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So e-mail is, like, way too slow for
teens
Is the teen marketplace abandoning keyboards for keypads,
subject lines for phone lines, laptops for belt clips? A
report from ComScore Media Metrix, summarized in Business
2.0, finds that teen usage of Web-based e-mail has tumbled
by eight percent in 2005. Fast-moving and far-ranging
teenagers instead are tapping into their cell phones for text
messaging and mobile instant messaging (MIM).
The magazine suggests online marketers may be thinking
about switching some of their ads from the Web to text
messaging, but it points out that carriers and government
agencies limit the types of ads that can be transmitted by
phone and that the necessary brevity of text messages can
present a barrier. "That adds up to a tough message for
advertisers hoping to reach teens," Business 2.0
reporter Michael Lev-Ram concludes.
Every challenge offers a flip side, though, notes Airfoil
Account Supervisor Elin Spahr, APR. "The most agile and
creative agencies and corporations will be able to foster
brand loyalty with today's teens and next year's young adults
by being attuned to the mobility of the marketplace."
At the same time, last year's teens have brought IM
into the workplace. Increasingly global office workers and
mobile field reps are becoming as likely to message friends
across town or overseas as to place a phone call to them. It
may be the perfect storm for brewing up new communications
opportunities.
"MIM is quickly emerging as the communications vehicle of
choice among trend-setters," predicts Spahr. "We're
already chatting silently in real time-one-to-one and in group
chats-as we walk downtown, shop, watch television or prepare
reports that need instant input from a colleague. In each of
these locations, marketers have the opportunity to communicate
with consumers who can interact with not only instant messages
from marketers, but also messages in the surrounding
environment."
"It's clear the Internet has been the vanguard of many
innovations that have begun to spin off the Web," Spahr
observes. "By creating smarter communications for these
emerging technologies, we can reach our markets with our
messages in a variety of new and effective ways."
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Following your "clickprint"
Add one more security system to your user IDs, passwords,
firewalls and disposable credit-card numbers: your
"clickprint" can tell marketers and security personnel if
you're really who you claim to be. Researchers Balaji
Padmanabhan of Penn's Wharton School and Yinghui Yang of the
University of California, Davis, have discovered that we all
leave distinctive "clickprint signatures" simply in the
way we browse the Web.
As cited by the online version of Britain's venerable
Manchester Guardian newspaper, the study suggests every
online visitor displays "a unique pattern of Web surfing
behavior based on actions such as the number of pages viewed
per session, the number of minutes spent on each page, the
time or day of the week the page is visited, and so on.' The
paper advises that "an e-commerce company could distinguish
between two anonymous surfers," so that if the clickprints of
someone signing on with a particular ID differed from that
user's normal pattern, it may be an indication that the ID has
been stolen. The researchers-in the study titled "Clickprints
on the Web: Are there signatures in Web browsing data?"-needed
just three to sixteen sessions to identify the clickprint of
an individual. With as many as 51 sessions, their confidence
level hit 99.4 percent.
Airfoil views the potential of all this as intriguing.
Online marketers who choose to mine this type of data may be
able to spot fraud as it is happening, rather than long after.
Adult repeat-offenders posing as children on social-networking
sites may be more easily detected. Retailers may redesign
their Web sites to be more responsive to the clickprints of
their most profitable customers. Savvy online analysts may
even be able to predict what their customers will do next,
based on clickprint behavior, and ensure that one-to-one
messages are displayed for the right amount of time and in the
right locations for each clickprint.
While you may be logging on to your computer with your
fingerprint, you may be accessing the Internet through your
clickprint; and the online world is only beginning to touch on
the implications.
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The Internet
Public Library
Among the earliest Internet developments that changed our
lives was the emergence of online editions of local, national
and global newspapers. Since the mid-1990s, links to these
publications have been collected on a variety of sites, such
as:
One of the most interesting of these "meta" sites for
newspapers and other resources is the Internet Public Library
(IPL) at www.ipl.org. IPL began
as a graduate-seminar project within the University of
Michigan's School of Information and Library Studies in March
of 1995. Developed initially by 35 students, expansion of IPL
has continued over the years as students in the School of
Information have added new publications and research sources.
