Marketing Biz: Speed, Attention & Sunsets

Marketing themes this week were speed, attention and sunsets. Not the pretty kind, but the ones where products you love are going to be retired and executives at high profile companies ‘move on to other things.’ This is … Marketing Biz. CDN.net Launches as First User Customizable Global CDN for Everyone “Today’s rich content demands […]

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Marketing themes this week were speed, attention and sunsets. Not the pretty kind, but the ones where products you love are going to be retired and executives at high profile companies ‘move on to other things.’

This is … Marketing Biz.

CDN.net Launches as First User Customizable Global CDN for Everyone

“Today’s rich content demands plague online businesses with bounce-back, high latency and downtime that are harmful to their customer retention, marketing and SEO efforts. That’s why CDNs are now essential for all Web property owners. However, buying CDN is generally an expensive, frustrating experience where customers pay for resources they don’t end up using, and get a pre-packaged service that doesn’t match their business,” said James Fletcher, Marketing Director, CDN.net.

It’s not just Maverick who feels the need for speed. Users demand it as well and speed improvements are uniformly shown to improve results. CDN.net could help level the playing field for small businesses.

Twitter acquires We Are Hunted, readies standalone music app

The app, to be called Twitter Music, could be released on iOS by the end of this month, according to a person familiar with the matter. Twitter Music suggests artists and songs to listen to based on a variety of signals, and is personalized based on which accounts a user follows on Twitter. Songs are streamed to the app via SoundCloud.

Twitter wants to capture the social entertainment space. They’ve conquered TV and are now aiming at music, which puts them squarely in competition with Facebook. Make no mistake, both companies use music as a way to increase attention, which allows them to increase advertising inventory.

PayPal acquires award-winning and innovative engineering team of Duff ResearchPayPal Logo

This talented team of engineers will be joining the PayPal technology team to help us build creative and simple ways for our customers to use the PayPal digital wallet.

I suppose you can’t count PayPal out of the digital wallet game, but moves like this make me believe they’re further behind than they expected. Too many competitors have a head start, and PayPal is still lurching under their corporate culture.

Facebook acquires Storylane team, but does not get its product, stories or dataStorylane Logo

Storylane was a ‘story telling’ site that bent the personal blog paradigm in ways reminiscent of Obvious Corp.’s Medium. Facebook, exemplified by its latest News Feed redesign, has been trying to rejuvenate its standing as a place where people share photo-centric stories and read those stories, rather than simply resign itself to being a place where people dump stuff because they feel obligated.

I think the observation in this excerpt is spot on. Facebook understands that the platform needs to be more personal and not viewed as a utility. The story angle should be a sign to marketers as to the direction Facebook is headed.

Market Research Provider AYTM Rolls Out Its Biggest Update Yet With Bigger Panels, Video Questionnaires & MoreAsk Your Target Market Logo

The company has also now brought in its own market research experts to aid those who either don’t know how to or don’t have time to use the service’s still free DIY tools. Instead, starting at $995 and up, AYTM offers a turn-key service with a seven-day turnaround time. Mazin says that 80 percent of its research assistance is handled by its own in-house staff, while another 20 percent is outsourced to external experts, given the subject of the customer’s questionnaire.

I love the idea of online market research. So much so I worked for a company that did it before pivoting to a different model. What AYTM is finding is that conducting market research the right way isn’t that easy. Not every schmo off the street can do it. The question is whether there’s a big enough market in the middle between expensive market research firms and products like Google Consumer Surveys.

Outbox: Yahoo Mail Head Sharma Leaves Company

Some sources said he clashed with CEO Marissa Mayer, who has been involved in the recent overhaul of one of Yahoo’s key consumer products, due in part to recent issues related to email vulnerability and other issues. But others said he simply wanted to move on and has a new job lined up already.

The fact that Yahoo is bleeding email client market share, has a gaping hole in their email security and can’t seem to get product updates to work correctly might have something to do with the exit. This is a good thing for Yahoo if they can find someone who can turn the tide on such a sticky product.

AnnouncementBitly Fish

Bitly is announcing today that Peter Stern has resigned to pursue other interests.

Looks like the actual announcement of Bit.ly’s CEO resigning got shortened. This slap-dash post and recent wrong turns in their product make me fear for the future of Bit.ly.

A second spring of cleaning

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader.

I’m sure you’ve heard this news by now. But it merits an inclusion since it could make it far more difficult for curators to find and distribute content. A very sizable portion of Marketing Biz is sourced via Google Reader.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

AJ Kohn
Contributor
AJ Kohn is Owner of Blind Five Year Old, a San Francisco Internet Marketing firm specializing in search. An experienced marketing executive with a successful track record spanning 20 years, AJ combines a deep understanding of search marketing with a passion for product strategy and iterative product development, fusing design and user experience with quantitative analysis.

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