1. Email marketing leader takes note of SMS channel - With the new text-to-join feature and other text / SMS based features the market leader in email marketing seems to view SMS based communication as a viable model for digital marketers. While the intrusiveness of SMS is well known, it's ubiquity and ease of use makes SMS a killer medium for consumers and marketers. The company's press release also speaks of an opportunity in the loyalty program space which could go viral. Multi-Channel marketing with social, email and SMS could pose a big threat to traditional modes of marketing given the total time people spend on these media.
2. Foursquare gets USD 50 million funding - This funding comes at a valuation of USD 550 million (pre-funding). What makes this interesting is the valuation, because, foursquare got valued at USD 95 million in June 2010 and received a USD 20 million funding. Indeed foursquare has been able to launch it's services and reach 10 million user accounts. In the post linkedin-IPO era, these astronomical valuations and their sudden growth despite lack of a revenue model indicates a bubble. Valuations seems to be linked to the people who run the organizations rather than the economics or business model of the company. The number of "deals" based services in the planet will soon make the sector un-viable and soon lead to advertiser fatigue. A new model in marketing will also disrupt these existing companies. Till then enjoy the lunch foursquare.
3. Airtel's health mobile packs - This is definitely a novel way to bridge the digital divide. If health information is available at the keyboard for many of us, why not offer it via SMS for the millions who only own the mobile "computer". How to market these services and bring about awareness....? Is there a need for an SMS app store...?
4. Skype wanted to save a few bucks while selling out for 8.5 Billion ? - In a slew of articles and blog posts by former employees and denials by the investor group a public battle is being waged about how greedy can companies get. Before the big Microsoft buy out could be completed, the new CEO of Skype fired a few executive rank employees (articles say these exits were not from the technical staff, but from the business side of the organization - ouch). This meant that a new CEO denied these leaders a share of the big valuation pie and as expected the leaders including Chief marketing officer went to press with a great story on greed. The company denied any greed and spoke about incompetence as the reason to fire these employees. The mystery will remain so forever, but many lessons to be learnt if you are joining an organization for the equity.
Interesting read
A survey by Gartner of CIOs in Asia indicates that cloud computing will remain a top priority in the coming years for them. At the other extreme is the news from companies heading out of "public cloud" like Amazon cloud. Cloud computing means so many things to each of us, that in some form or the other it will remain in the news for some more time. On the surface, it seems like, organizations like target now see value to going back into their own "cloud data centers". is the real value of cloud only virtualization and elastic scale? Will public cloud like Amazon EC2 view themselves as the first choice only for bargain hunting startups.
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