General

Apple Aims to Change the Face of Education

February 22, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

We were all asking ourselves what will be Apple’s next big thing. What new device did Steve Jobs nurture before his untimely demise?

Is it going to be Apple TV which Jobs was talking about in the past few years? A new sleek and shiny gadget we couldn’t do without?

About 10 days ago, and without the usual fanfare reserved for a new gadget, Apple revealed their new big project.

Changing education by making text books and knowledge easily accessible to all.

At the event, which was held at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, Apple executives said: “We try to bring the same energy and passion we’ve put into every product we make into our education business as well.” They start by reinventing the k-12 school textbooks.

Armed with the fact that there already are over 1 ½ million iPads used for education and over 200,000 learning apps, they are expending their reach by introducing 3 new components:

iBooks 2

This is a reinvention of the iBooks store and is geared toward textbooks. And what textbooks do they offer? One example is the excellent E .O Wilson’s book “Life on Earth”.

This kind of Interactive book is similar to the interactive wonder the guys from Push Pop Press did with Al Gore’s book “Our Choice”. The book was presented in a TED conference in Sept. 2009 and in many minds showed the possibilities of future education. Pop Push Press was consequently bought by Facebook in August 2011. I believed at the time Facebook is aiming to change the textbook, but Apple seems to beat them to it.

The new interactive books, with text, images and videos offer everything in such an elegant and seamless way. You tap on the picture, it becomes full screen, you pinch it small and it goes back to where it was before. Slides of microscopic looks and vast vistas are a simple click away.

To get the feel of this new book you can download “Life on Earth” free of charge. It might take some time because the file is heavy but it is well worth it.

Apple hopes that many more educators will put time (and money) into creating new books which will be presented at the iBooks 2 stores and will be accessible without charge.

The other kind of interactive books are the traditional textbooks, used by students all over the United State grades k-12. You can see a sample of the book on Chemistry from McGraw Hill. It not only looks more appealing than the traditional book, with more graphics and charts, it is interactive because you can do things with the book. You can tap and drag to highlight text you think is important, you can type note relevant to the page and you can collect all of them in one place, replacing notes and cue cards.

Those textbooks will cost no more than $14.99. Major publishers such as Houghton Miffilin Harcourt, McGraw Hill and Pearson are already working with Apple to produce more books.

iBook Author

To facilitate the creation on new books, Apple released a free OS X program. Those who’ve tried it say it is every bit as promised. It makes life very simple by dragging and dropping media in the places you want it to be. (http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/19/apples-ibooks-author-hands-on/)

Teachers can create their own books and share them with their students on iPads. They can expend to areas beyond the curriculum and design a lively course that can be easily updated as new research becomes public. They can post assignments and class schedules.

Why would a teacher do that instead of telling the students to find it by themselves? There is too much information on the web, apple executives say. Sorting it out, knowing what is important and putting it all in one place is the future of education. Pending Apple’s approval, the books will be published for free, in the iBooks store.

There’s another model of selling the books, in partnership with Apple (70/30). The books have a price limit of $14.99.

iTunes U

iTunes U has been around for almost 4 years, with very little attention outside the academic world. Regardless of this fact, more than 700 million downloads have already been made. Now the service is getting its own app.

iTunes U has a collection of thousands of courses from different universities. Some look like a spiral notebook and when you open them you can find the course description, the syllabus and the teacher’s bio. You can find out ahead of time what you are getting yourself into. The integration with iBooks is complete. If it says in the course you need to read an article from a certain book, no need to look it up in the store. A click will link you directly to the correct book and the right page. One click will get you back to the course and your homework. Some of the courses have live lectures as well. Teachers post assignments, homework and can leave notes. The Open University has some wonderful books on various subjects, for courses to be taken online.

The iPad can be now the only learning tool you will need. You can highlight sections, you can type notes, and you can have it all in one easy place for review.

No more excuses. Now you can learn anything, anywhere, anytime.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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SES New York Conference and Expo 2012 [Event]

February 20, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

March 19 – 23
Hilton New York
1335 Ave Americas
New York, NY 10019

The SES Conference and Expo is a series of conferences and events in which a special focus is given to best practices, tips, and trends in many different areas.

SEO
PPC
RTB
Demand Gen
Mobile
Social
Local

The SES events provide leadership instruction from some of the industry’s top experts. As usual, SES New York will have some highly recognized and respected professionals to educate attendees.

