Case Studies

How NOT to market your stuff via email

Posted by that damn redhead on Aug 14, 2009 in Case Studies | 7 comments

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!This wonderful gem showed up in my Gmail box the other day: What’s wrong with this picture? Well, what isn’t? For starters: “selukasavitz” is not my name. It’s my Gmail ID, which is the combination of my first two initials plus my last name. Secondly, WHAT KIND OF A SUBJECT LINE IS THAT?! “Hello ___, buy some products” … um, what kind of products? Peanut products?...

Verizon, I hope you’re listening.

Posted by that damn redhead on Aug 2, 2009 in Case Studies, Social Media, Tech | 13 comments

Recently on Facebook, I posted the story about how Michael Arrington over at TechCruch quit the iPhone. In a nutshell, Arrington loves Google Voice but doesn’t like having two numbers, which is understandable because changing your number is a pain when everybody already has one for you. Soon Google will be introducing number portability, meaning that you can keep your number and transfer it to Google Voice. Well, it turns out that Apple and AT&T are blocking the iPhone app that makes...

Happy Birthday, South Africa & WildEarth.tv!

Posted by that damn redhead on Apr 26, 2009 in Case Studies, Miscellaneous | 1 comment

Back in February I did a two-part case study series on WildEarth.tv, a online wildlife channel that broadcasts live from the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa. Not only is this concept unique in and of itself, but what fascinated me the most was (and still is) their vast and incredibly cohesive social ecosystem. In my not-so-humble opinion, WildEarth.tv and its community are among the most awesome things on the internet, right up there with LOLcats, Twitter, and instant rimshot. It’s...

This ain’t an apology, but I ain’t calling for its removal.

Posted by that damn redhead on Apr 16, 2009 in Case Studies, Politics | 0 comments

I was off the grid for most of the day yesterday because I was in Ann Arbor for the Annual Meeting of the Cultural Alliance of Southeast Michigan, for which social networking was its theme. I was glad I finally got to meet Laurie Laurent Smith, a Twitter pal and fellow social media geek in my area* that I kept missing at Tweetups. My buds Shauna & Kevin from Biznet were also there, which means the kickass factor was significantly higher. While I was away from the internet, however, it seems...

“This Ain’t Flint”: Ain’t a campaign, but it ain’t social media at work, either.

Posted by that damn redhead on Apr 13, 2009 in Case Studies, Social Media | 8 comments

(Warning: This is a long post, but it goes by quickly.) In Michael Moore’s 1995 fictitious movie Canadian Bacon, the U.S. economy was in a rut and the president, whose low approval rating is not unlike that of our former president, decided that what was needed to boost both his popularity and the country’s morale was a good war. Naturally, war was declared on a country that didn’t do anything to us — Canada. (This scenario sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t...

The difference between print & web, + how NOT to launch a student campaign.

Posted by that damn redhead on Mar 5, 2009 in Blogging, Case Studies, Social Media | 2 comments

(This is cross-posted from my other, more local blog, Regeneration Genesee, but I thought it was applicable over here, too.) I love my alma mater, University of Michigan – Flint. It’s a great school, a great value, and its mere presence, especially with dorms now in downtown Flint, are doing wonders for the city. I still subscribe to the e-edition of their newspaper, The Michigan Times because it’s nice to know what’s going on at the school. (I was never a fan of the...