Greg Verdino

How do you market your start-up?

I remember how we did it in the Web 1.0 days -- we raised a boatload of money on Sand Hill Road and poured said boatload of money directly into television ad buys (usually featuring a celeb or a sock puppet), football field-sized tradeshow booths, massive yet exclusive insider parties and (of course) logo t-shirts for a thousand of our closest friends. 

Of course, all of this typically paled in comparison to our BIG publicity stunt: declaring Chapter 7 and auctioning off our office furniture.

Nowadays, it seems like you just get Scoble to try your service once and hope that the rest of the early adopters fall in line.  But I suspect there's more to it than that. :-)

So does Charlie O'Donnell of tech start-up Path101 (and NextNY fame) so he and his intern have cooked up a nice little survey to find out how start-ups really market today.

If you work for a start-up or work at an agency that has start-up clients, you can share what you know by taking the online survey now.

You may be asking yourself if this is just a way for Charlie to get some free marketing advice.  Probably.  He's sneaky like that.  But in return Path101 have promised to share the results on their blog - so the more people participate, the better the data will be, and that should make for an interesting read for entrepreneurs and marketers alike.

Blogpoll: Facebook furor

I'm sure most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding Facebook and their ill conceived Beacon social advertising program.  Facebook went from darling to thug, almost overnight, causing at least one marketing blogger to part ways with the social network and raising important questions about whether Facebook membership poses a serious threat to your privacy.  Part of me thinks that Facebook has made a huge, business-crushing mistake.  But part of me thinks that we're making a mountain out of a molehill.  After all, Google surely knows almost as much about my interests, opinions and behaviors (heck, their giant HAL-like super computers scan every word of every Gmail message I send and receive, and hit me with ads that match my conversations) but I'm not thinking about cancelling my Gmail account. 

So I figured I would ask my readers - complete the multiple choice questions below and let's see what you're thinking.  Responses are anonymous, of course. :-)

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Opinion Polls & Market Research

[Feed and email readers - I have no clue whether the poll widgets will display for you, so if you don't see any polls please click through to respond.]

Media snacking: the poll

People have been tossing around the term "media snacking" for a while now, referring to the rise in consumption of bite-sized media chunks (short form web video, RSS feeds, blogs, etc.) at the expense of traditional long form media (prime time television fare, in-depth print articles, big three portals.)  Just last week Mark Cuban blogged about the trend and delivered a not-particularly-charitable view of web video.  Then my March issue of Wired arrived on Friday sporting a more favorable cover story that explores media snacking and the broader trend toward miniaturization of everything in entertainment (from the content choose to the devices we use.)

With that as background, I've decided to introduce my first "blogpoll."  What do you think about media snacking?  How would you characterize your own media habits?  Join the conversation, why dontcha...

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