Just after morning coffee on Tuesday March 20th, Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google, will be a key speaker on the topic of balancing multiple media channels and leveraging the Clear Line of Sight model to help ensure business owners are optimizing across all important business drivers. Avinash is also the author of two bestselling books: Web Analytics 2.0, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day, of which 100% of the proceeds go to his favorite charities. Be sure to come to the keynote to learn which top four business drivers Avinash believes are most vital to your growth.

After Avinash’s set there will be five simultaneous sessions that attendees can choose from.

The Tools of the Trade for SEO

This session will help if you are a party responsible for a business’s SEO. Attendees will learn about up-to-date tools that will help you more efficiently accomplish your daily tasks such as:

Diagnosing and Correcting Issues
Indexing
Competitive Analysis
On-Site Optimization
Site and Page Level Information

Paid Search Competitive Analysis

It is part of any essential business plan to understand the particular strengths and weaknesses of the competition. The knowledge can be invaluable when it comes to learning which links you should acquire, what to pay for ads, which content you should offer, and the customer base you would like to gain. With moderator Andrew Goodman, of the SES Advisory Board, who is President of Page Zero Media and fantastic speakers Stephanie Bailey the Client Manager for Adlucent and Matt Van Wagner, President of Find Me Faster, attendees are certain to take away vital information about new trends in tools and analysis as well as other information critical to understanding your toughest competitors.

Crossing the Digital Divide: The Leap from Search to Display

In many cases, display advertising can lack in the areas of placement, targeted pricing, and ROI of search. Three notable speakers will share fresh takes on media models for your business.

Frost Prioleau, CEO, Simpl.fi
Steven Golus, General Manager, Go-to-Market, DataXu
Dax Hamman, Chief Revenue Officer, Chango

These speakers will present an intro to DSPs and ad exchanges, overviews of new display optimization strategies, and give plenty of advice for those already experienced search marketers who would like to take the leap into exchange-traded display.

Search Engine Marketing 101

This intro session will supply attendees with a comprehensive overview of all of the key concepts involved in search engine marketing. The speaker will be Bill Hunt from the SES Advisory Board and President of Back Azimuth Consulting. Attendees can expect to have vital SEM questions answered such as:

How can my site be best optimized to attract organic traffic without excess costs?
What are the major search engines that I should be concerned about?
How can I achieve high ranking or placement with search engine ad opportunities?

The last session for this conference hour is soon to be determined.

DBMEi Subscriber Discount

The SES has an incredible agenda prepared so do not miss out on your chance to attend or the opportunity to get a great discount for doing so just for being a DBMEi subscriber. Head to the registration and pricing page for SES New York 2012 and be sure to enter the code DBM20 for a 20% discount on your price.

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Group Commerce for Publisher-Based eCommerce Solutions: #SocialCommerce

February 19, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Recently, I sat down to an impromptu interview with the CEO of Group Commerce, Jonty Kelt, to learn more about what publisher-based ecommerce solutions can offer to more traditional form of media that may be lacking digital presence.

What is Group Commerce?

Group Commerce is a platform for publishers who want to integrate ecommerce into a successful element of their business. Group Commerce serves three groups that help to make their ecommerce program work.

Consumers
Merchants
Publishers

Group Commerce’s technology was designed to support, from the ground up, the unique lists of needs that brands and media companies require. Their enterprise-grade platform doubles as a command center for a publisher’s ecommerce program as well. There is nothing else like it anywhere. Group Commerce understands exactly what it take to succeed. The professional services offered provide all of the needed elements to ensure that their publishers succeed in ecommerce.

Founded in 2010, Group Commerce is backed by several popular names such as Carmel Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Spark Capital, and Bob Pittman. Group Commerce has some top-notch clients in names such as Chegg.com, Boston.com, CBS Local, DailyCandy, the New York Times, and many more. Based in New York City, Group Commerce now has over 100 employees in 11 major cities.

When asked about the publisher based ecommerce solutions provided by Group Commerce, Jonty Kelt shared with me, “We created group commerce with a mission to enable audience owners, to succeed in ecommerce. This is anyone with an audience, website owners, newsletter businesses, TV, radio, print and more. The brands have to engage with intelligence and integrity, so that they add value to their relationship with their audience. This can give traditional or ad based media companies more revenue stream, more engagement with their audience, attract new audience members and for some solid media based businesses, it can give them more relevance in a digital world.”

