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The problem with multimedia - redux (3)

By barney | January 5, 2008

Well, I’m back with another installment of what you may consider to be an extended rant.  It isn’t.

See, I’m not against the use of multimedia.  I’m against the misuse of multimedia.

Video, in particular, takes up a lot of bandwidth.  It’s nearly impossible over a dial-up, and over half the Internet connectivity, in the US, at least, is dial-up. Can you think of many things more useless than an unseen video <snort />?

However, what I want to discuss today is audio.

Back in my corporate days, I once had a manager, Bob, who was born and raised in New Hampshire.  I often had to ask him to repeat things - he simply talked faster than I could hear <chuckle />.  His enunciation and diction were excellent, but he spoke so rapidly that words would run together.

But.

I could read faster than he could talk.

Why is that statement relevant?  Time!  If I can read four times faster than you can talk, I can process three messages in the time it takes you to deliver one, and still have time left over.

Various research projects have established that the faster you read, the greater your comprehension and retention.  That’s one of the reasons for all the speed-reading courses that are available.

Unfortunately, the same is not true of hearing.

"We hear words, we read sentences, but we think in paragraphs." 

I have no idea what/who the source of that statement might be, but it rings true.

We hear words.  Our minds must put the words together into sentences.  Our minds are pretty good at that.  Our minds can do that pretty much as a background process that doesn’t take any real conscious effort or attention on our part.

But the content of those sentences requires attention, some degree of concentration.  And if your attention is directed toward what you are hearing, it is directed away from something else.

I’ve received offers from a number of marketers offering audio training CDs that I could listen to while relaxing, while driving, or in my leisure time.

Hey, if I’m listing to a training audio, I’m not relaxing.  Nor is that leisure time: it’s work.

As for driving …

If you are listening to a training audio and driving a car at the same time, I don’t want to be on the same road with you - you are dangerous!

Yeah, yeah … lots of people listen to training and motivation stuff while driving.  I’m scared of them, too.

They call it multi-tasking.  I’m not certain they understand the concept. 

Multi-tasking refers to having two or more tasks going at the same time.  People switch their attention from one to another as needed.  However, ’tis a very rare individual who can actually pay attention to two or more tasks at the same time.

The human mind just isn’t built that way.  Oh, we can track more than one task at a time, after a fashion, but we cannot concentrate on more than one task at a time, save for the aforementioned rare few.

Most of us just switch out attention from one task to another as required.  Oh, we can spare enough attention to listen for an alarm or glance at a tell-tale, but our concentration is upon just one task.

And that works just fine in the kitchen, at work, in the yard, on the beach.

But it’s damned dangerous on the road.

Here in the US, many areas have banned use of cell phones while driving.  The reason is that people talking on the phone start concentrating on the phone conversation, taking their concentration away from driving. 

Oh, they can keep the car on the road, but they’re not really paying attention to traffic.

To my mind, listening to motivation or training audios while driving is just as dangerous.  If you’re really listening to the training, getting value from it, learning from it, you are not paying enough attention to your driving.

I don’t want to be on the road with you or anywhere near you.

If you happen to be one of those individuals who can truly split your concentration, you’ll likely think I’m nuts.  But then you probably already think most folk are a bit slow-minded, don’t you?

OK, back to the time element.

If you’re an active marketer, you probably spend at least fifty to sixty hours a week on marketing, some weeks eighty or ninety, maybe more.

One of the audio offers I received boasted something like 120 hours of audio.

When does a marketer listen to that amount of training?  When do you have time?

If it’s in a book, or books, you can carry the book with you, read a paragraph here, a chapter there.  You can make notes in the margins.  Or you can carry a notepad with the manual and make notes there.

With audio sessions, piecemeal listening is awkward at best.  It’s a chore to back up a chapter, or even a few paragraphs, to review something, then pick up at the point where you went back for review.  In some cases you don’t have that capability at all.  In others, it’s damnably difficult to do.

Mind you, I have a number of training audios, and I do listen to them.  A few videos, as well, which I watch.

At my desk.  Not working on anything else.  Jotting notes on the computer.

Because it is work, and it requires my concentrated attention if I’m going to learn.

