Your coworkers will assuredly make fun of you if they ever saw you doing this in real life, but it is still an amazing idea and YouTube has proven that people will do it, film it, post it online and consider themselves awesome for doing so. With the latest releases from Microsoft, it is obvious that they no longer wish to be a software focused organization.  The XBOX 360 - 67 million sold - and Kinect - 19 million - have clearly been their most successful non-software ventures to date.  and the Surface tablet are all pretty standard individually.  Hiro and Claire loved it, shouldn't I)?  MORE >>

Many of you have probably had the following experience: You are surfing YouTube and find a song from your favorite artist (who cares that the video is actually of some random family's Disney vacation), but upon clicking the link you find a disappointing message saying that the file has been taken down by the media company that owns the rights to it. In today's world, technology changes so quickly that it is impossible for us as users to keep up sometimes. but that is a different story). Today, there are laws that prohibit websites from displaying pirated content. What does that mean? MORE >>

And those who engage directly with your brand via the myriad channels available today (think Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and the like).  We all know (but perhaps don't want to acknowledge) that brands shouldn't try to build relationships with their entire customer base; there is no need to focus on the person who buys once every ten months. Instead, spend your time, effort and resources on your top 10, 20 or 30% (depending on your business), increasing your understanding of your most valuable (current and potential) customers. To do that, you must think "direct". Be social. MORE >>