I think Microsoft’s Steve Balmer used to be the pump up guy from the Wu-Tang Clan.

He brought that fury to Microsoft.

Hold on to your hats mother truckers, and watch this video.

Posted by James at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I think that Srinivasan and I will agree to disagree on the potential benifits of creating yet another Million Dollar Homepage - but I do appreciate his side of things and I hope he makes a bundle of cash. I also thank him for taking the time to post a couple of well thought out comments on this blog.

While I won't be buying a link on his page, I am more than happy to put up a link to him now. Since the search engines love anchor text - I though this might do our friend Srinivasan some good:

THE GREATEST WEB 2.0 MILLION DOLLAR HOMEPAGE ON THE INTERNET!

Now you can rank high on the net like the Bregar does for a term like "The Greatest Site on the Entire Intarweb" on Google.

Alright Srinivasan, knock 'em dead. I will help follow your progress here at Marketing Punk.

Over and out!

[Bonus Links - Seth Godin's Small is the New Big as pointed out today by Hugh McLeod along with one of Hugh's best cartoons.]

Posted by James at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Alright, this was going to be a reply to a comment, but the reply got a bit long, so I am going to make it a post. Hey, I think a rant is worth a post of its own, ok?

Before you read on, check out the comments on this post about the Million Dollar Homepage and the hordes of imitators.

Alright, now that you have done that, here is the reply:

Thanks for the comments Srinivasan and Fantast. Sorry it has taken so long for me to post a reply.

Obviously, I tend to agree with Fantast on this one. I visited your site Srinivasan, and I must admit that I find it hard to agree with your assertion that the Million Dollar Homepage is a trend that will continue to grow and thrive – your page is a great example of this. I see that you have sold 3 pixel blocks – only 9,997 to go, eh?

I am curious to know what makes your Web site stand out from the clutter out there? What makes it better than the thousand of other sites just like yours? Is the “Web 2.0” thing? Do you think that name will take you further than all of the other imitators out there? I am curious, what makes your site so special?

The biggest challenge that marketers have right now is breaking through the all of the marketing clutter that they created. How do you make a remarkable TV ad, billboard, or print ad? It happens, but rarely. Your chance of success is low with traditional media, and oddly, traditional media keeps charging more and more for their diminishing returns.

Traditional media is clutter most of the time. I think the same thing can be said for all of the Million Dollar Homepages out there – all but the original is just clutter.

If that is the case, how did the original Million Dollar Homepage become such a success? I mean, isn’t it just a page of clutter? Yes, but the ads have nothing to do with the success of the page.

Alex Tew’s original Million Dollar Homepage was able to break out of the online ad clutter because the idea was remarkable. The “clutter” or “non-contextual” aspect of the advertisements on the site was not the reason why the site did so well. Actually, the ads had noting to do with the success. It was the concept that people found so remarkable.

Now, is there a way to duplicate the grand success of the Million Dollar Homepage? I say no – and the reason I say no is because, generally speaking, the remarkable nature of the concept has worn off. Now, is there still some money to be made by leveraging off of the concept? Maybe, but not likely a million bucks and not by sticking to the “pay for an ad” type model. Think a bit outside of the box Srinivasan – I can think of how your page can be remarkable, and ironically, it is using some of the fundamentals of Web 2.0.

Possibly more on that later.

One post I saw on your blog was about how you were trying to create a “Times Square” atmosphere on your blog. I find this quite interesting, as Times Square, in my opinion, is one of the most poignant symbols of traditional advertiser’s frustration with the clutter they have created.

Imagine the advertiser’s money that is being wasted with billboards in Times Square – but traditional Madison Avenue still feels that this is a way to make a “splash” in the world market. Why, because ads in Times Square used to work, and work well. Traditional companies know this, and ad agencies are quick to leverage off of this outdated belief. I mean hell, the agency gets a wicked commission when they buy a spot in Times Square.

Now if I ran a big corporation and my marketing team asked me to put a billboard up in Times Square to sell my product, I would have to fire them on the spot. If that is the best you can do to promote my product in 2006, you are not understanding the big picture.

Unfortunately for traditional ad agencies, they are traditional marketers operating a non-traditional world. It is like asking the Amish to build you a car – they can try, but there is not much of a chance of the damn thing getting built well or soon.

