Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Paying tens of thousands of dollars to companies that scan blogs helps companies decide on products and advertising, the Wall Street Journal reports. For example, the practice helped U.S. Cellular better understand prospective teenage customers: 'Using technology from Umbria Communications, a Boulder, Colo., company that aims to identify demographic groups online based on their speech patterns and discussion topics, WPP's G Whiz concluded that teens were really anxious about exceeding their cellular minutes, often because parents make them pay if they talk too much. The teens also resented being ambushed by incoming calls that pushed their minutes up. U.S. Cellular says that led U.S. Cellular to offer unlimited call me minutes.' Also of note: Intelliseek's Pete Blackshaw 'says companies used to dismiss vocal complaints from one or two consumers as an aberration. But now, they have to pay attention because now those complainers may have blogs. '"

Comments

1992 Called....

[1992 Called]

They want their glaringly obvious marketing strategy back.
Is this just posted here because it has the word BLOG in it?

Re:1992 Called....

[Anonymous Coward]

1992 called...they want their tired overused cliche of a joke back.

Re:1992 Called....

[Anonymous Coward]

no shit. give it up, 1992, you're a one-trick pony, and that joke stopped being funny eight posts ago.

Re:1992 Called....

[Gyga]

The said we could keep their glaringly obvious marketing strategy.
--
When we look back on all we accomplished we think, oops.

Do me a favour.

[grub]

Pick one for your blog:

- Donchu h8 it when no1 sends grub cash?
- any company giving grub money gets my business!
- grub does so much and asks for so little.
- i'd buy an SUV if a car company gave grub some l00t!

Thank you.

Re:Do me a favour.

[mpontes]

Offtopic? Parent is funny, dammit. Only if mods RTFA instead of modding down anything that they don't understand.

Am I the only one who doesn't buy this whole "blogsphere" crap? I mean, blogs aren't that relevant, not even for advertising. As a company, what are you going to find by searching Livejournal? That teenagers juse love to cut themselves and therefore, they should all start selling razor blades? Wow, I can't wait till I start seeing DoubleClick's razor blade Flash ads, with wrists getting cut in different directions every time you hover the cursor over the ad.

[Interesting or Insightful, not Funny. Just because I am ironic in every post I make that doesn't mean I'm trying to be Funny. (But mommy, all the cool kids were karmawhoring too!)]

Re:Do me a favour.

[Trigun]

This is, of course the reason why their strategies stop working, and they have to come up with new ones. There are always a few who will abuse the system (much like the mod that gave you the offtopic. Arse.) Why the companies keep coming out and saying, "This is what we did, this is what we found, it worked, and we'll be doing it again"

Re:Do me a favour.

[danzona]

Am I the only one who doesn't buy this whole "blogsphere" crap?

I agree with you.

This press release (oops, I mean WSJ article) reads like somebody trying to justify spending money on some new marketing tool.

I think cell phone users have always complained about double billing (that the receiver has to pay for calls too).

But it took somebody running this software and discovering that teens don't like it either to make the cell phone companies (at least one of them) change? I don't buy it.

Re:Do me a favour.

[Anonymous Coward]

grub does so much and asks for so little.

Fuck that, I use LILO

Re:Do me a favour.

[jb.hl.com]

Blogs are a buzzword. Like podcasting; remember podcasting? It's just used to sound relevant.

Re:Do me a favour.

[slavemowgli]

Maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass, you'd understand that

a) not everyone who has a Livejournal is an angsty teenager (unless you want to include, say, Bram Cohen, Dave Jones, Dave Airlie and similar people in that group)
b) 7 million accounts *are* too much to just ignore when you want to do market research (of course, not all of these are personal accounts, and people may have more than one account, too, but I'd say it's still safe to say that the number of Livejournal users is a 7-digit figure).

I agree that you shouldn't be modded Funny, but that's about it. You're really just somewhere between troll and flamebait.

Re:Do me a favour.

[Leroy_Brown242]

Grub, I'm just making this check out here. is $50 enough? Lagomorph

Re:Do me a favour.

[noidentity]

Wow, I can't wait till I start seeing DoubleClick's razor blade Flash ads, with wrists getting cut in different directions every time you hover the cursor over the ad.

Or worse, "Cut the wrist and win a free iPod!"

Oh what bad taste.

Re:Do me a favour.

[TripleE78]

>>Wow, I can't wait till I start seeing DoubleClick's razor blade Flash ads, with wrists getting cut in different directions every time you hover the cursor over the ad.

Rippy the Razor says, it's down the block, not across the street!

A bit more on topic, though, not everyone with an LJ or similar as a poster child for emo. I've had one since about 2000, mostly for personal use and to keep up with long distance friends (generally folks from college). It proved easier to reply to and archive than a mailing list.

This also isn't the first time web journals have been used as a marketing tool. I've seen spam comments for well over a year now, and it only makes sense that "legitimate" marketers would target them as well.

~EEE~

Re:Do me a favour.

[Moofie]

Say that again next week. I think it'll sound pretty funny.

Re:Do me a favour.

[puzzled]

Those who cut are generally no more suicidal than anyone else who is depressed - they're just so out of touch with their feelings that physical pain is the only way 'the pain' gets out. Had a friend that did this in college - its been twenty years, he is still whacky, but not in the least bit dead.

minutes

[Threni]

> The teens also resented being ambushed by incoming calls that pushed their
> minutes up.

Odd payment structure if incoming calls are taken from your free minutes allowance. Do both parties lose minutes then? According to UK contracts, if someone in the UK phones another person with a UK phone whilst the callee is abroad, then the caller doesn't pay any extra (for it being an international call) as they can't know where the callee is, so the difference (between national and international cost) is charged to the callee. But this US thing sounds even odder - can anyone explain?

Re:minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Do both parties lose minutes then

Yes, if both parties are cellular. If only the receiving party is cellular, and the other party is a local call, then only the cellular customer pays (incoming or outgoing).

According to UK contracts, if someone in the UK phones another person with a UK phone whilst the callee is abroad, then the caller doesn't pay any extra (for it being an international call) as they can't know where the callee is, so the difference (between national and international cost) is charged to the callee.

It is the same in North America. If your phone is a local call, the caller pays nothing (assuming they are on a landline) but the person with the cellular pays (a lot, usually).

But this US thing sounds even odder - can anyone explain?

Simplified:

- All landline calls are free assuming they are local. Long distance landline calls cost long distance fees.

- All cellular calls (incoming/outgoing) cost the nominal charge (either using your minutes, or the base rate if you are pay-as-you-go). If you are outside your local area for the cell phone, you pay: Roaming fees and long distance fees (*).

- (*) Cellular long distance is calculated as such: All calls made within the current cellular service provider (as in the tower your phone links to) will be local for that service providers' local calling area. So, if you have a phone that is local to New York City and are in New York City, calls to New York City phone numbers are local. If you drive to Boston, then call New York City from Boston, you will pay long distance. If you phone a Boston phone number while you are in Boston you will not pay long distance (However, you will still be charged roaming fees, as above).

Does that clear it up? :-)

Re:minutes

[b0bby]

In the US, your airtime counts whether it's an incoming or outgoing call. On the flip side, calls to cell phones are not any more expensive than calls to landlines. I think that's a big part of the reason that phones took off in Europe before here - the plans were cheaper because people calling you were picking up the tab for the airtime. Here, it's all on the owner of the mobile phone. The good side is that cell phones don't need a special area code, so to a caller they look just like any other number, and most local calls here are free.

Re:minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

- All landline calls are free assuming they are local. Long distance landline calls cost long distance fees.

That's not quite correct. Phone companies usually charge a connection fee for local calls, which is something like 5 cents per call.

- All cellular calls (incoming/outgoing) cost the nominal charge (either using your minutes, or the base rate if you are pay-as-you-go). If you are outside your local area for the cell phone, you pay: Roaming fees and long distance fees (*).

Cell phones in the US are based on minutes used, period. The only exceptions are special features such as "first minute free for incoming calls" and "friends and family plans" whereby the call is free or low-cost (per minute) to specific phone numbers or in-network users.

Standard rates apply to cell phones as long as you remain within your service area. If you leave your service area, the per-minute cost goes to the "roaming charge" which can be tremendous, and is not covered by the minutes included with your standard package. Cell phone users can get around these service hiccups with various nationwide plans which make their service area everywhere in the United States. Some plans even cover usage of your cell phone when you're outside of the range of towers provided by your cell carrier. (The call will still go through, but the time has to be leased off a competitor's tower. This is the source of most roaming fees.)

Clear as mud?

Re:minutes

[RobertB-DC]

Odd payment structure if incoming calls are taken from your free minutes allowance. Do both parties lose minutes then?

Remember, the US is BIG. In the UK, you're as likely to get a call from France as someone in Texas is likely to get a call from Louisiana (though in both cases, the caller may parle francais). So the pricing model in the US expects primarily domestic calls.

