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Andiamo! On Demand Brand Monitoring

I came across this service that monitors brand conversations online. It reports the good, the bad, and overall buzz. Andiamo! Systems claims to measure your brand's buzz so you don't have to. They use keyword tracking find conversations relevant to your selected word. You can track your brands or your competitor's brands. You can track your brand through a dashboard that they provide.They system is currently priced at $275 per month, but will go up at the beginning of 2008. That's not a bad deal for big companies. They are also working on an agency version that will allow agencies and PR firms track their clients' brands. click here to watch a video demo

As more and more bloggers write and influence behavior it is important to understand the conversations that are happening about your brand. We are in the business of perception and too many businesses are out of touch with how they are perceived. This service is interesting. I'd like to see where it goes.

Nokia on Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has become a buzz word for the internet after the dot com bust. In the past five years new companies focusing on connecting people have emerged. Myspace, Youtube, Flickr, you know the rest. Nokia made a nice little viral piece, incorporating their current phrase "Connecting People." It's a bit cheesy but it gets the point across.

Students & Media Consumption

Anywhere.FM really cool concept

Anywhere.FM is a music player that lets you upload your music and play it online anywhere. You simply need to have the player. The site started beta testing last week. Before July 27th, you couldn't find a anything about the site through Google's blog search. The results were mostly about Last.Fm. As of this week Anywhere.FM owns the words Anywhere.FM in the blogsphere. That's kind of a big deal. You can make a dent in the blogsphere fairly quickly, the point of this message.

I also noticed that the site has a direct link to their facebook group. As of today there were only 300+ members, but it's a start. With little more effort than money, a company of any sized can benefit from the proper use of social media. 

Advertagg, My Little Digg Clone

What's Advertagg? It all started about 2 weeks ago when I decided to see what makes Digg.com so special. Digg is a social news sharing site where people vote or "digg" the stories they find most interesting. Digg recieves hundreds of thousands of hits per day. It was originally intended for technology and geek news, which it's still known for. Digg members are the first to get leaks about everything. I started posting on Digg and watched my web traffic go through the roof. Here is an example of one of my best days last week.

I did alright on Digg until I was unable to post blog entries anymore. I can link to everything else but my own site. That sucks! You see, Digg members police themselves and report "spam". Of course my entries are going to seem like spam,I write about advertising. It just came to light that over 50 of the top Digg users are on the payroll of a PR firm. I did a little research and found out that the "social news" trend is on the rise. Remember Netscape, they aren't just a search engine anymore, they are a social news engine. There is a also Spanish Digg clone called meneame.net.

I wasn't spamming on Digg, though I was promoting my site. I first started blogging in late August, as an experiment to look further into blogs and the "new" web. Posting on Digg was an experiment in Web 2.0. This leads me into Advertagg.com.

Advertagg.com is my social news experiment. I figure I can't get kicked out of my own network. Advertagg is about creativity, innovation, and communication. It is as much about advertising, marketing, and technology as it is about design and art. I also made sure to include a section for amatuer and student work. It's still in the works but, I just finished making the beta version thanks to Pligg, a site that designed shareware to create these types of networks.  I'm tired. So please, take a look, join, and post an article or two. I would like to remind you that I am not a programmer so this whole thing still needs work. I just started testing it today. Feedback is greatly appreciated and if there are any designers out there that can work with smarty codes and CSS, I could use a lil help. Good night!

LeWeb3 & Web 2.0

LeWeb3 is a huge conference taking place in Paris for two days. This conference is all about unleashing the power of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is the second internet boom. Companies like Myspace.com, Youtube, Flickr, SixApart and others are part of this revolution. Blogs are also huge in Web 2.0. The conference will address many of the issues of Web 2.0, but the question on many people’s minds is making money. How can we make money in the “new internet”? While some will make money, others worry about creating a speculative bubble like the one that burst after the first boom. Check out some of the big name sponsors.

I have a vested interest in Web 2.0. I am a blogger, and I am currently working on a few Web 2.0 ideas. My goal is to build a brand using the skills that I have acquired in college and use them to harvest a successful brand and sell it to pay my student loans. My vision is shared by thousands of other people with all kinds of motives. There is opportunity in the air and I want a part of it. That seems to be the sentiment. Only a few companies are going to rise to be the next Facebook or Craigslist. I don’t want to think that far ahead. I just want to prove that I can build a successful brand. I mean, I am majoring in Creative Brand Management. LeWeb3 looks like it’s going to be a great event. 55% of the attendees are non-French and the event will be held in French. I'm tempted to make a bumper sticker that reads “I’d rather be at LeWeb3”, but that wouldn’t be very 2.0, now would it? 

