If You're Not Interested Don't Listen

Earlier today I came across an article on Modern Marketing entitled, "If You're Not Interested Don't Listen." The article explains how Dell recently launched IdeaStorm, a site designed to collect ideas and views from the public. Then a funny thing happened, 135,000 people all suggested that pre-installed Linux or OpenOffice machines would be a great perk. Dell initally agreed, however, once the company looked into it they realised it wasn't feasible and had to ignore all of the requests. In a statement, Dell stated that it wouldn't be able to meet the demands because customers want too many variants.

Although I feel this was initially a great idea from Dell I do believe they screwed up by saying they would oblige to requests before they actually looked into the situation. I feel Dell is doing a good thing by reaching out to its customers and taking their suggestions but they should also make it known that not all requests are feasible. I hope that Dell continues with their 'suggestion box' because I feel it could definitely be a very strong and effective marketing tool.

Phillies Wikipedia Edit

Today I made my first Wikipedia edit for the Philadelphia Phillies. In the 2007 section, I added the fact that Jon Lieber, one of the Phillies starting pitchers last season, has moved to the bullpen and is expected to add much needed relief.

Local TV: What's On(line)?

As I was reading over my teammate, Mike's blog, I came across an interesting article he wrote about. The article focuses on the importance of local news stations and the use of their websites. I found it very interesting that ads on the TV stations are just as effective, if not more effective, than the ads that run on television. It is an excellent example of how the Internet has had such a great impact on the marketing world.

Also, the article talks about how these websites offer career pages, horoscopes, and lists of community events. In being that most of the readers are in the stations geographical area, the websites can prove to be more useful than the actual television program.

An example of a TV stations network news website is, NBC10.com. This station offers news to the Philadelphia region.

Scrubs Wikipedia Edit

Earlier today I made my first Wikipedia edit for the television show Scrubs. In it, I combined the last two bullet points of the trivia section into the bullet point immendiately preceeding them. I felt the information was best served as one complete bullet point rather than three separate ones.

VALS Survey

Last week in class we discussed the VALS Survey. This popular online survey explores the relationship between personality traits and consumer behavior and businesses often use it to identify target customers. Businesses also use the survey as a tool to discover what type of personality an employee or prospective employee may have.

The survey takes about five minutes to complete and consists of about forty questions asking about your preferences. After completing the survey it said that I was an Experiencer/Innovator.

Sea Creatures and Electronics

I just read an interesting article on Slashdot about how sea creatures could possibly provide the basis for new electronics. The article says that the shells of the the tiny sea creatures may help to lay the foundation for new electronic devices including an improved pollution detector. Scientists would use a chemical process that converts the shells into the semiconductor material silicon. The newly converted shells could then be useful as battery electrodes or chemical purifiers.

I find this article interesting because it really shows how nature can be just as effective a producer, if not more so, than humans.

Second Wikipedia Edit

Earlier today I made my second wikipedia edit to Zach Braff's page. Upon reading on CNN.com that Zach Braff had just reached a contract settlement with his TV show "Scrubs," I decided to post what I read on Wikipedia. When I saw the site, however, I saw someone had already added this new information but did not add the other actors who were making as much money as Braff is set to. So, I added the fact that Charlie Sheen also makes within the $350,000 range on his show, "Two and A Half Men."