Blog: Marketing

Avoid the Heat by Attending an Indoor Tech Events This Week

The summer's first heat wave is upon us, and it's...uncomfortable. This week before you head back to your stuffy apartment after work, stop by a cool bar for a cold beverage and to talk tech with other DCers. Here are a few events taking place this week. For a full list, check out DC Tech Events.

Tuesday
5:30 - 9:00 pm
Second Tuesdays “Dot Com” Networking Salon and Cocktail Party: This networking happy hour is a great opportunity to meet people working in all areas of the tech/communications world. 

Friday
7:30 am - 5:00 pm
Blog Potomac: If you blog to promote your organization or its work, then this all day event is right up your alley. Bloggers will be gathering in Falls Church, VA to discuss the best practices in social media marketing and advanced topics in this realm. 

Friday
7:00 pm
Artomatic: This massive local art exhibit closes on Sunday it's going out with a bang. Head over at 7:00 pm to see a slideshow of secret Post Secret postcards presented by Frank Warren and stay for some great live music from local bands like Pup Tent. You can see all events here. 

Be sure to add the next DC Drupal Meetup to your calendar! It will be taking place next Monday, June 16, at 7:15 at Stetsons. More details to come!

I can’t say how many times I’ve heard about the value of the elevator speech – a spiel given in the length of an elevator ride to further a cause or company – but I know few people who have mastered it. The same goes with online writing. Not enough organizations quickly get their point across in a way that their audience can understand and remember. This is paramount for the success any website.

But like the elevator speech, anyone can master it. These are the questions you have to answer:

The commercialization of podcasting? Adam Curry might be talking about podcasting but he is also talking about a fundamental change in the way marketing works. While podcasting didn't really exist before August 2004 it is now not only moving into the mainstream, it is taking the great American leap of trying to be profitable – at least for a few people.

Right after placing my Amazon order a little box appeared saying “Now immediately available in your Digital Locker: Senseo HD7818/65 Single Serve Coffee Machine, black (Supplementary Material)” Supplementary Material???

Maybe the title should have been “why do you shop online”? It would be better done as a wiki but here is the obvious list of why I shop online:

What is RSS?

RSS (RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a language a website can use to produce summaries of its recently updated content in a form which personal news readers and other websites can republish. RSS feeds allow users to read headlines from many different websites at once. Instead of repeatedly checking your favorite sites, you can check...

This morning I open MSN Messenger, probably the most popular chat client in Ayacucho, Peru, where I am right now. What's in the advertising space? A Chase Platinum Mastercard offer, 5.9% APR, 4 different designs, the add totally in English, the link (I clicked on it, maybe they'll see where I came from) to a site totally in English, the offer targeted to University students in the USA. I do not know where Hotmail got that information, but they must have bought my private information from someone...I never filled out a hotmail profile nor indicated this information in the registration of any Microsoft products.

Anyways, this is a waste of money for them. What's the payoff if they did regional advertising? I'm clearly using a Peru IP address. Even further, they should know that it's an IP for Ayacucho, where there is no English language academy and many people are indeed bilungual, but in spanish/quechua.