(* Source: Jay Meattle  *)

The market currently relies heavily on visitors and page views to measure performance, but we know these metrics can be gamed.

Time, on the other hand, is finite and selfishly managed by the user making it harder to game. Therefore if a site can garner more of an individual’s time it should be considered a good thing, right?

With that said, we know there are exceptions (Search for example), which is why we haven’t presented Attention as the king of all metrics. We see Attention as an additional piece of the puzzle.

For example:

• MySpace attracted 16% of all pageviews on the internet (U.S.) in December
• However, U.S. users only spent 11.9% of their time on MySpace
• MySpace provides a service valued by consumers (11.9% Attention Share), but the site is terribly designed and thus inflates misleading engagement metrics like pageviews

The following are the top 20 domains that captured our Attention in January 2007:

Key observations:

• As expected, shopping/commerce sites captured less Attention in January:
  • Craigslist was the only shopping/classifieds site in the top-20 to gain Attention Share
  • Amazon.com fell 4 positions - its Attention Share decreased from 0.67% to 0.46%
  • Walmart.com dropped off the Top-20 list
  • Ebay.com’s Attention Share decreased as well, but not as much as the other shopping sites on the list. Perhaps people were looking to unload some of the stuff they accumulated over the holiday season. This theory could also explain Craigslist’s gain.
• Bankofamerica.com fell. People checking (and re-checking) their bank balance as they spent their hard earned cash in December?
• Adultfriendfinder.com gained - New Year’s Resolutions related? We know post-Christmas time is a seasonally strong time for online personals.
• Who is new on this list? (compared to Dec ‘06):
  • Runescape.com - #21 in Dec
  • Comcast.net - #22 in Dec
• Who is absent? (compared to Dec ‘06):
  • Neopets.com - #18 in Dec / #22 in Jan
  • Walmart.com - #16 in Dec / #28 in Jan

Posted by brian tiong at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Steve Rubel *) 

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(* Source: Steve Rubel *) 

I was lucky enough to get in on the Gmail beta when it launched and I haven't looked back since. Even though I've had an account  for almost three years and I get over 100 emails a day, I have chewed up only 18% of the generous 2.8 gigabytes of storage.

However, in recent weeks I have started using Gmail as much more than an email host. With its gobs of storage, speed and tremendous search/tagging capabilities, you can transform it into a personal nerve center that's available from any computer or mobile device. When you tap into this power and combine Gmail with some other tools, it is perhaps the most essential site ever developed. Most of the following life hacks have not been documented.

This series has several parts...

• How to turn Gmail into a massive personal database (Gmail + the Google Toolbar)
• How to get real-time news updates in Gmail (Gmail+ Google Talk + Twitter)
• How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail (Gmail + del.icio.us + Yahoo Alerts)
• How to manage Calendar and To-Dos in Gmail (Gmail + Backpack + GCal +  GTalk + iMified)
• How to blog from Gmail (Gmail + Wordpress/TypePad/Blogger + IMified)

Using Gmail as a Massive Database

I revel in information. Can't get enough of it. I like that I get a lot of email. I scan 275 RSS feeds in Google Reader and I use dozens of bookmarklets and shortcuts to help me manage it all.

Everyday I come across something on the web that I want to save for future reference. While previously I was using Yojimbo to manage all of this information, I found the solution wanting since I travel a lot and need to access my bits from a mobile device. Google Notebook also doesn't work on a mobile device and its search functions are rather lacking. Enter Gmail and the Google Toolbar.

The latest version of the Google Toolbar has a send to Gmail function. Select some text or graphics, right click on it and send it to Gmail.  The Toolbar then automatically feeds it into a new message.

Now, when I find something I want to save I use this feature and send it to a secret  contact in my address book. This is basically a steverubel+[secretphrase]@gmail.com email address (Lifehacker explains the value of these here).

Once the article arrives in my Gmail inbox, I have a filter whisk it a way into the archive and tag it with an @Database label. Further, I am toying with having the same filter also forward these to a premium  Google Apps account that has 10 gigs of space. Now all I need to do to call it up later is enter label:@Database and a keyword. Whammo - an instant personal database.

Here's a screenshot of a photo of Steve Ballmer's office that I felt like filing away for inspiration (I was amazed by its size). Note that the Google Toolbar automatically inserts the source URL. I also use this method to store notes, ideas and musings.

How to get real-time news updates in Gmail

I usually keep Gmail open in a tab in my browser. I also make heavy use of the integrated Google Talk IM client in Gmail. Further, I have become a fan of Twitter - a micro blogging tool which you can control using Google Talk and other IM clients.

Some enterprising folks have taken data feeds from the BBC and CNN and ported them to Twitter. So, as long as you have Gmail open, Twitter will IM you the latest news when it hits.

As I write this post, Defamer is providing live updates from the Academy Awards and these are streaming into Gmail as IMs. (Be sure to turn off SMS alerts if you use these feeds since they will pile up.)

How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail

It's easy to bookmark items in Gmail. However, did you know that you can bookmark on del.icio.us and automatically feed these into your Gmail database? In addition, if you're a Google Reader's shared items (yes, you Scoble!) you can feed these into Gmail automatically too. Then your bookmarks are easily mined from your nerve center.

All you need to do is run your del.icio.us or Google Reader shared feed through Yahoo Alerts.  You can opt for as-they-happen or daily emails Then, set up a filter to label these and have them automatically archived. This works for any RSS feed, not just bookmarks.

How to Manage Your Calendar and To-Dos in Gmail

Gmail does not have a to-do list feature - yet. Further, the Google Calendar isn't integrated either. However, if you use GCal and either Backpack or Remember the Milk, you can control these with the integrated Google Talk in Gmail and IMified.

All you need to do is add IMified to your Google Talk contact list and you can not only view your calendar and to-do's but add to them and delete items as well.

