Seinfeld and Gates - New Family Ad

The new ad in the Microsoft campaign is a lot like booting up Windows. It takes four and a half minutes, yet seemingly for no reason.



Actually, ya'll know I like Windows, and was excited about the idea of Seinfeld for Windows. But this is really pointless selfindulgence.

Viral Video: People Have A LOT OF Time On Their Hands!

Another Great Viral Ad From EA Featuring Tiger Woods

White Paper Thursdays Consumer Perceptions of Private Label

A great global Nielsen survey of consumer attitudes toward private label is living here and ready for the downloading. No reg required. No muss no fuss.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Viral Vid: Mr. Tough Guy

Warning: Profanity at the end.


McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists

White Paper Thursdays: The Pros of Marketing Through Newspapers

The Newspaper Association of America has published a Power Point to help its members combat ad dollar erosion. The deck outlines a variety of data points the outline the quality of the newspaper audience.

The newspapers industry is really suffering of late as it struggles to refine its relevance in the digital era. Newspapers are taking it on the chin in part because young people have not adopted daily newspaper readership (at least news PAPER readership) like past generations did. While the newspaper web sites are seeing growth, the papers have had difficulty translating that success into revenue. What I mean is, it takes A LOT of banner views to replace the cost of a full page ad in section A.

I for one hope that newspapers weather the storm in some form. Perhaps the paper part will wither away, but newspapers have always provided depth and analysis that cannot be matched by big haired lads and siliconed boobed lasses that constitute what we call news people these days. The Philadelphia Inquirer, for example, did not feature Jon Benet on 80% of its pages for -- what was it, 2 years? -- like cable news.

Anyway, hit the link and give the deck a read -- it's an interesting marketing story.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper Thursdays Journalism 2.0

A thoughtprovoking presentation on the future of journalism in a UGC age is available here.

Journalism In The Age Of Youtube August 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: education youtube)

White Paper Thursdays: Email Creative That Works

SilverPop has produced an excellent study on "what works" in email creative. Download it here. (Reg required.)

Bloggers Make Their Own Ads in the Prez Campaign

The advent of cheap and effective video production tools is creating an unexpected new political marketing tool: High quality blogger commercials. Here's one from TPM and fivethirtyeight.com:



Good Lord is this going to be a bloody election cycle. ! What with the latest McCain ads, the rise of 527s again, and Lord knows what else, it'll be explosive. That's for sure.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Viral Video: Intelligent Design?

Shameless Plug For Asa The Comic

One of the best things about the web is it gives people with something to say a digital megaphone. A lot of what Asa says is through parody, but I think there's always a glimmer of a point -- a social observation, a veiled criticism. I don't always love Asa, but I do a lot, and I love his vids. Here's an untypical sample:

NOTE: LOADS OF PROFANITY.



And here's a couple of typicals, if such things exist for Asa:







Check out his YouTube channel here.

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Finally a Decent TV Ad From My People

Dems tend to make dreadful TV ads. They don't get it that pictures matter more than words. Not to say that issues don't matter. Just the opposite. But a good picture brings home an issue a lot better than 300 words, especially if they contain "HR 7263."

So I rate this ad decent. Not great. Not a bear in the woods. Not Willie Horton. Not Kerry on the windsurf board. But decent. That's a step up, DNC. Thank you for beginning to get it.



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Caterer.com: Now THIS Is A Viral Campaign

An amazing viral ad campaign is in place for caterer.com, a UK job site for food service people. I’s an awesome send up of Gordon Ramsay, who is the host of about 127 reality TV series about restaurant managers and chefs. This, my friends, is what viral is meant to be. He’s actually quite a little feckin’ actor. It’s like he’s channeling Big Gordon.

(Warning: profanity in pretty much every second of all four vids.)







And if you haven't seen one of Gordon's shows, here's a taste (Arr Arr):



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Cheesbrgr Iz Not So Gud

Yes it is a ripoff of the cat site, but ihasahotdog.com has dog pictures and therefore it is better. Here's something to make your Wednesday just a lil betta.









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XBOX v. PS3: Pricing SmackDown!

It's smackdown time in the console biz. Microsoft is officially lowering the prices of XBOXes to better compete with PS3 and Wii. This puts them at price parity with PS3, which had been making market share inroads of late.

Smackdown!

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MSNBC: Paris's Password, and Your Password, Maybe Be Darned Easy to Crack

According to this piece on MSNBC, privacy experts are ringing worry bells over the safety and security of password systems online. Specifically, they are concerned that far too many companies are using very simple security precautions -- systems that are easily beaten.

The idea is this. You find an org that uses a common user name nomenclature -- for example, first initial last name. Then, you ask to reset the password. Most systems are using security measures like What's Your Mother's Maiden Name? or "What is Your Pet's Name?" While at some point in the past that might have been relatively private info, it no longer qualifies as it has become so easy to find personal info like resumes and social media posts that often contain the info.

Here's a passage from the MSNBC post:

There are no known cases in which hackers have widely exploited “forgot your password” links, but there are indications that both researchers and criminals are training their eyes in this direction. Markus Jakobsson, principal scientist at the famed Palo Alto Research Center in California, said answers to password reset questions have become so valuable that a black market has developed for personal information like dog's names. Criminals buy buckets of personal information, obviously with an eye towards foiling security systems, for about $15 per set, he said.

