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Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/07/08

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Most of this week’s picks are front the first half of the week do to scheduled travel, but I think we definitely have some winners here!

I Saw The Future Of Social Networking The Other Day
Mike Arrington from TechCrunch.com (like you didn’t know?!) shares some perspective on the future of social networking on mobile devices. Mike has demoed the future and it could involve an iPhone. Make the jump to read more.

Social Media Networking and ROI: How to Maximize Value and Minimize Cost
Maki from the DoshDosh blog breaks down the hot topics of Social Media measurement and ROI. As most in the field will agree, the returns you’ll get out of networking via social media are not direct and immediate. However, Maki shares some ways to maximize your efficiency.

Forrester Marketing Conference Day 1: Understanding Your Customers Through Engagement
Since endless budgets for attending conferences rarely exist, we can be thankful that folks like Jeremiah create posts like this and share the experience virtually with lots of New Media goodness.

My Interview with three 8th Graders on the Future of Social Media
If you still think that your company doesn’t need to start participating on Social Networks, then take a look at this video clip that Jeff Pulver captured during a Social Media Breakfast in Tel Aviv, Israel. These kids are your future customers and employees!

Going viral with YouTube
Jiannis Sotiropoulos of the Pandemic Blog dives head first into how YouTube differs from other social networks in terms of content submission, friends, popularity and going viral.

TechCrunch MeetUp LA–Searching For Internet Celebrities

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TechCrunch/PopSugar PartyPerkettPR is gearing up for the biggest and best TechCrunch MeetUp event yet, being held at the Vanguard in LA this Thursday night. In addition to sponsoring again, we’re interested in turning the tables on tech bloggers and reporters and interviewing them for our blog (thoughts on the NYT blogger piece? Perez Hilton vs. tech bloggers? Arrington vs. Shipley? Facebook vs MySpace? What else is on your radar?).

We’re also interested in interviewing Web 2.0 and social media entrepreneurs on what they’re working on, what they think is hot right now and where they see the market headed in 2008 – will tech stay strong?

If you’re an Internet celebrity or undiscovered talent with opinions to share, and would be game for an interview by the PPR video blog team, please drop us a note or direct message us on Twitter @PerkettPR. We’d like to meet up at the MeetUp and capture your insights for colleagues, friends and industry pundits who can’t be in attendance.

Look forward to seeing those of you that can make it on Thursday night. Please look for us at the event we’ll be the ones “lighting up the night” with some sweet shwag give-aways.

Crunchies or Crashies?

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Crunchies or Crashies, call them what you like..either way call it an entertaining evening in San Francisco on Friday.

The Crunchies 2007

Attending the Crunchies was a great way to end a very busy work week. Upon arriving at the Herbst Theatre it was clear the bubble was back in full effect (or on its way to bursting, according to the usual cynics and of course the Richter Scales). Though the exuberance was rational, there were some flash signs of the days of old, the folks from Tesla Motors had one of their super-spendy electric cars parked out in front of theatre (who said you had to sacrifice sophistication to go green?) and there were massive search lights attracting passers-by and pointing them in the right direction to tech party fun. The camera crews from the local broadcast stations and video bloggers like PopSnap’s Sarah Myers were circling Michael Arrington, and others, to get some good pre-awards ceremony sound bytes and, of course, the usual party crashers were there too.

As with other TechCrunch events, the place was filled with overly enthusiastic students and bloggers, budding entrepreneurs and established CEOs, as well as the marketing and PR folks like us doing their best to network while juggling flashing mobile devices, handshakes and a drink, pre-ceremony. All of us were in the same boat with our thoughts though, hoping to see our company or client take home one of the coveted Crunchie monkey statues, or, at the very least, be entertained on a Friday night — and that we were. Check out this hilarious (though somewhat vulgar) acceptance speech video from the fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons). Apparently no one from Apple was available to attend the ceremony and accept the award so the Crunchies had a great laugh at their expense, and so did the rest of us! Also check out the Cool Whip response from Twine in the first set of video interviews section — very funny guy. The Richter Scales also had us laughing with their catchy tech party song, Here Comes Another Bubble.

Arrington along with Om Malik (who courageously still made it on stage 15 days post heart surgery), Matt Marshall and Richard MacManus were all gracious hosts and entertaining presenters. The event flowed just as well as any other first-year awards ceremony, with a few hiccups, that Arrington was the first to point out and remedy, (like never, ever leaving the stage empty), and the unscripted “Blogger Bash” panel, moderated byDan Farber, that was a bit rushed. All in all, that the event was a great success for the four blogs that hosted, all the companies that were nominated, and for those that won the coveted, crazy monkey “Crunchie.” And for the rest of us, the night was a chance to celebrate what a cool and crazy year in tech it has been. It was great to see the tremendous amount of activity that has happened in tech this year culminate in one nicely put together event. Congratulations to all the winners, and look forward to seeing you all at the next big valley celebration sometime soon.

