web internet marketing

Today I was able to catch up with Gary Key who is a Technical Marketing Manager for ASUS to ask him a few questions about Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 3.

James : Thanks for your time Gary. As a Technical Marketing Manager, how have you been involved with the release of Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3?

Gary : It’s really exciting to be involved! ASUS has been providing both mainstream and cutting edge hardware to Microsoft to ensure the best possible user experience with Internet Explorer 9. Not only have we been supplying exciting hardware for testing but we’ve also been providing input and feedback on how to make IE9 perform its absolute best on ASUS products.

James : You said that it’s been exciting being involved with Platform Preview 3. What’s been most exciting for you?

Gary : Here at ASUS we’ve been at the forefront of netbook and notebook innovation by providing the type of CPU and graphical processing power that Internet Explorer 9 thrives on. For example, we shipped the first Intel Atom dual-core with NVIDIA ION powered netbooks, NVIDIA 3D Vision enabled notebooks and one of the first DX11 gaming notebooks powered by ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD 5870 GPU. It’s this type of power that enables IE9 to provide an extremely responsive and interactive user experience on the Web. ASUS’ continued commitment to provide excellent CPU and GPU performance in its mobile products along with Microsoft’s innovative use of hardware acceleration in IE9 will help to create an unlimited possibilities for new Web applications that are both graphically and functionally rich.

James : You mentioned some of your innovative hardware. I’ve had my eye on your U30Jc or UL80Vt notebooks. How will they perform with the latest Platform Preview?

Gary : Thanks to the Intel dual-core processor and discreet graphics performance of the NVIDIA mobile GPU chipset in either notebook the user experience with Internet Explorer 9 will be incredible. In fact, even our AMD based Eee PC 1201T netbook will provide enough graphical and CPU processing power to ensure the user has a terrific web experience with IE9.

James : How about elsewhere in your range? Is there a price point or a particular type of machine I should be looking for?

Gary : We have a vast number of new mobile products launching this summer that are built with Internet Explorer 9 in mind. Everything from our upcoming Eee PC 1215N netbook and slim and light U35Jc notebook to the new 3D capable Republic of Gamers G53 gaming notebook will offer users a rich and interactive internet experience with IE9.

James : So do I need to buy a new notebook or workstation to take advantage of the hardware acceleration in Internet Explorer 9?

Gary : Not at all. We’ve been using discrete graphics and multi-core processors in most of our machines since we started shipping Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines so Internet Explorer 9 will be able to take advantage of that horsepower too. Of course, buying a new shiny notebook with an aluminum body never hurts does it?

James : You’re really trying to talk me into that U30Jc aren’t you? One last thing, what’s your favorite Platform Preview 3 demo on the www.ietestdrive.com site and why?

Gary : That’s a very difficult question to answer. I really do not have a single favorite Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 demo as they all show how the combination of IE9 and the processing power available in ASUS mobile products will provide a uniquely rich, responsive and interactive Web experience for the user. However, I would have to say during testing that we probably ran the Flickr Explorer demo the most as it truly displayed the power of our current and upcoming mobile products when using IE9.

James : Gary thank you so much for your time.

Gary : It’s been a pleasure.

Old Spice’s marketing gimmick—a macho guy played with a wink by Isaiah Mustafa—has reached a crescendo on TV and the Web. Tricia Romano on the evolution of black male sex symbols.

From the moment the Old Spice commercial featuring Isaiah Mustafa aired in February America swooned. Who, we wanted to know, was this dashing, tall, dark and handsome figure with impossible abs, a gleaming smile, and a twinkle in his eyes? (Oh, yes, and riding on a horse. One mustn't forget the horse).

Mustafa quickly became a household face—if not name—as the original commercial eventually racked up 13 million views on YouTube.

He's hot enough to make celebrity lesbian Ellen DeGeneres giggle like a school girl when he visited her set, causing her to beg him to recite his Old Spice lines.

Old Spice Guy Hangs Up His Towel

And this week, on the heels of its second installment in the series (featuring Mustafa swan diving into a jacuzzi and landing on a motorcycle), the company invited people to ask questions of "Old Spice Man" on Twitter which Mustafa answered in 30-second clips on YouTube. The result was an instant viral success—the Old Spice YouTube channel was ranked No. 1 on the website. (At least one person wasn’t impressed: Sockington the cat—who has resisted using his popularity for commercial purposes—threw up his paw: “HELLO @OLDSPICE much interest at your viral marketing campaign at sockington hq/litterbox I AM A CAT WITH 68 TIMES MORE FOLLOWERS discuss.”

