Zinio - an online library

A former colleague is now at Zinio so I decided to check it out, zinio.com. Basically it's all the magazines I have on my coffee table, online. They even have comic books.

Something cool, you can rip out a page from your favorite digital magazine, and post it. Just go to zinio.com and search for your favorite magazine or book or article, click on “inside” and the magazine or book will open up, find the page you want to rip out. Click on + and select where you want to post the page. Post away.

The Future of Marketing... What is Your Prediction?

An article on the future of marketing was published today on Talent Zoo, written by the head of planning at Modernista!, Gareth Kay. Gareth is well published, and reading up on his opinion is easy (just do a google search and related content goes pages deep). In this article, he predicts that marketing will be headed in the the following direction:

1. Brands will be built on cultural and social missions, not commercial propositions

2. Marketing will be about what you do, not what you say

3. Lots of little ideas, not one big idea

4. People first

But his prediction for the future came up against some criticism.... Take a look for yourself, and post a comment! Would love to know what you think - are you a believer? Or do you have a better crystal ball?

Twitter.com/catapult_mktg

Our foray into social media continues. First, we brought you Marketing Ballista, our very happening blog about all things marketing. Thank you for visiting. :)

Our latest experiment is proving to just as successful, and almost overnight. We have  started a Catapult Marketing “Twitter feed” less than 2 weeks ago, and already we have a nice initial following to our thought leadership, published at least several times a day.

See for yourself at http://www.twitter.com/catapult_mktg, our new home on Twitter.com. Our followers, attracted with no marketing or announcement on our part, includes the Instore Marketing Institute, various thought leaders in the social media space, and several clients

What is Twitter you ask? It’s a “Micro-blogging” service where one can publish their thoughts to anyone who cares to “follow” them, but only in 140 character bursts. You can only publish to your “Feed”, but you can read anyone else’s who you choose to follow or visit. It makes for very compact, easy to digest reading, that’s for sure. Ashton Kutcher twitters, with over 1.5 million followers (The current leader). So does the Whitehouse, Jet Blue, The NY Times, Martha Stewart, Shaquille O’Neil, Miley Cyrus, Anderson Cooper, David Gregory, Oprah, and a press agent posting for Britney Spears, as well as millions of others around the world, both famous, hoping to be famous, corporate/marketers, and mostly, ordinary people like me (twitter.com/hewsonb). For a fun list of interesting folks to follow if you’re just getting started, see http://twitter.com/invitations/suggestions

If you’ve never been to twitter.com and are afraid of getting sucked into some giant ponzi scheme-like vortex, just visit http:www/twitter.com/catapult_mktg to get a gentle introduction in a familiar environment. You don’t need to register or log on to view our feed.

If, when I say “twitter”, you hear the trombone voice of charlie brown’s teacher, but want to start an understanding of this growing phenomenon, please see the link below as a pretty good quick executive summary of who and how twitter is being used most successfully. http://mashable.com/2009/04/20/twitter-strategy/

If you already have a Twitter account and twitter regularly (I know there are more than a few of you out there who do, come on, admit it!), please add “catapult_mktg” to your “Follow” list, and we’ll of course return the favor and retweet you as often as we think you won’t offend our delicate sensibilities. :)