In most cases, such information sets are probably the result of successful phishing attempts, Jakobsson said, where a victim unwittingly supplied personal information in response to an e-mail. But he’s seen demonstrations of far more sophisticated tools designed to “scrape” information off blogs and social networking pages for later use by hackers.

“It’s an automatic dossier building tool,” he said.

Like all scary things, the story starts with none other than Paris Hilton, whose cell phone was reportedly hacked using the name of her dog, which the crooks found online. Now, no one credible is entirely sure that the story is actually true, but it has prompted security concerns over the issue. Another passage from MSNBC:

It also prompted researchers to study the issue, which is also known as “fallback authentication.” Ariel Rabkin, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, is probably the first to attempt to quantify the problem. He recently published a research paper (PDF)titled in part, “Security Questions in the Era of Facebook.” It examined password reset questions at 20 banks. Of the 215 questions used by the banks, he classified only 75 as secure and usable. The others were either easy for hackers to guess or obtain, or simply too hard for consumers to remember.

"Security questions are getting weaker over time," he said. Mother's maiden name, for example, continues to be asked even though it's often now available from various online sources. "We can’t seem to get rid of that question. … If we do nothing this will get steadily worse."

Oh, the world we live in. When even PARIS HILTON isn't safe!

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Insights on Viral Marketing

INTRODUCTION

This post is designed for the marketing generalist that is considering viral marketing as a component of a digital marketing strategy for their brand. The goal is to help marketers to:

1. Better understand the definition of viral marketing
2. Cultivate an understanding of the various types of viral marketing and dispersion strategies
3. Postulate some key success factors for viral marketing efforts based upon an examination of past viral efforts that have proven successful.
3. Provide guidelines for reasonable goals and expectations for planning purposes
4. Offer tools and insights to decide if viral marketing is for them

There are very few large brands that have not, at one point or another, identified viral marketing as a possible approach to leveraging digital media in support of business objectives. The temptations are often too strong NOT to consider viral:

1. Campaigns that go viral are, by definition, efforts for which consumers demonstrate deep and abiding connections with brands. There are few marketers that aren’t seeking ways to drive that kind of connection.
2. The distribution of a viral message relies on personal initiative rather than paid impressions. The result can be extremely high levels of consumer impressions and impact for little more than the cost of the creative or the technology behind an idea.
3. Viral campaigns get noticed, both by consumers and by the organizations that field them.

One of the dirty little secrets of viral, however, is that for every giant viral campaign there are dozens that fail in the marketplace. The reasons for these failures are varied, and naturally marketers wish to improve the overall odds of success for their viral efforts.

SO WHAT IS VIRAL MARKETING?

The key difference between viral and traditional marketing efforts is in the method of distribution. In traditional marketing, distribution is a paid proposition. The marketer pays to air or print or position a message in a place where an audience will see it. The marketer is paying for the access to consumers.

In viral, the distribution is driven by the strength of the idea and the extent to which consumers are willing to spread it to their personal social networks. Consumers choose to distribute a viral message, at least to some extent.

In marketing, the cost of producing a brand message is almost always far lower than the cost of distributing it. Even the most expensive TV ad – let’s say it cost $2Million to produce -- will likely be supported with media that costs far more than that production cost. To use a more realistic example, an ad airing in a highly rated Prime Time show can cost more to run ONCE than it did to produce
.
In fact, companies used to talk about dollar splits between the cost of production (what they referred to as “nonworking” media, with the cost of media placements (“working media.”) Companies often targeted a ratio of 8%-15% for the percentage of marketing spend that went into production.

By contrast, in viral marketing, the nonworking costs of production generally make up 75% or more of the total program cost. Companies may spend a little money to seed a viral concept into the marketplace, but the whole premise of viral is that the consumer takes the time and effort to distribute the message rather than the brand paying for that distribution.

Sounds good, right? Paid distribution naturally costs more than consumer initiated distribution. But the googly of viral is that consumers need to choose to distribute it. They can do so or not do so – it is entirely their prerogative.

What this means is that IF your viral idea captures the hearts and minds of consumers sufficiently to get them to distribute the message, you get a highly cost effective marketing tool. But if they choose not to, you may find yourself having paid a lot of money for production of an item that no one sees.


PASSIVE VERSUS ACTIVE VIRAL

One thing that many people overlook in discussions of viral is that there are really two types of viral programs – ones that require that consumers actively choose to distribute a message, and ones where, though their regular online uses and behaviors, they passively distribute a message virally.

The classic example of a passive viral was actually one of the most effective marketing strategies in the history of digital. As part of its effort to drive rapid growth in the web based email category, Hotmail appended short text ads to the bottom of every email that their users sent from Hotmail servers. I am sure you have seen these ads:

---------
Fast, free email from anywhere
Get your account
www.hotmail.com

This and dozens of other messages were distributed by the billions not because consumers choose to reward Hotmail with largesse but rather because they were simply a part of using the free Hotmail service. The massive awareness these ads drove helped propel Hotmail to the number one web based email provider, at least for a time. So successful was this effort that other major web based email providers followed suit, most notably Yahoo Mail.


WHAT DO PEOPLE LIKE TO VIRAL?