Also, on land lines, you don't pay by the minute (generally), and incoming calls are the same as local outgoing calls. So when cell phones came into play, people expected them to behave pretty much the same way. You get charged for every minute, but it doesn't matter if the incoming call is from Texas, Tulsa, or Timbuktu.

Now, for the complicated part:
According to UK contracts, if someone in the UK phones another person with a UK phone whilst the callee is abroad, then the caller doesn't pay any extra (for it being an international call) as they can't know where the callee is, so the difference (between national and international cost) is charged to the callee. But this US thing sounds even odder - can anyone explain?

Since we Americans can travel for thousands of miles in a straight line without leaving the country, pricing plans have to be different. When my daughter went to Europe and took her T-Mobile phone, her per-minute rate was us$1-1.50. It didn't matter if she made the call back to the US, or if we called her from the US -- she was charged the same buck-or-so a minute.

I suspect if she called a Greece number from her US phone while she was in Athens, she'd get charged 1) the $1.50/min normal rate plus 2) the normal rate for calling Greece from the US. However, we didn't try it, so there's a chance that 2) wouldn't have applied.

Re:minutes

[woodsrunner]

In the US, landline calls don't get charged by the minute to recieve as I understand they do in the UK. Nor do most landline users get charged to make local calls. Thus, Americans are really new to this concept. I imagine US phone companies were jealous of the UK and saw cell phones as a way to start this new scheme.

So, to answer your question, if a person calls a cell phone from a landline (as long as it's not long distance) he doesn't get charged by the minute -- only the person receiving the call. In effect, US cell phone users pay to receive calls from telemarketers who is probably making a free local or VoIP call... Cool, eh..

As far as receiving calls when out of the area, as long as the cellphone is within reach of a tower of his service provider it doesn't matter to either party. The caller is only charged for a call to the area code the cellphone is registered and the cell user is not charged extra. In fact, most cellphone contracts include free nationwide long distance, which is often a better deal than using a landline.

However, if a celluser receives a call from a competing companies tower a roaming fee is incurred, and even if he is in his neighborhood the cost can be substantial. I had this problem near lake superior, I would get roaming fees since I was picking up a tower across the lake about a hundred miles away rather than the local tower six miles away. It sucked. In this case, the cellphone user receiving a call would pay extra, although the word roaming is usually indicated on the display so they know the situation.

Re:minutes

[RobertB-DC]

Foo: - All landline calls are free assuming they are local. Long distance landline calls cost long distance fees.

Bar: That's not quite correct. Phone companies usually charge a connection fee for local calls, which is something like 5 cents per call.

While some cut-rate carriers may charge a per-call fee, I don't believe this is widespread. However, it may be more prevalent now, especially with "get a phone! no credit check!" outfits spamming the late-night airwaves. Some examples would be in order... my rural phone company is one that does not have a per-call charge.

Re:minutes

[TrippTDF]

Also- some of the large cell providers allow "in network" calling, where cell to cell calls between their customers regaurdless of their location, are free (I.E. - I have Verizon in NYC, and my friend with Verizon in LA, the call is not charged for either of us... handy way to get people to all switch one one network... I've convinced friends to switch plans because we talk frequently.)

Re:minutes

[Bubba-T]

All landline calls are free assuming they are local. Long distance landline calls cost long distance fees.

Hardly true. There are still many low end landline phone plans that are pay per minute.THere is a base fee and taxes to have a phone so 0 minutes cost me $32, $32 minutes cost me $32. Not untill I use it a lot do I see cell phone rates.

Re:minutes

[It doesn't come easy]

The usual plan is that both parties use minutes. However, there are plenty of different plans. Some plans, for example, do not use minutes on either end if both parties have an account with the same company. Sometimes, you can define a circle of contacts and not use minutes when you call one of them. There are so many endless varitions that it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons.

A practical measurement (subjective but informative) is how much do you pay for cell phone service and how much do you use it? For example, I pay $180 per month for three family members (one separate account for me and a shared account for the wife and teenager). The adults generally use the cell phones as much as they have call to do (i.e. we do not run into minute limitations with our normal calling habits but we also do not call frivously) and the teenager is instructed that if he ever goes over the minute limit then he immediately loses his phone (he has had the phone for 6 months and has NEVER gone over, even though he shares minutes with his mom - he know's I'm serious about it :). Based on the usage I see in the monthly bill, we could probably reduce the current monthly cost by about $20 but I'm not inclined to do so at the moment (I'd rather pay $240 annually than risk a couple of month's going over the limit -- kind of like insurance).

We use the cell phone to make free (as in no extra fees) long distance and roaming calls, which means I reduce my home phone bill (we make lots of out-of-state calls using the cell phones and use the landline primarily for emergency backup purposes). And I am a consultant, so the cell phone allows me to be reached whereever I am in the continental US. So, all in all I feel the $180 per month is a fair cost for the value I receive.

Re:minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

There are still many low end landline phone plans that are pay per minute.

There probably are, but quite honestly, you'd be the first person I've ever met in my life who knows they even exist. :-)

None of the thousands of people I have ever met, at least where I live (Ontario, Canada) pay by the minute for local calls with a landline telephone.

With other systems, like VoIP, sure, but they aren't really landlines in the conventional sense.

Re:minutes

[metlin]

Not to mention the fact that a lot of us (esp. students) tend to have cellphones that were registered in one city, that we hold on to for a long time.

My cellphone number is based is Atlanta, although I've since lived in New Mexico and am now in Cincinnati - so, while it may seem crazy, it does make a lot of sense to students or folks who travel a lot.

It's universal, of sorts.

Re:minutes

[l'obscurit]

Remember, the US is BIG. In the UK, you're as likely to get a call from France as someone in Texas is likely to get a call from Louisiana (though in both cases, the caller may parle francais). So the pricing model in the US expects primarily domestic calls.


It is somewhat rare in Lousiana for a person to natively speak French. If they do it is either cajun french, or creole french which they may have picked up from their grandmother or grandfather. In either case, it would still be imporbably that a person speaking one of these dialects would call someone in texas speaking it. Due to the government wanting to eradicate french culture in Lousiana from the Louisiana Purchase up until about the 1960s this is the current state of affairs. But things are imrpoving there are more immersion schools for kids, etc.

Re:minutes

[njen]

Australia is also a big place, but no one there pays for incoming calls... Paying for incoming calls is the worst thing I have ever heard of. When I lived in Canada, I used to have a phone company ring me up in the middle of the day wanting to do surveys all the time. I'd tell them to call back after eight, to which they replied, sure. But they never did. I suspect it was so that they can use up my minutes to get more money out of me.

Re:minutes

[yatt]

I have to correct you there. It's very rare in the UK to get charged for any incomming call.

I've only heard of it for international calls involving mobiles (cells for you non-brits)

The "scandelous" thing our companies brought in was to charge extra to call another network and to have credit with an expiry date. These are ancient now. Call credit almost always lasts for ever and most companies offer plans with the same charges no matter who you call.

Re:minutes

[metlin]

Yes, but I doubt if folks travel as much in down under as they do here - I could be wrong, though.

When you're always on the move, it begins to sound much better.

Re:minutes

[Phreakiture]

Odd payment structure if incoming calls are taken from your free minutes allowance. Do both parties lose minutes then?

Well, if it is a mobile-mobile call, maybe.

Basically, what is different here is in the way mobiles are perceived on our side of the pond versus yours.

When mobiles were introduced here, the idea was that it was a luxury for the owner of the mobile. As such, the cost of having that luxury was assigned to the owner of the mobile. It has pretty much stayed that way ever since.

However, it has had an interesting side-effect that, to the best of my knowledge, is not echoed in Europe. That side-effect is that airtime is cheap here.

Looking at it from a market perspective, if the caller always pays, as in Europe, then the owner of the cell phone is not heavily impacted by the cost of his service. He can seek out a wireline phone if he needs to call someone, but can still be reached at any time. He has no reason to care about the price of the service.

Likewise, the caller can have no impact on the price of the service, because the caller is not the customer of the service provider.

As implemented in the U.S., where the phone owner pays for airtime on all calls, both inbound and outbound, the owner of the phone has both incentive and position to demand lower prices from the provider.

As for the question of both parties losing minutes, it depends on the specific contracts. In the base case, yes, both parties lose minutes. In the case that the two parties are using different providers, yes, both parties lose minutes.

However, some providers offer what is called a family plan, wherein you can call other users on your account at no charge to the account for either phone. I could, for example, call my wife or my mother, both of whom are on my account, and not affect my balance of free minutes or incur any charge.

Further, some providers (such as mine) offer plans where you can call any phone that is serviced by that same provider at no charge. Verizon calls this service option "In" and Sprint calls it "Free PCS to PCS calling". With this, I can call my father-in-law, some of my friends, etc. at no charge.

