‘Cross The Breeze

• Survey Reveals Email as Sales Marketing Cinderella Story
  “This report reveals the results of the survey of 1,829 sales and marketing executives, with questions relative to their company’s use of email for sales and marketing, as well as campaign results and budgets. “
  (tags: email marketing budget sales campaign results leads roi)

• Online Video Ranking: MSN/Live Surge, Competitors Sink
  “This month’s online video stack-up saw a major reshuffling with 3 of the Top 5 players trading places amid heavy shifts in traffic. YouTube continued to outperform the market, growing 1% in October to 213M visits on nearly 52M unique visitors. The Top
  (tags: online ranking statistics video compete msn youtube yahoo)

I think it’s fair to say that I’m a frequent traveler as I spend some time in a plane a few times each month. That said, every time I’ve entered a plane I start reading a book or the newspaper and won’t look up for anything else than food, drinks and the notice that we’ll be landing soon. The last thing I’ll pay attention to is the safety video or instructions given by the flight attendants. Been there, done that… and it’s boring.

Funny enough, today I did watch a safety video… and that wasn’t even in a plane. When I saw this post from Karl Long I figured I’d follow his advice and watched the new Virgin America safety video. It’s like Karl says, even if we’ve all got accustomed to the fact that some things - like safety videos - can only be boring, Virgin America proves us wrong. Together with the agency Anomaly they made a difference and it results in the fact that I actually got interested in checking out the Virgin offering next time I have to book a flight. Kudos!

Technorati Tags: virgin, america, safety, video, anomaly, instructions, fun

• How to Stop Content Theft: The Best Tips « Lorelle on WordPress
  “One of my heroes, Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, whom I’ve written much about and love his work on the Blog Herald, has simplified the issue of content theft into two brilliant and understandable articles.”
  (tags: article copyright theft tips wordpress content)
• Dove Viral Draws Heat From Critics - Advertising Age - News
  “When you unleash an “Onslaught” on YouTube, watch out for the counterattack. “
  (tags: advertising article consumer marketing social video viral dove onslaught)
• Xbox 360 Fall Update includes social networking features
  “The Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update will be upon us on December 4, and Microsoft has started releasing details about what we can expect from the patch. Since Xbox Live has always been about the social experience of online play, the newest feature is anoth
  (tags: socialnetworks xbox features update dashboard microsoft friends)
• Media Culpa - Two Swedish eyes on media and public relations
  “The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet started to show blog links via its own blog portal Bloggportalen.se on October 23, 2007. I noted on that day, that we should “prepare to see a major increase in blog links to Aftonbladet.se the coming weeks”. The reason be
  (tags: blogging traffic aftonbladet sweden blogs links)

Don’t worry, I’m not talking about myself here… my life is just fine ;) There’s a person I would like to introduce you to though, and that is Charles Stab. Charles is a very special person as he ‘channels business horoscopes from the cosmos’ (at exactly 12:32 PM by the way). And although his life is pretty shit, he has agreed to share these horoscopes in a short daily podcast.

Now I’m sorry Charles has a shit life, but I do enjoy his podcasts quite a bit. I actually enjoy them so much that I’ve become a fan of Charles’ Stab shit life. Also check out the Facebook group that comes with the podcast. Last but not least, Charles is writing the 10 step guide to mastering boreout at work which will be available as an ebook on Friday.

And to Marcus Brown, the man has to spend quite some time with Charles… you rock ;)

PS: Oh yeah, there’s a ringtone too

Technorati Tags: thekaiser, charlesstab, shit, life, podcast, fun, humor, facebook, ebook, work, guide

• Conversation Agent: Measurement and ROI for Social Media
  “Many companies are starting to talk about integrating social media into their communications plans, and that is great news for at least two reasons:”
  (tags: blogging communications measurement media social socialmedia socialnetworking ROI)
• Nightshift: The history of social media in a blink
  “If you ever questioned the history and definition of Social Media, I suggest you read the instructive last issue of the Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication, October 2007 co-written by famous blogger danah m. boyd”
  (tags: socialmedia socialnetworks history danahboyd)

