The Annual 'Bloggies'

OK so this many not be the oscar or bafta awards, but blogs have their own annual award ceremony, the bloggies.

mid term results

have been e-mailed to you. if you did not receive the e-mail (a couple bounced) e-mail me and I will resend.

Your bloglines Subscriptions

I have added a link to your bloglines subscriptions on the left, along with your blog. Could you please check I have yours and if not e-mail me the URL. If you have any questions, please 'comment'.

More on blogs: Have a good Spring Break!

A couple of recent articles on blogging of interest:

• Bloggers have rights too. This is a new medium, and the legal framework is clearly having trouble characterizing this medium in the context of whether bloggers can be classified as journalists etc. and therefore have the same rights as journalists.
  
  
• Blogs, Everyone? Weblogs Are Here to Stay, but Where Are They Headed?. Not being biased, but I am quoted in this wonderful summary of blogging by Knowledge @ Wharton!
  
  

Have a great spring break, I will be e-mailing you your mid-term grades as well as an assessment with respect to the progress of your blog thus far!

Links to each chapter's slides

• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 9
  

M and A in the internet space

Clearly there was a market 'correction' in the late nineties and early part of the 2000s when the bubble burst on many internet-related businesses. It seems we are now seeing more and more 'action' in mergers and acquisitions that may be a good sign for the resurgent health of this space. I was catching up with slashdot (via my bloglines news reader) and noted a couple of recent transactions that are closely related to some of the technology we have been using:

• Ask Jeeves Bought for $2 billion (ask Jeeves had recently acquired bloglines)
  
• Yahoo buys Flickr
  

Evolution of a start up: Another experience

To compliment the Collabrys case I thought it would be interesting to see my own experience with start-ups, which also has an evolutionary component.

• Spacecubes
  
• Geometrek
  
• Rename
  

We will also discuss Firefox for a completely different look at new product development.

.

Pre Mid-Term Office Hours

Given that we have a mid-term this week i'll be available, from noon - 2 pm monday and wednesday, in 207 Alfred Lerner Hall. This may also be a good opportunity for those of you still struggling with your blog etc. to stop by.

Two articles that were handed out, and will be used for the mid-term

the following two articles, that were handed out, will need to be covered for the mid-term:

• Why There's No Escaping the Blog
  
• IBM: Design Basics
  

Future of blogging and news reader development

The following story: Microsoft to dominate Blogging sooner then expected... is an interesting article on the potential outcomes as Microsoft moves into the blogging space with free / bundled tools for blogging and for news aggregation. Essentially the potential for this move to drastically reduce the likelihood of innovation in this area. Feel free to post your comments to this story. We will discuss this, and related issues on monday (along with the case discussion).

Case Questions for Callabrys

Quick reminder, here are the case questions for monday's class, for discussion.

Group Presentation Slides

I will post the group presentation slides to this blog later today (now I have figured out a .ppt file displays on the web)! Each class will be responsible for the material on the slides for their particular section for the mid term.

Edit: now posted.

Class bookstore expanded!

I just added a couple of books to the class bookstore. Both books, about web-site design, are excellent. Again, not a bad idea to e-commerce enable your site by either:

• being an amazon affiliate for books / CDs etc. that are related to the theme of your blog. For example, I assume those sites that are related to sports teams could link to books written about said sports team etc.
  
  
• link to search results on ebay for products related to your site theme. For example this could be concert tickets for bands you are following etc. (ok, not directly e-commerce here but creative use of the internet to make the content of your blog more rich).
  
  

Class Notes for March 15

The following are the slides for class (chapter 9).

