From the category archives:

the takeaway

    

I’ve seen a fair amount of debate over Google+ lately.  The media has debated growth numbers, stickiness, and whether or not Google has the fortitude to stick this one out and make an impact.

Frankly, I don’t care.

No, really.  I don’t care because it’s not a winner takes all competition.  There is room for multiple social networks and we (collectively) will learn how to use them to our advantage over time.  The use of a specific social network is a personal preference at this point.  Not for brands, that is.  They play by different rules.  For the individual, it’s your choice.  If Google+ doesn’t work for you, I’m not sure that’s the end of the world.  Likewise for Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Ultimately, I think you should end up choosing a social network based on three questions: Click to continue…

    

I received the email below from the Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy recently.  The key takeaway?  If you are responsible for customer data, please make sure you are being careful with said data.  You never want to send an email like the one below but you might have to one day.  It’s a dangerous world out there and, while this is probably not an issue for Best Buy in the long term, it sure does sting a little bit.

Dear Valued Best Buy Customer,

On March 31, we were informed by Epsilon, a company we use to send emails to our customers, that files containing the email addresses of some Best Buy customers were accessed without authorization.

We have been assured by Epsilon that the only information that may have been obtained was your email address and that the accessed files did not include any other information. A rigorous assessment by Epsilon determined that no other information is at risk. We are actively investigating to confirm this.

For your security, however, we wanted to call this matter to your attention. We ask that you remain alert to any unusual or suspicious emails. As our experts at Geek Squad would tell you, be very cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown senders.

In keeping with best industry security practices, Best Buy will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site,www.bestbuy.com. If you receive an email asking for personal information, delete it. It did not come from Best Buy.

Our service provider has reported this incident to the appropriate authorities.

We regret this has taken place and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information. For more information on keeping your data safe, please visit:
http://www.geeksquad.com/do-it-yourself/tech-tip/six-steps-to-keeping-your-data-safe.aspx.

Sincerely,

Barry Judge
Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer
Best Buy

    

Read this snippet from a recent report about the changing face of advertising and then we’ll get to the good stuff. Traditional advertising players risk major revenue declines as budgets shift rapidly to new, interactive formats, which are expected to grow at nearly five times that of traditional advertising. To survive in this new reality, [...]

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Seriously, I am the only one that finds the current state of the music industry (and the larger entertainment industry) just pathetic? All you hear from the RIAA and MPAA day in and day out is how the internet is just killing their ability to deliver quality entertainment. Here is the latest horrid attempt from [...]

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Dear AT&T…

by Greg Tirico

    

It was a normal Friday night in my household. The kids were in bed and the wife was relaxing. Me? I was tirelessly working away at creating something interesting on the internet. It was a standard evening for our household. At 8:30 PM our AT&T internet connection went down… Reluctantly, I called your tech support [...]