beRecruited Connects $90,000 Scholarship: From Bath to Mississippi

The best advice I can give to entrepreneurs: create value. If your tool, service or product creates value for its users, it will be successful. It might not be instantaneous. It might take time to arrive upon the right business model. And there might still be growing pains... But by creating value for your users (whether a service, product, content, etc), they will make sure you succeed.

beRecruited as always been focused on a very particular goal: improve the recruiting space by effectively connecting high school athletes and NCAA coaches. There have been opportunities to venture in other directions (related and unrelated) - but we have always been driven by that initial goal. And that focus has enabled us to create the best recruiting tools and community... and thus become an essential, valuable service for our users. The most satisfying press is when the story focuses on the athlete and how they used beRecruited to successfully find a college and/or scholarship. Tonight's Bugle-Observer ran a story of Jocelyn Lockhart of Bath - a college-bound track-and-field athlete who will be attending Southern Mississippi on a $90,000 scholarship thanks to beRecruited:

Jocelyn Lockhart of Bath, one of the Atlantic Provinces' top short- and long-course runners, will be heading south in the coming weeks to continue her top-flight career in track-and-field.

The elite athlete, who is currently a Grade 12 student at Carleton North High School (CNHS) in Florenceville-Bristol and a member of the highly-regarded ASEA club out of Moncton, has been awarded a $90,000 scholarship to attend Southern Mississippi on a four-year deal at the prestigious NCAA university...

"The main part of this process which led me to receive this scholarship started when I was made aware of a recruiting website for high school athletes called berecruited.com," she explained.

"I signed up there, but I also sent out letters to schools I was interested in. I eventually narrowed down my choices to Southern Mississippi, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Maine at Orono."

Congratulations Jocelyn!

Color, Unibody iPhones? Just Bring on the iPod Tablet!

Rumors of the new iPhone are making their way around the web (see Business Insider). They are good looking and would cause iPhone enthusiasts to wish they had them... but the color alone wouldn't cause people to upgrade: There is only one Apple rumor I care about (and I wrote about this in December): bring on the Apple Tablet.

Think about it:

Apple Tablet = Netbook + Amazon Kindle + App Store + iPod Touch

People are gobbling up netbooks for $400-$600 and the Amazon Kindle runs $359-$489... wouldn't a $500-$750 be a success? I would pre-order instantly.

ESPN Takes Over Homepage to Promote Taken

Yet another aggressive, interactive ad campaign that has taken over ESPN's homepage. It is perhaps the most aggressive campaign that ESPN has run... and they have run several rich media campaigns recently:

Last week, Apple took over ESPN.com to attack Microsoft's latest campaign. And two months ago, they shook up ESPN.com with a terrific iPhone ad. ESPN reminded us all that Valentines was approaching with a huge JC Penny takeover. ESPN promoted the Star Trek movie... back in late January.

Now, ESPN has used all available real estate other than the headline box (300 x 225) to promote the DVD release of Taken. I like integrated campaigns (in moderation). I like when ad units expand on interaction. But this, frankly, verges on being too much. The only saving grace is that you have to interact with either ad unit to turn the video unit on.

David Ortiz on Facebook Shows Why Some Are Afraid of Social Media

Despite the big traffic and abilities to engage with consumers, some brands are still afraid of social media. Most grasp the power of social media (from blogging to widgets and from Facebook to Twitter), but many are still afraid of what user interactions can lead to.

On Twitter, those interactions are less scary because bad behaviors are often isolated and not tied to the brand itself. For instance, if Ashton Kutcher Twitters about his new movie, negative reactions are not directly connected to Ashton... in the world of blogging, it is akin to turning off your comments (activity can still occur - but not in your stream).

On Facebook, the commentary is directly associated... as David Ortiz and Reebok found out today. Ortiz used Facebook to promote his new auction supporting breast cancer. Within 5 minutes, he got the following reaction:

"Now that you are not doing steroids would you please hit the ball opposite the shift. .220 average is not cutting it for me."

It is unfortunate... but you wonder why fear still exists?

Apple Takes Over Wall Street Journal with iLife Ad

A week after Apple took over ESPN.com to attack Microsoft's latest campaign... And two months after they shook up ESPN.com with a terrific iPhone ad.... And over a year after promoted Leopard on NYTimes.com...

Apple released another terrific rich ad campaign - this time on the Wall Street Journal and promoting iLife. Apple seems to have mastered the interactive double ad-unit (horizontal and double-width leaderboard) where the two components interact with one another. The campaigns are integrated with other marketing efforts and encourage user engagement on the publisher's site... an win / win.

