Free

Today's lesson: you don't always have to pay

The first meeting of the day was with Netvibes, a company that creates personalized dashboards for both businesses and individuals. The customer can choose from a numerous amount of widgets (similar to applications) for their homepage in order to create a unique screen customized for his or her needs. This company was a first for our group. It was the first company who is international (the main office is in Paris) and the first company who only had to do one round of fundraising before being able to function off of their own revenue. Netvibes gained most of their revenue from licensing agreements; however, the most interesting fact is that they have grown without the use of any paid advertising. The traffic growth is strictly by word of mouth, public relation tactics, and social networking.

The fact that their advertsing and marketing is free and they are doing extremely well is impressive. This struck me because the first way that I always think of promoting a product is by traditional advertising, but then I began to wonder...is it because that is what I am most used to and comfortable with? And does the success of Netvibes' technological promotion have anything to do with the nature of their product? In other words, is Netvibes' marketing successful because they are promoting technology on technology? This will have to be a question for someone with more public relations background, a perfect question for tomorrow's visit to Porter Novelli.

After the meeting with Chris from Netvibes, we walked around the Port of San Francisco in search of lunch. The main question was: which is better: a Taylor burger or an In-and-Out burger? The group was divided with Aaron remaining faithful to In-and-Out with the rest swaying to Taylor's side. We headed out before the birds could attack our crumbs and got ready for the trek to Kiva.org which was a 40-minute bus ride.

Kiva.org was another first for us as they were a not-for-profit organization; however, they had the mentality of a start-up company in that the reason they were non-profit was because it would be a better business model for what they were trying to do (microlending). At Kiva, we met with customer relations, software engineers, the fellowship manager, an intern, and the company dog. The discussion was varied; however, the most prominent information I received was at the end of the visit during our tour. We saw this interesting and seemingly complex chart that showed the various routes to their website. The best part about it is that most of the traffic was direct which means that people are specifically looking for the website, not stumbling onto it.

This meant that most of Kiva's marketing is free. They do have some advertising, but that is donated by sites like Hulu and Google AdWords. It was the second time in one day where the company's main promotion was not advertising and where the company had not spent one cent on advertising their product. This concept struck me as important because it proved that a company can do things without needing a budget for advertising. It strongly resonated with me as successful public relations and anything that is free is good to me.

After the meeting, we were free to roam around the Port some more before meeting up for one of our group dinners (another free thing). We ended up eating at another seafood place and I again tried something new...lobster, lamb, and tiramasu. Let's just say the food got better with each course. The lobster was pretty fishy, the lamb was good...new for me...but good, and the tiramasu was excellent! (of course it is dessert and when have I met a dessert I didn't like?) The dinner was quite humourous with lots of jokes and me not being able to stop laughing.

As always, the night is ending with us sitting in the hotel lobby writing our daily blogs and researching for tomorrow's activities: meetings with Porter Novelli and Creative Commons, plus a comedy show at night!

Before signing off on the day, I would like to wish my Grandma and Grandpa a very happy anniversary!

Until next time,
Kaitlin