Before we wrapped up our interview I definitely had to pose to him a question that is near and dear to publications like DBMEi.

Since there is such a huge market now for content relating to the practices of digital marketing, social media and other similar services, how do you see Group Commerce fitting in for the smaller publishers? How can you begin to monetize platforms such as multi-blogger sites like DBMEi?

Jonty Kelt: We currently have an initiative in our engineering department focusing on building a ladder of service solutions which will enable smaller publishers such as bloggers, smaller websites and audiences to turn ecommerce onto their sites as well.

How Can I Get in on Group Commerce?

Group Commerce is rather picky about the publishers they work with. For the most part, applicants must have several of at least six unique qualifications.

Verticality
High brand engagement
Strong local voice
High user transactional intent
Size
Locally segmented

Since its launch, Group Commerce has raised millions in funding and Kelt plans to continue to expand the company’s reach into 2012.

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How to Create a Social Network that isn’t Phony

February 15, 2012 by Basil Puglisi 1 Comment

Networking has undergone many transformations over the years, and has now reached a sort of zenith in tandem with the Web 2.0. Before, networking simply meant hobnobbing with industry insiders, perhaps at conferences, perchance over cocktails. Now, with the advent and burgeoning popularity of social media, networking is nothing short of an intricate science, one in which we add and quantify “friends” and “connections.” We hear tips on how to network ad nauseam on the Internet. Indeed, whole blogs are devoted entirely to this one subject. But since networking, at its most basic level, involves people–with all their unpredictability and personal quirks and emotions and passions–then surely networking is also an art.

Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, perhaps most cogently brings home the idea that networking is about people in a recent Fortune article. It may seem strange to remind ourselves that networking involves people. But at the same time, how easily is the fact forgotten, when we may have thousands of friends whom we hardly know, when these social networking sites form loci where other, non-social transactions occur, like buying furniture and finding jobs?

Networking Begins at Home

Hoffman explains in his interview that networking starts essentially at home. If you are looking to build a truly genuine network, then log off from your Facebook profile and think about your closest ties—your friends, family, co-workers, or anybody you see on a daily basis. These ties are what Hoffman calls “alliances,” close collaborators for whom you would gladly do personal favors, and who would in turn, gladly “get your back” as well. It is from these alliances that a more extended network springs. Following alliances are the people with whom you have weaker ties, those who you are friendly with but see only on special occasions. These, too, have an important role to play.
Now of course, this isn’t to say that LinkedIn or Facebook are useless. They both provide springboards for genuine networking. But even the founder of LinkedIn emphasizes the importance of meeting people in person and learning to engage them with conversation that transcends shop talk.
In my own reading of Hoffman’s work, the most important lessons about genuine networking I’ve learned are these—you have to put yourself in other people’s shoes. You must start with the idea that you are going to help other people first. Of course, there will always be an aspect of self-interest in networking. But self-interest should never be your starting point. Secondly, you must realize that effective networking is more than just adding and liking. Networking, just like a garden, must be tended consistently if it is to grow and flourish.
Whether you are an entrepreneur seeking funding for your Big Idea, or you’re a freelance blogger looking for a gig, or you simply want to widen your reach socially and professionally, every minute of your day is a chance to further your influence. Call a family friend you haven’t talked to in awhile. Ask for an introduction to someone whose career choices you would like to pursue. Go out of your way to do a favor for someone else. Above all, put yourself out there, converse, shake hands, and, most importantly, mean it.
Author:
Katheryn Rivas often writes on the topic of online universities and welcomes any direct contact at her email address: Katherynrivas87@gmail.com
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How Fab.com Achieved Two Million Users in Seven Months with #SocialCommerce Marketing Strategies

February 14, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Although Fab.com was founded in early 2010 as a social network for gay and lesbian users, it has quickly turned into an e-commerce site with an incredible following. As their social network base grew it made the leap from networking site to high-end flash sales. This young endeavor is already making a huge impact in its industry.

Lessons from Social Commerce Summit 2012 #SCS

Sheezan Bakali, director of marketing for Fab, spoke at the recent Business Insiders’s Social Commerce Summit. She revealed the basic points behind the strategy that brought Fab.com over 2 million users in just seven months. Sheezan shared that Fab’s keys to success was based on three elements in their marketing strategy.

