The June 15th issue of TIME Magazine carries the image of a Tweet by writer, Stephen B. Johnson. The Tweet is shown as an image on an iPhone, almost incidentally.

The cover article is titled: “How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live (in 140 characters or less).”

Immediately following the Twitter article is piece, titled: “The Plot to Take On The iPhone” (an article about the Palm Pre). The Palm Pre article is essentially about competition. Playing catch-up in a technological world. Palm elected to introduce their new phone, just a few days ahead of Apple’s WWDC conference, where it was expected that Apple would introduce an updated iPhone.

Ironically, before I could find this edition of TIME Magazine on the news stands, Apple had introduced its new line of iPhones and, to a large degree, left the Palm Pre in the dust.

For me, this is a story of out-innovating your competition. Get out in front, continue to improve and innovate, without a let up. It’s as simple as that.

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The Twitter story is more complex. As I give presentations about various tools in Online Social Media. I find the headline: “How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live“ a little bit much. In a recent post, I chided new Twitter users to have a reason for being there, and having a marketing plan, as well.

While I find Twitter to be useful for my purposes, I feel like there should be a competency test, given, before people can use it. I encourage you to read the TIME article and try to get your head around it. Just because many people are on Twitter does not mean you need to be, necessarily. In fact, just because I use an iPhone, and recommend it, does not mean it’s the most appropriate tool for you.

I need to be on Twitter because I’m in the business of coaching wedding marketers about the most effective ways to communicate.

These two stories underscore that rapid transition of technology and communication. What you must do is allot time for continuing education in your chosen field, as well as marketing and communication.

Get ahead; stay ahead.

Andy Ebon

The Wedding Marketing Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: communication

iPhone and Applications

Apple is holding its WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) this week, and, as is frequently the case, they had lots of interesting news to announce.

Today, I’d like to focus on the next generation of iPhones. They process faster, will now take verbal calling commands, and can shoot video among many other things.

A few weeks ago, I gave a recommendation for Flip TV. It’s still a worthy choice, particularly for High Definition Video. The iPhone does not offer that, just yet. Other than that, one can shoot a video from the iPhone and even edit down the footage, finally uploading the clip to YouTube, emailing it, or saving it to your computer.

The camera now allows better focus on foreground images that are not in the center of the frame. Just tap on someone’s face, for example, and the focus is clearly on them; background images, less so. The camera now has 3mg capability, providing sharper, higher resolution photos.

Perhaps the most shocking statistic, to me, is that two-thirds of all the internet surfing on mobile devices is done of the iPhone or iPod Touch.

All of this should raise several issues.

Hopefully, you were up to date, until yesterday. Are you investing in tools, such as the iPhone to be competitive and stay competitive. It isn’t about being cool. It’s about have the best communications and marketing tools available. That is the wedding marketing edge.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, documentation, flip tv, high definition video, iPhone, ipod touch, photo, video, wedding marketing, wwdc, youtube

A slice of DexKnows weddings

As part of my wedding marketing exploration, I browse various wedding industry and non-industry directories to observe the usability and quality of sites.

In Southern Nevada, we have been getting a ton of DexKnows.com television advertising, selling against a thinly veiled Google lookalike site.

Today, in browsing for wedding businesses in Las Vegas, I noticed something was missing. When I drilled down from the abbreviated, basic listings to the Advanced Search, there was no category for music. There were many service categories, but nothing for music; preferably, there should be separate listings for disc jockeys and live entertainment.

If you went back to the overall DexKnows.com search tool, you could find what you wanted. However, in wedding category listings for bands and disc jockeys were MIA.

The Morale: When you are paying for a listing, on a website, in a directory, wherever, CHECK IT. It’s an imperfect world. Take no one else’s word. Check it for your self.

Just to see if it might be a nationwide problem, I did the same search in

San Francisco, CA. Same result. No bands, DJ’s or Entertainment category for Wedding Services.

If you are a DexKnows.com advertiser in another part of the country, I’d check for yourself, locally. If the category doesn’t exist, give them hell. Let them know I sent you.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, DexKnows.com, disc jockeys, Las Vegas, live entertainment, San Francisco, Wedding Marketing Authority, wedding music