Thanks to Mike, Om, Matt, and Richard for hosting all of us tech geeks and reminding us what a great ride it’s been –so far (I mean the second time) ☺!

Who Caught Your Eye in 2007? Tell the Crunchies Committee

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Anyone that hasn’t had a chance to nominate for the Crunchies Awards should take a look and place votes for your favorite sites, people and emerging tech companies of 2007.

Nominations are only open through tomorrow, December 12, so log on and list your favorites now. The Crunchies Committee will then choose five finalists from the submissions and voting will start on December 13 and last for approximately one month.

If you are looking for some inspiration on who to vote for, check out some of PerkettPR’s clients nominated for selection this year:

Conduit ; “best international start-up” – community toolbars

Moola.com ; “best time sink site,” “best consumer start up” and “best international start up” – the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Rewards Game (MMRG)

Ezmo ; “best consumer start up” and “best international start-up” – social music sharing

Sosius ; “best business model” – free online collaborative workspaces

Here’s some additional background on the awards from the Crunchies blog:

“Together GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb, VentureBeat and TechCrunch are pleased to announce that nominations for the inaugural 2007 Crunchies Awards are now open.

We created twenty award categories to recognize the year’s most innovative technical, creative and business accomplishments of key companies, products and people. We hope you’ll agree that the award categories are good reasons for celebration and fit for a proper ceremony.

We invite you to submit your favorite companies and products for consideration. Read the official rules. Nominations will be open through midnight pst Wednesday, December 12. Finalist voting will open Thursday, December 13 and run for approximately one month before the awards ceremony on Friday, January 18 in San Francisco.”

In a Web 2.0 World, Customer Service Still Matters

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With all the do-it-yourself technologies prevalent in today’s Web 2.0 environment, customer service is very often stripped down to an IM chat or email. Often it’s impossible to get a human on the phone when you most need it, and when you do happen to “catch” a customer service representative, cultural barriers, sour attitudes and long processes tend to prevail. Now, more than ever, customer service matters.

One of our clients, Constant Contact, has always recognized this – their entire culture is built around taking care of the customer. Personally, we’ve experienced some great customer service this month from other vendors – and as a small business, it’s great to be treated with the care, respect and importance that is often only reserved for large customers.

Two examples:

Promopeddler

We had to order a rather large supply of light up glasses for the TechCrunch Boston MeetUp. We called a vendor we had used before and when we were negotiating some timing/pricing issues, the approach was a threatening “we may be more expensive, but you’ll regret it if you don’t use us” attitude. That doesn’t play well with us, so we tried a new vendor, Promopeddler. Promopeddler won our business due to their sales rep, Laurie. Laurie’s approach was not only that she was grateful for our business but she went above and beyond with her customer service. She was truly the reason they won our business.

Laurie was proactive, persistent and consistent – all the way past the point of the glasses being delivered. She provided extensive contact information, contacted us daily to let us know the status of the rushed order, called us when she thought a color aspect could be better – and provided a recommendation – and even followed up to ask us how our event was and if the glasses worked out. Our customer experience was so outstanding due to this woman that as long as she’s there, we’ll be a customer. We noticed they made the Inc. 500 “because we give personal service with every order.” Yes – they really do.

Verizon Wireless

We had a unique situation to solve with some BlackBerry purchase from Verizon. It required getting on the phone with some customer service representatives, which is not always a very positive experience. However, one customer service representative, Anthony in New York, made all the difference today. He was very clear every step of the way through the process and he was so personable we ended up chatting about baseball and football – and even though he was a dreaded Yankees fan and we are diehard Red Sox fans (most of us, anyway), we felt like a customer that mattered. Anthony made a time consuming process not only bearable but even entertaining – and experiences like that stick with your customers, so they stick with you.

The point here is that yes, the Internet provides a mostly do-it-yourself marketplace and opportunities to communicate without ever saying a word. But positive, helpful and verbal human connections are still important ways to make your brand memorable – and your customers loyal.

PerkettPR speaks with Mark Pascarella, CEO of Gotuit at TechCrunch Boston

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TechCrunch Boston was a great place to meet new people and to connect with old friends and clients, like the focus of today’s blog entry and interview, Mark Pascarella, CEO of Gotuit Media, a former client and sometimes project partner of ours. We’ve been big fans of Gotuit for a few years now and loved hearing about the recent successes they have been experiencing in the mobile space with the NFL Fantasy Football application through Sprint, their recent selection as Streaming Media Magazine’s 2007 Reader’s Choice Award for “Best Search and Indexing Platform” and their very impressive work with Sports Illustrated and Fox Reality Channel.

Check out our interview with Mark to hear more about what Gotuit has been up to, and why they came to network at the TechCrunch Boston MeetUp.

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Sarah Wurrey Dishes on PR, Technology and Social Media from TechCrunch Boston

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More from our TechCrunch interview series. Today’s subject is Sarah Wurrey, who writes for BlogString.com. Sarah shares her opinions and insights on PR, social media and technology – and whether or not traditional media will be overrun by the blogosphere.

