BlogBloghttp://www.sandira.com/blog/2010-02-27T06:07:47ZSquarespaceLearning Spanish in 7 days: a bet with myselfhttp://www.sandira.com/blog/learning-spanish-in-7-days-a-bet-with-myself.htmlSandira2010-02-27T04:49:43Z2010-02-27T04:49:43ZDuring my lunch break I updated my facebook status as such: "I need to learn Spanish in a week. Any ideas?". I had attempted to follow the lead of some MP3-formatted lessons last summer but knew I needed something more intense and interactive. So I posted on my profile hoping for some (dirt-cheap) miracle workshop. After all, I had gone to an ulpan during my second year in NY and was pretty pleased with the results (especially at $5 an hour). The following year was more challenging when it came to those Mandarin classes in Chinatown... Weekly was definitely not going to be enough this time. I needed something more "immersive"...

Some friends on facebook were pretty reactive to my request for ideas... 

start working at the bar at sushi samba 7 .. mas vasos por favor!!

A miracle? (jk). Try Rosetta Stone and watching a lot of Spanish tv to immerse yourself.

Try eating tapas and drinking bad red wine (or limed wine) ;)

... which got me even more motivated and compelled me to check Craigslist for more options.

Quickly I stumbled onto a couple of ads posted by female tutors who seemed to know what they were doing and I emailed them right away. Luckily, due to the snow, one of them had some availability this very same afternoon. With my boots penetrating centimeters of beautiful snow and a running nose, I rushed to that Starbucks in midtown where we had convened to meet up for this first and free one-on-one lesson. To my surprise, I was provided with some verb/adj/nouns tables, a pen and a pencil to do my homework with - which I thought was very sweet and smart.

Since I am not the only one curious to see how successful this endeavor will be, I decided to share highlights of this experiment. In the meantime, I will let you meditate on this selection of friendly comments:

change facebook to spanish

which I did right away ;)

Have meals with Spanish speaking friends each day and ask them to speak nothing but Spanish. If you have a basic understanding, then this might help.

One week? Well well well just don't learn puerto rico spanish is the worst!

boricua! ;)

???

 passe donc une semaine à Miami....

which translates into: "spend a week in Miami" and to which I responded: "Was already in Miami in Feb... online dating conference:http://bit.ly/iDateMiami and it didn't work :)"

¡Sugiero que usted emplea a un traductor, mi estimado!

Matrix !

babel fish

Telenovelas.. my favorites are Amor Real and Mujeres Asesinas 2

latin rock is great is you want to learn Spanish.
Una Via is a good local band ...
La Ley is a very popular band ..
and their lyrics are printed and you an follow and sing along.

This concludes our Day 1... Good night! S@

]]>Aviary now available for freehttp://www.sandira.com/blog/aviary-now-available-for-free.htmlSandira2010-02-20T16:48:23Z2010-02-20T16:48:23Z

This amazing online image and photo editing suite has been made available for free this past week.

If you are not familiar with it, try to put 'www.aviary.com/' in front of any website URL. You may also click on this example: http://www.aviary.com/www.sandira.com to enjoy an effortless screen-capture ready for you to play with.

]]>Amazon's 420,000+ books available via its new Blackberry Kindle Apphttp://www.sandira.com/blog/amazons-420000-books-available-via-its-new-blackberry-kindle.htmlSandira2010-02-18T18:21:52Z2010-02-18T18:21:52ZBefore stumbling Wireless Week's news regarding the launch of the 'Kindle for Blackberry', I had lunch (actually it was more of a brunch) with a friend who was reading Les Echos on his Kindle. And among other things we talked about how the iPad's arrival would definitely pause as a game changer for Amazon's eReader and might be the catalyst to Amazon venturing onto other handsets. It turns out we were wrong (yes I admit) as Amazon probably thought of providing an ubiquitous experience long ago since its ebooks are already available via all the following platforms iPhone, iPod Touch, PC and Mac. Getting on the iPad seems to be Amazon's next step on sealing a very incesteous relationship with Apple...

]]>Apple blocks location-based advertising within appshttp://www.sandira.com/blog/apple-blocks-location-based-advertising-within-apps.htmlSandira2010-02-18T11:13:40Z2010-02-18T11:13:40ZMobile Marketer's Dan Butcher agily details the ramification of Apple's stance against location-based advertising within applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

This decision will definitely impact most players of the mobile advertising industry. Yet I do not think it will presents itself as an issue for companies like Foursquare or Buzzd, whose location-based feature is not only part but beneficial to the user experience.

Indeed, according to Apple's advice to the developer community about its CoreLocation framework:
If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user's location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.
You can learn more about using Core Location by reading the CLLocationManager Class Reference and downloading the LocateMe sample code available in the iPhone OS Reference Library.

To learn more about the potential repercussions from a marketing and advertising stand-point, please read Dan Butcher's piece here: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/5430.html

]]>Is Wired ready for an Apple iPad launch?http://www.sandira.com/blog/is-wired-ready-for-an-apple-ipad-launch.htmlSandira2010-02-17T16:06:51Z2010-02-17T16:06:51Z

Mind-blowing, Wired presents us with an intuitive way of interacting with its content, while experimenting with cool features such as the 3D spinning of products, which opens new avenues for advertising and product reviews.

