Cameron Olthuis

I think my TiVo is THE greatest thing since sliced bread, it has literally changed the way millions of people consume television. It allows us to watch TV on our time. I can rewind, pause, and of course fast-forward through all the commercials. And that’s the very reason why a product loved by some many millions is hated by advertising executives all around the world. Even though I’m sure they all secretly fast-forward through commercials themselves.

According to the New York Times, TiVo is now looking to get into the research business. TiVo is able to track the viewing habits of users but it’s limited on what it can do with data because of its privacy policy, which the company is looking to change this year. At this time TiVo isn’t able to share any of the demographics from their customers but they are able to provide the information about which commercials are watched and those that are skipped during recorded TV shows.

This information is extremely valuable to advertisers because they can finally see that no one is actually watching their advertisements anymore. The networks on the other hand don’t want this information to get out, as it will hurt their ad sales. Maybe this is what it’s going to take to wake these executives up so they can finally realize push marketing is giving leeway to pull marketing, at the very least it opens up a new revenue stream for TiVo.

I came across a post tonight in Wired News titled “Why I love Apple.” The author mostly talks about Apple’s Mail program and why he likes it so much. Being a recent convert myself with a MacBook Pro I feel compelled to tell you a few reasons why I love mine.

First of all, it helps with my productivity big time. But rather than go into detail I’ll point you to a post from Paul Stamatiou. He does a much better job breaking it down than I could anyway. The second thing that comes to mind is OS X, man the UI is just so sweet. Between the simplicity and the slick icons it can’t be beat. Of course it’s super fast too. I also love all the software I use on my Mac, I was hoping when I got it that I wouldn’t need to install windows and so far so good.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know everything about Apple computers because I don’t. I just know that they work for me and I won’t be switching back to PC anytime soon. It’s all the little things that get me. You really need to try one for yourself.

I’ve been tagged, by Will McInnes. The meme is for the top 5 social media & blogging tools.

My top 5 social media tools are…..

1) del.icio.us
2) Digg
3) Bloglines
4) Techmeme
5) Akismet

Read the rest of this entry »

Burger King loves their viral marketing, they just can’t get enough. Today I came across a new site that BK put up where a puppet king dances to different musical beats. You can then email the videos to your friends. These videos are pretty fun and I can see them really being a hit.

I first wrote about BK a few weeks ago when they launched the Huckin’ Chicken web site, it features videos of the chicken mascot performing stunts on a dirt bike, better videos unlock after a certain number of page views. This isn’t the first experience BK’s had with viral marketing either, there’s also the infamous Subservient Chicken site.

Burger King is doing a great job with viral marketing. These sites are also great examples of what we call “linkbait” in the SEO industry. That basically means these type of sites bait people into linking to them. I guess the question is how many more customers is this bringing in?

Coke, who orginally didn’t want the free advertising from the Diet Coke/Mentos videos is now copying Mentos, who has been “tickled pink” from the beginning.

Mentos, who quite obviously understands and loves viral marketing, announced their Mentos Gyser Video Contest the other day. Now Coke is doing the exact same thing. **yawn*

Mentos is setting a great example by embracing the new mediums and executing quickly. Coke is doing a great job of showing that they’re unoriginal and will only come around after they’ve been smacked around a little, I guess that’s better than Paramount who responds with their attack dog lawyers.

Update: Logic + Emotion has a good take on the story.

It’s amazing how dumb the decisions that some companies make can be. Paramount briefly shut down the blog of a fan who’s been a huge evangelist for the upcoming “Transformers” movie. The Church of the Customer Blog has the scoop…

Last week, the studio asked John Campea, co-author of The Movie Blog, to remove a photo he posted from the forthcoming movie “Transformers.” He complied, only to find yesterday that Paramount had dispatched its attack dogs, a DMCA shiv firmly clenched between their broken, smoke-stained teeth, to take down John’s entire site. (This free-speech/fair comment assault weapon is used quite frequently.) They didn’t like another image on the site, but Paramount neglected to tell John about it…

…Now John is pissed, his readers are pissed, and Digg’ers are pissed. Boycotts of the movie, Paramount DVDs and theme parks are being discussed. Probably won’t be long before the word of mouth jetstream propels this story to new heights.

Paramount obviously doesn’t get it. Why on earth they would do this to such a loyal evangelist (or anyone for that matter) is beyond me. Instead of embracing marketing 2.0 they are squashing it. If I was in Paramount’s shoes I would’ve been feeding John as much content as possible.

This is sure to be a great example of how buzz can work against you if you don’t embrace it.

eBay made a lot of noise today with the announcement that they are banning sellers from requesting payment through Google Checkout.

eBay is banning sellers from requesting payment through Google Checkout. The online auction giant updated its Safe Payments policy this week to add Google’s new payment service, Google Checkout to its list of online payment methods not permitted on eBay.

I’ve been reading all day about how this is such a big mistake for eBay. I disagree, and I’m obvioulsy in the minority but I don’t think this will have any negative effect on eBay.

No one is going to stop selling items on Ebay simply because they can’t accept Google Checkout, and that’s really the bottom line. Because eBay has such a monoply in the online auction space sellers don’t really have much of a choice. They can either list their stuff on eBay and sell it, or not. Do you honestly think anyone will boycott eBay because they can’t accept Google Checkout? Maybe if Google Checkout had the market share that PayPal does but they don’t, and they never will. Or maybe if there was an alternative to Ebay but there isn’t.