Product

Sheezan shared that they provided “virtual products and physical products that must delight every day.” She highlights that the product itself should never be skimped on. The consumers who purchase need to be provided with a quality, end product that will serve as its own selling point. Customers need to feel the satisfaction of purchasing a quality product along with the comfort of having a user-friendly front end.

Make sure the product that arrives on your customers doorstep speaks for itself.

Social Media

Fab was created to be social. To keep everyone on Fab in-the-know, they now have a calendar listed on site that displays products that are soon to go on sale or have just went up for a sale price. This means their consumers usually begins to post on Facebook or Twitter without needing additional prompting. No one likes hearing about a great sale after it ends, but Fab’s analytics show them that this particular strategy really gets their followers talking, or tweeting. Currently, every 30 seconds, someone is tweeting about a Fab.com deal.

In one great test of their marketing power and reach, Fab promoted a product known as Beardo. This unique product is a combination of a a stocking cap and a knit ‘beard’ to keep the face warm. This quirky product sold quickly and became a huge success on Fab.

Users are encouraged to invite their friends, earn credits, and engage with other Fab users.

Strategic Advertising

Fab didn’t come out of the gate with endless funds for costly worldwide advertising possibilities, but they also have full understanding that social media cannot do all of the work either. In order to find the perfect balance, they target their marketing as specifically as possible.

Just at launch time, out of the 175,000 members, over 50,000 of them arrived via ads. Those early influencers helped to fuel the pinwheel that helped to create such a significant jump in their user-base. During their advertising process, Fab goes out of their way to target brand new communities that they believe can appreciate what Fab has to offer. This strategy can also go a long way in feeding back into social media.

From Artfire to Etsy, Fab now joins a growing list of boutique and economy retail sites that are gaining ground by providing consumers with a level of customization that may not have been possible before, at least not when on a budget. The option for budget clothing is available in every Walmart across the country, the option for customized clothing that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg are only available on sites like Fab.

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What Klout is Doing with User Data and #SocialCommerce

February 13, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Over the last few years, we have all observed as friends and followers found themselves virtually up-in-arms about privacy issues on just about every social network. Each one seems to have gone through its own growing pains when it comes to sometimes questionable sources declaring user’s information is being utilized in a variety of suspicious manners. However, most have come to terms with the fact that data is not so often sold as it is aggregated and measured for many marketing purposes, includes those that benefit the user.

Now that we are using so many social networks simultaneously, we have not one profile, but a fine, long, and continuously growing, list of them.

Facebook
Twitter
Google +
Foursquare
Flickr
Yelp

As each of our most favored networks have grown, they have also steadily increased their focuses on the type of user data that is cultivated, and how it is shared.

Klout

Klout has been a terrific way to integrate our profiles, and then run them through an algorithm that will display the various details of your own social media influence. Klout currently supports 12 different networks and as their developers continue to add more, your social influence can continue to climb.

Using Klout can have more benefits than simply the benefit of having the most Klout. Users are treated to a wide variety of Perks that can be anything from several months of free trial on a notable website or service, to a free sample of the latest and greatest body wash. Sometimes a user can sign up for selected Perks, and just as often, Klout will extend exclusive offers to users based on their social influence rating and common topics.

12+ Networks and Growing – Where is my data being used?

Recently, a representative from Business Insider visited with Tim Mahlman, the Chief Revenue Officer for Klout. He wanted to share exactly what Klout does do and does not do with their user’s personal data.

Klout is not selling your data. Even though Klout does have a rather complete picture of you and your personal choices and preferences, this information is never sold to advertisers or brands.
Klout does leave the virtual door open to trying out new revenue models, they also plan to ‘keep their users first according to Mahlman.
There is only one element of Klout that any brands have access to and that is a user’s Klout score. Klout is the gatekeeper between their users and any influential brands.
Pinterest is one new network that Klout is highly interested in.

Since Klout already has 12 current networks and a list of networks that are in development, they are always in on the market for a new fast growing network to add to their social influence algorithms.

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Is Klout Crossing the Line When it Comes to Privacy?

What is Klout Doing with User Data?

Klout and Big Data

Daily Deal Horror Stories – Are they True? #SocialCommerce

February 12, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Image representing LivingSocial as depicted in... — Image via CrunchBase

By now, you have likely heard some of the horror stories about businesses that have destroyed their bottom-lines, or worse, with daily deals or coupon offers. There are those like the LivingSocial deal offered by Scripa Massage & Wellness that allowed customers to save more than 88% on an enjoyable spa experience. However, the shop sold so many deals that it would have taken Scripa Massage & Wellness from three to five years to complete them all. A bad case of overselling.

