web 2.0

Is advertising dead? The third way of building brand equity

There seem to be three (non-mutually exclusive) models for marketers tasked with building brand equity: marketing scarcity, marketing artificial scarcity, or marketing relevance.

Scarcity seems to be at the core of all marketing: an exclusive, unique value that can be reproduced; an original idea replicated for many. That's how markets work, how marketing works. Branding is effective when it keeps the aura of an original idea intact despite its mechanical reproduction. Apple's original idea, for instance, could be described as "technology must be fun and human," and it has not lost an inch of its integrity. … Read more

Downstream solutions. Upstream problems.

By Nick de la Mare

I saw an interesting article in the New York Times this weekend titled "Put Ad on Web. Count Clicks. Revise." The premise of the article goes something like this: because the web provides functionality to test every variation of a banner ad for effectiveness, the next big thing is tailoring advertising in the moment, and leveraging findings from click-thru rates to construct more relevant offerings for consumers. If I had to construct a tag-line for the so-called "data practice" services cited in this article it would be "downstream solutions to … Read more

What open source could learn from proprietary platforms

Open source has proved to be phenomenally successful, and continues to grow. As open source grows beyond its roots in software infrastructure like operating systems and Web servers, however, it is finding that the types of community it attracts is increasingly corporate.

Even in the geeky application server layer, Marc Fleury notes that JBoss' "community meant users, partners, consultants," not the freedom-loving developers we often associate with open source. This is because our simplistic conception of community has likely always been wrong, as Michael Dehaan suggests.

Open source has long been more about users than developers for the … Read more

Finding good reasons to spend money on free goods

I was listening to MGMT's "Kids" today on iTunes, and by the end of the song I found that I had shelled out roughly $6 for a few more songs by Arcade Fire, Sonic Youth, Band of Horses, and MGMT.

All of those songs are available for $0.00 on LimeWire, which I have installed on my computer, but which I haven't used in at least a year. I haven't needed to. Everything I want to buy is a click away and, better yet, as happened Monday, Apple keeps helping me find more things to … Read more

Citrix aims to ease Web 2.0 app pains for servers

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Citrix said Tuesday it will add Web 2.0 push technology to its NetScaler traffic management and content delivery lineup.

Why? Because Web 2.0 apps are gobbling up more and more server computing power.

As rich Internet applications proliferate, data centers are becoming less efficient because they must stay connected to servers 24/7 to be useful. Those connections gobble up computing power.

Indeed, all of those widgets and Web 2.0 apps may translate in new racks of servers that need to be purchased.

Citrix said it will … Read more

Soul-searching for papers, Web 2.0, open source

Even as open source seeks new models for funding its explosive adoption, open-source business executives can take heart: the newspaper and, indeed, the Web 2.0 world, are undergoing the same soul-searching.

It is therefore instructive to hear what Google CEO Eric Schmidt has to say on the matter, since Google is one of the few Web companies that has learned how to make serious coin on the free Web. TechFlash has excerpted his comments Tuesday to the Newspaper Association of America, some of which are highly pertinent to anyone trying to make money in freely distributed goods:

I think … Read more

Marketing with meaning: How KLM activates dormant social networks

I wrote earlier that "marketing with meaning" has the ability to "activate" customers. An effective way to activate customers is by activating the dormant social networks they inhabit (often without even knowing it). While social networking has visualized the so-called six degrees of separation, all business transactions have a social component and can be seen as expressions of the underlying social micro-universes, the "worlds within worlds," in which--shifting time and place--individuals travel and interact. As marketers face the daunting challenge of connecting with fragmented audiences that are increasingly split into billions of social atoms … Read more

Web 2.0 Expo: Time to hit refresh?

SAN FRANCISCO--Stepping off an otherwise quiet street and through the door of the downtown restaurant Roe on Thursday night was, at first, like a foray into a secret fantasy world where no market crash or economic recession had ever happened.

It was the launch party for Yola.com, a rebranded Web publishing platform formerly known as SynthaSite, in conjunction with this week's Web 2.0 Expo down the street at the Moscone convention center. There was an open bar, of course: The signature cocktail was a kir royale, a blend of champagne and blackcurrant liqueur, so champagne flutes were … Read more

The dark secrets of Whopper Sacrifice

SAN FRANCISCO--"I don't know how many of you actually got sacrificed out there, but condolences to you," said Matt Walsh, head of the Interaction Design department at ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, as he surveyed the audience at his Friday morning talk at the Web 2.0 Expo.

CP&B, after all, was the creator of the "Whopper Sacrifice" phenomenon, a Burger King ad campaign on Facebook that promised a coupon for a free hamburger if participants deleted 10 people from their friends lists on the social network. It was a wild … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Meet the Webware 100

As the Web 2.0 Expo concludes today in San Francisco, Webware editor Rafe Needleman takes stock of the latest turn in the fast-changing chronicle of Web-based start-ups. Also, he tells you how to vote for your favorites in the annual Webware 100 competition. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Telcos said testing plan to offer PCs to businesses

Google in talks to buy Twitter?

The once and future app store

Senators introduce bill to curb mobile spam