I first heard Mary Meeker, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, speak at the Industry Standard’s Internet Summit conference in 2000. It was a mega conference held in the heat of the Internet hot-air balloon. Mary got it then and gets it now. Here is a link to a presentation she recently made at the Web 2.0 conference.

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The always smart and useful Pew Internet & American Life Project has just published the very interesting study “Online Health Search” on how American’s use search engines and the Internet to learn about health issues. The findings are broad. Here are some top line findings that should interest health care marketers:

Eighty percent of American internet users, or some 113 million adults, have searched for information on at least one of seventeen health topics.

The typical health information session starts at a search engine, includes multiple sites, and is undertaken on behalf of someone other than the person doing the search.

As in previous surveys, certain groups of internet users are the most likely to have sought health information online: women, internet users younger than 65, college graduates, those with more online experience, and those with broadband access.

Internet users who have seen a doctor in the past year are more likely than those who have not to have looked online for health information (84% vs. 66%).

One-third of online searchers later talked to a doctor about what they found online. Two thirds did not.

We have had health care provider, insurance and manufacturing clients. It is clear from this study that the Internet must be examined for every marketer’s patient and outbound marketing programs.

Crayon is a new marketing company from Joseph Jaffe. There so many silly thoughts in Crayon’s manifesto that I am dumbfounded. Crayon wants to be the “new” marketing company. Here are some of those thoughts plus a few of my comments.

- “We are a different kind of company that mashes-up a combination of consulting, agency and advisory services. We’ll also do windows and serve tea if required.”

Do they really have to say “mash-up” to prove the point? Lame.

- “If you can’t handle the friction, passion and intensity, we’ll gladly refer you to another company.”

Hmmm. Excuse me, but this sounds like something a lacrosse player would say.

- “That doesn’t mean we won’t sell ourselves (hard) to you…we want you to be sure about us and the conventional pitch process isn’t designed to do that.’

Ok, like I have never heard an agency say this.

- “Pitch part 2. You’ll never have anyone in the room who won’t be working on your business.”

Ditto!

- “Ideas and creativity are the lifeblood of the business.”

Ditto X 3.

- “Talent (together with vision, culture and creativity) is ultimately what differentiates us from the shop next door.”

Really?

I’ll stop. Bottom line. Who needs this pretentious crap from a company (a smart group of guys) that is trying to break out? Sounds like agency hack-talk to me.
Crayon will get business. I wish them luck. But my friends, TV still works and now that Joseph isn’t just selling his book, what will he really do? He has already pissed off the folks at Second Life.

As as far as Second Life goes…. MosaicSF has a decent interview.

Running out of PC juice in the airport. So, here is part two of my interview with Jeff Jarvis. No time for flowery words. Just enjoy the audio.

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Welcome to part one of my two part interview with Jeff Jarvis, master of the top 50 Blog BuzzMachine, media prognosticator and consultant.

When I met Jeff in 1996 he had recently left the New York Daily News where he was the Sunday editor and associate publisher, Entertainment Weekly where he was founding editor and was still the influential “Couch Potato” TV critic for TV Guide. We worked together at Advance.net, the Internet division of Advance Publications, where he held the position of creative director and I was the president of new Jersey Online where we ushered in the world of online newspapers. Jeff is one of the rare people that combines something important to say with the verbal ability to say it. Most people have one, but not both.

These days Jeff travels the world delivering the gospel to The Guardian (London), The New York Times’ About.com and is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism.

These are now my two favorite interviews. I hope that you enjoy listening to part one as much as I enjoyed the conversation.

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