in Digital Marketing [dot] com

I really think Chris Anderson is a very talented author, I have learnt so much out of his last bestseller “The Long Tail” where he demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before.

I have been anxiously waiting for his new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” since he announced it almost about 12 months ago, the book was released on July 7th and I have been dying to get a copy in my hands (the problem, I am currently traveling overseas and cannot get it right away).

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But I have now been able to get the book not in my hands but in my ipod (all the details later on…), and I have been enjoying every bit of it.

One of the first concepts that I have clearly understood from Anderson’s new book is that
“Information wants to be free”

In this new book he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company’s survival, and I can testify to this, because in the travel / timeshare industry I have been involved with, the concept of Free is a very common business practice.

The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long.

“Information wants to be free.” The digital age, Anderson argues, is exerting downward pressure on the prices of all things “made of ideas.” Anderson does not consider this a passing trend. Rather, he seems to think of it as an iron law.

To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online.”

To the newspaper industry, he would say the same thing. Newspapers need to accept that content is never again going to be worth what they want it to be worth, and reinvent their business. “Out of the bloodbath will come a new role for professional journalists,” he predicts.

Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy. Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you’re trying to sell.

In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.

“Information wants to be free”

Watch this great video where you can learn more about this book

Video – Free – The Future of a Radical Price  (Brightcove)

And last but not least

You can buy this great new book at Amazon.com

Amazon.com: Free – The Future of a Radical Price $16.19

BUT DON’T YOU THINK HE SHOULD GIVE THIS BOOK FOR FREE ?  (at least to support his case)

Well, he does

Here you can download an Unabridged Audio version of this great book

——– >>>>>>>>  ABSOLUTELY FREE !!!!!!!!

http://www.wired.com/images/multimedia/free/FREE_Audiobook_unabridged.zip

I am now very happy because even though I am out of the country and could not get a copy of this book the day it came out, I am not able to listen to it FOR FREE.

Get Anderson’s newest book “Free” for FREE.

There are two brands that have been getting a lot of buzz lately, the Twitter brand and the iPhone brand, and when you put them together and use Twitter to promote traffic to your twitter feeds, it can be a very powerful thing.

There is a web hosting company called Squarespace who is doing an iPhone giveaway via Twitter.

They started giving away 30 iPhones in 30 days on June 8th, 2009

It is a very simple contest, all you need to do is send out a tweet with the #squarespace hashtag included and they will randomly choose one (1) winner per day who will get a brand new iPhone 3GS.  (In this case a $199.00 apple gift card that will help you buy a new iPhone 3GS, you will still have to sign up for AT&T two year committment account).

Now the catch is that users must enter a daily tweet every single day (with #squarespace in the tweets) for a new chance to win as they clearly explain on their blog.

They are announcing the winners via their website and via their Twitter @squarespace feed.

There is a lot of great positive buzz on twitter about this promotion

Now even though this is in concept a great idea, it can also generate some negative buzz by creating a lot of noise overload, especially for those Twitter users who follow a lot of people and can start  to turn people off.

I agree with some social media pundits who have been saying that we need to think of a contest or a promotion that encourages people to deliver some value, so, in order not to turn a good idea into a social media promotion failure, we need to make sure that 1) We engage the users, 2) We ask for some substance and affiliation with our brand, 3) Run the contest in a short time (ie, 7 days or so); that will make your promotion interactive and not just pushing out noise.

I recently came across TweetPsych, which provides a psychological profile of a person based on his or her tweets.

I think it is a pretty neat idea because as its creator Dan Zarella states, TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform.

I’ve been enjoying analyzing most of my twitter friends accounts,
but  on the serious side of things, I also wonder if TweetPsych could be used in the hiring process?

There is a lot of buzz about how companies are checking the prospective employees feeds like their Twitter feeds or their FriendFeed to determine what are they up to in their off time, or even to see if they are using how are they effectively using their time during work hours.

I would like to know your opinion,

Would you do a TweetPsych profile on someone you’re thinking of hiring?

Not that you want to hire me, but just in case you want to know, and want to learn that I focus a lot on work, my Twitter user name is @ncienfuegos – My wife says she didn’t need that tool to know that….

