mktg

Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute - useit.com

2006-11-09T14:38:00.000-08:00

The author, Jakob Nielsen, claims that in most online community, 90% of users are lurkers who never participate. All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don't participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background.
User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:
90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.
This is important because such inequities would give you a biased understanding of the community, because many differences almost certainly exist between people who post a lot and those who post a little. And you would never hear from the silent majority of lurkers.
The author also claims that you can't overcome the participation inequality but suggesting that there are ways to better equalize it, including:
-Make it easier to contribute.
-Make participation a side effect.
-Edit, don't create.
-Reward -- but don't over-reward -- participants.
-Promote quality contributors.
From this article, i strongly agree with the author that we can't overcome the paticipation inequality but we can encourage them in someway. 90% is a big percentage that we can't ignore. We should find the way to make them contribute. Your website's design undoubtedly influences participation inequality for better or worse. Being aware of the problem is the first step to alleviating it, and finding ways to broaden participation will become even more important as the Web's social networking services continue to grow.

Local Online Ad Spend to Double by 2010: Kelsey - Clickz.com

2006-11-09T14:10:00.000-08:00

The article is about annual forecast predicting a worldwide increase in local search and online classifieds spending, which is released by Market research firm The Kelsey Group.
The forecast asserts the local search segment will grow from $3.4 billion in 2005 to $13 billion in 2010, with online classifieds growing from $12.3 billion to $18.1 billion. Overall local search and online classified spending will grow from $15.7 billion in 2005 to twice that, or $31.1 billion, in 2010.
It's all part of a marketing trend away from advertising on broad-based Web sites where marketers must attempt to be all things to all consumers, and toward targeting on location and vertical, according to Matt Booth, SVP and program director for interactive local media at the research firm.
The reason I chose this article because it's directly involve with e-commerce. The trend of online classified is the major impact of the future. Most business will find the way to promote their products online wisely to catch as much customers as they could.

Guest speakers: Direct Marketing and SEM

2006-11-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

On October 26, we have guest speakers, David Alpern & Alon Hartuv, come to lectured about Marketing. They said that there are actually 7 p's in the marketing world. The 7 P's are
•Price
•Promotion
•Product
•Place (Distribution)
•People
•Process
•Physical evidence

But they will have a lecture focusing on Promotion in the area of direct marketing.
Direct marketing usually is carried out through telephone (telemarketing and telesales), direct mail (brochures, catalogs, flyers), direct-response broadcast advertising (television & radio), online computer shopping, and cable television infomercials and home shopping networks.
Direct marketing, as the fifth strategic promotional discipline, supports the sales effort by using one or more of the available media to generate a quantifiable and trackable response that moves the customer closer to the initial or additional sale without the use of a face-to-face salesperson

Direct Marketing
•“Addressable" media Vs. "mass" media
•Does not place its messages on a third party medium
•Not mass media
•Easy to track
•Is it junk mail and e-mail spam ?

Popular Direct Mail Venues
- Catalogs
- Self-mailers
- Postcards
- Envelope mailers
- Snap mailers
- Shared mails
- Dimensional mailers

Advantages of Direct Mail

•Targeting
•Personalization
•Optimization
•Accumulation

Disadvantages of Direct Mail
•Cost

Components of Direct Marketing

•List
•Creative
•Offer

Zappos.com

2006-09-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

Once I went to surf at Zappos.com, I realize that there are hundreds of shoes waiting for me. Finally, I picked one, which is ASICS GT-2110. I love the stlye and color of it. Then the thing that I always do before I decide to buy is to read the products' review about the shoes. For the one I pick, all most perfectly positive feedback. That make me feel a lot comfortable.
I think the website that offers a customers' review is smart because they know that buying products online is not like buying stuff in a physical places. Customers, at least, need something to making sure that the product they buy is good enough without seeing it physically. Even though, if some products receive a negative review, it's good for the owners because the owners should relize that they should not selling that stuffs anymore.
I think every websites, such as Kencole.com, should offer products' review because it shows somekind of royalty to the customers.

My opinion about blog

2006-09-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

3) Based on your browse through some of these blogs and the Fortune article on blogs, make a concise but thoughtful list of the potential business uses of blogs for organizations, marketers and/or content sites (such as newspapers) .
Answer: The list of the potential business uses of blogs that I can think of would be
1) http://buzzoodle.blogspot.com
2) http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/
However, The first Blog that come into my mind would be MySpace.com. I think this website is the most popular among college students and others to create their own blogs.

4) Should blogs look and feel like traditional marketing and advertising? Why or why not?
Answer: I don't think so because I think blog should be more like something for informal uses.

5) Are blogs a fad? Or will they continue to have some impact for marketing? Why or why not?
Answer: Sure, they will have some impact for marketing. I think marketers already realize at this point.

6) Would you like to see the marketing department (or whatever your major department is) start a blog? If so, what would you like to see there? If not, why not?
Answer: Sure, I 'd like to see something that is more friendly than a university webpage.