How to blog from Gmail

Last but not least, you can also blog directly from Gmail. This works if you blog on Blogger, Wordpress, Moveable Type or TypePad. Simply set up your moblogging settings so that your gmail address is recognized. In addition, you can also blog from Gmail using IMified.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do when you "hack" together a bunch of free tools. Eventually I could run out of space but I suspect Google will offer storage upgrades by the time I come close. What's unmistakable, is that Gmail is really the Internet's version of the Ginsu knife.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We don’t normally follow developments in the P2P space, but this is pretty interesting: BitTorrent is launching a video store on Monday. The BitTorrent Entertainment Network will distribute more than 5,000 titles including digital movies, TV shows and games, the company says.

BitTorrent has 45 employees and claims 135 million users - a massive number that makes it a serious rival to the new Joost P2P service, and even web-based video sharing services like YouTube, should they ever get involved with downloads (Google Video already does sell downloads). The question, of course, is whether the BitTorrent user base is inclined to actually pay for anything.

The BitTorrent Entertainment Network will offer movie rentals at $2.99 to $3.99, and “download to own” TV shows and music videos for $1.99. The content will come from Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate, Palm Pictures and MGM - an impressive lineup for a company that seemed more likely to be shut down by the studios than welcomed by them. There’s a catch, of course: all the media is DRM’d to keep the content providers happy. What’s more, it’s Windows DRM - Mac and Linux users won’t be able to use the store at all. Luckily for them, BitTorrent itself offers most of that content for free, without any DRM at all.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Chroma *) 

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I love Twitter. The mini-blog within a blog allows me to keep feeding little blurbs of info, and provides an addictive level of intimacy with others (one friend's week-long work week was fun to keep up with, and I felt his pain at the train delays).

Over the last couple of days I've been thinking about what the balance is between providing enough frequently updated information and content, but not too much so as to become a burden on readers, fans (and I use that term loosely) or followers (ditto).  For instance, when running a weblog, one or two posts a day seems fairly reasonable. 15 or 20 is entirely different, requiring a much bigger level of commitment. It may just be asking for too much. Here at Chroma, I try to post roughly once a day, sometimes a bit more, and, like everyone, I often go a few days without posting at all.

Twitter changes this equation. It adds a parallel, but quicker, tempo to the info-pulse.  It demands so much less, both from the reader and the Twitterer. In some ways t is a natural fit for the way that I, at least, find myself scanning feeds, aggregators and other information: the headline is often as far as I get; I get the gist, then move on. If it sounds interesting, I'll dig deeper and read on, but for a lot of stuff, the headline is as far as it gets. 

Media and brands in general need to also get a handle on this, and figure out what the balance looks like for them. The constant one sentence feed on CNN is an obvious example, and the main trend with newspapers is to use their digital presence as the hub for all the continually updated pulses of information, while the print edition is where more long-form article will reside. But more is not always better. The Economist, The New Yorker and other publications have been maintained a less-is-more approach. It works for them, they avoid being diluted. (Last week the New York Times had a great article on how the NFL-and to a certain extent American Idol- have protected their brand by maintaining scarcity. By not overdoing it, the game, and show, remains  an event).

I know that all brands needs to figure out how much is too much as far as diluting goes. That's nothing new. But reading the excellent article ("Say Anything" by Emily Nussbaum in New York magazine) reminded me that for digital natives (under 30s in her view), how much to divulge is closely related to how often to reveal those intimate details. In Facebook, for instance, that private info-stream is fed via the popular News Feed.  The genius of Twitter is that it is the perfect widget for revealing the tiny bits of private information, which inevitably helps to slowly chip away at the public/private divide of our lives. In just a few short weeks, I realize that I know a lot more about folks on Twitter than my own family and friends.

As Nussbaum's article argues, living life in public online spaces has redefined privacy, memory, transparency and the very definition of identity.It may be the most significant generation gap since the birth of rock 'n roll. If brands are to be in sync with that mindset, how do they address expectations of being as open as the kids growing up this way?  Do they even need to do so? Will they have to rethink not only how much they open themselves up, but also how often, from a communications perspective. As media has been democratized, flattened and blurred, how will brands choose to modulate the tone, tenor and tempo of their voice, or voices? 

There's always talk of many little ideas being better than one big 30-second-mass-media idea, but who knows what the equation really is to look like as far as frequency and openess goes of these littel ideas? How much would be too much? Diluting the brand vs. protecting it, yapping along with the conversation vs. maintaining mystery: there probably aren't obvious answers here, only because we're not sure what this really means at the place where media/culture/brands meet. Clay Shirky, describing the generational shift (and "vast psychological experiment")that we are currently witnessing refers to the difference in pidgin versus Creole to explain what is going on.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Chroma *) 

I'm not a huge fan of Digg, but I do love the sexy new bigspy info-graphic.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Chroma *) 

More info-graph porn for the fetishists in the house:

Visuwords, the online graphical dictionary. Enjoy.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: B.L. Ochman *) 

B.L. Ochman said...Hey, it's Friday, and yes I did spend 20 minutes watching marshmallows, eggs, Christmas lights, and gummy bears cook in the microwave. And so will you.

I also tried feeding the hungry college student, who, a la Subservient Chicken, will eat anything you give him. (Almost.) All that and more on Kraft Easy Mac Cups (microwaveable, natch) new sure-to-go-viral site.

It's all strange enough to be compelling, and silly enough to make you want to tell someone about it. But will it sell macaroni and cheese? I feel more kindly toward Kraft in general, but have no desire to eat the Mac Cups - which I am sure are full of chemicals -- after visiting the site. Do you?

Posted by brian tiong at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Google built an empire delivering advertisements across the Internet, and now it plans to distribute content from media companies just as aggressively.

