Long tales and other good reads

So things have been good. Been reading a lot of good reads lately. Few of the really good ones for your perusal & consumption below:

Chris Anderson's Book - The Long Tail
I know, I know i'm behind the curve on this one. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (2006) by Chris Anderson, the Editor-in-chief of wired magazine (the favourite read of this blog) is a stellar book and must be read by everyone who is remotely interested in economics. Yes Economics and not just the internet. Anderson in this book talks about the remarkable manner in which the internet has re-written traditional retail that focussed solely on "hits" due to the constraints of supply chain and inventory costs. The main focus is on how, due to the internet, the market is moving towards the "non hits" as people are moving from mass consumer products to more customized niche products.

I knew about the Long Tail theory pretty much when the book released but this book has given me an insight on Search Engines that I never noticed before. The sieving quality of search engines to negotiate all the clutter on the net.That, methinks, is the saviour of the long tail. Yes there is significant choice out there thanks to the internet and the availability of information. But choice is useless unless you can get to it. Search Engines sift through the internet to get you what you want. That's why a Search Engine on the web portal is crucial.

Most companies do not pay attention to the search engines on their own web portal because they think their own portal is a small universe and people will get to the content any way. But regardless, navigating any portal can sometimes be overwhelming. I personally hate it when search queries within a site don't work and give out odd results. Especially when its at odds with Google. The big takeway for me personally from this book was that marketing to the long tail because of its niche drive preference is going to be difficult and sometimes not feasible but if one has an elaborate website, investing in good search engine technology and a recommendation alogorithm will ease things up significantly.

One of my favourite lines in the book tho, is when he describes Fiona Apple as "Delightfully Unhinged". I'd like to wear a T-shirt that says that! More on the book here. Also read the Long Tail blog here

There's a blogging exchange of words going on in Harvard Business Review between Chris Anderson and Anita Elberse, a harvard prof. Elberse is arguing on if one should take the long tail seriously and invest in it. Its an extremely good read and besides its greatly stimulating to see two intellectuals argue. Register on the HBR site and you'll get access to it. Can't link to it unfortunately :(

More shameless Wired Plug Alert
Yes well, what can I say I'm like a wired groupie these days. Wired is celebrating its 15th anniverssary this year and because of that one is able to access a lot of past gems. I chanced upon a wired article on the landmark US Vs Microsoft anitrust case. Th article, all of 45 pages, was published after the judgement to break up Microsoft was delivered in 1998. The article brilliantly narrates the events leading up to the case and gives inside scoop on all the players involved especially the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Microsoft.

The article reads like a salacious saga and is completely absorbing. Besides that it gives one valuable insights on US anti trust laws. By the end of this article, one gets to know the Sherman Act better than one's right hand. You also get know the ugly side of Microsoft. I'm not sure if the article was particularly biased against Microsoft but its not flaterring in anyway. I don't really get why people in tech hate microsoft so much. It may be vehemently dominating and they may not make the best of products but hey nobody out there has an OS that matches Microsoft. I use MS products evryday and I don't think I should crib particularly when I have not seen a better product to rival it. Read the article here

This made me wonder if India has Antitrust laws? Anyone know? Also I don't particularly think its a good idea, not right now any way. We've just become a free economy, what we don't need right now is a regulatory law. Besides, the ambanis and tatas of this country would never allow it

*end shameless plug*

More bounty
The Economic times recently had a great article on Leadership. In an article called "Four fundamental laws for CEOs racing against time" the author, with good examples, illustrates the 4 guiding principles that CEOs, who are pressed for immediate results, should adopt.

Another article in ET talks about the importance of customer advocacy. The author makes the case about why one should always invest in building a loyal community of users as the latter could come to the rescue during bad times. Read the Article here

Top 8 Tips For Marketing Your Blog

Its finally happened!! Google has started indexing my blog!! yaaay! *passes out imaginary glasses of champagne* Well jokes aside, as I had chronicled before, I was finding it increasingly difficult to get my blog indexed - it was not showing up in any searches of my name and this continued for upto 5 months. I checked out Google's Site Analyzer and found that I needed to apply basic optimization tecniques like adding more links. So I made it a policy to add links in any post I write. I guess the links need to be relevant. Other than that I didn't do anything much except update the website on a regular basis. I guess both the above techniques are key to getting the blog indexed, because after I implemented these two things in a month or so my blog got indexed.

