If you are in my line of work (search marketing), getting links to your website is a very cool thing. It is one of the hardest things to do and that is why there is an entire industry centered around buying and selling links. Companies like Text Link Brokers.

So how surprised was I to see that I got a link from the Link Building Wiki, which Text Link Brokers runs.

I am not sure how I got it, how they found me, or why they considered me worthy of a link – but I say thank you whoever put me there. Links are awesome…I should have asked for some for my birthday.

Posted by James at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Seth has a great post out that discusses the power that marketers have and the responsibilities that go along with the power.

From a person who was marketed some very shady products and services in past careers, I have to say that his post is dead on.

Marketers need to be thinking about the products they sell and the impact they have on our audience. A marketer’s job is to create demand for a product or service. If the product or service is going to kill you target market or will have negative effects you have got to live with it. And if you can live with that you have problems beyond your nine to five.

On a related note, I was watching a movie called The Corporation the other night and they were interviewing a psychologist who works with marketers and large corporations. Her goal is to hook kids on products so the company has a “lifetime customer” (sound familiar McDonalds?). The psychologist also teaches companies how to use advertising to make children bother their parents to go places or get products. An example was that 1/3 of all visits to Chucky Cheese was because kids nagged their parents until they were taken. The psychologist was very proud of that.

Crazy, scary stuff, eh?

Posted by James at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A great commercial for Amsterdam’s Cross Media Week. Does contain vomiting, drugs and women’s wobbily bits…you have been warned

Thanks to AdRants for the video.

Posted by James at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I cannot believe what Comcast is doing now.

I came home from work tonight and turned on my TV to find this on my on-screen guide-

That’s right – a banner ad! But not just any banner ad – a banner ad that takes up one of the five slots to look a TV information. So I lost 20% of my viewable space so I can be advertised to – and I pay $80+ dollars a month for the privilege.

If Comcast is hurting for money so bad, they need to do something to fix their business model…and raising rates for cable is not going to cut it. I mean $80+ a month for a bunch of channels that I may watch 10 of and an occasional movie on HBO – how can they not be making a huge profit on me?

Banner ads! I need a drink.

Bonus Links –
Air Toons (thanks Patrick)
Wiener Dog (thanks Megan)

Posted by James at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In a recent post, Guy Kawaski talked about 10 Things Students (and the rest of us) should learn this school year. One of his points was this:

11. How to use PowerPoint. I’ve seen the PowerPoint slides of professors—it’s no wonder that most people can’t use PowerPoint to sell hybrid cars when gas is $10/gallon. Maybe professors are thinking: “This is a one-hour class, I can cover one slide per minute, so I need sixty slides. Oh, and I’ve written all this text already in my textbook, so I’ll just copy and paste my twelve-point manuscript into the presentation.” Perhaps the tenure system causes this kind of problem. In the real world, this is no tenure so you need to limit yourself to ten slides, twenty minutes, and a thirty-point font—assuming that you want to get what you want.

Now I read this as I was putting together an MTV-esque PowerPoint for a presentation I am giving in Santa Barbara – and the PowerPoint was going to have a lot more than 10 slides…a lot more. So, with the power of blog comments on my side, I asked Guy (yes we are on a first name basis) if I should cut slides or keep with my original super-slide idea. His answer was to stick with the very slidey version, but to watch this Identity 2.0 presentation by Dick Hardt (no snickering) for inspiration.

Guy knows his stuff…the presentation is killer!

Posted by James at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wow – I have been slacking. Actually I have been more busy than slacking – but it sure feels like slacking.

Over the last few days I have found some links that I was going to post here – so here they are.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Advertising Via Online Video
Gnarly Car Crashes in a Tunnel Video (aka “Why You Should Have Auto Insurance”)
Velocity Art and Designs (cool art and home stuff for cool kids)
A List of the Top Graffiti Websites
BL Ochman Tells Us How Jane Magazine Has Become a Pimp

Enjoy!

Posted by James at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some reason I am being followed by Kidrobot and his Dunny and Munny toys.

Three weeks ago I was at the First Friday art night on Santa Fe Blvd. in Denver when I saw a Kidrobot flier for their Munny decorating contest. I had no idea what it was, but the premise (paint a Munny toy and send it in to see if you can win a contest) seemed interesting. Eventually I chucked the flier and sort of forgot about it.

Today, I was looking at the lineup for the Fortune Innovation Forum (looks like one of the coolest conference I have ever seen) and I saw that the founder of Kidrobot, Paul Budnitz, was a speaker.

With that, I looked around for more information on Kidrobot. It turns out that Kidrobot produces collectible toys (or art depending on who you ask) that are sometimes designed with well known artists. Here are the links that I found, for your enjoyment.

Kidrobot Site

Vinyl Pulse Interview with Paul

More Information on Munnys

Buy a Munny

[Thanks to Uberbot for the photo]

Posted by James at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was happy to get my monthly copy of Business 2.0 today and even happier to see the cover story “Blogging for Dollars.”

The story is a good one. It discusses blogs like Fark, Boing Boing, GigaOm and TechCrunch and their increasing visibility as advertising platforms. For example, Fark owner Drew Curtis is expecting to start pulling in $600,000 a month in ad revenue from advertisers like Maxim Magazine and the NHL.

