Jim gives his observations from the NY Auto Show. Is the industry advancing, or is it all just marketing bling?
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Episode #150! Thanks to everyone that has read the blog and listened to the podcast over the years.
It seems things have come full circle… In Episode #1 of the Hopkinson Report podcast, I compared the iPhone to a Porsche, and asked, “Has the iPhone reached ‘no substitute’ status?”
Well, the iPhone is still going strong, with Apple on track to make $100 billion dollars in 2011. It sold 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter, an eye-popping 113 percent increase over last year, destroying Wall Street’s consensus estimate of 16.6 million units.
As for Porsche, I get to them a little later.
When I talk about marketing cars, I think the interesting thing is that companies have to market them all the time. A user might buy a car only once every 3, 5, or even 10 years, so car companies have to be building this brand and trust constantly.
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Three years. It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this podcast for that long, but on April 16 2008, The Hopkinson Report was born.
Just 2 weeks later on April 30, I recorded my very first podcast interview ever, speaking with Alexis Ohanian about their up-and-coming site reddit.com. It’s interesting to go back to Episode #3 (and 4) and hear where reddit was at the time, and also just how new and nervous I was with the whole process.
So, it was with great pleasure that I got to sit down with Alexis this week for Episode #149 and compare notes, as we’ve both come a long way.
Reflecting back on reddit years later, I asked:
How have things changed since you started reddit?
What would have you done differently?
How did they just pull off 1 billion page views with just 6 employees?
What was reddit’s theory on development and iteration?
What was the key takeaway as a founder of reddit?
This week I interview entrepreneur John Murch and his motto, JFDI.
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John Murch is a good friend and well, a lot like me. He’s a geek at heart, a fellow Computer Science major, and his interests include SEO, entrepreneurship, Tim Ferriss, cars, the iPad, SXSW, and helping others with their projects.
We co-founded a meetup group called NYC Masterminds to bring together people in the world of design, social media, internet marketing, programming, and app development, and well, if we could just find some more time away from working on our projects, we’d host more meetings.
The intention of our meetup group was to help people find and develop side projects and get them off the ground.
For me, it was my salary negotiation class, which eventually became an eBook, and then was picked up by a mainstream publisher (Salary Tutor goes live on Amazon on April 1, 2011!).
John has a very different and unique product: uBlanket, a site that allows you to take your old favorite t-shirts and convert them into the ultimate curl-up-on-your-couch-and-watch-The-Dark-Night blanket.
This week a do a quick SXSW recap then talk about how to host a successful sponsored party
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First, a one-takeaway SXSW recap of a few speakers (all quotes paraphrased by me):
Seth Priebatsch of SCVNGR
“The last decade was about social… about making connections… and Facebook won. The next wave is gameification… adding a gaming level to the social layer… about your influence.”
Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple
“In business meetings, dress for a ‘tie’… if you show up wearing ripped jeans a hoodie to a formal meeting where everyone else is wearing suits, you’re saying ‘I don’t respect you’… if you show up wearing a suit and oozing style to a casual meeting where everyone else is dressed down, you’re saying ‘I am better than you’… shoot for a relatively even match.” (Although not sure a certain jeans and black-turtleneck-wearing CEO would always agree).
Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Body
When asked to Richard Branson, world-famous entrepreneur, creative-thinker, and businessperson, to answer the question ‘How do you become more productive?’… Branson gave a simple two word answer: ‘work out’.”
Blake Mycoskie, founder of Tom’s Shoes
“It’s OK to support charity with a for-profit business… think about how you can incorporate giving into your business… it’s amazing how your employees and everyone around you will respond.”
OK, How do you throw a successful sponsored event?
Today’s guest is Erin Fitzsimmons, a graphic designer whose amazing work directly led to a book deal
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“i like type. big type, small type, medium type. fancy or sans fancy. i like what happens when you fuse type and pictures, creating visual worlds for the viewers to explore. lately, i’m happy simply doing something creative before i fall asleep. at the end of the day, i’m just a girl who likes type a bit too much.”
– Erin Fitzsimmons
There are many ways to judge a person when hiring them. You can ask friends for recommendations, view their resume, or check out their website.
But also pay attention to their bio.
A bad example was when a potential intern tweeted to me about a job, and her Twitter bio was “slacker extraordinaire.” #Fail.
But in reading Erin Fitzsimmons’ bio above, how could you NOT think that she would be passionate and incredibly talented when it came to print and book layout.
In this week’s podcast, we cover the following topics:
- Erin’s path from photojounalism major to photo editor to book cover designer
- How Erin and I got connected, and the recap of our first meeting of the minds
- Erin’s process for negotiating to do a freelance job for a book on negotiation
- At what moment Jim closed his eyes, made a wish, and clicked the mouse
Today I tackle a new change at Apple that could affect you in several ways.
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A great off-the-cuff podcast today looking at the changes to Apple’s subscription policy.
