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.

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.

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.

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

FEATURE: Email Marketing
14/03/02

The Future of Email Marketing

INTRODUCTION

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.

December. 11, 2001 Vol. II, Issue 6
Please forward this issue WITHOUT cutting. Thanks!
Free subscriptions at: http://www.chinwag.com

1) Intro: MarketingSherpa is now MarketingMonitor

2) News: Can the Spam and E-book news

3) Case Study: Lloyds TSB/Freeserve Campaign

4) Info: About the publisher

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INTRO
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Sponsor:

CASE STUDY: Lloyds TSB
11/12/01

Banking on Research

Introduction
Despite taking longer than expected, the concept of banking online is not just something your Scandinavian friends can boast about - nowadays, you can watch your overdraft figure spin like Michael Schumacher's speedometer from the comfort of the UK internet. But a side effect of the recent online banking boom is that there's even more competition than ever with the likes of Egg, Smile and Cahoot providing online-only alternatives to the big brands.

CASE STUDY: Refresh SMS
28/8/01

How An Experiment Became A Successful Business

Introduction

Nrly 1bn msgs snt each mnth. [OK, that's enough SMS-speak, we have whole words to play with here -Ed.] One group in particular have taken to SMS like ducks to water- school children. Nearly 50% of children in the 7-16 year old bracket now own a mobile phone and they each send an average 2.5 messages each day.