Last, but not least, how cheap is the airtime? My current contract comes with 2000 free minutes, free pcs to pcs calling, no charge for long distance calls, no charge for roaming in the US, 30 cents/minute for roaming in Canada, mid-speed internet access for one phone and the base price is $88/month for two phones. I spend another $40 on top of that to add one phone and internet access for the other two phones.

In the end, I pay about $150/month after taxes etc.

For comparison, if I had three wireline phones, at $45/month each (which includes unlimited long distance and all taxes, but not call id, voicemail, call waiting or 3-way calling, all of which are on my cell phones), and three Internet accounts at $12/month each, it would be $171/month. Since I don't use the full 2000 minutes, I consider this to be a bargain.

Re:minutes

[Zenaku]

The upside to paying for incoming calls is that in many parts of the U.S. it is illegal for telemarketers to call you on your cellphone. When I first switched from a landline to a mobile, I enjoyed several years without a single telemarketer calling me. It is not quite as peaceful now, because without a land line I have had to give my cell number to the cable company, my credit card companies, etc. But I still don't get any calls from companies I haven't done business with.

Re:minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the US, it's illegal to call a number for marketing/unsolicited purposes where the callee is charged for that time. 'Tis why I dropped my landline for a cell a long time ago, a year or so before the do not call list came into effect.

Re:minutes

[njen]

Australians travel up and down the east coast a lot. And there is still a fair amount that go down south as well.

But still, even if you don't travel, the phone comapnies can still cover an area as large as Australia, and not charge the people for incoming calls. Basically I believe that if someone wants to call you, they should wear the cost of the call. Period.

Re:minutes

[xmedh02]

It's very strange. I think in most of the world, you don't get charged for incoming calls, neither on landlines, nor on mobiles, neither local or international. It doesn't make any sense to me (think of abuse).

The only exeception is when you are with you home mobile in a differnet contry, registered with a foreign network. You are using their network, so it kind of makes sense to pay a bit more (actually a fee comparable to the - overpriced - international calls from mobile abroad when at home). The charges for international calls from the foreign network (both to home country or to some other countery) are also higher - also comparable to prices of international phonecalls.

I have a question - GSM phones have a SIM card, which holds your phonebook and SMS among other things. So when you buy a new mobile, you don't have to manually re-type your entire phonebook, you just plug the SIM card to the new phone. Is the opposite still the case in the US?

Re:minutes

[BlogPope]

On the East Coast (and I suspect elsewhere), the default phone plan is the more expensive unlimited local service, because its cheaper for people who use their phone. If you're like me and have to have a land line for some hinkey equipment like a DSL line, apartment buzzer, or a DirecTiVo system, then you can save some money by using the Una-bomber plan, I get 10 outgoing calls, after which I pay a dime each call. (incoming calls are still free). This plan saves me about 60% vs a standard unlimited calls plan. I use my Cell phone exclusively for actually talking to people.

Re:minutes

[assassinator42]

Makes sense to me. If all incoming calls were free, then the cellphone user could call a landline user, and just say call me back. The landline user, who would most likely get unlimited minutes, would call them back, and they can talk as long as they want basically for free. Other places charge the person who's calling for the call? I don't want to be charged extra from calling from a landline to a local number. So I could say paying extra for outgoing calls to a cellphone is the worst idea I've ever heard. :)

Re:minutes

[spitefulcrow]

- (*) Cellular long distance is calculated as such: All calls made within the current cellular service provider (as in the tower your phone links to) will be local for that service providers' local calling area. So, if you have a phone that is local to New York City and are in New York City, calls to New York City phone numbers are local. If you drive to Boston, then call New York City from Boston, you will pay long distance. If you phone a Boston phone number while you are in Boston you will not pay long distance (However, you will still be charged roaming fees, as above).

That was accurate as of 2002 or so, maybe farther back than that. I've had phones with free long distance and no roaming across the continental US since I signed a contract with AT&T two years ago. I'm on a Cingular national plan now and it also lets me use towers owned by T-Mobile (the only other national GSM carrier) or any of the major regional GSM providers (e.g. Dobson/CellularOne) without additional charge. Essentially, this lets Cingular and T-Mobile (the national carriers) present a larger and more comprehensive system of coverage to compete with the more-established and older CDMA (with large areas where analog is the fallback option) networks owned by Sprint and Verizon.

Re:minutes

[notasheep]

"None of the thousands of people I have ever met, at least where I live (Ontario, Canada) pay by the minute for local calls with a landline telephone."

You must have some *really* interesting conversations with the people you meet... "Hi, I'm AC - what local phone plan do you use?"

Come on - admit it, you're really just making stuff up.

Re:minutes

[einhverfr]

Hmm... Every time I have had a call from my phone company, it has been billed as M2M in network so it doesn't count against my minutes.

Re:minutes

[Fred_A]

Even in Russia, which is also very big, calls don't bill you.... Erm... Well, you know what I mean...

Re:minutes

[wo1verin3]

>> "None of the thousands of people I have ever met,
>> at least where I live (Ontario, Canada) pay by
>> the minute for local calls with a landline
>> telephone."

Not common in Canada, more common in the US and definately more common in parts of Europe.

Re:minutes

[patio11]

He's right. SBC, for example, offers you per-hour local billing from about $6 per month (or unlimited from $14 -- only worth it if you talk less than 3 hours, but don't trust my numbers as they're from two-year old memory). Its a good choice for people who live on fixed-incomes who have to scrape for every dollar (and don't need to make outgoing calls -- you call grandma, grandma doesn't call you), and also those who need access to a landline for whatever reason but do most of their communication on cell/internet.

Re:minutes

[Threni]

> It doesn't make any sense to me (think of abuse).

Yeah, true. You have caller ID on all mobiles though, so you'd just not answer it if it weren't someone you wanted to talk to.

> The only exeception is when you are with you home mobile in a differnet contry,
> registered with a foreign network. You are using their network, so it kind of
> makes sense to pay a bit more

Well, you'll already be paying YOUR network more when you call from another country.

> I have a question - GSM phones have a SIM card, which holds your phonebook and
> SMS among other things. So when you buy a new mobile, you don't have to
> manually re-type your entire phonebook, you just plug the SIM card to the new
> phone. Is the opposite still the case in the US?

I'm from the UK, but it just depends on the phone. They have the same phones in the US that they have in the UK (generally). Many phones are bi or tri band so you can use them wherever. Storing numbers on your phone is usually better than on your sim, because you tend to have more space and they offer more features (ie a bunch of numbers for each person - home, work, mobile etc, rather than having to have DaveMob,DaveWork,DaveHome etc). When you put the numbers back onto your sim so you can change phones you tend to lose all that, so its actually better to try and copy the numbers via a PC.

Re:minutes

[Threni]

> In the UK, you're as likely to get a call from France as someone in Texas is
> likely to get a call from Louisiana (

I'd be very suprised if that were true.

Why in YRO

[amembleton]

Why is this in Your Rights Online? If you write a public blog then companies as well as your friends may well read it. Don't be suprised if they do.

Anyway this seems like a good thing - companies taking notice of their customers.

Customer Service: The Blog

[Dibson]

They should be watching Customer Service: The Blog

Re:Customer Service: The Blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they should be watching The Angry Customer.

What amazing research!

[Reverend528]

Wow, who would've imagined that teens want the ability to spend more time on the phone and photographers want their images to last for a long time. I wish I had $100,000 to throw at these people.

Re:What amazing research!

[Rac3r5]

As hard as it is to believe,

once u work in the industry especially once u become a PHB, it becomes harder and harder to know what ur customers want. PHB's have money to burn, while the customers they are targeting don't. A lot of PHB's aren't really tech savvy at all.

Re:What amazing research!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats exactly what I have observed as well.

The PHB usually does not have to experience the company's product as the customer has to.

PHB's usually delegate the work of having to deal with someone else's PHB, so they are insulated from all the frustration and inefficiency of the systems they are creating.

My worst work experiences were with non-tech-savvy PHB types, as they had no idea of what it took to do some of the stuff we did... they just saw us as a "vehicle" to personal wealth. Just getting one of those guys in the company was enough to poison an entire division.

I have personally witnessed an entire company that had to be sold, because once they hired the suit guy, he rapidly brought all his friends in, and it was impossible to get rid of him. The only way out was just to liquidate *everything* and sell the buildings.

The future of the internet

[alvinrod]

Behold the future of the internet:

50% while be whiny, angsty teens complaining about the world in blogs with poor grammar.

The other 50% will be companies data-mining those blogs for insights about what kind of products to market.

Then again I could be wrong as this means that the internet will be 0% porn, which as we all know just isn't going to happen.

Re:The future of the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

"50% while be whiny, angsty teens complaining about the world in blogs with poor grammar."

Welcome to the 50% of whiny, angsty teens.

Re:The future of the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

More like: 40 per cent whiny, angsty teens, 10 per cent whiny, angsty middle-aged men.

