Information, Advertising, Trends And More Thought Dumping

Internet marketing is fascinating, especially when you’ve got a campaign with enough volume so that its performance reflects trends. My campaign wasn’t doing too well today, but then I realized, everybody’s partying it up since it’s Halloween. But there are other trends, weekly, hourly, and it’s fascinating because it’s like looking into the minds of others. Surfing the net is a private activity for the most part. Nobody knows how you behave online. But when you are advertising, you get the chance to collect information about people through your advertising campaigns. Its performance is a result of the behavior of others, and with volume it gives insight into behavior. Marketing psychology I suppose. Facebook makes this especially cool because once a campaign has sufficient clicks, it shows the common characteristics of those who have clicked based on the content they have listed under “interests”.

Psychology is fascinating as well. With a good grasp of psychology, you can better understand yourself and others. By understanding yourself, I assume it must improve self control because it explains your own behavior. Better planning and other good stuff must come as a result of this. Plus there’s also the benefit of better understanding of others. It’s all a matter of understanding the big picture. By understanding yourself and understanding others you can achieve a great deal. Unfortunately, as a career it does not have the insane potential for income that I desire, a figure only business can reach. Once I get that house, and that stable income, I will have so much more time to read and learn.

Information. There’s so much of it and I don’t have enough time to learn it all. Psychology, electronics and of course all those random interesting articles from the internet. If only I could read it all. I finally had time to organize my stuff. 224 favorites, at least 10 receipts with scribbles of crap. Now it’s all sitting in folders. Wonderful.

I also realized that my dreams are not nearly wildly crazy enough.

Previous Outrageous Dream

  • Decent (No more than 4,000 square feet) sized two story house with a pool somewhere near San Francisco
  • Basic economy car
  • Lambo or Ferrari

Updated Outrageous Dream

  • Decent (No more than 4,000 square feet) sized two story house with a pool somewhere near San Francisco, Texas or Africa
  • Helicopter
  • Private jet
  • Private island
  • Nuclear powered yacht

Also of note is that I recently posted about how Facebook would be an excellent platform for applications. I knew what I had in mind, but I failed to put into words the scope of what I was thinking. Luckily GigaOm had an article on this exact trend.

I had always jokingly considered creating my own internet, Internet 2.0, where there would be no anonymity and only websites with acceptable quality would be allowed. But the social web is partially like that because of its decreased anonymity. Many sites are integrating a Facebook login to allow for a social element. Where in the past someone might be hunched over a comp playing a Flash game all alone, now he can (Surrogates) play with others socially.

It also mentions that the social web generates more information and the need to index it. Much of the information is absolute garbage, useless status updates, mindless babbling and other junk, but it might be vaguely useful as aggregate data somehow.

Are Humans Still Evolving?

This was the question posted by articles on Yahoo! and CNN a few days back. I was surprised that there was a “long-held view that natural selection has ceased to affect humans because, “almost everybody now lives long enough to have children”.

I had always assumed that evolution always occurs. It simply would not make sense any other way. If evolution was not still occurring, it would seem to imply that every individual is reproducing at a similar rate. Evolution is survival of the fittest, but even though everyone reproduces, there are obviously some who reproduce more and some who do not reproduce at all for various reasons. Why isn’t it obvious that evolution is still occurring because of this? Plus, there are those who choose not to have kids, some who choose to have lots of kids and some who don’t have kids.

But what’s more likely is that there are major gaps in my understanding that lead me to assume this from the start.

Facebook

It seems like there is a transition to a less anonymous internet with Facebook. Everyone’s got a Facebook, and a growing number of websites are utilizing the Facebook login feature.

Too many different platforms are competing – Windows Live, Google and Yahoo!. On a recent group project, every group member used a different platform, when someone suggested online collaboration. Ultimately, some people had to setup Google accounts. However, everyone had a Facebook. If productivity tools were added to its list of apps, Facebook would have some serious clout. Unlike other platforms, Facebook focuses on communication rather than services, making it a perfect platform for collaboration. Facebook also creates a real digital identity because everybody is identified by their name, and it might be the best new platform for productivity apps rather than Google or Windows Live.

Also, Facebook apps are big money. I don’t understand why the top games are so popular though. The mafia game has zero interactivity. It’s just a screen with stats that you click away at. It’s like crunching numbers in a cubicle. Lame. There is no real element of competition. The winners are the ones who spend (waste) the most time playing the game. The gardening game is lame too. Why would anybody waste time growing a digital garden when they could grow a real one?

All these games use the social element to become popular. However, there is a terrible lack of a competitive element. There’s a vaccum, a need for interactive, competitive games on social networking sites like Facebook. There is huge potential here. Games like Everquest and World Of Warcraft are notorious for their addictive qualities. Now add that and social networking (also addictive), and there’s an even bigger opportunity.

Lincoln Commercials

These are some really great commercials from Lincoln. The theme is awesome, but the cars could use some bolder exterior styling. The interiors are really nice however.

The ads are quite effective. There’s 360 views of the interior and exterior paired with dark lighting and fairly modern music. There’s no distracting voiceover and all of them end with a simple two liner slogan reminiscent of the Apple commercials. Very effective, and I assume they must be trying to target a younger demographic. Better than the old Mr. Scruff commercials. Makes me want to buy one, even though the build quality is probably rubbish.

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Power windows. The hot new feature.

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