Seán Crotty

Quoted in Bloomberg's Tech Blog about marketing mobile devices

I was just quoted in Bloomberg News' Tech Blog.  They contacted me and asked for my advice on how Research In Motion (RIM) should repair their approach to marketing Blackberrys.

My first job in Silicon Valley was as an 'Evangelist' at Apple.  The writer's angle was asking former Apple marketers what they'd suggest for reviving Blackberry.  I've used both iPhones and Blackberrys extensively (depending on which was the standard at my current company).

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Bloomberg News

    Tech Blog

        Daily dose of culture clashes and trends

With RIM Sliding, What Would Apple Marketers Do to Save BlackBerry?

BY MARK MILIAN  | MARCH 30, 2012 12:12 PM EDT | 

http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-03-30-with-rim-sliding-what-would-apple-marketers-do-to-save-blackberry/

 

For Apple, it’s “Think Different.” For RIM, how about “Be Heard?”

That’s the advice of one former marketer at Apple, a company known for its advertising genius and ability to convince e-mail addicts weaned on the BlackBerry’s Chiclet keyboard that  typing on the iPhone’s glass is cooler.

With RIM’s share of the global smartphone market continuing to slide, Bloomberg asked a couple of marketing execs who worked with Apple: What would you do to freshen up RIM’s dusty public image?

“There are some very simple marketing and strategic options for RIM, and it’s certainly not too late,” Alec Marshall, who was a marketing executive at Apple from 2003 to 2008, wrote in an e-mail. “When I arrived at Apple, we had 6 percent market share. Things are a little different now.”

Different indeed. According to ComScore, RIM’s slice of the worldwide smartphone market was 15.2 percent in the last quarter, down from 17.2 percent in the previous period. Meanwhile, Apple’s share grew to 29.5 percent from 28.1 percent during the same period.

RIM’s “product positioning should be simple and elegant,” said Marshall, who is now a marketing vice president for app developer Eyecon Resources. “They should learn from Apple circa 1997 and simplify their lineup.” Some of the most recent mobile-phone models from RIM are the BlackBerry Torch 9850, the BlackBerry Torch 9860 and the BlackBerry Touch 9900 (that’s Touch, not Torch).

In its continued advertising blitz, Apple puts the spotlight on some of the innovative things you can do with its mobile products using apps, Marshall wrote. RIM’s greatest edge was its mastery of messaging tools, which it has ignored recently in marketing. (The phones also have superior battery life, but that’s probably a hard aspect to advertise.) RIM lost focus when it attempted to mimic the app stores popularized by Apple and Google’s Android, he wrote.

“Once they choose a tactic, the messaging should be simple,” said Marshall. “Something like, ‘Be heard.’”

A RIM spokeswoman referred a request for comment to statements made by Thorsten Heins, the company’s president and chief executive officer, on yesterday’s earnings call. Heins has expressed optimism that a marketing chief could give RIM a shot in the arm, and he said the search continues. Keith Pardy, RIM’s former chief marketing officer, left a year ago, and Brian Wallace, a former RIM vice president of marketing, left a few months after that to join Samsung Telecommunications America.

RIM may be better off forgetting about advertising its phones to consumers altogether, said Sean Crotty, who worked as an evangelist for Apple in the early-1990s, in an e-mail. Still, RIM should play up the BlackBerry as a communication device, not as an Angry Birds player, he wrote.

“BlackBerry wins as a pure business tool,” said Crotty, who is now an executive at consulting firm TJL. “The RIM designers don’t have the same consumer ‘wow’ focus in their DNA. RIM should stick with what it has always been good at — making the best business-only communication tool.”

Steve Hayden, who worked on Apple’s iconic “1984″ commercial for the Macintosh and retired as vice chairman for advertising firm Ogilvy in January, is less optimistic about the BlackBerry.

“If I knew how to save the BlackBerry, I would be talking to RIM right now,” he said in a phone interview.

Hayden’s advice: RIM should consider shuttering its hardware units, similar to how Jobs killed the Newton, printers and other divisions when he returned to Apple in 1997.

“When you look at Apple in ’96, they were pretty close to extinct,” he said.

Perhaps RIM’s most promising road to growth is in software, Hayden said. RIM said in November that it was working on tools called Mobile Fusion for securing iPhones and Androids for use with corporate data.

