MarCom Professional

I saw a video on the State of Social CRM post on Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang in which Paul Greenberg talks about how companies are having difficulties with cultural changes internally to execute against the new bread of customer, the social customer.  In case you don’t know what CRM is, it’s Customer Relationship Management as described in Wikipedia as a “technology that allows companies to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service.”

What an ear full!

My version would be just an application that keeps track of customer facing activities so you can find the gaps in your service and More...

I’m a fan of Web 3.0. Perhaps obsessed is a more accurate description.

Web 1.0 is the Web of documents. Web 2.0 is the social and user content Web. Web 3.0 is the point at which the Web itself understands that content and social interaction. Some call it the semantic Web, and some call it the Web of data, but regardless of naming conventions, it’s going to mess up a hell of a lot of business models, and create some fascinating new business and public-benefit opportunities. And it’ll transform reputation management too.

If you think ‘atoms of influence’ trickle far and wide courtesy of human expressions and understanding with social media acting as loyal conduit, just wait until machines understand these contributions too. More...

By Ryck Lent: "It's the antenna, stupid!"

Well, sure it is. But Apple's (AAPL) handling of this product problem in the new world of social media and social commerce is worth considering in detail. Here's the key statistic:

During seven trading days, from the Friday (July 9th) prior to Consumer Reports' confirmation of the antenna problem and the "Not Recommended" review (Monday July 12) through Monday, July 19th, AAPL stock dropped around $15 per share. With a little over 900M shares outstanding, this means AAPL lost $12 BILLION in market capitalization -- a 5% decline. More...

eMarketer reports that while most mainstream U.S. consumers may not care much about the broadband access speed that they have at home, they are very interested in continuing to gain access to the vast array of video content that's readily available to them via the public Internet.

The number of online video viewers continues to grow, while the number of videos viewed skyrockets. Nearly 183 million U.S. internet users watched an average of 186 videos per viewer during the month of May, for a total of 34 billion videos, according to comScore.

U.S. households are also becoming more networked, as consumers buy more and more internet-enabled consumer electronics (CE) devices. More...

Creating 3D video content is gaining momentum in Hollywood. The excitement over 3D has also found its way to the U.S. consumer electronics market. By 2013, one in five new televisions sold in America will be 3D, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

Year-over-year shipment growth will be 231 percent between 2010 and 2011 -- resulting in a doubling of the U.S. installed base of units for 3D TVs from 2010 to 2011.

"High definition (HD) did create a wave of activity in the U.S. market, not seen since the introduction of color," says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat analyst. "3DTV promises to be the next significant innovation wave for living room entertainment."

Despite many bright spots in the U.S. More...

Recently, I’ve taken a particular interest in technology in public places, probably due to spending too much time pondering my surroundings while waiting for the train. This latest example, discovered thanks to Michael Dales, is close to home just North of Cambridge. It’s so simple and it’s bound to make a lot of young people happy this summer.

Wondering what this is? It’s a rather clever contraption, apparently installed by Monster Play, a Hertfordshire-based company.

Built into the rain/sun shelter that sits on the edge of a new local skate park, this unit allows you to broadcast music to a small speaker from your phone, mp3 player, laptop, etc via Bluetooth. More...

Here’s an interesting new development from Pogoplug (a client) -  web printing. Or cloud printing if you prefer.

For the first time, Pogoplug users will be able to print from an iPhone, iPad, Android or other mobile device from anywhere in the world.

Pogoplug cloud printing will initially support all HP printer models and all Epson printers released since 2005.  Set-up is simple and straightforward; once a printer is connected to a Pogoplug, it is ready to use.

Additionally, users can email any document directly to their Pogoplug for printing.  Printers can be shared with friends, family and colleagues or used to create printer ‘hotspots’ for temporary access to a printer in a public location. More...