Someone thinks I am dead

Checking the blog stats today, I notice an odd search term that sent traffic my way:

“Joe Seale obituary”

This leads me to think two things:
1. Someone thinks I am dead
or
2. A friend with an shared, odd sense of humor is trying to get my attention.

Either way, the revelation has given me a couple of ideas for future posts. What will happen to obituaries when newsprint dies? Using Web Analytics as a bellwether of things to come.

Google Trends Spammed

It appears that Google Trends has been spammed. I wonder how long it’ll take for Google to resolve. Check out Hot Trend #2 in this link: http://google.com/trends

Screenshot here: http://easycaptures.com/1358606159

Hat tip: http://www.twitter.com/brianchappell

My First Follow: Twitter Virgin Tree

Today, I ran across this interesting twitter tool from dcortesi.com:  My-First-Follow.

I thought it’d be neat to continue following the path until it ended in a loop.   Here’s what I discovered to be my Twitter Virgin Tree:

@dchurbuck

@sogrady

@twleung

@technorati

@Joi

@mutsumi

@miyagawa

@Fumi

@dorion

@Mickipedia

@Zadi

@Vubui

@mjlambie

@barcampla

@boogah

@seanbonner

@factoryjoe

@jack (twitter founder)

@lane

AAA Motor Club’s Busy Day

Scanning through my twitter feed on a slow pre-Christmas workday, I ran across this message from Adam Clyde, an influential social media marketer with IBM.

adamclyde: AAA motor club roadside asst: “due to high call volume, call back or visit us online” I’M STUCK ON THE ROAD. I PAY SO YOU CAN HELP ME NOW.

Interested in how many other posts are out there lamenting the same bad luck and customer service, I search twitter for “AAA” here is a sample of what I find all within 1 hour of Adam’s post:

lisatella: Last night my car battery died. By 9 AM, a AAA guy had replaced my battery for me and I was at work! I love AAA.

14 minutes ago · Reply · View Tweet

simonashton: Waiting for AAA to come and start my car so I can drive to the doctor. Sigh.

26 minutes ago · Reply · View Tweet

mileskahn: On hold with AAA. Must be their big money-making week. I picture the AAA cigar chomping CEO counting his cash and laughing, “More snow!”

35 minutes ago · Reply · View Tweet

LeonyCantaTierr: Waiting for a hight of 23? In Nashville? Car won’t start and waiting for AAA.

about 1 hour ago · Reply · View Tweet

I believe AAA typically has very good customer service. I’ve always been extremely happy with them.  I’d recommend them to my friends and I imagine they have a high NetPromoter Score.

Question: does AAA need a Twitter Account (@AAA already taken)? My answer, yes. There is a HUGE opportunity for AAA to improve customer service using social media. Imagine getting a dm from AAA with a link tracking the tow truck driver to your location  via google maps.

Lots of possibilities, but will AAA go the extra mile or rest on their laurels?

I feel sorry for Lois Whitman-Hess

Poor Lois. Even though I disagree with her tactics, I still feel sorry for her. She’s getting absolutely destroyed by TechCrunch and others.

Lois is one of the most obnoxious PR people you’ll ever meet, and the poster child for everything that is wrong with the industry.

Edit:  Read Lois’ apology. Short and to the point. Best of luck, Lois.

Sentiment: Twitter Index

I came across this interesting tool from labs.Summize.com that scans twitter comments for your keyword and then gives it the following rankings based on the attitudes within the tweets (Ugh, I still hate saying that word): wretched, bad, so-so, swell, great.

I’m not so sure I buy into the method of automated attitude/tone indexing, yet. I just don’t think an algorithm can do anywhere near the job of a human when it comes to analyzing tone. Nevertheless, this is a neat tool that gives marketers a glimpse into the status of their brand. Here’s a quick look at some brand’s I searched:

• “BB&T”: Great
• “Suntrust”: Great
• “Wachovia”: So-so
• “First Citizens”: wretched
• “Bank of America”/”BofA”: bad

ThinkPad.com Ownership

When Lenovo bought the IBM ThinkPad brand back in 2005, it appears that the domain name was not part of the deal. ThinkPad.com takes you to an odd landing page on the IBM site. A WhoIs look up reveals an IBM registrant. Maybe the 18.5% stake IBM has in Lenovo includes the thinkpad.com domain.

Strange.

Kirtsy vs. Skirt!

I’ve been following the tussle between social bookmarking site sk*rt and print mag skirt.com. Apparently skirt.com lost the battle in court, but won the war as sk-rt.com has changed to kirtsy.com. Overall, its probably a blessing in disguise. The whole sk*rt brand and sk-rt.com URL bugged the brand-nerd in me.

You can read a funny take on the story at The Bloggess (a hilariously, smart blog)

UK Crackdown on Fake Bloggers

Ad Age reports that the UK is making it a crime to set up a blog to promote a brand under the guise of a consumer. This is great news that makes our job as marketers more challenging. Sure it is easy to create great testimonials, but that defeats the very nature of what word-of-mouth marketing is meant to be. Kudos to the UK, I look forward to seeing how this develops.

It will also be interesting to see how this affects blogger product reviews in exchange for free merchandise.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=126667

Nod to David Churbuck for the pointer.

What’s Changed Report

Thanks to Avinash Kaushik for being such a great metrics mentor.

This great report from ClickTracks is just another way to allow your metrics reports to mean more to those that need to read them. It shows you a comparison of keywords over two time periods: one group that is rising, another that is falling. Another arrow in the actionable data quiver.