Google is working with Dow Jones & Company, Condé Nast, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other large content companies to syndicate their video content on other Web sites. The videos appear inside Google ad boxes on sites that are relevant to the content of the videos, and advertisements run during or after the content. Google shared the ad revenue with the video provider and with the sites that show the videos.

There are already video ad networks that make similar deals, and NBC Universal is attempting something similar. But the Google experiment could be more widespread since the company already has a vast reach on the Internet.

“Once upon a time, if you had some video content that you wanted to distribute, you could do it on three television stations in the days of the networks, then 100 in the days of cable,” said Kim Malone, director of online sales and operations for Google AdSense. “Now, thanks to this program, you can do it on literally millions of channels on the Internet.”

On the financial news site StreetInsider.com, for example, videos from The Wall Street Journal, a Dow Jones property, are running within ads on the site. In one, Emily Friedlander, a Wall Street Journal reporter, narrates a video feature on the TKTS booth in Times Square; Sam Schechner of The Journal speaks about marriage in TV shows; and Jonathan Welsh visits a motorcycle show.

After the three videos, a commercial from Pantene Pro-V, a hair conditioner, appears. In that case, Google shares the ad revenue with StreetInsider.com and Dow Jones.

The videos and the accompanying ads can also be found on articles on YoungMoney.com, AdVersus.com and SeatGuru.com, among other sites. A ski resort show created by LX.TV, a broadband network, is being shown with ads on skiing blogs.

The ads are part of Google’s larger initiative to gain traction with consumer goods companies who spend billions on brand advertising. Founded as a text-based search company, Google’s early advertisers were smaller companies and advertisers who bought ads to generate direct sales rather than to build brand recognition.

Large brand advertisers still spend the bulk of their money on television advertising, but Google sees potential for them to spend more online through the use of video ads.

But Google’s broad plan to bundle media content with ads depends on participation from media companies. On the one hand, Google’s network will bring more visibility of their content across the Internet, where attention is fragmented online between thousands of sites. On the other hand, media companies like to be a destination in their own right, so that they can sell ads on their sites.

“We want people to come directly to our site, but that’s part of why we’re doing this,” said Sarah Chubb, president of CondéNet, the digital arm of Condé Nast. “To see if we can find people that we haven’t found in other ways.”

Media companies also want to keep control over their relationships with advertisers. Google sells ads in its network for Condé Nast videos, but in a similar content-ad test with MTV Networks last fall, MTV sold the ads (sharing the revenue with Google).

More here. 

Posted by brian tiong at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Bob Tedeschi *)

No one would mistake the Ask a Jew guy for Lonelygirl15, but these days YouTube contributor Shmuel Tennenhaus is feeling like a hot commodity.

Paul Robinett shaving his head in the video “Look out London ... here I come.” As Renetto, he is remaining loyal to YouTube for now.

YouTube is by far the most popular video site on the Web, with about 26 million visitors in December, according to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet statistics firm. Yahoo Video had 22 million, while the closest independent site, Heavy.com, had about 6.5 million visitors.

But YouTube has been stung by the departure of its most popular acts. Last fall, Lonelygirl15, an online show about the exploits of a fictitious teenager, left YouTube for Revver, which pays producers half of all advertising revenue. The comedy duo Smosh, another of YouTube’s biggest stars, moved to LiveVideo.com, where its videos begin and end with that site’s branding messages.

More here.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *) 

VideoModelPics, which the founders tell us is a brand new social network for models (good looking people, not small stuff) is either a nice, simple social network or kinda crappy. Right now I’m siding with the latter, but I could be convinced otherwise.

So here’s the idea: models,actors, dancers, musicians, photographers, agents, directors and extras create profiles on the site, with the opportunity to get jobs and share media like videos, blog entries and pictures. The videos seem to come from YouTube. Forums and video chatrooms are also included, and there’s a points system where users are rewarded for using the site and can use these earnings to buy items. To make job applications super-easy, models can apply for any job posted on the site by sending a prewritten cover letter email that includes a link back to his/her profile page - in short, your profile acts like a resume (that’s been the case on LinkedIn for some time). Notice, too, the agency directory, which provides a list of various casting and modeling agencies.

VideoModelPics also includes two of our favorite things: profile customization using CSS and html (aka MySpace layouts) and, we’re told, support for external bling like RockYou and Slide.com slideshows, BunnyHero pets and more (I wasn’t able to test all these out, but we’re told they work).

The future success of a social network can generally be predicted by the number of hot people on the site: Flixster isn’t racking up the pageviews because of its insightful movie guides, for instance. In theory, then, a social network for models should do well, but there doesn’t seem to be enough visual stuff to keep passing visitors clicking through the pages. The interface also takes perseverance, and I don’t think users will persist.

See also Iqons, the social network for the fashion industry, and NextCat, a network for (out-of-work) actors.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Pete Cashmore *) 

Slide.com, purveyor of MySpace slideshows and other widgety bling, has just launched an inspired new concept: YouTube skins. Announced to users today, “SkinFlix” lets you enter the URL of any YouTube video and add frames to make it look like a Plasma TV, a theater, a vanity mirror, an old-fashioned TV and more. You can also add animations like disco lights, falling snow and floating hearts. Slide maintains the link back to YouTube (although it’ll be disabled by MySpace if you embed it there) and also adds some Slide.com images at the bottom linking back to the SkinFlix page.

Skinflix is part of a small but growing YouTube ecosystem we’ve been tracking: Vidavee Graffiti, OverStream and the various video annotation tools that allow you to import YouTube clips are all building on the video sharing site’s success. (Incidentally, I expected Jumpcut and Eyespot to support YouTube importing, but I just checked and I can’t see the option - anyone know why?) Slideroll, another provider of slideshows for MySpace, is also leveraging video: that service now lets you save your slideshow as a video and upload it to YouTube.

Slide is likely the best implementation of the YouTube add-on idea so far: it doesn’t concern itself with the complexity of timelines, and the themes are exactly what MySpace, hi5 and Piczo users are looking for - no doubt they’ve learned this after serving those markets for so long.

