Marketing Pilgrim Published: "The REAL Reason for the WSJ Social" plus 4 more

The REAL Reason for the WSJ Social
The WSJ Facebook Edition. Really?
Look! No Velcro! Google Wallet Arrives
Netflix Apologizes Then Makes Matters Worse
Young Adults Exchange an Average of 87 Text Messages a Day

Posted: 20 Sep 2011 07:04 AM PDT

As I discussed in a previous post, the Wall Street Journal is launching their WSJ Social today which is a way for the denizens of the Facebook deep to be our own WSJ editors of sorts.

Well, I just got my update to hop on board the "water down your business news to mush" train and learned the real reason for this grand social gesture by the WSJ. Here are the permissions I am supposed to give to them to have the privilege of using this app within the ultimate data grab, Facebook.

I know many folks don't mind cluttering up their Facebook streams with just about anything. I thought that the whole purpose of this exercise by the Wall Street Journal was to let me do with their content as I wished. Instead it's the pathway to gaining access to my friends for whatever it is the WSJ wants to post in my stream, whenever they want to do it.

This is bush league and should be beneath the folks at the Journal but now we know where the real power lies. It's with Facebook and that is not a good sign for any of us.

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The WSJ Facebook Edition. Really?

Posted: 20 Sep 2011 04:53 AM PDT

It looks like we have hit a point where the balance of power in publishing is truly shifting OR there is a huge over reaction to social media's influence. Why do I say this? Because today the Wall Street Journal is rolling out the WSJ Social which is a made for Facebook version of the paper that at one point in time at least was most concerned about reaching business power brokers rather than the masses.

Take a look at the screenshot that was published over at Forbes

Key lime pie? Sunscreen labeling? Well, at least there is some business overtone to that on. Here's how the Journal describes this move to creating a whole new presentation for the Facebook crowd.

"The fundamental idea of it is super simple," says Alisa Bowen, general manager of the WSJ Digital Network. "It's about making [WSJ content] available where people are."

My question is, "What people?". Many who read the Wall Street Journal for business news are not Facebook users. In fact, they shun any public show of anything for a variety of reasons. Most of them are that they simply don't want to be known. Being a captain of industry often involves a larger measure of stealth to keep prying eyes from seeing too much and, let's face it, to keep the leeches away.

The Forbes article continued with this explanation of just how the WSJ Social will work

But it's also about reimagining newspaper reading as an inherently social experience. Users choose whose streams they want to follow — the official ones produced by the paper's, and each other's — and that determines what stories they see. The most-followed users can compare their rankings on a leaderboard and earn prizes — possibly including their own WSJ-style stipple portraits. "It's really about the users being elevated to editors," says Maya Baratz, the Journal's head of new products.

Look I get why they are doing this. The WSJ like any other publisher wants to get as many readers as they can in any way that they can. But once you start watering down a product in a way that doesn't look like the product anymore you are treading on dangerous ground. Does it sound right that the WSJ is running popularity leaderboards and having prize giveaways? Not to me it doesn't. This kind of "presentation" of the WSJ seems like a dumbing down of the content to create a hybrid between a USA Today or People Magazine like approach and the business world. It just seems odd.

I realize that I am going old school on this one but that's fine. I can choose what I want to read and how I want to read it just like anyone else can. What I have concerns about is that by letting everyone else be their own editors that the content will quickly slide to the lowest common denominator. People will just become opinion peddlers and those opinions won't even be their own. They won't need to take the time to form their own opinions but rather they will be pimping out others and doing it to win a popularity contest. That's not advancing thought that's promoting laziness.

How many truly successful people ever tried to win popularity contests? Not many. They have done things that are often against the flow of popular opinion because, let's face it, in most cases popular opinion is not all the bright or imaginative. Where the Wall Street Journal once stood in the publishing world is now becoming just like everyone else which, in the end, will only serve to hurt it.

What's your take?

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Look! No Velcro! Google Wallet Arrives

Posted: 19 Sep 2011 10:08 PM PDT

Without getting all prognosticate-y about what this offering means to the general happiness of the human race, we will tell you that Google Wallet has arrived as rumored. Google's official announcement comes on the heels of several days of rumors that served to do nothing other than keep some people writing. Now that it's here you can learn about it for real and see just what it does and doesn't do in the first iteration.

From the Google blog

We've been testing it extensively, and today we're releasing the first version of the app to Sprint. That means we're beginning to roll out Google Wallet to all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over-the-air update—just look for the "Wallet" app. Here's a demo of Google Wallet in action:

Now the video

Now some fun with Google Wallet's first customer. They sure don't make'em like they used to.

