Archive for the ‘Content Publisher/B2B’ Category

Zagat’s, the famed restaurant review group but a poor performer on the online world, is changing online tactics. They are bypassing their botched subscription model in lieu of a great app. For Zagat’s, its  another distribution channel, like their still successful printed books. It’s mobile, it’s local, it’s search. Looks poised for success but only time will tell.

Yet another publisher where the paid subscription model failed. Most disappointing is that they seemed ideally positioned to make it on line.  As the NY Times beautifully put it, Zagat’s was the original ‘user generated content.’ Pre-blogs, pre-Facebook, pre-Yelp, they had all these people reviewing restaurants. But they kept it paid content, which kept it outside Google’s firewall. Now they’re seen as an also-ran to Yelp and the proliferating local restaurant and daily deal sites.

So the ad model (Yelp) vs the paid content model (Zagat’s). Yelp was worth $500 million to Google. Zagat was at $175-200 million in 2008. An interesting battle to keep an eye on.

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It was 1994 and…….
· Lorena Bobbitt is found not guilty by reason of insanity
· FIFA World Cup begins in the United States
· Friends the long running American sitcom premieres on NBC
Oh and blogging was the online diary for a small group of individuals to express their thoughts and feelings good, bad or ugly.
I recently read an article that described a “gradual shift in blogging acceptance” but in a corporate/business setting. Only “12% of Fortune 500 companies run a corporate blog” but my question is when will everybody else get on board? If you want to know what your consumers think then ask. Sure, you will have to filter the information but it is in its purest form. Companies are now hiring individuals who have corporate titles such as VP of Communities & Conversations or VP of Social Media Relations that encompass the blogging responsibilities. There are obvious challenges with the format and with the content provided but whoever wins the race of obtaining valuable customer feedback in volumes will certainly reap the rewards. The companies benefit by getting real time feedback that can be processed and used, exposure and traffic to their websites and an opportunity to serve ads to customers who are relevant to their business.
I intentionally did not mention the benefit of being accountable for issues created by their products or services. Is there a “negative cloud” that hovers over creating a corporate blog which would highlight a company’s faults? Is this why a portion of the 88% of Fortune 500 companies are not participating? Do most companies fear the truth and would rather roll the dice and hopetheir customers come back rather than address what are more than likely real issues?
Corporate blogging is a relatively low cost opportunity to reach the expensive fuel (customer) for its engine so I say, filler up!!!!!!
Chris Masters | Chris.Masters@aclion.com
To find the original article and read more here: BToBOnline.com Blog Posting