2013/2014 College Football Bowl Schedule

Happy holidays to everyone,

Click to download the 2013/2014 College Football Bowl Game Schedule (entries will update to show the teams participating in the game after the December 9th announcement show)

I do not have too much to ramble on about today, but I did want to share the 2013/2014 College Football Schedule download with you.  The bowl selection show is coming up on December 9th, so why would you add the schedule to your calendar now, before the teams are named?

Doing it now because "it is there" is the answer that popped into my head.  I suppose that is the real value of giving a reader of your content the ability to act upon the call to action right now, while it is in front of them. Otherwise, you would have to figure out how to get the opportunity back in front of them again in the future, and that is no guaranteed feat.  So do it now, because you are probably not coming back to this post again.

The Secondary Ticket Market and Calendaring Technology

A team from Infuzer recently attended the Ticket Summit Las Vegas at the Bellagio to learn about the technology involved in the back end of the secondary ticket selling industry and to learn how add to calendar technology for websites and emails could be utilized.

Long gone are the days of meeting up with some fellow in the back room of a bar to buy or sell tickets for sold out events. Technology to manage the pool of inventories, display availability, protect consumers against fraud and ensure deliverability has morphed this industry from a group of one man operations into a complex and dynamic ecosystem of ticketing specialists. 

We were overwhelmed by the reception we received from the big industry players and they educated us about what is important to the different players and roles each company plays. We are excited about how Infuzer can assist in external facing websites and emails to empower the calls to “SAVE THE DATE” and “MARK THE CALENDAR”.

POS Confirmations – After purchasing a ticket the customer will receive any event updates and decrease no –shows due to mis-communications.

Website Loyalty – Browsers and comparison shoppers can save the event and availability dates, which will conveniently contain a direct link back to the ticketing site to complete a transaction/purchase.

Outbound Marketing (email to prospects) - Take the message out of the inbox and into the calendar, where it is much more likely to be remembered.

Client Retention – Add convenience and create deep marketing connections with the best customers through integrated email campaigns. 

Season Schedule links – a method to easily add a complete season schedule’s worth of games for a team or shows for a venue.

Programs for Corporate Clients – Create reminders for deadlines such as buy now or early purchase specials. 

Keep an eye out for these programs to be offered from your favorite ticket re-sellers in the future and to learn more about this industry, Ticket Summit 2014 will be July 16-18th at the Aria Hotel & Casino.

Add the dates for Ticket Summit 2014 to your calendar 

Calendar Download for 2013 NFL Team Schedules

Download your favorite NFL team schedules right to your calendar!

•  Entries will update to provide previews and final scores.

• Changes resulting from NFL Flex scheduling policy will be automatically pushed to your calendar

•  Links to purchase available tickets are provided.

• Simply click on your favorite team's name below to get started.

Google Calendar Users:  You will be asked to do a one-time registration and authorize Infuzer to allow it to communicate and update entries in the Google calendar.

Outlook and Lotus Notes Users:  You will be asked to do a one-time registration and install the free Infuzer app on your PC after registering with Infuzer. 

Mobile users of Outlook and Lotus Notes will need to have Infuzer on your PC and you must set up the correct personal assistant permissions prior to downloading NFL team schedules. (Please view the demo on setting up Personal Assistant with your mobile device)

If you don’t have a compatible calendar or wish to give us feedback, please take our quick calendar survey or leave a message in the comments section below.

AFC East

           

Buffalo Bills

Miami Dolphins

New England Patriots

New York Jets

AFC North

       

Baltimore Ravens

Cincinnati Bengals

Cleveland Browns

Pittsburgh Steelers

AFC South

Houston Texans

Indianapolis Colts

Jacksonville Jaguars

Tennessee Titans

AFC West

         

Denver Broncos

Kansas City Chiefs

Oakland Raiders

San Diego Chargers

NFC East  

           

Dallas Cowboys

New York Giants

Philadelphia Eagles

Washington Redskins

NFC North

          

Chicago Bears

Detroit Lions

Green Bay Packers

Minnesota Vikings

NFC South

          

Atlanta Falcons

Carolina Panthers

New Orleans Saints

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NFC West

          

Arizona Cardinals

St. Louis Rams

San Francisco 49ers

Seattle Seahawks

Infuzer - Grass Roots Calendar Survey

Let me appeal to the readers of this post to help us create the best method for content marketers to give their audience a way to "Save the Date" or "Mark the Calendar" with their event or time sensitive content distributed through the web or email.

Infuzer is conducting a grass roots calendar usage survey to better understand how consumers of all types are using technology to set and remember appointments and events, please take a moment to fill out this 20 question mini-survey to help us learn more about features and functionality to consider in our future development.

Click this link to take the survey 

Please share this link with any of your contacts that can assist us in gathering results for this survey, and if you want to receive the results of our findings, just leave a comment below and we will send you the results once we have tabulated the final numbers.

Now for the boring part.

Calendar Survey Sweepstakes Official Rules

1.     ELIGIBILITY: Sweepstakes is open only to legal residents of U.S., Canada, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Russia, who are of the age of majority in their state/province/country of residence at date of entry. Employees of Infuzer.com, LLC. (“Sponsor”), as well as the immediate family and household members of each such employees, are not eligible to win. The Sweepstakes is subject to all applicable federal, state, provincial, territorial, municipal, and local laws and regulations. This Sweepstakes is void where prohibited or restricted by law.  

