Disqus - Latest Comments for jmoonah

Re: Rush's Alex Lifeson hangs out in the studio with Canadian prog rock duo Crown Lands

Jay Moonah — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 07:50:33 -0000

I was there, and I got the video! https://youtu.be/Hca_yOwQE8g

Re: Why I’m Leaving SHIFT Communications and What’s Next

Jay Moonah — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 09:30:00 -0000

Congrats Chris! Sounds like a really interesting venture, best of luck to you and your partners.

Re: Latest NodeBB release offers 200% speed improvement, better email templates & more

Jay Moonah — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 09:18:34 -0000

Mike, thanks so much for this! We're very excited about this new release and hope NodeBB users will be too. :-)

Re: Will Jive Customers Win With Lithium Takeover?

Jay Moonah — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 12:44:25 -0000

@Brian Kling thanks for this comment! I am curious to know where you heard the Jive-x support backlog number (which does seem crazy-high.)

Re: Why I Much Prefer the Business Partnership Model

Jay Moonah — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 20:10:26 -0000

Chris, I love the partnership concept. I've always felt the same way, and having been on the publisher, agency and clients sides I've seen this from all angles.

I was curious to check it out Owner but I got a GoDaddy page when I clicked -- I'm guessing it's a glitch, could you check it out and let me know when it's fixed? I'm interested to learn more.

Re: Nothing to lose with an Exhibition Place casino | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun

Jay Moonah — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:41:04 -0000

All nuclear plants in the world are near large bodies of water -- they need water for cooling and to turn into steam. Nothing to do with unions, everything to do with physics.

Re: To The MarketingOverCoffeeMobile! Let's Go!

Jay Moonah — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:59:35 -0000

Hey guys, just getting caught up on episodes and heard the discussion of redirecting from wordpress.com to Wordpress on a different host. Apparently you can redirect from wordpress.com to another domain if you pay for their domain mapping service:

http://support.wordpress.co...

Seems you'll need to pay the $14.97 a year for this (see http://support.wordpress.co... but sounds like it could be a better solution. (Note, I haven't tried this myself.)

Re: Back When We Invented Taguchi Email

Jay Moonah — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:43:16 -0000

Thanks for the tip on Buzzom, hadn't played with it but it is indeed pretty cool. My cheque for $49.95 is in mail. Honest.

Also, I can't remember if you guys have talked about it in more detail before but I thought a little more discussion about Google black list vs. sandbox might be wothwhile. The thing I've struggled with in the past is trying to explain the sandbox to people, since there seems to be a lot of mis/disinformation of what it is, how it works, if it exists. Be interested to hear your take.

Great show as usual!

P.S. For the record, I invented Taguchi email testing back in the '60s, between partying with Andy Warhol and Lou Reed. I never seem to get credit for it thou...

Re: Three reasons why Twitter is serious

Jay Moonah — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:53:20 -0000

P.S. BTW I just realized my last message could be interpreted as a plug for the kinds of services that Wild Apricot software provides -- that wasn't my intention. I've been preaching this mantra since before I joined WA. I often make the same point to musicians about MySpace, that they should use it but in addition to having their own website etc.

Re: Three reasons why Twitter is serious

Jay Moonah — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:46:46 -0000

Some great points Jeff. As a guy who is often raising the business model thing about Twitter, I do want to point out why I think it's relevant in context of how organizations use Twitter. It my 'other life' I'm an independent musician, and over the years I've helped a number of my friends in the music community with their online presences. About 10 years ago there was a site called MP3.com, which was a tremendous resource for indie musicians. Many, including myself, invested a tonne of time and energy into building content and an audience using this site. Then one day, they plugged the plug -- those of us who had spent years using this tool as our primary place to host songs, post shows and blog were left in the lurch. Lucky for me that I had my own domain and enough technical knowledge to move my stuff to new homes. Many others weren't so lucky.

My point is this -- yes, Twitter is a great place to connect and socialize for fun and profit. Is it "serious"? That depends on how you use it, I suppose. BUT what it should not be is a tool that organizations or individuals use as a replacement for a proper web presence, a proper contact database, an independent recruiting/fundraising/insert-goal-here strategy, etc. Your point about Google not having a business model right away is true, but I'd argue people were not spending nearly the time or energy building relationships and contacts in Google before they started selling ads. If Google had died in 2000 we would have lost a really good search engine, we would have cried for 1/2 hour, and we would have all gone back to using Alta Vista. If Twitter dies because they can't make a go of it, lots of people will loose LOTS of content and social capital.

Re: The (pointless) debate is over…

Jay Moonah — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:25:27 -0000

LOL, nice. One difference thou -- NYT and WSJ actually _monetize_ their traffic. Twitter doesn't. I'm still waiting for them them to have a business model before I will really consider them serious. ;-)

Re: How powerful is your social media?

Jay Moonah — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:18:54 -0000

That's a little bit of an apples and airplanes comparison to me -- martial arts practices have been codified in some case over centuries, as you well know.

Traditional media might be a better comparison -- if say for example Hugh Downs wanted to have a business card that said "news broadcasting expert" and went to market as a consultant, I don't think anyone would take him to task for it, even though he couldn't make any specific promises about what he could accomplish if he joined a specific organization. You could only go on his reputation and past accomplishment, and I think THAT'S closer to how we should be looking at this, IMHO.

Re: How powerful is your social media?

Jay Moonah — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:05:21 -0000

Sorry, 'pumping' should have been 'plumbing' -- damn dyslexia! ;-)

Re: How powerful is your social media?

Jay Moonah — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:01:49 -0000

Chris -- on the one had I could not agree with you more that social media is not a panacea for an ailing (or for that matter, healthy) business or organization or whatever. On the other hand, I do think many in the social media community have an unhealthy fixation on not wanting to be called an expert. Expertise comes in many forms and levels. I would definitely consider you an expert when it comes to social media strategy and tactics around certain marketing challenges -- if I didn't I wouldn't bother to listen to your podcast every week! But that certainly doesn't mean I think you're always right or always going to have the answer, any more than I'd expect to hire as an expert to fix my pumping to wave a magic wand and say "all fixed."

I think people who have spent their time developing a level of expertise in using social media to address particular kinds of challenges should be allowed to claim a certain level of 'expertise' without risking the wraith of others in the space. We should support those who are legitimately trying to promote the proper use of this stuff, not tar everyone with a dirty brush.

Re: Check Out Association Jam

Jay Moonah — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:02:50 -0000

Maddie, thanks so much for the kind words. We're very excited about Association Jam (BTW we've been calling it 'aJam' for short.) We're hoping to take off the beta tag and do the official launch thing within the next week or so, please stay tuned!

Re: PodCamp in 2009: Thoughts for organizers

Jay Moonah — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:09:08 -0000

Fair enough about the perks, it nets out to us saying basically the same thing. But personally I think organizers should do what they can to try to secure space if they can without having to charge individuals, unless it's really necessary. If you can partner with an educational institute or other space that is simpatico with the unconference ideals, it can be more of a partnership arrangement and potentially better for both the participants & the venue. Figure out if there's a way to sync up a Podcamp with a broadcast or marketing curiculuum at a local college, for example, to help provide additional value.

Re: PodCamp in 2009: Thoughts for organizers

Jay Moonah — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:40:32 -0000

"Plan your PodCamp to run 100% participant-paid at the door. "

With all due respect Chris, this is a terrible idea. If things are tight for companies, they are tighter for many individuals. Keeping Podcamps (well, most Podcamps) free sends the right message in a time of trouble, that being that communities don't turn to grabbing cash when things get tough.

I'd recommend leveraging social connections and barter for goods and services if money is tight. Also if you can't find sponsors, drop perks like lunches and t-shirts. People can brown bag if things are tight, it also puts less stress on organizers and causes less waste. And hey, don't we all have enough white cotton t-shirts with little logos on them anyway? Just sayin'...

Re: Why you need 5 years at a job to be successful

Jay Moonah — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:37:12 -0000

It's an interesting idea, but I don't know if it's a precise enough analogy. Doesn't the 10,000 hours rule have more to do with mastery of a skill that is somewhat "fixed"? Playing piano, shooting free throws, solving complex equations... those are tasks where you can develop clear "mastery." Personal relationships and ability to operate effectively within a particular workplace culture strike me as fundamentally different. Sure, it takes time to build relationships and knowledge, but what does "mastery" look like in those realms? It seems to me it's almost impossible to create an objective measure when there are so many other variables in professional situations.

Re: Question for You- New Marketing

Jay Moonah — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:16:36 -0000

Chris, I'm not sure if this is really answers your question but I blogged about something related the other day:

http://mediadriving.com/200...

That perhaps takes the discussion in a different direction...

Aside from that aside, since you said "new media" as opposed to "social media" (which I for one see as a subset of new media) I'd have to say that creation of things like websites, banners, emails, widgets, videos, etc. is still the primary job of most agencies that work in the space. The social web is of course becoming an increasingly important consideration for all brands (or it certainly should be!) but the reality, at least in what I see as common at least here in Canada, is that the biggest job of digital marketing agencies is still to build the creative assets that are on strategy for the brand, the same way as the traditional agencies are there to create television, radio and print.

Re: My New Gig: Twist & Shout

Jay Moonah — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:37:53 -0000

Just heard about this on Mitch's podcast, congrats Leigh!

Re: Why pro conferences are different than PodCamps and why neither is better

Jay Moonah — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:19:07 -0000

"Imagine being a conference planner and trying to advertise that your pro conference has information that’s exclusively available at your conference… and then finding out that your keynote speaker can be found on Blip.tv or mDialog for free."

Interestingly, this is very similar to the argument that record companies have made for years about bootleg audio and video of shows being made availible. I always note that allowing a zillion versions of their songs to be freely traded online has never hurt the touring revenues of acts like The Dead or Dave Matthews Band.

Great post Chris.

Re: The Raw Power of StumbleUpon

Jay Moonah — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:42:04 -0000

@Chris: Maybe. :-)

I think about it like this -- you said "BoingBoing drove... 3 TIMES the traffic I’ve ever received. Only 100 new RSS subscribers." I'd want to evaluate the success looking at a few things:

1) How much traffic vs. how many new subscribers do you usually get on an average traffic day? This would be your benchmark to compare to traffic from new sources. (Is it much more than 33? If not, based on what you said here I'd say BoingBoing did a pretty good job.)

2) What have other traffic bumps done for your subscriber numbers in terms of proportionate numbers of visitors, relative to your benchmark? This to me is the relative measure of success, assuming your sole aim is to raise your immediate subscriber numbers. (Did a site that drove half the traffic of BoingBoing drive more than 50 new subscribers? If yes, I'd call that a higher quality traffic driver.)

3) Based on what you know about comparable sites with comparable goals, how well do you think they would convert on similar traffic? This would be, for lack of a better term, your rough competitive benchmark, and could inform things like your need to optimize better, as you mentioned. (Since you mentioned Penn, I think his blog would be a good example of one to compare to immediately. How would his blog convert on similar traffic?)

4) Do you have other goals for your site? (Maybe average time on site, pageviews, whatever?) What are are your benchmarks for THOSE, and how have particular traffic bumps move the needle on them?

See kids, this is what happens when you work as a marketing strategist -- you stay up nights posting lists in the comments on the blogs of strange men. This is why friends don't let friends work at agencies. :-P ;-)

Re: The Raw Power of StumbleUpon

Jay Moonah — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:46:46 -0000

Chris, with regards to your earlier comment on the traffic from Boing Boing : would you say your only measure of traffic success is conversion to subscription? Do you look at other factors such as time spent or pages viewed? Just curious, as these tend to be the factors that I'd argue most sites use.

Also, I hope you know that most folks would _kill_ for a conversation to subscription rate of 1% -- the fact that you got 100 new subscribers primarily from one source in one day actually sounds quite impressive, at least to me.

Re: The Raw Power of StumbleUpon

Jay Moonah — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:44:58 -0000

I'm kind of with Harold on this. I've seen lots of sites, big and small, that I have worked on get traffic bumps from StumbleUpon, but that traffic generally seems to be a bit more, err, "dubious" than from something like Digg or del.icio.us.

If you're running a site that is of broad appeal and/or is monetizing traffic through ads and such, SU might have value, but my sense is that better quality traffic is probably coming from other sources.

Re: The Most Dangerous Part of Social Media

Jay Moonah — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:56:21 -0000

Right, _IF_ you're getting most/all your information from social media, which almost no one is other than us 'fishbowl' folks... and in fact I'd bet that most people who are heavily involved in SM are likely BIGGER consumers of a variety of mainstream media than the general pop. I know for my part I almost never trust one source only for anything factual, and part of the reason for that is BECAUSE I read blogs.