We introduced Jose, the FedEx furniture guy, to the blogging world after we discovered his fedexfurniture site. The site recently received a redesign check it out here: http://furniture.weblogswork.com. On a side note, 20/20 just recorded a piece in his apartment on the 15th. Literally, this story will never die…
The GAP is losing $500,000.00 in sales each day their online store is down. Their site has been under construction during the month of September turning away customers. Save any serious technical glitch with the old site, why take down a functioning ecommerce site when the new one is not ready to launch? Here are what some GAP customers think:
Merrell Ligons indicated that she thought, "Someone could have accidentally hit the "Delete Website" key, so now there is no old website to show." Mark Baratelli thinks that, "The people who work for the Gap are probably as disinterested in their own company as we non-employees are, so they don’t care if the site goes up or not because hey, who really does care?" Mark Nathan points out, "It’s deja vu all over again: Toby Lenk is head of Gap.com. Same guy who crashed eToys. Heads are going to roll."
Want to see a preview of the Gap.com? Click here.
Quite a few folks have bashed the Juicy Fruit Blog for various reasons including those found in posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and not to be outdone we bashed it here.
It is interesting how ‘we of the Web 2.0′ are so quick to define everything. If it does not fit in our neat little boxes we reject it. I suspect that we were not the target audience of the Juicy Fruit website. Maybe the Juicy Fruit ‘blog’ was a parody of a blog? Certainly none of us confused it for a real blog – it seems more like advergaming or other form of interactive marketing. Wrigley is not attempting to fool or confuse its customers – it is clearly making a joke (one that we are unlikely to enjoy). Why are we so concerned? Because they call it a blog? Perhaps we should lighten up. When was the last time you chewed a piece of Juicy Fruit gum…
Best Buy is joining in on the Denver Post’s podcast conversation for $30,000. Titleist is starting their own global conversation for the same price.
"Why pay someone else to hitch a ride in a conversation, when you can host it yourself? Much more cost-effective, and appreciated by customers. People don’t like intrusive marketing as much as they like finding commercial information they’re looking for."
Titleist decided to use RSS-as-advertising instead of advertising-in-RSS (this is a great example of the Web 2.0 thesis). Dave Winer points out that there is a void in weblogs and RSS in the field of golf.
Gil Asakawa, the executive producer of the DenverPost’s podcasts reported that Best Buy will pay $30,000 to sponsor their podcasts. Best Buy will get a short mention at the beginning and a longer (10-second) product mention at the end. Who sold Best Buy on the format? Brian Saxman, a sales rep for the Denver Newspaper Agency, gets credit for the ad sale.
Strangely, Gil boasts that his staff has added weather forecasts to the podcast line-up. Hmm. It is like watching CNN on Tivo I guess. [via]
Suw Charman, a blog consultant, was at Our Social World in Cambridge, England last week. We had a chance to meet at SuperNova2005 and I started reading her feed at that point. Her personal blog is located here, and she blogs Strange Attractor for Corante. In Strange Attractor, "Suw picks out patterns from the apparent chaos that is the blogosphere. She explores business blogging as well as adjacent territories such as social technologies, writing and storytelling, e-learning, digital rights and journalism."
She blogged about Ben Hammersley’s presentation of the 300 Year History of Blogging. It is a very interesting look at DIY media from 1708 to the present day. You can check out for yourself here.
In our recent post here, we detailed the migration of M | Ventures corporate website to WordPress. Lots of folks have commented on the migration including Matt Mullenweg (who happens to be lucky in love) who posted about it here. Matt reminds us that it was a Texan who developed WordPress (i.e. him).
NewsForge has an interesting article about using WordPress for your website. Here is their conclusion:
"WordPress is a powerful tool, and in many ways exemplifies open source at its best. It gives any user an array of features with minimal technical effort, and its extensibility and versatility are displayed by the large pool of user-designed plugins. This power and versatility extends beyond WordPress’s traditional use of blogging into more traditional Web design, and — as our new AmSteg.org site displays — makes WordPress a powerful tool for many kinds of Web sites. Our site would not have many of the features it has, nor would it be as easy to administer, if it were not for WordPress and its plugins."
The IMC’s Management Consultant’s Forum chapter meeting scheduled on Monday, September 19th is titled: Blogging – Learn about this new tool and how to harness its potential. The IMC D/FW Chapter is a professional organization comprised of management consultants from a broad range of consulting disciplines and firm sizes.
The meeting promises to help management consultants "understand how blogging, and other on-line tactics, can build their brand communities and extend their reach." It is quite interesting that we are starting to see more and more of these sort of events – especially here in Dallas.
We’re pleased to announce the launch of the Business Disputes Law blog, the personal blog of Bill Garrison, of Dallas firm Scheef & Stone. Bill is using the blog to discuss one of his areas of specialization, litigation that occurs with disputes over business ownership and the steps that can prevent the need for such litigation.
As we’ve been reviewing in our series of interviews of blogging lawyers, weblogs are a natural marketing and communication mechanism for lawyers. Research, writing and networking are integral parts of everyday legal practice. Blogging just turbocharges these habits, makes great thinking more accessible and sharable, and ultimately helps lawyers attract the right kind of people that matter to their practice. Here’s what some of our veteran law bloggers had to say about their blogging experiences:
It has greatly added to my credibility and bone fides with potential clients, existing clients and referral sources. As an example, several weeks ago an investment advisor who has referred many clients over the years emailed me about a recent court decision that appeared to have a chilling effect on planning strategies he often uses. Instead of calling or emailing him, I blogged on the issue and then sent him and other financial advisors I know a link to my post. The effect was great: I was able to answer my referral sources concern directly, leverage my research time to educate many and enhance my stature as an expert on the topic.
I started the blog in April 2005 to provide a forum to publish articles more frequently that I customarily would publish about once a month in other publications, and to share my knowledge and familiarity in my practice areas with more people. I have given seminars and written articles on corporate law and ethics for many years, and I thought a blog would be a forum that would allow me to provide similar content and reach a broader audience.
Staying on top of new developments in construction law is one of my strengths as an attorney. The blog gives me a way to pass those developments on to others who might be interested and to archive them for my own use later.
I started blogging approximately a year ago. After five years of working in the federal court, I had a great deal of specialized, “insider” knowledge about how the courts worked and I was trying to reestablish my complex, commercial litigation practice. The idea was to provide a resource for litigants and lawyers practicing in the federal courts in western Pa.
Directly, the blog has resulted in many contacts from those needing legal assistance in my own area of expertise or in an area where colleagues at my firm are well suited to help. Indirectly, reading weblogs and participating in the conversations they engender keep me very well informed about current developments pertinent to my practice and the needs of the firm’s clients and potential clients.
I believe, but cannot prove, that the blog will help our practice by continuing to reinforce our reputation as a law firm that stays current with the law and technology, is willing to share what it knows with fellow lawyers, and has the experience and expertise to handle complicated personal injury and wrongful death cases. In fact, we are so confident with the potential of blogging that we have rolled out three additional blogs in the past couple months.