The team at Catalyst:SF has conducted extensive research into the popularity of different viral concepts for several years, and based upon this analysis has formulated a list of hypotheses for “what works” in viral in terms of both:

· Target Factors
· Conceptual Factors
· Executional Factors
· Brandedness Factors

To conduct this research, we needed to develop a system whereby we rated the popularity of different concepts. Because many concepts reside on short lived urls or sub urls, we cannot be certain about the actual number of visits that are made to every viral concept, so we developed a surrogate solution to measure effectiveness: links/mentions.

The idea behind this is that a viral concept that receives a lot of links and mentions was more popular than a concept with few links – or rather that there is a high degree of likelihood that such a concept was popular. I fully admit it is not a perfect system, but it seems directionally sensible.

Note that the research was conducted against minisite viral concepts, rather than viral videos. But based upon a cursory analysis of the videos available today, the conceptual factors appear to be sound.

Based upon this method, and a subsequent content analysis of both popular and unpopular concepts, the following are some of the general guidelines that make one idea more viral than another:


TARGET FACTORS

There is a distinct profile for a person that is more likely to viral. The best piece of research I have found on the topic comes from Kontraband, a UK marketing agency. Their 2006 study pointed that viral consumers are somewhat more likely to be male and under 50 (especially under 30.) Interestingly, however, the study also showed that what they call “superspreaders” are more likely to be female.

We can also surmise that targets that spend more time online also have greater viral potential. Additionally, because virality relies on the strength of personal networks in order to gain the broadest possible distribution, groups with larger personal networks (on average) are going to be more likely to spread a message.

Each year, however, the breadth of the viraling public appears to broaden. So none of this is to say that a viral effort targeted to women 60+ won’t work, just that it is less likely to than a program aimed at teens, for example.
Intuitively, the extent to which your target has free time can also be an important factor. Teens, for example, appear to have a much higher propensity to viral than, say, new Moms.


CONCEPTUAL FACTORS

1. Humor: Most brand viral concepts that get a great deal of distribution are funny. From BK’s “Subservient Chicken” to Sega’s “My Big Ball” to Mini’s “Ave a Word”, humor generally drives some of the highest viral rates.

2. Sexuality: While clearly not appropriate for a lot of brands, particularly in the US where standards of propriety tend to be rather high, sexuality can be a key driver of distribution. Brands like Axe, Maxim, Budweiser, a host of video game titles, and many others have effectively leveraged sexuality for a male target. There are also, incidentally examples of leveraging sexuality for a female target. Brawny Towels “Brawny Man; and I Can’t believe It’s Not Butter’s Fabio themed efforts are just two examples. Overseas, using sexuality for getting women to respond to viral messaging is more common. .In the US, sexuality generally works better with a male audience.

3. Interactivity: Yes, there are examples of funny brand photos and videos driving a viral response. But GENERALLY, viral concepts that allow consumers to participate and somehow interact with the content viral better. In particular, concepts that enable a customized experience based upon user inputs tend to viral better.

4. Live Action: Generally, live action concepts do better than animated ones.

5. Sight, Sound, and Motion: Usually, video or other concepts that offer a multimedia component viral better than text or still photo based ideas.

6. Originality: Copycat concepts tend not to viral well. For example, when McDonald’s followed BK’s Subservient Chicken with Lincoln Fry, a parody site that showcased people who found a French fry that looked like Abraham Lincoln, the concept bombed. Viral seems to require an element of surprise and novelty that copycat concepts simply cannot deliver.



FUNCTIONAL FACTORS

1. Flawless Technical Execution: Concepts that take a long time to load or only work on certain browsers suffer in distribution.

2. Multiple Email Distribution: Many great concepts suffer because they only allow a consumer to email the application or video or web link to one person at a time. Remember, the easier you make it for the consumer to distribute your idea, the more likely it will be to occur.

So for example, let’s say you offer a viral ecard or MadLibs style application. If you develop an interface that only allows someone to send it to a single person at a time, chances are it will only be sent to one person. Consumers are not going to make a major effort to restart the application to distribute your idea broadly.

If, however, you allow consumers to input ten email addresses, or indeed unlimited email addresses, far more consumers will end up receiving the message.

Think about it in terms of the 80/20 rule – that 80% of your distribution is delivered by just 200% or recipients. You want to make sure that the super spreaders – the people that will as a matter of course send a great idea to 20 or 50 or 763 people at once are given the opportunity to do so.

3: Single Session Concepts: To be successful, a viral concept has to provide a positive experience within a single session. The more complicated viral becomes, the less likely people are to have the full experience and care enough to forward it. That is not to say that an experience that is serialized cannot work – it’s just that each episode of the series should offer a complete and satisfying experience.

4. Couple of Minutes – Or Less: A number of attempts have been made to create profoundly deep viral experiences – web pages of dozens of pages, long form video, etc. In general, these appear to be less effective than short, telegraphic experiences. There are exceptions, however.


MESSAGES/BRANDEDNESS FACTORS

Perhaps the biggest challenge of making viral content for a brand is the conundrum of balancing brand messages with the entertainment value that is necessary to drive free distribution. Many brands have erroneously believed that they could drive viral distribution by adding send to a friend functionality to basic brand messages.

