Slashdot Mirror
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. '"
They should be watching Customer Service: The Blog
-- Why keep us waiting? We are not made of time.
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.
;-) (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.)
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
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?
and just use Technorati and del.icio.us and the like to do "blogosphere market research" I could make a mint!
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
From what I was told this was/is also done with USENET. Of course it's not as popular now I'd guess.
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.
... just my two cents.
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
-c
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.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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.
Never confuse volume with power.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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).
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.