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Google Dashboard Changes Our Thinking About Privacy
It’s About Managing Our Public Profiles, Not Doggedly Keeping Everything Private
Advertising Age | November 11, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Our attachment to a definition of privacy that was born in a different time and place seems misaligned to the realities of today’s internet world. That’s why I think the introduction of Google Dashboard is an important step in the right direction. It will help us evolve our thinking about digital privacy to focus our attention on managing what is digitally public about us rather than on doggedly focusing solely on keeping information private.
PDF version of article.
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Judy Consumer’s head is in the clouds.
Or at least she is starting to look up.
Advertising Age | October 29, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Judy Consumer, in this case, a mom who does freelance sports photography, asked me the other day, “I wonder what all this talk about computing in the clouds is about? I have so much footage that I need to access and I do it today with external drives. Managing these external drives is driving me nuts.”
Now, if this was an isolated comment, it probably would not have aroused my interest. But that was the third time I had heard that type of question in about two weeks. It was hard not to take notice.
PDF . JS Google Dashboard Changes Our Thinking About Privacypdf
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Why charging for online content (mostly) won’t work.
Advertising Age | October 21, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
The “give away free content so advertisers can reach an audience” model has been around for decades. But the internet has, most stubbornly, not been able to follow the inevitable ad-supported formula that accompanied “traditional media” for so long — that consumers will accept your content in exchange for viewing ads. What went so wrong so fast?
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Google Wave should beware of the “Communications and Collaboration” Pitch
Advertising Age | October 16, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
My curiosity about Google Wave was naturally piqued, given my AT&T creds, but frankly their “communications and collaboration” motto is what caught my attention. I wanted to see how a company whose DNA rests in “search/ad platform/digital” technologies would go about creating a communications and collaboration solution.
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The New Viral Marketing Engine
Media Post | October 13, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
What do Ninja Turtles, Facebook, Hush Puppies and Pokémon all have in common? The answer reveals the secrets to creating a viral marketing machine.
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Short CMO Tenures Reflective of Dysfunctional Companies
Advertising Age | October 5, 2009 in CMO Strategy by Judy Shapiro
Considering the tenure of the C suite, no one doubts that the shelf life of a CMO at about 26 months is noticeably less than that of a CIO at about 38 months or that of a CEO at six years.
Many articles on the subject offer some explanations and these explanations do account for some of the answers and yet they also seem unsatisfying at some level. There was more going on here; I wanted to understand what that could be.
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”Judy Consumer” is finally all A-Twitter
MediaBlips | September 25, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Here’s the lesson for all of us who work in digital and technology marketing: Judy Consumer is being introduced to new technologies at an accelerating rate. While she is willing to invest the time to learn about new technology, there needs to be a clear vision of how the technology works in her life.
“Judy Consumer” can see through marketing hype in a heartbeat.
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Has straight talk in technology marketing become a casualty of the marketing wars?
Advertising Age | September 2, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
In any battle between titans, there is always collateral damage and straight talk in technology marketing seems to be the casualty of this war. In the epic PC versus MAC battles, Apple seemed happy to sacrifice straight talk in its bid to win market share. They told the truth – but they did not give “Judy Consumer” the straight story.
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Paltalk is a pal to affiliates.
Revenue Performance Magazine | Issue 26; September 2009 (Page 50)
Paltalk adds a new spin to affiliate programs by developing a specially designed program for its power room owners. With this program, room owners can leverage Paltalk’s successful and proven conversion model of enabling group video chat.
“What we’re doing is taking our best room owners and creating an affiliate network just for them”, Shapiro said. “Instead of going out and recruiting affiliates … it’s far more effective to start with your own users.”
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“Judy Consumer” still not sold on BING.
USA TODAY | August 4, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
The last time I did a comparison of Bing and Google, many of you were critical of my conclusion — you said I lacked thoroughness in my “hypothetical” test on behalf of “Judy Consumer”.
But I’ve been seeing Bing’s new commercial that explains the “decision engine” promise in more detail (sort of), so I decided to give it a whirl again. This time, I actually had a decision to make — I wanted to find a two- to three-day getaway.
My takeaway is simple. I like the idea of a competitive search engine, but I think Bing disappoints because its “decision engine” positioning is ill-conceived on two levels.
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Google, AT&T and the DOJ: How to avoid history’s mistakes.
Advertising Age | July 27, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Many of you will remember the July 7 DigitalNext post, “Why Google Voice Reminds Me of AT&T,” where I broadly outlined how Google, like AT&T before it, can be undone by its ambition to dominate a key “infrastructure” sector, like the web. I contended that, much like AT&T, Google’s quest to dominate web services can divert precious resources from core businesses, leaving it weaker, not stronger.
The article generated, uh, considerable conversation; some polite, some not. Now, a mere three weeks later, Wired’s Fred Vogelstein chivalrously comes to my defense (however unwittingly on his part) with his article, “Keyword: Monopoly… Why is Obama’s Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google.” In it, he explores the Department of Justice’s newly launched anti-trust investigation of Google (see where this is going?).
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Social media is not the solution for every business
Marketing Thought Leader | July 21, 2009
Despite the media hoopla surrounding Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking options these days, social media is not the solution for every one and every business situation. That fact is very eloquently expressed in today’s Ad Age Digital by Judy Shapiro’s excellent post “Not Every CEO Needs to Be a Social Media Star”. Read the full article at http://tinyurl.com/m47tut.
