Verizon and the Treo 650/700

So, there I was, picking up some DVD cases for my collection, and I decided to stop into my lovely neighborhood VerizonWireless store to check on the availability of the Treo 650. I was chatting with the manager, who now says that VW is SKIPPING the Treo 650, in favor of the 700, which she says is already in early testing with Verizon.

Lies? Damned Lies? Speculation?

Going Cold Turkey on DM

I’ll talk more about this later, but I wanted to make sure I remembered to do it. Good thoughts over at Johnnie Moore’s.

[later...]

I appreciate what Johnnie’s talking about here, nay, I’m in bed with it. What a luxury it would be to take my own organization and completely dismantle the marketing organization in favor of sensible marketing and branding. What a luxury it would be to experiment with taking an entire marketing and advertising budget and applying it to “customer experience.” What a luxury it would be to manage to achieve acceptance of such a plan to implement.

[Read more]

Apple and the Up-Sell

Here’s one of many nods to the iPod’s proclivity to lure the unsuspecting music lover to purchase a Mac:

Music To Apple’s Ears

It seems Apple Computer’s (AAPL) iPod music player may be doing what years of marketing have been unable to do: persuade PC owners to jump to the Mac. On Nov. 22, Piper Jaffray (PJC) put out a report suggesting that 700,000 or so iPod lovers either have or plan to buy a Mac in the next year, and that 1.2 million more will do so in 2006. The report, which set a target price of $100, sent Apple shares up 11%, to $61.35 — a four-year-high. But don’t look for Apple to make a serious run at Microsoft’s PC market share. Even with new buyers, Apple will still have less than 3% of the PC market, says Piper Jaffray.

I don’t like the way the writer phrased that first line, “… what years of marketing have been unable to do…” Years of marketing? Unable to do? It’s the rabid and fanatical marketing engine, manifested in tipping point user dynamics, smart market choices, and athletic reaction time to external forces coupled with those brilliant products. The iPod is a strategic piece of a far larger puzzle that just so happens to be one path to the same end.

BusinessWeek on the iPod

MSN Spaces

I’m glad Microsoft decided to take on blogging, because Blogger was really too complicated, what with all the colors and lines and delicious buttons. At least Spaces is full of colors, lines, delicious buttons and content filtering. (As if I don’t get enough of this at work.)

And now, Xeni has performed a highly scientific test on their content filtering scamscheme with some predictable surprising results!

MSN Spaces: seven dirty blogs