Marketing Vox says Virgin Mobile will give away free minutes to ad viewers who agree to interact with ads via text messaging or their computers. Subscribers can earn up to 75 free minutes per month via the initiative, dubbed SugarMama. How long until someone figures out a way to game the system to get all the minutes in one fell swoop?
I spent some time earlier this year thinking about giving away Skype Minute in return for viewing ads, only to have Skype announce free SkypeOut for the rest of the year.
My friends and I showed up in a new story about my favorite beach being closed due to pollution from last week’s storm. The water really wasn’t that bad. Link.
Aldo Castañeda posted our podcast discussing the marketing implications and emerging surfaces of identity and attention systems. The talk primarily covers the layers of the identity stack, with particular focus on data providers and aggregators leading up to my thoughts on how our digital self will be represented in the future.
The podcast is located at http://storyofdigid.wordpress.com/2006/05/30/episode-29/.
Interesting article in the NY Times about Timberland going carbon neutral in 2010. Turns out the majority of carbon monoxide in the shoe making process is from the cows in the fields, i.e. methane. I’d never head the term carbon neutral before, I bet it takes off now.
A great history of online music recommendation engines, from Ringo to Pandora and a lot of other systems I’d never heard of.
PaidContent breaks the story that the Grey Lady is investing in Root/Markets, which is creating a market to trade consumer information.
From a recent Forbes article:
Root has developed a software program that allows consumers essentially to spy on themselves, sending every click into a “vault” of information at Root that can be stored, edited and used to the individual’s liking.
Here’s where the market comes in. Individuals using RootVault can make their data available to marketers they want to reach. For example, someone looking for a new apartment could make their personal data available to mortgage lenders and real-estate agents.
Root’s idea is to create bundles of customer leads that would trade like futures contracts on the exchange.
Root takes a fee from both sides of the transaction–the publishers or sellers of ad leads, and the advertisers or buyers. Root also would act the way a stock-exchange specialist would, by stepping in and buying or selling contracts in the event of a market imbalance.
Cofounder Lew Ranieri, and original Wall Street Master of the Universe, has put up about $5 million. The overall around for Root/Markets is $12 million. More details of the investment.
I was sending my clickstream to Root and then I started keeping it on my hard drive. I want to look at the data and see what’s going on before I publicly post my browsing habits. I can’t seem to create a default exchange with pc4media, says the request is pending and the Status is disabled. Let me know if you want to create an exchange together.
Here’s what’s new at iKarma from their May 2006 newsletter.
Directory – List your iKarma profile in the iKarma directory. It’s free!
Tagging – Tag your profile so you can be found in the iKarma directory and on search engines.
RSS Feeds – Add your iKarma profile to your blog or monitor your reviews with your newsreader.
Resume Post – post your resume as part of your iKarma profile and use iKarma to collect your references.
Identities – Link your iKarma profile to your other profiles on the web.
Email Signature Wizard – Adding a custom signature that links to your iKarma profile is easier than ever with our new wizard.
Contact Import Wizard – We’ve automated the process of sending out review requests.
Aggregation is not redundancy and aggregators should not try to be data sources. This is dangerous territory, they risk diluting their focus on 1/2-baked features. It’s a long uphill battle for iKarma to equal the functionality and brand strength of Monster and LinkedIn.
This is awesome, fast user switching using the built in hard drive sensors. Check out the video.
All I’m going to say is that I was totally blown away by the Lost season-closer. I’m warming up to the pre-show concept of recapping the year in the previous hour, helps fill in the blanks, as I have missed a few episodes this season. Many twists and turns, as are to be expected, and they set up the beginning of next season beautifully. The ad for the Hanso Foundation Career Site was a bonus. Jobs like Organ Courrier, Simian Veterinarian and Anger Management Director sure piqued my interest.
Note to Hanso Foundation web admin, the RSS feed is fubar.
My good friends Nora and Eric are celebrating the birth of Evan Bradford Foster. Between his parents good looks, brains and athletic ability, this kid is going to be a superstar. Here’s to the beginning of an amazing life, I am humbled.