According to eMarketer, US spending on online advertising will exceed spending on print advertising for the first time in 2012, and the trend will continue as advertisers find more value online.  Online advertising  spending in 2012 is predicted at $39.5 Billion, compared to $33.8 Billion for all print advertising.  By 2016, the projection is  $62B for online vs. $32.3B for print.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, more and more of us are getting news and information online.  Think of how much time you spend online – work, research, news gathering, social media, compared to the amount of time you spend with print media – newspapers, magazines.  I think it’s obvious that print advertising will not be making a comeback.

What’s your opinion?

Related Articles:
US Online Ad Spend to Close in on $40 Billion – emarketer.com
US advertisers to spend more on digital than print: study – breitbart.com
Online Ad Spending to Surpass Print for First Time in 2012 [STUDY] - mashable.com

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UPS came up with this catchy holiday jingle.

When its planes in the sky for a chain of supply that’s logistics.
When the parts for the line come precisely on time that’s logistics.
A continuous link that is always in sync that’s logistics.
There will be no more stress ’cause you’ve called UPS, that’s logistics.

It’s a pretty high impact ad.  We hear the word logistics more often these days than we used to, especially here in Distributionville, Memphis, Tennessee.   Bottom line: Logistics is Getting Stuff There – from origin to destination.  So here is my holiday logistics story.

Time Line

December 3 – I sent some .jpg files to Snapfish for normal 4×6 prints, requesting standard shipping.  I like Snapfish; they are efficient, quick, inexpensive and produce good quality prints.  In this case, though,  it took them 10 days in the lab.

December 13 – Snapfish turned my completed order over to Streamlite (a logistics company).  Streamlite tracks the packages they handle.  The best I can tell.  They find the best shipping solutions for companies like Snapfish (That’s Logistics!).  According to Streamlite’s tracking, my package arrived in Memphis 2 days later.

December 15 – Scan reads Location: “Jet Cove Annex 381″   “Activity: Accepted by USPS“.  Obviously the package had made it to Memphis.  There are 2 notes under the scan info: “Expect delivery in 2-4 business days.” and No further events will be provided for this package.”   Might as well have said, “not our problem anymore.”

December 19 – Began to look real hard for the package.   Asked a USPS employee, who didn’t seem familiar with the Streamlite process.  Another USPS employee referred me to USPS.com.  After a number of emails to Snapfish, they refunded my order.

December 20 – Called Streamlite to inquire what could have happened to my package since it had arrived in Memphis 5 days before.  A very polite customer service rep empathized nicely and told me they had no control after turning a package over to USPS.  She also told me they had been advised by USPS, that packages Streamlite rendered to USPS might not be delivered for 10 days.

December 22 – I related all this to Snapfish via email, and they advised to give it 2 more days, and if it didn’t arrive, they would re-ship the order priority.

December 23 – Package Arrives

[note: during this same time period, I ordered a camera part from Shanghai, China.  It was shipped China Post-USPS, and arrived in 12 days from order date.]

A three-way fail

So if I were the type who gets angry at such things, who would I blame for this 20 day turnaround?   Snapfish took 10 days just to process my order.  Streamlite seems to have done their job efficiently, but readily denies responsibility beyond the time they had the package in their possession.  They did put the bulk postage on the package turning it over to the post office as “Standard Mail”.   The USPS’s estimated time of delivery (from the usps.com site) is 2-9 days, however it includes the disclaimer “The USPS does NOT guarantee delivery of Standard Mail”.  So USPS met their rather loose commitment, getting the package to me 8 days after they accepted it.  So everyone’s cool, right?

Well, that’s logistics!

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Pre-release advertising for the Kindle Fire is very impressive. I am interested in checking out the Fire’s browser feature as well as usefulness of the apps. Amazon is taking pre-orders for the Kindle Fire’s November 15 release. I predict Amazon won’t be able to keep up with holiday orders. Check it out and pre-order here:

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7″ Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi

Price: $199.00

(13 customer reviews)

15 used & new available from $179.99

(affiliate link)
[reposted from spake.com]

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As more and more people adopt Twitter as a viable communications platform and follow more Tweeters, time and information management becomes an issue.  The twitter lists feature is a basic for power users.  Lists let you categorize, prioritize, and group those you follow, and are very useful if you use Twitter clients like Hootsuite or TweetDeck.  I will get into Twitter efficiency, those clients, and more  in some future posts, but for now here’s a quick screen cast on how to make a new list, or add someone to an existing list.

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MS FrontPage?  Say What?

Websites were the new shiny toys when I got into real estate back in 1996. I was kind of a techie back then, and even though I started my business web presence with a templated, low functioning website, I yearned to design one of my own.  So I designed my first version of spake.com sometime in early 1988 in Microsoft FrontPage 97.  [Disclaimer:  I am currently affiliated with Revid Realty and not any of the companies show in these ancient screen shots.]

spake.com - late 1998 - First screenshot from Way Back Machine

I had no talent for design, but not many others did either.  I just wanted and efficient site that would bring business my way.  Even though the last version of FrontPage was 2003, I think, I hung in there with it until just this month, when I cut over to the WordPress platform.   Here is a short trip down Memory Lane:

spake.com in 2003

spake.com - 2006

I don’t have the very last FrontPage version, but this is the last capture from the Way Back Machine (2009)

spake.com -2009

The all new and improved spake.com is up and running.  Check it out!

