Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 356
June 26, 2011
The Accidental Creative
Episode #259 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
What is creativity? Are some people more creative than others? Can you force creativity? Is there a technique that can make you more creative? Is it possible to always be creative at work? Does the best creativity happen when you're on a forced deadline or does creativity take time? These are the mysterious questions than many of us in Marketing have (I know I do). Thankfully, there are people like Todd Henry to help us dig in and find some answers. Todd is the author of the forthcoming business book, The Accidental Creative - How To Brilliant On A Moment's Notice. He also has a Blog by the same name. In this episode, we tackle these questions and many others. If you're a creative (and who isn't?), please take a listen. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #259.
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June 25, 2011
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #53
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
Michele Bachmann's Holy War - Rolling Stone . "The most eviscerating (and funniest) piece of political writing to come along in a while,. It's filled with poisonous barbs and it became news in its own right. Some juicy samples: '[Her] brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions', 'trying to look like June Cleaver, but she actually looks like the T2 skeleton posing for a passport photo' and 'Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy.' And that's just the first few paragraphs. The irony, as Rolling Stone chief executioner Matt Taibbi points out, is that the more we laugh at Bachmann, the more she wins the votes of those who embrace willful ignorance and pave her road to the White House." (Alistair for Hugh).
The First World Problems Rap - YouTube . "In addition to being a pretty funny video with a lot of truth to it, this is notable as a crowdsourced effort: the creators credit a subreddit with providing most of the lyrics. But mostly, it's just a great video that hits too close to home. Being mildly troubled by songs that remind you how good you have it? First world problem." (Alistair for Mitch).
Ciudad Juarez is all our futures. This is the inevitable war of capitalism gone mad - The Guardian . "Moving from absurd to depressing, here's a piece on Juarez, Mexico's continuing decline into total chaos, with a warning for all of us." (Hugh for Alistair).
Ted Wilson Reviews the World #91 - The Rumpus . "This just made me crack up. It encapsulates somehow the sea of often meaningless yet earnest opinion on the Web." (Hugh for Mitch).
Secrets From Apple's Genius Bar: Full Loyalty, No Negativity - Wall Street Journal . "Everybody who sells online thinks that they can be the next Amazon . Every retailer now looks to Apple as the gold standard for what a retail experience should be. Apple is still a relative newbie when it comes to retail experience, but they started with two core concepts that this article hardly mentions: 1. They needed to have a direct relationship with their customers. They knew if they left their success up to a bunch of random sales clerks in big box consumer electronics stores, they would be screwed. 2. They didn't spend much time thinking about the revenue per square inch like most other retailers do. They were looking at what would be best for the consumer. I don't know why retailers scratch their heads at the success of Apple's retail ventures. The problem they solved is very simple: if a brand doesn't have a direct and great relationship with the people who buy from them, then they are done for. I wish more retailers and brands would realize this." (Mitch for Alistair).
When Is a Magazine Not a Magazine? - ClickZ . "My only regret with this piece is that it comes off as a little heavy-handed in the self-promotional department (the author works for the company they describe). Beyond that, it made me laugh as Hugh and I still lament the old, 'what is a book?' question. If everything published eventually winds up on an iPad (or tablet), does it all just become text at some point? Sure, it may be short (like a tweet or a news item) or medium-sized (like a newspaper feature or a magazine article) or even long form (a book, white paper, etc...). Will we define our content as text? What about as digital versions of the magazine integrate more multimedia tools like audio and video? Is it still a magazine? I find it particularly fascinating to think about this stuff simply because I'm amazed how one new media channel (the Web) is forcing us to define and redefine everything we know (or thought we knew) about every other kind of media." (Mitch for Hugh).
Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.
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amazon
apple
apple genius bar
bitcurrent
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human 20
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political writing
pressbooks
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rolling stone
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ted wilson
the book oven
the first world problems rap
the guardian
the rumpus
wall street journal
year one labs
youtube
June 24, 2011
The One Thing You Should Pay Attention To
People hated Wired Magazine for saying that "the Web is dead." Think they were wrong?