OK, I’m tired and I’m starting to ramble - my brain has turned to mush (No cracks, please <chortle />.)  There’s more to be said on this topic, but it’ll have to wait on another post.

 

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The problem with multimedia - redux (2)

By barney | January 5, 2008

Look, people,

You still don’t get it.

Audio and video have their place, I’ll not gainsay that.

But think about it.

I can read faster than you can talk - even if you’re from the New England region in the US.

My preferred sensory input is kinesthetic, but I can accept audio and visual inputs as well.

But I cannot listen to an audio and take notes very well.

Why?  Because if I’m writing a note, I miss the next - possibly important - bit while I’m doing the note, you may have said something important that I missed - because I was concentrating on what you had said just previously and was jotting down my thoughts on that significant saying.

That means I have to run the audio again, probably several times, in order to garner every iota of info in it.

Let’s say it’s a short audio, 30-45 minutes.  That’s an hour and a half of my time at a minimum that I have to devote to your message.

Do you have that much time to spend on one message?  What happens if there are twenty or so such messages (a conservative estimate, at best)?

I don’t.

So most of your Internet marketer audio messages get ignored.

I just don’t have the time for them.

And video is worse!

Here’s an example.

I got an email from Jay Jennings entitled Why I Decided to Quit Internet Marketing, and clicked on the video link.

(I’m not dissing Jay here, just offering this as an example of why I don’t pay attention to video sales pitches.)

I hit the link, got a still picture  of Jay, and the download ceased at 3%.  After an hour, the download/buffering was still at 3%.

So I refreshed the page, right?  0% … I couldn’t even see Jay’s Mohawk, ya know?

Now, I have a fairly speedy connection.  Of course, the problem could have been that all the thousands of folk on Jay’s list were hitting the server, so it just couldn’t serve me - sorta, kinda, The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back (Aesop’s Fables, if memory serves) syndrome.

Or it could be that Internet congestion was higher than usual - possible, I guess, but I doubt it.

Or maybe my provider was throttling me - again, possible, but all else was working with the usual speed.

Point is, for four days I couldn’t see that video.

Doesn’t matter what the content was … I couldn’t see it.

Then, once I did see it, it took five times as long to watch as the same material would have taken to read.

And, to top things off, it was a talking-head video, news-desk style.  No demonstration. No displays.  Just Jay sitting at a desk, talking into the camera.

So basically I wasted parts of four days to see something that would have been more effective had I seen it in an email or as text on a blog.

Again, It’s not my intent to criticize Jay … the scenario above applies to almost every video that has been pushed my way.

However, that scenario does demonstrate my biggest gripe against all that pushed video: it didn’t have to be.  There was no compelling need for a video.  There was no demonstration of a product, no how-to instruction, no display of flow charts or mind maps.

There was just an announcement, one that I could have read and processed in a fifth of the time, had it been textual.

OK, this has gotten long and I need to shut it down.  But there’s more coming on this topic.

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DTC on the march … again?!?

By barney | October 8, 2007

Well, it seems that DTC is rearing its head again. The newest kid on the block is Desktop Lightning and it is destined to become the 800 pound gorilla of communications - or so the ads would have us believe <sigh />

Seems like there’s a new one every year or so. And every one of ‘em is/was gonna be the 800 pound gorilla of communications. Every one of ‘em is/was gonna replace email. Every one of ‘em is/was gonna be the marketer’s dream package, an un-blockable ad delivery machine.Give me a break.Let’s see … the first big one, as I recall, was Pointcast.

Pointcast was a push network back in the mid-nineties. Oh, it worked as advertised … and brought more than one corporate network to its knees <grin />. I was at MCI at the time, and all my managers loved it. The sysops hated it. and the corporate powers finally banned it. It soaked up bandwidth like a sponge.

There’ve been many since then. Couple of years ago, there was Private Mail Reader (PMR), espoused by several of the marketing heavy hitters. It’s still around, but you don’t hear much about it any more. Ya know why? It’s a faulty concept.