Google Wallet is here and cows are rejoicing (think about it).

Netflix Apologizes Then Makes Matters Worse

Posted: 19 Sep 2011 01:24 PM PDT

"I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation."

Two months ago, Netflix Co-Founder and CEO Reed Hastings, announced a major change to the pricing structure for Netflix members which included increased fees for anyone wanting to get DVDs in the mail and stream movies.The result was a lot of bad press as loyal fans cried foul loud enough to be heard. Memberships were canceled, stock prices dropped and Blockbuster could be heard laughing all the way to bankruptcy court.

Yesterday, Hastings tried to patch things up with a lengthy note of apology and an explanation of things to come.

"My greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly."

This is good forward thinking on his part, and certainly true seeing as what happened to their competition. He goes on to say,

When Netflix is evolving rapidly, however, I need to be extra-communicative. This is the key thing I got wrong.
In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. We have done very well for a long time by steadily improving our service, without doing much CEO communication."

Wait. So what he's saying here is, I should have kept my mouth shut and slowly made changes, sneaking them into the system so no one noticed. Kind of like how restaurants are serving smaller portions but charging the same price or how Facebook keeps changing my sidebar links.

Surely this isn't good business, is it?

So Hastings went against his own better judgement and announced on his blog that Netflix will soon split into two companies. One will serve only streaming content (Netflix) and the other will continue the DVD by mail program (Qwikster). Now, in order to get both services, you'll have to pay two fees to two different companies, maintain two profiles and any reviews you leave will not cross-over to the other site.

That's the way to win back an audience! Yikes.

As you can imagine, the response has been mostly ugly. Maybe he should have apologized in one post and announced Qwikster in another? Would any kind of an apology that didn't include a price roll-back be acceptable? Probably not. And therein lies the problem.

It's important to manage one's reputation but is a public apology for anything short of breaking the law really necessary? Or a good thing? Netflix made a plan for the protection of their own business and they needed to stick by it. Raising prices is not a crime. Especially not when it includes an additional set of features. So what went wrong?

The trouble is, people don't deal well with change and that's something you need to think about when you're about to make one. Send out an email to your customers with an explanation before you need to send an apology and know that some people aren't going to like it. In the case of Netflix, they'll lose some of their customers, but with proper marketing of the new streaming service, they'll likely gain customers who aren't interested in mailed DVDs.

I say, no apologies are needed. Business is tough all over and a company has to do what a company has to do. What do you say? Is it good to admit your mistakes to your customers or is it better to privately fix it and move on?

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Young Adults Exchange an Average of 87 Text Messages a Day

Posted: 19 Sep 2011 11:24 AM PDT

The next time you're in a busy public place, stand still and watch the people who walk by. A large majority of them will either have their eyes down on a cell phone or they'll appear to be talking to themselves (earbuds!).

It's gotten so we can't leave the house without our mobile phone charged and ready. And I know several teenagers who carry theirs from room to room so they never miss a text. Yes, a text, not a call. For the 18-29 set, texting is the ultimate form of communication.

New numbers from the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that 95% of young adults use the texting feature on their phones. On average, they send and receive 87.7 texts a day and the median user hits 40 a day. The median for all cell phone users is 10 a day.

The younger you get, the higher the number climbs with one in ten saying they exchange more than 200 messages a day. Seriously? When do they have time to do anything else, like go to school, work, sleep?

Pew also found a rather obvious balance between texting and preferred method of contact. Those who text less, chose voice calls as their preferred method while heavy texters said they'd just as soon skip the call.

In the grand scheme, calls are still listed as the preferred form of contact but texting is on the rise.

It's safe to say that the people who answered this question weren't thinking about marketing messages. Calling someone's cell to pitch your product is very bad form and I'm not sure that an opt-in option would go over very well. Text messaging, however, is a whole different animal. It's still more intrusive than an email, but nowhere near as intrusive as a call. Here, it's frequency that can make or break you.

I've opted to receive text messages from a couple of my favorite TV shows. One sends messages only on show night. First a reminder to watch, then a trivia question during the run. I'm good with that. Another started sending almost daily text messages pushing me to watch, buy the DVD, visit the website. I quickly replied STOP and that was the end of that.

In certain circumstances, a well-timed text message can be the perfect marketing tool. A $5 coupon off a lunch entree, sent just before noon could result in a nice bump in business. Do you use text message marketing for your business? I'd like to hear about your experience.