A chat with an iPhone-toting delivered some stern news to me: they cost $400-$600 + air time and worth every penny…ah I mean dollar. However, I can’t justify the cost outlay. Addictive killer ‘apps’ aside, I just can’t bring myself to go through with it if there were other alternatives.

And now there is. While visiting my brother yesterday, his son was fiddling with his new iTouch and casually mentioned that he now had “to get rid of his other two iPods.” I lept at that comment, did some research on the Internet and brought it home for a one-week trial. It’s a 6th generation Classic with 80 Gb storage and video ability – for $100. As Catwoman once intoned,

Pur-r-r-r-fect!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LqN0DF7FGU&feature=related]

I’ve been thinking, lately, of when or whether I would need a smart phone – an Apple iPhone, a x94 Nokia, a Blackberry, etc – as much for its higher functionality, ease of use, as for downloading audio books or to meet my nutritional music requirements.

With increased and more diverse demands on my mind these days, the only proven tonic is high quality tune-age, according to my tastes: metal, punk, 60′s garage + a smattering of other stuff.

I thought maybe my existing Rock Box 610e Virgin phone, with its 483 mg of memory might allow me to avoid shelling out $200+ for a real smart phone plus the Rogers-Bell airtime fees. The phone’s bullet proof plastic packaging and messaging screamed that all things music were possible so I gave it a closer look yesterday.

Accessing Virgin Mobile Live – the company’s online music facility – allowed me to:
- access radio stations
- download ‘popular’ tunes
- watch movies and videos, and a host of other things.

Shocked into a Different Reality
The above features seemed tantalizing. Would Richard Branson’s magic extend to the Rock Box as well? Would I now be able to speak glowingly of his sleek two-toned jet and could I brag to the iPhone hoards that this dark horse product elevated by Virgin’s marketing genius had undercut and outperformed their iconic hand held status modules?

Sadly, no.

The Virgin corporate accountants had had their way. Their stiff $3.95 per song downloading fee shocked me by its ignorance! Plus, the company’s version of ‘popular tunes’ was skimpy to non-existent. Was Virgin basing its selections on the bands they’d signed to their label? I only thought of this as I write this; before, I was distracted by how so few of their listed selections were familiar to me.

Trade-off Not Worth It
At $4 a song, you could have 50 songs for $200 which meant that…..well, if an iPhone cost, say $250, plus every iTune cost $1 per, that would mean that Virgin’s target market was…..or that their thinking about their target markets was ….questionable. I didn’t get it and i wouldn’t be signing up for Virgin for anything involving the Internet!

Hard to Use, Too
I’m not even a big fan of the Rock Box phone. Sure, it received good reviews but not many and they could have been planted. Compared to my lost Nokia, I found this SamSung model unusually hard to use. I even had to phone up the store to find out where some of the buttons were. Turned out, SamSung had mislabeled a few things, skimmed over some other things.

Back to the Smart Phone Decision-Making Process …
Which hasn’t been made yet. However, with my social media participation set to increase and my travel schedule likewise, having a phone that tells me ‘where to go’ location and route-wise will come in handy.

I’m leaning towards the iPhone but I’ve got some time to procrastinate yet so I’ll do that first.

…of declining advertising revenues and falling subscription rates for newspapers.

This is what Bryan Segal, speaker at the recent CaseCamp ’09 and V.P. of audience measurement firmComScore, stated as being a predictable outcome of the transition of eyeballs from print to online.

As of 45 minutes ago, “The company that owns Global Television and the National Post newspaper said Tuesday it is filing for creditor protection in a deal with a key group of lenders, as it seeks court approval to restructure a mountain of debt.” Source: The Canadian Press. Read entire article.

What does this mean for the rest of us: their (former) customers or watchers of television? Nothing. The public will continue to be drawn to the ‘Net, will become more acclimatized to its different forms, become more sophisticated, more demanding of user-friendly and cohesive online presentations and more dismissive of mediocre ones that don’t “grab” or involve them. Traditional media was media-centric: the medium was its message and its customers – us – were its props.

…While Online Media is Customer-Centric
Meaning that if the specific target market – and that would be niche-oriented marketing – isn’t being addressed, based on its interests and priorities, they won’t pay attention and no amount of promotion will make any difference.

Why niche?
Because the Web is ushering in a massive transformation of business forms and services and the way that humans connect and communicate. So many new forms of commerce are available plus everyone has an opportunity to participate, not just those companies that spend the most on traditional media. So now, there can be almost as many markets and services as there are people participating in the Web and one change or progression begats another. Yet everything has to be specific, i.e. aiming at the niche.