Trouble is, unless the ad is entertaining and emotive, the likelihood of virality is low. Consider the following two ads – both highly effective at moving sales, but having very different viral potentials. Budweiser has assumed the mantle of King of Beers in part because they have so strongly connected the brand to universals like love of country and appreciation of a soldier’s sacrifices. Olive Garden has managed quarter over quarter growth for more than two decades partly because their advertising delivers a product and ambiance story that makes the brand unique and distinctive for the target. Few would doubt the virality of the first ad – indeed it is proven with millions of views on YouTube. Similarly, few would expect virality from the Olive Garden ad. It is persuasive, but not something friends would appreciate receiving in their inboxes.

Budweiser: Soldiers



Olive Garden: Chicken Specials



There’s no mathematical model that will predict the viral potential of your brand advertising. Your best bet is to assume your standard ads are NOT viral. Most aren’t. Some brands have developed campaigns that truly captivate viewers -- such programs may have executions that could prove viral. But if your ad takes a traditional approach, and particularly if it is an ad intended for the US market where product info is traditionally given quite directly, you will likely find that it does not viral well.

But that doesn’t mean that a message from your brand cannot viral. There is probably a viral idea out there that you can associate with your brand. The question for the marketer in such a case is whether the extent to which that idea is thematically tied to the brand message is acceptable to them.

The Dove brand offers a case in point Dove has had enormous success in the viral area with videos that point out the absurdity of the beauty industry. It’s all part of their “campaign for real beauty.” People are very willing to viral messages like these:







But you’ll note there is very little hard product info in these. If that is something you can live with, viral may work for you.


VIRAL EXAMPLES

I recently posted an extensive list of viral examples that you can find here.

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Cressbeckler: McCain Spoiler?

Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

Viral FaceBook Without the Electrons

$99 LapTop On The Way! Here Comes Hi Vision Mini Note

Saw this little gem on Valleywag. Can you imagine a PC for less than an iPOD?

Ship date: October. See a video on it here:



It's Linux, o'course.

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Hulu Bigger Than YouTube?

Have you seen Live Rail's State of the [Online Video] Industry report? A piece in ReadWriteWeb alerted me to it, and the findings are pretty fascinating. You can download the whole report here.

But here are some of the highlights (text from the report):

Online Video Advertising Spend To Grow >55% Next Year
- US Online video advertising spending expected to hit $962m in 2009
- Confusing array of technology and ad-unit standards constraining current
growth rates
- Video ad spending still represents just 2.36% of all online advertising
- Average In-Stream CPMs reach $15.8
- In-Stream (pre/mid/post roll) still representing 88% of all video ads
- 20.95% of internet video streams being monetized
- Video Publishers generating an effective monetization rate of $4.05 per
thousand streams

And check out dis little tidbit:

THE RISE AND RISE OF HULU

Despite still being substantially smaller than YouTube, with 88 million videos served
compared to YouTube’s 4.2 billion, analysts are now beginning to suggest that Hulu
will be the more successful business, thanks to its ability to sell advertising across 100% of its inventory, compared to just 3% for YouTube.

This is thanks to its policy of only serving high-quality original content, and securing licensing deals from content owners, rather than allowing users to upload the content themselves. This has removed the risk of copyright infringing content, or content of questionable quality; risk factors that most advertisers are anxious to avoid being associated with.

According to one estimate, Hulu could enjoy $90 million in revenue in its first year.
YouTube’s estimated worldwide revenue total for 2008 is $200 million this year, but is estimated to be approximately half that domestically. Given that Hulu caters almost exclusively to a US audience, both YouTube and Hulu could see roughly the same
revenues in the U.S. this year.

Quality matters.

Lots more juicy bots of real orange in this report. Go get it people!

NDS: Consumer Attitudes Toward DVRs

A new report by NDS shows that 81% of Americans that have a DVR say they could not live without it. I think that puts it somewhere between oxygen and water.

Here are the figures for the US and other countries:



The figures are higher in the US of course because we have TiVos.

According to the study, which surveyed 1000 persons in each country, the devices also improve our relationships!



Thanks TiVo Man!

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Price of 6,000,000 German Identities? 850 Euros

Ars Technica reported last week that a whistleblower turned over to the Interior Ministry the identities of 17,000 Germans that his employer had obtained. The Interior Ministry took him seriously and opened an investigation that resulted in their obtaining 6 million German identities for the equivalent of $1,220.

Cheap as chips, people, and alarming to the government -- so much so that Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble has vowed to introduce an opt in law that forbids companies from selling data unless they have the consumer's permission.

Here's an excerpt from ARS Technica:

Schäuble blasted those who profit from mining customer data, and vowed to introduce "opt-in" legislation that would only allow companies to share the information of consumers who had specifically agreed to it. Current German law offers an opt-out solution, where companies may not share the data of those consumers who specifically object to it. Schäuble also mentioned the possibility of requiring German telephone sales callers to disclose exactly how and where they obtained a given person's number.

Now, the EU is always tougher about these things than the US, but it is yet another instance of increasing consumer concern about the whole opt out system that allows firms to sell your info unless you specifically tell them not to.

I tell you, I never thought the world would move to opt in, but lately I am thinking there is a chance. Well, I think the chances are reasonable in the EU and low in the US, but every day that passes makes me reassess those chances upward.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Timelope: Make Your Browsing History Public!?!???

