Cristiano Giardina

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  Cristiano 5:13 pm on September 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: internet, Marketing, web ( 2 ), website   

  Marketing is Free 

  Webmasters usually forget what makes people WANT to visit a website. And that is if that website is valuable.

  If a website creates value, then it will be visited.

  So what is value in this context?
  Value is anything something that attracts visitors. Is that website good? Is it entertaining? Does it have the information I need? Does it provide me with the service I was looking for?

  Think about it, the same concept also applies to products: if a product is useful, properly concieved and well-built, chances are it will be successful.

  What is the difference with the offline market?
  Everything is faster on the internet: if you do something as simple as adding a means for your users to share the valuable site they’ve just found with others, they will do and you’ll have a free and much more incisive  marketing campaign than the usual AdWords stuff!
  I say more incisive because after all who are you gonna believe more, a 468×60 pixel banner or your childhood friend telling how much “this website he’s found” is awesome?

  One last note: I was listening to a training program for telemarketers by Anthony Robbins a couple of days ago, and there are lots of ideas that can be transposed to the online world. One of the more important ones is that people buy their WANTS, not their needs. So, clearly a website that people WANT to visit because it’s really good, is much more prone to have long-term success and NO NEED for marketing than a website that people NEED for whatever value it provides.
  An example might be the best mortgage website versus Youtube. What is more prone to lasting success? You might need the former at one point and browse it daily, but it will soon lose its value for you (i.e. when you don’t need anymore/already got your mortgage). Youtube instead, with the service it provides and the content it has received over the years, is now the object of many “wants” and so it will be for a long time still.

  So eat your heart out SEO experts and marketing gurus, we don’t need you!
  It sounds obvious, but it obviously is not: want a popular website? Make sure it’s valuable first, the rest will follow.

   

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  Cristiano 12:39 pm on December 11, 2006 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: art ( 2 ), internet, knowledge   

  Does the Internet kill Art? 

  Technology is nowadays evolving at an unbelievable rate.
  We are able to do things, today, that would have been impossible but a few years ago.

  I am amazed by this growth. It excites me and it really is the expression of anything that there is of great and wonderful in the human mind.

  But does the internet also impoverish art and knowledge?

  Internet is the first utopia of mankind becoming reality: it is a totally free, self shaping and ever-morphing environment. Everyone counts as much as the other one and people really do have the power on the Internet.
  It’s the world’s entire knowledge at your fingertips.
  Think about it for a second. It’s like a miracle. Having everything there, RIGHT THERE for you.

  Having such an effortless access to knowledge and art, though, could dangerously mean for you to feel like those things are of small value.

  It’s just like what they tell you in marketing courses: a lower price doesn’t always mean more sales. You have to find your sweet spot: price your product too high, and no one will buy it because they think it’s a rip off, price it too low and you will convey the idea that it is of small value.

  If you bought a book for 50$ you’re not gonna throw it away at the first boring part. You are motivated to keep at it, because you invested in it. It has a value for you because of what you spent on it. Be it mere money or effort to find it.

  A lot of the music, games, books you get (illegally) for free on the internet have suffered this loss of percieved value. And that is way worse than any concern the RIAA may have.

  You wanna kill a painter, a writer or a musician? Just watch, read or listen to their work once and trash it without even TRYING to understand it.

  That is what I think is the only trap of the wonderful world wide web.

  So, my message is the following:
  Art and knowledge, for how cheap they may come, are always the most valuable things in this life. Their value is a spiritual value which calls for a payment in mental effort to understand and appreciate them.