Page 20 of 34

      New push to legalize online poker

      February 25, 2011 /

      poker 1

      After Harry Reid failed to get an online poker provision passed in the lame-duck session of Congress at the federal level, several states are now pushing the issue as people realize that it’s foolish not to tax and regulate online gambling.

      In Iowa, there’s a new bill that would regulate and permit online poker, and this follows a bill passed in New Jersey that has been sent to the governor. There’s also a push in Florida and California.

      Hopefully, cash-strapped states will drive the agenda here, as the federal government won’t act due to the religious right.

      New Media

      Facebook keeps pushing the envelope in the online dating game

      February 22, 2011 /

      464a34ec466f360164f16988a1988625-4

      The online dating landscape keeps evolving, and Facebook and other social media sites are often leading the way. The latest out of Facebook let’s you set up a notice system so you get notified when someone you are interested in changes their status and is no longer “taken.” This breakup notifier will likely be a very popular feature.

      New Media, Social Media

      Managing a brand online and on social media

      February 10, 2011 /

      As the Internet evolves and social media continues to take over our lives, brands have a huge opportunity to engage their customers, but there are pitfalls as well. This area is very new, and there will inevitably be pitfalls along the way. Brands can’t just hand this over to an intern who floods the social media world with tweets and updates.

      Here’s some useful information from The New York Times:

      A new study just released by ExactTarget and CoTweet finds that more than 90 percent of consumers have “broken up” with at least one brand via Facebook, email or Twitter.

      The study surveyed 1500 consumers and found the most common reasons given for a social media breakup are that the company sends too many messages (“The stalker”), the consumer receives too many messages in general from companies (“The belle of the ball”) or the company’s communications become boring and repetitive (“The spark is gone”).Around a quarter of consumers are more mercenary and “only after one thing”. They sign up to receive messages from a brand only to receive a one-time offer and then opt out.

      Consumers who follow a brand through Facebook and Twitter are also much less likely to formally indicate that they are no longer interested in receiving information from a company and just ignore it (“not returning your calls”).

      Basically, brands have to treat social media like any other interaction with their customers. You have to engage customers, not flood them with useless information. Take it easy on the updates, and make them all meaningful.

      New Media, Social Media

      Google’s flaws lead to Huffington’s huge payday and Demand Media’s IPO

      February 10, 2011 /

      The Huffington Post sold for $315 to AOL this week, and Demand Media recently completed an IPO. In many ways, these events validate the strategy of gaming the system. Google is a beast that can be gamed, and both these operations did it very well.

      HuffPo is notorious for hysterical headlines and their lefty slant, but they were also very well organized and filled a void in the marketplace. In many ways they deserve their success. But, a big part of their success has to do with gaming Google’s search results. Their editors find interesting stories, do a post on it with a link back, but HuffPo usually gets all the search traffic. The other sites usually don’t complain, because links from HuffPo provide really good traffic as well.

      Demand Media also fills a void, as they use their own algorithm to find potential search results that need to be filled with content. Then they pay know-nothing writers (well, I guess some of them know what they are writing about) to create a short article covering the topic. AOL is even trying to copy the strategy. Many now refer to sites like Demand Media as content mills, and Google might be addressing the issue, but Demand Media has already scored their IPO and Google’s search results are littered with lame content at the top.

      Gaming the system pays.

      Entrepreneurs, New Media, Search

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Linked and Loaded

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