Sorry 37 Signals, but you should really give your marketing strategy more credit

I’ve always admired 37 Signals as a company ever since I read Getting Real over a year ago. But when Matt Linderman wrote about formulating what, in my opinion, are marketing strategies based on self promotion and “riding the wave” I lose a modicum of respect for them.

From Signal Vs. Noise, 37Signals’ blog:

8. Ride the wave. Seek momentum and ride it. Is everyone buzzing about the iPhone? Then make an iPhone app. Are people interested in rapid development processes? Then blog about building your app in, say, under a month. Find out what people are talking about already and then figure out a way to get in the picture.

First of all, we all know that the market doesn’t need another mediocre product and how, pray tell, is the “ride the wave” mentality going to allow R&D teams to come up with a proverbial Purple Cow?

Starbucks became a Purple Cow not by “Riding the wave” and releasing a complementary creamer for Maxwell House coffee but by boldly introducing the phenomenal coffee bar concept to a market that, at that time, seemed to be unreceptive to the idea.

And even 37Signals as a company did not “Ride the wave” to get in the frame. The fact that their first product, Basecamp showcased the organic unity of milestone management, messaging, files sharing, and to-do list never before seen made it a remarkable product that took little time to spread virally–a Purple Cow.

Surely, Matt Linderman et al. know that they should give themselves more credit.

And about the “Self Promotion” bit, I think Seth Godin says it best:

37 Signals, as usual, has a thoughtful post about self promotion.

Except they missed the biggest part, by a mile.

They don’t do self-promotion. Self-promotion, as the term is used by many people, is a mildly pejorative way to describe someone who promotes himself at the expense of others.

Nobody says, “That Yo Yo Ma, he’s so self-promotional,” or, “can you believe what a self-promoter the Dalai Lama is?” That’s because they’re not promoting themselves. They’re promoting useful ideas. They’re promoting tactics or products that actually benefit the person they’re reaching out to.

Paris Hilton is a self-promoter. You don’t get any benefit out of her appearances other than temporary entertainment value and some schadenfreude. The guys at 37 Signals have never done a bit of self-promotion in their entire careers. That’s because they’re doing you-promotion, not me-promotion.

Yes, yes and yes.

Make (free) International Phone Calls Using Your Mobile Phone With Zoo.Tok

Startup Zoo.Tok allows you to make international phone calls from your mobile to anywhere in the world–The price? 50 pence a call or a little over $1.00.

Now aside from the fact that Zoo.Tok allows you to make phone calls using your mobile phone, you might be asking yourself what the value is in using Zoo.tok when VOIP services like Skype allows you to make calls for as low as $0.03 per minute? Well, at its per-call price, Zoo.tok allows you to make one call and talk AS LONG AS YOU WANT.

Zoo.Tok also passes the “Mom Test” and can’t be any easier to use. All you need to do is register your mobile phone number (using what they claim is The World’s Shortest Formtm), send an SMS containing the number of the party you wish to call to +447800000319 and zoo.tok automatically connects you.

Alternatively, you can login to your zoo.tok account and make phone calls from there.

You get two free calls upon registration and after you’ve used those up, you have the option to top up your account with £1.00, £5.00, £10.00, or £20.00 values.

A tip to Filipino readers: What can you do with Zoo.tok, disposable email addresses, and cheap, 30-Peso Sim Cards?

Cheap ass.

Customer Service:Web 2.0 Style

It’s fascinating how the internet is slowly becoming a catalyst that causes a paradigm shift in even the most stubborn, most stodgy company’s way of doing business. This is most noticeable in the banking industry–Typically, banks rely on transactions being inconvenient and time consuming to consequently be able to charge fees that make up a sizable chunk of their revenue. I mean, how many times have you been slapped with additional charges on your loan or bill payment because you were too lazy to go to the bank the day your payment was due?

The proliferation of online bill payment and other services such as fund transfer and balance checking is testament to how the internet could take a company by the balls, flip its model and make it web-enabled willingly or in most cases, unwillingly.

With the highly touted community-based and collaborative features of Web 2.0 and with traditional companies realizing the potential of how the internet can improve their business more and more, I think there’s no better time for startup internet companies to take advantage of the virtually untapped market that are the late adopters.

Sadly, more often than not, most startups are in a seemingly ‘monkey see, monkey do‘ model. Seriously, if I fucked a hooker for every time a startup company comes up with a digg, MySpace, Linked In, Face Book or YouTube rip-off, I’d be a ho-man petri dish of STD’s already.

Enter, Satisfaction: one of the few products nowadays where I see a lot of promise in. In a nutshell, Satisfaction is People-powered Customer Service for Absolutely Everything.

Led by a team composed of some of the people responsible for what is now Google Analytics, is an advanced forum of sorts with topics categorized by companies up for discussion.

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