch of Ferrell's down and out tenant being harassed by his foul-mouthed, beer guzzling landlord. The actor playing the landlord - Pearl. The next step? Post it on Ferrell and McKay's relatively new video site, Funny Or Die.com. The ... Hollywood

You?re gorgeous 2007-06-03 03:42:08 Stumbling into my room a few hours before sunrise this morning it suddenly dawned (sorry) on me that I hadn’t written up a viral for this weekend yet. Knowing that Manners has taken some strain from her co-workers recently, I didn’t want to be the one to finally push her over the edge. So with bleary eyes and ringing ears I tracked down a suitable clip for today. Something tells me I’m going to be lucky if I look half as good as these critters when I get up in the morning. Comment on "You?re gorgeous" ...

Bacteria Bootcamp 2007-06-02 02:41:42 This following ad was produced for Verum Hälsofil, a successful Swedish dairy brand complete with those probiotics everyone is raving about at the moment, by Saatchi & Saatchi.   Who knew bacteria could be so cute? I must say it’s a lot more appealing than the Clover Activia ad with the two sisters driveling on about their “regularity” on SA television at the moment – what a load of crap (sorry, couldn’t resist). Comment on "Bacteria Bootcamp" ...

How to annoy your coworkers? or not 2007-06-01 09:00:20 When I got to work this morning this is what I found: Yep, that is my desk – with every conceivable item on it wrapped in newspaper (even my sense of humour, which coincidentally I’ve been looking for for ages)! Word is that it was the handiwork of Darryn, the Dancing Queen, Gosling and Riaan. But apparently as soon as they started everyone else jumped on board as well. I usually get to work quite early so we even had a few Stars arriving way before they usually do (all for nothing because I had a lie in this morning - *insert sounds of evil laughter*). Their intention was probably for me to walk in and start freaking out, screaming and shouting like a harpie (which probably would have been my reaction a few days ago) – But Friday’s are happy days so I didn’t give it to them – there were quite a few disappointed little faces. Sorry boys, but you’ll have to try a lot harder next time. Oh and Riaan, Darryn and Andrew (I don’t car ...

Traffic + Conversion = SEO Success 2007-06-01 06:28:12 After quite a hectic week – I finally got around to reading my RSS feeds and I came across a post from Lee Odden on Toprankblog entitled “Are search engine rankings dead?” In the article he mentions how most people measure their SEO success by their rankings on search engines, and how the focus of top eMarketing companies has moved from rankings to traffic; and now to conversions. Conversion Optimisation – the method where one would change your copy writing focus from optimising your content for rankings; to converting visitors into clients. The first thing to keep in mind is - Credibility. Whenever visitors sense that something may not be entirely kosher they leave without any hesitation. This does not only apply to your copy but also to images, ads, and other objects. The second – Deliver what you promised. If a visitor clicks on a link for purple widgets, then show him purple widgets. Don’t change the focus of your page. The third lesson &n ...

A live search that's actually live? 2007-06-01 03:48:49 For all the power of Google and Yahoo!'s search engines the amount of results that they return is surprisingly small compared to what is actually out there on the web. Essentially, search engines as we know them operate on a pretty simple premise – spiders are sent out to crawl through billions of pages, building an index in the process. It is this index that the search engine then refers to when a query is submitted. There are two problems with this. Firstly, as has already been mentioned, it is by no means a complete representation of the actual content on the web – the spiders, as powerful as they are, cannot hope to reach all of the pages outside of the mainstream. There have been some estimates of Google having only indexed as little as 20% of the Internet. Secondly, the index will never be completely up to date – cases of sites that took months to be included, even though they were actively promoting themselves, are not unheard of. Enter My Live Search. Using ...

YouTube as a medium for advertising 2007-05-30 03:38:17 Are you one of over 5 million to have watched the latest trailer for Titanic: The Sequel on YouTube? The rumour mill has been churning out the idea of a possible sequel to box-office hit Titanic (1997) for a good decade now. So some college kid with a little too much time on his hands thought up a story line, spliced some film clips together and made a spoof trailer – Titanic 2: Jack’s Back. What amazed me, apart from my sister’s Asian students thinking it was a real advert for a forthcoming release, was the sheer number of people who had viewed the clip. And it was all through word-of-mouth. Harnessed properly, YouTube makes for an ideal primary medium for broadcasting a ‘television’ campaign. A YouTube campaign doesn’t face the constrictions of conventional television advertising and can be far more risqué, something global youth brands like Levi’s could definitely benefit from. The trick is to produce something with a concept that ... Advertising  Youtube

Microsoft set themselves a place at the table 2007-05-29 06:09:13 The social networking scene is soon to accept another major player to the circle. Wallop is Microsoft’s latest attempt to cash in on the trends already set by the global market. The site, which only recently went live, has already caused quite a stir amongst bloggers, developers and punters in general. Although the platform is not a direct Microsoft project, the corporation has been the main subsidiser, along with a host of venture capitalists. The angle of this particular service is aim to keep the riff-raff out by keeping the area exclusive. Their vision is to keep it as secure and private as possible, eliminating the threat of spammers and prowlers. The system is currently only leaving its beta stage, and is available to a select few Microsoft Live subscribers who were invited after submitting online applications. Most services available on the site are adaptations of the current standards (blogging, photo/video galleries, themed groups etc), but does also include a few fre ... Microsoft

WebPR+ Conference Podcast: Episode 1 2007-05-29 02:06:18 A big thanks to the Chili’s for producing this, the first episode in a 12 part series that will cover the ins and outs of the WebPR+ Conference held in Johannesburg at the Indaba Hotel in March. Episode 1 marks Sally Falkow’s introduction to her session on "New Media Habits and New Technology Affecting the Practice of PR". Listen to it now. Stay tuned for the rest of the episodes! Comment on "WebPR+ Conference Podcast: Episode 1" ...