And here I was thinking the only business opportunity in the browsing history of consumers was in erasing your tracks! Timelope, a new social media Firefox plugin is built on the opposite idea: that people would want to share and store their browsing histories!

Huhnh?

What this is about is the idea that rather than having to choose to share the pages you visit one by one, your entire stream can be shared, and you can share your history with others that you like, respect, or find share your interests.

Here's how they describe it:

Want to store and sort your browser history (privately or publicly)? Want to follow others or have others follow you as you browse? Interested in endless links that are instantly linked together by keywords? If you said no to all of these questions, we didn't want you anyway, otherwise, sign on up and feed the Timelope. And no, Timelope may be both social and a network, but we are not a social network.

Timelope is feature rich, with the best and most glutinous features you've come to expect from web 2.0. We've got pretty colors, unnecessary AJAX requests, a bevy of poorly supported standards, and most of all we bring it all together to give you a user experience that you will not forget within 20 minutes, guaranteed. All sarcasm aside, it's fun and addictive, like cocaine but slightly less debilitating. In fact, Timelope can even bolster your productivity, maybe. Actually, no... it definitely won't help your productivity. If you care about productivity, visit our friends over at rescue time.



It's a novel concept -- one that seems like it could be very appealing to very passionate people, by which i do not necessarily mean XTUBE users.

I took about 10 minutes trying to figure out what to say next on this one. The reason is that I was trying to approach this offering in a totally rational way. If you looked at my browsing habits you'd be calling Bellevue to commit me for schizophrenia. In a given day I review hundreds of pages on at least two dozen topics, but I am not a very interesting person in real life. So why you would care to see this is out of my pay grade.

But then I started thinking a little less logically and began to see that this could be kind of fun, as well as useful in some cases. I'd equate the business value of this to that of Twitter -- which to me is more interesting than actually useful, though doubtless there are thousands of Twits who would disagree on this.

Oh, and BTW you don't have to make your entire history public, and there are some security safeguards built into it.

It's in alpha, as they clearly note on the site, so it's not all perfect yet. But it is pretty...I was going to say thought-provoking, though perhaps the right term is feeling-provoking, so you should definey check dis awt.

Fierce logo, guys! A reflecto antelope!

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Comcast: Sue-----ey!

Well, the widely expected lawsuit has come. Comcast is suing the FCC over their decision to cite and sanction them over secret slowing of P2P traffic. Yes, folks, the legal battle over net neutrality is a-coming.As I understand it, Comcast is disputing the government's right to regulate it. Interesting.

One could view this as the battle between the big C and the FCC, but another way of viewing it as the battle between the big C and anyone that cares about the whole defining spirit of the Internet. Or maybe I am a little biased here. You make the call.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Internet Bandwidth: The Web is Falling! The Web is Falling!

All year long the ISPs have been saying that we're running out of bandwidth, and that this is a rationale for putting caps on individual accounts. Well, Primetrica says different.

In facts, World Internet bandwidth grew faster than usage last year. Here's what Wired said on the topic:

In fact, over the last 12 months, international net bandwidth in backbone grew 62 percent, while Internet traffic grew only 53 percent and filled only 43 percent of the tubes' capacity at peak times, according to a new report released by bandwidth-monitoring firm TeleGeography.

ISP spokesperson Henny Penny could not be reached for comment.

Here's a chart from the Telegeography Exec Summ:


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Dominos Pizza Tracker: Technology Reaches Its Zenith (In Theory...)

So I had a couple of friends over last week, and we decided to order a pizza from Domino's. Since I always rep for the medium, I ordered it online, and at the conclusion of my order I was confronted with the Domino's Pizza Tracker. The DPT as I will call it for the rest of this post is everything one can reasonably expect from a 2.0 thing that is a pizza delivery monitoring application:

Free
Realtime
Providing Info You Never Knew You Wanted But Now Find Essential
Colorful
Reflecto-ey

Hey, I liked it, so don't think I am (entirely) making fun of both this and the medium. But there MUST be a limit to the amount of real time transparent information consumers find interesting and compelling.

POST SCRIPT: According to DPT, I got my pizza in precisely 30 minutes. When in reality it took 54. So it's 100% fake. And yes I am a big gig for knowing it took 54.

Here Comes Everybody: Great Perspective on This Whole 'Wisdom of Crowds' Business

As a rule I don't read books about business, especially digital business. Not that I have nothing to learn, it's jsut that so many of such books have dead nuthin to say that cannot be deduced by reading the bookflap and table of contents. But occasionally a book comes out that totally captures my imagination and attention, and "Here Comes Everybody" is just such a book.

Written by Clay Shirky, he of the faculty of the Interactive Communications Program at NYU, this title really goes well beyond "business" to discuss how participatory media are changing our world, and indeed improving it.

Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it:

From Publishers Weekly
Blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 accoutrements are revolutionizing the social order, a development that's cause for more excitement than alarm, argues interactive telecommunications professor Shirky. He contextualizes the digital networking age with philosophical, sociological, economic and statistical theories and points to its major successes and failures. Grassroots activism stands among the winners—Belarus's flash mobs, for example, blog their way to unprecedented antiauthoritarian demonstrations. Likewise, user/contributor-managed Wikipedia raises the bar for production efficiency by throwing traditional corporate hierarchy out the window. Print journalism falters as publishing methods are transformed through the Web. Shirky is at his best deconstructing Web failures like Wikitorial, the Los Angeles Times's attempt to facilitate group op-ed writing. Readers will appreciate the Gladwellesque lucidity of his assessments on what makes or breaks group efforts online: Every story in this book relies on the successful fusion of a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain with the users. The sum of Shirky's incisive exploration, like the Web itself, is greater than its parts.