The article, The Web Is Dead. Long Live The Internet, was published in Wired Magazine in September 2010 and it caused a flurry of conversation (online and off). It's not even a year later and the news item, Flurry: Time Spent On Mobile Apps Has Surpassed Web Browsing, was published on TechCrunch this past week. So, we're spending more time on mobile apps than we are on Web browsing.
Still think that the Web isn't dead?
OK, that last line was a red herring, but this is a huge shift in media that begs for you attention. From the TechCrunch article:
"Flurry says that daily time spent in mobile apps has now surpassed web consumption. The average user now spends 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet. In June users spent an average of 81 minutes daily on mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes on the web. This compares to 66 minutes on mobile apps daily in December of 2010, and 70 minutes spent daily on the web. And June, the average user spent just under 43 minutes a day using mobile applications versus an average 64 minutes using the Internet. Flurry says that the growth in mobile app usage is a result of more sessions during the day per user, as opposed to an increase in session length. So basically, users are checking Twitter and Foursquare more often as opposed to spending more time in the apps in any given session."
Whether or not the numbers in this report are perfect isn't relevant. Let's say that mobile apps usage is the same as Web browsing... or even a little less, you can't deny the rapid ascent and what this means as more of our world becomes untethered. If you couple this with IDC's recent statistic that more smartphones were sold in Q4 of last year than PCs, this shift is happening at a fast and furious pace.
It feels like Marketers are unprepared... or am I being too hard on our industry?
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foursquare
idc
mobile apps
smartphone
twitter
web browsing techcrunch
web consumption
wired magazine the web is dead
The One Screen World
How is your Marketing working in a three screen world?
Between us, I never knew if the three screens were traditional media, the Internet and mobile or if it was TV, movie, computers... and now mobile (making it four screens). Between us, I don't think any of this really matters anymore (would we consider smartphones and the iPad one screen? I would not - they are fundamentally different). Consumers are now interconnected through their media channels and appliances. Their only true perception of connectivity may be in deciphering if they're on a mobile connection or a fixed one, but most don't care because they are not only connected everywhere, but they are untethered from a device that is plugged into a wall.
Have you seen the new TVs?
One look at the weekly flyers from your favorite consumer electronics store tells the tale. Every new TV in market is either wi-fi enabled or wi-fi capable. If they're not, solutions like Apple TV (and others) are usually under two hundred dollars. People used to laugh about fridges being internet enabled (another screen?!?), but that doesn't seem so far fetched anymore. In fact, why wouldn't we want all of our appliances and electrical solutions networked? When you think about it, it seems kind of foolish that they aren't already in our fast paced and technologically advanced society.
It's about one screen.
Stop counting screens. Screens will be everywhere and they will be dumb clients. The content broadcasted on these screens will be dictated by our personal choice. Trying to define the difference between a movie, TV show or Podcast will be an act of futility. Much in the same way, trying to tell the difference between a book, magazine or newspaper will be. That may seem dramatic, and it may seem like the definition of a book could never be confused with a newspaper, but as I get more and more engaged with my iPad, the line between watching a movie rented from iTunes or a video from YouTube then a TED Talks podcast is very blurred. It's just video. Much in the same way I'll be reading an article saved via Instapaper but then transition to a book on my Kindle app. It's just text.
The only screen that matters is the screen that is in front of me.
Perhaps the one screen will be less of a smartphone and more of a remote control for our lives (hat-tip to Andy Nulman for defining mobile phones as such over a decade ago) that powers the screens that are all around us. Think about it this way: you watch your favorite TV show on the screen in your den, then you continue it on your tablet in bed and finish it off on your mobile device on the subway the next morning. Many of us are doing this already. The content goes to the screen that suits your lifestyle best. Layer on top of that interactivity. Not everyone will want their media interactive. Some will prefer a more passive approach. Not everyone wants to tweet, link, like, share or comment on something while they're enjoying it. For some, the enjoyment comes in the passivity of the moment. How those two worlds combine/collide will also be an interesting development - especially when you consider that most traditional/passive media are working furiously to figure out how to be more interactive (even if the majority of their consumers are truly enjoying the passive experience).