Now that my blog has been indexed, the question arises on how one should market the blog. I've tried out some of the methods and they have worked fairly decently in increasing traffic. Then there are others that I've not yet tried but are sounds techniques nonetheless that surely would garner more traffic, so here they are, in no particular order:

1. Publicize Publicize Publicize - If we are really desperate for traffic then the Blog URL must be ubiquitous and visible in all our communication - Things like email signatures, Status messages in Gtalk, MSN & Yahoo, on facebook, linked in & orkut profile or even custom T shirts! (I kid about the T shirts thing, but you can implement if one is really desperate ). Email signature at work is a bit risky but its a sure fire way to ensure that your colleagues visit your blog

2. Blog Directories - Registering with numerous Blog directories really work. Some of the blog directories are free and simply request for a link back in return for a listing

3. Search Phrase Analysis - Analyzing Search Phrases & focusing on the kind of people coming to the blog will definitely help in ensuring that they come back again. I mean if you find that one particular post is attracting a lot of traffic, it makes sense to write more on that particular topic

4. Regular Updates - Regular updating of the blog always always sees an increase in traffic. It gives people a chance to check out the blog on a regular basis. This also means that there is more of your content out there for google to index and more content means more search traffic

5. Social Bookmarking - This one especially worked for me. Social bookmarking blog posts means that traffic from social bookmarking sites such as Digg. Del.ici.ous, stumbleupon etc will come to your site. This also helps in raising the page rank due to the link back from these sites

6. Make the blog interactive: Write stuff in a way that solicits comments, views & opinions and make sure that those comments are responded to. People who write comments always come to the post to see if their comment has been answered *I wouldn't know about this particular point because nobody comments :( *

7. Visit other such blogs & comment: This is the easiest way to attract traffic to ones blog. Pick 4-5 high traffic blogs about your area of interest or on what your blog is based on. Comment, comment, comment regularly on it so that you start attracting some of that high traffic on to your own blog. Oh you can also email the blog owners discreetly and beg and plead that they include you on their Blogroll

8. Email Subscription or Plain Prostituting - Inform & email everyone you know that you updated your blog and ask everyone to go check it out. Doing it 2-3 times in the initial stages should be fine. This will atleast register in everyone's mind that you have a blog atleast. Doing it regularly makes one look need. Setting up an email subscription app on the blog once traffic has reached certain critical mass will also help in getting those regular readers back. Setting up RSS feeds is also a good idea

I'll definitely update this list as my own blog grows *hopefully* till then read this absolutely awesome article for more great tips on blog marketing. I suggest this link be added to your favourites list and also my blog hehehe

Hard Bounce - Soft Bounce Dilemma

As a marketer, nothing gives me more pain than cleaning up my email lists. Deleting email addresses that has taken months togather after searching high and low. But clean we must inorder to be efficient and to save money.

Cleaning of email lists generally begins with the email bounces list provided by the emailing software. The bounce list as people aware of such technology will know, usually consists of 2 lists - a Hard Bounce List and a Soft Bounce List. Now herein lies the confusion. The definition of what constitutes a Hard bounce or soft bounce varies over various over Recepients and ISP.

Some email clients consider a Full Email Inbox has a Hard Bounce whereas some consider it a soft bounce and multiple attempts is made by the mailing software to ensure deliverability.So it is pretty difficult to clean lists based solely on Hard-Soft bounce reports as perfectly good email addresses might get deleted if only hard bounces are considered or bad email addresses might remain on the list if soft bounces are considered clean

This article by Derek Harding provides a decent overview on tackling the dilemma. Its worth a read if you are in the same spot as me. My two cents of advice on dealing with the issue:

1. Bounce is bounce so something must be amiss, so its better to take them all from the main mailing list inorder to ensure better efficiency
2. Bounce email Ids to be black listed or flagged seperately
3. Seperate mailing activity to be done only on the flagged email ids.
4. If email Ids consistently feature in the bounced list 3 consecutive times spread over a decent timeline like 3 months then it is wise to delete the email Id completely

what say?

