Marketing Hipster

I posted at the end of the year, along with a great deal of other bloggers, predictions of what I think will happen in good old 2007. Well one of my top 10 happened today when it was announced that Michael Dell will be coming back as CEO of the company he founded, Dell Computer Corporation. As an ex-Dell employee and a great fan of Michael’s, I think this was the only opportunity for Dell to right their ship.

One of the greatest lessons I learned from Michael was how to be an effective leader.  He taught me to realize and accept that as a leader, you will not have all the answers. An effective leader is someone who can communicate their vision and hire people to surround himself with who will have the answers to turn that vision into a reality. Dell the company once had that, but as they grew so dramatically and so quickly, the environment of ownership and entrepreneurship changed causing many of the issues and problems they are dealing with today. They have an uphill climb ahead of them, but with Michael back at the helm, I for one am not counting them out.

Technorati Tags: Michael Dell, Dell Computer Corporation, effective leader

I got some good news today, Marketing Hipster has been added to Todd And’s Power 150 Top Marketing Blogs. The Hipster entered the charts with a bullet at number 71. Todd has a real interesting way on how he calculates his rankings based on Google pagerank, Technorati links, Bloglines subscribers and Todd And points. For someone who has not been writing this particular blog that long, I am humbled to be in the same ranks of many blogs that I have read and respected for quite a while.

Technorati Tags: Marketing Hipster, Todd And’s Power 150, Top Marketing Blogs

I guess I moved into a new echelon as the link spammers have been all over me this week adding spam link comments to many of my posts. I never understand these people. The amount of time it must take them to go around to web sites and add these comments when a great majority of them never see the light of day. It just seems like they see very little ROI from what they are doing.
It would seem to me that if they just put the time they are wasting in spamming and actually develop content for their own web sites, the links would come all on their own. I don’t care if you have the worst porn site in the world or selling swatches, it has been proven time and time again that if you put the time and passion into developing captivating content, the links and more importantly, the people will definitely come.

So Mr. Spammer, before you click on my comments link and try to put a link to your sister’s / wife’s lesbian site, how about you sit down and try to write a couple of coherent sentences together and see what will happen then? Just a thought..

Technorati Tags: spammers, spam link comments

I wrote in a previous post, how we cannot forget or take for granted what an amazing time we are living in. How technology has given everyone who wants their voice to be heard an opportunity to do so. I guess it was a coincidence that I wrote that last night and this morning I stumbled upon an amazing video that really drove the point home. I recommend everyone watch this. I know it is a bit long, but if you don’t watch it all the way through you will really be missing out. Many thanks to Sean as I found this video on his excellent blog.

In our on going series, As the Blogosphere Turns, we now turn to the heavyweight division as Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis face off. In this corner we have Robert Scoble, huge blogger, very well respected and for the last couple of days he seems to of lost his fricken mind. He started this weekend by posting a story accusing other large blogs like Engadget of not linking to him which I already commented on. He followed that up today by with a story blasting Technorati for not being fast enough indexing a story of his. If that was not enough, please check out the comments as he raised his soap box to a new level and pretty much took the attitude that if you are not a king blogger like himself, you have absolutely no credibility.

While Scoble was going through what looked like a full mental breakdown, Jason Calacanis posted an open letter to Scoble stating:

“At this point you’re basically slandering them and spreading lies. You’re acting like a spoiled jerk and as your friend I feel the need to tell you that.”

Scoble finally responded by giving himself a much needed time out.

So why is there so much more bickering and juvenile in-fighting going on in the blogosphere lately? I think it boils down to a couple of main factors. First off, I think some people are forgetting that we all are here, A Class bloggers on down, for the same reason. We want to educate, share and most importantly, continually grow this community. I think it is important to remember what an incredibly amazing time we are living in. For the first time in the history of the world, technology has given anyone who wants their voice to be heard an opportunity to do so. This should be not be taken lightly or for granted.

I think the second reason is in some of these cases, a select few of these bloggers are starting to believe their own hype. They forgot the reason they started doing this in the first place and now are driven by greed and ego. Though as my grandfather use to say, “Karma’s a bitch”.

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, Engadget, Technorati

Is it me or does it seem like there has been a lot of fights between bloggers lately? The most recent one involves Andy Beal vs. Jeremy Zawodny. Jeremy posted a story complaining about how Andy was running a contest for people to join Andy’s MyBlogLog community. A winner would win a Microsoft Zune. Jeremy who works at Yahoo and who also now owns MyBlogLog believed Andy was spamming. Andy fired back with a story of his own where he was unhappy to say the least. I also recommend reading the comments on both stories as they are interesting and tells even more of the story.

I think there are points on both sides of this issue to tell you the truth. Though I think what Andy was most upset about was how Jeremy went about posting his story without contacting Andy and discussing this issue before he posted the story. I do not know Jeremy personally, but I did have the opportunity to work with Andy for a couple of years. There is no-one I know in the SEO industry who is a bigger advocate of doing SEO the right way and to even accuse Andy of spamming is just absolutely out of character.

Either Jeremy broke the golden rule which was don’t write angry or he was just looking to get some attention in the community. I hope you are enjoying the attention, Jeremy.

Technorati Tags: Andy Beal, Jeremy Zawodny, MyBlogLog, spamming, SEO

With the Superbowl coming up this weekend, we all know that the football game is just one part of the spectacular. Companies are spending huge dollars for thirty seconds of time to get in front of millions and millions of eyes. The commercial that I think started it all, at least for me, was Apple‘s 1984 Macintosh commercial. It still rocks twenty some odd years later. What was the commercial that you remember most from Superbowl’s?

Technorati Tags: Superbowl, commercial, Apple, Macintosh

My friend Sandy, a fellow Blogger over at Purple Wren posted a story on Friday, sorry Sandy I am just catching up, on Clairol‘s new Try It On Studio. This is an interactive application that allows users to upload a picture of themselves and then try on hair and hair colors to see what might be just perfect for you.. I have been meaning to try a new hairstyle since I think I have had the same one for ummmm, maybe most of my life. Though I think there was a time when I was born that I was bald for a while. Anyhow, just for fun, I decided to try it out. Click the pictures below to see me in all my glory. Now please do not hate me cause I am beautiful. We don’t playa hate here on the Hipster.

Technorati Tags: Purple Wren, Clairol, interactive application

I am sure many of you have seen this already. A video of a spoiled girl who gets a new car but because it is red, she does not want it. It got all kinds of attention on YouTube. Here it is if you want to see it:

Anyhow, I just learned today that this was the first part of a three part viral video series for Dominos Pizza. I cannot find the last video where they reveal it. If you happen to know where it is, can you post it in the comments. The first video was good, the second and third went downhill dramatically.

Technorati Tags: spoiled girl, YouTube, viral video

I just found this quite amusing.