Neither demographic can get a date, so I wouldn't worry about the online consumption of pornography dropping.

It's called "Citizens Media", doncha know? :)

Re:The future of the internet

[FLEB]

Although, 20% of the teens will be innovative new media viral WOM-propagation marketing professionals.

Re:The future of the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

5% will be slashdotters posting on the blog site slashdot complaining about people who post on blogs

Re:The future of the internet

[HeliumHigh]

What about the 35% Bittorrent? BT uses alot of BW :)

blog-based personalized advertisements

[miscz]

tHiS nEw CeLl PhOnE iS sOoOo [b]CoOl ^^[/b] LoL kekekekeke !!!111 [/list][/b]

A single angry customer makes a lot more noise..

[Peter Cooper]

It's been a maxim in customer service for a very long time that a single angry customer cancels out the effect of twenty (or insert some 10 thousands of happy customers, simply because so many people are using the Internet for research now. We had an issue with Acer lately, started a campaign, got some great positions on general Acer related keywords on Google (thanks to a blog), and even ran some Adwords slating them. Hopefully it lost them quite a few sales.

Likewise, I had an issue at a Travelodge motel, and they did not acknowledge my complaint at all. My story (on my blog) was picked up by a newspaper here in the UK and suddenly Travelodge were very apologetic. That said, Travelodge did a very good job of accomodating us, and my faith in them is very much renewed.

But, yes, blogs really amplify opinion, especially if it gets picked up by Google nicely ;-) (There was also the case of the lock company whose locks could be picked with a biro pen, they failed to rectify the situation, and the blogosphere hit them hard.)

Good!

[mOoZik]

I see this as being a good thing. Blogs represent a way of sharing strong opinions and given the blogosphere population, such companies have to slow down and take note of complaints. Furthermore, they can better understand demand from their target groups and as a result, offer better products and services. At last, companies will have the potential to win on supply than on silly marketing tactics. Give 'em what they want and they'll want more!

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Company Boss:

Johnson, we need to determine what the youth of today deems as hip so we can sell them more of our flagship product, the Flaming Box of Shit!

Underling Johnson:

Yessir! Let's activate the Blog-o-matic! Guaranteed to spit out insightful marketing tips with the push of a button!

*CHURN!!CHURN!!CHURN!!...POOF!!*

Boss:

Well????

Underling Johnson:

The Blog-o-Matic is displaying an error message - "Corporate cocksuckers can glean nothing useful from the misinterpretation of teenagers' ramblings. Please consult the help file for troubleshooting tips."

Boss:

No time for that, Johnson! Let's just ask my spoiled 13-year old daughter. That worked last time!

C U L8R

[bedroll]

Is this also what lead to the pop culture phenomenon that is IM speak? SMS was out for how long before ads started showing teens bastardizing the english language in every message?

This is the US....

[Anonymous Coward]

we're way behind in regards to Cell Phones.

3rd Marketing/Tracking story - IN A ROW?!?!

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

C'mon slashdot - this is the 3rd one in a row, with little content and a lot of hype and flaming to come.

If the article had contained a SHRED of tech info, like how they hash l33tspeak, or why anyone would listen to whiny teenage messageboards, then it would be something.

As it stands, any idiot who would spend money to find out what people think through blogs is as good as broke anyway. There are too many trolls out there for this to work any better than focus groups. Next.....

Re:3rd Marketing/Tracking story - IN A ROW?!?!

[rsadelle]

why anyone would listen to whiny teenage messageboards

That one's easy. Do a little Googling on the spending power of teenagers. It's enormous. If a company can figure out how best to get that spending power focused on it instead of some other company or companies, then 3. Profit becomes a lot easier.

Re:3rd Marketing/Tracking story - IN A ROW?!?!

[roach2002]

C'mon slashdot - this is the 3rd one in a row, with little content and a lot of hype and flaming to come.

If the article had contained a SHRED of tech info, like how they hash l33tspeak, or why anyone would listen to whiny teenage messageboards, then it would be something.

As it stands, any idiot who would spend money to find out what people think through blogs is as good as broke anyway. There are too many trolls out there for this to work any better than focus groups. Next.....

Oh the irony.

You sound like a whiny teenage blogger.

You just spell better.

Some of us find this interesting. The fact that the government is making a database of teenagers, Ad-Block is pissing someone off, and marketers are looking at blogs to feel the public's pulse actually interests some of us

Things go in streaks. Three in a row is hardly a statistical anomoly

New feature.

[yotto]

After scanning chat room logs, Nokia has decided to add an a/s/l button to their next line of phones.

Re:New feature.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but I don't get the joke. Could someone please explain.

Re:New feature.

[dhaines]

OMG!!! that would SO rule! BRB

Re:New feature.

[HeliumHigh]

Motorolla has anounced a "Trout Slap" button in response to Nokia's new A/S/L button.

Re:New feature.

[Anonymous Coward]

A/S/L. Age/Sex/Location. Often asked in newsgroups, IRC etc.

And as an added bonus

[Anonymous Coward]

If they find a blog where a citizen bad mouthed a product or the corporate entity behind it, they can sue the poor sod. And that adds directly to the bottom line so watch what you say kiddies!

Got your insight right heah!

[Tackhead]

*scan scan scan*

> "DoubleClick Warns Against Ad-Blocking Browsers"
( Read More... | 482 of 587 comments

...which range in vitriol from "Fuck Doubleclick! Fuck them in their stupid asses!", to "Doubleclick sucks double donkey dick", and all the way up to the thoughtful, sensitive "What did the poor donkeys do to deserve having their poor schlongs assaulted by the tonsils of a Doubleclick executive?"

And on that note, I would just like to say:

> Using technology from Umbria Communications, a Boulder, Colo., company that aims to identify demographic groups online based on their speech patterns and discussion topics, WPP's G Whiz concluded that t

*coffeespew*

"G Whiz? G. Whiz, of WPP? You're a jerk, Whiz. A complete asshole."

(Yeah, it sucks being immortal, but some days suck less than others.)

Re:Got your insight right heah!

[Anonymous Coward]

"G Whiz? G. Whiz, of WPP? You're a jerk, Whiz. A complete asshole."

RTFA, dumbass...

My Latest Blog Post

[NardofDoom]

Attention Marketdroids: You suck.

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[IAmTheDave]

And I say good! It's about time that the individual had an avenue to have his/her voice heard as loud as the corporation. For years bad support, overseas support, etc. has ensured unhappy customers, but on an individual level, so many were powerless to do anything about it.

Now a single complaint on the blogsphere can not only garner support through trackbacks of other complaining customers to create a virtual web of action, but a single voice can now have an adverse effect on sales for even the largest corporation.

Marketers need your help!

[quadra23]

Now you can safely say that your blog is helping someone else get rich with no requirement to remember you in the credits! I would definitely say this is a rights issue.

Imagine some company reverse engineer a number of different software programs (word processors for example) to find similarities between codebases -- how is that any different? What I write in my web blog is my IP just as that code is the company that packaged their code into a product. I think we can honestly say this service doesn't care where they pull the information from (although it would be hard to keep track of it all of it, but that's only a side issue). Isn't this the basis of copyright -- credits and permission?!

Re:Marketers need your help!

[Peter Cooper]

Opinion isn't IP though, surely? If you say to someone that "a green shirt would look good on you", and they then buy a green shirt.. you can't sue them for infringing on your ideas, as ideas aren't copyrightable, only distinct implementations. Someone giving a business (or product) suggestions on a weblog would be much the same, I'd guess.

Re:Marketers need your help!

[gowen]

I think we can honestly say this service doesn't care where they pull the information from (although it would be hard to keep track of it all of it, but that's only a side issue). Isn't this the basis of copyright -- credits and permission?!

No. Copyright is concerned with the expression of ideas, not ideas themselves. You only have a legal claim if you're patented being an annoying, angst ridden teenager. In which case, my parents can cite plenty of prior art dating back my, ahem, uncomfortable adolescence.

Re:Marketers need your help!

[pregister]

So...you have a blog. You write in it daily. Its on the web where anyone can read it. Supposedly, you _want_ people to read it.

You don't, however, want anyone to learn anything from what you've written? Or actually think about it? Sure, they can't copy your blog and use it in advertising or anything but actually consuming the information you're putting out on the web is also wrong?

Isn't the whole point of blogging to let other people know what you think about something?

You think someone reading a blog is similar to reverse engineering a word processor? But...but...*head explodes*

Re:Marketers need your help!

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

So let me get this straight... you don't want anyone knowing what you like? Even though you have a blog?

Re:Marketers need your help!

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Copyright is concerned with the expression of ideas, not ideas themselves

How is a web blog not an expression of ideas? For a marketing company to use web blogs to obtain this information they first have to take the copyrighted material which they will do so without permission. How does that not break copyright? I believe this is where the original notice of credit comes in. The research done here will obviously not quote it's sources -- which is the rule for any written research work as well.