Marketing Case Studies: Manny Ramirez & Dodgers; Mexico & Swine Flu

Thursday's New York Times profiled two messy and complex marketing cases that remind us how quickly things can change and how dangerous relying on any one revenue-stream or person can be:

1. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Manny Ramirez

The Dodgers entire marketing and merchandising campaign was centered around their best player, Manny Ramirez - whom they just signed to a two-year, $45m contract. On Thursday, Manny was suspended for violating MLB's steroid policy and will miss 50 games... not only paralyzing the Dodger's offense, but crushing the organization's marketing campaigns.

2. Mexico, Tourism and the Swine Flu

"It will take a long time for would-be vacationers to forget those images, but the Mexican government is trying to help them, with a multimillion-dollar campaign to restore Mexico’s brand, as hotels cut rates 50 to 70 percent....

When Mexican officials announced almost $2.1 billion in tax breaks and loans to help the Mexican economy recover from the residual effects of the flu, the tourism industry received special attention — loans for hotels and airlines, cuts in airport and port fees, and tax write-offs for businesses — worth, all told, $450 million. The reason is clear. Foreign tourism earned Mexico $13.3 billion last year. Tourism employs more than two million people and accounts for about 8 percent of the economy."

Sirius XM Loses 400,000 Q1 Subscribers - Thanks iPhone / iPod!

For subscription services, one of the core business measurements is new / lost subscribers. Read the quarterly earnings transcripts for companies like Comcast and you will realize how much attention is paid to subscription and revenue per subscription metrics.

This week, Sirius XM (SIRI) reported very poor numbers and saw their stock fall from $0.54 to $0.42:

The satellite radio monopolist said it lost 400,000 net subscribers during Q1, finishing the quarter with 18.6 million subs.

Retail subscribers -- those who sign up for Sirius on their own, not by buying a new car -- were the biggest defectors, at 370,000 net sub losses, down from 49,000 net sub losses a year ago.

According to BusinessInsider.com, Sirius blamed their struggles on the auto industry. Certainly a weak auto market - and economy - will negatively impact Sirius XM...

But isn't the real issue that Sirius XM simply doesn't provide as much value as it used to? iPods and iPhones have effectively captured the majority of satellite radio's initial value: on-demand music and content. Now, between massive music libraries, podcasts, Pandora and countless other ways to access content you want - there really is no reason to pay a subscription price for Sirius.

In fact, the only reason to subscribe is if you are particularly drawn to specific personality (like Howard Stern).... and even that is eroding. For instance, XM used to have rights to all MLB games with MLB Home Plate. Now, for a one-time $9.99 fee, you can get an improved version for your iPhone or iPod Touch - complete with box scores, video and other customizations.

And that's just the content piece. Neither Sirius nor XM ever understood form factor and portabilitiy... and obviously Apple has mastered that. So while Sirius wants to blame Detroit and a struggling indsutry for their woes - they should really credit a technology company for beating them in both device and content.

Bit.ly Goes Mainstream: URLs Included in Magazines

Services and brands enter mainstream pop culture when they:1. Reach critical mass, and/or 2. Provide value in a way that makes their usage critical

Use Facebook and Twitter as examples. From print to television, both are now routinely included as informational sources and communications tools (for instance, CNN's in-show advertisements for their Twitter accounts and ESPN / Sportscenter's ticker promotion for their Twitter accounts). Then there are services that have great online popularity but are far too geeky (or perhaps irrelevant) to go mainstream... and thus reach offline popularity. Despite being the most popular URL shortener - Bit.ly remains an online utility that is essentially a tool usage on more popular sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Perhaps that is changing. The below image is from ESPN The Magazine and includes a reference to a bit.ly URL. It serves a purpose for ESPN: it is there to save space (and likely also not directly promote the website's brand).

But do most people know what to do with this? There isn't even an 'http://' before the 'bit.ly/blueroom' mention!

McDonalds McCafe Takes Over YouTube

McDonalds has launched an advertising campaign alongside their new McCafe coffee line. You've likely seen the new McCafe spots during prime time television and today McDonalds overtook YouTube's homepage (see screenshots below). The campaign is interesting in itself - primarily because of the real estate and integrated components... and in a format that we have seen before.

But the most interesting part is how McDonalds defines their iced coffee: based on the diagram it is about 90% "light cream" and 10% "brewed coffee". Is this actually considered a coffee drink? Did McDonalds diagram it incorrectly and reverse the ingredients? Whatever it is... it cannot be right: