“A simple drawing can communicate complex ideas quickly and almost effortlessly. It can even be the basis of a successful business plan.”

“The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches.

But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators. Individual artists, producers, inventors and makers are overlooked in the equation. The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices. Unless artists become a large aggregator of other artist’s works, the long tail offers no path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales.

Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?

One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans.”

Check out this new video from XPLANE, demonstrating the impact of mobile marketing. If you’d like to share via mobile devices, use this link: http://www.canalwap.com/xplane/.

“Neil Wilson asks:

“Get Ink” is the fundamental marketing mantra. You guys are natural self-promoters. What do you find is the best way of getting your name in the frame?

10 ideas that came to mind when I thought about ways to get people to notice you/your product:”

“Bringing together leaders in visual thinking for the first time in one location, the VizThink ‘08 Conference (http://www.vizthink.com) is an opportunity for executives to understand ways of incorporating visualization processes into business, learning and communications strategies to gain faster and more effective results. Hosted by Portland, Ore. based VizThink LLC, the conference will include breakout sessions and forums facilitated by some of the most recognized names in the visual thinking space, including the distinguished Bob Horn from Stanford University, renowned author and artist Scott McCloud, award winning designer Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design, most notably known for her work in Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, and Nigel Holmes formerly with Time magazine. The conference will be held at the Westin San Francisco Market Street Hotel from January 27-29. Registration (http://www.vizthink.com/reg.html) is open now.”

“A buzzword is no black swan, but when one breaks out of the long tail into the short head and hits the tipping point it still makes me question the wisdom of the crowds. But because the world is flat, I’ve listed a freakonomical list of the lifespan of a buzzword. Purple cow.”

“There are two basic approaches to advertising or lead generation… the shotgun approach… or the rifle approach.

There is only one cost efficient way… the rifle approach.

By carefully selecting specific niche markets, and presenting a compelling message directly to that audience, you will begin to reap the real profit rewards of direct marketing.

“A common question on the Business of Software forum is ‘How do I get started…’ — fill in the blank. Some people are seeking their first consulting clients, some their first product customers, and some are seeking people interested in their service; others are trying to grow their business. Whatever the situation, we all want to get the word out about our products or services and we’d like it to then spread like crazy. Whatever you think of ‘marketing’ or ’sales’, spreading the word is really all it’s about. For most BOS readers, it’s not about advertising, large marketing campaigns, or a giant sales force. It’s about something else that I think can be summarized in these seven steps.”

Lots of vintage technology company t-shirts — goofy stuff!

“Last night one of the people who’ve been on the ScobleShow (my video show) wrote me and told me he was fired for appearing on my show without PR permission. I won’t tell you who that was since he’s interviewing for a new position now, but it made me realize that when I aim my camera at someone that there are real consequences for doing so. Now, the guy in question should have known that would have pissed someone off. Most big companies, in their employment agreements, have in there that you aren’t allowed to talk with the press unless given permission by the PR departments.”

“Margie Zable Fisher runs theprsite.com. Every day someone tells her that he or she has been ‘burned’ by a PR firm, and Margie’s goal is to help small business find the right PR firm. I asked her to provide the top ten reasons why PR doesn’t work…”

“Dynamic identities fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that consistency is essential to an effective corporate identity. The more we see the same corporate symbol — or so the consistency camp argues — the more likely we’ll be to recognize and remember it. Companies adhered to this throughout the 20th century; and the designers of some of the most successful identities, such as Jan Tschichold at Penguin Books in the late 1940s, and Paul Rand as a consultant to IBM from the 1950s to the early 1990s, were renowned for their rigor.”

“This is the bad science on the back of a package of Pomodoro pasta. Marketers have nightmares about this… about screwing up and having it show up on a million packages. ‘Boy are you stupid.’ What a wasted nightmare.”

“The salient question that Mike answers is, ‘How do I get my company in TechCrunch?’ The short story is: 1. The ’standard answer’ is to send an email to editor [at] techcrunch.com and take your chances. Thirty pitches come in per day this way. 2. The most effective way is to get a referral from a venture capitalist or someone ‘known’ who can speak on your behalf. Ten per come per day this way. Thirty plus ten equals forty, and he runs four stories per day, so you might think that ten percent make it. However, many of his stories are internally generated (followups, reports on what big companies do, etc.), so the actual percentage is much less.”

“Found on a 37Signals blog, and accompanying comments. Apple’s Steve Jobs describing what he thinks is wrong with Microsoft’s upcoming Zune music player…”