Marketing, advertising and communications is going to look very different in a one screen world.
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June 22, 2011
Make 'Em Smile
What moves people to take action?
I was watching America's Got Talent last night. They are in the preliminary/audition rounds where the show travels to cities across America to source who will make it to the big stage in Las Vegas. Beyond the hackneyed TV production (the drama between the judges, the voice-over talent pushing us to think about which American city has the most talent and the terrible acts that make it on to TV for the sheer entertainment people get out of watching other people implode in public), there is one interesting aspect of the show that also represents your biggest opportunity to truly make an impact.
Make 'em smile.
There was a dance troupe auditioning. They were young, energetic and having a blast. They were smiling. They were doing something fun. The audience was smiling. They kept the energy high. The judges were smiling. It was fun to watch. I was smiling. It turns out that smiling is not only addictive but it is universal. I's amazing, isn't it. Regardless of culture, geography or where we sit on the socio-economic scale, when something is good, it makes us smile. We tend to over think Marketing in many instances. We dive into research and analytics as we explore specific niche audiences to reach and get all serious about not only how the message is perceived by the audience but how it will impact sales. There's no denying that we need to do a lot of this, but it shouldn't be done at the detriment of making your audience smile.
A smile doesn't have to be about making them laugh. A smile can be serious.
If you have something serious that you're promoting or a product or service that is highly regulated, you can still make 'em smile. A smile in the mind is often more powerful than one on the lips. It's an emotional feeling. It's a feeling that connects a consumer to your brand because it said something to them that was a reflection of who they are. It can be smart, emotional and yes, even funny too. Those feelings make people warm. Making people feel warm is very important.
If you're not making them feel something, you're not giving it your all.
Marketing can often be too clever for its own good. Watching America's Got Talent last night reminded me of this. The idea is not to play towards the lowest common denominator (which I think the show does). The real idea is to watch what happens when someone on the stage truly connects with the audience. Those are the moments that we - as Marketers - need to strive for... each and every day.
Remember: you can't fake a smile. Either it's authentic or it's not. How often does your marketing really make 'em smile?
Tags:
advertising
americas got talent
market research
marketer
marketing
smile
tv production
web analytics
June 21, 2011
Comparing Apples To BlackBerrys
Research In Motion had a tough week last week.
That's an understatement, and I'm not just talking about a stock drop of more than 20 per cent. The underestimation is when financial pundits talk about RIM's issues as if they only happened last week. It wasn't last week . this has been going on for years. Many think RIM is faltering because they aren't innovating like Apple or Google (Android is a Google initiative). This isn't the case, either. RIM is not a company of innovation. RIM is a technology company that has evolved (quickly) from an entrepreneurial startup into a global business, and those two entities are diametrically opposed. Comparing Apple to RIM is like comparing Jay-Z to The Beatles. Both serve a purpose to the music industry and legion of fans, but they could not be farther apart when looking at the core of who they are and what they stand for.
You can argue that one is better than the other, but the point is that both are successful in executing on their own vision and artistry.
RIM founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie had a vision when they launched BlackBerry in the 1990s - a device that would enable anyone to access their email from anywhere and everywhere. Email in the palm of your hand was a bold vision statement in a world that was just getting acclimatized to mobile phones and pagers (remember when people would be frowned upon for using their mobile phones in a restaurant or while on public transit?). At RIM's inception, they were entrepreneurs: people who had a vision for the future. A vision very few others could see, feel or understand. A vision that saw these technology professionals invest their own money, blood, sweat and tears. It paid off... and they were right. Professionals (and now, even casual consumers) did want to access their email in a mobile fashion.
The transition from entrepreneur to business professional is where the friction lies.
