Seedwalker

Content Marketing That Inspires, LOLCats Not Allowed In

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:40:14 +0000

If you mask the branding of a typical corporate website, you often can’t tell who they are. So says Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of Marketing Profs, and boy, is she right. Ann knows what she is talking about – she is the CCO of the content marketing gurudom (and I say this in all sincerity) [...]

Online Retail Heats Up North of the Border

Parneet Gosal — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:54:59 +0000

Imagine a customer demographic that has more disposable income, spends more time online, is not as big on bargain-hunting and is more loyal than your core customer. Sounds like a retailer’s dream doesn’t it? I’m talking about the Canadian shopper, who has 65% more disposable income than the average American shopper, spends 41.3 hours online per [...]

How the Z10 Changes BlackBerry’s Future Prospects. Or Not.

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 13:27:38 +0000

American tech media is one vast echo chamber and this was in evidence once again this week. The big news this week – other than the security breaches at notables like The Washington Post, The NY Times and Twitter – was BlackBerry’s launch of the Z10. What tech blogs largely failed to cover was that [...]

Is Graph Search Facebook’s Siri? Not So Fast

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 01:32:21 +0000

It was inevitable. Facebook launched their first (feasible) iteration of social search, called Graph Search, last week. The one question that the tech world is speculating about is – does this threaten Google and Bing? The answer is yes, of course. Google’s search engine was a game changer when it launched back in 1997-98 when most [...]

7 Leading Indicators on Whether Your Social Media Manager is Doing Right By You

Parneet Gosal — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:51:09 +0000

Every so often I get asked by a client (or acquaintance) if their social media accounts are optimized. Essentially, what the client (or acquaintance) is really asking is - ”is the external vendor who is managing my social presence doing a good job?” This has happened often enough to where I’ve finally decided to summarize the [...]

Services Like Saavn Point the Way to Mobile Adoption in Emerging Markets

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 12:13:00 +0000

2012 ended with two events that were particularly noteworthy in the music industry. First, Psy’s Gangnam Style became the most viewed video on YouTube; noteworthy because the K-popstar turned copyright infringement into a money spinner, making a mint off ads runs on Gangnam YouTube videos – posted by him and others – and from TV [...]

What These Companies Did in the Wake of Frankenstorm Sandy (Good, Bad and Ugly)

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 05:31:23 +0000

The Good - What These Companies Did In The Wake Of Hurricane Sandy Will Restore Your Faith In Big Business (Business Insider) 15 Companies Helping Sandy Victims (The Huffington Post) Tech Helps Out After Hurricane Sandy (Business Insider) NBC’s Benefit Concert For Sandy Victims to Feature Springsteen, Blige (The Washington Post) NYC Startups Offer [...]

Should Websites Implement Social Login to Lift Conversion Rate?

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 04:10:06 +0000

One of our big clients recently asked us whether they should implement social login buttons on their website. Retailers are heading into a busy holiday season and the temptation to say “yes, absolutely!” to anything that may lift conversions is strong. That said, we pride ourselves on presenting thoughtful recommendations backed by analysis and a [...]

Quirky Announces $68 Million in Series C Funding, On Way to Becoming the Amazon.com of New Gadgetry?

Parneet Gosal — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:42:50 +0000

Back in May of this year, I wrote about Quirky - a company that is pushing the boundaries of open source collaborative invention and product development - as one to watch. Then I put my money where my mouth is and bought several of their crowd-sourced inventions that I now use every day. Well, the company just raised [...]

Digital Darwinism

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 12:16:26 +0000

The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfills himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world… - Lord Alfred Tennyson PDAs, for-pay email accounts, dial up, movie rental stores, fax, public pay phones, maps, newspaper classifieds, long distance phone charges, VCRs, phone books, calling 411, record stores. What do [...]

Offline Education the Domain of Privileged Few? 6 Predictions on the Future of Higher Education.

