JD Rucker

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Evolution of Coke Bottles

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Everyone loves the newer Aston Martin's. I prefer this beauty. Someday.

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Friday, May 17, 2013

Yahoo MUST buy Tumblr and then do nothing to it

There are two stages to this gambit by Yahoo that must be accomplished. They have to beat out Facebook, Microsoft, and anybody else interested in the 10-digit price that Tumblr is likely to fetch in the coming days. Then, they have to let the site be as it is and make no changes at all to the platform.

The Swisher/Kafka tandem over at AllThingsD have reported that the Yahoo board is going to meet this weekend to discuss buying the social blogging platform for a reported $1.1 billion in cash.

Sources said that the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s CEO Marissa Mayer has decided that buying Tumblr was going to be “the stake in the ground of what her strategy is going forward for Yahoo.”

They can’t miss on this one. They can’t let anyone out bid them, out maneuver them, or in any way hamper this path. It’s out there now. It’s public. For them to miss on this opportunity would be another stake in the coffin that has been haunting Yahoo since their first big blunder when they didn’t let Microsoft buy them. No, they’re not on the verge of death, but they’re closing in on irrelevance a la AOL. This could change that.

The fact that it’s the worst kept secret in tech going into the weekend means that they’re either really close and want to get the buzz machine going or that they have a legitimate leak that shouldn’t be letting this type of information out until the deal is done. A loss on this one would be a major blow. They need something big like this. They need a victory. They need to be criticized for the move by some and praised by others. By making this move, they’ll remind everyone that they still have one of the most visible sites on the internet, that they have a rising star at CEO, and that they still have the clout to pull off something that Facebook or Google could do – a billion dollar acquisition.

The second part is equally important. They can’t botch this. In the past, they’ve botched pretty much anything that they’ve touched. They’ve killed more promising companies than Google has over the years. Tumblr can’t be one of them. They need to figure out how to integrate without affecting the flow or users in any way, or they need to simply let it be. In a best-case scenario, they strengthen the site by including it in their coveted home page coverage. Believe it or not, people won’t mind the occasional cute-dog-on-a-couch picture clogging up their portal.

If they pull this off and make it work through proper integration with sites like Flickr, they have an opportunity to be a player in the growing social arena. They could arguably be more prominent than Google in that field (unless you include YouTube, of course) and could become a prime contender to Facebook for time spent on their properties when all are accumulated. It all starts with making the purchase. Their CEO wants it. Will the board approve this bold move?

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Watch therefore...

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Microsoft and Google at it again

Yes, Microsoft seems to have given Google the hump lately with their new update for the YouTube app on Windows Phones. The problem is that users of this app can now save videos on their phone and play them as much as they want offline, oh no!

In fairness, it is clearly stated in YouTube’s terms and conditions that granting users the ability to store videos is prohibited. I’d like to bring forward the fact that this app isn’t the first of its kind; in fact there are loads of ways to lift YouTube content. On your PC, there are ample extensions available, along with dedicated websites where you can download the file directly. I’ve also noticed that when I type in “YouTube” I’m given a million different options for YouTube downloaders, this is the case with Windows, Android & Apple phones.

The point I’m trying to make is that although this act is prohibited, Microsoft aren’t the first to do it.

Google has made it very difficult in the past for Microsoft’s Windows phones to use any Google tools and functionalities. Google has said that Windows doesn’t have enough users for them to spend time developing apps. However there is a little bit of a contradiction as there are clearly enough users to warrant sending a Cease and Desist letter.

Microsoft is making a statement and hopefully one that will not be ignored – could we see Google developing much needed apps like Google Plus and even maps? Or will this rivalry worsen?

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It's the mustache that Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now

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Getting More Facebook Fans is NOT the Key to Social Success

I’m not a broken record, at least I’m not trying to be. It seems that I’ve covered this topic from different angles a lot lately, but it’s simply that important to understand. In business in general and in automotive marketing in particular, getting more Facebook fans is a very low priority compared to reaching more people.

This seems to be counter-intuitive. One might argue that getting more fans on Facebook is the way to reach more people, but they dynamics of the social network make it to where this isn’t the case. A page can be extremely successful and reach the masses with very few fans. Conversely, a page with hundreds of thousands of fans can reach next to nobody. It’s a challenging concept to understand until you get down into the way the Facebook algorithm works.

In essence, it’s not size but quality that counts the most on Facebook. Just because someone likes your page doesn’t mean that they’re going to see any of your posts. Just because someone doesn’t like your page doesn’t mean that they won’t see your posts. It’s for this reason that getting more likes is such a small component of the overall Facebook marketing picture.

Here’s a quick video I did for the automotive industry that highlights a couple of examples of this principle. In it, a decent Facebook page with 4K fans is getting 1/10th of the reach of a great Facebook page with 700 fans. If that isn’t convincing enough, I’m not sure what else to say.