But that wasn’t the best part. The best part of the article was this sentence:

“Despite all the ferment, a critical question remains unanswered: Do blog ads work?”

Why is that exciting? Because the question isn’t “are blogs just a fad” anymore…the questions is about the monitization of the medium not the medium itself. To me, that is a big step. The mainstream acceptance of blogs seems to be getting there – which should hopefully make my job a little bit easier going forward :)

[Bonus - All Your Snakes are Belong to Us video...son of a bitch this video is popular]

Posted by James at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a great experience at work today.

I found out that I was on a team where all of the members are passionate, truly engaged, and looking to make a positive difference for all of the people we work with. The group explores ways of bringing innovation to our organization and how to promote and foster an environment of innovation.

During our weekly meeting our team came to the realization that we would be willing to do what we are doing as a team whether or not it was on company time. We believe in what we are doing so much that we would do it during lunch, after work, whatever. I’m not too old, but I think that kind of thing is pretty rare and very special.

It is easy for us to do the things we do at work because we know we are getting paid – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I would challenge you to ask yourself, what part of your day-to-day work would you still want to do if you had to do it on your own time? What would you be willing to do to help your coworkers or your company outside of your regular 9 to 5 schedule?

Is there anything? If so, you may have found a passion of your own. If not, you might want to look for something that can get you that passionate – it is a really cool feeling.

I dunno, it’s just a thought. I consider myself fairly lucky to be able to do what I do and enjoy it so much. And I know a lot of people don’t have that opportunity.

I guess that, in itself, is something I am passionate about – helping other people find their opportunity to be passionate about something.

Now if I could just figure out how to do that…

Posted by James at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When I heard a commercial for the new Oscar Mayer “Fast Franks” I thought I was hearing things. Who needs a hotdog in a bun, all in one, ready to eat in 35 seconds? I mean, do we really need a friggin’ hotdog in 35 seconds? I think that actually makes it possible for that crazy Japanese guy to cook and eat all the hotdogs he eats in those professional eating competitions.

But I will stop this rant right now and let my new best friend, the Assimilated Negro, drop a dime on Oscar’s ass…

[Bonus - this freaked me out...bad]

Posted by James at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was out this evening so I thought a short post was appropriate.

And a short post it is – Ladies and gents, watch George Ellis and his amazing, self-promotional, videos.

Thanks to AdRants for the story.

Posted by James at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Note to readers – I am not an early adopter, especially among the early adopters set. So yes, I am just getting into Digg (and you can too), and yes, The Bregar can laugh at me now.]

Digg is flippin’ cool. I added it to this blog last night and I added it to the four blogs I administrate at work today. I even got 3 Diggs on a post I put up at work. How cool (I am easy to please, OK?)

But that is not the point of this post.

As I prepare to give a speech to a room full of people about using blogs for business, I have been wondering how I could effectively demonstrate the power of social networks and help avoid the “isn’t blogging just a fad” question that I know I am going to get.

After attending the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose last week, I was feeling pretty good about blogs/viral/social networking and the like. A great deal of time was spent discussing these topics and I think in every session, no matter what the topic, blogs and blogging was mentioned at least once. Possibly more importantly, influential search marketing types (all of who are bloggers in one way or another) attended the social search/viral sessions. I would argue that these people know what is going on in the online world and their presence was validation to social search/Web 2.0 in some small way.

So after the conference I was feeling pretty good about all of this Web 2.0 type stuff, but I still couldn’t pull up a killer example of how powerful this “social” thing really is. But today I found it:

Digg Swarm

Digg Swarm shows you people “Digging” stuff - real-time - and shows the relationships between the things people are digging. Aside from the mesmerizing graphical representation – Swarm shows us what is really happening in the social tagging community…and it is pretty amazing.

Now when I showed this to my boss he asked me – “why are all of these people doing this?” (My boss is an accountant by trade – show me the money, etc.) The amazing thing is the only reason I could give him that was not metaphysical Web 2.0 mumbo jumbo was that it helps people keep track of things they like. Not that I think that really has much to do with why people are digging away at an amazing rate.

To me, it seems like people are out there digging to be a part of something bigger than themselves. To join a club. To make their opinion heard. To help share information in a way that you can’t with a search engine. To create, as a group, a new Internet built on the passions of the Internet’s most passionate users.

And that, folks, is the shit.

So I think I found my example of how/why I think the blogging/social search/viral world is going to survive and continue to grow.

What do you think? Is this social search thing for real, or will it be the next big bust? And if you are a Digg user, why do you Digg?

Posted by James at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am on my way to San Jose, CA for the Search Engine Strategies conference. I am looking forward to seeing some good friends and learning a lot. Most likely my focus will be on my work blog for the week, so posting here may be a bit sparse.

On an unrelated note, I love Denver in the summer. Here is the view from my apartment this evening.

Posted by James at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Finally - I got the Gapingvoid widget added to the navagation of Marketing Punk.

Cool stuff I say...

Posted by James at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are some things I have been meaning to post about:

Paint Bomb Building
Rocketboom is Back
Learn about Podcasts
MIT Innovation Videos (you better recognize)

Sorted...

Posted by James at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bad ass concept agencyish thingy Big Heads' boss John Palumbo recounts the fun he gets to have with traditional ad agencies.

Boy...that's gotta be fun.

Posted by James at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)