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 06:54:03 +0000

Having just finished my very first online lecture on the history of the internet, I am both heartened and dismayed by the experience. Heartened that 34,077 students can enroll in a class taught by a single professor, but dismayed that education (online or otherwise) continues to push learning-by-rote and a lecture based knowledge-transmission model. One [...]

(An Apolcalytic Vision of) How Facebook Will Help Brands By Becoming A Payment Platform

Parneet Gosal — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 21:45:59 +0000

rivacy has famously been Facebook’s Achilles’ heel so its just as well that the social media giant isn’t making a foray into online banking, although as widely reported, Commonwealth Bank will be using Facebook’s API to expand their online banking services. Meantime, the social network continues to entrench itself as a legitimate platform for business [...]

5 Epic Corporate Feuds on Twitter, Who Won Them

Parneet Gosal — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:16:50 +0000

This week marked the great Twitter battle between the mighty Old Spice and the cheeky-licious Taco Bell. It all started with this faintly snarky joke masquerading as a tweet - To which Taco Bell responded with (since deleted) - …and… Its hard to say who won – both [...]

“Don’t Worry About Dolls” And Other Fatherly Advice From Famous Dads

Parneet Gosal — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:43:29 +0000

Brain Pickings‘ ever brilliant Maria Popova shared 5 poignant letters of fatherly advice from some of history’s most pre-eminent Dads – F. Scott Fitzgerald, Leroy Pollock (Jackson Pollock’s Dad), Ronald Reagan, astronaut Marion Carpenter, and John Steinbeck. My favorite is Fitzgerald’s excellent list of things to worry/not worry about in a 1933 letter to his [...]

Facebook’s Future Has Never Been Rosier

Parneet Gosal — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 00:46:44 +0000

Sean Parker’s Airtime is only the latest company to use Facebook credentials for login. If you recall, flagrant display of male genitalia ultimately lead to the fall of Chatroulette. Airtime, the next incarnation of Chatroulette, hopes to avoid the same fate by getting users to login with their Facebook accounts so as to encourage accountability. They’re [...]

Makers and the Third Industrial Revolution

Parneet Gosal — Mon, 28 May 2012 21:51:01 +0000

A lot can happen in a year. This time last year at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, entrepreneurs were bemoaning the fact that innovations in hardware were not funded as well as software. Last week, TechCrunch Disrupt NYC hosted the first ever Hardware Alley spotlighting various hardware projects, including MakerBot’s 3D printers and the MinuteKey kiosk, “the [...]

Our Children Are Ready For BYOD. Are We?

Parneet Gosal — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:25:02 +0000

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, the average American household has 24 electronic gadgets. This may seem extraordinary at a time when device convergence is all the rage but practically speaking, “true” device convergence remains ahead of us. This, not only because we’re carrying multiple devices for multiple needs – I read on the iPad, [...]

Are You an Inventor?

Parneet Gosal — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:48:33 +0000

I am obsessed with the twin ideas of innovation and invention as the engines that propel us forward. And its not the idea of reaching a destination that interests me as much as the process of getting there, because the process disciplines our brains to think creatively, leapfrog real or imaginary boundaries – and that [...]

Why Most Startups Are Creative, Not Innovative

Parneet Gosal — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:54:20 +0000

WIRED ran an opinion piece last week on writer Neal Stephenson’s fear that big thinking – the sort that propelled the space race – has slowed down considerably in present times. The piece tickled a thought that’s been skirting the edge of my mind for a while. I’m just as guilty as the next person when [...]

An Interview With Fab.com’s CMO

Parneet Gosal — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:41:54 +0000

“If Amazon was web 1.0…Fab is web 3.0″ “Startup” is not the word that comes to mind when we see one of Fab.com’s lovingly designed online sales, or receive one of their exquisite emails in the Inbox. Yet, Fab.com’s current incarnation was launched just over a year ago, and this startup’s design aesthetic and values [...]