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Today Mashable posted an article that explains that Ruckus, an iTunes competor that sports “free & legal music for all college students”, has just reached 20 million downloads per month. I love the idea, but even more I think their marketing stratagy is brilliant.

One of my instructors at BYU, John Richards—a Utah Angel Investor, was talking about Facebook in a lecture series at BYU. He was asking us how Facebook has become so huge? He then explained that it was in part because they started with the College age students. This is what has given Facebook the coolness factor.

It is great to see Ruckus following in Facebook’s footsteps. I imagine that Ruckus was inspired almost entirely by Facebook’s stratagy and that they already have plans to release their music to the general public as some point down the road.

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Unbeknown to me, Ben and I both applied for Amazon’s new ClickRiver limited beta within minutes after its release announcement. My application must have been moments sooner than Ben’s because my application got accepted into ClickRiver’s limited beta just three days later. iMemoryBook can now advertise on Amazon.com!

After using ClickRiver, I thought that I would let you know a couple of my initial thoughts on ClickRivers pros and cons:

Pros:

• With ClickRiver, marketers now have a 4^th huge advertising median (other three: Google, Yahoo, and MSN) that will be affordable to businesses of any size.
• ClickRiver is simple and easy to use.
• ClickRiver has a Keyword suggestion tool I haven’t seen on Google, Yahoo, or MSN: You can type in one of your competitors URL’s , for example I typed in MyFamily.com:

Then you can just select with keywords you would like to bid on.

• We are most excited to test targeted keyword sets that are related to the millions of Amazon books relevant to iMemoryBook’s content .

Cons:

• ClickRiver doesn’t have the ability to insert dynamic keywords.
• ClickRiver will not advertise your product unless the search bar was used. This means that if someone is only browsing Amazon through the menu, your ad will not come up; even if they browse through what would otherwise be relevant keywords.

When it comes to usability in the pay-per-click marketing world, here are our rankings:

1. Microsoft Adcenter
2. Amazon ClickRiver
3. Google Adwords
4. Yahoo Search Marketing (after using the others, Yahoo feel like a dinosaur, I hope they release their new site to the public soon)

We will report on how they produce later.

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I want a blender that can liquefy marbles and chop up garden rakes, don’t you?

Here is a company right here in Orem Utah called Blendtec. They have created some of the most ingenious viral video ads I have seen thus far. There is no doubt in my mind that these ads will be some of the best spent time Blendtec has ever used. Kudos to Blendtec.

There are three reasons why these videos will be so viral.

1. They are fun. I have already shared them with like ten friends and family members.
2. They are unique. I haven’t seen this before on YouTube.
3. They don’t forget the product. Next time I shop for a blender, there is no doubt in my mind that I will look into Blendtek.

Can you imagine how much these videos would have cost to put on paid TV programing. They would probably be successful there too, but this is little to no cost.

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I hate shopping. I often tell my friends that it is less exhausting to work a 13 hour manual labor day (e.g. laying concrete, landscaping, construction, working the potato harvest in Idaho–all of which I have done) than it is to spend four hours shopping for clothes, or groceries. I hate the lines. I hate the choosing between unlimited options. I driving to and from stores and then walking all the way through them. I don’t understand those who like shopping. How is it fun to go and spend huge amounts of time just to spend huge amounts of money. Even worse is when you spend huge amounts of time and then you return with nothing. I know girls who just shop to look, they don’t ever buy anything. It is all odd to me.

With regards to the lines. These lines are why I rarely shop at WalMart and why I shop at Kmart and the Family Dollar. Walmart is always a zoo. The other day, at Walmart, it took me about an hour just to buy a stick of deodorant. The drive is ten minutes. I had to park way out in the far end of the parking lot and then walk all over the huge store just to find someone that wasn’t busy to ask were the deodorant was (The number of overweight people in Walmart is surprising, you would think walking all over that store would put them in shape). I ended up talking to a frequent Wallyworld shopper who knew more about Walmart than their employees do, she led me to an overwhelming shelf of deodorants of all shapes, colors, scents, costs, brands, and sizes. After picking my new deodorant I walked up and down 100 yards of checkout counters just to find that I wasn’t going to avoid any lines. Who would have thought that all those people parked in closer car stalls than me, who had all used up all the customer assistance before I even got in the door, would now be in front of me at the checkout line? It was a miserable hour of my life.

On the contrary, the other day I stopped at a Family Dollar, and I had a wonderful experience. I was able to park within 40 feet of the store door. When I got inside I was just steps away from one side of the store to the other. Picking was easy because they only give you two or three choices. Prices are often better than Walmart. Checkout was a breeze, because they don’t have lines. Other than the size of the store, Kmart is the same way. I love short lines.

Perhaps Kmart/Sears, who is hurting terribly right now, should advertise the one good reason to shop at Kmart instead of Walmart. Shorter lines and closer parking spots. It would work for me.

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My brother got into Mac years ago. I never really wanted one until one day I was forced to use his to check my email… And it wasn’t hard at all to use! Since that time, another sibling of mine has got a mac, I have got one, my cousin is now using one, and everyone who even touches my MacBook says that they want my computer.

A month ago I we were speaking with a lady at a NJ convention. She saw one of our Macs and asked, “Do you like the Mac?” We told her we did. She then told how she and her husband had shopped for her daughters laptop before their daughter headed off to college. Against their daughter’s will they pushed her into getting the PC. A week into school her daughter called and said, “Mom, every single one of my roomates and all my friends have Macs!” I think that if you took a poll of the University markets you would see alot higher Mac market share than percentage than 6.1%.
Why I got a Mac.

My Mac is a white one. I like the black ones, but I just can’t get myself to pay the extra $160 for black (that is the difference when you have the same hardware). I was told that the black MacBooks (I have looked online a little and wasn’t able to find anything on it, if you know let me know please) are outselling the white, even with the price difference.

Apple is the master of packaging. Opening this MacBook was a great experience. It is the first package, of any cost, that I have opened and there wasn’t a single instruction. You just pull your Mac out of its gorgeous box—a box so cool that I have considered taking it to school with me as my computer bag—and press power. I looked for instructions, there were none. How cool is that. Don’t make me think, I just want plug and play. I think we can all learn some lessons from Apple. My goal with the next iMemoryBook and pyxlin packaging is to create an experience that is so intuitive that you don’t even feel like you are receiving instructions, no one reads instructions these days anyway, it just takes too much time.

I got it just in time to get my free Nano. Being at the business school here at BYU, I have already been asked several times, “Why did you get a Mac instead of a PC?” I had my reasons: the OS X system, the reliability, iLife, the great new Mac and PC commercials, and so on. But, in reality, the main reason I got the MacBook is because I think it is sexy. From the aesthetics to its genie effect when you minimize a window, to its solid feeling keyboard, this is the sexiest computer on the market, hands down.

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