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PerkettPR TechCrunch Interviews – Sarah Meyers of PopSnap

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We continue with another interview from TechCrunch Boston. Today’s subject is Sarah Meyers. Sarah is a very ambitious, intelligent and admirable woman who had an early claim to fame for sneaking in to one of the earlier TechCrunch MeetUp events in Silicon Valley – and getting booted. The next year she was invited personally and has since gone on to grace the videos, blog posts and more of many infamous social media and technology pundits including Justin.TV, Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve Jobs), Robert Scoble, David Berlind of ZDNet and more. She is often found with a video camera and microphone, interviewing and recording various emerging start ups, conferences, events and more – and has been called her own personal TV channel.

Sarah is building a great brand for herself with her insightful and consistent analysis of the tech market. She is a great example of how today’s social media can help you build a brand – and eventually a company – around nothing but your own hard work and tenacity. Keep up the great work, Sarah!

You can watch Sarah live at her lifecast or keep up via her YouTube Channel or new videocast company, PopSnap. Or, if you prefer print, read her blog.

For our interview with Sarah, click below. (Apologies for the dark qualities – our videographer failed to show up so we had to work impromptu with our digital cameras!)

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Thanks, Boston – TechCrunch MeetUp Success!

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We are recovering from a busy week that culminated in the TechCrunch Boston MeetUp last Friday. We are very proud of the way the event turned out – in addition to helping the TechCrunch gang plan, promote and secure sponsors, we participated as one ourselves and also helped launch two new clients, Moola and Mzinga, at the event. Among the sea of people we met a lot of intelligent, enthusiastic and zealous Web 2.0 entrepreneurs. From those still in business school to old clients and colleagues we hadn’t seen in years, it was a wonderful place to connect with the Boston tech community.

Some of our favorites – in addition to our own clients, of course – were Punchbowl, SnapYap, UpNext and Mogility as well as individuals, bloggers and reporters including, of course Mike, Heather Harde and Erick Schonfeld, Sarah Wurrey and Nate Burke of BlogString, the infamous Chris Brogan, Scott Monty, John Puskarich of Bountii, Wade Roush, David Cutler (who got Christine Perkett to do her first Utter!) Julia Roy, Amanda Mooney, Chris Herot, Brian Costello and Matt Hillery, Tracy Brady of Referral Key, David Aronoff, Kate Castle and Chip Hazard of IDG Ventures Boston, Sangita Chandra and Jason Potts of Chronicle/WCVB-TV and many, many more. Thank you everyone for attending, chatting and connecting!

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In addition to Twittering updates from the party, we spent a good deal of time in the lit-up PerkettPR Lounge – interviewing attendees about what they do, why they were attending the party and what they thought about the tech market’s future. We will feature these interviews over the next couple of weeks. Img_2287

Today we begin with Mike Arrington – we wanted to know what he thought of Boston and the tech market in general. One of his most interesting comments was in regards to the Boston tech community and how we should self-organize more to connect and support all the entrepreneurial spirit in the city. At PerkettPR, we’ve seen more of this happen as we continue to get involved in the social networking community here and expand our relationships both online and off. It’s been a great experience meeting so many intelligent people who are passionate about technology. We look forward to continuing the dialogue in many ways in 2008 – in Boston and beyond.

Click below to see Mike’s interview.

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A Busy Week – Heading to College, Making Moola and Hosting a TechCrunch Martini Lounge

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This week is shaping up to be very busy and exciting for the staff at PerkettPR. Not only are we finalizing our sponsorship presence for TechCrunch MeetUp Boston this Friday, but we are also launching two new clients at the event and promoting CollegeWeekLive – taking place this Tuesday and Wednesday, November 13 and 14.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First, we are looking forward to the launch of CollegeWeekLive – the biggest virtual college fair ever with over 10,000 students, parents and guidance counselors attending, including many from Europe, Asia, and Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

CollegeWeekLive enables students to “visit” multiple colleges in just two days – they can connect with current college students, guidance counselors, admissions experts and more in a live, interactive environment. The event is geared toward enhancing the process of choosing a college that’s best for the student – all from the their home computer. It will feature many great sessions to help today’s college-bound student make better choices. For more information, check out the agenda.

 

 

Over 75 colleges from over 35 states are signed up to-date, including Air Force Academy, Bentley, Central Connecticut State, Northeastern University, Tufts University, University of Buffalo, University of Texas and more.

Secondly, on Friday we will be at TechCrunch Boston MeetUp at Estate in Boston. We will be helping clients Moola and Mzinga launch – please stop by and see what they are all about. They will both be providing demos and some interactive fun as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are a reporter, blogger or analyst covering social networking, online gaming, advergaming, online collaboration or community, and would like a pre-launch briefing to learn more, please email me at chris[at]perkettpr.com.

 

If you are attending the party, please stop by the PerkettPR Martini Lounge and find out what all the buzz is about. More details coming later this week. See you there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Follow us – @PerkettPR – on Twitter – for live updates and interviews from the party!