My friend and neighbor, Dennis Cass, recently released the paperback version of his book, Head Case. In this video from his site he explores some of the ways to promote his book on the Internets:
Apr 28
Third Places are those places where people meet, work, relax, study and socialize that are not home (First Places) and not work (Second Places). Think Starbucks, country clubs, some taverns and cafes, libraries, or even Barnes & Nobel. While Third Places used to be the norm in American life (Elk’s Clubs, VFWs, community centers), when suburban living became the context for the American Dream, Third Places started to disappear. With work, home and the commute in-between, there was less time, and maybe less desire, for these gathering areas.
However, now that people are starting to reappreciate urban living, and as more and more people telecommute, work as freelancers or are becoming professional nomads, Third Places are making a comeback.
Apr 08
Either this is a typo in iCal, or someone at Apple has decided to use King James English:
Apr 03
With football season long gone, television full of reruns and the lingering cold and snow, I’ve been on a reading tear the last couple of months.
Over the last 6-8 weeks I’ve read: The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Power and influence by Robert Dislenschneider, Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich (wanted to read it before the movie came out), and just finished up Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas by Christina Binkley.
Winner Takes All was spectacular! I definitely recommend it if you’re at all into hotel/resort development or investing, Las Vegas history, Steve Wynn, people with money, business profiles or all of the above.
I’ve always been fascinated by Steve Wynn. I remember the first time I visited The Mirage and heard his voice over the speakers while waiting to take the tram over to Treasure Island. At that time I didn’t know much about him but remember thinking about how his voice was so smooth and welcoming and really added a personal touch to this mega-resort. He collected art, brought his dogs to work and was keen on details. But Steve Wynn wasn’t just a hired gun running a corporation, this was his baby and we were there to enjoy the fruits of his labor… Actually, I was there to lose money at the craps tables…
I’ve stayed at the Bellagio (before the merger with MGM) too and, although it was wonderful, by that time I think Vegas had begun to lose some of its intimacy and “bigger is better” took over. The Bellagio is grandiose, but less cozy… Vegas became a little more like walking around the rim of the Grand Canyon instead of hiking its interior.
I think Wynn saw this too as his new Wynn Las Vegas is much more cozy feeling inside and less of a sidewalk spectacle on the outside.
Binkley’s book takes us through the large scale development and evolution on the Vegas strip over the last 20 years and it’s three biggest moguls. We get an inside look at Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian (of MGM Mirage) and, to a lessor degree, Gary Loveman of Harrah’s – as well as a number of other executives that came and went along the way.
From the mob to Howard Hughes to Steve Wynn, Vegas has had its share of characters who live large and dream big. This is a great story of three modern day moguls and how they made it happen.
Mar 26
I’m not sure how earth shattering this is, but this post from HotelMarketing.com refers to a study showing that most people searching for a hotel are using a search engine to find hotels rather than going directly to a hotel’s corporate site. No big surprise that the internet is helping to commoditize hotel rooms just as it assisted in pushing airline tickets that same direction.
For most people, I believe, hotel rooms are booked primarily — in this order — for their location (city & state), price, proximity to desired landmarks, amenities, and then brand loyalty. No real scientific data there, just my gut instinct on how the average person goes about finding a hotel room for a family vacation, weekend getaway, business trip, etc.
I don’t doubt that brand does come into play if there are two hotels that match closely on the other factors. But average people don’t much care if it’s a Hilton or a Radisson in most cases. So, searching by destination, as this study suggests, seems perfectly matched to my theory. And, if you look at the search data you’ll find that a city name with a qualifier such as “discount” or “cheap” are the next most popular.
The danger for OTAs and Search Marketers or resellers depending on search marketing, though, is the risk of becoming nothing more than a price and amenities comparison engine that enable users to pick out a property, from a location search, and then go directly to the chain’s website to book the room. This study suggests that just that is happening:
“The BDRC said bookings are increasingly being carried out on hotel sites but third parties such as Expedia (40%), Lastminute.com (36%) and Ebookers (22%) continue to feature prominently during the research stage.”
If all you sell are hotel rooms, how do you differentiate from the rest of the pack? How do you use all of those great rankings to convert visitors to buyers?
Here may be a clue… The PhoCusWright Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey, published in December of last year, says that,
“When it comes to making travel purchasing decisions, most American travelers would rather see the options for themselves than simply act on the recommendations of others. In fact, travelers want to view the options in detail via pictures, online maps and video.”
Frankly, I’m surprised at the fact that hotels aren’t trying harder to compete head-on in search engine marketing. Aren’t they leaning on their brand a little too much? Or are we just doing the hard work for them?
Search engines dominate how consumers look for hotels
Mar 21
I love High Definition television! And when you combine HDTV with a DVR, you end up with the ultimate tool for wasting time, burning brain cells and enticing the senses. My fanaticism for NFL football went from a solid 9.5 to 11 after adding HD and a DVR. Currently, my setup looks like this:
- 42″ Phillips LCD HDTV (only 1080i though)
- Kenwood AV Receiver
- Comcast HD DVR
- Sony Progressive Scan DVD/CD
- Apple TV 2.0
- Wii
- 6 piece Boston Acoustics Speakers
Probably not going to impress a major audiophile, but it works out pretty well for me. So anyhow, HDNet and HD Movie (Mark Cuban’s networks) are great for HD, however when it comes to quality of programs, it’s getting hard to beat the MOJO Network! Do you get MOJO? If not, you gotta call someone and ask for it!
Three shows that you shouldn’t miss (watch them online if you don’t get MOJO):
- Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist – Follows around Bobby Genovese, founder and owner of BG Capital Group, Ltd. and BG Capital Management Corp. Bobby is an adventure loving and filthy rich, a bit eccentric and genuinely a good guy (it seems). It’s a great snapshot of the life of a person who has made it in business and still manages to have fun – and he isn’t full of himself or an a-hole. He’s Canadian, they’re all cute and cuddly, right?
