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Big Orange Slide

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

When blogs die

February 26, 2010 by Ian Mackenzie

Illustration by Brian Ross

Some recent comings and goings in the world of marketing blogs:

15 ideas
After more than 400 posts, Proximity Chicago Creative Lead Kevin Lynch says he’s shutting down his 15 ideas blog. That’s bad news for the blogosphere – especially since he’s blaming it on something he said at Big Orange Slide. Goodbye Kevin’s funny blog. Sorry about that.

Applied Arts Wire
The Applied Arts Wire blog has unveiled a sleek new look to put it in line with the recently relaunched AppliedArtsMag.com. The tag is “Your window into the Canadian creative community.” Recent action includes campaign profiles (ZAK’s eating disorder campaign), portfolios (Mike Grandmaison), industry surveys and a big community-building push on Twitter.

The Ad Contrarian
Bob Hoffman posted twice this week about the latest Edelman report – the one that says consumers don’t trust their friends anymore. In so doing, he offers faint praise to Patricia McDonald of BBH Labs: “Unlike most social media proponents, [McDonald] at least can think straight and write a coherent sentence. She doesn’t write in clichés and jargon and she’s not in denial about the facts, like most agencies will be. (You can bet agencies won’t be showing the Edelman report to their clients any time soon. Too much money to be made in social media.)” Oh, snap! Except he’s wrong. We shared the report with our clients right here this past Monday.

Church of the customer blog
“There’s a lot marketers can learn from artist and musician Lady Gaga,” says Jackie Hubb. Among them: “Give fans a name . . . Make it about something bigger than you . . . Develop shared symbols . . . Make your customers feel like rock stars.” Good call.

7 Comments on "When blogs die"

  • Ameet
    February 26, 2010 @ 11:01 am

    What wsz it that he said in the BigOrangeSlide that made him want to take down his blog?

  • Ian Mackenzie
    February 26, 2010 @ 11:05 am

    In Kevin’s own words: “earlier this year, i did a fun interview with some friends from north of the 49th parallel. (the interview can be seen either here or here.) (sorry, old joke.) one of the questions asked was, ‘what’s the big idea behind the 15 ideas blog?’ i answered far too honestly that there is none.”

  • David Chiavegato
    February 27, 2010 @ 3:19 pm

    The trust survey is interesting. But the dramatic decline of trust across the board had me questioning the soundness and integrity of the this survey’s data. I guess I’m saying I don’t trust the trust results.

    Apparently I’m not alone. The following link is survey results that indicates people don’t trust survey results. The obvious question being: Do you trust the survey result that shows people don’t trust survey results?

    http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/121017-statistic-we-dont-trust-statistics

  • Jim Monteath
    March 1, 2010 @ 12:05 am

    David: Nobody should trust the survey about trusting surveys that you linked to.

    They sampled 1000 adults. Let’s assume a best-case scenario where these people were randomly selected and the survey methodology excluded obvious biases. A sample set of 1000 produces a margin of error around 3%, yet the article still cites a 1% change since 2005 as being significant. A number that is within the margin of error is not, by definition, statistically significant.

    Neither is that article.

    It’s well known that 98.7% of statistics are made up. The other 5.23% are accurate. Trust me.

  • Applied Arts Wire » Monday Morning Miscellany
    March 1, 2010 @ 10:01 am

    [...] from around the blogosphere from Grip’s rapidly-rising Big Orange [...]

  • David Chiavegato
    March 2, 2010 @ 3:49 pm

    Interesting observation, “Jim Monteath”. If that’s your name. The real “Jim Monteath” I know, would not engage in “observational selection”. Even if the margin of error is beyond the stated decline, the main premise of the article – that the majority of people do not believe in statistics – is still statistically significant.

    The real “Jim Monteath” would also realize that it is impossible to define a margin of error without a clearly defined “population”. The article could be referring to online statistics writers (as the “we”) – they could, theoretically, be a group totaling 1000, in which case, the margin of error would be zero.

    Nice try, Fake Jim Monteath.

  • Jim Monteath
    March 6, 2010 @ 12:21 am

    You are absolutely right Dave. If the population being sampled was all 1,000 known on-line statistics writers, the results would be 100% accurate. Then you’d know for certain that all 1,000 on-line statistics writers don’t trust on-line statistics.

    Wait a second…

    PS: The real “Jim Monteath” became tedious, so we replaced him with rejected fortune cookie messages written by a disgruntled ex-employee. Not much improvement yet.

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