Marketing and content trends, tools, and tips that are always one step ahead of leading edge

This morning, shortly after Apple released the iPhone3G, mayhem transpired all over the Web when new customers were unable to activate their phones, and those trying to update their old iPhones stalled during the final step of the process.

Stories of the troubles quickly hit the front pages of major news sites. Bloggers, twitterers, and online community participants complained with vigor, some in a noticeable panic.

Some examples from Twitter:

cianna: So I held off upgrading yesterday to avoid what just happened me: I am looking at a very pretty brick.

cianna: today discovering how dependent I’ve become on iPhone: SMS & web. Feeling unreachable, hunting for wifi w/ MBP. Almost a luddite.

toss_garbage: iPhone 2.0 - An upgrade for disaster

judysalinas: 3g iphone day has turned into the black mac day. Wtf. Go nokia!

nickreed: Why is it that my iPhone was more stable with unsanctioned jailbroken 1.1.4 software, then with official 2.0 software? Nice work Apple.

Earlier this morning, the Associated Press spoke with an AT&T spokesman, who pinpointed Apple’s iTunes servers as the culprit. And what did Apple have to say? As of 4 p.m. this afternoon, nothing. Their corporate website makes no mention of the problems. The latest news in their “Hot News” section is, “Apple has raised the bar with iPhone 3G,” a post from yesterday. Their twitter account (appleinc) was last updated three days ago.

Take a cue from Zappos and JetBlue

Today’s consumers expect more than this, especially from a company like Apple, which has a loyal base of fanatics, many of whom are bloggers and twitterers. Wired’s article, “The See-Through CEO ,” cites numerous examples of corporations that own up to their problems, choosing to be more open with the public.

JetBlue’s corporate communications department monitors and responds to what’s being said about them in the twittersphere (see Jonathan Fields’s blog post, “Is JetBlue using twitter to spy on its customers…or blow their minds? ”).

The CEO of Zappos is also a power twitterer. He has 7,950 followers, actively tweets, and pays close attention to the conversations happening there. How close? Back in May, I tweeted, “@zappos Thank you for the super speedy delivery of my new Asics tiger sneakers. Ordered Sunday of a holiday weekend and received today!” Forty minutes later, he sent me a direct message: “glad you had a great experience!”

You don’t have to ask if I’m going to buy shoes from Zappos again. As for upgrading the firmware on my iPhone v1? I won’t be doing that anytime soon. —Anna Marie Panlilio, marketing specialist

Today I got my cell phone bill and learned something else about Twitter . My addiction is costing me, but not enough to get me to stop.

My Sprint contract allows for 100 two-way text messages a month, for $5. But this month I logged 191 additional text messages, at 20 cents a message, for an additional $38.20. I follow fewer than 20 people—a small number, really—and track several topics that haven’t appeared in all that many tweets. Guess I’ll be visiting Sprint to change my service contract.

Twitter addiction is a growing trend, as you can read here . Have you ever thought about how much money people spend to stay connected (I’m thinking postage rates + broadband access + phone contracts + mobile data, etc.)? Or how much your customers are paying to follow your brand or get updates from your company? —Charlotte Ziems, VP, client engagement

I’ve been playing with Twitter the past couple months, mainly out of curiosity from the buzz it’s been getting (see here and here and here ). I just couldn’t understand the value of a tool that enables 140-character text-message answers to the question, What are you doing? Who cares what I’m doing? Why should I care what others are doing—I mean, in 140-character chunks? And why use Twitter to find out?

As I’ve discovered, Twitter is a very tiny form of blogging. In case you aren’t familiar with it, here’s how it works. Many people “tweet” in between blogs—it’s a faster, easier way to stay connected. When you tweet, your comments are readable by any other Twitter user, but most people don’t read everything that every Twitter user is writing. Instead, you set up your account to follow specific users and track different issues as you wish. Twitter can compare your email contacts to its user registry and tell you who among your contacts is already a Twitter user, so you can follow people you know. Or you can look at all Twitter posts on the website and choose to follow those who seem interesting. Or you can go to http://whoshouldIfollow.com , type in your Twitter username, and receive all sorts of suggestions for who you should follow.

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