Sockington’s dissent aside, the success of the Old Spice commercials hinges not only on the clever, almost absurdist imagery and writing, but on Mustafa and his inherent sex appeal.

The Root argued this week in an essay called, "Why The Old Spice Guy Is Good For Black America" that "the success of the Old Spice Guy ... might actually be a sign that being a black man in America is getting slightly easier." Cord Jefferson points out that not so long ago, the black man's role in advertising was as a scary figure to contrast against the white so-called gentlemen; or more recently, as a subservient figure.

I'll go one further than Jefferson: The Old Spice Guy isn't just good for Black America, Mustafa's place in the pop culture pantheon is good for all of America.

As Farai Chideya, former NPR journalist and host of forthcoming radio show, Pop and Politics Radio, explained to me, "You have certain black actors who could sell things, but they usually did them in these nonsexual ways, like Bill Cosby and Jello. Then you had people who were sexual like Billy Dee Williams, who pitched a brand for a black audience," she said. "This is something new where it's for a mainstream, general mixed-race audience."

Caption: Mustafa filmed video responses to some of his lucky Twitter followers, including actress Alyssa Milano.

The choice of a black man as the desired sex object for a national advertising spot aimed at mainstream America, which is to say white America, is particularly perfect right now. It's hard to say whether Mustafa and Old Spice would have paired up 10 or 20 years ago, unless he was a famous star athlete like O.J. Simpson. One could argue that having a handsome black president has softened a lot of people’s ideas of what’s attractive and sexy—Obama’s shaky polls notwithstanding.

Interestingly, Old Spice had another black spokesman before Mustafa: Terry Crews. The hyperactive ad series featured the ex-NFL linebacker topless and yelling in an intense (and funny) way. Chideya says of Crews: "He's not as handsome as Isaiah, but he's also really funny in a way that's more within the black vernacular." Of Mustafa, she says, "This guy is no doubt black, but he's someone who is the modern, urbane, living-in-a-post-racial-Fort Greene kind of a guy."

While Obama braves the fast-moving political tide (we love him, we are irritated and disappointed with him, we loathe him, we love him again), here is this other stunningly handsome, funny black man on our TV, transcending color lines, with—it should be noted—a Muslim name.

how to lose weight fast

The best comic book <b>news</b> to come out of Comic-Con 2010

This year's Comic-Con was light on earth-shattering comic book news but chock full o' interesting tidbits about characters and upcoming projects. Here are some of the juiciest factoids that dropped this weekend.

Pro-Gun Dems May Get a Boost « Liveshots

With the mid-terms looming large in a year where incumbents are expected to take a beating at the.

Small Business <b>News</b>: Getting Things Right | Small Business <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Marketer Mark Brimm hates when gurus tell entrepreneurs and other marketers they're doing it wrong. Though there are certainly right ways and wrong ways to.

1 internet marketing

Condé promoted Bob Sauerberg, former head of consumer marketing (read: circulation) to its presidency. Bob is one of the good guys of Condé Nast (I don’t mean to damn him with faint praise there … sorry, couldn’t resist); he’s smart, mature, experienced. (I worked with him a good deal when I was at Advance’s parent company and he was at Fairchild; I should add that none of what I’m saying here comes from the slightest contemporary knowledge of the company; haven’t been in the cafeteria for many months.) Bob knows management and consumer marketing. The age of the ad sales guy is over because the age of the ad is over.

The problem is going to be that there is only more competition in content and so trying to suddenly charge more flies in the face of basic economics. The absurdity of the strategy struck me yesterday as Amazon tried to sell me a subscription to Time for 28.8 cents an issue while Time is trying to sell its iPad issues for $4.99 and I see no reason to buy either. In what world do these economics make sense? In their dreams.

“I want to collect income from the consumer,” Townsend told The Times earlier. “An annual magazine subscription may be something like anywhere bet $12 and $24. So I’m currently locked into a model that says I get a buck or two a month. How about I get a buck for a click?”

Dream on.

They’re not wrong that they need to get money from consumers but they’re not going to get it for content. Sorry guys. But as Google schooled the newspaper industry (I’ll substitute appropriate words):

The large profit margins enjoyed in the past were built on an artificial scarcity: Limited choice for advertisers as well as readers. With the Internet, that scarcity has been taken away and replaced by abundance. No will be able to restore revenues to what they were before the emergence of online . It is not a question of analog dollars versus digital dimes, but rather a realistic assessment of how to make money in a world of abundant competitors and consumer choice.

