Blog of the Year

Work has kept me too busy to blog lately, but I would be remiss to let tomorrow's Time (subscription required) article about Power Line go by without a mention. Power Line is the blog that pushed the issue about those Bush National Guard documents being apparent forgeries. They get credit for exposing the fraud and forcing the mainstream media to scrutinize the allegations. We all know what has happened at CBS News since then. Bottom line: a blog exposed the truth and made CBS accountable.

The Time story is very well written and is a pretty good primer on blogs. The account of how Power Line started is novel, and I suspect it will strike a chord with many other bloggers with similar beginnings. This paragraph sums up blogs as well as anything I've read:

If you haven't read one, it's hard to describe what makes blogs so special. There's just something about the rhythm and pace of a blog that feels intuitively right. You don't have to sit through fake-cheerful news-team chitchat or wade through endless column inches. It takes about 20 sec. to read a typical blog post, and when you're finished you've got the basic facts up to the minute plus a dab of analysis and a dash of spin. If you're not satisfied, you can click the link for more. If you are, you can go back to checking your e-mail and jiggering your spreadsheets or whatever you do for a living. This is news Jetsons-style. If it were any neater and quicker, it would come in a pill.

Congratulations, guys. I have not been a Power Line reader, but I will be now.

Rediscover the Web

Well, I've completely switched to Firefox now that verison 1.0 was released a couple weeks ago. Man, is it one slick piece of software. Tabbed browsing is killer. Don't be afraid to try it. It's a breeze to install.

Red and Blue: Map vs. Map

I generally don’t like to blog on political issues, but something really got my attention this morning. Here’s the red and blue map we’ve all been looking at since 2000. This is the updated 2004 version:

Now here’s a version that one of my co-workers sent me:

Although I do not for a minute believe the “evangelicals defeated Kerry” argument, I am sure that a substantial number of people do think this way if the media coverage is any indication. How the church responds to this is going to be very important. I certainly hope it is first  and foremost with grace and humility, and I think it will be in large part. But that’s not what you’ll see in the headlines. Keep your eyes on the covers of Newsweek and Time in the coming weeks.

Update on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 12:29PM by Rob

Great editorial in the New York Times on this topic. (via Casalena.org)

Sole Survivor

There's a nice story in the November 1 issue of Time about New Balance. Here are some excerpts:

...New Balance has proved that it's possible to manufacture in the U.S. and compete. The company's plant in Brighton, Mass., for instance, features robotics and a high-tech molding process that can produce an outsole in 12 seconds -- allowing New Balance to make a sneaker from scratch and fill orders rapidly as they come in. Another advantage Davis sees: better relationships with retailers. New Balance's domestic factories play a key role in filling special orders for hard-to-find sizes and widths and give the company more flexibility to help out independent retailers -- a lucrative niche. The firm has a reputation "as the easiest company to do business with," according to the trade publication Sporting Goods Investor. As for the wage gap, Davis says it's overblown. All his U.S. plants are highly automated, with bar-coded parts and computerized stitching and embroidery machines, resulting in about 25 minutes of manual labor to produce a pair of shoes versus more than four hours in a less automated Asian plant.

None of this will matter, of course, if Davis can't sell a hot product.

Davis wants to maintain as much of his operations as close to his New England home as possible, and without Wall Street pressure to eke out maximum profits, he can invest where he pleases and patiently wait for the returns. His wife Anne sits next door to him at work, running the human-resources department, and most of his senior executives have been with him for a decade or longer. Turnover rate at his plants: just 5%.

Though I am certainly no athlete, I've been a fan of NB shoes for several years. Although my current pair is made in China, this story is a good example of a company that is doing it right for its customers without sacrificing its core values. They're staying competitive without giving up what makes them strong.

New Balance shoes fit, they're comfortable, and they don't cost an arm and a leg. But my favorite thing about NB is that you can buy the same shoe year after year. I'm just finishing up my second pair of 608's. (All NB shoes have an easily identifiable model number.) I know I can go to Kohl's next week and get a new pair of the exact same shoe. It's a guy's dream come true! I don't even have to try them on.

New Balance faces the same challenges as the rest of us in the CPG business: the mass retailing oligopoly, China Inc. and fickle consumers, to name a few, yet they are winning the battle. They are privately owned and answer only to their conscience and their customers. But this doesn't mean they have their heads in the sand. They continue to be progressive and make bold, unconventional investments to grow their business. The last line in the article says it all: "Innovation, meet tradition."

Can Web Information Make You Sick?

More interesting stuff from eMarketer...

Arriving at a somewhat startling conclusion, the Department of Primary Care and Population Sciences at University College London announced last week that people who go online to find out more about their conditions can end up in worse health than those who don't. Dr. Elizabeth Murray, a spokesperson for the University, says the study found that people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes or asthma, who went online seeking medical information did benefit in some ways, but when it came to changing to healthier behavior -- they actually ended up in worse health than patients who didn't consult the Internet at all. Either patients learn too much and become less motivated to change, or they think hey know more than their doctors.