That’s right, DTC - Desk Top Communications - is a faulty concept. Oh, the applications that I’ve seen all worked, to one degree or another. Some of ‘em were lousy, full of bugs, but some of ‘em worked damned well. But a faulty concept, now matter how brilliantly implemented, is still a faulty concept.

Ok, I s’pose you want me to explain that. It’s simple, really. DTC is almost always touted as a replacement for email. Generally, two types of people extol DTC: marketers, who want free license to hawk their wares: and otherwise intelligent folk who don’t know how to deal with spam.

(Side note. The last survey I saw, ’bout a year ago, revealed that the folk who whined the most about spam were also the ones most likely to respond to it. I don’t know how valid that survey was, but I have no trouble at all in believing the result <grin/>.)

Anyway, back to the DTCs. From the marketer’s standpoint, DTC is a wet dream. You can send all the ads you like, and no regulatory body can say anything about it: it’s a private communication, agreed to by the recipient.

Of course, the prospect has to download it. And install it. And run it. And read it. Equally of course, the DTC app will be perfect. It won’t use any resources while running. It won’t interfere with any other apps. It won’t crash. It won’t cause any crashes. OK, even given that it is the perfect app, the prospect still has to use it.

From the whiner’s viewpoint, it’s ideal because only the folk the whiner allows can communicate. And therein lies the rub - one of ‘em at least. I can’t communicate with you unless you allow me to do so. Why is that a problem?

Your uncle Fred is on his deathbed. He’s rewriting his will before he dies. He will leave you a million dollars if you visit him before he dies. Your aunt Rita tries to send you an email. But she’s not on your allowed list, so she can’t get through: you never get the notice. Uncle Fred gives up on you, and before he gives up the ghost, he leaves the million bucks to Operation Greenpeace.

See? You lost a million bucks because you didn’t want to learn how to deal with spam.

Oh, and as for the marketing thing … that marketer that conned you into using that DTC app is doing great … but none of the other marketers can get to you. So how long is it going to be before that marketer starts selling access?

One other thing, while we’re at it. One of the basic premises behind DTC is no spam. But, if DTC replaces email, what will all the spammers do? Why, they’ll hire programmers to find a way to access your DTC. Hey, if tech made it, tech can break it.

RSS is popular right now. Guess what? It’s a DTC app. I don’t know about your experiences with RSS, but I’ve already experienced spam. UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) is the legal definition of spam in the US, but my definition is a bit broader. I consider spam to be any communication I did not directly solicit (More often than not it is commercial.). And I have received, via RSS feed, material I did not ask to receive. Spam.

[Posted 2006-10-19, Moved 2007-10-08]

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It’s about communication … or its absense …

By barney | October 8, 2007

Of late, I’ve become very vocal in a manner of speaking … or should I say typing? … and very disappointed into the process.

It seems that, while it’s all very well and good for list owners to send stuff to me, it’s quite a different thing for me to be able to reply. 

While I do understand the logistics … I’m replying to a post that may have been sent to thousands … it still seems to me requisite upon the ezine(s) provider(s) to provide some means of response that does not require a Buy button. 

I’ve used contact emails that get a bounce response, help desk applications that failed to work, and both that simply provided no response.

I recognize - even moreso now - that I am of little import to you ezine providers - my value is that of a number (of subscribers) and a possible victim … er-r-r, customer - but please don’t rub my nose into the fact .  I don’t expect you to buy me a beer, but at least acknowledge my existence.  Hey, who knows … you might even benefit from what I have to say!

[Posted 2007-02-15, Moved 2007-10-08]

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FUD … FOOIE … one acronym deserves another

By barney | October 8, 2007

In the marketing world - the whole arena, not just Internet - FUD is a widely used tactic.

FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt.

You’ve been exposed to it all your life. You grew up with TV ads - and radio ads before and concurrent with that - and magazine & newspaper ads before and concurrent with both.

For example, consider the Dial soap commercials, "Aren’t you glad you use Dial?  Don’t you wish everybody did?"
Or consider the Head and Shoulders commercials.  Personal hygiene is particularly susceptible to this marketing method.

But there’s an unseemly emphasis on FUD in the Internet marketing world. The constant emphasis upon failure and attack should be demeaning, but it seems instead to have become the norm.