My favorite aspect of the book is how Shirky inserts truths about the human experience almost constantly -- the sort of comments that make me stop and think about the nature of social life, communications, and cultural participation and indeed help me make sense of the more baffling aspects of digital.

Shirky effectively uses storytelling to communicate the sometimes complex points he makes - and the device really makes processing and remembering the information and ideas much easier and long lasting.

Equipped with the insights in this book, you will be able to think more broadly about developments in the space, and how they relate to one another and the larger public.

I recommend the book highly. Get it here at Amazon.com.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Esquire E-INK Cover. WOW!

I Stand Corrected

On Saturday I published a post complaining that the Dems don't make good Presidential ads. And today they released this...



I stand corrected and apologize to the Obama/Biden campaign. So keep it up.

Will Colleges Stop Helping the RIAA Prosecute Music Pirates?

Read Write Web is reporting that some colleges have decided not to continue helping the RIAA track down music pirates that steal on their networks.

Hey, piracy is wrong, and the RIAA has the write to fight it however they can. But the cost of monitoring networks has apparently become enormous for schools, so it is a natural reaction that some will object to the staff and expense required to do so. Piracy prevention is after all not a primary role of a college.

It should be an interesting turn of events. And it brings to the fore the issue of how much responsibility a connection provider has in monitoring and policing the activities of people on its network.

This is a really tough issue -- I suppose if gun manufacturers can be sued when people get shot, then networks can be sued when music is stolen. But what an incredibly complex set of legal issues this must bring up. And what about suing the car manufacturer if a bank thief uses it to get away from the crime scene.

Clearly I am not a lawyer, eeh?

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

The Sunset of US Internet Leadership?

Mashable has an excellent post on how the US may be losing leadership in the digital space. They point to the following developments as signs of bad times ahead:

1. Comcast and others are imposing bandwidth limits on home Internet accounts. This is ultimately a move to increase revenue without improving infrastructure.
2. Canadian universities are dropping their use of US Internet infrastructure because of the high levels of monitoring and surveillance allowed by the so called Patriot Act.
3. Foreign companies and governments are building alternate routing systems so that they can avoid being dependent upon the US and indeed exposing their traffic to US surveillance. And who can blame them?

The Mashable post says we are becoming a backwater. Seems a bit excessive a categorization to me, but it points to how everything is connected. That all decisions have consequences that can be foreseen and not foreseen.

The bandwidth charging stuff is perhaps the only controllable part of the soup, and it seems highly unlikely to change given the ISP's desire for more revenue without major infrastructure investment. And to be fair, they have NOT been able to capitalize on the explosion of web revenue from advertising. Which is what NebuAd was (is?) ultimately about.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Viral: Michael Phelps Flips the Bird?

Swingline Wants to Know: What Kind of Stapler Are YOU?

Swingline, that venerable stapler brand that makes the finest products available in that category, has decided to go participatory in its latest online marketing program.

You know the world has changed when a stapler company is trying to connect with its consumers through digital. Digital and the paperless world being...the antistapler if you will.

But no matter. While visiting HuffPost I saw a banner from Swingline offering me the chance to win a classic red stapler by taking a quiz that determines "What Kind of Stapler Am I?"

I clicked the banner with some trepidation. This sort of stuff can most certainly be overdone. I was expecting to answer 15 questions and then to be told that I am the Swingline XB 8000, the renegade LED electronic stapler for people who don't staple in the lines. Or the Swingline 1, the stapler for people who value classics in everything they do. Or something.

Actually it was nothing like that. They were referring to stapler as a verb, and gave me four choices as to which type of stapler (again, verb) I am. The choices are:

Slammer: Leave Stapler on Table, insert paper, bang with fist
Slider: Inserter of paper into an electric stapler
Gripper: Pick up stapler, insert paper, squeeze.
Compressor: Two handed press on a stapler sitting on a desk.



BTW, I am a gripper.

The whole thing is a clear play on the surreal popularity of the movie Office Space, which continues to hold a cult following for scenes such as this:



(Yes, that is me in a walker cameo in the first scene.)

And why not? I like the effort. I mean, I visited a stapler web site. That's pretty darned impressive. There's a contest overlay -- to win a red stapler, naturally. I'm not saying it's Subservient Chicken, but it made me smile. And that is all I want or expect from an online marketing program for a stapler. I don't want to join STAPL-R.com (imagine the royal blue reflecto logo,) the community for paper attachment enthusiasts. Thanks Acco for recognizing that. A smile is enough. And it did remind me...I need a stapler for home.

Off to Staples I suppose.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to write.

What Off Earth is Spore?

What off Earth is Spore? There are a lot of people asking this question, especially given the unusual Outdoor campaign they are running in certain areas. Which is indeed how I learned of the game.