Ms. Shapiro addressed the recent media headlines that denounced Fortune 100 CEO’s as “social media slackers” based on their low participation on Twitter, Facebook, and personal blogs. She, in turn, chastises the media for their lack of understanding and empathy with the tasks and responsibilities of a senior executive with a major corporation.
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Avoid the pitfalls of a tech startup – in three lessons
HostReview | July 17, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
While tech analysts like Warren Lee dissect the cadavers of failed (or almost failed) startups, (his article is entitled “What Sank Veoh and Joost? Too Much Cash Too Soon” in Ad Age), it seems as worthwhile to examine successful outliers like Paltalk to see what can go right. Paltalk, as a profitable and successful video based community, is the happy exception in this space and may provide insight on how a successful tech company can thrive.
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Paltalk sells back shares to VC, sees continued stability
Fierce VoIP | July 15, 2009
Paltalk, the video-based social chat network, announced it has repurchased a 20 percent stake in the company it had sold to Softbank Capital for $6 million five years ago. Judy Shapiro, senior vice…
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Bing vs. Google: Consumers Can’t Tell a Difference
CNN Money | July 11, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
We consumers seem to becoming pawns in the power struggle between internet behemoths Google and Microsoft. To Google, we are “products” to be sold to highest bidding advertiser and to Microsoft…
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Google’s Tarnished Chrome: The Making of a Disaster
IT Business Edge | July 9, 2009
Often, when watching companies full of kids who were hired right out of school, I wonder how many of them actually earned their grades and how many simply gamed the system by downloading papers…
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Handling of Google Voice reminds AT&T vet of Ma Bell
Fierce VoIP | July 9, 2009
Google has made numerous product announcements over the past several months: Google Wave, Google Voice, the Chrome web browser and now its new Chrome operating system. Paltalk’s July Shaprio, who did a long stint at AT&T…
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Bing vs. Google: ‘Judy Consumer’ Can’t Tell a Difference
Advertising Age | July 9, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
We consumers seem to becoming pawns in the power struggle between internet behemoths Google and Microsoft. To Google, we are “products” to be sold to highest bidding advertiser and to Microsoft…
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Why Google Voice Reminds Me of AT&T
Advertising Age | July 7, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
I’m an ex-AT&T “Bell head,” so anything telecom always gets my special attention. When I saw the Google Voice re-announcement recently, I couldn’t help wondering…
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Social Media: Communities Based on Trust Are Stronger
Advertising Age | June 26, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Reading about the brutal lay offs at MySpace last week sent chills down my spine. It comes only two months after a new CEO, a former Facebook exec, took over from MySpace’s founding CEO…
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What Can You Trust? Let Twitter and Twine Help You Decide
Advertising Age | June 18, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Much digital ink has been spent trying to explain the likes of Twitter and Twine. Often, they are characterized as the poster children of the Web 2.0 trend. Pundits wonder if they represent a…
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Why Netbooks Are the Paring Knives of the Technology World
Advertising Age | June 9, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
The “feature arms race” in new products is fundamental to our consumerism way of life: Product managers the world over create “good, better, best” product portfolios with an ever increasing number…
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The Tyranny of Technology in Testing Marketing Effectiveness
Advertising Age | June 1, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Many of us have been here: We undertake a marketing program with promises of tracking “everything” — clicks, click-through rates and conversions. CEOs want clear answers, so with heady…
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Back From Web 3.0 — With Some Problems to Solve
Advertising Age | May 27, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
The nice folks at Mediabistro invited me to join them at the Web 3.0 conference last week. I was able to attend a few panels and hear lots of passionate hallway conversations about scraping…
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When “bleeding edge” becomes mainstream
HostReview | May 18, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
I come from the traditional advertising world where packaged-goods titans like P&G would buy millions in mass advertising which would stimulate billions in sales. A predictable…
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In Web 3.0 We Trust — or Not
Semantic Web | May 19, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
The Web 3.0 conference is about to kick off on May 19 in New York. No doubt it will be well attended by anyone wanting to see what’s “bleeding edge.” After all, Web 2.0 is so “done.”…
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A Digital Myth: Technology Doesn’t Make Life Easier
Advertising Age | May 11, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
In the past several days, I have seen nearly a dozen dreamily written articles espousing the virtues of the still-rumored new iPhone that can, in one mighty device, make video recording, editing…
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Here’s a Reason to Rethink Community Building
Advertising Age | May 4, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Recently, Nielsen and Pew confirmed what we all know: People’s participation in social networks is up, way up. In 2008, 23% more of us have filled in profiles at social networks and more than 70%…
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Top 6 Free Social Marketing Technologies for E-Commerce Success
HostReview | April 27, 2009 by Judy Shapiro
Once upon a time, all you needed to start your web-based business was to put up a website, create an online store, buy some Google ads and then sit back and watch the money …
Handling of Google Voice reminds AT&T vet of Ma Bell
Fierce VoIP | July 9, 2009
Google has made numerous product announcements over the past several months: Google Wave, Google Voice, the Chrome web browser and now its new Chrome operating system. Paltalk’s July Shaprio, who did a long stint at AT&T…
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