Some additional links relevant for the chapter:

• Zehno
  
• Wharton MBA: December 1998 June 2001 2005
  
• Comparing B School Sites
  
• useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Website
  
• Web Pages That Suck
  
• HTML Design Issues
  
• IBM: Design Basics
  
• IBM: Design
  
• c|net
  
• Usability.gov
  
• BizRate (shopping search)
  
• REI
  
• Disney.com
  
• WSJ Online
  
  
  

Links for student presentations:

• 12 Website Design Decisions Your Business or Organization Will Need to Make Correctly (or you'll have to do it all over within a year)
  
• Fry, Inc. Helps Manufacturer Whirlpool Launch Redesigned Website; Whirlpool.com now offers consumers enhanced product and purchase information online
  
  
  

More on Flickr

for those of you using flickr to post your pictures to your blog, check English for Marketing Class Blog for additional detailed instructions.

Searching for related Blogs

As part of your blog project it will be important to link to blogs of similar themes in order to help build your community. While using google should enable you to find related blogs you can also try the following blog-specific search engines:

• Technorati
  
• Feedster
  

These blog resources have been added to the 'other resouces' section.

Dell Case

As we discuss the Dell Case today, I thought it would be useful to link to the Dell site during the time of the case study (and thanks to archive.org we can do this).

• December 1996: 150,000 site visitors per week, sales approximately $1 million / day
  
• June 1997: 250,000 site visitors per week, sales approximately $2 million / day
  
• Fall 1997: $3 million per day in sales.
  

Blog: Archives, what happens to old entries ?

A blog is designed to show the most recent entries on the front page. Older entries are archived and can be viewed by linking on the appropriate archive pages (on the left hand nav.) Thus if you are looking for the questions for the Collabrys case, you need to link to the february archives.

Added Resources and Search Engine Optimization!

Under the 'other resources' label (on the left hand nav.) I have added links to Amazon Associates and Google AdSense. For those of you with blogs that would be appropriate for e-commerce and / or advertising, I encourage you to explore these resources.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical component of internet marketing. In class on wednesday we looked at some referer stats for the MBA Admissions Blog. I wanted to remind those of you who could not see the google search results the following search: Harvard round 2 interview. Now that is interesting (the Wharton blog coming #1 on a Harvard search)! Blogs are very google-friendly I think and a useful part of any SEO strategy.

Viral Marketing: Subservient Chicken

As I could not demonstrate the site in class today I thought Subservient Chicken deserved its own blog entry. You can also google it to get a sense of how its has traveled across the internet (not forgetting all the e-mail forwarding etc.) I hope you enjoy the site and feel free to forward it to your friends! Found at: Scobleizer.

Blog: Add some contact info.

Many of your blogs do not include a direct means to contact you (other than the use of the comments section). It may make sense to add your e-mail contact information so you can be contacted directly (and privately) if needed. This should be added to your template (much like you have added additional links etc.)

The code for adding a direct e-mail link is:

<a href="mailto:alex@udel.edu">alex@udel.edu</A>

(of course replacing my e-mail address with yours!)

Some people get concerned about spam coming from e-mail addresses that are posted all over the internet, thus you may decide to use the following format:

alex 'at' udel 'dot' edu

Uploading images to your Blog

Basil on deck
Originally uploaded by alexbr.

A few of you have asked how to upload pictures to your blog. Basically what you need is somewhere to store your pictures online, and then link to them. You could do this on your Delaware account (if you have this set up) etc.

One alternative is to sign up for an account on flickr, store your images there and then blog them from there to your blog. This is exactly what I am doing now with a picture of my dog (Basil).

If you want to add an image to the template that is a little more complicated (i.e. the flickr solution seems designed to only allow for images in an entry). Anyway, you can go to the flickr page where your image is displayed, 'view source' and find the url of the image (ending in .jpg) and then include the code needed to add an image in your html in the template. (which is <img src="graphic.jpg"> ).

Materials for Chapter 7

The following are the slides for class (chapter 7).