“Done, done; on the next one
Done, I’m done; I’m on to the next one”
- One by One, Foo Fighters

It’s hard to believe that yet another year has passed. It just seems like only a few weeks ago I celebrated my first year of ‘Cross The Breeze and yet today a second year has passed. And it has been fun again, although I am wondering more and more lately where all this is going. Funny enough, shortly after my first year on this blog I started a new one on a totally different topic (and a lot less serious) which has recently passed ‘Cross The Breeze in traffic.

There are some things that happened this last year that marked the year. The first one happened in January when The Blue Monster cartoon became a bit bigger than just a cartoon. Many Blue Monster related ‘things’ have happened since then, quite a nice adventure to be involved with. Another exciting project that became bigger than I expected was Bring The Love Back. The reactions on the ad were beyond what I could have imagined and knowing that something new is in the works makes it even better.

In the meantime I changed the theme of this blog away from the dark background to a lighter one and was fortunate to have one of the readers to design a funky new header as well. Thanks again Dr. Pixel.

Another fascinating project to be involved last blogging year was the Age of Conversation. A fine idea, a fine bunch, … and still very much alive. As said, I’m quite proud to be part of that. On top of it all I was just in NYC when the book was launched and that called for a celebration as well with CK, Mark Goren & David Reich. The fact that you meet new people through conversations on blogs is still one of the most valuable surplus about blogging and also last blogging year a few new connections were made.

A last thing I noticed while going through last year’s posts is that I’ve become more fascinated about the concept of influence and hence wrote about that quite a lot. I’m working on a little project right now that should provide some more information around all that soon.

That said, let’s just kick off this 3rd year shall we ;)

There’s a very good post about ‘understanding web design‘ on A LIST apart that you should definitely read:

"Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity."

[Via VisitMIX]

• Jaffe Juice: Top 10 Reasons why Marketers hate Second Life (but really just hate themselves)
  “Ahead of tomorrow’s Virtual Thirst finale, I thought I would write a different kind of post…which isn’t directly in favor or against Second Life per se; nor is an endorsement for or against Virtual Worlds; but rather an analogy using SL as a metaphor f
  (tags: advertising blog blogs branding brands innovation marketing online secondlife virtualworlds web2.0 metaverse)
• Virtual Earth / Live Maps: Track your Holiday Flights in 3D with iFly
  “Online flight trackers are useful for knowing when to leave to meet guests at the airport and practical stuff like that. IFly is using the Virtual Earth map control as their visualization engine on their website which gives them traditional 2D views of w
  (tags: ve virtualearth tracker holiday plane flight 2d 3d)

• Torres Talking: Zune 8 is fantastic
  “Yesterday we held the Zune up to my year-old iPod nano which I was so excited about last October, and the difference is remarkable. The iPod with its arcane menu structure and tiny little screen seemed just as outdated as iTunes does compared to the Zun
  (tags: zune ipod mp3 music microsoft wireless)
• Microsoft, Google and Yahoo Acquisitions Compared
  “The LibraryHouse blog has a nice summary of recent acquisitions (July 2006 through June 2007) by Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, roughly color coded by category: “
  (tags: acquisition acquisitions business strategy web2.0 yahoo Google Microsoft)
• Status Update: Facebook Is Letting Users Drop the “Is” | Epicenter from Wired.com
  “Facebook has caved into popular demand and will make the “is” in status updates optional, effective tonight, according to allfacebook.com.”
  (tags: facebook is update status)
• VentureBeat » Buzzlogic helps place ads on influential blogs, raises cash
  “Buzzlogic, the San Francisco company that tries to help marketers and others gauge which blogs are the most influential for specific topics, has raised an extra $2.5 million in financing to help it promote its new advertising product.”
  (tags: advertising influence blog buzzlogic venture)