Apr 28, 2010

How Much is Your E-mail Worth?

CSG has published another report!

How Much is Your E-mail Worth?: Quantifying the Total Value Investment (TVI) of SaaS E-mail to Small and Medium Businesses

CSG members Pete Lindstrom and Karen Hobert conducted and authored this study on quantifying the Total Value Assessment of SaaS E-mail. A worthwhile read if you're trying to figure out how much your e-mail options will really cost you.

You can download the white paper here or go to our Research page.

Apr 23, 2010

IBM's Blog Muse

This Press Release jogged my blogging block...

Nicknamed 'Blog Muse,' it solicits suggestions from a pool of prospective readers, proposes them to potential writers, alerts readers upon publication of the requested post, and encourages comment. Topic ideas can go viral and build audience interest ahead of publication, as prospective readers can see which suggested topics are the most popular. The tool can also generate topic suggestions automatically.

The cynic in me is having a party; "IBM is now gonna tell us what to blog?" However I can see the practicality of "Blog Muse", especially if you're taking a marketing view on the purpose of a blog. The idea of crowdsourcing for blog topics to write about is pretty nested when you come down to it. I think the real value is the network effects of linking topics to people who would like to read bout them. Once things start rolling I suspect you'd get some stronger connections to readers. Then again, it could get too contrived, so I hope bloggers don't forget their personalities, which is a huge factor in why people read the most popular blogs.

IBM Press room - 2010-04-21 Made in IBM Labs: Writer's Block? IBM Researchers Have the Cure - United States