EA's Spore is a massive multiplayer online game that in some ways defies categorization. In my virtual travels to research the game I have heard it called a Sim, a God Game, a Strategy Game, and a Resource Management game. And my understanding is that it is all of those things.



Interestingly, EA seems to be encouraging this sort of categorization confusion. There's very little text on their site that goes to the crux of what it is. Rather, there are multiple avenues to follow to experience aspects of the game.There is a bit of description on the site, and it goes like this:

CREATE Your Universe from Microscopic to Macrocosmic - From tide pool amoebas to thriving civilizations to intergalactic starships, everything is in your hands.
EVOLVE Your Creature through Five Phases - It's survival of the funnest as your choices reverberate through generations and ultimately decide the fate of your civilization.
EXPLORE Other Players' Galaxies - Will your creature rule the universe, or will your beloved planet be blasted to smithereens by a superior alien race?
SHARE with the World - Everything you make is shared with other players and vice versa, providing tons of cool creatures to meet and cool places to visit.





EA has been the most successful gaming company at broadening the appeal of shrinkwrapped software from the core action and sports gamer population to the broader general audience. The Sims is the big Mama of that crossover market, with its many permutations and styles of gameplay available.

Clearly, Spore is borrowing a great deal from the success of the Sims, but there appears to be a serious focus on providing more story and additional things to do.

This has been an area of criticism for some of the more recent Sims products, most notably the latest Sim City product, which added incredible realism to the process of building a community, but sorta forgot to bring the fun.

Spore doesn't appear to have that problem at all. Fist, you get to create really amazing creatures -- and there are a variety of ways to show off your creations and win prizes for your trouble. Second, they appear to be trying to bridge the gap between single player and massive multiplayer through an approach that lets you share your creatures and creations with the world.

The system clearly unleashes the creative spirit. Head on over to their site to see some of the ecosystems and characters people have created. It's absolutely remarkable.

Another key aspect of this title is the aggressive cultivation of online community -- EA recently had a fan site day to bring evangelists and potential evangelists in to meet the designers and get an early play. The level of buzz for this title is really rather impressive.



Check it out. It's definitely out of this world. I will be interested to see how broad the appeal of this title will be. Such fanciful characters have traditionally occupied a specific segment of the category -- and not a terribly broad one. Such games tend to be VERY male, whereas Sims was majority female.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Boomers AntiSocial? Third Age/JWT Boom Study Says Yes

A study released about a month ago by Third Age and JWT Boom shows that Boomers have been fairly reluctant to embrace digital media like social networks and blogging. How reluctant? Well, the data show that while boomers heavily use ofther media, they are significantly underdeveloped in these social platforms.

Web Based Activity % Using
Health/Wellness Info 97%
Email 96%
Product Research 88%
Shop Online 78%
Visit Soc Nets 22%

The study also showed that most Boomers have little or no interest in blogging. But the exception proves the rule, I say as I adjust the tennis balls on my walker.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

BAIN/IAB Digital Pricing Research - Sobering Facts For Online Publishers

Last month the IAB published a study it conducted with Bain Consulting on the pricing differentials between inventory purchased from publishers directly and inventory purchased on those sites through networks.

The figures show what most of us knew all along -- that the price paid for ads on publishers are much higher if you buy direct than if you buy via a network.

But the figures are pretty amazing. Check out these couple of slides:





The key figure if you wanna focus on one is that while publisher direct CPMs were in the $12-$18 range, the price realized by the publisher for network inventory ranges from 60 cents to $1.10, or only 6-11% of the direct CPM.

For many publishers, the amount of revenue being sold via networks has climbed dramatically as they are pressured to generate more revenue per page. But this vast differential points to a number of challenges for publishers -- how long will advertisers pay such an enormous premium for inventory as networks become more and more conscious of the need to ensure quality?

Now, of course there are a lot of reasons to buy direct -- for one you can develop a presence on pubs that truly offer the best audiences and credibility. There is a difference between buying Forbes.com and buying a business channel that might conceivably include...this blog, were I offering advertising on my pages.

How do publishers respond to this differential? Well, I think there are a number of ways:

1. Ensure pub direct inventory is better -- better locations, above the fold, maybe technologically better.

2. Ensure that they can sell a reasonable amount of any incremental inventory before they create it. Adding a new banner position to a page is only so valuable if it will end up being 99% sold by networks.

3. Work with networks to help them increase the value they are getting and sharing for your pages.

4. Work with networks that will get you more revenue per placement. There really are differences and networks that offer higher quality standards, for example, are more likely to genrate more revenue.

5. Explore vertical networks as a means of driving higher CPMs. Many times verticals can get more for topical inventory.

One organization that I think can offer great lessons to publishers is the AMA. Doctors are in limited supply and thus their fees can be higher. In a sense, demand exceeds supply. Compare that to teachers, especially in state with low certification requirements, where hurdles for accreditation are low and thus wages are lower.

The IAB has a set of their own recommendations that you should check out. But this is a really groundbreaking set of info -- a wake up call for our industry that you should peruse.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Time, McCain, and the Offline American

In the 8/25 issue of Time, there is an opinion piece that asks the question whether McCain's being essentially web illiterate should affect your decision on whether to vote for him.

Hey, I am all in for Obama. $4,600. Maxed out. So don't expect objectivity here. I am not capable of it. But actually that is not what this post is about.

