When do you think a company should respond to a crisis?

Upon the news of Mattel’s lead paint problems, if you also import products from China and think that many of your products might also be tainted, do you respond immediately or do you wait as long as it takes to be certain? As a marketer in charge of PR, how would you manage the messaging around a crisis? Let me know what you think!

In 2000, we were still building them, but the budgets dropped dramatically for Web site design after the tech stocks crashed and the events that followed such as 9/11. In 2001 and the early part of 2003, there were many starved Web design companies.

From mid 2002 to today, I’ve seen the majority of businesses suddenly wanting a total “redesign”. Budgets have been slowly increasing, but this time around companies are focused on using the Web to save money for their business. Content management, contact us forms, site search and other functionality changed from expensive extras to baseline offerings - and charging for premium services such as custom programming were replaced with open-source solutions or off-the-shelf products. Businesses wanted efficiency, automation, and real business results from their Web site with tools to measure success.

Having been through all the industry cycles before, my experience tells me that it will likely be several more years before Social Media is recognized as “mission critical” by a majority of businesses. We are still in early adopter mode. The mad rush for more businesses to “get in the game”, with dramatic increases in budgets and another shortage of specialized professionals to design, develop and manage social media initiatives will likely hit a peak in 2012.

So, upon seeing the Yankees die in the first round again, I was quite inspired to write (and record) a song.  After getting positive feedback from friends and a few local radio stations, I decided to post it up on YouTube and share it with other Sox fans.

After my video was up and running the votes and comments started to trickle in. That’s when I noticed a link that says, “Try out the NEW (beta) version of this page!”

…click.  Oh okay!

The first change is to the video details and a greater emphasis on the author who created and posted the video.  In the old version, it has a button that says “subscribe”. The problem is that it’s difficult to see what you are actually subscribing to, so they fixed this bad UI, by putting the user’s name again in tiny print under the button. In the new Beta version, the authors name is much larger and the subscribe buttons are both in a separate box which allows the user to see who they are subscribing to.

In the old version they had a 3-tab section for containing “Related videos”, “More from this User” and “Playlists”. In the new version, they are stacked on top of each other.  I found this to be more effective because the user can see everything at once or they could expand or collapse them quite easily.

Another change is a 2nd column on the far right of the screen that offers yet another list of promoted videos, which made the old design look cluttered and messy. The new beta version is cleaner because the promoted videos are at the bottom of the stack and the user can see them pretty easily… especially if there is a string of several comments to scroll through.

Lastly, the rating aspect under the main video has been simplified with larger icons in the new beta design, which leaves more room for the embed code.  I like that they have moved the embed code to this location. Before it used to be under the author’s name which didn’t make sense to me.

In the new Design, you will find the following benefits:
-    Everything pertaining to the user  (subscribe, bio, edit features) is all in one place.
-    Everything for the video is under the video (share, favorite, ratings and embed code)
-    Cleaner overall, does not require as many tiny-font helper text

Good job YouTube (powered by Google)

Originally posted on WeAreSmarter.org. Myles is a guest blogger for the WeAreSmarter project.

My question is: If you select “No one”, and it won’t be visible to anyone except for yourself, then why would you load a photo in the first place? I’m not sure what the thinking would be behind a setting like this. Over all, I love this feature.

The only challenge I had was taking a photo of myself that I could be happy with. Should I wear a suit and neck tie to look more like the President-elect of the AMA? Or maybe I should wear some Redsox swag to show my support for the home team? Well, in the end, I just went with whatever I was wearing at the time… a t-shirt and a hat with the owl from the tootsie-roll pop commercial on the front. Sometimes the best costume is the one that fits.

Technorati Tags: social networkingweb 2.0social networks

ReportonBusiness.com says, “The Times figures it can more than replace the $10-million (U.S.) in subscriber revenue it generates each year with ad dollars from the increased traffic. And if the Journal follows, it will be betting that the profit from boosting its audience will exceed the industry-leading subscriber list it has amassed, with close to one million registered users.”