Different Things are Important Now
A company can be a force in the offline world but if its website is hard to use, it’s a goner online. Also, if it can’t be found – like mine, right now – its promotional opportunities will be compromised. If the firm hasn’t seen the wisdom of reaching out and linking – like mine – to other sites, like influential online directories, it cannot increase its visibility.

In conclusion, we may expect more of these announcements from traditional media but going online does not necessarily equate to success either. Different medium, different priorities: different type of customer.

Ok, so it’s been 6 days since CaseCamp; I’ve got things goin’ on.

The event brought together about 300 participants and roughly 10 presenters who basically just told their social media stories using PowerPoint and photographs.

Jason Scott from Boston told of his blog, www.sockington.org, which details the life of his cat, Socks, and all things feline. His Twitter account, socksarmy has a million+ subscribers all over the world which, I guess, explains why he was invited. His chat was engaging and funny and I complimented him after the show.

What he said that stood out:
“It’s not all about the money, it’s about making connections. I get messages from people from across the world telling me my blog makes their day. That’s an amazing feeling.”

“Most marketing done online is just bad, tasteless, and tacky.”

Bryan Segal V.P. of Comscore
His company tracks all the stats to do with Internet and social media usage. There’s a changing of the guard, media-wise, from print to online. (No big surprise there.) Social media is no fad! Mobile is the next frontier done through smart phones (& I need to get one of these things), driven by content and applications. Feature, functions and price is the new trifecta. Canadians are numero uno in FaceBook usage.

Classic quotation:
“Clicks (on websites) and click-throughs (when you click on something and go somewhere else) do not indicate brand building. Cookies and clicks does not equal ROI. Brand experience is where it’s at. Agencies do not understand social media (meaning there’s a great grassroots opportunity for us mere mortals).

Will Pate – Social Media: Essential Definitions
More of an intellectual lecture here, Will described media as “evolving beyond artifact to a trajectory. Twitter is like the the old “party line” where everyone in a small town would use the same phone line and talk all at once or a chat room in a more modern sense. Facebook is alike a real-time high school Year Book. MySpace, a virtual club; a persona. Blogs are free printing presses and RSS feeds are like subscriptions.

Classic quotation: His whole 20 minute presentation.

….makes Jack a dull boy, then what does a continuous onslaught of new information do to him?

I attended Case Camp today and tonight and have reached, I believe, a temporary saturation point. What is Case Camp? It’s 10+ 20 minute lectures about how social media (Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed and whatever else comes to your mind) can be used to popularize a person, a concept, a product, a cause and whatever comes to mind.

Yes, yes, I can see how Twitter can ease customer service problems, how it can bring joy to people’s lives (I’ll provide examples tomorrow), how it can engage new customers but all of this requires a single-minded focus on it – and my mind is split several different ways right now and, so too, are other people’s minds. In general, many of these social media applications requires a team of people to do it right, unless your business depends on it or is focused on it.

A strategy or goal is also required, I think. A friend of mind, Flavian Delima, disagrees with me. Last night, I just listened to him and considered his point. But now, as I watched all these lectures, it occurred to me that social media for business purposes must have a goal in mind; otherwise, participation becomes aimless wandering about with the odd comment here and there.

Does that mean you charge in there promoting whatever you sell or do? No. As Shel Israel said last night, you spend the first month listening-reading to the conversations in your industry or field of interest first, then you wade in by sharing stuff with people. Before you can get, you must give. This the new rule of the Internet these days.

Am I still writing websites?

All good questions and if only they were accompanied by offers or notices or impending opportunities and / or contracts. But, it seems, they are just voices from anonymous email sources none of which can be tracked down or identified.

But I will respond anyway ’cause I’m good like that. For the last 3 months, I have been on a contract with EntreBahn whose tag line, “Better Business Decisions through Focused Feedback,” I created way back on May 4th. EB is a start-up company that will be providing professional feedback on a variety of business communications.

Due to my rather unique array of skill sets, my role has expanded from mere tag line creator and content-copy writer to sales trainer, site architect, recruiter, sales strategist etc. to the point where I am now V.P. Sales & Communications: a one-man show for all intents and purposes.

Fancy title, non? ‘Made it up myself but Marketing could easily be added since I am now in charge of figuring out pricing and will be creating all the brochures and marketing materials, then going on to do the search engine optimization.

My site hasn’t changed because I’ve been a trifle busy and occupied.