So, here is what it says about my twitter feeds
http://www.tweetpsych.com/?name=ncienfuegos

Even though some social marketing pundits thought that the Skittles Twitter trick as a great social media trick, I personally believe it was a great failure.

Not having learned from its previous failure of turning the www.skittles.com home page into a Twitter search feed for Skittles, they have now forwarded their home page no more than to their YouTube page http://www.skittles.com

The Skittles Twitter Trick

When the Skittles Twitter campaign first launched, it was one of the hottest trending topics on Twitter.   Most of the social media bloggers were saying “SKITTLES GETS IT!” but all they did was turn their home page into a constantly revolving loop of people saying “OMG SKITTLES LOVES TWITTER.” It almost seemed to be an ad campaign for Twitter vs one to enhance the Skittles brand.

One of the problems was that it was an extremely passive strategy (just like the YouTube trick now), there was no real community outreach, and it came to be pretty self-centered in the first weeks.

Once again, Skittles is breaking one of the first cardinal rules of social media — it is leading with a tool without reaching into its community. The Skittles home page is now the YouTube Skittles page.

Do you think that by changing their home page from the Twitter feed into the YouTube page they are finding more community engagement ?  What do you think ?

In any case, I personally believe that is a very poor digital marketing strategy for Skittles.  I am 100% convinced that they can do better.

Great slideshare presentation

Bill Gates is definitely one of the most successful businessmen in the world.  His mind was developed at a very early age, and he was very curious about technology since he was a little kid.

I just finished reading Geoff Colvin book “Talent is Overrated”

Talent is a process that “grows,” not a pre-determined set of skills

The question is: “What does great performance require?”

In this book, Colvin shares several insights generated by hundreds of research studies whose major conclusions offer what seem to be different perspectives on what is frequently referred to as “talent.”

In this context, I am reminded of Thomas Edison’s observation that “vision without execution is hallucination.” If Colvin were asked to paraphrase that to indicate his own purposes in this book, is that his response would be, “Talent without deliberate practice is latent” and agrees with Darrell Royal that “potential” means “you ain’t done it yet.” In other words, there would be no great performances in any field (e.g. business, theatre, dance, symphonic music, athletics, science, mathematics, entertainment, exploration) without those who have, through deliberate practice developed the requisite abilities.

Have you ever thought that, however different they may be in almost all other respects, athletes such as , Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, Lorena Ochoa, Michael Phelps, Vijay Singh, and Tiger Woods “make it look so easy” in competition because their preparation is so focused, rigorous, and thorough. Obviously, they do not win every game, match, tournament, etc. Colvin’s point is that all great performers “make it look so easy” because of their commitment to deliberate practice, often for several years before their first victory. In fact, Colvin cites a “ten-year rule” widely endorsed in chess circles that “no one seemed to reach the top ranks of chess players without a decade or so of intensive study, and some required much more time.”

Tiger Woods became such a great golf player at an earlier age because he started his ‘deliberate practice’ when he was just two years old.  It took him more than ten years to win his first tournament.
Colvin duly acknowledges that deliberate practice “is a large concept, and to say that it explains everything would be simplistic and reductive.” Colvin goes on to say, “Critical questions immediately present themselves: What exactly needs to be practiced? Precisely how? Which specific skills or other assets must be acquired? The research has revealed answers that generalize quite well across a wide range of fields.” Even after committing all of my time and attention to several years of deliberate practice, under the direct supervision of the best instructor I probably could not reduce my handicap to zero but I could lower it under those conditions. Colvin’s insights offer a reassurance that almost anyone’s performance can be improved, sometimes substantially, even if it isn’t world-class. Talent is overrated if it is perceived to be the most important factor. It isn’t. In fact, talent does not exist unless and until it is developed…and the only way to develop it is with deliberate practice. When Ben Hogan was asked the “secret” to playing great golf, he replied, “It’s in the dirt.”

Colvin leaves no doubt that by understanding how a few become great, anyone can become better…

I am now convinced that talent is a process that “grows,” not a pre-determined set of skills. Also, that deliberate practice “hurts but it works.”

I have always loved Henry Ford famous quote: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

Great performance is not reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone.