PalatnikFactor.com

I haven’t seen this much buzz in the media about a technological gadget in a LONG TIME. Sure, we’ve seen people waiting in lines for new game consoles, but this takes the prize. The TV media is covering the story as if it's the first time a mobile phone has hit the market and you can't go on Digg and not see an iPhone story on the first page.

Apple has done it again. The iPod has changed the music industry and now the iPhone is said to change the mobile industry. I’m not in the mobile industry so I can’t say exactly what It will do except that every company now has to switch gears and come out with similar models as the iPhone.

Here is what I do know, as the buzz continues and the iPhone and its competitors come out with similar models, the connection to the internet from mobile phones will drastically increase. The sales of .mobi’s are in demand and are becoming the new .com…obviously not replace it, or hold the same value (as of now), but I’d say it’s a better investment than a .net as this point.

Cell phones such as the Trio or Sidekick have sparked consumer interest and advertisement interest in the online mobile world, but the iPhone will take this to a new level. Google has teamed up with Apple to apply applications to the iPhone such as Google Reader. Feeds, Text, and more will allow advertisers to reach the mobile user directly and personalization will also come into play at some point I imagine. I’m not saying connecting to the internet is something new because of the iPhone but it will change its dynamic with the Google partnership.

Companies such as MyClick have already incorporated technology to connect consumer directly with advertisers through their mobile phones, take a look:

Myclick is in full swing in Asia, mostly China, which has around 450 million MOBILE USERS! This technology will surley come here, and come soon. MyClicks plans to move to Europe next. Many companies will try to develop applications for the iPhone and will spark major competition for other applications for other carriers.

As the world of Web 2.0 has brought many new components to the user, aside from social communities which keep emerging and showing growth, the world of the WIKI is starting to make noise.

According to Wikipedia, the WIKI means, “A wiki (sometimes wiki wiki) is a web application designed to allow multiple authors to add, remove, and edit content. The multiple author capability of wikis makes them effective tools for mass collaborative authoring”

Wikis are spreading through the net quick through social groups and now businesses as well. WikiMatrix.org compares many of the Wikis that are emerging online. Wikipedia of course being the largest Wiki created by human editing. Wikipedia is the 12th most visited web site in the US. It’s estimated around 10.65 million users visiting the site daily and a total reach of just shy of 39 million of the estimated 173.3 million Internet users.

Can the Wiki really evolve much more and become what will be Web 3.0? A world wide web made and edited by humans and humans only?

Applications and sites such as PBWiki allow users to get started making their own wiki site within seconds. The biggest issue for Wikis at the time is the spam factor and by allowing users to edit your wiki (if you create one for business reasons, etc.) you render total control to the user. I guess you can all this UGC 2.0.

Users are given the liberty to review products, make profiles, vote on stories, and much more…but now the chance to actually be editors of what is the actual site in which they are engaged. A growing responsibility is given to the user as the world of the internet matures and develops.

As the big websites/portals/communities set the standard for what has become Web 2.0, more and more websites will take the same idea and target a niche audience.

I launched SOJJO.com, a website dedicated and made by users who love to talk about sports. Sojjo.com is the Digg of sports.

“Sojjo was created on the idea of building a social online community for those who are passionate and enjoy the world of sports. Sojjo allows users to have a voice and share their opinions with others. Sojjo is made by users, for users, being the first user-generated content sports news website.

Sojjo's functionalities include: Creating a user profile, requesting friends, commenting on stories, voting on stories, submitting new stories, and more to come…”

Why? I love sports. I love to talk about sports and the only website I read is ESPN.com and I thought, I’d love to comment on a story, maybe interact with others to see what they think. I love the concept of Digg, always have…and put two and two together and got Sojjo.

I will tell you in further blogs what I’ve done (along with my brother) to make this project what it will become. Many sports fanatics have their favorite place to go and read stories online, hopefully we can establish a community where those users unite, and share thoughts with each other.

