A Second Life – To Live to Not to Live?

I find the challenges of living the dirt world life are very satisfying, but I find virtual worlds to be fascinating. I’m no novice to “Second Lives”. In 1989 I embarked on discovering what the world of BBS’ would bring me and found the WELL. I loved the CONNECTING to folks in the Bay area until my boss discovered my dialing-up from the office was costing the small marketing company I was working for a few hundred a month for me to connect online. After I sadly said good bye to friends on the WELL I discovered ECHO, the East Coast Hang Out founded by Stacy Horn. I learned so much about the virtual world! ECHO was my life savor when I briefly left New York to go to a very remote part of the country – Chandler, AZ back in 1993. For me Chandler was the end of world, dusty, disconnected, not one conversation about politics, lots of conversations about Christian religion none of which I was interested, and of course no flame wars, everyone in Chandler was the same. What was this New Yorker suppose to do? I took ECHO with me and was able to feel fulfilled while living so far away from the rest of the world that being New York.

Virtual connections for me were a way of life. What of these virtual worlds? Of course in 1995 I was fascinated with 3D Worlds of Worlds-Away and 2D World of ThePalace. I lead a life on ThePalace for 2 years. I enjoyed ThePalace because it was easy to use. I could create any kind of avatar I wanted. My avatar was having more fun in the virtual world than I was in real life. I had a family, friends, played chess day and night, among other things. There were very few rules inhibiting this world. We were all turned on by Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” and “Diamond Age”. As with any open society the “freedom” in ThePalace led to a decline in community.

Its 2007, we’re on the third generation of virtual worlds. There’s Second Life, Cyworld, World of Warcraft, and for kids there’s Club Penguin and Webkinz. There are changes to these virtual civilizations economic systems and laws have been added. Second Life has a complex economic system based on Linden Dollars. Commerce is taking place there. Second Lifers are buying property building homes and living there. What else is there to do? Like any society there’s shopping in SL you can shop for latest style in skins for your avatar. Earn Linden Dollars by answering questionnaires. Perhaps attend virtual conference. What else is there to do? Gambling is no longer acceptable and is banned. Perhaps make friends. In the case of Aliza Sherman, who is living in Alaska, Second Life is a great way to keep in touch with the main land and explore. In the case of my avatar I took to flying and really enjoy flying. Right now my avatar is stuck somewhere and I’m having a hard time teleporting back to main areas.

All is fascinating but what about the waste that is found in Second Life? According to TreeHugger blogger, Celine Ruben-Salama, second life avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians. That’s a lot of power being wasted? There are several corporations who have built on second life and are confronted with little or no community support. I haven’t visited American Apparel, IBM or other corporations who have built on Second Life. I question if corporations are building what they have in dirt world or are creating innovation in Second Life. For instance can I buy American Apparel clothes for my avatar? Is IBM supplying some kind of cool innovation such as enhanced teleporting capabilities in SL? Can I zoom around in a 1964 Mustang by Ford? Corporations always are so caution probably won’t risk being innovated and adding something new to SL civilization this is why dirt world corporations will fail in the virtual world.

I give SL credit for pushing the virtual envelope and moving virtual world into virtual civilization. As this third generation of virtual worlds begins, to take shape, it will go through its own life, dead and rebirth cycles.

Sources:
Author Unknown, (2007). “Second Life”, Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

A glimpse inside the Metaverse

TerraNova

Everything Your Brand Wants to Know About the Social Media, but Was Afraid to Ask

Social media has made the millennium what it is today. It's not just about the tools is about the connection the Human Connection. Please indulge me and read my paper on Social Media you’ll find it Siegel+Gale.

eHarmony why bother?

I've been trying out eHarmony. Sold on the idea of their special matching system works I decided what the heck I'll give it a try.

Based on their information on their site which convinced me a year membership would be the best and most economical choice. I signed up for the year membership. Hope the gratification would come sooner than a year. I would find that special someone.

First task fill out long laborious form which asks similar questions like Myers Briggs. Got through that after an hour or so only to be told after I paid it would be difficult to find a match for.

Thinking back on that day I wonder if this was the legal way of getting out of the special matching system to work? Perhaps it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Match after match just did seem to fit. Most matches though seemingly nice men on paper were geographically undesirable.

All the while eHarmony kept asking for feedback I kept giving feedback about the matching system not working.

The engagement process between the potential matches and I was long a lengthy process. There were very matches that reached the 4th point which is open communication. The behavior of most candidates was to drop off before they reach the final phase. When we finally were engaged by open communication there was no mystery. There was not one face to face meeting. I’m a very disappointed customer in regard to the service. Additionally when I called to speak to customer service they told me because I agree to use eHarmony for the year regardless of how poor their service was I had to pay.

By the way this is my second attempt with eHarmony. The first time I tried eHarmony there were so many bugs with the system I became very frustrated and left the system. This time I was sold on good advertising because I believed eHarmony could find my match, but I think they are very good at selling vapor.

Customer service offered no service. They did not want to hear about my complaints about the system nor was I allowed to talk to a supervisor. They told me they are going to continue to charge me even through their service hasn’t done fulfilled their brand promise.

Incidentally, I did a quick search and found there are people who are equally disappointed with their membership. There are 39,000 keyword using eHarmony sucks.

Here are some quick links:
eHarmony_Consumer_Complaints
Reviews for eHarmony
Beware: eHarmony sucks...
Why does eHarmony think I am destined for a life of loneliness?

This YouTube eHarmony spoof is not so far from what you really get on eHarmony:



tags: eharmony sucks

To Twitter or Not To Twitter

Ev did it again. Congratulations! Why Twitter. It took me awhile to figure out why would I want to Twitter:

• I discovered I like the community aspect to it
• I found friends I have't seen or heard from in a long time
• I found folks twittering about food, I love food too
• I could develop community twittering about food on Daily Eats...could I, hey Ev could I do that? Twitter tagging and ability to filter those tags for specific content? like dark chocolate twitters?