Instead, I suggest they have to get new revenue through commerce — through selling the things they once advertised now that advertisers are deserting them to sell direct. Problem is, that’s hard, as Condé knows best from its experience with Style.com, which started as an attempt to create a high-end store (I worked there then). They created it in partnership with a retailer and the retailer bagged the effort when times got tough in the first bubble; it then became another ad-supported site. But the strategy wasn’t wrong. Problem is, there is no retail expertise in the company.

More recently, Condé should have bought Net-a-Porter but instead luxury conglomerate Richemont snarfed it up. (Disclosure: I spoke at Richemont’s corporate retreat recently.) Condé should buy Gilt to establish new skills, a new relationship with customers, and new revenue. Its content then becomes just added value: the Cinnabon’s in the mall.

A media company going into retail and selling in areas held by former advertisers has precedent: Media News’ Salt Lake City paper became a real estate broker and undersold the entire business in town. The Telegraph, as I like to point out, sells everything from hangers to wine to betting to its readers.

But if Condé and other media companies are going into retail, they need entirely new skills of merchandising and sales, an entirely new financial structure to cope with inventory costs and tight margins, the ability to cope with entirely new competitors and suppliers (that is, former advertisers — but, worse, Amazon), and an entirely new efficiency (forget the cafeteria; they’d be lucky to have a Wal-Mart lunch room with vending machines as a profit center).

They also have to defeat a calcified, entitled culture. For that, I’d suggest they buy Gawker Media to get the incredibly popular competitor Jezebel and to infuse the company with a new culture. Make Nick Denton editorial director and COO and then watch the fun.

I doubt they heard any of this from KcKinsey because in the few encounters I’ve had with them they remix known models rather than invent new ones, which is what is called for here. I’ll bet they proposed cutting some costs (done) and remixing revenue (started) when what’s really needed is a complete restrategizing.

Or maybe I”m wrong. Maybe 4 Times Square will become the world’s lushest mall, with one helluva food court.

Nevermind my advice. The moral of this story remains that advertising is next to fall into the black hole (as a Time Inc. president once dubbed this damned internet thing). Welcome to Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario.

Old Spice’s marketing gimmick—a macho guy played with a wink by Isaiah Mustafa—has reached a crescendo on TV and the Web. Tricia Romano on the evolution of black male sex symbols.

From the moment the Old Spice commercial featuring Isaiah Mustafa aired in February America swooned. Who, we wanted to know, was this dashing, tall, dark and handsome figure with impossible abs, a gleaming smile, and a twinkle in his eyes? (Oh, yes, and riding on a horse. One mustn't forget the horse).

Mustafa quickly became a household face—if not name—as the original commercial eventually racked up 13 million views on YouTube.

He's hot enough to make celebrity lesbian Ellen DeGeneres giggle like a school girl when he visited her set, causing her to beg him to recite his Old Spice lines.

Old Spice Guy Hangs Up His Towel

And this week, on the heels of its second installment in the series (featuring Mustafa swan diving into a jacuzzi and landing on a motorcycle), the company invited people to ask questions of "Old Spice Man" on Twitter which Mustafa answered in 30-second clips on YouTube. The result was an instant viral success—the Old Spice YouTube channel was ranked No. 1 on the website. (At least one person wasn’t impressed: Sockington the cat—who has resisted using his popularity for commercial purposes—threw up his paw: “HELLO @OLDSPICE much interest at your viral marketing campaign at sockington hq/litterbox I AM A CAT WITH 68 TIMES MORE FOLLOWERS discuss.”

Sockington’s dissent aside, the success of the Old Spice commercials hinges not only on the clever, almost absurdist imagery and writing, but on Mustafa and his inherent sex appeal.

The Root argued this week in an essay called, "Why The Old Spice Guy Is Good For Black America" that "the success of the Old Spice Guy ... might actually be a sign that being a black man in America is getting slightly easier." Cord Jefferson points out that not so long ago, the black man's role in advertising was as a scary figure to contrast against the white so-called gentlemen; or more recently, as a subservient figure.

I'll go one further than Jefferson: The Old Spice Guy isn't just good for Black America, Mustafa's place in the pop culture pantheon is good for all of America.

As Farai Chideya, former NPR journalist and host of forthcoming radio show, Pop and Politics Radio, explained to me, "You have certain black actors who could sell things, but they usually did them in these nonsexual ways, like Bill Cosby and Jello. Then you had people who were sexual like Billy Dee Williams, who pitched a brand for a black audience," she said. "This is something new where it's for a mainstream, general mixed-race audience."

Caption: Mustafa filmed video responses to some of his lucky Twitter followers, including actress Alyssa Milano.