Related: MySpace slideshows, Top 10 Slide Show Sites, ImageLooop.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Piers Fawkes *) 

There's an interesting thought piece by Bjorn Jeffries in Sweden who reacts to local newspapers' moves to buy up web based communities. He argues that newspapers, having got stung by the loss of classified sales to and , are wrongly scrambling to buy the next big thing:

Youth communites differ from online classifieds in one crucial aspect - the classifieds took money from the newspapers. These communities don’t, and can’t. They are aimed for a demographic that the newspapers never really had anyway. So worrying about making a new Blocket-mistake isn’t really relevant.

Good Old Trend » Blog Archive » Communities are the new classifieds

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(* Source: David Feldt *)

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V-dubs rock

First Act

VW

Levis’s RedWire DLX iPod Jeans: Picture Source

Levis Store

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(* Source: Fred Guillet *) 

Despite marketers' desire to buy ads within online video, they are having a tough time expanding into the format, reports Advertising Age.

Interested buyers are reportedly saying limited inventory, specifically content created exclusively for the web, is one factor that's holding them back. Also, the audience for web video is, to date, too fragmented to meet the needs of buyers looking for significant reach. The lack of a single model for the buying and accounting of video ads is also cited as a contributing factor.

The dollars for online video buying are expected to come from television budgets, but until the online audience expands some marketers appear unwilling to make that shift. Estimates have buyers spending just 10 percent of their TV budget on streaming video by 2010, with most of that money going toward professional content from mainstream media.

Bolt Media CEO Aaron Cohen says if independent producers are going to tap into serious advertising dollars, there needs to be effective syndication of content that can bring audience reach to niche videos.

Even so, the lack of a universal rating and measurement models continues to be a stumbling block to advertisers who need to justify their expenditures.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *) 

GroupRecipes is a new social network for food lovers - its unique feature is a personified “recipe robot” that makes recommendations based on the recipes you view on the site. The rest of the network is as you’d expect: users write recipes, tag them, add photos and accept comments and ratings from other users. There are plenty of ways to interact with recipes, too: forward it to a friend, send it to a cellphone, add your own personal annotations, save it, email it, print it, subscribe to the chef or compare it to other recipes on the site in the side-by-side view.

Another thing GroupRecipes gets right: it keeps users clicking by providing related recipes, suggestions and related tags and by listing the groups that the recipe is a part of. They’ve even built their own mini StumbleUpon - an on-site toolbar that lets you stumble through related recipes by clicking the “next” and “previous” buttons. That’s not the only site they’ve taken inspiration form: browsing the food blogs today, I noticed a “Bite This” button, which links to a Digg clone on the GroupRecipes site. I think this idea might work for them: food blogs are bound to welcome the traffic, and it’s unlikely that Digg will step on their toes.

Obviously GroupRecipes has profile pages and networks of friends, but it also provides a “taste compatibility” percentage. They’re even getting into video, asking users to create their own cooking shows on GroupRecipes TV. But wait, there’s more! GroupRecipes also provides user-generated restaurant reviews for your local area, along with Google Maps integration. One last feature: widgets to post your recipes or list of friends to your blog - the image-based ones should work on MySpace, hi5, Piczo et al.

Normally these interest-based social sites are more about a single developer scratching an itch than the development of a real business, but GroupRecipes seems to have a lot going for it. While I don’t see them building up masses of traffic, I do think they should shop it to some of the food magazines: their audience plus GroupRecipes’ technology would be a good fit. Think FanNation meets SportsIllustrated, but in the food sphere.

Other social sites for food include Yahoo Food and The Daily Plate.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jeremy Crane *)

Google has been criticized for being unable to succeed beyond its core Web Search offering. Last year Forbes “graded Google” and didn’t give the internet superstar high marks beyond the core web search products. Just last week Forbes “re-graded Google” on the past year’s performance. At Compete we tend to look at things a bit myopically. We’re all about the data.

So to understand Google’s scholastic aptitude we looked at which currently available Google search properties were making the grade from a consumer driven data perspective.

Since January 2006 Google Web Search sessions have grown 23%. If you aggregate all of Google search sessions across all of their properties you get a year-over-year growth rate of 24%. This means that all non-Web search properties contributed only 1ppt to Google’s overall gains.
After rolling out over 15 targeted search services, Web Search continues to account for more than 95% of Google’s growth.

This isn’t to say that all of Google’s efforts haven’t been worthwhile. Several properties exhibit strong 13 month trends and should emerge as core Google properties in time.
To identify the winner and the losers, Compete categorized each Google property into three categories (Super Performers, Performers and Under Achievers) based on their 13-month growth trend. Compete indexed all sites to their session volume in Jan ’06. Index scores over 100 indicate proportional growth. Index scores under 100 indicated proportional decline.

Most of these high flyers are relative youngsters in the Google portfolio, but super stars none-the-less.

• Despite the YouTube acquisition, Google Video continues to grow and is one of Google’s most promising categories. That big spike in August? That’s when Google added Video to the homepage.
• Even if you don’t buy into the hype that Google Blog has surpassed Technorati the growth is undeniable as Google’s second fastest growing property.
• Google Scholar has had an interesting roller coaster ride since launching in late 2005. I’m very curious on what Scholar will grow in to considering Backrub was originally an academic tool.

The middle of the pack is made up of Google’s bread and butter services.

• Leading the group is Google Maps. This growth comes on the heels of Google essentially merging Local and Maps in late 2005.
• Toolbar search growth has been strong throughout 2006. This comes on the heels of a major effort by Google to bundle the toolbar with a variety of partners (e.g. Dell, Adobe, etc).

Did you ever see Michael Jordan play baseball? Long story short, it’s impossible to be good at everything… Google is no exception.