“There is some hope in Mobile Fusion,” Hayden said. “It’s got to be a software offering rather than just their steady focus on hardware. They haven’t done too well on the hardware front.” From there, RIM might be able to spend its ad dollars on presenting itself as a friendly developer of corporate tools, he said.

It might not be as “killer” as commercials with surfer dudes using BlackBerry Messenger, but as RIM CEO Heins said yesterday, “substantial change is what RIM needs.”

(Updated with comments from Sean Crotty.)

–With assistance from Adam Satariano in San Francisco

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I don't know if Mark Milan also noticed my other post earlier on this blog where I coined the term: "Crackdrafting" (drafting your co-workers while walking and addictively typing on your 'crackberry').  :-)

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People at Research In Motion must have been thinking along the same lines as I was, because later that day (after giving Bloomberg my opinon), I saw this article:

BlackBerry maker to focus on business customers

"Struggling BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. said Thursday that it plans to return its focus to its corporate customers after failing to compete with flashier, consumer-oriented phones such as Apple's iPhone ..."

 

 

Thank you, Steve.

 

Dad's Obituary

Robert T. Crotty, a writer, professor, and college Dean, passed away on Saturday, August 13, 2011 at the age of 73 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Burial will be held at the Oak Grove Cemetery in Medford, Massachusetts on Saturday August 20, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the UNH Foundation Office at 9 Edgewood Road, Durham, NH 03824.  Please put “In Memory of Robert Crotty” in the memo line.  Immediately after the burial, a small memorial celebration will be held, where he asked that friends "express outrageous stories about me that I will not be able to refute".

Crotty was born August 21, 1937 in Arlington, Massachusetts to William J. Crotty and Rita (Connaughton) Crotty.  He grew up in Somerville, Massachusetts, graduated from Somerville High School in 1954, and then went to the University of New Hampshire on a football scholarship.

College was interrupted by two years of service in the Army from 1955 to 1957, as a radio operator in Alaska.  After his honorable discharge, Crotty returned to UNH to complete his studies in English, graduating with the class of 1961.

He married Mary Jane Burbank on May 5, 1961 at Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, Maine.

Crotty loved the theater, winning prizes for oration in high school, and performing at the Keene Summer Theatre and the Seacoast Repertory Theatre in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Later he continued his involvement in the arts by volunteering at The Music Hall in Portsmouth.

At the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, he earned an M.F.A. in English from the University of Iowa.  He then took his family to Ireland for a year to work on his first novel in the tradition of famous Irish authors.

Professor Crotty taught writing in the English department of Wisconsin State University at Superior, receiving tenure.  He started the creative writing program at Roger Williams College in Rhode Island, bringing many famous guest lecturers to campus including Tom Wolfe.  Crotty co-edited the book:  “Workshop:  A Spontaneous Approach to Literature” published in 1971.

He settled with his family in Kennebunkport, Maine.  Starting as Professor of Creative Writing at Saint Francis College in Biddeford Pool, Maine (now the University of New England), he became Chairman of the English Department, and then Dean and Acting Vice President of the Humanities College.

Leaving the academic world, he took charge of media relations for the Maine Civil Liberties Union, worked with the Maine Conservation Corps, and served as President Jimmy Carter's press secretary for the State of Maine.

He enjoyed antique cars, such as his ’39 Chevy, was continuously writing short stories and screenplays, had encyclopedic knowledge about the Boston Red Sox, and loved to "hold court" at his favorite coffee shop in Market Square, Portsmouth.

Crotty was pre-deceased by his former wife Mary Jane Burbank Crotty, and survived by his 3 sons:  Sean of Palo Alto, California, Liam of Miami Beach, Florida and Brendan of Bethany Beach, Delaware, and 2 grandsons Keagan and Torin.  He was also pre-deceased by his brother Frank, and survived by brothers Bill, Ed, Walter, and sister Mary Fleming.

 

George R. R. Martin speaks

On Wednesday, July 27th, I saw the author of A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, speak at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City, California. The event was sponsored by Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park (where I heard about it) and by Cargill, and hosted by author Tad Williams.

I've been enjoying this Spring's HBO series created from the book, and have read the whole series, called "A Song of Ice and Fire".  Here are some notes from his talk.

Martin had strong stage presence and was quite funny.  He was engaging, well-spoken, amusing, and emphatic.  All while wearing his signature Greek sailing captain's cap.

