What did you do before the internet?

Recently I’ve been taking a lot at just how much I use the internet.  How much more productive I am because of it, and how much less I’m accomplishing because of it.  These days, I do everything on the web, banking, keeping up with friends, research, reading, listening to music, watching videos, buying concert tickets… the list goes on much longer.  So, what did I do in the days before I had internet in my home?

1. I tried to see the image in a Magic Eye.
2. I had a dog, whom I spent time with and walked outside (note – she lives with my mom).
3. I rented movies.
4. I talked on the phone a whole lot more.
5. I went to the mall more often.
6. I had a library card and actually used it.
7. I played the piano.
8. I went to bed before 11 pm.
9. I was amused by things like hypercolour shirts.
10. I bought a lot of crap I didn’t need (I loved little gimmicks and trinkets).
11. I bought CDs (although I’ve only stopped buying them in the last 2 years).
12. I did more crafts.

Many of these things had to do with the age I was at as well, and how my lifestyle has change since then.  But I’m wondering, without so much time online, are there any of those things that I’d still be doing?  What did you do before the internet was a common household service?

Who Let the Marketers’ on Twitter anyway?

I just saw (and in fact retweeted because it made me think) a tweet from @shanegibson that Twitter is the marketing tool of choice for Fortune 500 companies.  Is that true?  I don’t know, but I could see it being a true statement.

So, if Twitter is the marketing tool of choice, what happens when people know that it’s the marketing tool of choice?  What are they going to do?  Continue to flock to Twitter?  I think they’ll avoid Twitter, it’s noisy enough as it is for the average person, now we’re throwing in marketing and ads?  I don’t think so.

Which brings me to an old lesson which apparently some new folks haven’t learnt yet.  IT’S NOT A MARKETING TOOL.  It’s a relationship tool.  If I’m having a bad experience with my product from ABC company and I tweet about it, I don’t want to be marketed or sold to.  I want ABC company to fix my problem or leave me alone.  If I’m looking for recommendations on a product, I’m way less likely to listen to you telling me about your promotion than if you genuinely want to help me find what is going to suit me.

So really, is Twitter, or any social media site for that matter, a marketer’s dream tool?  Sure for now.  But what about as the consumer continues to find more ways to avoid your promotional crap?  What will you do then?  Find another new media to conform to your old habits?  Dare I bring it up again…?  Perhaps instead of trying to sell me something, you can have something useful to say to me.  At the end of the conversation, if your product isn’t the best fit for my needs, but you know the competitor’s product is, I’m going to appreciate that piece of information so much more… and most likely remember you the next time somebody is asking me about who to check out for the product you sell.  Anytime I’ve had that experience in a retail store, I’ve routinely gone back to that store for other things.  Think about that side of social media.  Being helpful, actually paying attention to what a customer needs… finding the win/win rather than the ‘I just want to sell you stuff even if it’s not quite what you need’.

Laws of attraction – I think free, it finds me

Have you ever had a song in your head, and then turned on the radio just to hear it playing?  Or thought about phoning a friend, and a few minutes later the phone rings and they’re on the other end?  How we can sometimes attract items, events and people to us never ceases to impress me.

Last week, I was blogging about a day when everything is free.  No sooner had I pushed publish, then a tweet from @shel caught my eye pointing me to FREE.  Yep, a whole book about free.  It’s by Chris Anderson, who also authors The Long Tail blog.  I investigated the blog a bit more, read up on the book and today I went out and purchased the book (the purchase came from the fact that there were geographical restrictions in place stopping me from reading it for free on http://www.scribd.com.  That didn’t impress me very much.  If the internet is truly a free place, there should be a way around that… but to Chris Anderson’s point of digital businesses operating for free, books are not completely digital based… therefore cannot be completely free to everyone).  I’ve only made it through the first two chapters, but it’s definitely an interesting read.  And so far, something that resonates with my own observations of where the web is going.  I think we are headed for free.

Anyway, it’s difficult to allow myself to fully explore this concept without reading more of the book, but I wanted to share my recent finding.  Check it out.  And if you’re looking for it in Chapters, you’ll find it in the Global Business section.  All books in Chapters are sorted by category and then alphabetically by author, that may seem obvious to some, but finding books in that store has become much quicker since a helpful staff member shared that tidbit with me.