Jennifer Lind

To me the media always seems to be biased one way or another on issues, specifically on political issues. Fox News leans more conservative and CNN leans more liberal. On the democratic side though, Obama’s campaign has been more favored by the media since the beginning of the primaries.

Skip to more recently, and all I hear on the news is how Clinton should drop out of the race. I think this is a huge problem with politics when candidates are expected to drop out early when not all of the states have their chance to vote, even when the candidate is only a couple percentages away from the leader. If it were a true democracy, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama would stay in the race until the end when all the states and super delegates have voted. The final victor should be decided at the convention. Here are a few benefits of all the candidates staying in the race through the primary election process:

• Better chance to really understand each person and have a better understanding of what each person can bring to the table. Each person has their own strengths. What do we need as a country at this time? This cannot be decided in 1-2 months.
• More time for all the dirt to come out on each candidate so there are no surprises later. We’ll know exactly what we are getting into before this person goes against the other party or becomes President of the US.
• Increased competition leads to a more intense race and a more knowledgeable decision for the public.

 It’s how the process is set up anyway. Obviously the politicians thought it was a good idea at the time. What’s changed?

Kudos to Clinton for toughing it out. Now if more attention was givien to the major issues of today, it would be a better environment and we could learn something about these candidates that would set them apart. A duking contest between Clinton & Obama doesn’t benefit anyone.

With Yellowpages’ recent partnership with MSN, Yellowpages is hoping for increased impressions and click thru rates. It’s a great attempt by Yellowpages to grab more of the marketshare and increase visibility of their ads. This partnership replaces Superpages’ services, who saw little traffic from MSN.

In my monthly client reports, I’ve seen impression data from Yellowpages increase through their various partnerships, but so far we have not seen the same results for the click data. As of now, there is no way to target your ad for the various affiliates out there. It seems that people who are searching on 411.com and areaguides.net should have the same interests in mind, though both of these sites are somewhat different. For example, 411.com is targetted more as a find-to-call site where you can find the business phone number you’re searching for. Areaguides.net has more info about local events, travel, and general city information. If you could target your creative for each of these sites, this may help to improve click thru rates. On the 411.com site, you may choose to customize your creative to include a call related call to action. on Areaguides.net, you may decide to include a coupon with a tourist related package. Of course, as the affiliate list grows, this may make operations difficult. With each listing, you would need to submit creative for each category, on each site.

 For an article regarding recent IYP partnerships: DMNews re: IYP partnerships - a look back on IYPs from 07 and the partnerships that were formed by Superpages, Yellowpages, Yellowbook, and Dex.

I am currently in the middle of remodeling our master bedroom. Taking down the old purple floral border and other purple decorations from the previous owner of our house and setting the stage for a more classic, clean-line look. I was in a horrible mood when I got home from work, but found that painting got my mind off of the issues from earlier in the day.

 Skip to earlier today… I came across this website called Blurb, which allows you to make a bookstore quality book. You can add images, text, and customize the format with some free software that you download from their website. Then you just order the number of books you want, and the best part - they start at around $12 per book! That is insane! I think this is a great idea because getting a book published has always been a mistery to me. This makes it so easy. I mean obviously you don’t have the publisher behind you, but Blurb would be great for personal stuff such as making a photo book, a book of poetry, etc.

 So while I was painting, I was thinking back to my college days of the poetry class and how I really enjoyed it. What if I created a book of the poems I’ve written? Right now they are saved on a CD, but haven’t really been read by me or anyone else for a couple years now. Something to think about I guess. It’s interesting how I wrote so many poems for that class and haven’t wrote a single one since. I think when you have a reason to write and an outlet, it makes the task easier. Similar to having a blog with the continual need to say something interesting that others may want to read. It makes you do more thinking…

Last night I attended a MIMA event where the presenter was Matt Dickman, author of one of the Advertising Age’s top 150 marketing blogs, Techno//Marketer. Matt also works at Fleishman-Hillard’s, the largest PR agency in the world. The presentation was primarily about social media and how he sees this as the future of advertising. If someone posts a blog about your company, that person becomes the face of your company. How a company goes about keeping up with the social media comments and how they respond to this has a high impact on the company’s success. Matt introduced the audience to a variety of social media sites including Twitter, Flickr, and the ones I was more familiar with such as Linkedin, Facebook, etc. The presentation inspired me to create a brand for myself and start blogging and making more of a statement on these social networking sites. I managed a blog at Resources Unlimited and have not kept up with a blog of my own since I started at TMP. Blogging seems to be a great outlet to be creative, share my thoughts, and make other records of my life.