And I am involved in some things I’ve never even touched before – like pricing. But, as I’ve been in thinking mode since I began working with the very intelligent principal of EntreBahn, Reg Charney, the methodology just ‘came to me.’ I bounced it off several marketing pro’s that I know and they gave me a ‘thumbs up’ response. Is this mini-project finished? No, it is in progress along with many more.

So, am I still writing websites? Yes, I’m writing the EntreBahn one. Am I still available to write other ones, like yours? Yes, but not until October.

Ah yes, the fine art of networking. It’s amazing what turns up. I was on the horn to one Melinda Van Patter over at press release and PR company, MarketWire the other day regarding her maybe becoming a reviewer for one of my clients, EntreBahn and ….

Melinda mentioned, excitedly, that she’s going to be teaching an Applied Social Media course at Toronto’s Humber College in September. Wow, that is really good news! I will be far past the basics by that time but her strategic application examples – the secret sauce of the social media matrix – are what I’m looking forward to.

Understanding how and why to apply a particular social media tool and in what situation or type of company a specific strategy will work out best is going to separate a professional communicator from an aspiring one in the coming months-years.

EntreBahn, by the way, is a soon-to-be launched company that will provide professional feedback on a multitude of sales, marketing, and communications documents and projects. Look forward to that because it will save you a ton of time and move your business to its destination – market success – quicker.

Yea, I know, everything about Twitter is all about but it took concentrated effort for me to learn about it. Diving into things has its advantages and disadvantages.

My out-of-the-gate exuberance gained me a lot of followers but I wasn’t able to participate in as many things, or to the possible extent, that I could have.

Last week, I decided, “Ok, time to get serious about this Twitter thing” and things changed because I did something about it. It’s like that old saying, “When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears.” Since most of the time, answers to our respective life questions are within our own minds (after all, who knows us best?), i sought out learning tools and my knowledge level has quadrupled. Is it time for an infomercial or an e-book yet?

Now, it is only to try things out.

Today, I sent out my first ‘tinyurl‘ tweet to a fellow that was celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary. TinyUrl is a way of abbreviating a domain name of longer than 30 characters to, say, 12 to 15. For character-sensitive Twitter that limits its users to 140 of these, TinyUrl is a valuable little tool.

In all my excitement, though, I forgot to congratulate him on his marriage’s longevity and instead sent him something about a time machine and this video, of course.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9UD3DK_XE&feature=popt00us14_popt00ca0c]

Next time, next time, I’ll be one of those cool Twitter affectionados who send out topical links with TinyUrls that bring sighs of ‘good data appreciation.’ I must add that new phrase to my lexicon category.

Official Intro to Twitter
Common Craft are an outfit that uses a virtual (on your computer screen) whiteboard with pictures, helpful hands, and this kind voice-over to give folks a quick lesson. Play it over as often as you like.

Check our their primer on Twitter here:

Which is not how I’ve been describing it of late.

This past Sunday evening at my friend’s place across the street, I labeled it a nuisance. Which reinforced Chrissie’s verbal tone. Ditto with an artist friend a couple of months back.

Why?

Because I placed expectations on myself that I had to come up with some stroke of genius, and do so on a moment’s notice. Even though that’s how most brilliant ideas come about anyway. I psyched myself out and, in doing so, missed out on some great info and fun exchanges.

I rarely, up to this point anyway, initiate conversations; I just offer comments on other people’s ideas. I always have something to reply to in posts by Dave Fleet of Toronto’sThornley Fallis Communications. It’s not like we’re pen pals or anything, we don’t bowl together. I just find I can come up with some thoughtful stuff – on a moment’s notice. It’s that Thinking_Again thing. That’s my Twitter moniker: thinking_again. Look me up sometime, won’t you?

So, this morning after a personal pow-wow, I decided to get back onto Twitter and lo and behold, I discovered some arresting info on my gluten-free situation and a helpful Twitter article which I printed off. I was also able to offer 3 thoughtful comments.

I feel good about that. I was able to think again and come up with some good ones. Therein lies my rationale for Twitter being a Gift.

And so it is.

Over the past 3 years, I’ve done wonders for other people in the ole’ search engine optimization (SEO) game. I’ve got 2 companies on the 1st page in their respective industries or categories. Now it’s my turn.

Ironically, I’m more interested in a couple of other ventures I’m involved with but I can do this one, too. The writing market is somewhat crowded but I have a tech and sales background so I will figure this into my keywords and phrase choices. In general, presenting myself as a mere writer would be both inaccurate and constitute a disservice to me – and to my future clients.

Tuesday, after a meeting with one of my larger clients, I will launch Project Climb.