He started writing A Game of Thrones in the summer of 1991.  While in the middle of writing a sci-fi novel called Avalon, the first chapter of A Game of Thrones came to him, -- with the Stark children discovering the direwolf pups.  So, he wrote that first chapter, then went from that to the second chapter.  "At some point, I made a map."  He did not start with a master plan and fill in from there; the first scene came to him, and it just continued to develop as he went along.

He actually put aside the book for three years, while working on tv and other projects, returning to it in 1994.  Characters like Arya and Tyrion wouldn't let him forget them.  "These characters wouldn't leave me alone.".  When the first book did come out, "Kepler's sold more copies of Game of Thrones than any other bookstore in the United States.".

After the second book, A Clash of Kings, appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list, he was approached to have the books made into a movie, and realized "They're never going to fit my book into a 2 1/2-hour movie."  Because his house was paid for, he didn't need the "huge truckloads of cash" producers were dangling before him, and he wanted the adaptation to be good, he relates:  "I had the luxury of saying the sexiest word in Hollywood:  'No'.".  In discussing how to do a tv adaptation of the series, he recalls saying:  "It can't be network television.  If you do network television, you've got to take out all the sex ... and most of the violence.".

The most common question he gets is:  "What the hell took me so damn long ?" [to finish his most recent book in the series:  A Dance with Dragons].  He answered:  "See how heavy it is; how many pages.  How complicated it is.  That's what took so long."  And he mentioned that he was "guilty of an excess of optimism" when he said this latest book would only take one year.  He said that there were strange theories circulating on the net of how he really had finished A Dance with Dragons, and was just holding it.  To that he commented:  "I would that it were so." 

He recounts his pleased surprise at the welcome he received by 4,200 people in an auditorium last week for ComicCon in San Diego, expecially when there were girls "making that strange squealing sound that girls do for the Beatles".

When asked:  "Do you mourn any of the characters you killed ?", he confides: "Actually, I do mourn the characters."  "In some sense, I am all these people.  And I'm killing an aspect of me."  George jokes that he reconciles this by telling himself that it's not him killing characters, but other characters killing characters ... "Those bastards !".  Host Tad Williams chimes in with his take on the parody bumper sticker version of this:  "Authors don't kill characters.  Characters kill characters.".

The second most frequent question he gets is:  "What do you think of the HBO series ?", to which he answers:  "I think it's great.".  The audience applauded when he revealed:  "They started filming the second season 3 days ago.".  Another common question is:  "What will happen if HBO catches up to you ?", to which he says with a grin:  "I've got a considerable lead.".

"I do hope to eventually finish 'A Song of Ice and Fire'."  Then later, "I may return to write other stories set in the same world." because he likes the world so much.  And he noted "I'm not deliberately setting out to write a political allegory, by any means.". 

Asked if he deliberately creates "bad" characters to further the plot, he philosophizes as follows:  "What is 'bad' ?  Bad is a label." and "All people have capacity for good and evil.  This is what fascinates me about the human animal.  The battle between good and evil is fought within the human heart every day.  And that's what's interesting to write about.".

Earn Money Making Websites

I'm launching a new program here at Yola.  We're calling it the Yola Experts Program, and it's about people getting paid to design websites for other people.

More info at:  yola.com/yep.html .

We've seen that it is very easy for most anyone to find local businesses, everyday people that they already know, who do not have a website, but would really benefit from having one.  Artists, restaurants, dentists, pubs, singers, gardeners, electricians, ... all of these are examples of businesses that our current Yola Experts have helped.

Our website building tool, Yola, is designed to be easy enough for anyone to use.  And it's free.  But sometimes people are too busy, so they need someone else to do it for them.  That's were Yola Experts come in.

Someone joining our Experts program can quickly learn the tool, then charge several hundred dollars per site as a design fee.  In the current economy, this is a great opportunity for anyone to create their own business making sites.

We also offer commissions to Yola Experts.  Any time a client buys something from Yola (such as a domain name), the Expert who is making the site for that client will receive 15% of the sale.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in trying this, please send them to www.yola.com/yep.html .

I'll look forward to training them on how to make money using Yola.  Thanks.

Business Week names Yola as a Top 50 Startup

Yola has been named one of the Top 50 Startups You Should Know for 2009 by Business Week.

Business Week analyzed current startups for progress, traffic, mainstream media coverage, funding, blogosphere coverage, and other factors.  They worked with market research firm YouNoodle to assign a rating to startups.  Yola was rated at 60, which puts us at the top of the range for a company that is experiencing "some very strong growth".

