Got Your Mojo?

One of the best things about working in search marketing is that the office environment is saturated by other of early adopters.

More heads cover more ground, and the result is that you end up with a click of people who collectively know an application, website or gadget that helps with just about anything you might need.

That's how I learned about Mojo, a grand slam of a file sharing application developed by Deusty Designs.

Watch this:



Mojo is Genius
This sharp little application brings back the music sharing nostalgia of the late 90's when the original Napster was in it's prime. With full visibility to your friends' shared iTunes libraries, the program plugs itself into your iTunes and delivers fast and seamless functionality.

Installation is simple, and there is little to no configuration needed. The default setting allows you to connect with other shared iTunes libraries that live on your server. Unfortunately, this is a killer if you're company doesn't allow that type of sharing at work. However, if you do have the luxury of file sharing in the office, Mojo really does run quietly in the background while you go about your daily list of tasks.

Making Money
If you want to venture outside of your local network for music downloads, you'll need to upgrade to a pay for play license. This seems to be a smart revenue model in my opinion. Stellar performance by the free version makes the upgraded product absolutely worth paying for.

The cost for Mojo Pro is nominal with the highest number of user licenses available at $26.95. However, what you get for the price is not well detailed on the site.

You can find a screen cast on subscriptions here, but I think that Deutsy could be more clear as to whether this is an annual fee, monthly charge, or a one-time license fee.

I bring this up because as a raving fan who would like to purchase the upgrade, this lack of description has caused a delay in my purchase. I'm willing to bet there are other potential buyers caught in the same dilemma. Bummer for me and for Mojo.

Feature Wish List

1. More Social Access. More detail is needed that outlines the social networking aspect of Mojo and allows you to connect with users outside your network through their Deutsy.com email address. So how do you find other Mojo users in the first place? A possible opportunity for enhancement then, lies in providing paid users visibility to other paid Mojo subscribers. One idea might be to create a Facebook page or group, and allow a catalog of users to be built virally.
   
   
2. Stay Logged On. We have three users in the office today and more on the way soon. Actually, this application is spreading like the flu at PTMS. The only annoying catch is that in order to rip from shared libraries, that user needs to manually activate Mojo on their machine, whether or not their iTunes library is already being shared. It would be nice if Mojo had a setting that would enable automatic start up when iTunes was shared.
   
   
3. Downloading iTunes Purchases. When downloading, you'll notice certain shared songs or albums that appear in bright red font. As far as I can tell, Mojo will not touch any files that have been directly downloaded. While I'm guessing this is for legal reasons, negotiating some type of arrangement with iTunes to allow this functionality (even if it was provided at an additional cost to each user) would be icing on the Mojo cake.
   

Overall though, I highly recommend Mojo to anyone who uses iTunes. In one week, I'm up six gigs of shared music and, as I sit listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong chime through "I've got My Love To Keep Me Warm", I couldn't be happier with the results.

Look next week for an email interview with Deutsy Designs President and Mojo creator Luke Steffan. Luke's been kind enough to offer to share his thoughts on next steps in the development road map for Mojo.

Will There Be a Dot Com Bust 2.0?

The question of a potential dot com bust 2.0 has been on my mind for some time. Today you can't throw a stone without hitting some type of new niche social network or start up SaaS.

An example would be Artie Isaac's SpeakerSite. This network recently launched and already almost 700 members who have bought into a platform to connect speakers with audiences at events.

And if you're so inclined, you can do even visit Ning and start your own niche community without too much trouble at all.

Anyone can build groups on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter. We can start blogs on any topic we choose. And what's more? There's enough people on the web today that you can find readers who will be interested in just about any fancy you choose to write on.

All this is too cool. But I wonder - will web 2.0 come crashing down similar to the dot com bust almost a decade ago?

In a conversation this week with @DanHarris, a tenured technology guru, I posed the question: So do you think we'll see a dot com bust 2.0?

Dan didn't think so and commented that a major component in the dot com bust of the 90's was related to a lack of infrastructure to support the boom. There simply was just not enough bandwidth to keep up the exponential growth of start web companies and the high demand drove the cost of starting up through the roof. The risk associated with failure was high and extremely costly.

Today we've become much wiser and have more resources available at a fraction of the cost. Failure happens every day, and then new concepts are born again, and the ball keeps rolling.

But Seth Godin writes an interesting perspective, warning us that the internet is almost full. And by almost full he means that we are so bombarded by so many messages online - from social networks to blogs to email et. al. - that in a sense we, as consumers of the content are full.

This Happend to TV
How many times do you watch a commercial during your favorite tv show, and not two minutes after the spot has aired, you can't seem to remember the brand or product that the ad was pushing?

We've been bombarded by so many messages over the years via traditional media like television, print and radio that, while these outlets can still be effective means of persuasion when integrated as part of a larger strategy, a huge majority of the messages just don't stick. We stare at the box, glazed over as the content bounces off of our face.

But will history repeat itself? Will the social web (and the web in general for that matter) follow the same pattern of over saturation. Maybe we're already there or getting close. It's tough to keep up with all your favorite blogs. Just keeping tabs on your facebook friends can take hours, even if you only have a few hundred connections.

What do you think?

Worst case scenario: If there were to be a dot com bust 2.0, what would it look like? Would it be challenges with the technology or our ability to consume the messages it delivers?


Photo Credit: mathewingram.com/work

How localized content can build a global audience - iMediaConnection.com

Sheila Mooney, Director of Content Development

for Nurun, offers some very though provoking ideas on generating localized content to build a global audience for brands. The article is absolutely worth a read and discusses the strategic approach to content in relation to context, taking in factors such as cultural nuances, as well as technological factors like bandwidth.

What are your thoughts on her approach?

Consumers will seek out brand content, but only if it appeals to them on a local and personal level. That's why your content strategy needs to factor in context as well.

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