Some additional links relevant for the chapter:

• SearchEngineWatch
  
• SearchEngineNews
  
• Internet Advertising Bureau
  
• Adknowledge.com
  
• ClickZ
  
• Was Unicast
  
• Permission Marketing (Seth Godin)
  
• Association of Interactive Marketing
  
• Advertising Age
  
• Unleashing the Ideavirus (Seth Godin)
  
• Viral Marketing Manifesto (Subservient Chicken)


• Pets.com sock puppet finds work
  
• Readers Pick Apple in 2004
  
• Web Digest for Marketers
  
• e-marketing-news
  
• successworks (Search Engine Writing)
  
• grokdotcom
  
• Online Marketing Blog (Internet news, blogs and RSS marketing)
  
• Web Marketing Today
  

Links for student presentations:

• Forecasting Paid Search Traffic
  
• Ad Serving Trend Report Double Click Q3 2004
  
  
  
• What are the most effective eMarketing tools?
  
  

Class Notes for March 7

The following are the slides for class (chapter 6).

Some of the links referenced in the chapter:

• Nua Internet Surveys
  
• ClickZ Stats (demographics) (Was Cyberatlas)
  
• http://www.emarketer.com/
  
• Nielsen//Netratings
  
• Ipsos Canada (was Angus Reid)
  
• Harris Interactive
  
• Americans in the Information Age Falling Through the Net
  
• Kanoodle: BehaviorTarget
  
• WebTrends (Web Analytics)
  
• Zoomerang (surveys)
  
• Survey Monkey (surveys)
  
• MarketTools
  
• eGain: Live Chat software with cobrowsing
  
• GMAC: GMAT Volume
  
• Sitemeter
  
• US bank 'loses' customer details
  
• Wharton: Strudent 2 Student
  
• eBay
  
  
  

Blogging and building community

I thought I would highlight a class blog: Australia. This blog includes links to fellow bloggers on the same topic. You can find fellow bloggers probably easiest by using google and doing searches on your blog theme with the additional keyword 'blog'. Once you have a good list of fellow bloggers, start following their blogs, comment on their blogs etc. This will help create community on your blog by drawing those bloggers back to your site. If you include sitemeter on your site you will see the referrer URL of your visitors, this indicates whether you have been 'linked' from these sites. Its good blog etiquette to link to blogs that link to your blog etc.

Edit: Adding Living with the Military, another good example.

Writing your blog entries: HBS Application 'Storm'

I found this useful post on Diva Marketing that highlights a few resources to help you with writing your blog entries. Following the links to the appropriate blogs should provide you some interesting insights in writing for your blog, and public writing in general.

On another note, HBS has run into some issues with its application process (r2 applicants could, for a brief period of time view their status). This occured early this week and while has some press coverage at this point, the real issue for them was the storm that brewed very quickly in the blogging / discussion board world. Managing a 'crisis' in the internet era is very different to managing under traditional media (PR statements etc.)

To follow the story check these resources:

• Clear Admit 1
  
• Clear Admit 2
  
• Clear admit 3
  
  
• Poweryogi 1
  
• Poweryogi 2
  
  
• BusinessWeek
  
  
• Dirty_Martini's Blog
  

If we get tie next week we can discuss this 'live' case in ciris management, or do so at some point in the semester.

Clarification for Case Analysis Reports

Here are some clarifications regarding the Case Analysis Reports.

1. Please answer all the questions laid out in the
   guidelines when you prepare the case analysis report. You
   are free to elaborate more on certain questions and less on
   certain questions but we would like you to address all the
   questions.
   

   
   

2. You do not have to work on the questions in the order in
   which they have been laid out...you can move them around to
   suit your writing style.
   

   
   

3. It is best if the case analysis is written in paragraphs
   of text. If you want to write certain sections as bullet
   points, make sure you elaborate on these bullet points.
   

   
   

4. Whenever you make a suggestion/recommendation/observation
   in the project report, make sure you justify it with
   relevant data from the case.
   

   
   

5. Do not use any information from outside of the case in
   your case report (For example, do not use any current stock
   market information or current website information etc.) Use
   only the information that is available to you in the case.