First, I do two quick points:
1) I learned a new buzzword via Forrester Research on AdAge: T-commerce
- There is E-commerce on the web
- Then M-commerce on the phone (good for research, but not big enough to shop)
- T-commerce is now happening on the tablet
- Many retailers report that over 50% of their mobile traffic is now coming from the iPad
- These are not incremental sales, says Forrester, but T-commerce will largely grow by capturing and cannibalizing traditional PC-based retail traffic
2) Turbo Tax: Love ‘em or hate ‘em?
- I’ve talked before how they should not be on Twitter
- Just 4,600 fans
- Not the best place for complicated private questions, and who loves doing taxes?
Sample tweet: Filing your taxes tonight? Take a look at these awesome videos on tax basics we’ve got going on.
Today I question the spread of social media to every last place on earth.
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Hey everybody… big announcement on the podcast today.
To be honest, I’m not *quite* ready to make it. There are still details to iron out, marketing aspects I want to finalize, and just so many other things i want to do before I’m ready.
But today on the podcast, I wing it. Why? Three reasons:
1) Right before heading home to record the podcast, I met up with Wired’s NY Bureau Chief, John Abell. When I mentioned it to him, he said “Just write it… my new goal for my personal blog is 15 MINUTES. Sure, I may go back and make some edits later, but I don’t agonize over it anymore… I put down the best thoughts I can in 15 minutes and roll with it.”
2) My friend John Murch, who replied to a long, hand-wringing dilemma e-mail over a fairly big decision I sent him last last week with just four letters: JFDI. You can substitute the F for what you want, but loosely translated, it’s Just Freaking Do It.
3) It’s the entrepreneur’s way. I’m Type A. I’m an extreme perfectionist. I want to wait and wait until everything is just right before moving forward. In fact, that’s why it took nearly 3 months to get this podcast off the ground… I wanted the name perfect, I wanted the sound perfect, I wanted the icon perfect. But that’s never the case. So better to get it out there at 80 or 90%, vs not getting it out there at all.
So as you might have guessed from the title, the announcement is:
I got a book deal.
When I started this blog and podcast nearly three years ago, I ran it by one of the Executive VPs here at the office, Dan Shar, to make sure it was appealing to the Wired audience, I didn’t offend anyone, there weren’t any sales or advertiser conflicts, etc. After 3-4 weeks, he said, everything is fine, just use your best judgment and push it live without me.
Passing thoughts were that a lot of commercials must have paid big money royalties to songwriters, including Kenny G, Elton John, David Bowie, Jay Z, Eminem, and the theme from Star Wars. I guess on the big stage, you want a music that people know.
I thought Bridgestone and Audi and Teleflora hit their mark, Best Buy tried a little too hard, the beer commercials were about par for the course, and the ad exec that suggested the “Pepsi Max can to the groin” should be fired. You know his defense was. “C’mon… can to the groin always works.” Sadly, he’s kinda right.
And by far the one that stopped me in my tracks was Chrysler’s Eminem spot. Beautifully shot, held your attention, and made you think. Am I going to go buy a Chrysler? Let’s say the chances of that rose from never, not a chance…. to less than 3%.
Today I rekindle my love affair with Levi’s, examining their marketing along the way.
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Hey everybody. I have a fun idea for the show this week… I get a little personal, I tell a few stories, I get a little into fashion trends, but as usual tie it all into some marketing. The topic is Levi’s Jeans. Let’s break it down into four acts.
Act 1 – The Corduroy Years (1980s)
Let me set the scene. Picture a young Jim Hopkinson in 1980, just 11 years old, in the middle-class suburbs 15 miles south of Boston. Probably in sixth grade, through junior high and then into high school. This is a very impressionable time as a young adult, when peer pressure is at its highest and every piece of clothing, haircut, and friendship is scrutinized.
Let me be clear. There was one – and only one – pair of acceptable pants to be worn. Levi’s cords. There really was no other option. Your dresser was filled with identical Levi’s cords… a black pair, a brown pair, a tan pair, a white pair, a navy pair, and a maroon pair.
The problem was, Levi’s were relatively expensive. I want to say they started around $14 and might have been as high as $22 in some stores. The problem is that parents knew they could buy a pair of Lee Jeans or – god forbid – Toughskins that were going for $9.99. Myself and a few other comedians have made the connection in adulthood, that looking back it cost our parents about $5 to make us go from the object of bully beatings for wearing Wranglers, to being completely accepted and wearing Levi’s.
Today I interview the amazing Rana Sobhany, and we talk about her new book and how to market iPhone and iPad apps.
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Trying to keep up with Rana Sobhany is sort of like trying to gather up a handful of ball bearings after you’ve dropped them down a steep hill. While wearing mittens. And rollerblades. We were introduced at the opening party of the 2007 Wired Store, and since then there are many words I’ve used to describe her:
- Friend
- Former podcast guest (Episode 38)
- Guest speaker in my NYU class
- Entrepreneur
- Former tennis star
- iPad DJ
- World Traveler
- Speaker
And now Author.
And in fact, fellow author. In the podcast I do a quick reveal that I have signed a book deal and will be developing my own iPad app. But more on that in a future episode.
In this super fun and energetic podcast, we focus the first part on how she got the book deal, and the rest answering specific answers to the question: How do I market my iPhone or iPad app?
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