Every time I research a health issue online, it just makes me worry more about it. A few facts are helpful, but there are just certain things that I don't want to know before I need to! There's something about the web that just seems to induce hypochondria.

Click Fraud

Today's newsletter from eMarketer included a blurb about "Click Fraud":

"Click fraud" is the practice of using bots or people (usually hired in India or China) to click on advertising links displayed in search results with the aim of increasing the count and cost of the ads by making the traffic appear to rise. While it is impossible to work out the extent of click fraud, Google and the other sellers of search advertising are mute on the subject, some marketing professionals believe that they account for up to 20% of paid search fees in certain advertising categories. Others say as much as 50% of cost-per-click advertising dollars are spent on fraudulent clicks. Big problem.

I've always suspected that click fraud is a serious problem, but this is the first time I've seen an article about it. (I wonder if that's even an appropriate name for it.) We've been in the process of starting to do some online advertising, and this has been a concern. It would be easy for a competitor to click away on our ads just to hear the cash register ring. Heck, I've even done a little clicking myself that certainly went beyond the boundaries of genuine marketing research.

An obvious, albeit incomplete solution, would be to allow advertisers to exclude specific IP addresses from their clicks. At the very least you ought to be able to exclude your own IP! Advertisers also ought to be able to exclude IP's from outside their marketing region, and they should also be able to see a log of which IP's are creating the clicks. Perhaps the latter is already possible; I don't know.

Last week I specifically asked my Google rep if excluding IP addresses was possible. The answer was "no." He said it was the first time anyone had asked that question. I bet it won't be the last.

Update on Thursday, October 28, 2004 at 05:06PM by Rob

The term "click fraud" turned up in the October issue of Wired magazine.

Boudreaux's Butt Paste

Among today's Yahoo Daily Picks , here's a great example of what an interesting product name can do. From the ingredients, it sounds very similar to Desitin. With a name like "Butt Paste," though, it's a far more interesting purchase.

It's the perfect buzz-marketed product. How could you not talk about it?

I can't imagine anyone using it on oral lesions , though.

Google's Long-Term Thinking

I just read a commentary on CBS Marketwatch about Google's IPO quiet period. First, Google shook up the investment world by going public through an auction, effectively shutting out the big institutions from their usual special IPO deals. Now, add another twist to the mix of Google's public life -- they are not going to provide any financial guidance. They will report their earnings and everything else that is required, but they are not going to speculate publicly about their future financial outlook.

The public auction thing was certainly an attention getter. It was rebellious and independent, fitting the Google profile very well. The guidance decision, however, is flat out brilliant. This is a huge step away from conventional wisdom. I always assumed that providing guidance was a legal requirement, not an option. Who knew!?

Refusing to provide future guidance allows Google to operate without much of the baggage that most high-profile public companies carry around. It helps them remain focused on the long term. Stock prices are all about expectations. By not creating them, Google is left to make sound management decisions without having to worry about the consequences of being poor fortune tellers. I love it.

Pontiac and Oprah Buzz

OK, this is straight from the Yahoo! Buzz Index just a few minutes ago:

Overall Movers

1. Pontiac G6, +10288.53%
2. Oprah Winfrey, +1620.54%
3. Mauna Loa, +834.47%
4. The Benefactor, +648.97%
5. Monday Night Football, +563.39%
   

Overall Leaders

1. Oprah Winfrey
2. National Hurricane Center
3. Hurricane Ivan
4. Britney Spears
5. NFL
   

Observations:

• Pontiac is obviously getting a huge lift for their $7 million giveaway.
• Pontiac's buzz is growing exponentially faster than Oprah's, BUT Oprah is #1 overall. (Pontiac just missed the top 5 overall, and Oprah has nearly double the score.)

I don't know if this is brilliant marketing or not, but it sure is fun to watch. One thing is certain: It will work best this time. Each future duplicate of this promotion will be incrementally less effective. Not that this will stop companies from trying.

Quoted in the Plain Dealer

Chris Seper's column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer today includes comments from last week's Web Association meeting. It's nice to be quoted accurately. I always hold my breath after I speak with a journalist. Chris was right on the money.

Update on Thursday, September 16, 2004 at 01:03AM by Rob

On the heels of Chris's article, we received this timely email from a consumer today.

May I say that I am very pleased with the way Step2 handles e-mail inquiries. I had first e-mailed Step2 back in May to find out about packaging dimensions so that I could make sure that the product would fit in my van. Your reply then was fast and accurate and I had no surprises when I loaded the Playhouse Climber & Swing Extension.

For this second inquiry, again, you replied quickly and the information provided is so specific that you made it a no-brainer for me. If I sound like I'm rambling, it's just that numerous Web sites providing some e-mail contacts often just ignore inquiries. It seems that they invest to get a nice-looking site on the Web and then just forget it altogether!

So again, my congratulations on how you handle my inquiries. Consumers DO notice these things and it does make me look for Step2 products first!

There's nothing like hearing it from a customer.