You only have a legal claim if you're patented being an annoying, angst ridden teenage

Not all teenagers are annoying, angst or ridden to the same extent correct? No person needs to patent their uniqueness so I don't see where that would even enter the discussion.

Re:Marketers need your help!

[Guppy06]

IANAL

"So...you have a blog. You write in it daily. Its on the web where anyone can read it. Supposedly, you _want_ people to read it."

The entire point of copyright law is content distribution solely on the creator's terms. If the author doesn't like the way you're redistributing his content, you are in violation of copyright law, period.

"Sure, they can't copy your blog and use it in advertising or anything but actually consuming the information you're putting out on the web is also wrong?"

Consuming is one thing. They're actively aggregating it and selling it to someone else, and that process would seem to be distribution without the author's consent.

"Isn't the whole point of blogging to let other people know what you think about something?"

And the entire point of copyright is that people will have to come to you in order to to get that content. It seems that with copyright you have the right to parse and aggregate all these blogs on your own, and perhaps it'd be legal to sell the tools necesary to do this (depending on how you look at the DMCA and who has the most expensive lawyer). However, selling the end-product of that aggregation seems to violate the copyright of every single blogger whose data you mined.

Re:Marketers need your help!

[natrius]

Isn't this the basis of copyright -- credits and permission?!

Copyright just prevents people from copying your work. Fair use provides for using portions of it for the purpose of analysis, which is exactly what you're doing. Orwell's lawyers didn't jump on you when you wrote a paper on Animal Farm in high school.

If you don't want people knowing what you think, don't publish your ideas on the Internet.

Re:Marketers need your help!

[Anonymous Coward]

How is a web blog not an expression of ideas? For a marketing company to use web blogs to obtain this information they first have to take the copyrighted material which they will do so without permission. How does that not break copyright?

For a company to use the writing in your blog, word-for-word, would be copyright infringement. But if you write that nokia phones suck, because of A, B and C, then the company can take the fact that you don't like A, B and C and use that for its research & marketing, and maybe fix or mitigate A, B & C. No infringment at all. Facts are not copyrightable.

I believe this is where the original notice of credit comes in

Crediting the source is meaningless for determining if infringment occurred. Credit applies for most academic writing (I take it you're still in school?). If I photocopy an entire book, which would be copyright infringment, whether I claim to have written the copy, or I give credit to the original author, is irrelevant. Infringement has occurred.

It might have an affect on damages, though.

Re:Marketers need your help!

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire point of copyright law is content distribution solely on the creator's terms.

Nope (not in the USA anyway). Copyright prevents other people from making copies of your work.

If the author doesn't like the way you're redistributing his content, you are in violation of copyright law, period.

Nope. Look up the doctrine of first sale. If I buy 1000 copies of Rush Limbaugh's book and give them to Al Franken, Rush might not like it, but there is nothing Rush can do. Once I purchased Rush's book, I can do what ever I want with the book. I can burn it, read it, tear it up, eat it, throw it away or give it away.

The only thing I can't do is photocopy the entire book and start selling copies.

Copyright is the right to copy. Perhaps you can see where the word copy right comes from?

Now, if Rush refuses to sell me the book unless I sign a contract promising never to give the book to Al Franken, that's something else. If I sign the contract and then give the book to Franken, then Rush can sue me for breach of contract. He can't sue me for violating copyright, because I didn't make any copies.

EULAs are similar. The premise is that the EULA is a contract, and you must agree to the contract or they won't sell you the software. It becomes interesting because no contract is actually signed at the moment you purchase the copy.

However, selling the end-product of that aggregation seems to violate the copyright of every single blogger whose data you mined.

Maybe, depends on the end-product. Facts are not copyrightable - aggregations of facts are copyrightable, and they are copyrightable by the aggregator, not the aggregatee. If the aggregator copied your writings on your blog word-for-word, then you probably have a case for copyright infringement. If the aggregator only summarizes your writing, he is free and clear.

Re:Marketers need your help!

[naoursla]

Except that if companies are going to design their products and services around my opinions then the marketplace is going to be a better place for me. So they benefit and I benefit. Personally, it doesn't bother me at all.

Bloggers not representative... shock!

[bayvult]

The most interesting part of the article:

"Not everything bloggers have to say about brands correlates to the real world. Last summer, Umbria, working for a fast-food client, was monitoring Burger King Corp.'s Angus Burger and found it got some bad reviews from bloggers. Some were deriding Burger King's tongue-in-cheek TV ads that called the burger a diet food. Bloggers notwithstanding, the Angus Burger has become a hit.

In other news: Banana Republic cancelled a range of unisex one-piece pyjama suits, after discovering that its blog research didn't represent its potential market.

Re:Bloggers not representative... shock!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Bloggers notwithstanding, the Angus Burger has become a hit.

The first time I read "Angus Burger," I somehow lost the 'g' in that word.

I don't think I'll be eating one of those any time soon, thanks.

incoming calls

[lowrydr310]

The teens also resented being ambushed by incoming calls that pushed their minutes up.

Gee, have they ever thought of not answering the phone? Most if not all cell phone plans include caller ID.

Re:incoming calls

[markana]

A teen not answer their phone??? What universe do you live in? Here, it's physically not possible...

(unless their CID say's it's the 'rents calling - then suddenly they're out of service :-)

Re:incoming calls

[MynockGuano]

Tose darn cell-snipers, perched on the ridge and catching unwary passers-by with expensive phone calls. They're a menace. I've half a mind to take out those ruffians, once and for all!

Bring forth my Sup-r-Tonez Mega-Phone, squire!

Re:incoming calls

[sithsasquatch]

Gee, have they ever thought of not answering the phone? Most if not all cell phone plans include caller ID.

If you don't answer the call, but have voicemail (which comes standard in most cases and cannot be removed/disabled), you use minutes when your voicemail picks up the call. On top of that, voicemail is on even when the phone is off.

Is Anyone Suprised?

[mpapet]

That some people make money off of collecting the published thoughts of others?

Here's the process:
1. wget url1 url2 url3
2. find: OMG ur phone IM text message
3. Ask the clients what they want to hear.
4. Tell them what they want to hear.
5. Profit!

How would -anyone- quantify the juvenile (sp?) thoughts anyway?

I need to start a scam like this. Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[MightyMartian]

Or, in other words, "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true..."

You know...

[Shads]

... I don't know what the worlds obsession with blogs is. I suppose it caters to the same people who like to read other peoples diaries.

Pretty soon at the rate things are going the internet is going to be changed to the BloggerNet... bleh. I couldn't care less what some jackhole down the street has to say in his blog, 99% of what I've seen in blogs is pointless drivel (yesterday, hehe i went to bandcamp whee, look at my personality test results.) I've been guilty of blogging but I'm not proud of it.

I knew the world was coming to an end when I read that some companies were paying people to blog. Thats beyond ludacris.

Re:You know...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Thats beyond ludacris.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that...I've heard that Ludacris is actually rather tech-savvy. ^_^

Re:You know...

[Iriel]

I think the obsession with blogging comes from the same desire for watching 'Reality TV'. In many ways, I think people are becoming escapist and seeking to live through others to compensate for their own lack of experience. Also, there is a growing perverse desire to spy on people and find out their inner secrets. Even though blogs and reality TV are shown publicly for anyone to view, there is still some sense of detachment in that the person viewed or read about isn't physically there.

Pop/poop culture aside- blogs are becoming so popular lately that I don't even tell most people that I have one because I don't want to hear about how theirs' is all about their personal life (which they then recite to me). But like most trends, it will die away. Remember all those crappy looking GeoCities and AOL pages in the early days of public internet? I do.

I don't really identify with most trends that pop/poop culture follows, but when they all find something new to stare at, the people who still care to write can write without the white noise of daily activity journals and marketing can find something else to scan.

Re:You know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you are too old. I fealt exactly the same, some people I've spoke to on the net thought I was some kind of creep because a) I wasn't singed into Messenger all day long to get bloody pestered, and b) I didn't maintain a blog.

What you have to appreciate is that teens especially love this kind of social networking. After checking out my nephews IM list (hundreds of entries to my four) I realised just how it is they replace old school friends with these virtual replacements. And they seem to like it.

So don't knock it, it's just how communication is evolving. People used to really write letters on paper remember. I know I'm the email generation, the newish thing is blogs and IM.

Re:You know...

[Shads]

I love email and im, they're communication. Blogging is like tv, it melts your brains. It's not communication it's living vicariously through others.

I should set up a consultancy

[enrico_suave]

and just use Technorati and del.icio.us and the like to do "blogosphere market research" I could make a mint!

e.

Re:I should set up a consultancy

[Anonymous Coward]

Umbria and others do steal content from blog search engines. They just don't tell other people that.