Why?

FOOIE!
Fear Of Online Income …

Get the picture? I’m certain you do … but not certain enough to stop <grin /> … besides this is my rant <chortle />.

There are a fantastic number of marketers using FUD marketing practices because of FOOIE … and because it’s so much easier to prey upon fears than it is to actually demonstrate benefit. I’m not talking about those young to the field so much as I am talking about established, recognized marketers, the known names in the industry. After all, whom else would the youngsters emulate than them?

What do they market?

And what is that product du jour? It can be anything that they currently espouse.

Let’s see,

What did each of these years have in common?

FUD!

FOOIE!

In American history, during the late 1800s into the early 1900s there were two groups of folk who would currently fit the classification of Internet marketer: Robber Barons and snake oil salesmen (hey, Fuller Brush salesmen qualified <grin />).

Both groups had the same qualifications. They were defined separately mostly due to population density. The Robber Barons existed in highly populated urban areas, while the snake oil salesmen worked in the areas of the country less densely populated. But both groups were of the same mind set: get/do all the public will bear, then a bit more, all in the name of personal fortune and power.

I see little difference between those two groups and the current group of marketers involved with the Internet.

Oh, there are a few - a relative few - who actually possess, and use, ethics [that’s a whole ‘nother article], but damned few when considering the numbers.

It’s a rare situation when FUD is ethical. For example, when I was in school in the mid fifties to early sixties, FUD produced classroom training on what to do in case of a nuclear event. While the training was woefully inadequate, there is no question (?) that the ethics of that training was valid and was indeed FUD inspired.

Today, on the Web, there’s no excuse for marketing FUD, save for the desire of the progenitors to earn money at any cost. FOOIE is driving those progenitors, and any ethical consideration seems beyond them.

But that’s mostly my fault - and yours - because it is so easy to prey upon human fears and frailties. We let them get away with it. We let doubt and uncertainty in our own lives dictate out responses to offers from others that hold out hope, that seem to guarantee success, even though we know that success is going to come only from our own efforts.

You do know that, don’t you?

Of course, the other side of that FUD salesmanship is the attraction of easy success. Not only uncertain, but lazy, are we.

News Flash! If you haven’t already figured it out, success takes work!

OK, that’s another article, as well. Back to FUD.

I know someone is going to refute me by saying something along these lines,
"Hey, these guys constantly point out that we should always post the benefits of what we are selling. That’s a basic maxim of good copywriting."

True, as stated. But how are the benefits presented? Are they presented as, "This will help you succeed?" Or are they presented as, "This will keep you from failing?" I cannot speak to your experiences, but most of what I see promotes, not success, but prevention of failure.

See, if I tell you how to succeed, that’s what I’ve done. But if I tell you how not to fail, I have not necessarily told you how to succeed. Call that hair-splitting, if you like, but it’s a mighty big hair. Following is an example of the thought processes here.  (Mind you, I’m not what you would call a copywriter, not by any stretch of the imagination, but technical writing is not so far distant as you might imagine <chuckle />.)

Bread is the newest thing on the dietary horizon. Bread can feed millions.
How do you make bread?
Add flour, yeast, warm water (or other liquid), sugar, oil or shortening, salt. Mix thoroughly. Knead. Let rise. Repeat last two steps. Bake.

That is not how to make bread. It’s a sales letter on making bread.

It makes no mention of quantities, times, temperatures, or supporting tools. After all, if I told you how to actually make bread, I couldn’t sell you my method for doing it, could I?

But I could be a bit more specific, a bit more helpful, without compromising my method, couldn’t I?

Bread is the newest thing on the dietary horizon. Bread can feed millions.
How do you make bread?
Let’s say you want to start out small, feed only a few people, maybe three or four for a couple of meals.
Use 8 cups of flour, two tablespoons of yeast, warm water (about 180-190 F), 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/4 cup oil or melted [link to ebook on how to melt shortening, how hot it should be] shortening, 1 teaspoon salt. Add half the flour and all the other ingredients. Mix [show link to tutorial on mixing] well. Gradually add the rest of the flour until the mixture is smooth and elastic. Knead [show link to article on how to knead]. Let mixture rest and rise [link to ebook series or extended tutorial on rising, how it works, what it does, why to do it]. Repeat last two steps [link to article on number of risings for different flours/breads]. Grease two 9"x5" loaf pans [link to source(s) of implements]. Split dough mixture into two equal pieces. Place one in each pan. Place in 375F oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove from oven. Remove from baking pans immediately. Allow to cool 15-20 minutes before slicing.