While entrepreneurs have a vision for the future, most business professionals have two main focuses: to mitigate risk and minimize mistakes. A business without a culture of entrepreneurship will struggle to evolve - especially if they are in an industry that not only relies on entrepreneurship, but is also driven by - and demands - innovation. Is it a crime against humanity if RIM's only success is the invention of the BlackBerry and mobile email? Hardly. Is it RIM's fault for not picking up on the evolution of the mobile Web, the app economy or our new-found love of tablets? It's only their fault if they were pursuing greatness in those domains - as a core competency.
Apple's Steve Jobs is a unique individual. So too are Larry Page and Sergey Brin from Google.
These individuals have managed to do something truly unique in business culture, which is to blend their entrepreneurship and early-stage, startup-risk taking within the context of a global business that isn't constantly attempting to mitigate risk and minimize mistakes. Many people didn't think Apple (a computer manufacturer) could never successfully produce and market a smartphone and those same people probably questioned a search engine's ability to create a mobile platform like Android. Is it ironic those same people are wondering why BlackBerry hasn't evolved beyond email?
The trick with innovation lies within it's own definition.
You have to be able to innovate: To do something that your competitors have not yet done. PlayBook's lack of success (RIM says that only 500,000 tablets are in market) compared with the iPad is indicative of this. The PlayBook was announced long after iPad's initial in-market success and prior to the launch of iPad 2. By the time the iPad 2 had come to market (which, in and of itself, was a technical innovation over the first one), RIM's PlayBook launch was still unconfirmed. In the end, PlayBook, was a "me too" product instead of an innovation (and one that was somewhat comparable in terms of technical specification to the first generation iPad).
I'm no RIM hater.
Prior to switching over to an iPhone last Christmas, I had been using a BlackBerry loyally since their initial launch. Why the switch? Slowly - over time - my mobile needs evolved from email and phone to a more holistic Web experience. Beyond that, as a digital marketing professional, I don't think we'll see an Internet experience that is both big screen and mobile-based... there will simply be a connected consumer and mobile will be the primary gateway (this was further validated when IDC announced that there were more smartphones than PCs sold in the last quarter of last year). If RIM can't innovate with new devices and applications toward that end, we (consumers, business professionals and investors) must be confident in their success as an enterprise email platform. RIM can innovate in this space (they're proven). Now, whether or not they can compete and innovate against companies such as Apple or Google? Only time - and a massive culture shift - will tell.
In the end, RIM 's Achilles Heel is not marketing or technology... it's innovation.
The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:
Montreal Gazette - Innovation vs. technology .
Vancouver Sun - not yet published.
June 20, 2011
Removing Technology
It's sad that most Marketers think that Digital Marketing, Social Media and/or mobile is going to save them.
This revolution in Marketing that we're going through is not about technology, platforms, channels or anything else like that. At the end of the day, you can unplug all of the computers, you can kill your mobile access and you can shut down your server bays and you'll still be left with a few key kernels of what it takes to make a difference in your marketplace.
Remove all of the technological hurdles that you have in front of your brand and focus on:
A compelling story.
A defendable and unique market position.
Making your content as shareable and as findable as possible.
Doing nothing that doesn't add economic value to the brand.
Connecting to the people who truly do want to be connected to you (not just the ones who "like" you on Facebook because you're subtly bribing them).
Quit pushing your Marketing department and agency to be more innovative. Most brands aren't even doing the basics right. No need to worry about innovation until you have a foundation for success.
Don't try for viral. Getting something to go viral or getting thousands of people to connect to you is a false God. If you go back to creating a compelling story, it will go viral and get many followers by the very nature of it.
Copying is not flattering. It's boring. It's even more boring when the copy isn't better than the original.
Don't underestimate your consumer. They're smart, they're connected and they're smarter than you.
Get rid of the fine print. Nobody reads it and nobody understands it, but worse: it's mostly used as a bait and switch.
Contests and couponing works... sadly. So, do it, but promise yourself that your marketing won't be entirely driven by it. You're better than that.
