This from MarketingWonk this morning:

In the middle of this MSNBC article on Google, an unscientific reader survey asks whether other search engines stand a chance against Google. With 8716 responses, 40 percent said “Yes, we’re always looking for the next new thing,” while 52 percent said “No, it’s become a part of our everyday lives.”

Even if just 40 percent of the people using Google now are willing to switch to other things, that is a huge liability for the Google team, pushing them to continue to be their best. So far they have been up to the challenge, but the new Yahoo algorithm is pretty strong, and MSN’s spider has been actively building a database for future use.

It would be interesting to see other company names in that poll. I think you would find a similar response. There always seems to be focus on how easily people could leave Google and search with something else.

Most companies should feel the same pressure. Customers are always asking “What restaurant am I going to eat at tonight?” I don’t think driving down the road another two miles for an alternative choice is all that different from clicking on another link.

I am currently reading Cluetrain Manifesto (I know I am way late on this one).

In the essay “Markets are Conversations” by Doc Searls and David Weinberger, they talks about customers and word of mouth:

It’s nothing new, in one sense. The only advertising that was ever truly effective was word of mouth. , which is nothing more than conversation. Now word of mouth has gone global. The one-to-many scope that technology brought to mass production and then mass marketing, which producers have enjoyed for two hundred years, is now available to customers. And they’re eager to make up for lost time.

My Making the Switch blog gets about 1000 people stopping by every time I ask a question and I get 15-20 people leaving comments. The decisions to buy a Tom Bihn carrying case and Nokia 3650 were based on word of mouth and customers evangelizing.

I saw this great case study that marketingsherpa republished this week and I thought it went really well with our talk of customer evangelism.

The company is a Australian microbrewery called Southern Cross Brewers and their product is Blowfly Beer. The founders had no experience and there was really no prescient for microbreweries in Australia.

They decided to create a marketing campaign that involved their customers from the start. They decided to let their customers decide numerous aspects of the company including the logo, shape of the bottle, and location of the launch party. Go read the case study.

FC Now also had a post about this yesterday. The inspiration for the viral campaign was from a Fast Company article in the April 2002 issue. “Who’s Runs This Team, Anyway?” is about Finnish soccer team PK-35 and Finnish entrepreneur Jussi Rautavirta. Rautavirta and coach Janne Viljamaa used cellphone text messaging to allow 300 fans to give advice during games on things like team selection and game tactics.

Blowfly is working on a number of deals outside Oz, but it seem PK-35 has gone back to the coach running the show.

I heard an odd story on talk radio here in Milwaukee yesterday. Mark Belling had a segment on his afternoon show about an article that appeared in Saturday’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The article talked about a local furniture store by the name of Dinesen’s Leather Only. The store is well-known for its commercials on local television. The owner Frits Dinesen was a staple in them with the line, “Once you visit us, you’ll wish you found us sooner.”

It seems that Mr. Dinesen died six months ago. The odd part to the story is that they are continuing to run ads with him in them. His wife Lynn says she is not keeping the death a secret. Employees were told that they could confirm that he had died if someone brought it up, but they were not to volunteer the information. “Our store is small. If people knew Frits died, they may think the store is going to close,” his widow said.

The whole thing is a bit weird. Why would people assume the store was going to close? Businesses continue to operate with the owner’s name after he has passed away. I would say the commercials are almost deceptive by continuing to show him pitching for the store.

Like I said, it is a bit weird.