At the bottom of this article, I’ll share a link to a cool site that offers used handhelds at a discount, but first, a thought.
As I was paging through "Smartphone and Pocket PC" with my young nephew Jacob (he’s a massive cell phone ethusiast and his younger brother Sam is a massive small screen games player), it occurred to me what’s about to happen…
This is the third in a spontaneous, unplanned and somewhat goofy series of articles about mobile computing.
Why do I say "goofy"? Because you’d think in the middle of System 2007, I’d have more pressing things to do than jump into a brand new (to me) field and start thinking and writing about it, but I’ve learned not to second guess my instincts on these things. A bell has gone off in my brain that says "now’s the time."
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to wrapping your mind around the mobile world is the dizzying variety of mobile niches. Here’s how to make sense of them…
Earlier this week, I reported that I’ve finally become a regular cell phone user.
It’s really opened my eyes.
Motorolo just bought Terayon for $140 million.
This is the year I finally became a serious cell phone user so I’m going to start paying a lot more attention to these stories and what they mean.
Heavy use of a cell phone has made three things clear to me:
1. Mobile is where things are headed. The PC will be for production (word processing, graphics, video), TV sized entertainment (video games and TV), and involved browsing, but a lot of what people use their PCs for will migrate to the handheld.
Clearly, e-mail is headed there. So is what I call simple browsing: searches where you’re looking for something immediately needed – and local – like stores, hotels, gas stations, or places to eat. As for play, a whole generation of kids have been trained on Game Boys so I can see lot sof entertainment possibilities too.
2. Handhelds wil get more elaborate: bigger screens (for video watching), more mini-keyboards, and headsets will become common.
3. In this environment, consumers will not be very receptive to intrusive advertising. In fact, they’ll be as opposed to it as they are to intrusive telemarketing.
Interestingly, some of the things that Motorola reportedly bought Terayon for included its ability to deliver locally relevent video, permit digital insertion of ads, and graphic overlays.
I’ve actually developed a system that makes these same capabilities availble to web publishers. I’m hoping that after the System Seminar, I’ll have some time to package it for others to use. It’s quite slick, easy to use and makes it a lot easier to make Internet video sell.
The response to the Gary Halbert videos I posted last was very positive…and it made me think.
I’ve got miles of video tape on Internet marketing in my archive going back to 1994. Why don’t I start making it available for free on the Internet in useful bite sized pieces? (Duh!)
In just a few days, 1,200+ people told me they thought it was a good idea. They went to the site and joined the bulletin list to be informed every time I post a news video.
In addition to the Halbert material (much more coming by the way), I’ve posted some of my own talks (they were handy and ready to go.)
Coming post-System 2007 (sometime in late May or early June), I’ll be posting an amazing talk by the late Ken Giddens (the System was the first conference that invited him to speak) and Dan Kennedy’s talk at the System in Cleveland.
Then I’ll start going through all past System videos and cherry pick highlights. My plan is to post at least one new video at the rate of one per week. In short time, there will be hundreds available.
If you’re interested in taking a look at the site in its early stages, you can take a sneak peek now. I’m calling the project System Seminar TV.
You can click here to see a sample: Gary Halbert on Rave Review Ad Copy
I’ve been using Internet video more and talking about it less.
Here’s an example of the magic of Internet video at work…
We were lucky to have the late Gary Halbert as a guest speaker at the System Seminar we held in San Francisco just a few years ago.
It was one of the few times he spoke at an Internet marketing event.
I’ve been going through the tape of Gary’s talk and posting excerpts to YouTube.
I’ve posted three videos so far:
1. "Human Engineering"
2. "Gun-to-the-Head Marketing"
3. "The Biggest Marketing Mistake"
You can click on the link below and watch these videos now.
http://www.GaryHalbertLive.com
Enjoy!
Ken
P.S. If you want to see more free Halbert videos as I post them, make sure you sign up for the Gary Halbert video announcment list on the site above.
Ever since Internet video began its ascent, I’ve been looking for a source…
…a single destination I can send readers to – with confidence – that will give you all the Internet video tools and services and education you need a from one single, reliable source at an affordable price.
I’m glad to say that finally that day has arrived.
Click here and crack the Internet video code
You know I thought this was going to be the case, but you never know.
Every time a new medium like Internet video comes along, a whole flock of people start making wild
claims for it – as if the TOOL alone is what’s going to make the difference.
There now hundreds (if not thousands) of new ventures that have Internet video at their core.
How many are making money?
Here’s how it works.
Google’s YouTube provides a service that lets people upload videos to their site for free hosting and download. YouTube has a warning on the home page that basically says "don’t post other people’s copyrighted material," but, of course, people do.
Google is of the opinion that as long as it removes copyrighted material promptly when specifically asked, it’s in the clear. However, they had promised media owners that they were going to install a content monintoring service earlier this year to deal with the problem of pirated videos. They didn’t.
Viacom says there are pver 100,000 clips on YouTube service that belong to them and these clips have generated 1.2 billion video streams. Meanwhile, Google collects the revenue from these views and does not share it with Viacom.
Viacom says "take them all off now and keep them off."
I’ve got an opinion about this one, but what do you think?
Ken
P.S. I’ve taken the best of the original "how to" System Video Blog articles and put them into a convenient report format.
Free to System Video Blog readers and their friends.
http://www.internetvideomarketingletter.com
P.P.S. System 2007 is April 27 – 29 in Chicago. I haven’t started advertising yet and we’re more than half sold out. One of these days I’m going to get around to actually running a few promotions and I’m pretty sure we’ll sell the remaining seats pretty fast.
There’s an early bird offer in play – for now. Here it is:
Bob Metcalfe invented Ethernet way back in 1973.
Before that, he worked on ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet.
In addition to being an under-geek, Bob is also a master salesman.
Let me quote something about Bob from Emanuel Rosen’s excellent book "Anatomy of Buzz."
"Bob Metcalfe, father of Ethernet and founder of 3Com, told Scott Kirsner how young MIT engineers often came to him for advice.
After they go through his six-story town home in Boston’s Back Bay, many of them say something like "Wow! What a great house! I want to invent something like Ethernet."
At this point Metcalfe has to sit down and explain, "No, I don’t have this house because I invented Ethernet. I have this house because I went to Cleveland and Schenectady and places like that. I sold Ethernet for a decade."
OK, with that as a background, listen carefully to what Bob has to say about video and salesmanship, especially in the post script at the very end of the interview. Profound stuff.