A study soon to be published by the International Journal of Research and Marketing confirms it: Businesses with positive word of mouth grow faster than their competitors.

Today with the over-abundance of marketing messages, what friends and neighbors say about a product carries more weight than ever.  The Internet makes such exchanges easier and more impactful than ever.
Some interesting comments from a 6/28 Financial Times article on this subject:

1. Positive word-of-mouth is more common than negative word-of-mouth
2.  However, when negative word-of-mouth does get going it can spread rapidly and very  destructively.  (Remember what happened to the Krypotonite lock when it was revealed via an Internet video that it could be “picked” with a ballpoint pen?)

Here’s the take away from the article:

Paul Mardsen of ClickAdvisor.com says that working to cut the level of negative comment about a product has almost TRIPLE the impact on sales as the same investment made to foster positive word of mouth.

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Back during the first Internet industry bubble, I wrote a series of articles called “The Internet Reality Check.”

My milion dollar piece of advice back then (and my talk was taped at Wharton) was “If you really, really want to buy Internet shares, wait and you’ll be able to get all you want for pennies on the dollar.” No one called it better.

Now, at the height of the second Internet industry bubble (oh, yes we are), here’s a short “Internet reality check.” (more…)

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The world wants peace.

My brief video interview with Scott Ritter was the #2 Most Top Rated Video on YouTube today.

You can watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOMfMq5BM9o

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A great American Henry David Thoreau once said: “What is the point of a fine house if you don’t have a tolerable planet to put it on.”

What is the future of our great country?

It matters because it’s where most of us are going to spend the rest of our lives and where our children and grandchildren and their children will spend theirs.

Now is the time for all good men and women of good will to come to the aid of their country.

Online sources for “Waging Peace” by Scott Ritter:

Buy “Waging Peace” at Amazon

Buy “Waging Peace” at Barnes and Noble

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There seem to be two schools of thought in the Internet marketing world.

The first I call the “rape and pillage” school. These folks don’t know their customers and they don’t want to know their customers. They just want to get people to their site, convert them, and get their money.

False advertising, forced continuity, less-than-zero customer service…anything and everything goes. It’s all OK to these folks. (more…)

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It wasn’t that long ago – just 16 years in fact – when there was no such thing as the World Wide Web.

And the Internet? It was for a handful of scientists and uber-geeks only.

Who made the difference? That’s easy. Tim Berners-Lee.

The Queen of England just awarded him the Order of Merit and though I don’t normally go in for all that “royal” stuff, this is a case where I’m glad the institution exists because clearly Berners-Lee’s contribution requires massive acknowledgement.

“I was just in the right place at the right time,” he’s been quoted as saying often about his invention. That may be true, but he was in the right place at the right time – and did something about it.

Berners-Lee’s goal wasn’t self-aggrandizement or to pile up a fortune with which to lord it over others. He saw a way to make an existing tool easier and more accessible to others and invested the considerable time, effort and energy needed to make it happen. He didn’t need to. His salary would have been the same whether he invented the World Wide Web or not.

Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, you ask?

Yes, lock, stock, and barrel.

Web pages, web sites, web servers, web browsers, HTML, hyper text transfer protocol (the “http” you see in every web address)…all Berners-Lee’s inventions.

Where would we be without the web today? I hate to imagine.
Well done Sir Tim and Hail Britainia.

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I sort of understand wikis. I get the theory and I’ve even contributed to some, but i’ve had trouble explaining what a wiki is and why anyone would want to use one.

Bottom line, wikis are about collaboration.

Here’s a great short video that explains the basics of wikis and how to use them, using is simple, easy-to-understand example.

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I seem to be having at least one animated conversation per day about Tim Ferriss and his book “The 4-Hour Workweek.”

In one of the online bonus sections that buyers of the book get free access to, I read a quote that I think sums up Tim’s secret to success:

“I (make) more mistakes in 8 weeks then most make in 8 years.”

Tim was referring to the methodology behind his rapid language learning program, but this could easily apply to any of the other things he excels at: dancing, martial arts and direct marketing.

Most people spend their lives avoiding the discomfort of making mistakes. That’s probably the biggest mistake of all.

The only way…the ONLY way…you can learn a skill (as opposed to a theoretical idea) is by doing, making lots of mistakes in the process, and learning to identify and correct your mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the better.

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Sharon Odom Fling shared a cool resource with me today that she uses in her business. It’s called Hit Tail. Amazingly, it’s free. You can buy an enhanced version, but you can get quite a bit out of the free version.

It’s a tool that makes it easy to analyze the search terms people are using to find your site. Here’s a video that explains how it works and why you’d want to use it.

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It’s a dilemma.

Without quality, what’s the point in producing something? But seeking perfection can be counterproductive in the extreme.

Where do you draw the line? (more…)

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