MediaWhiz In the News: Week of Sept. 17-21, 2012
MediaWhiz’s leaders are continually sought after as resources for opinions, advice and expertise, based on our deep understanding of industry trends, the needs of our customers and the broader marketplace in which we operate.
Silverpop’s Sign-In Supports LinkedIn: What It Means for B2B Lead Gen
DM Confidential | Sept. 21, 2012 | Featuring Steve Goldner, Sr. Director of Social Media
… While this is sure to get B2B marketers excited, they should exercise caution and tact. “Certainly, a business email address is more valuable, but it really comes down to how each marketer will use the email address,” says Steve Goldner, senior director of social media marketing at MediaWhiz and Ryan Partnership. “There needs to be a trust factor built into how the business communicates with its customers and collects their data.”
Collecting email addresses via social channels is OK only if marketers are looking for genuine engagement with their audience, according to Goldner. “I would hope that marketers are smart enough to focus on delivering valuable information to reinforce their brand rather than providing direct product or service information,” he says.
Mobile Payments: Not Yet Ready for Prime Time
MediaWhiz Blog | Sept. 20, 2012 | By Daryl Colwell, VP of Business Development
Thursday’s Financial Times has an excellent analysis piece by Richard Waters, the paper’s West Coast managing editor, on the nascent mobile payments industry. “Are smartphones about to swallow the payments business,” he asks as he moves on to dissect an industry valued by the Yankee Group at $162 billion in 2010, the last year of available data.
The piece centers around the eye-popping investments in, and growth of, mobile payment startup Square, now valued at $3.25 billion after it raised more than $200 million in a new round of financing.
Waters examines Square within the prism of its larger and more established comrade in the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem — Apple and its new Passbook digital wallet platform, launched this week. Waters rightly points out that however awe-inspiring most Apple products tend to be, a key component is missing from Passbook: a way to make a payment. “Apple’s bet is that consumers still prefer to pay with a card or hard cash,” he writes. Read more …
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