What I really want to talk about is how the Internet has upended so much of what we once accepted as fact, and how that makes all of us dated with regard to our understanding of what makes business, government, the arts, and everything else operate today.

Every day we see companies grappling with the changed reality of info distribution --companies, campaigns, and old media erroneously strategizing to control their messages when the reality is that control is no longer an option. It's influence that we can hope to exercise.

How can a company address a potential PR issue if they don't understand how info gets dispersed today?

How can a government fight multinational extremist groups if they don't understand how the web works.

In each of these cases, it is certainly possible to understand how the Internet works without sending 300 Twitters a day. But it is difficult. Me, I have struggled with my own biases and beliefs about media since I made the switch to digital. I still detest the idea of consumer control. Detest it. And frankly I think it is false to believe that consumers are in control. If we pay for the web, we control it. But there are many people who tell me I am dead wrong.

And John McCain is certainly far more impressive than I am. So he may have an incredible instinctive understanding of new media. I just wonder. I am 44 and the desire to Twitter continues to baffle me. Imagine what its like if you were born in 1936!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Special K Finds Online Marketing...Special

Ad Age reported that Kellogg brands will be shifting increasing dollars into online as a result of a market test in which Special K saw better business results from digital than traditional media.

Now, it won't comes as a shocker to digiphiles that online works better, but there are definitely still some holdouts who are committed to spending on TV.

Here's an excerpt from Ad Age's story:

While he did not address specifics of the Special K work, the company has repeatedly touted the success of its "Special K challenge," which calls for two bowls of the cereal every day for two weeks. Dieters replace a more traditional lunch or dinner with cereal, and are told they can expect to drop a full clothing size after two weeks. CEO David Mackay has said the initiative has not only resonated with consumers, but also boosted cereal consumption outside of breakfast. A Special K website offers customized plans for consumers, sign-ups for a Yahoo e-mail group, tips from a trainer and nutritionist and a point-of-purchase link to Amazon.com. The company has added a number of products to the Special K platform in recent years, including cereal bars, flavored waters and waffles.

Good news for us 1s and 0s people!

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JP Morgan Internet Forecast ---> Down a Bit

So, no surprise, Wall Street is lowering its 2008 forecast for Internet growth a significant amount. Specifically in this case, JP Morgan:

Specifically:

Graphical: 20% to 14%
Search: 32% to 27%

So, not cause for a party, though I point out that in most industries these kinds of growth rates would make people dance with glee.

Still, it does show signs of some maturation in our business. Read more details in MediaPost.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

New Book: Brand Digital

Allen Adamson, who you probably know as MD of Landor Associates, has just released his book entitled Brand Digital: Simple Ways Top Brands Succeed in The Digital World. I should point out that I got interviewed for the book, which makes me not entirely unbiased, but I recommend it as a read because it underscores some of the most essential truths of the digital space -- and that the principles of brand success are simply interpretations of the branding rules and best practices that have always propelled consumer facing businesses.

The perspective of the book is that of someone who comes from a long track record in branding who is now finding himself challenged by the new realities of digital media. What I appreciated about Adamson's perspective is that it dissects the issues and challenges and presents them as opportunities -- which is the sort of attitude and approach that any marketer worth her salt needs to take re the space.

And make no mistake, this is a book about BRANDING, not about what sometimes passes for branding online. As such it is a refreshing read that I think is worth your time and attention.

Pick up this baby at amazon.com.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

ALOFT: Real, and Expanding

You may remember that right about when Second Life was getting going, Starwood developed a virtual hotel concept and placed it in the virtual world for market research. I frankly thought it was a publicity stunt and the hotels would never be.

Well, I was most assuredly wrong. ALOFTs are up and operating -- 17 according to the web site.

So what is the actual ALOFT concept? Well, it appears to be a hip answer to the segment of the market DOWN from W Hotels, which is the parent brand. These properties appear to be aimed at the Courtyard by Marriott market.

I checked out pricing and avails in Bentonville Arkansas (home of Walmart) and found Aloft running at $99 and Courtyard at $129. I would expect that the ALOFT price will go up a dash over time, but clearly Starwood is not expecting the Courtyard crowd to drop more for it's hipper rooms and open spaces. Which is smart because nice space don't impress T&E accountants as worth an upcharge.

Here's how Starwood describes those spaces:

Meet & mingle with friends at our w xyz bar; grab a sweet, savory or healthy snack from re:fuel by aloft, our 24/7 pantry, or play in our re:mix lobby. Plus, you can always stay connected with complimentary hotel-wide wireless Internet access!

Breeze into one of our aloft rooms, featuring our ultra-comfortable signature bed, an oversized spa shower, custom amenities by Bliss® Spa, and more. Our plug & play connectivity station charges all your electronics and links to the 42” LCD TV to maximize work and play.

Part of the ALOFT concept is, like it says on the tin, loft like rooms. 9 foot ceilings are apparently the order of the day. I would expect that they would be deploying teams in hipster outfits as in Ws as well.

I've never been to one, but I wanna -- and that's saying something for the roadside business hotel category. The W really is a very different hotel experience than a major downtown Marriott -- or Sheraton for that matter. I wanna see if they can achieve the same different with ALOFT.

Oh, and if you are curious the virtual ALOFT website is still up and running here.