Marketing that I don't despise

[Iriel]

I have to admit, this is honestly a decent idea. The thing I have noticed about 'blogs' and journals and such is that they've made expression on the internet much more coherent than it used to be. Once you weed out all of the "OMFG! I was so...", you only have to scan for keywords to find out what is on the mind of the writer. I've seen documentaries about traditional marketing, and the methods were atrocious. Usually, the market researcher would do a street study and find a handful of the trendiest people for the demographic and ask them their questions. Now, they can practically run a spider on blogspot, modblog and livejournal and have results that aren't so biased on personal appearance and managablity.

Besides, if they ran a study and hit http://fiz4pope.modblog.com/, then we'd be in for a hell of a surprise. Or maybe I'd just be locked up.

No doubt

[drooling-dog]

...they paid $80,000 to one of these companies for "work" that someone's secretary using Google could have done in an afternoon...

Logical extension

[portwojc]

From what I was told this was/is also done with USENET. Of course it's not as popular now I'd guess.

Doesn't seem useful...but could be

[freeradica1]

It's hard to see how blog-watching would be of much use. After all, most of the information that bloggers supply is available on so many blogs because it's common knowledge in a certain demographic. Thus, blog-watching isn't really useful for spotting trends or learning things that people in your company (who hopefully know some of your consumers) don't already know.

But I can see how blog-watching could develop into an industry. One way companies watch teen trends is by keeping tabs on a few "trendsetters", who tend to adopt the next fad before the rest of their peers do. It makes sense that a "trendsetter" blog might be useful in the same way.

Dictionary companies apply within...

[cobrabyte]

I continue to hear more and more IM-Speak everyday. I run a hookah bar and most of my customers are in the 18-24 range, so it's a little outside of the teenies.

In any case, I am amazed that no one finds it silly to use this kind of lingo in everyday talk and in writing. Sure, it's easier to type, so it makes nominal sense to use it in typed-mediums (see: informal).

I wish some dictionary companies would buy the ADs and put them to good use.

Oh well ... just my two cents.

-c

I'm tired of content...

[feloneous cat]

Where do I go just to read ads?

Re:I'm tired of content...

[Ucklak]

Mod funny.

What's also funny are those television shows that show clever commercials so people watch tv to watch commercials then when the real commercial break comes, they go to the bathroom.

Re:I'm tired of content...

[ryusen]

i think i would have been more entertained trying to punch the bouncing monkey...

Re:I'm tired of content...

[Cutriss]

AOL?

Umbria, Boulder, Colo...

[Anonymous Coward]

So Umbria is a Boulder Colocation company? Mayhap I've just been playing too much nethack. :-P

Somewhere is Corporate America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Company Boss:

Johnson, we need to determine what the youth of today deems as hip so we can sell them more of our flagship product, the Flaming Box of Shit!

Underling Johnson:

Yessir! Let's activate the Blog-o-matic! Guaranteed to spit out insightful marketing tips with the push of a button!

*CHURN!!CHURN!!CHURN!!...POOF!!*

Boss:

Well????

Underling Johnson:

The Blog-o-Matic is displaying an error message - "Corporate cocksuckers can glean nothing useful from the misinterpretation of teenager's ramblings. Please consult the help file for troubleshooting tips."

Boss:

No time for that, Johnson! Let's just ask my spoiled 13-year old daughter. That worked last time!

Wow!

[Fordiman]

That's actually the best marketing idea I've ever heard (and most of 'em are pretty derned bad).

Now, lets see if we can get this to happen with product development.

I think I might go revive my blog now... don't wanna be left out of the demographic.

for example

[hosecoat]

"companies used to dismiss vocal complaints from one or two consumers as an aberration. But now, they have to pay attention because now those complainers may have blogs."

for example maddox and orbits.

Re:Please Tell Me It's A Joke

[Vitriol Angst]

No Joke. There is a lot of centralization going on. If a few citizens are ruined by a hacker getting all their data -- it's the price our government is willing to pay.

A lot of this collected data for Homeland security is being shared with... drum roll please... PR Firms.

I saw a special that talked about the use of PR firms in campaigns and marketing companies and seeding the News agencies with phony spots. Near the end of the documentary, they showed up at a government agency collecting data about citizens and admitted that some of this was given or sold to Marketing and PR groups. It helps make politicians more effective in convincing people. They also showed a lot of testing of language with focus groups so that politicians could "hone" their messages. You know, change "Estate Tax" to "Death Tax".

(don't remember if it was Frontline or something else--but due to the quality of reporting it was probably Frontline)

******* sucks

[Mr Guy]

I don't go that far, but my standard test for a fairly expensive product or service is to search for THEIRNAME sucks on google. I don't always pay attention to the results I get, because some people are just always angry. However, they often give me questions to ask to be sure their complaints have been dealt with or fixed before I put my money on the line.

Blog's uses

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this will be anything like what psychologist are doing with "reality" T.V. shows?

Manager - Bob, get me a report on what teens want.

Bob - Okay sir, I'll look on Slashdot.

Manager - ...and Bob, give yourself a raise, you're a real go-getter!

Bob - Okay sir, I'll look on slashdot.

Pay-before-use cards

[QuickFox]

teens were really anxious about exceeding their cellular minutes, often because parents make them pay if they talk too much.

Here in Sweden we have pay-before-use cards. If you choose this you can't waste more than you can afford, since you have to pay in advance. Don't you have them in the US?

To fill the card you buy a code that you enter on the phone's keypad.

Most youngsters here have mobile phones, and most of them use this arrangement.

U.S. Cellular says that led U.S. Cellular to offer unlimited call me minutes.

Here it's always the caller who pays the entire cost (except of course when you call free customer-service numbers and the like.) I would never subscribe to any service that could charge me for something I didn't do.

Re:Pay-before-use cards

[bluGill]

Sure we have them. They cost ~4 times as much per minute though, so unless you almost never use the phone they are a waste of money. This article is about teen girls who have a reputation of talking on the phone for hours every day. Pre-paid cards would be more expensive for them.

There is a good chance that the teen's parents are intentionally buying them phones with less minutes than the kids want, in teach them a lesson in budget. (Might be misguided, but since I'm not their parent I'm not going to judge) Having the ability to go over minutes can be nice in an emergency situation.

Cell phone minutes here are cheap, so long as you don't talk too much for you plan. For the right to call anywhere in the US (compare to the whole of Europe) as much as I want (That is how much I personally want, YMMV) on my cell phone, I pay just a couple dollars more than my local phone company wanted for the right to the same, except the calling area was limited to the nearest city.

Our system is different. Not better or worse, different. I pay for incoming calls (they are part of my included minutes, so it never costs me extra since I don't talk that much), but in return this means I can sue telemarketer who call me for the time used, because they are costing me money. I don't get cell phone spam as a result, while when I was in Europe a few years back I did (I has a Europe cell phone for that trip).

Another advantage is I pay, so I'm concerned about costs. With your system you don't care how much it costs someone else to call you, so you don't shop around for who has the best incoming deals. Thus the phone companies have no incentive to compete on incoming price - the person who pays has no control of those costs!

Overall it costs significantly less to talk on the phone over in the US. My friends and I think nothing of calling each other, on our cell phones, and talking as much as we want. SMS is popular over there in part because cell phone time is so expensive that it is worth dealing with the bad UI on your phone to type them - we just make a phone call for the same thing. (though I agree in many cases the SMS would be better - if the UI to enter them wasn't so bad)

The systems are different. With ours we have to worry about going over minutes, while yours only worries about cost when you call. In theory the cell phone coverage is better in Sweden, in practice you are unlikely to go to areas without coverage in the US. Different. Looking at both systems objectively, I prefer ours. YMMV.

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[RobertB-DC]

Or, in other words, "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true..."

A perfectly valid point, but that's the beauty of Google's PageRank (when it works, of course). One raving lunatic could put up a page describing how he got screwed by, say, ThinkGeek. He could detail how he bought a shirt and it arrived too small and the company refused to issue a refund, etc etc.

If it's a real problem, then others will probably have had similar experiences, write about them, link to each others blogs, and so on... until the pat-on-the-back web gets dense enough to move up the Google rankings.

If the truth is that the guy ordered a medium shirt for his 400-lb carcass, and tried to return it after a 4-hour pizza buffet binge, and sent it by carrier pigeon with a note saying "SEND ME ONE MILLION DOLLARS OR ILL BLOG!"... then nobody else will link to his blog in a "me too!" context, and it will have no effect.

So, it's not "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true." It's "I saw it in the first page of Google results, so it must be true." :)

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[Andrewkov]

If I need to publish my issue on a blog to get it resolved, that doesn't say much for the company.

oh god..

[joeldg]

quit giving bloggers more reason to think they are actually listened to..
the signal to noise ratio is out of hand already to the point that you could spend all day every day reading their tripe and come up with nothing original or interesting..
13 year old girls with colored markers, the lot of you!

blogs + viagra spam = 0mfg watch out

[Man in Spandex]

Time to write blogs where Viagra appears at every 3rd word.

