Marketing and Ethics

By Tom Polanski
Marketing created to exploit the uninformed is reprehensible. For better and for worse, depersonalization and anonymity are part and parcel of the web. Since online companies no longer have to live and work in the communities they sell their products and services too, they’re left with names and numbers without a human connection. [...]

SiiTE Interactive’s Adventures with “Green” Websites, and some Tips to Make them Work

by Alan Ruthazer
As companies rush to go green, determining the right approach to creating effective web-based communication that will capture the spirit of environmental conservation becomes crucial to the success of website initiatives.
In recent months SiiTE Interactive, NYC, has developed several websites that help promote green thinking for clients like Lexus, Toyota, Chevy, Oprah, and [...]

Step Off Old Media: It’s Time for the Internet to Eat Your Pricey Lunch

A year ago I was at a dinner party where a VP from a major advertising firm told me that no matter what her luxury clients HAVE to be in the first 5 pages of Vogue. “It’s necessary for branding,” she said.
Last month a rep from another luxury brand did not want to pay [...]

The GM Lesson: Old Dog, New Tricks, Whole Brain

by Andrea Learned
Just when you think a huge, long-established, traditionally-operated industry is going down the tubes completely, creativity and innovation rear their progressive heads. This time Bob Lutz, a 75-year old with years of experience in traditional industries, represents the creative angle, and General Motors ( GM), which started as the Buick Motor Car [...]

Email, Mother of all Social Networks or just a Parallel Universe?

In Email Blows Away All Other Social Networks, Max Kalehoff makes a fairly straightforward case for email’s dominance as a communication platform. Quoting a recent Pew Internet & American Life Project survey which found that 91% of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 64 send or read e-mail, far more than any [...]

2008 is Going to be a Great Year!

I don’t know about you but I’m excited about 2008. Despite downbeat messages in the media I want you to focus on the fact that even though, as a whole, online holiday spending missed projections, there were individual days that showed dramatic increases over the same dates a year earlier. For example, according to ComScore, [...]

Guess what Wednesday? You are now the new “IT” day for email newsletter senders.

I have an email mailing list of just over 30K people. Every week before I hit send I’m faced with the conundrum – are my readers in the mood to receive this newsletter now?
One instance of email overload and they hit the unsubscribe button or – horrors – the spam button causing all ISPs to [...]