Earlier this week, BuyWidget crested a mini-threshold of 150 site installations. That’s significant as the BuyWidget sites are a cross-section of music and artist-based, social network, individual blogs, and influencers with their own communities. We’re really please at the growth rate, since it’s not even 2 months since we launched, and that so many sites have embraced our idea and are participating in the BuyWidget social commerce community. Lots of new features are in development with the app… thanks for signing up, and if you haven’t got one yet, here’s the link.
Facebook and Twitter get the headlines, but one of the biggest developments in socialized content and expression enabled by the internet has been the rise of the Mom Blogging communities. At the center of this ecosystem are a number of high ranking aggregators that act as hubs to the spokes of all the Mom Blogs. Not mixing metaphors, but the viral expansion loop of these communities is impressive, as the growth and ultimate reach of each blog and micro-community extends beyond the hub, out to its individual blog visitors.
Here are a few current Alexa rankings out of the Top 1 Million Sites on the web for the major Mom Blog aggregators:
It’s a great community for the Consumer Product sector to advertise and evangelize new products. We put an ad on BloggyMoms this week for one of our products to see what the impact is compared to other sectors in which we’re marketing this app. We can’t wait to see how this community responds!
I seldom look back on a week, preferring to always look ahead to the next week. Even rarer are the occasions when I would allow the occurrences to coalesce into a posting, but in the technology world, a lot has happened – one event was substantial in scale, others… smaller but portending the development and shaping of the future, and then… there is what is ahead! So here we go…
iPhone 4 – Like many others around the globe, I stood in line a week ago Thursday (June 24th). For 13 hours… which is a long time for just about anything. Fortunately, The Apple Store’s WiFi at The Falls in South Miami was working, so my iPad was in contact with the world, Victoria Secret let me charge my iPhone, and it was largely a productive and somewhat pleasurable day. While my iPad arrived on the release day, April 3rd, direct shipped from China, the last time I’d gone to a store to buy any new product on the day of release was in 1995 – August 24th, for Windows ‘95. A lot can change in 15 years in the technology world. I expected that Apple would sell 2 million phones over the 4 days from Thursday through Sunday. This week, the 1.7 million number surfaced in reference to 3 days of sales. So 2 million over 4 days is probably light, irrespective of limited stock etc. The phone is great, for me – I’m not experiencing any antenna issues. I truly can’t believe how stunning the display is. Any CD covers in the iPod section look incredible. And FaceTime is amusing.
Kin – RIP – No surprise – As I wrote in April I indicated the prospects were grim for this device before launch. And since then, Robbie Bach and Jay Allard have exited Microsoft, the device was widely criticized, and it surfaced that that factional dissent existed between the flagging Windows Mobile and Kin teams – never a positive indicator for an aligned corporate strategy or a product’s potential. We may never know how many of these devices were sold – yes, the rumors were “around” 500. Nor could we calculate how many hundreds of millions this mistake cost Microsoft in cash outlay, lost opportunities, and reputation damage.
But certainly, iPhone 4’s first weekend sales killed the Kin.
Great week for Startups!
Woot! - Woot! gets acquired by amazon. After investing several million dollars into Woot in 2008, amazon fully immersed itself in the social commerce space by acquiring Woot.
Tapulous – Disney certainly had the inside knowledge of how successful Tap Tap Revenge is, through the tight relationship with Apple. Great to see this frugally funded startup joining a company with significant investments and acquisition successes in social and mobile properties.
TESLA – TESLA IPO’s – Behold the new Tesla Roadster. Stunning, quick, and green. Congratulations on being the first American automotive manufacturer to IPO in 54 years – not since Ford in 1956 has there been a new public company creating cars here. If only Silicon Valley’s speed of innovation had once been embraced by others in the automotive sector.
BuyWidget – One of our apps, BuyWidget, got mentioned in Billboard this week. As the music biz saying goes, you’re not a hit until you’re a hit in Billboard. Thanks for the mention! Thanks also to the many, many new sites who signed up for BuyWidget this week. Among them, one took me back a few years. Steve Kilbey was the unmistakable voice of The Church, whose big hit “Under The Milky Way” is still alluring, even a “few” years after it was first released. Steve has teamed up with Australian Martin Kennedy and has made some great new music. Check out their site, and this performance clip to hear what they’re creating.
Canada Day - Canada Day was July 1st. So, a belated Happy Canada Day to all my friends and family.
Looking ahead
July 3rd
I’m not much of a fan of Wimbledon, and the World Cup holds only a passing interest for me. But starting tomorrow I’ll undoubtedly be mesmerized for three weeks by the Tour de France. This year there are four strong teams in contention – Astana, Radio Shack, Saxo Bank and Cervelo – all with great riders, and the potential for great stories and drama. As I wrote a year ago, Lance Armstrong remains the story, but there are significant sidebars to be found along every mile of the ride. the race is defined in the Time Trials and mountain stages, so with the Prologue on the 3rd, mountains starting on the 8th, and final TT on the 24th, it will be an epic tour.
4th of July – Have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day!
I think constantly about these two business fundamentals. When all facets of a business – operational, financial, product development or innovation and marketing are distilled to the most valuable assets, in the end I believe the essence is found in Innovation and Marketing. So it is that I find myself assessing the merits of all [...]
BuyWidget launched today – an app that allows for distributed commerce of music downloads from sites, portals or blogs. Try it out – build your own BuyWidget playlist at www.buywidget.com customize it with your own logo and name, and copy the code to your site. It’s easy! Update the playlist as often as you like! [...]
Deep into some current client projects, I completely missed Patriots’ Day this past Monday. And so late Monday afternoon, I also realized that I’d missed this year’s running of the Boston Marathon. When I checked on the results, I was blown away by Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot’s winning men’s time 2:05:52 I was aware it was [...]
It’s always music that serves as a constant reminder of who I am, what and why I do what I do. Sure, a beautifully designed and executed website or consumer product, any buildings by the two Franks (Gehry and Lloyd Wright) and Paul Rudolph, the works of Miro, Pollock and Rothko will always stop me [...]
BuyWidget sites are a cross-section of music and artist-based, social network, individual blogs, and influencers with their own communities. We’re really please at the growth rate, since it’s not even 2 months since we launched, and that so many sites have embraced our idea and are participating in the BuyWidget social commerce community. Lots of new features are in development with the app… thanks for signing up, and if you haven’t got one yet, here’s the link.
