New Episode of The New Mediology: All About Apple

The latest episode of The New Mediology is now live. Listen to it online or subscribe in iTunes to give it a listen. If you listen, see if you can find this awkward exchange between Nathan and me...

Nathan: Lyrics is cool.
Bill: I'm not familiar with that.
[long pause]
Nathan: Song lyrics?
Bill: Oh, I thought that was a program.

When you listen you'll get the context of that...but it was funny (at least to us.)

Prediction: Recession Is Good For New Media Marketing

There's lots of news today about a possible recession. The Federal Reserve made the biggest rate cut in 24 years today to head a recession off at the pass but the stock market isn't really responding well so far. While a recession (or even the hint of one) will increase fears in many traditional sectors of media and marketing, I think new media marketers will benefit from this and here's why....

• Blogs don't cost anything to start.
• Online video is free. So is creating your own video channel on YouTube.
  
• Creating a Facebook group doesn't cost anything.
• Recording a podcast costs next to nothing.
• A basic Flickr account to engage your customers is free.
• Twitter doesn't charge to message the people most interested in what you are doing.
• AdWords only cost you something when someone clicks your ad (and you determine the cost per click.)
  

There will still be marketing in a recessed economy. There will still be marketers spending money in a recessed economy, even if there's not as much of it. What marketers will be paying for, however, is not the use of the technology, the air time to broadcast it's message, or the placement for ads. What they'll pay for is help to use the new media well. When in the face of decreased marketing budgets new media will emerge as the cheaper option because companies will pay consultants (i.e. digital coaches) a few thousand dollars to teach them how to fish the new way. This may be the tipping point for new media marketing as marketers and advertisers give it a shot out of financial necessity rather than being convinced that it's the right thing to do. Whatever the case, a recession is going to be good news for new media marketing. It's bad news for traditional advertising and marketing, but Google was already telling us that.

Seth Godin Sums Up What I Do

I read Seth Godin's blog regularly but hadn't looked at it in a few days until I received an email from Jeff today who said I needed to see his post about digital coaches from yesterday. The point of Jeff's email to me was that Seth's post pretty much sums up what I do and the type of help I can provide.

I've found it's not always easy to explain what "new media marketing" is because there is some basis for understanding that is necessary to even know what the heck new media is...much less how to use it for marketing purposes. That being said, Seth hit the nail on the head by calling it (among other things as you'll see in the post) digital coaching. I think in my case it's more applicable to say I do digital marketing coaching...but you get the idea. I created a Squidoo lens to talk about it too. Take a look if you like. It's called, "Blogs, Podcasts, YouTube, oh my!"

UPDATE: Help take my Squidoo lens to the top of the Digital Coaching page...scroll down to the entry that says: http://www.squidoo.com/easydigitalmarketing (that's me) and vote once for it. Right now the top vote only has five votes so with just a few of you we can get to the top!

Kongregate Around Online Games 2.0

This weekend I discovered Kongregate.com. It's a free online game website that has some really fun stuff. My personal favorite was Filler, a fun (and addictive) puzzle game. Once you get the hang of it you'll be hooked for a while. I got to level 15 but couldn't get beyond that.

Kongregate looks like it's incorporated the web 2.0 mentality to games by letting users submit their own Flash based games and form communities around them. There are communities that have emerged around the games as well.

It would take quite a while to try all the games on this site...but it sure would be fun trying.

Video(s) of the week: A skier's boys and Tetris

I've been slim on posts this week so to make up for it you're getting a double dose of videos. This first one should inspire those of you experiencing the cold temperatures and snow this time of year...though what this skier endures is hardly inspiring. The announcer cracked me up on this one. The second video is dedicated to my wife...an avid Tetris player especially now that she found an iGoogle add-on for the game. Enjoy!

Skier Says Ouch!


Human Tetris

10 Things For My Mom Now That She Has A High Speed Internet Connection

It's official. Everyone in the country has high speed Internet access now. How do I know that? Because my mom is getting it (tomorrow to be exact) and I've always known she would be the last person in the country with broadband access. She's finally leaving the world of dial-up and as we were talking the other day I realized there's a lot of stuff she's going to want and/or need to do now that she's got a good connection.

Here's my list of ten things she's going to need to do. (By the way, mom, when you read this I'll walk you through it. This is just our list to get started.)

1. Download Firefox. Forget Internet Explorer as your web browser. Firefox is the way to go. It's so much more stable than Explorer, has great add-ons, uses tabs for multiple pages (though the new Explorer actually does this now), and doesn't make that clicking sound all the time.

2. Update your anti-virus software. If you already have an anti-virus program, make sure you're running the latest version and set the auto update feature to update automatically. If not, you can use a free version of AVG to give you basic coverage.

3. Set up a Google account. Google is more than a search engine. Much more (with more on this below) but you're going to want a Gmail account to get started even if you want to stick with your current email. Once you have that you'll be able to fully utilize the world of Google (again, more on this below.) I'll send you the Gmail invitation to get started.

4. Get a webcam. I have Logitech webcam but there are other good brands too. With free services like Skype, Tokbox, and ooVoo we'll find one that works for us to connect via live video so you can talk with the grandchildren.

5. Download iTunes. This will become your music and download destination. You can listen to online radio stations, create playlists from CDs you have, download podcasts (I recommend you get mine first of course), and purchase new music. When you get an iPod we'll talk more about this too.

6. Upgrade programs. It's likely that you're not running the latest version of Windows, so we'll check that out along with your Adobe Reader version too. Even though you won't use Explorer and Windows Media Player much we will make sure you're up to date there as well.

7. Discover Google Maps. You're going to love this...maybe. Be sure to look up your address first and check out the satellite view. Ok, now relax. It's okay. Pretty cool, huh? It's really helpful and once you've used it a few times you'll be hooked on it for all future direction needs.

8. Discover iGoogle. We'll be setting Google as your default homepage in Firefox and with that and your Google account you can customize your hompage to include several of the things here in this list plus news, weather, and many other things you might want to see right off the bat when you open your browser.

9. Discover Google Reader. I'll explain RSS feeds and all that stuff when we talk...but all you want to know is that there's a way for you to bring the content of blogs and many websites to you rather than going through your bookmarks to visit all of them. Google Reader can make that happen. Now you see why Google is more than a just a search engine (as noted in #3 above.)

10. Discover Wikipedia. Remember that Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia set you got us when we were kids. This is like that but bigger and easier to find stuff. You personally can add to it too. You may find that you can provide some insight on American literature for instance, and you contribute by signing in. I'll explain when we talk.

Any MicroExplosion readers have additional thoughts?

Video of the Week: The Wii Goes 3D (sort of)

Whether you were one of the lucky few who got a Wii for Christmas or not, you have undoubtedly heard about them. One smart guy has figured out how Nintendo can take its Wii technology and create an entirely mind blowing experience for future games. This is very cool.



Link for the feed readers here.