Full list of top startups with ratings and links can be found here:  http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/tech_startups_you_should_know_2009/ .

Crediting Affiliates with Phone Calls

We're approaching some better solutions for one of the holy grails of affiliate marketing -- tracking phone calls and giving affiliates credit for them.

RingRevenue has created a platform designed for affiliate marketers and recently secured funding.

The system assigns and manages dedicated phone numbers for each promoter and already has signed up to work with Commission Junction and several other major affiliate networks.

Vinny speaks at the Global Technology Symposium at Stanford

Vinny Lingham is speaking right now on a panel about how policy initiatives can affect innovation.  Here's my summary of his points:

"Are the right incentives in place at educational institutions to promote entrepreneurship?

Currently, students have more incentives to stay within the academic setting than to break out and start a company.  They are presented with a tough choice.  It's very similar to poker, where you have to look at the pot odds and compare to the chance of making your hand.  Students must look at the chance of their start-up succeeding and weigh that against the benefits of staying within school.

Educational institutions could offer incentives to support students who decide to become entrepreneurs, such as:

• Investing in the student's start-up, to get IP from in-the-classroom to be "fundable"
• Giving academic credit toward their degree for the commercialization of the student's technology
• Deferring student loans to relieve financial pressure on the student" 

Q & A Session:

"Investors should be careful of patents filed in other countries, since the rules, costs, and standards can be very different.  For instance, in some countries, intellectual property which is developed in-country is very hard to take out of the country, so your investment will be limited by that."

The Global Technology Symposium is an annual event at Stanford University is a premier investor conference focused on technology and growth companies in emerging market technology corridors.

SynthaSite becoming Yola

We announced today that we're changing the name of our company from SynthaSite to Yola.

Yola is much easier to say, spell, and type. It's friendlier and less-techy sounding too. And it is in keeping with our philosophy of making things as easy as possible.  For anyone who's made a site with our site-building tool, and has questions about this renaming, we have created a list of frequently asked questions.

And when we launch the new name in a few days, you'll see a whole new look on our site.

SynthaSite raised $20 million Series B

Very happy to announce that SynthaSite has raised $20 million in financing as a Series B from Reinet Fund!

This is a follow-on investment by the people who lead the Series A round of $5 million in November 2007.  It's a strong vote of confidence in our company and business model, and follows our reaching 1 million registered users last month.

We got some great coverage, including a scoop article by TechCrunch.  Full details can be had in the press release, Vinny's blog post, and our company blog post.

Vegas with Vinny !

Just back from Vegas where 23 of us celebrated Vinny Lingham's 30th birthday in MASSIVE style. Full weekend of partying, "bling bling" themed dinner at Diego restaurant, then on to our own sky box at Studio 54 for all night clubbing in true "Blingham" fashion!

Good times at the tables with the crew also inspired me to post links to PokerStars.com, where you can qualify for the World Series Of Poker (Vinny and I worked at it for 2008, he ended up going, looking forward to this year), and when you've played a certain amount on PokerStars.com, they'll match your first deposit, up to $50, in other words, deposit $50, get $50 free.

Affiliate Summit West 2009

Having just returned from the Affiliate Summit in Vegas this weekend, I saw lots of opportunities for online marketing.  The internet marketing space is thriving, and I'm looking forward to several joint projects with people from the conference involving our SynthaSite web design tool.

Seeing Angel Djambazov, I was reminded of the industry award that the ReveNews blog he currently manages received in mid-2006.  As a contributing blogger to ReveNews, I'm part of the group that MarketingSherpa named as the Best Affiliate Marketing Blog. I would recommend ReveNews to anyone new to online marketing, since it's writers cover a wide range of topics, including:  search engine marketing, affiliate marketing, security, contextual advertising, and micro content.

I was also struck by the contrast in attendance between the Affiliate Summit, which is growing rapidly, and the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), which saw a sharp drop-off this year.  Admittedly, CES is a much, much larger show, but the growing Affiliate Summit attendance speaks to the continued strength in demand for performance-related marketing.  Kudos to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for pulling off another successful major event.

Quot Libros, Quam Breve Tempus

Yes.  So many books, So little time.  :)

This quotation aptly found on the home site of one of Amazon.com's top book reviewers.

