ErinIs.com

I previously dissed Sprint for their horrible tv spots but am really digging their site for Plug into Now. 

I previously posted about Obama’s ability to connect to voters through his incredibly savvy use of the internet and hiring a team of people who knew how to harness its capabilites. For this reason he is being hailed as the first Internet President for being able to communicate and motivate via his internet marketing. 

His win validates the useful of social media and online marketing. Something he clearly recognizes as his presidential did not stop his use of the internet to organize his supporters. 

Within a day or two of winning, Obama launched a website to encourage the public to continue to openly communicate with his administration and share their concerns and hopes. Change contains a blog, news, educational information as well as a countdown to Obama’s ingauration and an application to work in the Obama-Biden administration. It also contains a section called the American momment which asks supporters to tell Obama what his win meant to them. 

Pretty incredible embrace of new media. I hope he continues it throughout his term in office and sets a precedent for future presidents. 

Read more about Obama’s marketing successes here, here and here. 

As an industry we fail miserably in our own marketing and advertising. No where is that more epic then in our agency websites. I’ve been working on the agency website redo here, so I’ve been scouring the web for ideas on our own site. Most agencies sites are ridicolously complicated and lame and because who doesn’t love lists so here are some pointers I’v compiled from my research!! 

1)  Your site should not take more than 2 seconds to load. I don’t care how cool it is 4 mintues later, I don’t have the patience or time.

2) Do not include sound effects. Ever. I don’t care if you have a mute or stop button, if I wanted to listen to a power ballad or techno jam while I looked through your site I would turn on my i-pod. 

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I love Jack In The Box spots, but this banner made me gag. Horrible food photography….ugh gross. 

I totally and completely agree with this article from imedia connection. Sums up exactly what I hate the most about ad networks and general website vendors. 

Read the 10 Complaints About Ad Networks (from the media buyer perspective) here. 

#4 and #5 are expecially annoying to me.

My favorites from TechCrunch50 2008:

OtherInbox- the only beta I signed up for on day one. Great concept, super useful.

Tonchidot- by far the best presentation “Join us’ sometimes the language barrier plays in your favor. Watch the video of their presentation- its awesome…product seems pretty sweet too.

Swype- I remember Kevin Rose mentioning this on an episode of Diggnation (or maybe I’m making that up). Coolest application, I want it and I want it now.

If I was a musicain I would want BoJam. Open source music in an online wiki.

Atmosphir is one of the cooler concepts and a really original concept.

This is like a high tech Clueless closet- Closet Couture although I’m not sure I would actually use it.

Unfortunately, I missed a lot of the presentations due to streaming this at work and actually having work to do instead of devoting my full attention to the ustream.

Today is the first day of teh TechChrunch50 Conference 2008. Its the place where up and coming start-up companies have a chance to launch their companies in front of the industry superstars in Silicon Valley’s tech industry. TechChrunch is giving 50 small companies the opportunity to present and demo their web company to some of the biggest venture capitalist. 

As I’ll be at work in San Diego, I’m just going to have to sneak in some UStream Coverage of the event.

Thankfully I finished Sarah Lacy’s Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good over the weekend so I’ll recognize the industries most influential and understand how VC works.

I love this site by MeetUp.com. It allows helps you initiate an intervention for your web obsessed friends.

I spent yesterday afternoon testing out Chrome and have started my brief review. If you are currently working off of Firefox the differences are subtle; if you’re still on IE then it’ll be a big update for you. 

What I like: 

1) Pop-up blocker lets you easily retrieve pop-ups without having to go into your settings to allow pop-ups for the page and then reload. 

2) Start screen is a snapshot of my most frequently visited pages, which I love! 

3) Streamlined look condensed tool bar with the same bookmarking feature of Firefox. 

4) Search Bar is really similar to the Firefox Awesome bar which is one of my favorite features of Firefox. 

What still needs to be improved: 

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Ok so not an invite for the Beta testing….I just downloaded the broswer. You can download it here and read more about it here and here.

I’m testing it and will let you know what I think