“…Internet advertising has become too powerful and too lucrative to block non-subscribers from your website, executives across the newspaper industry have told analysts and investors.”

Exciting!

If you were paying attention, you probably heard about the big event they put on called “M Planet“. Well, they want to follow that theme and essentially change the AMA into just “M”. So, in 2008 when I become president of the local chapter in Boston, I guess I will be, “MBristowe, president of MBoston”. It will be interesting to see if the letter “M” can become synonymous with “Marketing” and more specifically with the AMA.

Apparently the AMA is not alone in it’s hunt to own one of 26 letters of the alphabet as their brand. While Oprah Winfrey and Overstock were battling for the letter “O”, QVC has had it’s eye on the letter “Q”.

In fact, on October 1st, QVC will reveal another step in their push for a new brand of their own. On a huge New York bilboard, QVC will continue staking their claim on the letter “Q”. The first set of billboards they put out in early September, in NY, Philly and LA, had the catchphrase, “iQdoU?“. Most people had no idea what it meant, but changing a household name… or acronym in their case into a single letter isn’t the easiest thing to do I suppose.

Take a look at a video of the “QVC” billboard:

This new billboard reveals the answer to those who were wondering what it all means:

Technorati Tags: qvciqdoubrandingmarketing

Here is a quote from a Financial Times interview:

“Accessing the Internet from a mobile phone will soon be as common as text messaging and voice calling, and it’s FIM’s goal to deliver these new free, ad-supported experiences as additional options for our users on top of our incredibly popular premium mobile services,” said John Smelzer, Senior Vice President and GM of Mobile for Fox Interactive Media.

As Mr. Smelzer suggests, mobile phones will help people be more connected to their Space by sending and receiving MySpace messages and friend requests; commenting on pictures and profiles; posting bulletins; updating blogs; finding and searching for friends; and viewing or changing mood status.

Technorati Tags: socialmediamyspacesocial networkingweb 2.0

If a user is interested in using the MyQuire platform, they get you started by having you create a profile for yourself. It is less than a daunting task to enter the basics (name, email address, a password and your birth day), so getting through this step and clicking on the verification email seem quite speedy enough.

I find it interesting that your profile is at the center of the MyQuire universe. This “profile” approach is typical for social media sites, but it differs from the approach of other Web 2.0 project management applications like, Basecamp, which focuses on the details needed to start and manage your project.

In terms of understanding the audience, I would say that Basecamp potentially delivers a user experience that more closely matches what a user expected; and certainly does so more quickly. It will be interesting to see if this difference has any impact on their success… especially for people who have use other Web 2.0 project management platforms before.

Technorati Tags: project managementmyquirebasecampsocialmedia

The video drew more than a million viewers to the Clinton campaign Web site and to YouTube, which further illustrates the growing reliance by some of the more technologically savvy campaigns to connect with voters online.

In the new Clinton clip, Hillary Clinton, like Tony Soprano, spins through the musical selections in a diner in Mt. Kisco, N.Y., near her home in Chappaqua, as Bill asked her about the campaign and song winner.

The Soprano touches are subtle but perfectly obvious to any fan of the series. Nicely done.

Technorati tags: hillary clintonhillary-clintonsopranosyoutube

Yesterday, Google announced a new partnership with Sina Corp as part of its continued efforts to provide value in China. Under a strategic partnership agreement, Google’s search service will be embedded in Sina’s search box, according to the Sina news release.

“This partnership leverages the strong offerings of two Internet powerhouses to provide Internet users in China [with] a better overall experience,” Sina’s chief executive officer Charles Chao said in a statement.

The deal will see Google users gain easier access to Sina’s news content as well as co-operation in advertising and search services.

Google partnerships in China include Soso.com and 163.com. With this deal, Google now has a close relationship with the 2nd, 5th and 6th most popular search and portal destinations in China, with Google.cn sitting down at 7th. Within the next 18 months, China will have a wider population of broadband users that the US and Google’s strategy of building relationships with the top 10 portals is a great way to increase awareness and much desired market share.

Technorati Tags: sinagoogle新浪china