All encountered while I'm burning through "The PayPal Wars", a book I bought while working at eBay, and which is now becoming even more relevant.  Definitely recommend it as a good read.  Fun to run across some very familiar names from eBay and from the Valley VC scene, and see them in their earlier incarnations.

SynthaSite in the Wall Street Journal

Very excited to see SynthaSite mentioned in the Wall Street Journal this morning.

The article has a teaser on the front page, with brings you to the first page of the Small Business Special Report, where 2/3 of the first and 2/3 of the third page cover "How to create a successful website for nothing".

There were only three companies mentioned as places to host your site: Microsoft, Weebly, and SynthaSite! Here's the online version of the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121803326363016929.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.

Wedding sites

Many people are using SynthaSite to create a website about their wedding.

Here are some examples:

Trevor & Christi included a map, reception details, and updates every few days.

Mirka has a countdown timer and some nice photos on her site.

Diana, in her first website, gives details for her bridal shower, bachelorette party, and gift registry.

I think the fact that our tool is free, easy, and allows you full control of the elements on your page is probably why people are using it for their wedding sites.

Breeding sites

One of the real joys of working in the web world is discovering the incredibly random sites that people make with your tools.

In the affiliate world, with eBay and Art.com, it was the super-specialized product sites. My favorite was the woman who scoured the globe for the latest in exotic hardwood knitting needles. She had quite a following; over 2,600 people per month subscribed to her newsletter.

For widgets, with Mpire, it was the product review fan-sites, like the guy who created a great-looking site dedicated to the BMW M3 and every possilble accessory for that model.

With SynthaSite, some of the fun, off-beat discoveries are the animal breeders who set up sites to promote their services and sell:

mini-lamas at http://Gingerichsminiaturefarms.synthasite.com/

parakeets bred naturally at http://thesanctuary.synthasite.com/index.php

leopard geckos at http://jandjleopardgeckos.synthasite.com/

cute shizshu / poodle crosses at http://puppylove4me.synthasite.com/

and many more ...

People's ingenuity never ceases to amaze!

Hiring update

Happy to announce that I've hired a Director of User Experience in San Francisco and two Community Support Specialists in Cape Town, South Africa.

I've also added a job requisition for a Product Manager to help me translate our identified business needs into specific Web 2.0 functionality.

Still available are the Community Support roles and the Interaction Design role in San Francisco. Tell your friends! :)

WSOP 2008

With this year's World Series of Poker about to start this weekend in Vegas, there's been a little bit of poker mania locally. Some friends are headed to Sin City to try their luck, and there's been lots of reading up and practice hands.

One of the latest poker resources that I've been referred to is: Phil Hellmuth's Black Belt course in Poker, which is a series of podcasts -- great for watching on the plane to Las Vegas, for instance ...

I actually jumped in and bought it. Looks pretty fun, albeit cheesy (but, that's Vegas), with some good poker advice.

I’m Hiring

I am currently hiring for several positions in our San Francisco office, all of which are a part of my Product Development group:

-- two people in the area of website interface and usability – a Director of User Experience and an Interaction Designer

-- two people, a senior and a junior, in Community Support, which is our combination of Community Management and Customer Support (I've recently hired 3 other people for this in our South Africa office, since we're going for round-the-clock coverage to keep our users super happy.)

-- at least one person in Quality Assurance

Our engineering group is also actively hiring Java and Ajax rockstars, our marketing group for Business Development, and Operations is looking for a world-class Executive Assistant / Office Manager. For more detail on positions at SynthaSite, please check out our Careers page.

If you’re interested in one of these jobs, or know someone who would be a great fit, please contact me at sean.crotty@synthasite.com.

Visit to SynthaSite South Africa

We had a very productive three weeks in Cape Town.

I got to facilitate five straight days of strategy, branding, and product planning sessions. We covered everything about the company, within our Exec Team level and with everyone in the company. It was one of the most satisfying corporate exercises I’ve ever done – mainly because we came out of it with a crisp statement of company objectives, specific product feature priorities, and clearly defined quarterly goals – which everyone had participated in and agreed to.

It was my first time in South Africa, and only my second time on that continent. Besides lots of concentrated work, Vinny & crew showed me and the other recent American hire, Randy Almond, a great time. You can see pictures of the trip at http://travelswithvinny.synthasite.com/Cape_Town.php. They are on a website I made with our free web design tool, SynthaSite (of course). The up-close pictures of the Rhinoceros are the wildest.