Today IPL has a small full-time staff and an impressive
collection of online resources.
The Internet Public Library is exactly what it purports to
be, an online library with collections of links to online
books, periodicals, associations, blogs, reference sources,
and other material, each categorized by subject matter, sub
category and sub-sub category. The site even allows visitors
to ask the librarian a question, via e-mail, just as they
would at their local library reference desk-and it offers
responses to frequently asked reference questions.
IPL's ever-growing "Reading Room" is one of its most
valuable features. There, visitors can find a rich collection
of links to newspapers and magazines around the
world-categorized by region, sub-region, or alphabetically.
Here, readers can quickly access the Cook Islands News,
the Kathmandu Post or the Wyoming
Tribune-Eagle.
IPL also gathers links to magazines, journals and e-zines,
collected in a broad range of categories ranging from business
and economics to computers and Internet, entertainment and
leisure health, and medical sciences.
"IPL is especially valuable for business people who are
traveling and want to keep up with their hometown paper or
papers in markets they are about to visit so that they are
aware of local issues," observers Airfoil Director of
Editorial Services Steve Friedman. "The Internet Public
Library affirms the fact that no interview is strictly local
these days. Anyone in the world can access virtually any
newspaper in the world through sites like IPL, so we need to
be aware that our interviews with even the smallest or most
remote publications may have a significant impact far beyond
any particular publication's primary market."
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Airfoilers expand
responsibilities
Six members
of Airfoil's account staff have taken on new roles that expand
their scope of responsibilities in serving their clients.
Airfoil President Janet Tyler announced the following
promotions:
- Elin Spahr to account supervisor from senior
account executive
- Ashley LaCroix to senior account executive from
account executive
- Allen Arnold to account executive from account
coordinator
- Eric Rodriguez to account executive from account
coordinator
- Kim Watts to account coordinator from assistant
account coordinator
- Nicole Williams to account coordinator from
assistant account coordinator
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New
staff members bring their talents to client programs
Keith Donovan has joined Airfoil's automotive and
manufacturing technology practice group as account director.
He will oversee communications activities for Trinity Health
System, National Logistics Management, Latitude Consulting
Group and Gas Station TV, among other accounts. With more than
eight years of wide-ranging public relations experience, Keith
most recently was communications and promotions manager for
the General Motors HUMMER Division, working through Hass
MS&L Public Relations in Troy, Mich. Previously, he was a
public relations consultant for PRACO, Ltd. and an account
executive with Origin Communications, both in Colorado
Springs, Colo., after serving as an account manager with Hedge
& Company in Southfield, Mich. Keith earned a bachelor's
degree in advertising and public relations from Grand Valley
State University.
Ried Artis has been named a senior account executive
in the business-to-business practice area. She will provide
strategic counsel and implement media and analyst relations
programs for emerging technology product and service companies
within the portfolio. Previously, Ried drove PR efforts for
Dolby Laboratories' Professional Division, including Dolby's
cinema, broadcast and live sound technologies internationally.
She worked in San Francisco with Applied Communications,
Fleishman-Hillard, Horn Group and Text 100 to serve high-tech
companies of all sizes. Ried earned her master's degree in
corporate public relations from Boston University and a dual
bachelor's in Spanish literature and comparative literature
from the University of Michigan.
Megan Martenka serves as assistant account
coordinator in the business-to-consumer group, supporting
media relations, research and media monitoring efforts for
such clients as eBay Motors; ProStores; Sikkens; Fry, Inc.;
and ePrize. Earlier, Megan held internships with the Central
Michigan University Office of Public Relations and Marketing,
The Dow Chemical Company and Special Olympics Michigan. Megan
earned a bachelor's degree in integrative public relations and
journalism from Central Michigan University.
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