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Scott Berinato at CSOOnline has an excellent piece up that explains how the bane of your inbox, image spam, works, and why it is driving your IT guys nuts trying to keep it out of your box.  Although this stuff seems quite simple, it’s actually an incredibly sophisticated mix of techniques.

Check it out at the CSOOnline site.

String Cheese Incident playing “Black and White” on Austin City Limits – date unknown.  String Cheese is commencing their farewell tour now, so if you like it, go to StringCheeseIncident.com  and get out to see this great jam band before their gone…

[youtube]CCODxHMwuEo[/youtube]

On a side note, I was shocked how hard it was to find a decent String Cheese music video. Note to SCI fans, 30 second cell phone videos aren’t worth your time to upload to YouTube.

If you like it, check out the Archive.org and give some of the downloadable live show recordings a shot.  I personally recommend the July 2005 Tweeter Center show and the October 29, 2005 show from Orleans Arena. 

As a blogger, you’ve seen it.  Tons of spam infesting your blog and wasting your time, and most of it’s coming in via your trackbacks (trackbacks, or pings are an automated means of notifying another blog that you’ve quoted them, by posting a comment and a link back to your blog), hitting your older posts, and basically robbing your site of it’s dignity.

I’ve noticed over the past few months that more and more bloggers are simply turning off the trackbacks – and Steve Rubel say’s their dead.  I’ve left them enabled, but I fear it is inevitable that I’m going to have to eventually turn them off.  Perhaps there’s a technological answer, such as handling trackbacks through a verification service (do you hear me, Technorati?). 

So here’s my question: I generally link to a lot of blogs.  At best 50% have trackbacks enabled, so I generally get no love in return.  And when I do, there’s at best a 50% chance that Technorati will see it and apply it to my Authority Ranking.

Technorati is the defacto search engine for blogs, not Google.  Just last week they added a new widget to their site that lets you see the “Authority Ranking” for each blog.  That number is directly related to the number of blogs that link to you.  There is no other qualitative analysis – it strictly goes by incoming links from blogs which are also listed in Technorati. 

That’s the crux of my misgivings: if trackbacks and pings cease to exist, then we’re only relying on in bound links as a measure of how Authoritative we are.  Hence while I may have 15 years of web design experience, Technorati will tell you that a blog that’s written by a newbie, but has tons of in bound links due to his wonderful pictures of Anna Nicole, is 10 times more authoritative.  And we know that’s simply not true, especially if you’re looking for information on web design or anything other than Anna Nicole.

In watching my traffic stats, I am continually astounded by the number of drivebys (one time visits, that bounce at one page) searching for “Small Farm Animals.”  Even worse, there was one term I used in a post two weeks ago that I am utterly disgusted to say has reached the top 5 of incoming search terms for this site. 

Good blog posts:

Will blog comment spam and trackback spam kill the global conversation?

I’ve Removed The “No Follow” Tag from My Blog – You Should Too!

Turning Tb Spam Off – Way Off

John Whiteside has a great post up where posits that as marketers, we need to be sure the means of communication is appropriate to the message.

He notes that he was contacted on his  phone by his auto dealer to remind him his car was due for service, and also by his insurance company just as a thank you for being their customer.  His point:

That’s not a bad reason to contact a customer, but it’s a horrible reason to call them on the phone. Especially in an age where more and more people (including me) use mobile phones as their primary phones.

I can’t agree more.  We need to keep in mind that the Hypocratic Oath has applicability to marketing.  “First, do no harm” ought to be our mantra.  The potential for truly annoying a customer with a phone call is extremely high.  Call them when it’s important – perhaps “I just noticed your insurance policy will run out next week,” or “Your car’s computer emailed me, it says it’s about to throw a Johnson Rod – get over here ASAP.”

I too am one of those people that basically uses his cell for everything.  My desk phone has a message on it to tell you to call me on my cell, even though it’s often sitting three feet from my corporeal presence.  If I get a call on the home phone, the chance is 95% that it’s someone I don’t want to talk to, probably a telemarketer, no one who knows me would ever waste their time calling that line.