80% of Merchants are Willing to Run Subsequent Deals

LivingSocial’s CEO, Tim O’Shaughnessy, shared with Business Insiders CEO Henry Blodget, that around 80 percent of businesses that run a LivingSocial daily deal, will agree to run another deal if offered. O’Shaughnessy’s response came on the heels of the questions and horror stories shared by merchants at the Social Commerce Summit in New York on February 7t^h.

Although O’Shaughnessy admits that they do not nail it every single time, he also insists that on the whole, it does work in just the manner the merchants advertise it. He shares that the most vital element to a daily deal such as through LivingSocial, is that the merchants upsell their products and services if they want return visitors.

The Whole Picture

Although Amazon reported that LivingSocial showed a loss of around $558 million just last year, O’Shaughnessy reiterates that those numbers do not show an accurate view of any profit or loss margins for LivingSocial. Although the biggest part of the sum was in the beginning of the year, the gap definitely narrowed towards the end of the year.

“There’s one small chart that Amazon filed that doesn’t really give a particularly illuminative view of the business. There are certain things from an accounting perspective that you can’t see with that limited of a view. It’s fun to see little snippets and extrapolate them out without the big picture.”

With around 60 million users, O’Shaughnessy also shared that aside from Groupon, LivingSocial has virtually no serious competitors currently, and that is company is doing extremely well. He also insist that as they grow, they are also learning how to more efficiently market to their consumers. If a consumer has never opened an email about for a discount on a local sports event, they probably shouldn’t be sending the emails to them anymore. LivingSocial has been working on a better way to engage those who do look for and desire their specific service offers.

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Empire Avenue Missions for Increased Social Engagement

February 8, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Empire Avenue is doing it again. They are mixing fun with social networking and engagement with impressive results. On Empire Avenue, users are encouraged to and rewarded for participating in social activities. In the past this has meant:

Sharing and trading ‘stocks’ on individual users
Participating in group discussions
Earning increased value through usage of your integrated social media networks

While we were all happy playing in the social network stock market, Empire Avenue developers were working hard to give us even more opportunities to create our own fun social engagement opportunities.

Empire Ave Missions

Empire Avenue has implemented Missions for their users. Stockholders can now create missions that require the user to carry out a social networking activity. So how exactly do you create an Empire Avenue mission?

Once you have the hang of creating missions, you may wonder what benefits you can enjoy by using them.

You can build brand loyalty among existing fans
You can drive web traffic to your website, Fan Page and more
You can attract new followers and increase your audience
You have a fun way to do all of the above

Currently, Missions are still in the beta testing phase. However, if you want to try out a mission of your own, simply request access to create your own mission.

Check out what some of Empire Avenue’s current users have to say about their mission system.

“Shareholder Missions increase engagement beyond what can be accomplished in even the most entertaining conversations over stock transactions… Very powerful and compelling new feature.” – Kevin Strehlo, (e)MARATHON

“I was honestly surprised that offering rewards yielded a far greater amount of engagement from the same audience.” – Chris Pirillo, (e)PIRILLO

Take the time to request and create a mission of your own and see for yourself how much fun you can have while increasing awareness and social engagement for your brand.

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#SocialCommerce: Jonty Kelt Interview Transcript

February 7, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Business Insider hosted the Social Commerce Summit on Feb 7th, 2012 at Chelse Pier, during that event I had a chance to sit with Jonty Kelt, the CEO for Group Commerce. Here is a transcript from that interview with a general article to follow on Feb 19th at 5pm, right here on dbmei.com.

About the event:

Since the immersion of social media into digital commerce, incredible opportunities and options have opened for business owners. Socially marketing your products and services can come with its own challenges though, so the Social Commerce Summit, or SCS, has a focus on presenting some incredible tips and tricks along with the best practices common to businesses successful in this form of marketing.

The SCS will provide the platform for experts in their industries to share their own best practices and ideas that have been built upon cutting edge trends and technologies and are the products of incredibly successful Fortune 500 campaigns and strategies.