Marketing During Political Times

Politics and Marketing make a heady mix and the recent primaries in the US have taken political marketing to a whole new level

We in India are well aware of the political debacle that was the India shinning campaign, but what no one noticed was the succcess of the congress party campaign - congress ka saath, aam aadmi ka saath (Loosely translated: Congress Party's Hand is holding that of the common man) It was successful in striking a chord with the people on issues like riots, price rise etc. Indian Politics is ofcourse still taking baby steps towards being marketing savvy. Leaving print or TV ads, our parties haven't embraced the net like their countreparts in the US. Ofcourse this strategy does make sense when you consider that the bulk of the population lives in rural areas and hardly has access to electricity let alone the internet, but...but... a sizeable urban population has access to the net and they get their information at their finger tips. I feel it makes tonnes of sense in investing in online marketing campaigns for our parties too.

The Obama campaign in particular has re-defined campaign funding and marketing in the US. This Washington Post Article explores the obama online campaign and the findings are mind boggling. Obama through internet ads has succeeded in building a network of $1 million donors!! this in stark contrast to the traditional route of having a small but wealthy pocket of donors. Obama through such tactics managed to raise $91 million in just 2 months thanks largely to this humongous group of small donors. Obama camapign also spent their money wisely - they out spent the clinton campaign by ten times on their online marketing budget.

The online campaign is also interesting in itself, according to the article. The Obama ads didn't take one directly to the donate page but focused on building an online relationship instead. People who signed up with their email Ids first got a welcome message, information about policies, information on the various ways one could volunteer and after building a rapport, only then was one asked to donate. I find this extremely fascinating. This is new age marketing. We'd call this lead nurturing only this is being applied to a political campaign

There have been other instances of the obama campaign being net savvy. A social networking group called ObamaCycle started by an enthisiastic obama supporter, actually ensured that Obama Campaign supplies were reused not wasted. This supplemented a situation where people who ran short of campaign supplies in states which were going to vote in the primaries could communicate whith people in states that had already voted and hence could re-use their campaign supplies!!

The obama campaign has been Web2.0 savvy with widgets and buttons on facebook and myspace etc.

I guess this tactic fits the american mileu but I strongly feel that our parties could easily take a leaf from obama's campaign book and make our political system more interactive, more participatory and more fun

MicroHOO! update - Microsoft Very Quiet, but Something Is Happening

A superb article on Wired.com on the Microsoft -Yahoo merger. The industry has appropriately termed it the MicroHOO! affair. Well this article looks at the future scenarios that could pan out and methinks this is an excellent insightful review on the pains of M & A between two industry giants with such an acrimonious history. Surely, this is a business school case study in the making (hehehe)

The various case scenarious have been aptly analyzed - what if a higher offer is made or a hostile takeover is done or if Microsoft walwaks away altogether and finally if Microsoft sticks to its half cash, half stock bid. the winners, losers and what would happen next have neatly analyzed.

My two cents on this whole issue:

1. Its going to be very painful. 2 big monoliths have never merged successfully and there are going to be tonnes of integration problems not to mention the basic cultural issue - silicon valley start up (Almost) meeting seatle software big daddy. ouch, it feels painful

2. The big winner in all this is going to be Google. Ironically, the big G is the reason why Microsoft made the offer

3. M & A's are successful only when there is very little overlap between the businneses of overlapping companies. MicroHOO! has way too much overlap and this could also pose a lot of painful issues on what products need to be jettisoned, thus leading to alot of internal strife. I wouldn't want to be in on a meeting between the product heads of MSN and Yahoo Messenger. Actually I would.

4. Microsoft has no choice but to go ahead with this merger if it ever hopes to steal a march from google and Yahoo has been in a limbo due to various internal issues. The basic issue - both Microsoft and Yahoo need each other but really cannot stand each other. If they merged, it would make for an entertaining Marriage.

5. And oh, lets not forget Microsoft's Anti-trust issues. With both of MicroHOO!'s instant messaging systems, email services, web portals, I bet the Justice department is rubbing its palms in glee (being egged on oh so subtly by Google) oh what fun!

6. Like I said before, The only person gaining out of this hooplah is Google. They'll get all the great, creative Yahoo folks due to mass exodus and all they had to do was stand on the sidelines!
I read somewhere, that inorder to stir things up a bit and raise Microsoft's hackles, Eric schmidt gave yahoo a call on how..er..may be they could work together on things. lol

Another good article on what makes for good M & A's here. M & A's work, as the article says, when both companies have unique but complimentary products on offer. That way the integration can be smooth and there is greater consolidation