You'll see a sudden explosion at your local pharmacies

This is the most retarded market research.

[bartyboy]

Why not get a bunch of people to say that beer should be free? I figure it will be really easy to convince a few thousand people to write asking for this. The breweries will have no choice but to listen!

Heck, with any luck, we'll have Sony producing televisions optimized for playing NES and Mazda making cars with break parachutes.

product review

[lupinstel]

Here is the market analysis you from G Whiz. Your company/product is: 67% teh suz0rz 33% teh rox0rz Thank you. The balance owed for this product review is $50,000.

Dubious journo ethics here...

[brentyl2]

This submission (and it's not the first from ol' Carl) makes me nervous. He's pointing the Slashhorde to an article at *his* paper. This isn't a citizen saying, "Hello world. You may find this interesting." This is a paid employee trying to bump his pageviews and ad revenue.

For a frontline media outlet that still has some global respect, this is troubling. "Journo ethics" seems quaint, I know, but this still feel wrong. There's a huge outcry here whenever, say, Dvorak writes something inflammatory - "Don't help his pageviews..." Is this so different?

Re:Dubious journo ethics here...

[Usaflt2003]

You forget how many slashdotters never RTFA... so it can't be helping that much.

Companies scanning newsgroups

[johnnyb]

I know of companies who scan newsgroups to find out how people are using their products. They have a news server and do big regex searches on every message that comes in to see if anybody is saying anything about them, and repost the ones mentioning their brand or brand-related items to internal newsgroups that they can pick up.

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[Clod9]

Blogs just make mass advertising feasible for individuals, that's what's new. People have always had the ability to complain loudly, it's just easier now than it used to be.

All this reminds me of the time I went to a boat show on Lake Union in Seattle. Boating is a big deal here. A guy was out in the lake on a sailboat, driving in circles, displaying a huge sign showing a picture of the bottom of his boat that was covered with fiberglass blisters, a manufacturing defect. The sign said "30,000 blisters, I'll never buy another again." I'm sure the dealer was cringing while thousands of potential boat-buyers gawked at the guy, but I also realized the guy must be incredibly bitter to spend a sunny summer day doing that instead of actually sailing. Now, though, you don't have to be bitter for more than about 20 minutes to get your complaint into a blog and into Google.

I hope not!

[EvilStein]

People are far more likely to tell people about a negative experience with a company than a positive one.

Now, couple those people with their blogs, and you have the makings of a public relations nightmare on your hands, just because some "a list blogger" blogged about a bad experience with your company. That's even MORE scary when you realize that no matter what you do, some customers aren't going to be happy.

There's a reason that I discount most anything I read in a blog. It's just too easy for bloggers to spread FUD.

Re:I hope not!

[ultranova]

People are far more likely to tell people about a negative experience with a company than a positive one.

Now, couple those people with their blogs, and you have the makings of a public relations nightmare on your hands, just because some "a list blogger" blogged about a bad experience with your company. That's even MORE scary when you realize that no matter what you do, some customers aren't going to be happy.

There's a reason that I discount most anything I read in a blog. It's just too easy for bloggers to spread FUD.

I can't help but think that those companies affected by this might try to discredit the blogs to counter their effect. They might even hire people to spread FUD about blogs as viable information sources. Maybe even put some astroturfers onto Slashdot...

Scary, eh ?

Re:I hope not!

[Egregius]

Heh, reminds me of Maddox' rants against Orbitz. (All things said I side with Maddox on this one though)

Re:I hope not!

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

"Maybe even put some astroturfers onto Slashdot..."
NO, tell me it isn't true. astroturfers? (Autobiography of ultranova?) :-)

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[EvilStein]

Did you update your blog to reflect that Travelodge had restored your faith in them?

that's the problem with blogs - people often *don't* update the story and all that's left behind is the negative press.

(Granted, this happens in the MSM as well - doesn't make it any better)

OH GREAT!!!

[TCaptain]

So now our marketting efforts and future R&D will be directed by internet trolls?

*sigh*

Society's going to hell in a handbasket...screw it, pass the popcorn...hope I can at least enjoy the show.

Novak, maybe?

[ackthpt]

Insane ramblings on the Windows vs Linux vx OSX wars?

No. Complaints about aquarium supplies. Why make better products when you can sue to shut the complainers up?

You can't find my blog!

[Anonymous Coward]

I flushed it already...

*Sniff* *Sniff*

[Techmaniac]

Smells like marketing desperation by these corporate losers

Blog Tracking & Marketing

[daigu]

The reason why most people miss the importance of tracking blogs for marketers is that they focus on the individual conversations. Marketers are interested in aggregates - which is why they look at people based on demographic, attitudes and so forth.

Why is this important? Say you were the CEO for Fair Beans Coffee company. Some guy starts complaining that you aren't supporting the troops because you aren't given them free coffee. Someone reads that and then writes about it - and then it spreads through the "blogsophere" for whatever reasons, like a chain letter.

The problem is that it isn't accurate. No one ever asked you to give free coffee to the troops. You had planned to give your workforce a day to work together to refurbish a school. But hey, it is actually a good idea - the soldiers might remember what you did and buy your coffee when they get home, so you decide to donate some.

The issue here is that you cannot react to a problem you aren't aware of - and there are occasionally opportunities where someone has a good idea that you can act on. However, if you don't know about it - people are just left with the misinformation and dislike you company based on groundless reasons.

When used in this way, it is just another way for companies to figure out what they customers want - and give it to them. Of course, there could be bad applications - but any technology can be applied for nefarious purposes.

Re:Blog Tracking & Marketing

[What me a Coward]

Uhm yeah and actually thinking and useing common sense just doesn't apply then.

I mean seriously the coffee maker looking at newspapers and seeing that a war started and that troops are being sent you'd think he would have read that and thought to himself if he actually thought that donating free coffee to troops was a good idea on his own and he would have gotten it then not after people have bitched at him for not doing it.

Personally though I think it would be better in that senario for the government to buy and supply coffee to it's troops and not some buisness that way it keeps questions and acusation of special interest's and the like from being raised after the fact.

But all this tracking and marketing bullhockey is an excuses for company owners and heads who just don't have any common sense and need someone else to tell them what the public want's like dilberts boss.

They don't deserve to know what we wan't if they don't have the intellegence or common sense to figure things like this out on their own like other are able to.

How this applies to marketing to teenagers in US

[wsanders]

How this applies here in the US us that most providers have a zero to very low-cost option to make in-network calls unlimited and free. For example my wife and I share a plan, and my uncle is with the same provider, so all the calls between us are unlimited and free.

Thus, one big marketing push is to motivate households to unite their services all under one plan (5 phones free for the kids, etc) and for cliques to all sign up with the same provider so they can call each other at will.

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[garcia]

Just take a look at my website (I guess it's a blog). What are people searching for according to Webalizer? "saturn sucks".

I'm the third link for that search term. You think Saturn gives a shit? I doubt it. People interested in buying a Saturn are going to type in "Saturn cars" for their query and not "saturn sucks".

Yeah, so what, my engine has blown multiple times due to moronic techs. Who's going to know about that expect people who already hate Saturns?

Try This

[SnarfQuest]

Well, when FORD or GENERAL MOTORS workers buy PEPSI or COCA-COLA for their HOT-POCKETS lunch, ... ... oops, I thought at first it meant bloggers would get paid for mentioning each product. Drat!

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[MightyMartian]

I think it opens up a dark side, that of malicious bloggers. If people are going to take the meanderings and bad prose that amounts to blogs about how "Company X fscked me badly, stole my computer, and their president and janitor had affairs with my wife, and now I live in a cardboard box and eat mouldy donuts, AND IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT", then I think there's a serious credibility problem.

Makes sense.

[gmknobl]

Seems reasonably obvious and worthwhile way of doing things. At least they didn't CALL the teenage cell phone users to ask them about the problem. ;)

two corrections

[bluGill]

In the US it is illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones. IT still happens, and you do pay for the minutes. However you can recover several times your costs when it happens. Thus cell phone spam doesn't happen.

Many cell phone plans include national roaming. If you have that, you don't care who owns the tower, because it costs you nothing extra. T-Mobile, Cingler, and Verizon all have such plans. I don't think any of them sell anything other than the cheapest 60 minutes talk time plans without national free roaming. Other carriers have different plans, but those are the big ones.

read THIS blog, bitches

[dgos78]

companies used to dismiss vocal complaints from one or two consumers as an aberration. But now, they have to pay attention because now those complainers may have blogs

I'll never buy from a company that outsources anything to India!

4ppl3 needs to let 05X run on any x86!!!!

Doubleclick and Benny are teh Suxx0rz!! Block 4LL of their ads!!!!

etc. etc. Are companies really listening to teen rants like this?

incoming minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

You Americans have/had to pay for incoming calls?! ...aw well just another reason to hate the yanks.

