This week is the first week we have had to run a booth at two conferences simultaneously, so it has definitely been a whirlwind around here. Guliz Sicotte and Melissa Howse will be doing some live blogging and twittering when they aren’t manning (womening) the booth for Pop Labs. You can follow the Pop Labs Twitter stream or just check back here for live updates from the conference. Not expecting any “earth shattering” news from the Las Vegas International Restaurant Show where Gene, Audra and Silver are, but the stories should much more interesting.

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Last year, I purchased a flat-panel, high-definition television and I must admit, my TV time has definitely increased. The TV has a computer monitor port in the back, so while surfing Joost and looking at some older NBA playoff games, I decided to substitute the computer monitor for the TV. After a few clicks on the remote, I was watching Joost in 48 inches of hi-def, commercial free. Naturally, I viewed my favorite YouTube videos. Eventually the game came on and that was it, until I figured it was a great time to learn how to work the picture in picture. This was great, pointing and clicking while watching the game on the same screen, all in hi-def.

Being in the online marketing field, I obviously began thinking of ways to increase exposure for our clients on this internet TV that is soon to take over. Online marketing is normally in the form of text and graphical ads while commercials are normally run on TV. Maybe we should create a flash video commercial with clickable links (CTA’s) that go to various landing pages. If these internet television commercials were given titles and could be tagged, they could possibly be optimized. We could even launch Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns for it. Joost currently doesn’t feature any advertisements but network stations like ABC, CBS and NBC are featuring streaming episodes of popular shows which do have advertisements on their sites. These advertisements would most likely be in the form of banners. The ability to tag them with TV show names would awesome. For example, if you were a home builder, you may want to tag your ad with “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” or if you were doing forensics you would probably tag “CSI: Miami.” It would take more research in regards to your target audience demographic, like the shows they may watch, the time of day they watch TV, average age in the household, etc… but hey, it could and is bound to happen.

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Entrepreneurs are, by heart, do-it yourselfers. After all, starting your own business isn’t something you can do without rolling up your selves. Unfortunately, this leads many to try and do everything, including their online marketing. While this might make seem like an easy task, it’s probably not the best use of a business owner’s time or energy. Most entrepreneurs do an extraordinary job at what they specialize in, but can’t possibly be experts in all of the aspects of running a business. They may be lacking the skills in accounting, marketing, or operations and focusing too heavily on these areas personally or even attempting to bring something in-house that should be outsourced could ultimately lead to the demise of their business.

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