That said, it seems that this groundbreaking app may be incompatible with the Apple iPad :( according to the word on the street (of the blogosphere). Garysky at AppleSky writes that "interactive Wired issues probably won’t be compatible with the iPad due to its inability to run Adobe’s proprietary technologies like Flash and AIR".

Yet according to Cult of Mac yesterday, Wired's EIC Chris Anderson said: "The app is designed to run using Adobe’s Air, but can be easily repurposed for the iPad and other devices"...

Does anyone know which team built the app anyway? Feel free to email/comment.

A friend tells me it has been developed internally for months way before anyone was sure there was going to be an iPad.

]]>A few hours left to enjoy the Wall Street Journal for free...http://www.sandira.com/blog/a-few-hours-left-to-enjoy-the-wall-street-journal-for-free.htmlSandira2010-02-03T22:03:58Z2010-02-03T22:03:58ZWhile some newspapers are thinking of charging their online users to access their online content (the New York Times will introduce its paid model in the beginning of 2010), others chose the opposite path... for today only. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal has invited users to experience WSJ.com's new features for free until tonight. Although Nicholas Carlson from the Business Insider has posted here some steps on how to read it for free ALL YEAR LONG. I am not sure if it still works... We will have to wait until tomorrow to test out the method. Enjoy!

]]>Outside-the-Box Revenue Models for Online Dating & Social Networkshttp://www.sandira.com/blog/outside-the-box-revenue-models-for-online-dating-social-netw.htmlSandira2010-01-28T12:06:29Z2010-01-28T12:06:29ZI landed yesterday evening in Miami for iDate and... as of late last night it turns out I will be speaking at an interesting workshop this afternoon @ 1:30pm.

Some of the ideas that I will be sharing may be inspired by practices that have proved to generate successful results in other industries.

Other ideas may be intuitive or based on "emotional marketing".

Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas. You may be a publisher, a blogger, a shopping site, who found clever ways to create new revenue streams in your niche. Please shoot (before 1:30pm EST)!

Cheers, S@ 


INTERNET DATING CONFERENCE

WORKSHOP: IDEA Session: "Outside the Box" Revenue Models for Online Dating & Social Networks - 3 Unique Perspectives

 

This 3rd annual workshop is one of the most popular attended by most of the CEO's in the business. The session serves as a unique idea generating session for developing other revenue models for Online Dating and Social Networking. Three independent consultants to the industry will each provide "outside the box" ideas on how businesses can acheive higher revenue from their user base. Speakers are: Bill Broadbent (Founder & CEO of Instinct Marketing), Scot McKay(Founder / Dating/Relationship Consultant at X & Y Communications) and Sandira Calviac (Marketing Consultant). 

At previous events, the Revenue Model Workshop was met with resounding success from the delegates. Many operators gained valuable business information and some gained multi-million dollar business ideas from the session. At the iDate2010 event, each presenter will provide ideas in "rapid fire" each for 20 minutes, followed by a 30 minute question period from the general audience.

 

]]>I got my hand on Linchpin, Seth Godin's latest book!http://www.sandira.com/blog/2010/1/26/i-got-my-hand-on-linchpin-seth-godins-latest-book.htmlSandira2010-01-26T00:21:00Z2010-01-26T00:21:00ZJust got my hand on Seth Godin's latest book: LINCHPIN.

I have to say if it had not been some phone calls I would not have been able to put it down.
So far, I have read half of it, and it is pretty much aligned with what I have been debating with my peers and friends in the past two or three years. He is nailing.

I will try to post more later...

In the meantime, please read my friend Derek's post as he interviewed Seth from a musician angle.

Enjoy!

]]>On the future of advertising agencieshttp://www.sandira.com/blog/2009/11/8/on-the-future-of-advertising-agencies.htmlSandira2009-11-08T01:03:00Z2009-11-08T01:03:00Z

A comment I posted this morning on Gotham Gal's blog post: A reality check.
That was before breakfast, so some words might have been eaten on the way ;)

There are many ways to break the rules, and it's not always about coming up with NEW processes or NEW thinking. Her dream may not sound unique to you or revolutionary, but she - as a unique person with her unique take on the world - may bring a unique perspective. A great agency is not just about cool and new this and new that but is a lot about reliable people committed to providing their clients with the best collaborating experience and value.
Most often companies that are "getting killed" are the ones (in which partners killed each others first and/or) who forgot their purpose and who they're doing it for, focusing too much on the what and the push of matter vs. adapting to what the market wants. Think about Nokia going from toilet paper and rain boots manifacturer to holistic provider of mobile experience.
Also, to resonate on the restaurant observation, why do we as a customer pick this restaurant over another one? Most important, why do we go back?
Or, why do people buy old school, vintage clothes?
Often time, we - especially in the media/tech industry - tend to obsess with the latest, newest tech or buzz word, when in fact successful things or transactions are rarely 'new school'. No reason to be jadded though ;)
Maybe that woman via her boutique agency will be able to provide that missing piece for her clients in a way that no other agency can... For every client, there's an agency out there... ;)
"To you I am nothing more
than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.
To me, you will be unique in all the world.
To you, I shall be unique in all the world. . ."
The Little Prince, Saint Exupery

]]>Manhattan NY 400 years ago: back to the futurehttp://www.sandira.com/blog/2009/10/12/manhattan-ny-400-years-ago-back-to-the-future.htmlSandira2009-10-12T16:33:00Z2009-10-12T16:33:00ZI recommend you watch it until the end. Fascinating!

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