The Interview: (Recorded by Basil C. Puglisi, Transcription done by Joy Lynskey)

JK: Started the company 2 years ago with a vision for media companies that are publishers, that they should engage in ecommerce. They have great brands, reach, authority over some topics with certain groups, engaged audiences. Those things we believed could be translated into an ecommerce business, alongside the traditional types of advertising businesses. We created group commerce with a mission to enable audience owners, to succeed in ecommerce. Being as broad as possible. This is anyone with an audience, website owners, newsletter businesses, TV, radio, print. The premises of what we are saying here is that the brands have to engage with intelligence and integrity, so that they add value to their relationship with their audience. This gives ad based or ad revenue fueled businesses, the opportunity to have an ecommerce business alongside of it. This can give traditional or ad based media companies more revenue stream, more engagement with their audience, attracts new audience members and for some solid media based businesses, it can give them more relevance in a digital world.

We have only been live for about 15 months and currently have about 15 live , all of them traditional media companies. [name companies] A lot of the brands mentioned began with one or two people managing which has now, a year later, turned into teams of 20 or more employees managing their ecommerce. Now that they have seen it can work, many are now aiming for 9 figure revenue businesses.

BP: So what group commerce is offering is the opportunity for them to survive in the digital era with obvious subscription services failing, people are less willing to pay for subscriptions but instead prefer to get content for free. So this is a way to kind of fill the gap ?

JK: In some cases that is true. Some of our customers were already digital, such as Daily Candy, and this is just tacked on. Other services do not have much of a digital business presence and this can be a way to augment their traditional business and help them to survive in a digital world.

BP: So what are some of the verticals that you guys are seeing, in ecommerce that’s targeting general vs specific.

JK: So very simplistically we have two target segments, vertical such as; thrillist.com for young men, dailycandy.com for young women, active.com for endurance athletes, and then local media, which tends to be more horizontal, the new york times for new york, boston.com for the boston area. The vertical ones are leveraging vertical authority, such as dailycandy is an expert on what young women want, that brings to bring great content and comments. Different than boston.com doesn’t have a specific audience. They have everyone, young and old, uptown and downtown. so they have to use their local authority to find the best merchandise and present it to the best audience.

BP: Do we see a higher conversion rate with vertical specific content versus the general content. We talked a bit about how Boston was able to generate something relevant to Boston being Boston based locations. I imagine some of the verticals when they’re talking about how to sell products outside of geographical limitations

JK: So local is normally services, nationally is normally product. A local can offer local services, and even local product. National, we see more products since national cannot usually offer local service.

BP: Mike Wallace was a big speaker over at Boston.com, you guys had him join you, what does it mean to bring this type of person into your fold?

JK: Our company is about 100 people right now. In order to pull off what we are focused on we have to have really high-quality people with different disciplines, technology, merchandising strategy, sales, finance, hr, account management, and Mike Wallace was actually a customer of ours at Boston.com. Mike is a born leader, he has executed on the vision extremely well at Boston.com, and we got on extremely well. He loved the vision we had. After about a year and a half of working with Mike, we had conversations with him on having him help us with our business. We wanted him to use his knowledge on how to actually build a program for boston.com in a group commerce setting.

BP: So his official title is..?

JK: Vice President of Publisher Sales which means finding new publishers who would like to participate in this. Finding new publisher partners is his main focus right now.

BP: So one of the things we are talking about when looking at ecommerce is that we have a lot of conversation about daily deals, selling locally, lot of conversation of the push vs pull. Push being here is an opportunity or offer, I may take advantage of it later. Vs the I am standing in the middle of boston right now. Push vs pull mentality, selling in advance, vs I’m standing here I am looking for something to do, where is the best deal or value for me? So have you guys seen the platform showing that push vs pull.

JK: We have been very focused on push. Our customers, Boston.com, New York times, they have very powerful media, they have a voice in many touch points, social media, email list, web page, printed editions, so they are leveraging that and the fact that they have ecommerce now and are offering great stuff. With respect to the on demand, I am in the middle of boston and looking for a great deal right now, that type of pull is not the type of commerce we are currently offering, because we have been more focused on the push.

Groupon and LivingSocial are two of the things that you are referring to with respect to standing in the middle of Boston and having thirty things available around you, is just not reality yet. That is something that we have not been focused on, specifically because we have been more focused on the push. I like to consider the word pull being that when the customer is aware that dailycandy now has stuff on their website to buy, they go there of their own volition, it’s pulling them there. Rather than them having to be interrupted with an email. And that is the holy grail really, for what we are trying to do. We are using a public outlet to push awareness of what are the deals in front of them, which creates buying behavior.