- Wall Street Warriors – This show follows the life of several Wall Street folks ranging from hedge fund managers, stockbrokers, floor traders and day traders. The “characters” are very diverse and you can actually learn something about how deal makers function and a bit about their personalities.
- Three Sheets - It’s drinking show, it’s a travel show, it’s about people and cultures. All great things that are even better when combined, like gumbo.
I also dig Start-Up Junkies, but I’ve worked for an Internet start-up and it’s all just a little too familiar for me. Plus the internet marketing guy on the show makes me want to throw things at him, and that would hurt my HDTV.
Mar 10
Between search, meta-search, customer review sites, aggregators, OTAs and everything else the internet can throw at us – it’s actually getting harder to make travel arrangements on the web. What?? What I mean is, the more information to sift through, the harder it is for most people to make a decision on what to buy. It’s a fact that when faced with an overwhelming amount of choices, many people opt for no choice at all.
Airfare, however, still seems to offer limited choice – and therefore should be simpler to decide on. And it is, for the most part. Generally, from most cities, there are 1 or 2 choices that fit my schedule and my budget. But if you’re a flexible traveler, how do you decide when to travel and when to buy your ticket to ensure that you get the best deal available?
Here is my method:
- Search for my ideal travel dates in Orbitz, using flexible dates to see the fares for the days around my ideal travel date.
- Pick the best rate that works for the day(s) I need to be in my destination.
- Make sure that if I’m staying an extra night at the destination that the extra hotel night and/or expenses don’t exceed the extra cost of traveling on my ideal travel day.
- Proceed to the airline’s own website to book the ticket directly and thereby avoiding the $5 service charge (and possibly getting some bonus miles in the process).
The thing my method doesn’t account for is knowing WHEN to buy the ticket… 2-3 months out is usually not possible for most business travel. I just finished a book where the author recommends only booking 4-5 days out and using Orbitz pricing to determine where you should start bidding on a Priceline (Name you Own Price) ticket.
Farecast.com gives you a recommendation of when to “Buy Now” or “Wait”, but it doesn’t really give you a flexible dates option. I recently ran across flyspy.com (beta) which let’s you look at rates on a graph for up to 30 days and lets you adjust for day and length while highlighting the lowest fare. But it doesn’t really give you an idea of what the fare may do if you wait to buy your ticket later (like farecast).
It seems to me like there is an opportunity for a main-stream air-only search engine that encompasses the best of these two models. However, with little or no commissions given on air-only bookings, a revenue model might be difficult to come up with.
How do you find the best deals on airfare? Let me know in the comments and maybe we can create an aggregated list of sites and/or suggestions…
Feb 18
Here is a free white paper released by Blizzard Internet Marketing and written by my Pubcon friends Mary Bowling and Carrie Hill. If you’re blogging – or getting ready to start – this white paper is an easy to follow guide on setting up your blog with Wordpress and tweaking it in order to maximize your search engine exposure and reap the rewards of a well optimized blog. There is also a great list of plugins that help you get the most out of your blog. In fact, after reading the white paper I setup the contextual related posts plugin, which you will now see under the comment section of my posts.
And, if you’re planning to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York next month, be sure to stop in on the workshop that Mary will be teaching, A Crash Course in Local Search, on Friday the 22nd.
Thanks, Mary!
New White Paper Released- SEO for Wordpress Blogs
Feb 12
Disclaimer: I know that this is a completely over-simplified version of search engine optimization and an SEO expert is really what most sites need to kick their search engine marketing into high gear… But, I wanted to boil it down to just a few things that any site owner can do to help out their rankings with just a little effort. Depending on a number of factors, these changes may make significant increses in your ability to drive search engine traffic, or it may be much more subtle. But with the time that you’ll invest, it’s surely worth a shot…
- Make sure the engines can see your content. The simplest way to do this is to use your web browser to view > source. Do you see your content in the code? More than 2 or 3 times in the last few months I’ve had people ask me to take a look at their site and I’ve found that the entire site was nothing more than images or was completely constructed in frames. If you view the source of your site and don’t see your page copy, neither can the search engines. Also, make sure you’re using keyword phrases that users are actually searching for in your page copy. To help figure out what those keywords are, visit: freekeywords.wordtracker.com.
- Rewrite your title tags. The title tags on your site serve two purposes. One is to help the engines know what your pages are about, the other is to encourage users to click on your listing in the search engine results. Write a unique title tag for each page of your site that includes one or two of those keywords from step one. In fact, use that keyword first in your title and stick your company name at the end (unless you’re specifically targeting your company/brand name). Keep titles to around 70 characters. Send that list to your web developer or update them yourself, but make sure each page has a title that is unique to its content and assures users that your site is what they are looking for when they see it in their results.
- Get more incoming links. Link building is a discipline in and of its own. Very simply put, you need quality incoming links to your site in order to obtain top rankings. To start ask friends to link to your site, next ask strangers to link to your site. Don’t spam strangers (or friends!), ask them nicely to trade or add a link to your site because you have complementary businesses or content. Join the chamber of commerce to get a link from their member directory. Put out your press releases through PRWeb or send them to bloggers and publishers of newsletters in your industry. There are hundreds of ways to build links, if you commit a few hours to it every week you will soon be reaping the rewards.
There you have it. Just a few simple steps that anyone can do to help their search engine rankings. Again, you won’t replace a search engine marketing expert with these, but they may help you get to the place where you can afford to hire one…
Jan 25
It might sound something like this:
Runnin’ With The Devil (DLR vocal track)
That was bloody brilliant!