Anyway, I do appreciate the comment Srivivasan, and if you reply to this post I will put up a link to you without the rel=”nofollow” on it, so you can get a link to your site.

Like SmashMyViper, I want to be proven wrong on this. If anything, you are not destroying a nice car like the SMV crew. Those crazy bastards drilled a hole in the Viper – and have made less than $6,000. Ouch.

Ok, end of rant.

Happy new week!

Posted by James at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Seth finally comments on the Million Dollar Homepage after Tom Peters posts his own comment.

Main point - Alex Tew’s Million Dollar Homepage business model is a great business model - for Alex Tew. The page has little value for advertisers, no chance of making a long-term difference in anyone’s world (except Alex Tew), and no chance of being repeatable (sorry SmashMyViper, looks like the experts are against you too).

Check out the posts – have a great day.

Posted by James at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

If you don’t know about the Gumball 3000 rally – heducate yo’ self here (an awesome site by the way).

This year the Gumball is going around the world in 8 days – that’s right, a driving rally going around the world in 8 days.

How? Private jets, a 20,000 GBP per car entrance fee, and a full dose of pure insanity.

There are 3 legs this year and they are:

 Mission 1 – London to Istanbul
 Mission 2 – Hong Kong to Beijing
 Mission 3 – Salt Lake City to Los Angeles (that’s right! Gumball in our back yards)

That’s 3,000 miles in 8 days folks. And since it is a Gumball, it also means that there will be 120 of the most exotic cars driven by movie stars, trust fund babies, Arab sheiks and some of the most obnoxious rich people in the world.

So, I am wondering if anyone has an extra spot in his or her car for a Marketing Punk who would be a very impressive co-driver? And I am also a very good driver. My dad lets me drive up and down the driveway. K-Mart sucks, definitely.

So, any takers? I sure someone will come through. Well, leave a comment or email me or something. Seriously. I can even pay my way to London. :)

Well, if no one drops me a line I am going to try to make it to Vegas or something to see the cars go by. Even better, I might tag along for the Salt Lake to Vegas leg…who knows?

Now I just gotta get a sports car…

And now for a bonus quote, I think it fits the Gumball well…

"But our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character. A gross physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country. But only for those with true grit. And we are chock full of that, man." - Raoul Duke

[BONUS LINK] Required Gumball Reading - The Vanity Fair Article on the 2004 Gumball

Posted by James at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was in a meeting today discussing some design changes to my company’s Web site and one of our Web designers said something that made me feel a little divided.

Our company is trying to move in a more “Web 2.0” direction with our business model. Basically, this means we are trying to give our customers what they want, not what is going to make us the most money in the short term.

So, as we were discussing the first phase of testing for our home page, our designer said that once someone had arrived on a keyword specific landing page from a pay-per-click advertisement we should not give them any unnecessary options and focus on shoving them through our monitization process.

“Whoa!” I thought, that is not very consumer friendly at all! I mean, if we are doing the “Web 2.0” thing we can’t be pushing anyone through the process. We have to let them go wherever they want on our site and give them such a great experience that they just beg us to monitze them…right?

Actually, maybe not.

When I got home from work tonight I though back to a post from a couple of days called “Understanding the Funnel” on Seth’s blog. After revisiting the post I realized that traffic coming from Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing are actually leads that, when used correctly, are already well on their way through the sales funnel.

For example, let’s say you own a Web site that sells wine. A person who types “zinfandel” into Google is most likely looking for something about zinfandel wine. However, if you were bidding on that keyword on Google AdWords, for example, you would not be sure if they are looking to buy zinfandel wine, learn more about zinfandel wine, or if they want to find specific types of zinfandel wine. So in this case, you would want to send that click to a page that gives them access to zinfandel information, purchasing options, and a list of zinfandel wines.

Further down the purchasing channel we have a person that type in something more specific, like “buy zinfandel wine.” At this point you know that this person want to buy, so you send them to a Web page that makes selecting and buying any of your zinfandel wines as easy as possible. However, you still provide enough information and possibly suggestions to the visitor to make them feel comfortable in buying a bottle or case of wine from you. You know they want to buy, but they might not know exactly what they want to buy, so deliberately move them through your site in a way that suits their needs.

Finally, let’s say someone does a search for “buy Earth Zin and Fire zinfandel.” (Earth Zin and Fire is a brand of zinfandel). From the search terms used we know what the visitor is looking for and what they want to do when they find it. Even better, we know that our advertisement on the search engine has made it clear to the consumer that a) our online store has Earth, Zin and Fire wine, and b) we will sell you some of it.

