Author Archive for whitney

Wednesday, January 7

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Zune Fail: What were people saying?

Just over New Year’s Microsoft experienced an epic failure when their Zune mp3 players automatically shut down, turning millions of their 30G products into paperweights.

On New Year’s Eve, we ran a quick Insight on the failure to see what the Internets were saying about the Zune blackout.

In our half-day at the office on New Year’s Eve, we pulled in 154 Nodes. These are the 100 most frequent words used among those Nodes.

Words like “time,” “help,” “today” and “currently” suggest the immediacy of the problem. While words like “frozen,” “support,” and “screen” give insight to the nature of the problem.

People also compared the Zune to its competition, the iPhone and iPod. Of the 154 Nodes, 93 mention the Zune and 50 mention Apple, iPod or iPhone.

Tuesday, January 6

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Avoiding ‘09 online obstacles

A new article in AdWeek paints a desolate landscape for Web and brand ads in 2009, basically saying video and social networking CPMs will tank.

Unlike several industry observers who in recent weeks have cited online video as a strong spot in the online ad economy, Khan claims that the medium has yet to establish a sustainable business model, despite the massive growth in consumer consumption. Advertisers have “failed to understand the consumer demand,” said Khan during a conference call held Monday.

Because ROI is difficult to measure in the Web space, I can understand why J.P. Morgan’s report comes to these conclusions. BUT…

I see this as a perfect time to invest in solid resources that give you a clear, accurate look at your reach on the Web.

Spark has the capability to do this, especially when it comes to monitoring the success of online video.

From our dashboard, you can track views, comments, ratings and votes dating back for two months. You can read uncensored comments and see exactly what other sites are linking to a video.

It’s easy to monitor something labeled as “risky” when you have the proper resources. It’s time for companies to make an effort to understand how online content works.

Monday, January 5

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Videos about S16, Spark

Want to learn more about Spiral16 and Spark? We have a new set of videos that explain a bit about us and our software.

This two-minute clip introduces you to our company, but we have nine more videos you can watch on our YouTube channel.

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We’re on Facebook & YouTube

If you want to follow us on YouTube then go here.

If you want to be our “fan” on Facebook then go here.

Tuesday, December 23

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New Feature: Exporting to Excel

We added a bunch of new features to Spark last week. One of them in particular stands out to me. Now, you can export the complete Node lists (by category) to Excel.

Click on the little icon under Insight Analytics and it will automatically export the data in an Excel file to your machine.

Once you’ve exported to Excel, you can open the file and see a complete list of Nodes for that category. In this case, I chose “blogs.”

The Excel file gives you all the same data from the Insight Analytics category listings in a format that is easily shared with others.

Engage with us to learn more about this and other features.

Monday, December 22

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I think that’s a birthday cake

S16 celebrated the birthdays of Deric, Jeff C. and Mei on Monday! Happy Birthday(s)!

I entrusted Justin to take a photo of their cake. He must still be on painkillers from his recent knee surgery… because that picture is messy. Like “Dr. House on Vicodin trying to cross stitch” messy.

Friday, December 19

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Holiday Festival: Phase 2 (the par-tay)

Despite some icky weather in KC, the Spiral16 crew spent a few hours at Lucky Strike Lanes hanging out, eating and being merry on Thursday night. I threw together a short pic/video blog!

(Observe Justin trying to bowl on crutches. It brings the LOLs.)

Happy holidays!

Thursday, December 18

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Viral marketing for the holidays

JCPenney has this cute video for the holidays. My friend Todd sent it to me after I suggested getting my mom a cleaning lady for Christmas (without any sarcasm!)

Notice it has nearly 300,000 views. They even have a cute Web site that goes along with it.

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Company Holiday Festival: Phase 1

The coffee mugs. We drink a lot of caffeine here. Why not have vessels for transporting it?

Wednesday, December 17

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PopCandy Love!

I recently threw an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party with some friends. Proceeds went to local organization Operation Breakthrough.

On a co-worker’s suggestion, I submitted some pics to the USA Today PopCandy blog…

AND WE GOT PUBLISHED!

Check it out here.

Read more about the benefit and how I used Spark to test the effectiveness of our online marketing.