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Putting the power of mass media back into the hands of the masses...

From the Huffington Post...

12,000 people who participated in Ariana Huffington's "Off TheBus during campaign 08" should be pleased to know that they're finalists for a "Game Changer" award given by the WeMedia Project. Thanks to all the writing, reporting, recording, digging, web searching, e-mailing, news scanning, tape editing, expertise-sharing, columnizing, team playing, and eye-witnessing (that's a partial list...) they did during the project's 16 months of activity, they collectively contributed to the the first open platform election coverage team ever assembled by a major news site.

It sounds obvious, but you couldn't sign up and join the reporting staff in the national section of any major newspaper covering the 2008 election the old way. It's not part of their model to invite the users in. But if you were an interested user of the Huffington Post, you could sign up for OffTheBus. That's what they mean by an "open" platform. You, yes you, could sign up to contribute to a national election coverage team.

The project went live in July 2007 as an experiment designed to cover the amazing presidential election of 2008 - and it succeeded beyond all expectations (thanks in large part to Amanda Michel's ability to steer without controlling OffTheBus's thousands of contributors). In fact, OffTheBus was such a success that HuffPost intends to make the crowd sourcing and distributed journalism methods developed and honed by OTB during the election an integral part of their editorial process -- utilizing them across all of their different sections...

Read on...

Global Recession Looms—Obstacle or Opportunity?

It all depends on how you look at it.

Its in the news, on TV, on the radio, here on the web, you’ve read the papers – From The Globe and Mail to the New York Times or your own local newspapers, everywhere you hear how the world economy is diving, the financial crisis is now full-blown and many companies are cutting back. Scary doom and gloom proposition or an opportunity in the offing?

Is it time to simply cut back and try to weather the storm or is there another way to make the most of it?

In our opinion – opportunity knocks.

Whether you are the Director of Marketing of a large corporation or the proprietor of a small but struggling enterprise, you have got a lot in common these days and a lot at stake during challenging economic times. How are you going to respond to the challenges you will face in days, months or years ahead? Are you just going to sit back and ride it out or are you going to take positive action to move your business forward despite uncertain times?

If you truly are a forward thinking marketer, you might see recession as an opportunity to add market share and strengthen your business while others lie and wait. Your competitors will most often reduce their marketing activities, so proactive companies can view this as the perfect opportunity to ramp up efforts and actually increase market share.

Continual proactive, effective and cost-efficient marketing campaigns during an economic downturn can prove beneficial. In fact, when competitors drop the ball in terms of cutting back on marketing initiatives, companies enabled to reach out to customers and maintain brand awareness and loyalty are also enabled to improve marketplace positioning.

Why is that so?

When your competitors cut back, it will result in an overall decrease in advertising “noise.” That makes your message reaching your customers even louder and clearer, improving the chances that your brand’s message will be heard.

The best way for you to step up to the plate and deliver strong results throughout a recession is to enhance your marketing efforts through online media channels. It is by far your most efficient and effective way to quickly deliver targeted, relevant, revenue-producing communications to your customers. As customer data available to you continues to grow, the opportunities for you to create better insights and improve revenue grow as well.

So when the economy makes it advisable to cut back on pricier traditional advertising and focus more on cost-effective online marketing, it’s important that you are ready to act quickly and decisively. If you want some excellent ideas on how and where to start or help with your online marketing efforts, drop us a line or send us an e-mail.

There are an array of cost effective options at your disposal and we can help you with any or all of them. Be it a new microsite, a re-vamp of your existing site, online advertising (with some killer banner ads strategically located within one or more of the Social Networking circles or specific targeted communities) or some great ideas that harness the power of cheap but highly effective Search Engine Marketing (SEM), or if you are looking to develop a simple but sophisticated e-mail newsletter campaign, we would be only too pleased to be of service.

If you know what you want, give us a call or send us an e-mail.

If some or all of this is all Double Dutch to you, we'll help explain in simple language that makes it easy for you to understand and help you devise a strategy to move forward.

Help is a click away, it all starts here.