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Soon you will be seeing a lot of these:
[Note: the + button seems to take a while to load in some browsers - If you don't see the button above, try reloading the page.]
I wanted to be an early adopter of the Google + button.  You will see it in the upper right sidebar throughout this site,  and I am sure there will be a plugin soon to put it on individual blog posts.

If you’re wondering what the +1 button is, here’s what Google has to say. +1 is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” Let visitors recommend your pages right in Google search results and help your site stand out.

Google’s answer to Facebook’s Like Button?  Well you are not likely to see Google saying that.  But I am giving it a try.  Click the +1 in the right sidebar, and we will see what happens.

To get you started,Agent Genius brings  a list of things you should know about the Google + Button, or just do a Google search on Google +

Related articles

• Google’s +1, Facebook’s Like & Twitter’s Follow Button (bubblecube.wordpress.com)
• Introducing +1 – Google’s New Like Button (webcontentxpress.net)
• Like Button for Google: +1 (mgitecetech.wordpress.com)
• Introducing Google’s +1 Button! (susanheim.blogspot.com)

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Charlie Sheen has posted a position on Internships.com – an 8 week, full-time, paid summer intern.  If you have #TigerBlood, are all about #Winning,  and can #PlanBetter than anyone else, this could be the short term dream job for you.

Wow, you too, could be a #Winner?  Do you think part of Charlie’s “leveraging” of social media is to dominate the web for those words he seems to love to hashtag?

With so many underemployed  social media gurus out there, I am sure Sheen will use his super #winning powers to find the the perfect intern to implement his social media domination.  And wouldn’t that look great on your resume?

Image by susie.c via Flickr

Related articles

• Charlie Sheen gets paid to tweet a listing for his own paid intern (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Is This Charlie Sheen’s Social Media Guru? (fastcompany.com)
• Behind Sheen’s tweet, a new world of advertising (pbpulse.com)

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Just browsing through Amazon , making my blizzard wish list:

I have needed one of these a few times this winter.

Mallory 532 26″ Cool Snow Tool Snow Brush with Foam Grip

Price: $7.99

(51 customer reviews)

10 used & new available from $4.12

And for perfect snowballs every time

Flexible Flyer Snowball Maker, colors may vary

Price: $5.00

(56 customer reviews)

25 used & new available from $3.46

Or build your own igloo with snow blocks made in this nifty Snow Block Mold

Flexible Flyer Snow Block, colors may vary

Price: $5.33

(20 customer reviews)

12 used & new available from $4.88

Have fun.  I’ll just stay inside until it melts.

Oh, by the way, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Related articles

• Free Michael Buble Let It Snow Album (forthemommas.com)

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Shopped for a mattress lately?  The internet offers loads of shopping guides, and the stores offer so many models, it’s mind boggling.  It seems that every department store or mattress specialty store has its own line of   Simmons Beautyrest or Sealy Posturepedic sub-models, making quality and price comparison virtually impossible.  The one constant is that famous brand of “memory foam” mattresses, that seem to have the same models and prices across the board.  The folks in the mattress stores tend to lead you in the direction of that display first, probably because they cost as much as a good used car.

This is not a consumer piece –  I really don’t want to get into number of coils, stuffing, topping, and foundation.  I just wanted an  easy way to find a bed that is as comfortable as the bed in that hotel I stayed in a couple of months ago.   After all, I am going to be spending about 1/3 of my life there.

This IS a customer and sales post.  I have already reviewed The Mattress Firm in the Laurelwood Collection on Poplar on Yelp, but we had such a good consumer experience with our salesperson, Helen, at that store that I just had to mention it.  After all that research I had done on the internet, and the hotels I had called about the brands they used,  pulling  mattresses out of a rack at a warehouse store and trying them out on the floor, and going to other mattress shops, we dropped in at Helen’s store.  She waved us right on by the memory foam, explained the firmness color coding in their system, and quickly analyzed our preferences.  Did you know that even in high end bedding, some mattresses are designed for back sleepers and some for side sleepers?  We made a no-stress purchase and we’re very happy with our new bed.

Image via Wikipedia

So why did I write this post?  Because Helen was a great salesperson.  She wasn’t trying to sell us an expensive product.  She was using her knowledge to find us the perfect piece of comfort for our needs.  She made sure it was the right product for us.  And that’s what being a good sales person is all about, and why I will recommend Helen to anyone in search of a bed.

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Originally posted August 16, 2010 on The Telivant Blog:

I invited a stranger to spend the weekend with my family and me.  A stranger who was wearing a floppy hat and sunglasses when I picked him up at the airport, unrecognizable from the pictures I had seen.  But Patrick Healy was really no “stranger” to me, and once the car door opened, it was like reuniting with an old friend and heading straight to a favorite restaurant, even though it was the first time I had ever met Patrick IRL (in real life).  Known nationally as a real estate thought leader, Patrick has been a social media friend for quite a while via Facebook and Twitter, and more recently a collaborator as a member of Telivant’s product council.

There is a lesson to be learned from the stranger’s visit.  Social media is more than a real time bulletin board of how we are feeling, where we are, who or what we are photographing, and what we are eating.  It’s about engaging with others and sharing a part of ourselves.  It’s about building relationships – strong relationships.  Maybe you don’t feel comfortable with that concept, but it is happening all around you every second.

Over a very short period of time, social media has become an extension of “real life”.  The question for those using or considering using social media as part of their marketing plan: How can I engage with potential clients, re-engage with friends and past clients, and take that engagement to a high level of trust?  Social media is a powerful tool, but participation and honest, non-manipulative engagement are requirements for success.

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