I can see how they came to that..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hi bob!"
"Hi err *closes blog* boss!"
"What was that?"
"Just a blog of this cute sixte... I Mean.. research!"
*critical look*
"See.. if we read all the journals of these teens.. *opens journal* we can play in on their wishes like this one;
'I wished Bob would stop calling me. With all these connection costs my moms' making me pay soo much of my allowance!"
"Hmmm.. you're onto something here Bob, keep up the good work."

Young kids like minivans - teens like SUV's - DUH!

[xmas2003]

My wife was actually reading this over lunch in the print edition and got a chuckle out of the closing paragraph:
"Soccer moms said their young children love minivans, which they regard as 'a playhouse on wheels,' but teens regard them as lame and want SUVs."
and her comment was "DUHHHH!!!!"

I was kinda surprised that the "blog marketing expert" didn't say what Mom's thought about minivans, since (after all) they are the ones buying it, not the kids. My wife used to own a red Mazda sports car, but after our second kid, we bought a Toyota Sienna XLE Minivan ... and when the salesperson (who was actually nice) starting explaining all the "cool features" she stopped him saying "It's a minivan; there is nothing cool about it"

Heh.

[aglerickson]

I think I'll run over to my journal now and make branded comments, like, Dear makers of product X, your marketers are barely conscious pond scum, and your execs are brainless to listen to them. Stop giving them credibility. ...et cetera.

0% porn

[doublem]

Oh, it'll happen.

Within the next three years the following will happen:

Porn will be outlawed in the US.
Service providers hosting pron sites will be branded "terrorists" for attacking our basic values.
Foreign net blocks will be filtered on a massive scale using technology pioneered by China.
Running a Freenet node will be considered a terrorist act.

Re:0% porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn will still be online in RestOfWorld. The internet will still be about x% (whatever it is now) porn. Just only (100-x)% of the internet will be accessible from the US.

easy

[roman_mir]

not for phone, but for Firefox when used with this extension (shameless plug). Once the extension is installed, type about:config in the URL address bar, press Enter and you will see properties screen. Find leetkey.KeyboardMap

paste this as value:
65=4,66=8,67=(,68=|),69=3,70=F,71=6,72=|-| ,73=1,74 =J,75=|{,76=L,77=|\\/|,78=|\\|,79=(),80=P,81=a/s/l ,82=R,83=5,84=7,85=|_|,86=\\/,87=\\/\\/,88=X,89=Y, 90=Z,97=4,98=8,99=(,100=d,101=3,102=f,103=6,104=h, 105=1,106=j,107=k,108=|,109=m,110=n,111=0,112=p,11 3=q,114=r,115=5,116=7,117=u,118=v,119=w,120=x,121= y,122=z

restart the browser.

Now every time you use Leet Key to type and press upper letter Q, you will have a/s/l typed instead.

I guess...

[Jozer99]

I guess they weren't paying enough for focus groups who could have told them the same thing. Honestly, developing search algorythyms to pick out our desires seems so much harder than paying a teenager $5 to tell a marketing specialist what they they thought. Heck, I'm 18, and I would be glad to tell you how much I hate paying for SMS messages for food.

Do you really need to pay to know that?

[hikerhat]

Living in Boulder, I can say you really don't need a bunch of crunchy hippy (but rich and driving SUVs at the same time for some reason) pot smokers with "super duper AI Blog Scanning technology" to tell you that people don't like to pay when they go over their minutes, and they don't like to pay for unsolicited calls. Customers don't even need to be teens to not like that stuff.

You know what else they want with their phone service? Let me check my eHALadulator-j.net 5000 blog scanner... Ah ha! - Better reception, longer battery life, no long term contracts, built in iPods, light sabers, new nude pix of <insert favorite celebrity here> uploaded to their phones daily (with user selectable 'hard core' levels), and FREE EVERYTHING!!!! Where's my $10,000?

Re:Young kids like minivans - teens like SUV's - D

[Blakey Rat]

I think minivans are pretty cool, especially the ones with the electric doors on both sides.

But cellphones are cheaper to use here

[grahamsz]

Since the cellphone owner has to bear the full burden of the cost of their phone, they can put more pressure on the companies to produce a decent price.

My wife and I get 500 minutes a month (to anywhere in the US or any other US cellphone), free nights, free weekends, free calls to other t-mobile users (most of our friends & collegues), unlimited data and we each have a smartphone which we can have replaced every year.

We pay around $80/month for it - In the UK that would scarely cover a few hours of web surfing.

Re:Young kids like minivans - teens like SUV's - D

[What me a Coward]

You uh don't have a life at all don't you?

It's sad and pathetic when you run across lonely sad little loosers who think a minivan is cool!

To save money, though...

[Monkey Angst]

... they're only scanning the fake blogs their marketing department puts up to plug their products.

Hey, customer satisfaction is 100%! Let's knock off early!

Here's the actual software

[TrailerTrash]

IBM developed this technology a while ago, called WebFountain. Obligatory link: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/webfountain/

At Almaden they have a zillion Linux boxes spidering the web building data mining databases. They then sell the ability to mine to companies for marketing research. For example, conceptually mapping Slashdot, you find that users who post on ./ also frequent OSNews, Groklaw, and pr0n.

Uh, wait... Hmm. Maybe that isn't such a good thing...

Presentation From Pete Blackshaw

[calderson]

I took some notes on a presentation that Pete Blackshaw did - "Measuring Wal-Mart's Buzz". http://www.chadalderson.com/2005/04/_earlier_in_th e.html/

Orbitz blows.

[Grendel Drago]

Yes, they might have blogs. Or they may just be named Maddox.

--grendel drago

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[RichardX]

Or, in other words, "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true..."

Well, no.. but it's the first time average joe has had a means of mass distribution for his opinion.
Up until now the only standard has been "I saw it in an advert, so it must be true". At least now the other side of the story can be represented through a mass medium. It may not do anything for the factual accuracy, but at least it's some kind of improvement.

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[MightyMartian]

Yes, it's an enlightened age. Now the average citizen can join marketers, spin doctors and pundits in the glorious age of massly distributed horseshit.

Zonk and blogging stories

[The Hobo]

YAZBS

Drug Companies

[whitehatlurker]

Something that caught my eye on the side was the side bar that said "Poor drug trial not negative".

Further readings seem to be here and here.

It appears that before poor drug trial results were announced for Zocor, a higher percentage (24%) of people were negative about Zocor than after the trial results were released (13%). It doesn't matter that the amount of negative comments rose, just that the percentage dropped. (The related traffic quadrupled, so there were twice as many bad comments.)

I'm not convinced that the money is being well spent by these companies. They could give it to me (or grub).

Re:A single angry customer makes a lot more noise.

[Peter Cooper]

Yes, I did. I also agree this is very important. I posted some extra posts on my blog about the issue too. (Ditto for the Acer debacle.)

Re:Young kids like minivans - teens like SUV's - D

[Blakey Rat]

Dude. Electric doors. On both sides! THEY OPEN AUTOMATICALLY WITH THE PUSH OF A BUTTON!

You don't think that's cool?

Re:Young kids like minivans - teens like SUV's - D

[the narf]

Putting aside all the stereotyping, cultural inferences, and other emotional baggage that people attach to particular vehicle shapes, it comes down to a simple point. A minivan is a very efficient way to carry four to seven people and a boatload of their stuff around in car-like comfort, without overly guzzling gas and without requiring 3 tons of metal and plastic to do it.

They're easy to drive, have lots of electronic/electrical geegaws, and are a supremely appropriate solution to the problem.

My wife and I have zero kids. We don't fit the typical demographic of the minivan buyer. Nevertheless, we bought a Dodge Grand Caravan AWD in 2001 because it was the best solution for the needs we had. I get together with friends often after work. This usually involves most of us coming from different directions, meeting at someone's house, and then going off to dinner. The ability to take the whole bunch in one vehicle had a huge appeal.

I didn't (and don't) give a rat's ass about automotive stereotypes. I had a problem, and the minivan solved it. My friends called it the "Maytag" or the "appliance" because it was big and white, but they sure didn't mind riding in it.

(Full disclosure: I ended up having to sell it in 2003 because I was laid off, ended up in a job paying half of my prior one, and could no longer afford the payments. Once I get my income back up to something respectable again, I will buy another minivan. They're just too bloody useful.)

John

Marketers != Everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight... you don't want anyone knowing what you like?

Let me get what your saying straight, regardless of all appearances (title and content) from the original post being directly related to marketers profiteering from the blog content, without said permission or credit you would prefer to assume that this means all content users? I don't see any mention in the post about any problems with the average user, how do you?!

Re:Marketers != Everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is wrong for what reason?

If this is true, then Dell could sue Gateway if Gateway bought a couple of Dells to do competative analysis without permission. And Heinz could do the same thing to Hunts' ketchup.