That’s how to make bread. It’s also a sales letter on making bread.

Is it TMI (Too Much Information)? Not if your product(s) can enhances that process. And it provides possible income enhancements via the links to other products and instructional sources, either as affiliate or personal upsell products.

Your tutorial on making bread will offer many variations on the same theme, many affiliate product links, many upsell links, that do not exist in the sales letter.

Now, let’s look at an alternative sales letter.

Bread is the newest thing on the dietary horizon. Bread can feed millions.
Isn’t that just what you need when friends or family show up unannounced at dinner time? Or when you need to provide sustenance for a party of unknown numbers of people? Or maybe to feed the kids and their unexpected friends after school? Buy my tutorial on bread, and you can counter all these situations. Never worry about feeding people again.

See the difference in these three sales letters? The conceptual difference?

The first one gives a bare bones description of the process, without providing any information of other requirements, e.g., measuring implements, baking implements, etc. So you have benefits, so to speak, but no idea how to accomplish them. You’re buying blind. And you have no idea what else might be required.

The second one actually defines the basic process, with further links to supplemental explanations and equipment. It lets me know the basic process, to the point that I can actually apply it, but points out extras that I’ll probably want in order to be successful. So there is a basic process definition, a requirements definition, as well as your product offer.  When’s the last time you saw that on the web?

The third one uses FUD - gently, semi-subtly, but still FUD. And it makes a false claim into the process. It implies instant resolution to a problem, when the resolution will in fact take three or four hours.

Now, I’m not talking about what is and is not good copywriting, as in what works best to sell.

I am talking about what is and is not good copywriting, as in what is ethical - and fantastically productive.

Believe it or not, you can be ethical and still sell product. You just have to work a bit harder. Adjust your thinking to what the consumer needs or wants from you, not how best to coerce the consumer. Then provide enough information to satisfy such needs or wants, even though it means giving away part of your product. (New freebie concept, maybe?)

Don’t coerce me … don’t sell me … provide a benefit that works for me, show me how it works, and I’ll be a customer for life … or at least until you get greedy <smirk />.

[Posted 2007-02-15, Moved 2007-10–8]

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The 12 Days of [Marketing] Christmas

By barney | October 8, 2007

I just read a delightful little paean to the folk in the entitled

, An Ode to Warriors

by Snoops of .  It’s not what I would have penned … but, then, I didn’t get off my lazy ass and pen it, did I <chuckle />?

However, it caused me to thimk … I hate when that happens - it can be soooo painful … so I did a little statistical analysis, the results of which follow.

According to this little ode, there were

My, that seems an awful bit of effort for just 1 day’s dough-rolling.  No wonder exhaustion has silently crept up and pounced!

    ()

[Posted 2006-12-15, Moved 2007-10-08]

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Don’t P.S. Me Off

By barney | October 7, 2007

Use & Misuse of Post Script

Many copywriting mavens praise the use of a postscript as a ‘hook’ to capture the potential customer. And it does seem to work well. Many a reader has become a buyer after perusing a sales page and being prepared to decline, then changing their mind after reading a PS.

An ‘afterthought’ to the sales copy, presented as a PS, can be wonderfully effective - as long as it does not repeat something in the sales copy.

For instance, you might close your sales letter, then add an ‘afterthought’ as a PS like this.  "P.S. [I forgot to mention/Don’t forget] that this [product/price/offer] is only available for the next x days. Hurry to take advantage of it, or you may lose out."

But if you’ve already mentioned that time limit more than once in the sales copy, it’s no long an afterthought. If you’ve mentioned the limit only once, or not at all, on the sales page, a reminder is a valid postscript,

Continuation vs. afterthought: the good, the bad & the ugly.

