The Big Fat Marketing Blog

Remember Tamagotchis , those digital pets-on-a-keychain marketed by Bandai starting in about 1996? You could feed them virtual food, exercise them and even clean up after them. But the experience was about as realistic as inviting the Pac-Mans home to dinner; if not cared for promptly when an alarm sounded, they could sicken, starve and die within a day or so.

The company still sells them and said its total sales hit 10 million units by the middle of 2005. But chances are good that a large proportion of those little digital critters took their last virtual breaths in the back of junk drawers somewhere, out of sight of owners who took a silent oath never to actually own a real live dog or cat. more

Remember Tamagotchis , those digital pets-on-a-keychain marketed by Bandai starting in about 1996? You could feed them virtual food, exercise them and even clean up after them. But the experience was about as realistic as inviting the Pac-Mans home to dinner; if not cared for promptly when an alarm sounded, they could sicken, starve and die within a day or so.

The company still sells them and said its total sales hit 10 million units by the middle of 2005. But chances are good that a large proportion of those little digital critters took their last virtual breaths in the back of junk drawers somewhere, out of sight of owners who took a silent oath never to actually own a real live dog or cat. more

Over the past year and a half I’ve been tempted to reword that short bio up there at the top of the page next to my mug shot. Specifically, I’ve considered taking out or changing the sentence that says I “don’t get” Twitter, partly to avoid having people try to explain to me how it’s the greatest thing since bottled beer.

You’re not giving yourself credit, I tell myself. You get Twitter; you just don’t understand why anyone would use it, either in their daily life or for any kind of marketing purpose.

And so the sentence stays. more

Over the past year and a half I’ve been tempted to reword that short bio up there at the top of the page next to my mug shot. Specifically, I’ve considered taking out or changing the sentence that says I “don’t get” Twitter, partly to avoid having people try to explain to me how it’s the greatest thing since bottled beer.

You’re not giving yourself credit, I tell myself. You get Twitter; you just don’t understand why anyone would use it, either in their daily life or for any kind of marketing purpose.

And so the sentence stays. more

There’s a great temptation in hard times to look only at the short term: What will work for the next quarter, the next sales cycle, the next big shopping weekend?

But the folks at the Pew Internet & American Life Project know that the future doesn’t stop coming just because the Dow falls off the table, and that there’s always time for some smart long-range forecasting. At the very least, it can help clarify what’s really a priority in the here and now—what will really pay off with dividends when the roller coaster begins inching up again.

Mobile marketing has been in that “almost here” twilight zone for years now, of course. more

There’s a great temptation in hard times to look only at the short term: What will work for the next quarter, the next sales cycle, the next big shopping weekend?

But the folks at the Pew Internet & American Life Project know that the future doesn’t stop coming just because the Dow falls off the table, and that there’s always time for some smart long-range forecasting. At the very least, it can help clarify what’s really a priority in the here and now—what will really pay off with dividends when the roller coaster begins inching up again.

Mobile marketing has been in that “almost here” twilight zone for years now, of course. more