Since we are on a small budget for this project and relying on our users to be biggest form of advertising and generating buzz (word of mouth), I was able to create a YouTube commercial for $0.

This project is in its very beginning stages…still in BETA.

As I was walking around at Ad:Tech, a girl appeared wearing a shirt that read: “No More Landing Pages”…obviously my first reaction was, “Huh?” Landing pages were and are designed for one reason and one reason only…TO INCREASE CONVERSIONS.

Their Message: "Our hope is, if you’re in any way connected to online marketing, you’ll appreciate the big message here: you can get much more out of your email, advertising and SEM/SEO than you do today. Landing pages devalue your brand, under-deliver conversions and disappoint users…Of course not! No more landing pages does not mean no more landing experiences. To the contrary, our point is that the landing page has itself become indiscriminate, boiled down to a one-size-fits-all, single page format. It may be better than nothing — although with many crappy landing pages out there that’s questionable — but we can do much better as marketers."

No more landing pages is actually a blog. You can get what it is from reading the first paragraph on the blog: “We're consumers before we're marketers. So put on your consumer hat for a minute… how do you feel when a banner, email or keyword ad promises you something, but then doesn't give it to you when you click? How fast do you hit your back button? What do you think about the company behind the broken promise? Anything?”

What do I think? I don’t really see any “Landing Pages” ranking organically in the engines. It’s proven; at least from my marketing efforts in PPC, etc…a landing page will convert better than sending the traffic to a home page where information is provided…at least most of the time. Check out their blog and see what you get out of it.

Anyway, I have to praise them for the cool mouse pad they hooked me up with and their cool attitude…good/bad message? You decide. Landing page is one thing…spam is another.

I’ve never attended an Ad:Tech conference before and I have to say I was quite surprised. I can’t really describe what I was expecting but what I found out attending the conference really shouldn’t be surprising.

Latin America and the Hispanic market took over the conference. Of course! It’s being held in Miami, Florida…how did I not expect that? CNNExpansion.com, UOL, Terra, Univision, and others sponsored the event.

I’ll be covering some of the panels in other blog post starting with Social Media in the Hispanic market which I thought was most interesting (to me at least) and hopefully I’ll make it back tomorrow.

It is definitely a great conference to attend if you’re interested in entering the Latin American or Hispanic space online (in Miami that is). In San Francisco it's a bit different…More of a U.S. based market with many more affiliate networks, etc. Either way, a good experience if you can make it.

“Danah Boyd, one of the most incisive researchers looking at societies on the web, has come up with a paper on the class structures of Facebook and MySpace. In essence, she says good middle class kids use Facebook, while the working classes use MySpace,” reports Bobbie Johnson. This report is actually getting a good amount of attention from the online media.

While it is interesting and I guess it’s something new to many people, the report doesn’t really tell us (atleast myself as an internet marketer, and she probably didn’t write it for us) anything new about the class divide and demographic with the social communities that make up Myspace & Facebook.

Here is the one major factor. FACEBOOK WAS CREATED FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS. Only recently has Facebook opened its doors to the general public to sign up. Give Facebook another year or so, watch the demographic become more Myspace-like.

“MySpace is about teenage rebellion; ugliness and defiantly folded arms. Facebook is much more popular among those of college age and older - it's more grown up, and looking at it isn't like pouring acid into your eyeballs… MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school,” says Johnson.

CAN YOU SAY… STEREOTYPE? There are literally MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of Myspace registered users, and that’s her demographic analysis of its users? Yes, that description fits part of what is the Myspace community, maybe a large part, maybe a small part…I can’t say for sure but the one thing about Myspace is that there’s no one set demographic…Myspace was the first online community to bring people of all cultures, race, and countries together.

Read More On This Story:

The class divide between Facebook and MySpace -Guardian Unlimited, UK
New study shows that perhaps Myspace really is for losers, after all -Shiny Media
Social sites reveal class divide -BBC News