Continuation of a sales pitch after the close is considered as either ‘pushy’ or ‘desperate’, and automatically generates resentment in most cases.

On the other hand, a seemingly honest ‘afterthought’ appears more as a favor than as a sales pitch.

But there is a caveat here: don’t throw in too many afterthoughts.

A few weeks ago, I received an email, forwarded to me by a friend, that exemplifies that caveat.

It was a short, three paragraph sales pitch. But it had sixteen - 16! - postscripts. It was forwarded as a joke!

The author apparently decided that if a little is good, a lot is better.

The actual sales pitch was in the postscripts, not in the body of the email. The body merely introduced the subject; the postscripts attempted the actual sale.

A postscript is usually abbreviated as P.S., a second postscript as P.P.S. (not P.S.S.) or post-postscript, and so on. This aspiring copywriter ended his email with a P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. As you might surmise, the effect was ludicrous.

If you really have that many ‘afterthoughts’, you need to rework your copywriting from scratch.

Your customers will probably read one or two postscripts, maybe three, but they’ll soon tire of all the afterthoughts - you’ll actually distract their attention from the sales pitch.

Another thing to keep in mind about postscripts when copywriting is that you shouldn’t include them every time.

Like many of you, I subscribe to a lot of mailing lists and ezines. Like many of you, I have certain authors that I consistently read.

But there are a few - and well-known marketers, not newbies - that I stop reading as soon as the postscripts start. They habitually add at least one PS to *every* bit of copy.

I might miss something by not reading those afterthoughts, but I just can’t believe they ‘afterthink’ every bit of copy they send out.

To sum up these thoughts on postscripts, keep the following thoughts in mind.

Don’t P.S. your customers off.

[Posted 2006-09-08, Moved 2007-10-07]

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Leave my ginger snaps alone!

By barney | October 7, 2007

I like ginger snaps … one of my favourite cookies.  And useful as well, if you’re prone to motion sickness - they really do help quell queasiness from riding in cars, trains, planes, boats. 

I’m not personally subject to that particular ailment, but I try to have at least a small bag of ginger snaps along when I go sailing … it’s been of benefit to my fellow travelers on more than one occasion <grin />.  (And I go sailing whenever possible, out on Corpus Christi Bay … usually with three or four passengers and at least one other sailor.  More about that another time.)  So I find ginger snaps to be useful as well as fun cookies.  I like cookies.

I go sailing on the internet a lot, as well.  You may think of it as an information highway, but I tend to think of it as a sea of knowledge, information, and files.

Oh, yeah … files!  Amongst my other bad habits is an addiction to downloading … stuff!  Sometimes it’s free, other times a payment is required.  Usually, when there is payment involved, there’s a bonus included - not always, but much of the time.

You know the drill … someone sends you an email pitching a particular product and offering you a bonus set of items if you buy that product via the link they provide.  With a popular product, it’s often fun, as well as practical, to shop around to see who offers the best bonus <chortle />.

But there’s frequently a catch, one that I find particularly egregious.  The purveyor of the bonus wants you to clear your cookies before using the link.

Nope!  Ain’t gonna do it <snarl />!

Cookies have gotten a lot of bad press, but they are very useful little files.  They can store a lot of information that is useful to you when you visit different web sites.  Yeah, some web sites misuse ‘em, store data that you don’t really want available, but for the most part those sites are the exception.

As an example of cookie utility, if you’re on a web site that lets you reconfigure the site to your liking, a cookie is most useful.  It can store the choices you make for colors, fonts, menus, … you name it.  The next time you visit that site, all your choices are implemented as soon as you get to the site without any further action on your part.  That’s nice.  And they may be used to store site access logins.  That’s also nice.

But some marketers want you to erase those configurations just so they can see if you bought a package using their link.  They don’t care about your personal configurations, they just care about their commission.

If they really cared, they could tell you which cookie(s) to delete and tell you how to identify each cookie … it’s not rocket science, after all … it’s just web code … and a cookie is just a text file.  However, I’ve yet to see one do that … they just say clear you cookies.

I won’t do it.  I’ll find some other marketer to buy from, or I’ll just forget about the product.

