You can’t envy Encyclopedia Britannica. But if you’re caught in a fading industry, you need to either completely re-invent yourself (a la ReImagine by Tom Peters), or quit (a la The Dip by Seth Godin). The last thing you should do is make your system even more inconvenient.

The Wiki world (Wikipedia in particular) hit Britannica square between the eyes with free content, and free access to their user supplied/edited content … which makes expensive book-based encyclopedias a tough sale. Not too surprisingly, the previous holder of “the authority” title in research information has done some scrambling. Britannica announced this past week they are allowing publishers to subscribe for free access to articles. Here’s a snippet from their blog;

… We’ve been swamped with requests for free subscriptions, and we’re processing them as quickly as we can. We do look at each one, so the screening process is not entirely programmatic, but no one should have to wait more than about 24 hours between applying for a free sub at our registration page and receiving an answer from us.

The majority of the people who have applied so far, by the way, have qualified and are receiving subscriptions.

If you have any problems with or questions about your subscription or the registration process, please send us an e-mail about it. (Update: Please also write to us if you’ve applied for a subscription and haven’t heard back from us in 36 hours or longer.)

Not only to they tell you up front that you have to fill out forms (yuk), and possibly not get accepted (sheesh), but they go on to let you know that there may be problems with the registration process and to contact them if they haven’t responded in a day or two (HOLY COW). Is it still 1995, and I just missed it?

Thank you, but I think I’ll just pass for now and continue to use Wikipedia.

Tell me what YOU think! Are you a fan of Wikipedia? … or, in your estimation, does Britannica have a chance to survive?

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A prospective client inquired about the specifics of building a new dating web site. He found another site that was already built and is in line with his idea. He wanted me to look at it to see what I thought. That discussion, however, is NOT the reason for this post!

He showed me the site – built by a techie/programmer – which is called “Entrepreneur Dating”. The screen shot below will clue you in on why you should not let your IT people do your design or brand strategy. I’ll stop here and let the logo speak for itself. … wait for it … wait for it … wait for it.  Do you see the problem?

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I’ve probably said it a thousand times; “The most important decision a business owner will ever make is what their name will be.” It should be, at the very least; ‘in brand’, powerful, easy to remember …. oh, and well thought out.

This one is from Emily (seen at Oddee.com).

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There’s a vast difference between self confidence and smoke-blowing puffery.  Enjoy this snippet from the Internal Revenue Service Training Manual …

You will find it a distinct help … if you know and look as if you know what you’re doing.

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Charging head first into the new millennium with the ferocity of … of … of a poodle with a bad haircut. Ford unveils their plans to revive the Taurus line. Don’t get me wrong (too much), I used to own a Ford Taurus … back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, raising young kids. But, with a new tag line of “Bold Moves“, you have to expect something more than THIS from Ford, don’t you?!

Not too surprisingly, this news has already been the target of a lot of press. Some from the industry (see this very funny post from Autoblog) as well as the world of brand strategy (from none other than Laura Ries).

I guess this means I need to break out my old cassette version of Lipps, Inc./Funky Town. Hmmm, maybe the new Taurus will come with a CD player! ….. NAHHHHH!

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The world of marketing is abuzz about the recent Boston “fake bomb” scare. I’ve decided that I’m going to differentiate myself by not blogging about it. Move along people, move along.

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Admit it, when you read the title to this post, you:

• flinched, visibly
• had several parts of your anatomy “pucker”
• heaved, just a little
• grimaced, thinking about how bad of an idea this is
• said (out loud) WTF

It was bound to happen and Verizon, last week, became the second major carrier to put advertisements in your pocket or your purse … that’s right, on the screen of your cell phone. IS NOTHING SACRED!?

Not that you needed the confirming data but Forrester Research has published a report called “Is the U.S. Ready for Mobile Marketing?” and provided detailed analysis including the fact that a whopping 79% of online consumers find the idea of ads on cell phones “annoying”. The report goes on to detail that only 3% actually trust text ads on cell phones.

I could go on and on about this intrusive, interuptive, offensive form of bad advertising but I won’t. You get it. The problem is the advertiser’s paying money for this tactic don’t. Sigh.

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