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Tech News Roundup

Every week, we here at DigitalMailer come up with a number of articles and resources that we share with one another, talking about the "next wave" of finance technology. Here's what caught our attention recently: 

Electronic channels at “social banks.”  (from BAI)

Fixation on Location (from GonzoBanker)

Cloud Computing is Greener (from Harvard Business Review)

Why Community Banks Need a Product Advantage (from BAI)

There IS an app for that...but why? (from CU Soapbox).

An Inconvenient SPAM

by Ron Daly 

Last Wednesday was Earth Day, which is why you couldn't go to any site without seeing a fleet of recycling tips. We decided to do our "green" article today. Call us crazy. 

I got this article emailed to me the other day. It says that the amount of spam sent every year is the equivalent of driving a car around the earth - 1.6 million times. 

We've been over the amount of CO₂ emitted by Google Search (click here for that article), but this is pretty crazy. SPAM? Those goofy messages you get from nobody about pills and car-title loans? How could something like that be detrimental to the environment? 

From the article: 

The study, which was conducted by consulting firm ICF International, concluded that spam-related emissions for all email users world-wide creates a total of 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, 0.2% of total greenhouse gas emissions. (Wall Street Journal's Marissa Taylor, "Spam's Noxious Carbon Footprint", April 15 2009) 

Isn't that insane? 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide! And most of that comes from energy exhausted searching for real messages in the clutter and deleting/sorting the SPAM itself. 

Reducing SPAM via filters is one thing, and is very effective. Wouldn't it be great to only get the messages you really want, though? 

The Dialogue of the Deaf: How Congress is Missing the Mark

by Jimmy Marks

New House spending bill includes $500k for DM postcards. What happened to high tech communications & being green? - The CU Warrior, via Twitter

What's the opposite of "progress" again? 

Oh, right. 

Congress is spending money on plenty of things aimed at keeping America afloat, like Frisbee parks (read here). Part of that afloat-y type spending is a direct mail marketing postcard piece to let people know about townhall meetings where they can ask questions of their government (click here for more info). 

WHOAH, back up...postcards?!? This is the way we're "gettin' the word out"? And you're going to spend HALF A MILLION DOLLARS DOING THAT?!?! What's worse, you've been touting how you're going to be "greener" and how you want to curb global warming...and you run to paper? Come on...

In researching this story, I came across an old phrase "the dialogue of the deaf". I believe it existed before the creation of a standard sign language, because it refers to the moment when two people are talking to each other and neither is listening to the other. Let's get away from that and start making a real, responsive, constructive dialogue between the people who make the laws and the people who have to live by them.

Sharpening the Edge

by Ron Daly 

This blog was started to bring our insights to the world. In May 2008, we got going with some articles about email marketing and SPAM and mobile banking.

Since then, we've been doing our part to help you, our dear reader, understand the world wide web and its myriad uses as a communication and sales channel. 

Which is why I was surprised to read this article from MediaPost Publications. It seems that there are certain buzzwords that nobody wants to hear anymore. The top ten can be found below: 

Top 10 Buzzwords Tired of Hearing (% of Respondents)
Rank	Buzzword	2009 Report	2008 Report
1	Web 2.0	19.4%	9.1%
2	Social Networking	12.2%	6.0%
3	Social Media	11.3%	0.8%
4	Blog	7.9%	0.0%
5	Viral Marketing	6.2%	6.3%
6	Synergy	5.8%	5.6%
7	Branding	5.1%	3.2%
8	ROI	4.9%	4.8%
9	Green	4.9%	0.0%
10	SEO	3.8%	1.8%
Source: MENG & Anderson Analytics, January 2009

Well, isn't that something. 

But the really stunning thing is the fact that most marketing execs/CEOs don't know anything about the subjects in question. From the same article: 

Twice as many marketers are "sick" of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as "blogs" and "social networking" compared to last year's survey; however, marketers still admit they don't know enough about it. This was evident in the results of a social media study MENG released on November 6, 2008 showing 67% of executive marketers consider themselves beginners when it comes to using social media for marketing purposes.

I think it's time we here at the C.C.C.Blog change that. 

From this day forward, this blog will be working to inform the Credit Union and Financial Services Industries about the things they're having trouble understanding. Should we be afraid of the web? Not at all. It's only going to get bigger and better and more integral to the way people live their lives.

So here's your call to action: 

1) Spread the word.

Sign up for the RSS feed, send articles to friends who might need to shed some light on a subject, sign up for email updates. 

2) Tell us what we need to cover. 

You folks have thoughts of your own. Let's hear it! Guest authors welcome here, if you've got a hum-dinger article. 

3) Help us make the web better. 

We're hoping to make strides forward. Join us as we make the effort to enhance the online world. 

Some news from the folks at C.C.C.Blog

by The Contributors

Well, it's been a hum-dinger of a five months here at the C.C.C.Blog (Note: That's our new nickname for ourselves! Ya like? It goes with our logo that goes out with our email stories: 

Cool, huh?)

We've just ticked past 40 stories and we've got some exciting new updates to talk about. First: We recognized just the other day that our feed for this site was a little hard to get to. Luckily, we've put a BIG, HONKIN' LOGO linking to our feed right on our sidebar there! -->>

Click it and sign up for our feed in your favorite feed reader. If you don't have a favorite feed reader or don't want one, that's okay, too...we now deliver through email. Just click on the subscribe via email link right under the BIG, HONKIN' LOGO over there. -->>

So, what else is new? 

>Due to the popularity of our quiz from a post or so ago, we're going to start offering more quizzes...maybe on a particular day? Contact us, let us know when's a good time to be tested.

>Jimmy had a post featured in the CUES Techport newsletter! Click here to visit the CUES Techport website, or just go to the story itself by clicking here!

>Rob emerged from a posting dry-spell to give us his thoughts on the financial crisis...click here to read!

>We're STILL so excited to be bringing you advice and opinion! Speaking of advice, do you have questions you want us to answer? About anything? Let us know, we'll do our best to bring you enlightenment.

Onward and upward!

The Boys and Their Toys: Our web authors share their dream machines

Each of our regular authors has selected an Internet appliance he fancies, or a trend to which he's paying attention.

From Ron Daly:

"This picture (above) threw me at first, but this is actually a whole PC in a keyboard. All you need is a monitor and you have everything you want. Save space, cut down on 'desk traffic'."

From Rob Banker:

"The Consumer PC As we know it is dead. Mainstream gaming moved to the consoles (XBox, Playstation, Wii). Most home users don't do high end image manipulation with Photoshop or music production with ProTools The average consumer wants web browsing and email, the occasional Word or Excel document. Even the low-end laptops from Best Buy and Dell are too much.

How green is your valley?

Ron Daly loves keeping it green - both environmentally and financially.

Here in my offices, my employees are quick to catch someone who isn't recycling. When aluminum cans wind up in the trash, one of my eco-friendly gang goes after the offender. It makes a CEO proud to know that his company can be called "green".

But what we do is green, honestly. We issue e-Statements to help cut costs and conserve paper. We offer webinars so that people don't waste resources or travel expenses. We can pride ourselves on being - and, by extension, helping other companies become - green.

If you read this and said "who cares?", keep reading. I've got news for you.