People will come and people will go, but your integrity is all that you have.
Technology is not what's stopping you... your ideas are.
Real relationships are not built on offers... they're built on long-term value.
It's not about the technology.
Technology is a by-product of this new marketing revolution. You can't blame the IT department for a lack of success. In the end, you can remove all of the technology we've been afforded and your job would still be the same: get people to really care about your brand, do it in a real way and get them loyal to whatever it is that you're selling.
What would you add to this list?
Tags:
content
digital marketing
facebook
innovation
market position
marketing
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viral
June 19, 2011
eMarketer's Geoff Ramsey Discusses How To Create Digital Impact
Episode #258 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
eMarketer consistently offers up fascinating information and stats on the Digital Marketing industry. Geoff Ramsey is both the co-founder and CEO of eMarketer and someone I have known for many, many years. He recently released his first business book, Digital Impact - The Two Secrets to Online Marketing Success (which he co-authored with Vipin Mayar). If you're looking to get an upper-hand on the digital space, both Ramsey's book and eMarketer are a true treasure trove of marketing goodness. His passion about the industry is electric. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #258.
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david usher
digital dads
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facebook
facebook group
geoff ramsey
hugh mcguire
in over your head
itunes
julien smith
librivox
managing the gray
marketing
marketing over coffee
media hacks
new marketing labs
online social network
podcast
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pressbooks
six pixels of separation
social media 101
social media marketing
strategy
trust agents
twist image
twitter
vipin mayar
June 18, 2011
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #52
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
Hundred Flowers Campaign - Wikipedia . "After the people's revolution, Mao encouraged dissenting thinkers to speak up. When activists and pro-democrat supporters were reluctant, he encouraged them to come forward, 'Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend' - but when the outspoken spoke out too much, it quickly turned into a way to identify and silence contrarian thinkers. I never knew where the term 'let a hundred flowers bloom' came from until I heard it used by someone suggesting that the recent increase in high-profile hacktivist groups could include honeypots. It serves as a reminder that there are two sides to every online battle, and that we shouldn't believe everything we read." (Alistair for Hugh).
Invasion of the body hackers - Financial Times . "I'm fascinated by the convergence of humans and machines. To bastardize two otherwise decent lines: the singularity is upon us; it's just not evenly distributed. One place it's more obvious is at the Quantified Self conference, which this piece in the Financial Times does a good job of covering. From optimizing health, to correlating moods with productivity, to achieving fifteen-minute orgasms, it's all here. It's early days for this Homebrew Human Club, but as we move into the feedback era, this stuff will become commonplace." (Alistair for Mitch).
The Easiest Way to Succeed as an Entrepreneur - The Altucher Confidential . "I dislike most start-up blogs I read, and I think most entrepreneurs would do well to spend less time reading blogs and attending start-up events, and more time talking to their customers. But what do I know? Anyway, this has never happened to me, but I read one of James Altucher's posts this week, and then ended up reading 7 more in the space of two days. Great stuff." (Hugh for Alistair).
How to Turn a Fan into an Enemy in Under 140 Characters - Powazek . "Mitch and I are both big fans of On The Media, a podcast about... media. I like co-host Bob Garfield's grouchy take on the universe usually, and his slight aversion to the things webby has always struck me as reasonable, if a bit... dated. Well, an old web salt, Derek Powazek, took issue with Bob's latest episode, and things did not go well on Twitter. I'm curious to see if there is any follow-up from Bob." (Hugh for Mitch).
Abracadabra! Magic Trumps Math at Web Start-Ups - DealBook . "Business is actually pretty simple: what do you sell? How much margin do you make on that business? What's it worth to an investor? Everything else isn't magic... it's BS. Unfortunately, this is one of those articles that makes you give pause and realize that we're in the midst of another technology bubble. During the last Internet bubble, we were focused on what could be in a world where the technology could not deliver and there weren't enough people online. For the bubble we're probably in the middle of right now, we're trying to use funky business instead of the real metrics to figure out value and worth. Here's the truth: if you're not making good margins on whatever it is that you're selling, you don't have much of a business - regardless of how cool your new measuring metrics sound." (Mitch for Alistair).