I had a rude awakening last week.  One of my product managers has been sending a monthly newsletter, and I had thought the list was targetted at only her products clients.  It turns out she’s been sending to a much broader list of our customers, most of whom no longer use her product.  My problem is that for every mailing, there are a handful of unsubscribes.  While those potential customers may have no interest in her product, their potential customers for so many other things we sell.  But, unfortunately due to the way I handle unsubscribes, they’re all the same to me.  Once you tell me “No More” that’s exactly what you get.  You’re dead to me.

From time to time, we talk about putting the email marketing chores in the hands of the product managers, or perhaps an administrative assistant (not that there are many of them walking around anymore).  I’ll admit it, I’d love to give up that task, but the truth is, there’s no way I’d ever consider handing direct access to our customer email lists to someone who doesn’t have a firm grasp of marketing.  One or two screw ups, and we’ll never be able to email anyone again.  That’s just one of the things that truly scares me as a marketer.  Every time I hit the send button I fear the switchboard will light up with complaints, and I’ll say that if you’re not worried about that, then you don’t have enough respect for your ability to shoot your company in the foot…or worse.

Obviously, not everyone feels that way.  I routinely will get 3 or 4 versions of the same email newsletter from any one of a number of companies I might have talked to 5 or 6 years ago.  I’ve never responded to them, and I’ve never followed the call to action to go to their site.  Yet 5 years later, I still get their email newsletter.

Seth Godin’s got a great pointer to a Cory Doctorow essay which is a must for anyone moderating forums or online communities, particularly dealing with Trolls.

From Cory:

Teresa is a troll-whisperer. For some reason, she can spot irredeemable trolls and separate them from the merely unsocialized. She can keep discussions calm and moving forward. She knows when deleting a troll’s message will discourage him, and when it will only spark a game of whack-a-mole.

Teresa calls it “having an ear for text” and she is full of maddeningly unquantifiable tips for spotting the right rod to twiddle to keep the reactor firing happily without sparking a meltdown.

I particularly love the bit about “Disemvoweling” as a punishment.  she leaves the post, but removes the vowels.  An incredibly interesting punishment, most likely coming to a certain Saltwater Fly Fishing community at the next outbreak of hostilities (which from past experience ought to be about mid-June, just prior to commercial fishing season).

Go forth and read. 

Here are a couple other bits on forum management you ought to read:

• Stu Charlton
• Errata Security
• ScribbleDesigns.Co.Uk

Today I’m thinking about business blogs.  The question in mind is this:  who should you be writing for?  Your customers, the industry at large, or anyone who happens to drift by on the winds of the internet?

I’m going to admit that I’m a prime offender here.  Although this is generally a business blog, I spend most of my time writing about the engine room stuff of marketing, web design/development and traffic analysis.  Much of it is not only stuff that my customer base wouldn’t read, it’s stuff that would probably send them scurrying off to some other site.  I do try to have a substantive post once or twice a week with a list that will benefit the small business community, but I suspect me boldest efforts tend to go into talking to my peers, not my customers.

I was reading the blogs of some of the people that have come in via  MyBlogLog.com over the past day or so and checked out Art Dinkin’s blog, “MomentonMoney.com.”  Art is a financial planner in Des Moines, Iowa, and his blog is a prime example of how to do a business blog properly.  Now I’m from New England, and as such, I’m probably not a potential customer.  But as a blog maven, I see some things that we should all consider for our blogs:

• He’s providing information his customers can put to work for them.
• His posts are short, easy to read and use an excellent mix of bold and regular text to pull the casual reader into the important points. 
• He uses images to make what could be dry subject matter more lively.
• Financial planning is exciting to him, and he conveys that to his readers.
• In my first read, in the first post, I learned something I did not know before. That’s real value, and if I were in his area, I’d be talking to him about my financial planning.

So what are your thoughts? Should business blogs speak primarily to customers, or should there be an “Inside Baseball” component of adding to the industries body of knowledge? 

For those that read about the Alpa Girl marketing yesterday, I’m gonna make a prediction – my Geek Girl is gonna out earn your Alpha Girl! 

MIT came up with a computer language called “Scratch” (the site is swamped now, read this article in the Boston Globe to get an idea)  which uses graphical representations to allow kids (and everyone) to learn the basics of programming and logic.  The software has a speedy ramp up and kids generally can have their first program running the first day.  Pretty neat stuff.

