The New Netscape

posted by hal…….

As reported by Reuters, The New York Times and others, Netscape came back to life this morning as an uber-news and blog aggregator. Jason Calacanis, famous for Silicon Alley Reporter and Engadget, is the driving force behind the push to re-invigorate Netscape in it’s new guise as an AOL service.

Nothing wrong with the concept – a lot of others are doing it, so why not jump on the band wagon? You weren’t expecting anything original were you?

I checked it out. Tried to sign up, maybe loft a comment. Sign-up didn’t work on Safari. Didn’t work on Firefox. I went to the trouble of downloading the Netscape browser (7.2 for Mac) – the site still choked on sign-up.

Honestly – today, tomorrow, the middle of next week – it doesn’t matter when you launch a new service AS LONG AS IT WORKS. This would seem to be especially true for a damaged brand like Netscape.

Will I go back to the site? Maybe. Maybe not.

The New Netscape – probably as irrelevant as the old Netscape.

Write About What You Know

Blogs are all the rage these days. It seems like if you don’t have one you’re out of the loop, especially if you’re an online marketer.

The problem is, if everyone is doing it, it becomes harder to generate an interesting voice amongst all the clutter. It’s kind of like newsletters. They’ve become so easy to produce that everyone seemingly has one. The standard company newsletter has become predictable. People forget – no one wants to read about another company’s news; they want to read about themselves! (Or at minimum, about things relevant to themselves).

That doesn’t mean blogs and newsletters aren’t important and valuable. It does mean, however, that you can’t roll out the standard fare and expect to generate interest. You have to look very closely at what you do well as a company – at the reasons other companies do business with you – and use blogs, newsletters, and other similar forums not as a trendy offering but as another way to further communicate your company’s core value and expertise.

Two articles in today’s iMedia Connection newsletter address this subject, and got me thinking about it in the first place:

Get Started with Email Newsletters

Michael Mayor states that the key to successful email newsletters is staying focused. As an “interest starting point” for your customers, email newsletters need to stay on target and provide relevant and valuable content.

What Matters Most in Email Marketing

Tricia Robinson also acknowledges the importance of email marketing, when done correctly, and applies the traditional 40/40/20 direct marketing principle to email marketing – offering our target audience what they want, when they want it is the key to success.

The King of Vlogs

posted by hal…….

Videoblogging exploded onto the scene last summer like a firecracker. But has it’s luster burned out? Or are we just at the beginning of the show?

With new technologies, devices, platforms & services bursting onto the scene like roman candles, it’s hard for anyone to get a clear view of the horizon. But if you want to see the potential of vlogs, check out the reigning master, David Pogue of the New York Times.

The essence of vlogging (a.k.a. vblogging, video blogging or video podcasting) is very simple: it’s a blog with an attachment (called, in tech terms, an “enclosure”). Whatever you call it, posting one is not rocket science.

The tough part is creating an interesting piece of video without the benefit of grips, gaffers and kleig lights. Pogue gets it better than most. He mimics the conventions of TV but for a tiny canvas.

Lots of video iPods out there, but not a lot of quality content. Nonetheless, you can see the potential in the hands of Pogue.

Stay tuned for more vlogging in future installments.