Posts categorised as Sweet
The cobbler’s kids are always the last to get shoes, or so the saying goes.
In my business, it is always our own design work that is left to last. 5 months after we moved in to the new Auckland office, we’ve finally got a sign on the building!
Thanks guys, this looks great.
Thanks Katie. This is simply brilliant.
It is no secret in my home and office that I hate mail. When you are the owner of a business you go on the publicly available Companies Office register you end up in numerous databases and become a target for an untoward amount of "personalised" direct mail. I also hate the other mail as well as this is mainly bills and stuff from the tax man. Let me count the ways:
This is a joke. Most marketing departments have terrible data which is invariably out of date because they or their agencies insist on creating copies of their customer database. Examples I can personally attest to include:
Forget about air travel, think about how much natural resources are consumed and carbon is generated with the creation and delivery of direct mail. What makes it even worse is that they usually use those window envelopes with a bit of clear plastic to show the address at the top of the letter so you can’t even recycle them. Send email or better yet, set up a blog with an RSS feed, and save some trees people.
We have to pay for a post box redirect, plus a courier to clear the post box and deliver it to our office. Some days all we get is direct mail.
Okay, rant over, you get my point.
So imagine my delight to see this link on Katie’s blog to a letter carefully written by someone just like me in Australia which he posted back to the marketing department of some unfortunate company as well as obviously sharing it with the world via the power of the blogosphere. As Katie points out, how many recipients of their DM campaign did not bother to respond with a witty complaint letter.
I know people go on about spam, but this is far less intrusive and easy to deal with. Marketers also talk about permission marketing and the recent flurry of activity around getting permission for email marketing databases in September 2006 with the new legislation in New Zealand. When has a company ever given you a clear opt out option in a direct mail piece. A simple website you can go to where you can tell the company that you no longer wish to receive direct mail please. You can go to this website and have your name removed from all databases in theory, however, it is up to the individual marketers to keep their database up to date with those that have asked to be removed. I’ll let you know if I notice any difference in a few months.
Am I just being overly cynical? Does anyone out there like getting direct mail?
Categories: Consumer Generated Media, Measurable Marketing, Sweet
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Love it.
This has been around for months, but I only saw it today.
It is not often you would think of buying a Dell product over Apple for the design and looks, but the new Dell Crystal 22 inch display is just that. I’m looking at my 20 inch Apple Cinema display and thinking I would much rather have the Crystal.
I would especially like the built-in speakers, my MacBook Pro speakers don’t really cut it, but I don’t like the idea of external speakers cluttering up my desk. It also has integrated web cam and mic.
It has just picked up Best of CES Innovations Award 2008. What a great start to 2008 for Dell.
Technorati Tags: dell, dellcrystal
Last year rumours surfaced that Apple intend to release an ultra-thin lightweight solid state drive MacBook laptop.
Now, a patent application from Apple describes what looks like at a docking station for the same MacBook that would be integrated into a widescreen LCD monitor. You could have all the portability but then just slide your new ultra-thin MacBook into the screen to have a full desktop set up.
If this is true, it would be amazing.
Mobilewhack got the scoop on this one.
Technorati Tags: apple
I have had a bit of lull in installing anything new on my iPhone as I have been so busy before Xmas, however, having had a bit of time now, I’ve found some excellent new apps.
telekinesis is a remote control app for your Mac. It allows you access your computer from your iPhone and
This is a very early release and considered a prototype only and there would be some major security considerations to take into account. It does however provide a framework to easily create and add more apps, so if this is picked up we could so a lot more remote control functionality added quite quickly.
Read more on teleinesis at MobileWhack.com.
Camera Pro supplements the very, very basic functionality you get with the Apple Camera application.
The Free version gives you:
Or if you are prepared to pay USD$19.95 you will also get:
They are also working on Flickr integration, although there are already some good free apps that do this (iFlickr and iPushr). This is a great app especially for the ability to zoom, although I’m not sure I need the paid version.
iPhoneSender is not strictly speaking an iPhone app, but it is very handy all the same. I love the Google Maps app and use it frequently. All iPhoneSender do is allow you to look on Google Maps in your desktop browser and then with one click email a link to your iPhone that will then open up directly in Google Maps on the iPhone.
WiSync is something that Apple should support right out of the box. As the name suggests, this let’s you sync files between your computer and your iPhone over a wireless network rather than using the cable. It does not replicate the sync that you get in iTunes, but is useful nonetheless.
Apple must be working on a bluetooth and/or WiFi sync for iTunes, this functionality exists in Windows Mobile devices.
This functionality is available from Apple’s 1.1.3 software update, but if you don’t want to brick your hacked iPhone (like me) then this app will do the same thing. Get this via the Installer app.
Google have kindly sent me a gift. I can’t say it is a Christmas gift as the card was deliberately neutral and wished me the best for 2008. My guess is they sent the gift to many different countries and were wanting to keep religion well out of it.
Anyway, what they sent me was something I had not seen before, a credit card size flash memory device that plugs into a normal USB port. What is astounding is that the capacity is 2GB!
Very cool. Thanks Google, happy 2008 to you to. May it bring you many billions in profit and fewer lawsuits.