• Want to find truly in-market shoppers for just about any good sold online? You can’t throw a rock at a shopping engine without hitting one square in the wallet. The decline of Google’s shopping engine definitely makes one pause. I wonder where all those Froogle flee-ers are heading?
• Despite just about everyone in the search world chiming in on the shift to a more local web, Google Local took the biggest hit over the past year. To be fair this is mainly due to merger of Local and Maps. The growth in Maps more than offsets the decline in Local.

Next week we’ll be taking a look at Yahoo’s various services to see which received a thick peanut butter covering and which services came up a little thin. Stayed tuned.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Law *)

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(* Source: Adam Turinas *)

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(* Source: David Feldt *)

Bill Marriott, Chairman & CEO of Marriott International has recently started blogging. In my view, he has captured the true essence of what blogging is all about (telling stories, listening, learning, engaging in a dialog, nurturing the community and sharing one's passion) and I love reading his posts.  Jonathan Schwartz at Sun may have some stiff competition on his hands :)

In character with Bill’s love of talking, the blog offers an audio link so you can listen to Bill’s story in his voice.

His first post, on 01/16/2007, entitled “Uncharted Territory” (quoted below) received 80+ comments at last count - not bad for a first post!

Here’s Bill on why he’s entered the Blogosphere:

“I’m venturing into uncharted territory as I launch this blog. A year ago, I didn’t even know what a blog was — until my Communications team began telling me about all the blog traffic on travel and tourism. Now I know this is where the action is if you want to talk to your customers directly — and hear back from them. Soon we’ll add an audio version of the blog. That’s how I’m most comfortable: telling stories and listening.

Pioneering new frontiers is how this company was built.

Blogging will allow me to do what I’ve been doing for years — on a global scale. Talking to the customer comes easily to me. I visit 250 hotels around the world every year. This year I’ll be traveling once again to China where we have 27 hotels, 16 under construction and many more in our development pipeline. At every hotel, I talk to associates, from housekeepers to general managers, to get their feedback. I call it “management by walking around.” Like my parents, I value the input from our associates at all levels. I make lots of notes — and my best ideas almost always come from our people in the field.

Our 143,000 associates are truly the people who make Marriott a world-class business. I want to share some of their stories with you in future blogs. We are a company that is built on opportunity, and that foundation has made us successful.

Bottom line, I believe in communicating with the customer, and the internet gives me a whole new way of doing that on a global scale. I’d rather engage directly in dialogue with you because that’s how we learn and grow as a company.

So tell me what you think, and together we’ll keep Marriott on the Move!

This blog allows us to hear from you and build on the community that we’ve nurtured for 80 years.“

Posted by brian tiong at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Josefine Koehn *)

 

On December 21, 2006, Europe’s biggest entertainment portal Bild.T-Online is due to launch the new English language newspaper “The AvaStar”. The title will be available once a week for 150 Linden dollars (42 Euro cents) in the virtual Internet world “Second Life”. Bild.T-Online is offering special attractive launch terms to its advertising clients.

“The AvaStar” will offer its readers – the “residents” – around 30 pages of wide-ranging information about life in the virtual world. The majority of its readers will be relatively young, well educated men and women with an average age of 32 years. Its approach is direct and emotive. “The AvaStar” aims to serve as a guide and help newcomers in particular to find their bearings in the “Second Life” environment. The content is clearly structured: News, Business, Celebrity & Gossip, Style & Fashion, Travel and Entertainment form the editorial framework. A weekly guide to “Second Life” rounds off the newspaper.

To mark the launch, the marketing team of Bild.T-Online is offering attractive first booking discounts. The newspaper is sold through street vendors, self-service boxes and the website www.the-avastar.com. During the launch, promotion teams will also be active in “Second Life”.

Gregor Stemmle, CEO of Bild.T-Online: “‘The AvaStar’ is the first mass medium in ‘Second Life’ to be produced with a professional background. Using their experience in journalism and publishing, Bild.T-Online and Axel Springer are establishing a newspaper format for a broad readership and at the same time creating a very interesting publicity setting for advertising clients.”

“Second Life” is a three-dimensional world of its own on the Internet. Today nearly two million residents are registered as virtual people at www.secondlife.com, and at the click of a mouse they lead a life just like in the real world: they work in offices, go shopping, stroll down boulevards and have, in the Linden dollar, their own currency (there are 270 Linden dollars to one US dollar).

Numerous companies have discovered this Internet world as a place for testing trends in a virtual situation. Above all, “Second Life” has created a world that appeals to the users: the market is currently growing by about 15 percent per month, and the number of members by more than 20 percent.

Bild.T-online The AvaStar

Second Life

Posted by brian tiong at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Socially driven search engines are poised to become the Web 2.0 alternative to Google and Yahoo.

Trend Description:
In December 2006, Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales announced the development of a user-generated search engine. The goal is to build an open-source based alternative for web search, offering people-powered search results. Several competing developments are taking coming out of beta. There are two parts that are going to be “crowdsourced”, the wiki and the software.

Cases:

Search Wikia
Search Wikia is supposed to become a wiki-inspired search engine. Since December 2006 the site “Search Wikia” serves as a platform for the development of this new, free, open-source search engine with user-editable results. Search Wikia itself is neither a search engine nor a web directory. To help the search engine get up and running, users can join the mailing list, discuss ideas on the forum or by write basic articles. Right now Search Wikia is looking for content about other search engines. Software developers can also get involved.

Wikia
Wikia, formerly called Wikicities, is a collection of communities with websites that users can edit themselves. The hosting of a wiki-based (by Wikia Inc.) content site is free for communities, who on the other site will create free content with the MediaWiki software. Wikia will provide technical and social support for all aspects of running a wiki community. Most topics related to community projects are accepted. Exceptions are ideas that compete with the Wikimedia projects, which the Wikia founders are heavily involved in. According to the Wikia website, Wikia is not a Wikimedia project, like some press coverage suggested. Although Wikia has some crossover with Wikipedia (founded by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales). Some communities of Wikia are linked to relevant Wikipedia articles.