2.     TO ENTER: The Calendaring Survey Sweepstakes also known as prize draw (“Sweepstakes”) begins 12:00 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time (“P.T.”) on April 1, 2013 and ends once we have collected our target number of completed surveys. You are automatically entered when you have successfully completed one of the hosted surveys during the Promotion Period. Normal Internet access and phone/usage charges imposed by your online/phone service may apply and shall be the entrants’ sole responsibility, if applicable. The computer clock of Infuzer.com, LLC’s webmaster is the official timekeeping device of the Sweepstakes. There is a limit of 1 entry per person.

3.     RANDOM DRAWING: There will be a random drawing at the conclusion of the Promotion Period. All eligible entries will be included in the drawing. The drawing will be conducted by randomized computer selection and the result will be final and binding in all matters relating to the Sweepstakes. Odds of winning depend on the total number of eligible entries received during the Promotion Period.

4.      Notification of Winner: Potential Winners will be notified via e-mail. Allow approximately 30 days for confirmation of prize selection.

5.     GENERAL RULES: Potential Prize winner will be required reply within ten (10) days of email notification attempt or the Prize will be forfeited and alternate winner may be selected. Each potential Prize winner will be required to verify his/her mailing address via email prior to being deemed a winner. Applicable taxes or surcharges related to the prize are the sole and exclusive responsibility of winner. Return of any prize or prize notification as undeliverable will result in disqualification and alternate winner selected. Sponsor shall have no liability for any winner notification that is lost, intercepted or not received by a potential winner for any reason. Winning is contingent on fulfilling all requirements set forth in these Official Rules. Any fees, duties, or tariffs required to accept delivery of any prize is the sole responsibility of winner. Entries made by Internet will be deemed made by the authorized account holder of the e-mail address submitted at the time of entry. The "authorized account holder" is deemed the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, service provider or other online organization that is responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address. Sponsor is not responsible for any typographical error in the printing of these Official Rules, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the Sweepstakes prizes. Sponsor is not responsible for damages to user’s system occasioned by participating in the Sweepstakes or downloading any information to participate in the Sweepstakes. 

Using Calendars for Externally Promoted Events

Traditional use of paper and electronic calendars has been for manually created event entries for personal engagements, but that has been changing with the advent of promoted "Save the Date" or "Mark the Calendar" links which add event details with a click or two.

With the penetration of electronic calendars (Outlook, Lotus Notes etc.) in the workplace now having reached 80-90% and the effectiveness of Internet advertising having fallen to click-through rates of less than 0.5%, calendar communication and calendar commerce offer a new and more effective sales and marketing channel for products and services with a time-based component.

But how do the users feel about it? The real estate in a person's personal calendar is a closely guarded commodity and users do not want irrelevant information cluttering up their calendar, so only the most important and committed appointments make their way into a calendar.

This is the reason marketers and event promoters want to get their events into your calendar, as it has be shown that 58% of electronic calendar users check their calendar more than 5 times per day and 86% of electronic calendar users say they are more likely to attend an event if it is in their calendar.

Two critical issues confront any company wishing to participate in this endeavor: trust and technology. Dr. Peter Collett’s research into the psychology of calendaring has shown that trust is critical to gaining access to someone’s calendar: “people who use electronic calendars don’t mind others looking at their calendar, but they seem to resent other people making entries in their calendar without telling them”

Companies must leverage the reputation of their brand to gain admittance to the prospect’s calendar and they abuse this trust at their peril. People have learned the lesson of email spam and will immediately deny access to their calendar to any party which abuses it.

The other challenge is how to gain physical access to the calendar. Currently there are very few ways to deliver messages to the calendar and conduct commerce within or from calendar entries. The manufacturers of electronic calendars developed a standard called vCal which was designed to provide a common interface for inserting entries into calendars, however, it is severely limited by the fact that communication is one way: entries can be made but cannot be updated, removed or changed i.e. no two-way communication and transaction channel exists between the user and the originator.

This is beginning to change and Infuzer is specifically designed to overcome these problems and provide a calendar commerce and communication infrastructure.

First Blog - What do you want from me?

What do you want from me?  I ask this not in a confrontational tone, I ask this in an inquisitive tone.  What is it that you can gain from reading what I have to say? Believe me, sometimes it is hard to get me to stop.

Here is what I am pretty sure you don't want:

• The down and dirty details of the technology - that is available on the Infuzer website and doesn't get too many people excited.
• My personal musings on popular culture - I have nothing nice to say about Bieber fever, Lady Gaga's medical issues or Manti T'eo's NFL prospects.
• A listing of selected events to add to your calendar.
• And you certainly don't want a sales pitch.

I hope I can provide interesting thoughts which can educate, empower and provide insight on what technology and event marketing is all about, how it keeps evolving, as well as the ways people consume information online and retain it on their electronic gadgets.  

With that perspective in mind, I plan on:

• Reviewing websites and email campaigns which promote a call to "Save the Date" or "Mark your Calendar"
• Commenting on new technologies which facilitate the transfer of date and time sensitive data.
• Promoting novel ideas on how information is processed and stored.
• Providing "Power Users" tips on the use of Infuzer with your calendars.

But, I am not writing this for myself, I am doing this for the readers. So, seriously folks, what do you want from me?