If you’re going to ‘leverage social media’

(and I KNOW that phrase came up in an exec meeting discussing launch strategery) for a product launch shouldn’t you at least choose bloggers that write an occasional post and/or post photos that are larger than a postage stamp to build hype around your product?

*points at Specialized Globe*  

I get that you want to target the young/hip/influential crowd so for your first blogger you got a radio DJ (btw, Alice 97.3 skews more towards John Mayer than Trevor Andrews) that has created three posts since July 13th and is heavy on the bullshit and light on the content in his posts AND has yet to post a picture of the damn bike!  Solid pick, I think the Raiders and the Lions consistently make better 1st picks though.  

Your 2nd blogger is apparently making up for that little light rock/Jason Mraz DJ snafu and is of the ‘young artist on a fixie‘ set (yeah, I said young artist on a fixie, RT that to your heart’s content #fixie #artist #cliche).  I gotta give him credit though, he actually writes posts that don’t reek of a salesperson that doesn’t know shit about what he’s selling AND he posts photos.  However, the photos are about the size of a postage stamp and are taken on what appears to be the digital equivalent of a Holga with vaseline smeared on the lens, and no supercool x-processed film colors for urban fringe street cred.

Seriously, up your game people.  If you’re going to launch your product with some early releases to bloggers that you feature on your site at the very least make sure they will:

1)   Actually use your product more than 1x every 2 weeks

2)   Actually write about their experiences (both good AND bad if you want it to not just be written off by the media savvy crowd) using your product

3)   Please dear God/Allah/Buddha/Jobu buy them a digital camera that works.  For about $100 you can get a good consumer level camera.  You can up ‘em to a G9 or similar for a few hundred more.  If a pic is worth 1000 words it will help the less loquacious write a remotely interesting post.

Anyways, Monday rant done for now.

The Globe Haul

Yesterday was the side salad in the Globe meal, tasty and all but left you wanting more. My fellow carnivores, the table is set and today the meat is served.

The Globe Haul is, to me, a damn nice looking AND practical bike. I prefer rear mounted racks over front for carrying anything with much weight as it doesn’t alter handling as much, and the wooden rear rack on the Haul with integrated tail light adds a nice touch of class to that azz.

Sweetness where you parked at?

Sweetness where you parked at...

As I haven’t ridden these bikes my quick 30 second take is:
Upsides:
Nice rack (heh), fenders, integrated tail light, headlight, beautiful lines and OG VW colorways
Downsides:
The awesomely green low end ($660) Haul 1 has 8 speed cassette/derailleur setup. You have go to to the $1100 Haul 2 to get the internal geared hub setup. An integrated front rack option would be nice as well, something that works within the lines of the bike.

...petiteness but that ass fat

...petiteness but that ass fat

If you look closely you can see the headlight

Front headlight and make your own headbadge slot

No argument, the Haul has a nice rack (and yes theyre real)

Much to her dismay, the boys just couldn't stop looking at her rack

Haul living up to its name

Haul living up to it's name

Overall from what I can see from the Globe line it looks like Specialized has really nailed it. I’m not real sure about the ghost bike looking fixed gear bike, guess they didn’t see the press release. Can’t wait to see the Haul and Live at my local shops and take ‘em for a spin. Don’t forget to check out Hugger Industries, as they are the ones who took all these shots from the Globe launch.