It takes time for our customers to educate their audiences, some of them have only been going now for a little over a year.

BP: There is this huge market now for content relating to the practice of marketing, social media, etc, how do you see you guys fitting in for the smaller publishers? How do you start to monetize platforms such as multi-blogger sites like this?

JK: We have an initiative in our engineering efforts to build a ladder of service solutions, which will enable smaller publishers, bloggers, small websites, etc to turn ecommerce on.

Social Media Week: Social Media Action Camp #SMWsmac [Event]

February 5, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

This will make the fourth official year of Social Media Week’s return to New York. One of the world’s most unique and innovative global platforms for a large selection of interactive conversations and information on new trends in the social and mobile media industries.

Global Promo for Social Media Week 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXLIL0VMt1s

Why Attend Social Media Week?

There are quite a few compelling reasons to attend Social Media Week.

They include:

Free Attendance ~ Due to a generous outpouring of support from partners and sponsors, the events that are hosted by Social Media Week directly, are free to attend.
Community Content ~ The program is curated in a unique manner allowing coverage for every new and emerging trend, areas of technology, and the industry sector.
Unique Venues and Locations ~ As with any other learning experience, those that organize #SMW understand that environment can be detrimental or conducive to retaining knowledge and understanding. Thanks to many strategic partnerships, as well as the venues that donated space and time, places such as the New York Times, MoMa, and the Paley Center for Media will help to enhance attendee experience.

How to Attend

If you are interested in attending Social Media Week events you can head to their page and create an account if you do not already have one. Once registered, visit the scheduling page to locate the events that you are interested in. Remember that all events are free unless otherwise stated. When you find the events you want to be a part of, click the Attend button to the right of it and you are registered. You must register to attend each event individually.

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What is Social Media Action Camp?

The Program Schedule will be released the day before the event. At that time you will be able to plan your day. The time for each session is being held due to the need to allow our VIP guests and teachers to make arrangements to attend and participate in Social Media Action Camp.

Speakers include:

Elliot Nix – Head of Mobile, Google
Bill Corbett Jr. – President, Corbett Public Relations
Jeff D. Goldberg – President, JG&A
Maria Prieto – CEO, The Hispanic Network
Mardy Sitzer – President, Bumblebee Design & Marketing LLC
Amy Vernon – VP Strategy, Hasai
Jeff Ogden – Host MAD Marketing TV
Garth Holsinger – VP Global Sales & Business Development, Klout
Basil C. Puglisi – Executive Director & Publisher, dbmei.com
David Meerman Scott – Author, The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Anthony Napolitano – Director, StumbleUpon
Ellen DePasquale – Director, Constant Contact
Nathan Latka – CEO, Lujure
Dupleep Wijayawardhana – CEO, EmpireAvenue

And more, including two surprise speakers yet to be announced.

The Social Media Action Camp, or #SMAC, is a one day conference that is focused on providing a environment that encourages small business owners, entrepreneurs, and media enthusiast to increase their knowledge on the benefits of helpful social media practices. The camp will feature a range of learning sessions created with a focus on actionable information. Every session lists a set of learning outcomes attendees can expect.

Why Attend Social Media Action Camp?

Attendees can expect to take away vital information on some very important topics.

Business Collaboration Practices ~ Attendees can expect to learn how to supply services equal to the power of the big guys, while fashioning a social business presence that only a small business can create.
Collaborative Blogging ~ This session offers a look inside the practice and the purpose behind collaborative blogging including how those efforts can truly pay off via the share factor on social media networks.
IRL Networking ~ This session will help small business owners learn how to create the most effective strategic alliances that help to generate real-time buzz about your business, products, and services.

In addition, attendees can expect to walk away with functional knowledge on how to create a successful social strategy, a greater understanding of the four major social networks, and a larger box of digital social media tools that can be used for monitoring statistics and updating campaigns.

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How to Attend

General Admission for #SMAC is $99 and for students $39. As a DMBEi subscriber you are entitled to a 25% off discount when you head to the #SMAC home page from here and enter the discount code dbmei25 during the registration process.

The Social Media Action Camp will be held on February 16t^h, 2012, from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM at the Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10017.

Digital Brand Marketing Education is the event organizer. Please feel free to contact: @BasilPuglisi – info@dbmei.com – 631.909.7360

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