In this final case, the most logical thing to do, if you were thinking in the mindset of the “funnel,” would be sending your visitor to a Web page that gives them a little info on the wine, an easy purchasing form, and some text to make them understand why you are the person to buy this wine from. Makes sense, right?

So, the big question is, are you being customer unfriendly (read:Web 1.0) if you are sending a consumer in the second or third example to a Web page that limits their ability to explore your site and “forces” them into the buying process?

I can see it both ways, but I say no. I think it is OK to keep your customers focused on the buying process if they have already stated that they want to buy. I don’t think there is anything that is horribly anti-Web 2.0 when you give your customers what they have already asked for. Actually, isn’t that what Web 2.0 is really all about?

As Seth points out, advertising mediums like Google and Yahoo give you the ability to have pre-funneled traffic even before the traffic hits your Web site. So in actuality, you know which of your customers have already asked to be pushed directly into your sales funnel. Pretty cool, eh?

So at this point ladies and gentlemen, I guess the best advice 2.0 I have for you when you are talking about pre-funneled PPC traffic going to your Web site is push those bastards through – they want it.

You would be so not Web 2.0 if you didn’t give them what they want. :)

Posted by James at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Thank God I don’t have to pay extra for the Speed Channel. If I did, I would be really pissed.

I have spent the last couple of months getting ready to watch another exciting season of the World Rally Championship on the Speed Channel. I love the WRC and I have been gearing up for the first rally of the year in Monte Carlo. I even made sure I had a DVR this season so I could record the rallies.

The first rally program should be televised tonight – instead Speed is showing some of its crappy original programming. Why? It seems that Speed has been unable to come to an agreement with the FIA (the WRC’s governing body) about airing the WRC rallies.

I am sure that there is fault on both sides of the negotiating table on this one, but I would think that Speed would be responsible enough to get the contractual details worked out prior to the start of the rally season.

Anyway, the backlash is on. There has been an outcry from Speed viewers from across the county. They are flipping out on the Speed Network’s bulletin board, starting online petitions, and many of the people who have to pay extra to get Speed are canceling their subscriptions.

Many people feel Speed’s programming lineup has progressively been going down the tubes. An average Speed day is about 10 hours of the Barrett-Jackson Auction coverage and now even Sunday bobsledding – which has somehow been deemed a motorsport by Speed.

So if you care about the WRC, or even if you don’t, please put your name on the petition – and also, go to the Speed Channel’s feedback page and tell them to bring the WRC back. Maybe they will even read the feedback and find out that they are driving their channel into the ground.

Of course, that doesn’t seem to be the TV network way to do things. Most channels seem to be more concerned with getting ad money than providing quality programming to their core audience – and then they are shocked when they can’t get the ad dollars since their viewers have jumped ship.

It’s a damn shame I tell you – a damn shame.

Ok - this rant is over. Please sign the petition. Have a good week!

Posted by James at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who ever came up with the concept of putting an animated character on a Web site to increase sales probably never realized they were in the process of creating one of the silliest Web apps ever.

Today I ran across an advertisement for Sitepal on some Web site and I got to experience the joy of screwing around with Sitepal for the third time.

If you want to have fun with Sitepal too, I suggest you follow these two links:

To make Sitepal talk – go here. Remember to type in something ridiculous.

To change how the Sitepals look - go here. You can see my transformation of their George W. Bush pal going from regular Bush to Bushy Big Pimpin’.

Have fun, and don't forget to watch your pal's creepy, creepy eyes...

Posted by James at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Looks like our million dollar hero is being targeted by some lowlife hijackers (no I am not talking about SmashMyViper).

See the whole story from Yahoo News.

UPDATE - SmashMyViper is up to $5,200 – just enough to do some damage to the Viper and not quite enough to pay to fix the damage :( Bad times fellas, bad times.

Posted by James at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I am guilty of overestimating Web surfers…or maybe it is underestimating.

I always thought that the three-second rule was the standard for Web surfers. No, not that three-second rule - eating food off of the ground is nasty no matter how long it has touched it for. I am talking about the rule that a Web surfer will decide if they are going to hit the back button or stick around after about three seconds on your Web site.