Compete.com vs. Alexa

On MyBlogLog.com I learned about Compete.com. Compete.com is an interesting concept. It is a place to get statisical data about internet site and qualitative data from people who visit the site. The concept is hard to explain. It's like Neilson Diary meets Alexa using Yahoo technology and clean graphs. But there's also consumer safety, savings, and other features inside Compete.com. I don't do them justice. read more

(this is compete.com rating; you can get the rating of most sites)

This is how they explain it:

"Compete's mission is to transform the way consumers and brands communicate. This means that we help consumers experience a safer, smarter and more valuable web. We are also passionate about helping companies understand how people use the web to research, buy and talk about their products. By bringing consumers and marketers closer together online, Compete helps to create new and mutual benefits for each.  

Compete's services are based upon the online activity of more than two million (and growing!) community members who have opted to share information like the web pages they visit and their attitudes and preferences about products and services they own and use. We analyze this information every day to create valuable member services, like SnapShot and the Compete Toolbar, and also insightful research for marketers. Our services increase in value as more people join Compete, so we always strive to find new and interesting ways for people to participate as members."

LinkedIn vs. Monster.com

LinkedIn.com is another social network, but not really. This one stands out. LinkedIn is a social network for professionals to meet and stay in touch. It has a business edge. LinkedIn is a logical progression from Facebook or Myspace. It is for the grown and sexy. It is a great place to connect with employers or friends. LinkedIn has a different business model than other sites. You can join LinkedIn for free, but to get the full benefits you need to subscribe. I recently joined. I am testing it out and I love it. I'm not going to jump right in to a full subscription yet, but probably in a month or two. You see, I have the seeds of a social networking model in the works and LinkedIn would be an ideal place to meet potential venture partners. This might not happen for a few years, but I've found a great place to start. The old saying that "it's not what you know, but who you know", is only partially true. What you know may be enhanced exponentially by whom you know. There are over 8 million users from all industries linked in. So, why would I post a resume on Monster.com, knowing that I am more than that. LinkedIn allows for the relationship building part employment to happen before you're even hired. read more

StudiVZ vs. Facebook

Studiverzeichnis, or StudiVZ for short, is basically the German Facebook. They have about 1,000,000 users and have grown faster than most social networking sites. There are an estimated 15,000 new members each day compared to Facebook's 20,000 per day, but StudiVZ started in July. The problem for Facebook is that they can't expand into Europe or other regions like Myspace did because other regional services are taking the lead abroad. Mark Zuckerberg originally wanted to sell Facebook for $2 Billion, but the site is currently valued at half of that. With competition on the rise, niche networks are going to become the next big thing. I predict owning several, powerful niche networks is going to be worth more than owning one big generic one.

Zune vs. iPod

Microsoft loves to compete. They made a dent in the gaming industry with the X-Box and now they want to get into the premium media player category. Apple's iPod can be credited with Apple's success in recent years. If you look closely at successful media players, you might notice that the generic term, MP3 player, is rarely used by the premium brands. Zune, like iPod wants to stand alone. But when Microsoft is involved there are always some haters (for good reasons). James Coates of the Chicago Tribune wrote about how Microsoft pushed for a standard, "PlaysForSure", that other MP3 players adopted to ensure Windows compatibility. Microsoft then went on to create the Zune player and didn't even use the WMA player standard that it pushed on companies like Creative and Archos to adopt. Bad PR is the last thing you need when you are launching something this big.

The Zune is not all bad. Personally, I wouldn't have made it look so similar to the iPod, but thats just me. Zune plays video and displays photos on a larger screen than the iPod. Another good thing about the Zune is that it plays and supports non-copyright-protected songs. Many PC owner have a vast collection of songs that were acquired before iTunes and other services distributed songs with the copyright built in. Microsoft, following the Apple model, also created a proprietary pay-per-download online store exclusively for Zune players.

Is Zune going to take a chunk out of the iPod market? Yes, but it is going to take a bigger slice of pie away from all the other media players, which now use windows media player technology.