The choice of a black man as the desired sex object for a national advertising spot aimed at mainstream America, which is to say white America, is particularly perfect right now. It's hard to say whether Mustafa and Old Spice would have paired up 10 or 20 years ago, unless he was a famous star athlete like O.J. Simpson. One could argue that having a handsome black president has softened a lot of people’s ideas of what’s attractive and sexy—Obama’s shaky polls notwithstanding.

Interestingly, Old Spice had another black spokesman before Mustafa: Terry Crews. The hyperactive ad series featured the ex-NFL linebacker topless and yelling in an intense (and funny) way. Chideya says of Crews: "He's not as handsome as Isaiah, but he's also really funny in a way that's more within the black vernacular." Of Mustafa, she says, "This guy is no doubt black, but he's someone who is the modern, urbane, living-in-a-post-racial-Fort Greene kind of a guy."

While Obama braves the fast-moving political tide (we love him, we are irritated and disappointed with him, we loathe him, we love him again), here is this other stunningly handsome, funny black man on our TV, transcending color lines, with—it should be noted—a Muslim name.

MCFC close to signing Serbian Aleksandar Kolarov from Lazio <b>...</b>

Roberto Mancini last night revealed that the Blues are '99% certain' to sign Aleksandar Kolarov from Lazio.

<b>News</b> Roundup: Andrea Roth Joins &#39;Blue Bloods,&#39; Katheryn Winnick <b>...</b>

'Rescue Me' star Andrea Roth has joined the cast of CBS's cop drama 'Blue Bloods.' According to Ausiello Files, Roth will replace Wendy Moniz who had.

Arcane Brilliance: <b>News</b> and notes from Cataclysm beta build 12604

Totem Talk: Back to basics � Know Your Lore: The Eternals part three -- the Titans � Arcane Brilliance: News and notes from Cataclysm beta build 12604 � Shifting Perspectives: Recreating balance druids in Cataclysm ...

how to lose weight fast

1 internet marketing

Erik Davis is the Editor-in-Chief of Cinematical.com. Known mainly as the guy who kind of reminds us of the dude we met at Janine's party back in '95, Erik Davis has been writing online professionally since 2004. A former couch potato prodigy, Erik worked odd jobs for folks like NBC Sports and Getty Images before joining the movie website Cinematical.com as a blogger back when people still thought a "blogger" was that thing that came spraying out of your nose when you happened to laugh while drinking soda. Not long after AOL acquired Cinematical in 2005, Erik was promoted to the site's East Coast Editor, then Managing Editor and, eventually, Editor-in-Chief, a position he's held for the past three years. As Editor-in-Chief, Erik helped shape Cinematical into one of the leading movie blogs online, with millions of readers visiting the site each month.

Top Stories of the Week

• Who Needs Java? Probably Not You


• How to Jailbreak iOS 4.0 for iPhone 3G


• Jailbreaking iOS 4.0? How To Keep a Jailbreak For iPhone 3G or 3GS


• OpenDNS Launches FamilyShield, Free Parental Controls Service for Web


• New iPhone Software Arrives Today - Can You Run it?

More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb

Real-Time Web

• How Twitter Annotations Could Bring the Real-Time and Semantic Web Together


• Online Language Learning Company Babbel Adds Voice Recognition Tool


• Mapping the Oil Spill in Real Time

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don't miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb's report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Augmented Reality

• Can Augmented Reality Help Save the Planet?

More Augmented Reality coverage

Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report

We're pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb's latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future. This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user's view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here.

Mobile Web

• iPhone 4: Your Burning Questions Answered


• Google Activates Android "Kill Switch," Zaps Useless Apps


• Developers Betting on Android for Long-Term Success, Says Surveyy

More Mobile Web coverage

Internet of Things

• Google, GE & Others Prototype Wireless Mote to Connect Any Device to Smart Grid


• The Internet IS a Series of Tubes: Real-Time Mapping of the London Underground

More Internet of Things coverage

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• Is Venture Capital Broken?


• Posterous and Ambition: A Lesson for Startups?


• Delicious Founder, AOL Exec Launch Hacker Angels

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• Oxygen: A Desktop Network Connected to the Cloud


• Architects of Amazon Web Services Launch Nimbula, Promise an OS for the Cloud


• Weekly Poll: Is Salesforce.com Chatter Really That Unique? Does it Matter?

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations.

• Antivirus Product Testing is Changing, Whether Vendors Like it or Not


• 3 Up-and-Coming Collaboration Suites


• Google Apps Now Supports Multiple Domains

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Subscribe to Weekly Wrap-up

You can subscribe to the Weekly Wrap-up by RSS or by email below.

RWW Weekly Wrap-up Email Subscription form:

mike fuljenz mike fuljenz mike fuljenz internet marketing course