It turns out that you have a lot less time than three seconds – try 50 milliseconds. Yeah, 50 milliseconds.

A recent study done in Canada found that Web surfer’s brains make flash judgements of whether or not they are going to stick around a site or take off. For more on the study, click here.

So do you think it is important to have a well-designed site that draws people in?

You bet your ass you do.

Posted by James at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well is it?

“When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.” -Jack Welch

“In the 1970s, managers expanded the frame in which they evaluate costs to include a product’s lifetime. In the 1980’s, they expander their view of quality to include the customer. Now it’s time to expand our concept of efficiency to include the costs of adaptation to changing business conditions – and the risks of failing to adapt.” -From The Big Moo

“Giving up the illusion that you can predict the future is a very liberating moment. All you can do is give yourself the capacity to respond…the creation of that capacity is the purpose of strategy.” -Lord John Browne

Being ready to adapt is essential in business today. Think of all of the major food companies that produced low carb foods for the Atkins diet craze. Many of those companies were only able to get their low carb products into stores just as the Atkins fad started to fade away.

Where was the strategy and foresight there? Why didn’t they see the Atkin’s coming sooner? Why didn’t they see that Atkin’s was just a fad anyway?

The reason is that the food companies cannot see into the future. That’s life.

The real question is why they didn’t get their products out faster? Why couldn’t they adapt to any fad and then recover back to business as usual once it was over?

Where does your company stand when it comes to change? Can you roll with the punches and capitalize on them? Does your company fear change or embrace it?

"Adaptation isn’t just organizational strategy – it’s a business strategy." -From The Big Moo

And the final quote of the night-

"It’s all about thriving in markets that are smarter and faster than you are. It’s all about being utterly fucked if you don’t know what I am talking about." -Hugh McLeod

Over and out.

Posted by James at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you want some of the coolest fonts out there, hop on over to cool-fonts.com where Font Master Todd does his magic. The fonts are extremely cool and good for any of that cutting edge design work you may be doing.

One of my favorites is Yaroslav, which is based off of the handwriting of a gifted artist over in the Czech Republic. I can confirm that the font looks like his handwriting because I met Yaroslav many years ago.

Also check out Smash, Freak, Overexposed, Killer Ants and Jean Splice.

Todd’s fonts have been used all over the place like PC Plus Magazine, and have been written up in publications like the New York Times.

So go buy some cool fonts at Cool Fonts – you will be cooler for it. Cool?

Posted by James at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some reason I have run across two separate blog posts about the 1999 Cluetrain Manifesto today. Looks like today’s forecast did call for cluetRain.

Ha ha. What? Not Funny?

Anyway, Hugh has a great post that talks about what comes after Cluetrain. It always amazes me when I think how relevant the Cluetrain Manifesto still is after 7 years – and how few companies are actually hopping on the ‘train.

It also looks like Hugh is starting to reconsider his earlier assumption that corporate blogging was going to catch on like wildfire.

I can see why it wouldn’t. Big companies like to have control. Blogs, the Cluetrain and the Web 2.0 concept all rely on people, relationships and communities, not directives, manuals and divisions.

From the perspective of a corporate employee who heads up a corporate blogging effort, I have to say that I am blessed to be working for a company that is both personable and just over 50 employees. Just today I was in a room with the CEO, CFO, Marketing Director, a customer service representative, a copywriter and two affiliate marketing managers – and we were all there to talk about blogging.

I am guessing that kind of a meeting doesn’t happen in most Fortune 500 companies. But it probably should.

Posted by James at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You may or may not remember the commotion around Dean Kamen’s “It” back in the late 90’s (maybe early 2000s). For those who don’t, renowned inventor Dean Kamen started a buzz about an invention he made that was going to “change the way we live” when it was unveiled. The speculation about what “It” was got a bit out of hand. I remember speculation that “It” was a personal jetpack, a levitation device, or maybe even a hover car.

When the day came to unveil “It” the world let out a collective “aw crap” when they saw that “It” was the Segway Scooter. It turns out that the Segway has changed the way that it’s owners live because it has kept all of them un-laid since they plunked down five thousands bucks to have one. That’s right – the “It” was a over-hyped birth control device.

(I do still think it is funny that George W. Bush ate it on a Segway, even though it is billed as nearly impossible to crash. But I digress.)