Should a brand twitter?

Will twittering cross the line between community short posts and promotion? btw I also love TinyURL

You can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/tery

Can’t We Do Better than a Bread-Crumb Trail?

A great post from Irene Etzkorn on the hassles of moving and changing your address. "Yesterday, two of my colleagues mentioned that changing their addresses when they moved was a tremendous hassle..."

We could only hope the US Post Office would provide an easier system for updating a new home address.

Successful Blogging Study

Daily Eats, Mind Arrays, and of course Tery Spataro, is included in a study of successful blogs conducted by the Northeastern University and Backbone Media.

I'm in good company with Aliza Sherman Risdahl , Jeremy Pepper , and one of my favorite consumer blogs and brands: Stonyfield Farms . I love the little cows and I love Stonyfield yogurt!

A Review of Business Planning Software

Off-the-shelf-software for marketing planning is good if you are educated on the fundamentals of marketing. The average person using these products may believe the software is the end to the means. Experienced marketers may cut down on time by using one of these tools keeping in mind the type of business, product, industry the plan is being created for and limitations to the software.

I asked a handful of marketers if they used marketing plan software reviewed in this paper. All replied no. Jill Toole, pointed out, "At IDC we don't use any of the planning software mentioned. Managing and keeping track of information and actions that relate marketing is a big task." (Toole. 2006).

Marketing PlanPro:
Marketing PlanPro software development by PaloAltoSoftware touts itself as being "the best way to create marketing plans". (PaloAltoSoftware, 2006). Marketing PlanPro may be useful for up-start company business plan, but may not be strong enough for the marketing professional working directly for a large corporation or marketing consulting firm.

Strengths/Weakness:
In assessing the strengths of Marketing PlanPro, it appears to be easy to use and a time saver. The application is effortless to install with many tutorials and reference materials. With Marketing PlanPro you can create a professional looking document. The software provides marketing analysis and forecasting and automatic charting tools. Reference materials and technical support are available. The structure for Marketing PlanPro provides a good outline.

Using Marketing PlanPro becomes problematic when there is more reliance on the product’s performance and not on research. Marketing PlanPro is not appropriate for the average person who is trying to develop a business. There needs to be some knowledge of marketing or business. Marketing PlanPro may be too weak for the experienced marketer. The analytical and forecasting tools will require the user to have some knowledge of math. Marketing PlanPro provides templates from similar businesses. Sole reliance on using these templates for content may cause misunderstanding of the market place. The template structure may be too limiting for the experienced marketer.

brs Planrite
brs Plan Write for Marketing Software is used by mangers, entrepreneurs and consultants. (brs Marketing Plan Software, 2006) brs PlanWrite for Marketing Software is developed to help to define the actions necessary for effective marketing strategy. This tool is great for expert marketers.

Strengths/Weakness:
brs PlanWrite for Marketing Software provides organization of strategy in linear style and outline the components of marketing planning process. The built-in algorithms will help to determine competition. Pre supplied data and analytical rules based on business and economic research. The 60-question process allows the software to analyze long term business success. It provides concise charts and graphing tools for decision making.

brs PlanWrite for Marketing Software is not for everyone. There needs to be an understanding of the marketing process. The data resources provided for determining market competition may be outdated or not beneficial to the industry, product or service. The business and economic research supplied may be out of date. There was no indication this research is updated on a regular basis. Reliance using out dated research could lead to poor marketing decisions.

PlanMagic
PlanMagic makes the claim on the website to be the "leading edge marketing plan software". Immediately I am skeptical because PlanMagic does not provide any demonstrations to substantiate the company's claims.

Strengths/Weakness:
PlanMagic is designed "to be used by entrepreneurs, startups, home business, small businesses, college students..." (PlanMagic Corporation. 1995-2006). Indicated software has easy to follow guides and instructions. Provides an analytical tool for internal and external factors. PlanMagic has easy integration with MS Excel.

The planMagic website is confusing. It does not provide a good demonstration of the product. PlanMagic made claims having various charting and analytical tools but there was no demonstrated evidence of these tools or an indication of how well they work.

EXMAR®
EXMAR® strategic marketing, developed by the Marketing Process Company in conjunction with Malcolm McDonald Professor Emeritus. (The Marketing Process Company. 2006). EXMAR® software provides tools to manage marketing more effectively as well as the ability to analyze growth and profit. (The Marketing Process Company. 2006). EXMAR® is sold as part of marketing planning consulting package.

Strengths/Weakness:
EXMAR® is very comprehensive software with the capability of charts, matrices, graphs and reports. Taking the time to develop Gap Analysis, Perceptual maps, SWOT analysis, Porter Matrix, Market segmentation & mapping, Objective and strategy setting by using MS Excel or some data mapping software is consuming. Making these tools available will cut down on time. Has the flexibility to produce the final document in MS Word or PowerPoint.

The organization of the materials was disappointing and difficult which subtracts from the product's credibility. The Marketing Process Company provides EXMAR® and consulting as the product. A small business or entrepreneurial company may not want the added expense of using EXMAR®.

Which of the four business planning software did I like best?
I have never used off-the-shelf marketing plan software. Most of my clients are entrepreneurial companies and small businesses, I prefer doing my own research, with a process that works best for their needs. In the interest of producing timely reports so that marketing efforts can be tracked, analyzed, and retooled I would probably opt for brs PlanWrite. I originally liked EXMAR® for the robust analytical tools but my clients would not buy additional consulting services. brs PlanWrite provides the flexibility with some analytical tools for my clients' needs.