Sam Michel's blog

It's tricky being a publisher, particularly if you're an online specialist. In between worrying about advertising and sponsorship revenues, it's time to fit in another headache. Defamation. Libel.

An Australian court ruling reported in the Media Guardian and elsewhere, could change the face of publishing on the Web.

If this were a TV show, it'd be called something like 'When Direct Marketers Go Bad'. I'm talking about a website called No More AOL CDs, which I got told about this morning (thanks, Olly).

The latest edition of Iconocast, the San Francisco-based trendwatching newsletter asks whether marketing effectiveness, regardless of media, is dropping. Common sense dictates that with the plethora of media opportunities available, we're all being exposed by so many marketing messages that it's not surprising we're ignoring more and more of them.

Alongside the delightful invitations to send my bank details to Nigeria, and suggestions to view some nymphettes and her friends, I've started receiving emails from strangers asking me why I've been sending them strange emails which have sent their virus scanners wild.

OK, so that's not strictly true and on the face of it not a great idea to put expensive and sophisticated electronic machinery into water. It might be fun to watch, and if blowing up things is your bag, try out some Smartie pyrotechnics à la Big Clive (Warning: not for the faint-hearted or children or chocolate lovers).

Strange that BT would choose a series of flying pigs to feature in their adverts promoting broadband Internet access. I'm still scratching my head and trying to figure out whether they thought they were being post-ironic. Maybe I'm missing the humorous side of it, altogether.

Our new list, uk-digitaltvmarketing, covering all aspects of marketing using interactive television (iTV) and digital tv soft launched a couple of weeks ago. Over 100 people have signed up so far, and the discussion is beginning to get going now.

A couple of interesting snippets today... after all the furore over BT's �10 advertising campaign (cue: Freeserve and other ISPs getting upset about their virtual monopoly), there's news that BT are restricting their Anytime subscribers - those people who thought they could surf the net unrestricted - to 150 hours/month, and then an hourly charge.

So... after all the hype about blogs, and the numerous mailings to uk-netmarketing about them, we decided that it was time for Chinwag to do it's own.

More importantly, it gives us a way to pick up on interesting issues of the hour/week/day/month/year and highlight them in more detail. We'll also post links, references and other bits and pieces that we come across here, making it easy to find some of the really interesting tidbits that come up on Chinwag's discussion lists and elsewhere.

Aside from highlighting some of the useful bits and pieces that crop up on the discussion lists, setting up this Blog gave me an opportunity to delve into the different tools for putting together a Blog. It was fascinating to discover how much the tools have evolved since I first started looking at them a year or so ago.

Return on Investment (ROI) is the word on everyone's lips at the moment. It's definitely coming up trumps on buzzword bingo in pitches and meetings at the moment and with good reason. This whole web thang ain't never gonna work if it doesn't make money, but then after the shake-out last year that message has been firmly imprinted in everyone's brain.

FEATURE: Email Marketing
14/03/02

The Future of Email Marketing

INTRODUCTION

March 14 Issue, 2002 Vol. II, Issue 8
Please forward this issue WITHOUT cutting. Thanks!

CASE STUDY: Crackermatic
24/01/02

Pull The Other One

Introduction
There's a nice little company placard for a marketing agency round here that reads "Contagious Marketing and Design." While 'infectious marketing' would appear to be more fitting, it seems that Disease + Marketing = Good. And that's where viral marketing enters, stage left.