I’ll be evaluating this very soon with my two test subjects.  Madison is a 9 year old girl, and will be pretty quick to let me know if it’s “lame.”  She’s a good use case for your average young girl.  MacKenzie is 8, and will more likely represent the “geek girl” as she’s very techinically savvy, having hacked my password two months ago.  She also is apparently doing “Webkinz Support” for the 2nd grade, judging by the calls she gets during the afternoon and early evening.  “No, you need to right click there…”  Never mind the discussion we had the other day about relational databases.

So we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll report back over the next few days.  This will postpone the review of Webkinz World, Millsbury and BarbieGirls by a few days, as my assistants may be a little busy.

An opportunity arose the other day for a good position (a step up in title, if not in $$$$) but it presented the standard paradox that the marketing hired gun often faces.  The company is basically a poster child for a completely wrecked business model. 

Now, on the face of things, I’d say that it probably represents an interesting opportunity.  You see, it would be hard *not* to have a positive affect on the company.  They’re doing so little right, that there’s tons of low hanging fruit and online marketing 101 to be done.

Now on the other side, to be truly affective as a marketer, you’ve got to be convinced about the products unique importance to the market.  But with this company, a one time innovator, now a lost sheep in a field of wolves, there’s to be little possibility of convincing even the most souless among us that “we’re the best.”

I’ll admit it, I don’t want to walk in the door and take over if a company is doing it right.  That to my mind offers little opportunity for me to show the value. 

What do you think?  Do you look for a well oiled machine, or an engine that you can fix when you’re looking for a new position?

Vario customer Sam Whitmore 0f MediaSurvey.com was quoted in the New York Times today in an article about the PCWorld editorial dustup last week.  Congratulations to MediaSurvey.com.  Tip: if you are in tech marketing and need info on dealing with Tech Publications, you should be reading MediaSurvey. 

Sam is also now blogging here offering a taste of the great information he provides to his subscribers at MediaSurvey. 

As a parent of an 8 and a 9 year old girl, I’m learning a lot about marketing lately from the other side of the fence.  The funny thing is, some of the things I see working are exactly the types of things we marketing types have been railing against, such as the SecondLife.com type virtual world marketing. 

The thing is that while I may have grown up in a world without an Internet, my daughters have grown up in a world where they expect it.  They could teach us all a little bit about usability and user expectation (a topic for another day).  The type of thing that’s on fire right now for them and their network of friends is the WebKinz World virtual experience, where you buy a plush toy which is available at a$10 price point (makes it easy to convince a softhearted dad), and it comes with a code attached.  They then go online and “adopt” their toy, and set up it’s home in the virtual world.  The kids can buy stuff for the toy, such as furnishings for it’s house, like a pool, by using Webkinz Dollars, which they earn by playing games, etc.   Those games may or may not have a subtle marketing message to them (honestly, I haven’t spent a lot of time evalutating that).  They can also interact with their friends via the Clubhouse, where they are restricted to speed key type text messages, meaning they must select their messages to each other from a prewritten list, thus avoiding the chat issues that make parents cringe.  (More on virtual world marketing for girls tomorrow…)

This morning, there was an incredibly interesting piece on The Early Show about “Alpha Girls” (watch the video here – a must for marketers).  The crux of the story is that marketers have realized that tween age girls can be influenced by Secret Agent marketing. 

For those not familiar with the term, Secret Agent Marketing is when a hired gun is used to promote a product in a chance situation.  Such as when a liquor company hires a hot babe as an “ambassador” and she walks around the bars mentioning that “that new pomegranite liquor is excellent with vodka” and the next thing you know, every guy in the bar has tried it. 

In the Alpha Girl twist, they realize that in any group of girls, one or two exorts and inordinant amount of influence.  They identify these girls, then enlist them as “secret agents”, sending a box of stuff to be tested.  The Alpha girl has a party, and then enters her findings afterwards on a website. 

They’ve also realized that they’re excellent alpha testers, because they’ll tell you what they think about your product.  If it’s good, the product goes viral.  If it isn’t you better fix it, or forget it.

I think it’s going a step too far for me.  Little girls can be lemmings and I hate the notion that this marketing technique is blatantly exploiting them.  In some ways this represents the worst of us.  Terms like “need for disclosure” and “shill” come to mind.

Your thoughts?