Wikisearch/Wikiseek
Wikisearch is a search engine that searches Wikipedia and all sites that are linked to from Wikipedia. It is not a search engine of the World Wide Web, and is not related to this site “Search Wikia” and to the plans for community-created search of the World Wide Web. Under the pilot name Wikiseek, Wikia is currently looking for beta testers for this new service.

Wikisaria
There is also a commercial search engine, called Wikisaria. Users can search for music downloads, cheap flights, domain names, digital cameras and anything else. The results are mostly links to other websites collecting links.

Trend Impact:
Social Media and User Generated Content are the two big trends on the Web right now. Web 2.0 is thriving from the participation of the users, and so far the users seem to be more than willing to participate by creating free content in every imaginable format, or contribute by writing open source software. The success of a user generated search engine, like the project wikisearch, will depend on the the active contribution of the public. Search Wikia founder Jimmy Wales blames other search engines for producing too much spam and hopes to provide better results by letting people themselves judge if a site is good or not. The question is how long it will take to have enough entries to really be comparible to the already established search engines. In the long run it’s all about quality not quantity.

Links:
Wikia

Search Wikia

Posted by brian tiong at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by brian tiong at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Amber Maitland *)

More than half of the young people in the UK pay to download music, according to a new survey. The research done by Q Research didn't question every young person in the UK, but took a sample of around 1500 people aged 11 to 25.

The survey showed that 85% of respondents own an MP3 player, with the iPod being the most popular. Some 45% of respondents don't spend money on music downloads, but about a third spend up to £5 a month. Only 3% spend more than £25 or more a month on downloads, and most of these are 20-24-year-olds. In the older age range, two-thirds spend up to £10 a month on downloads, and just over 15% spend between £10 and £20 a month.

The survey also gauged young people's interest in music on their mobiles, a feature that has almost become standard. Eighty-one per cent of the boys surveyed wanted to listen to music on their mobiles, while only 72% of girls did. Of those who do download music to a portable device, more than four out of five download music first to their PC and then transfer it to their device; only 3% download direct to their mobile from the Internet because of high data charges.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

U.K. mobile network operator 3 UK announced that it has partnered with San Diego-based Intercasting to provide its 3.75 million subscribers with access to social networks including LiveJournal, Xanga, Vox and BlackPlanet from their mobile phones. "Users will get a social networking experience tailored for the data and media capabilities of their phones, helping to drive adoption and repeat usage over the 3 network," said Rob Wells, head of mobile broadband at 3 UK.

 
More
http://tinyurl.com/355o6t

http://www.three.co.uk

http://www.intercastingcorp.com

Posted by brian tiong at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Widgify *) 

Web 1.0 –> Web 2.0
[publication mechanism to platform for services]

The primary disruption associated with the DOT-COM boom, retroactively labeled Web 1.0, was the shift from traditional print publication mechanisms to the web as a pervasive publication mechanism. The Web 2.0 is the next step in this progression. Specifically, it is the transformation of the web from a publication mechanism into a platform for decoupled online services. Data and applications are quickly being atomized into reusable components that can be mixed and match to create new services. There is a shift from unstructured data (HTML) to structured data (web services/RSS/microformats).

Developers are experiencing this change via the increased proliferation of web services in formats such as RSS, REST, and XML-RPC. Developers are not the only ones benefiting from this change, however. Just as developers can mix and match web services to create new types of applications, tools are emerging for non-technical users to customize their web experiences – Widgets.

Web 2.0 –> Web 3.0
[Atomic services to integrated experience]

So the theme of Web 2.0 is atomization. If Web 2.0 is about atomization, then Web 3.0 will be all about integrated experiences in a world of atomic content and services. As the web continues to become disaggregated, there will be a burgeoning demand for tools that can help users effectively leverage these “information atoms,” together in a meaningful manner. Not only will there be a need for tools that help users aggregate widgets, but also tools that enable widgets to work together. Imagine a world where there are as many widgets as there are web pages. Won’t it suck royally if they don’t work together?

Tools like Netvibes, Pageflakes, and Uber represent the next generation of content aggregation platforms. Marc Canter has dubbed these tools as Digital Lifestyle Aggregators, or DLAs. DLAs will enable users to manage their content and services across platforms (desktop, web, mobile) and even across social networks. But what about inter-widget communication? Isn’t that part of that whole Semantic Web nonsense? Isn’t that impossible? Nope.

• Web 1.0 = Site owners code and publish, users consume
• Web 2.0 = Site owners code and publish, users consume and publish
• Web 3.0 = Site owners code and publish, users consume, publish, and code

More here. 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *) 

I posted about MSN Soapbox in Sept last year and it finally makes its beta launch...have a look but i have to agree with Pete.

MSN Soapbox, Microsoft’s new video site that confusingly takes the MSN name, launches in public beta today. We covered it back in September during the private beta, and there’s really not much to add: it’s weak, and about a year too late. They have innovated on the interface a little, putting a large Flash player at the top right, but generally we’re unimpressed.

We were originally told that MSN Soapbox would occasionally deliver windows Media Player clips, rather than Flash, depending on your setup. We’re only seeing Flash, but let us know if you see anything different.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Complete *) 

What does $1.6 billion get you? An additional forty-one percent of the video website market share – just ask Google. Based on the Top 20 Video websites (as determined by U.S. visits) YouTube garnered 41% of the online video market in December.

*When the videos portion of a site was part of a larger site, only visitors to the videos subdomain were counted

Add YouTube’s first place share to Google Video’s third place share of 10% and you get a whopping 51% of all visits to the top 20 video websites.