I like my cookies. 

I use my cookies.

Leave ‘em alone!

[Posted 2006-09-04, Moved 2007-10-07]

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Download organizer - marketer’s version

By barney | October 7, 2007

Ok, here’s the material I promised on how I organize my downloads.

I don’t organize my downloads <grin />.

Instead, I annotate them.

The following list is what I’m using right now to keep track of my downloads, both marketing and non-marketing.  With the files annotated as demonstrated after the list, it’s very easy to load the directory list into my database, then use the PHP script I’ve developed to find the file(s) I want at any given time.  Can’t say this is perfected as yet, but it has improved considerable over the past year - in fact, I’m now on version 2.3.8, and getting close to starting version 3 <chortle />.  If you’re interested, let me know & I’ll show ya how to set it up.\

The annotation list.

Ok, now that you have the list I’m using, I’ll proved examples to demonstrate how I use the values.

When I download, each file goes into its own directory unless there are several files associated with the download, e.g., the main file, then a help file, maybe a theme or mod.  All of those directories are subdirectories of either _dl or _mktg.  The _mktg top level directory holds all files related to marketing:  the _dl top level directory holds everything else.

So now I’m going to download emailsecrets.zip from a marketing page.  When I initiate the download, I create the directory for the file:  drive:\_mktg\eMail Secrets\.  Then I change the target file name as follows:
emailsecrets.2006.09.03.v3-0-5.V47.00.V97.00- .V27.00+.S.W.H.Z4.Yah375.$0.00.zip.

When I look at the file name later, it tells me that I downloaded the file on the 3rd of September in 2006; the file version is v3.0.5, I may resell the file; the SRP is $47; the max price I may charge is $97; the min price I may charge is $27; some sales material is included (usually a sales page and a thank you page); the file is multimedia or has a multimedia component; the file was a gift (free); the file is passworded and the password is ah375; and my cost was $0.

It’s relatively simple to use PHP to break the filename down into its individual components, then store those components in a MySQL database.  Now, if I want to find all resale rights file, or all files downloaded in 2006, or even all files downloaded in September of 2006, it’s simplicity itself to set up a prewritten SQL statement with variables for those values, then plug in the values I choose.

Now, if I need to expand I could apply numerics, such as I did for Z, in order to expand the definitions list without using more letters, doubling letters, etc.  For instance, I could make H1=audio/video, H2=graphic, H3=video, H4=audio … expansion is relatively easy.

Now, what you don’t see that is a part of my database system is the source data.  For each file I download, I copy appropriate bits & pieces over to Info Select.  Then, after I’ve loaded the file into the database, I can come back and enter such information as: person who created the file; person I got the file from, if different; URIs for both those people; contact info if appropriate; affiliate info if appropriate; my evaluation of the file, both text and grade; my evaluation - not normally for publication - of one or both of the purveyors of the file; a few other misc. things, e.g., commissions, affiliate income, longevity, etc.

If you’re really interested, I can shoot you the SQL to create the database tables and a zip file of the scripts I’m using, at least for the file part.  But I’d suggest you make up your mind reasonably soon:  from what I’ve seen online, this thing is salable.

[Posted 2006-09-03, Moved 2007-10-07]

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Topics: Organize | No Comments »

Does anybody else wonder …

By barney | October 7, 2007

Does anyone else wonder about the use of the work free?

How many offers do you get to create free content or a free web site or a free ebook, ad nauseum, that have a price tag?

I mean, how can they offer a free content system, then charge for it?!?

Ok, ok … yeah, I’m in the same business … but I don’t call it free if there’s a price tag attached. 

I’ve been involved in direct marketing since 1972 or ‘73, and I don’t ever recall telling someone they would get something free if they were gonna hafta pay me for it.  Made good use of the "two for one" pitch, I have, but I just never could bring myself to call something free if money was changing from the client’s hand to mine.

‘Cause that ain’t free, now is it?

And, y’know?  I don’t mind paying for something - especially when I can get something else thrown in for the requested price. 

But … it ain’t free.

 

[Posted 2006-09-03, Moved 2007-10-07]

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Topics: Marketing | No Comments »