Anyway, our boy Dean has come out with his next great invention, the Centaur. And aside from being named like a gay bar, it actually looks pretty cool! Even though the site says they do not plan on producing the Centaur for sale, you have to figure they will eventually. Hopefully they will be able to crank these things out without a $10,000 price tag.

I have to thank Mr. Kamen for not over hyping this invention. God knows, if the Segway “changed the way we live,” then I am sure the Centaur will give every man, woman, and child a reason to live, shelter, and a lifetime supply of hot pockets.

Posted by James at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A friend of mine at work forwarded me a link today that gave me one more reason to live. The video stars Mr.T and is called "Recouping." Learn how to get out of those absolutacris situations.

Watch, listen and learn suckas.

(By the way, I would link to the site that is hosting the video and not the video itself, but I don't like my visitors getting bombarded by pop-ups.)

Posted by James at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Bregar has put together a good list of must-have Firefox extensions. One of them is the Web Developer Toolbar which, among other things, lets you modify style sheets on the fly – great for checking out CSS changes in real time.

You want to see the rest of the Extensions? I got your extensions right here.

Posted by James at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is a quote from a chapter in The Big Moo called “What, Exactly, Are You Afraid Of:”

Here’s the big news: If your strategy is to lie low, do your job, follow instructions, and hope that nobody notices you, (a) nobody will ever notice you, and (b) you’re actually increasing the chances of something bad happening.

If, on the other hand, you develop a reputation as the person who is always pushing the envelope, challenging the organization to go to the next level, and using your influence to get good stuff done, you’ve got the world’s best job security. If you never pretend to know all the answers, nobody will hate you when you say. “I don’t know.” And if you surround yourself with a team that depends on you to lead them to the next big thing, you all benefit.

You can’t shrink your way to greatness.

Posted by James at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thanks to Google Analytics I present to you the Marketing Punk World Domination Map(c) from 2005.

Each orange circle represents at least one visit.

Not to shabbby for a zero dollar marketing budget and only three months of posting.

Posted by James at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It is always good to know about an industry's past to gauge what will happen in the future.

If you are in the online marketing business, check out this report on the decade of online advertising.

Posted by James at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can’t decide, and actually I am not really sure what “contest troll” means in the first place.

There seems to be a battle going on between Greg Boser and John Scott from the V7 Network. I can do no real justice to the story by trying to summarize it here – so I will just give you a list of posts that will help you follow the shenanigans:

• The Beginning – V7 Starts a Contest


• The First Volley – WebGuerilla Hates the Contest and Starts His Own


• The Poop Flies – John Scott Gets Pissed and Calls Greg Names


• Guerillas Love Poop – Boser Loves the Names He is Called (and the Attention)

1. Never post a contest on a message board (build a Web page you lazy bastard)


2. If you don’t listen to #1, make sure you get all the contest rules/guidelines into the first post


3. If you are going to try to derail someone’s contest, try to make sure there is a good reason


4. Never fling poo at a guerilla


5. Matt Cutts must have naked pictures of Greg Boser

Anyway, in the end both Greg and John are getting a bunch of attention out of this feud, so it looks like they are both winning.

As the Scobleizer might point out –

Disruption = Attention

Disrupt my little poop flingers, disrupt.

Posted by James at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Seth Godin book binge continues with “The Big Moo,” a book written by The Group of 33 (“33 of the world’s best business thinkers”) and edited by Seth Godin.

As I go through the book, I am writing down quotes that I enjoy in my Moleskine – because quotes look better when they are in a hipster journal.

Anyway, here is one of my favorite quotes so far from a passage named “Real Artists Ship” –

It’s awfully tempting to embrace the role of the impatient outsider. It’s fun to be the big thinker who is always dueling with the bureaucracy, bitter that your best ideas always get turned down or ruined by management. After all, you can’t be criticized for ideas that never see the light of day. You can remain the secret genius you think you are.

Food for thought. In 2006, we should not only be thinking big but executing big as well.

Executing big as in following through…not like Texas executing big...

Posted by James at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy New Year Motherscratchers!

I am at the end of a 12-day vacation from work/blogging. I look forward to getting back to posting and solving all of the world’s problems with the power of online marketing. :)

Anyway, this is a picture of myself and my lovely girlfriend Kristi at the New Years party we went to. There was a big swing band, plenty of drinks, and good company. A great time indeed.

Thanks to Toddy the Body for the invite.

Posted by James at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)