Highlights:

• 58 million people viewed at least one video online in December ‘06
• 14 out of the Top 20 video sites received over 1 million unique visitors
• The top 4 sites received over 10 million video related visits
• The top five sites account for 80% of the online video market

Google made an announcement last week indicating that it will make some modifications to play to the strengths of the YouTube and Google Video combination. Sounds interesting - I guess 51% market share is not enough.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul MacGregor via threebillion *) 

The US remains the single largest Internet market in the world with 181.9 million Internet users in 2006, but China is likely to take the lead before the decade is out.

Things are changing in Web world.

Morgan Stanley estimates that by the end of 2007 there will be over 1.3 billion Internet users worldwide.

"The Internet is about 10 years old in the US and the number of Internet users continues to grow steadily, if somewhat more slowly than in the past," says Ben Macklin, eMarketer senior analyst and the author of the new Worldwide Internet Users: 2005-2011 report. "eMarketer estimates that by 2011 there will be 211.3 million Internet users accessing the Internet at least once a month, up from 175.4 million at the end of 2005."

By 2008, two-thirds of the population ages 3 and older will be Internet users in the US, and this will rise to over 70% of the population by 2011.

"But while the US Internet population continues to grow," says Mr. Macklin, "the rest of the world is growing even faster."

And nowhere is it growing faster than in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly China.

"China is quickly emerging as the largest Internet market in the world as its middle class grows and home Internet access becomes widespread," says Mr. Macklin. "India, however, is still struggling to develop its telecommunications infrastructure so it has the supply of Internet access to meet what is sure to be high demand."

He adds, "Australia continues to be a leading Internet market in the region, and while it is the smallest market of those examined for this report, its influence is not insignificant in the region." (Disclaimer: Mr. Macklin is Australian.)

Australia has long been one of the leading Internet countries in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of Internet penetration, and its online population will continue to expand over the coming years. eMarketer projects that there will be 15.3 million Internet users in Australia in 2011, up from 12.5 million in 2005.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Adrian Lai *) 

While waiting for Bud.TV to fix their age verifier, Vice Mag went and launched VBS.TV, a 24 hours, free of charge, age-restriction-free, broadband channel which also lets you do all the things bud.tv doesn't: Send-to-a-friend, blog videos, and learn about hitchhiking with David Choe.

Building off the highly successful Vice Guide to Travel, VBS.TV is a model for reporting that may be raw, but is nothing but honest. In the words of Shane Smith, "As long as it's real, it's not bullsh*t." And who to trust to better explore the sub-cultural landscape than Vice magazine?

Posted by brian tiong at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I came across this wonderful video by HappySlip. It highlights how, today, a passionate consumer has the tools / the ability to reach out with a personal message that is more sincere and believable than a piece of corporate generated advertising. Steve Jobs was asked to describe Apple in an interview a year ago. His response was: 1. Apple is a company that takes complex technology and makes it easier and simpler to use 2. Our goal is to stand at the intersection of technology and the humanities It’s about empathy and understanding consumers, not about selling to them. In a post-modern world, companies no longer really own their brands; it’s consumers who mold them; shape them to their needs. Watch this video and see this all come to life.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: b-side via Fred Guillet *)

Fred sent me a link yesterday to Ms Dewey, a black woman with attitude helping with your search. Is Microsoft getting a bit funky? Quite refreshing change from their new Live Search rebranding except for the fact that the flash app did not do so well and crashed after a few searches on my Firefox browser.   Try it out and tell me what you think?

Posted by brian tiong at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ed Cotton and his Influx Insights gang have been looking through the vast collection of videos on YouTube to find some gems that spotlight tribal youth culture of today and the past. Videos cover goth, punk, gamers, Harajuku girls and more. Nice work, fellas.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul MacGregor via threebillion *) 

In a move to become the "no. 1 mobile internet player," Yahoo launched display advertising for its mobile web service in 18 countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, writes MediaPost. Ads near the top of the Yahoo Mobile homepage will allow users to either click-to-call marketers or link to other mobile sites.

One challenge for Yahoo in extending brand advertising to the cell phone, however, is that not every marketer has a mobile landing page yet for direct response campaigns. "If you put up a mobile ad, there has to be a place for people to go to from the ad," said Julie Ask, research director with JupiterResearch.

Yahoo also announced the latest test version of Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, its package of Yahoo applications including email, search and Flickr photo-sharing for handheld devices. It lets consumers search directly for local businesses from interactive maps and share search results and news stories with friends. Yahoo Go will also test display advertising for the first time, starting with Pepsi's Free Ride campaign.

At $1.4 billion a year, the mobile ad market remains small and is ruled by text-based ads, but is expected to double by 2011. Some 13 percent of mobile subscribers access the web through their phones.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yep, they should have called it Yahoo Tubes, Ted. Nonetheless, Yahoo just went live with Yahoo Pipes, a service that allows you to create your own mashups.

Pipes provides a drag and drop editor that lets you find data sources, mix them up and spit them out - in short, a way to combine feeds in different ways. Examples include an NYTimes-Flickr mashup that matches NYTimes headlines to relevant images, and an aggregated news alert of Yahoo, Google, MSN, Findory, Bloglines and Technorati. The service is social, in the sense that you can have an avatar, view all the mashups from a certain user and even edit these existing mashups to create something new. The editor, in fact, is particularly slick: it’s ajaxy, rather than Flash-powered, and represents actions with modules connected by lines.

Pipes is still a little geeky, admittedly, but it’s a great first step in creating a mashup tool for the masses. Let us know if you create anything cool.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Piers Fawkes *) 

Wired points us to Daytrotter, a site where the owners record sessions with their favorite artists. Influenced by the BBC's John Peel sessions the Iowa-based music critic Sean Moeller and engineer Patrick Stolley launched the site to showcase MP3s of live, studio sessions with recent guests like French Kicks, Vietnam, and Of Montreal. Wired says:

Daytrotter’s recordings are known for their warm, fluid sound, the result of the studio’s candy shop of vintage gear, including a Rhodes piano, a Lowrey tube organ, and a dozen Spectra Sonic preamps. “We record straight to quarter-inch tape,” Moeller says. “There are no overdubs. No ProTools. What you hear on the site is exactly what happened that day.”