Post-Artifact Books And Publishing - Craig Mod . "Hey Hugh, are you tired of the whole, 'what is a book?' discussion yet? Seth Godin recently Blogged about it over on The Domino Project (more on that here: 1500:1 ) and I liked this passage: 'Some are saying that the future of books is in the direction of apps, videos and other multimedia productions, entire experiences that express an idea. The problem: none of these can be created by a single individual. The magic of a book is that it is largely the work of one person. Yes, she'll need some help from editors and distributors, etc., but they sometimes come and go, while the author remains.' Craig Mod also has a unique perspective on what a book means in 2011. I'm starting to learn towards Seth's direction: 'the work of one person'. I like that." (Mitch for Hugh).
Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.
Tags:
alistair croll
bitcurrent
bite-sized edits
blog
bob garfield
book
complete web monitoring
craig mod
dealbook
derek powazek
entrepreneur
financial times
gigaom
great links
hackitivist
homebrew human club
hugh mcguire
human 20
hundred flowers
internet bubble
james altucher
librivox
link
linkbait
managing bandwidth
media hacks
on the media
podcast
powazek
pressbooks
publishing
quantified self conference
rednod
seth godin
singularity
start-up
tech bubble
the altucher confidential
the book oven
the domino project
twitter
wikipedia
year one labs
June 17, 2011
The Pending Implosion Of Daily Deal Sites
Be careful if you're thinking that you can replicate the success of Groupon .
While Groupon sets its IPO (more on that here: Groupon IPO: It's Here!), not a day passes without a new (or existing) company trying to replicate the model of offering a daily deal from a local merchant at a radically reduced discount. It's getting a little crazy out there. What made Groupon somewhat unique was that in order to capitalize on a radical deal a certain amount of people had to commit to it. The daily deal platform has now become so popular that some companies are running deals without this reserve. Pushing the business model even further, new platforms like Deal51 are a daily deal meta search engine that lists all of the daily deals for your geographic area in one place. While there is no shortage of people trying to get a deep discount, the volume and flow of these daily deals site will soon reach the point of consumer fatigue.
In the end, if it doesn't work for the merchant, it won't be great for the consumer.
Like any new platform, Groupon (and the other copycat platforms) have their growing pains to deal with. Doing a quick search on the efficacy of Groupon for new business and you'll find a whackload of disgruntled merchants - some of which have a fair bone to pick while others, clearly, didn't know what they were getting themselves involved in. ClickZ posted an interesting article today titled, Only 20% of Daily Deals Users Come Back for Full Purchases, that offered the following pieces of data:
19.9 percent of deal users are returning for full-price purchases at restaurants, bars, salons, and other retailers.
35.9 percent of deals users spend more than the voucher value when visiting a merchant.
21.7 percent of them never redeem the vouchers they've paid for.
55.5 percent of businesses reported making money on their promotions, 26.6 percent lost money, and 17.9 percent broke even.
48.1 percent of businesses planned to run another daily deal promotion, 19.8 percent indicated they would not, and 32.1 percent didn't know for sure.
It's not perfect, but it's still interesting.
Like any other digital platform that has gained traction, we're going to see a slew competitors (like we have today), we'll then see consolidation along with others who will simply give up on the model because it's not producing the results they had anticipated. Then, we'll have the implosion which will result in one or two main players with very different business models (and activity) from what we're seeing today. Consumers - as they always do - will move on to another bright and shiny social object to pay attention to and these daily sites will be a more modern form of couponing instead of the new discovery of local merchants that it is today.
Some may call this cynical. Others will say it's practical. What do you say?
Tags:
advertising
business model
clickz
daily deal site
deal51
groupon
ipo
local merchant
marketing
meta search engine
promotion
retail
wall street journal
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