What are brands?

According to startup blog: They are any form of visual or language communicate which provide meaning to humans and provide elementary recognition or decision shortcuts. This may only exist as a word, an event or even a memory in the human mind.

 

Brands have existed as long as homo sapiens have and possibly longer. From an aboriginal waterhole to mountain peaks of significances to any clan anywhere in the world. Even animal names are brands…..although the product was manufactured by mother earth!

 

Startup lesson: Don’t get hung up on words and visuals. Focus on creating  and communicating meaning.

Radio Ga Ga

While driving home from a meeting this morning a song on the radio finished and the announcer in a deep authoritative voice came on and proclaimed the following – verbatim:

 

“1 hour of non stop songs without advertising, on 105.1 FM, brought to you by BRAND X”

I was incredulous. No wonder we’re migrating to PLD’s quicker than you can say….

….Non Stop Block-A-Rock !!!!

Quirky fact 6.0

In Australia, people owe $155 for every $100 they earn! Chances are it’s similar in your country. 

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Rather than think of how they can leverage it, world changing entrepreneurs will be thinking of ways they can solve it.

Could it spread…?

We’re auctioning a prop from an ad we made for Rentoid.com on ebay:

 

Could it go viral?                          – maybe

Do we think it will?                       – we have doubts

Was it fun to write and do?         – yes

Was it worth trying?                     – absolutely

 

Startup blog question: What could you auction to generate some awareness for your startup?

 

You can check it out by clicking here.

 

Hey, why not have some fun and ask us a silly question. Heck, tell a friend, place a tiny bid…

Tech bubble v2.0

I recently blogged about the unrealistic valuation of Facebook, seems there’s many who agree with startupblog. Sure web 2.0 is heating up, but as usual they’ll be stayers and those who disappear. The only thing that changes…. This is a really clever and fun parady.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtdV3z9eCm8]

If we want to be here in the long run here’s some simple advice:

Offer a service people need, ensure it has a built in way to make you money, not an exit plan which sells eyeballs – these only work for a few ‘wordbeaters’ (like facebook & youtube).

Facebook Apps vs Advertising

There’s no shortage of both of these now, although we’d like to know why anyone would invest money in advertising on facebook, when one can more cheaply create an application?

 

There’s no shortage of useless apps out there…. No I don’t want to be a vampire, but I do want to:

If I’m interested and the app is good, it will find me. If there is an advertisement in a side bar, I’m generally going to ignore it. I’m not on facebook to look at advertisements, no matter how targeted.

At Rentoid.com today we launched “Where did my money go?” An app which  

          helps calculate the value of idle assets

          gives cools icon gifts to share

          shows people how to unlock their idle asset value

          enables users compare the value of their stuff

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All while being part of the reason people are on facebook. We did this with just a little bit of coding. Check it out here.

 

Good app’s which are fun, useful and have a reason to link back to your business are an absolute boon. We can always improve an app over time by paying attention to user feedback. We’ve been gifted to have a free open platform with 52 million members. Instead of advertising on facebook and being an ancillary, build an app and be part of the ball game!