Daytrotter

Wired 15.02: PLAY

Posted by brian tiong at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Daniel Turman *)

Social networking sites like MySpace are really starting to get used and abused by us marketing shlubs. To wit, the newly unveiled (I am not making this up) campaign from the embattled folks over at General Motors' Pontiac division: Friends with Benefits. Yes, blink a couple of times and then read it again: Friends with Benefits. The basic premise is that you buy a Pontiac G5 and then register your new whip on the General's shiny new MySpace page. Then you start pestering your friends to buy the same car and register it on the site. As this social networking ponzi scheme expands, GM starts handing out the gifts. Once membership of the (blink again) Friends with Benefits community reaches 100 people, they all get $100 VISA gift cards. A thousand members? Then GM breaks everyone off the $1,000 maximum prize. Not the worst idea, but OMG. The name makes me, like, totally ROTFLOL.

But questionable marketing taste might be what they're angling for up in the Ren Cen these days. One of the more talked about commercials of the Super Bowl was the Lonely Robot spot. Though well executed, the spot (about a suicidal robot) was perceived as being more than a little crass for a company that is laying off factory workers by the thousands. Maybe next year they can have an ad where the robot gets an early retirement bonus and loses his house. That would be sweet.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Daniel Modell *)

Posted by brian tiong at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a wonderfully elegant story told by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. Its the story of our online lives and how it has evolved to embrace community and collaboration.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: David Felt *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Fred Guillet *)

News for the middle-aged, music videos for young adults.

Those are two of the main findings of a new study conducted by InsightExpress on behalf of Advertising.com regarding online video viewing habits. According to the study of 500 adults ages 18 and older, nearly half of streaming video users were likely to watch news clips or music videos (48.6% and 47.4%, respectively). About a third (32.6%) of the respondents were likely to watch streaming music videos.

Notably, only two of 10 online video users said that they were likely to stream user-generated content. This means a lot of user-generated content may go unwatched, since such content is expected to comprise more than half of all online video by 2010, according to Screen Digest. (Full article yesterday.)

According to the Advertising.com study, the vast majority (87.9%) of video streams are viewed at home, while 8.5% are viewed at work and 3.6% at school.

The type of content viewed by study respondents depended on age. Viewers ages 35 and older were 24% more likely to watch news clips than the overall group. Similarly, respondents ages 18 to 34 were 38% more likely to watch streamed music videos than the group as a whole.

Knowing who is viewing online video and what they are watching will become increasingly important during the next few years, as roughly half the US population (157 million people) will view online video monthly by 2010, up from 107.7 million in 2006.

David Hallerman, author of eMarketer's recent Internet Video Audience report, notes that "while Internet video, and the audience for it, is clearly at a primitive stage, it is equally clear that with 107.7 million viewers this year and more than 150 million by early 2010, a huge audience will be available — and it is up to advertisers and content providers to seize the opportunity by creating ever more effective ways to get in touch."

For more on who watches online video, and what they watch, see eMarketer's recent Internet Video Audience report.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Fred Guillet *) 

Click to enlarge

Some 73 percent of marketers now allocate up to 20 percent of their budget for new and emerging media, according to an American Advertising Federation study, BrandWeek reports.

The average spending on new media marketing is now 15 percent of total budget dollars, AAF said. Still, 10 percent of respondents say their entire budget goes to traditional media; significantly, though, 12 percent say they spend 21-40 percent of their budget on emerging media advertising and marketing.

When asked about approaches to media planning in the coming year, respondents ranked "I am always open to new ways to use traditional media" highest (at 78 percent), with "the right media mix almost always includes a balance of traditional and nontraditional media" (at 75.5 percent), and "the search for new media properties to grow my brand never stops" (at 57.7 percent) second and third highest.

The popularity of YouTube and Second Life as marketing outlets were two of the biggest developments that caught marketers by surprise in 2006: 77 percent of respondents say they didn't see Second Life coming, 60 percent say they were caught off-guard by YouTube. Some 51 percent also point to the popularization of mash-ups.

The most expected innovations in the media landscape were the availability of TV programs on the web, the mass adoption of text messaging in the U.S., and the importance of social media/networking as part of the communications plan.

An overwhelming majority of respondents (87.4 percent) say the pace and scope of innovation in the media landscape inspires creativity.

Just over half of respondents say they will be more likely to anticipate and adapt to media changes in 2007. Newspapers and network TV were two areas identified as in need of the most reinvention in the new year.

A summary of the AAF report is available for download (ppt).

Posted by brian tiong at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(*  Source: Pete Cashmore *)

Flip.com, Conde Nast’s new social network for girls that could rival Piczo, is now open to everyone following the “girls-only” launch we covered in December. As we suspected, it’s an awesome site.

As mentioned previously, Flip.com is based around “flip books”. These are created using a Flash editor that’s extremely well-designed - users upload photos, videos, music and more, take images, animations, stickers and backgrounds from the media library, resize them, crop them, add a soundtrack and publish the finished page. The end result is something like a multimedia version of a RockYou or Slide.com slideshow.

This way of editing may generate less inflated pageviews than other networks (eg. MySpace), but it’s by far the best we’ve seen - the customization options are seemingly endless and it’s a breeze to use. Users can create multiple Flipbooks, and they’re ranked by how many books they’ve created - that encourages more participation. You can also add sponsored elements to your page, but since this is the user’s choice, it doesn’t feel like advertising. Once again, the fact that these Flipbooks remain Flash-based once they’re saved means that those users browsing them won’t rack up many pageviews - I suspect that Flip.com will be massively successful, but its success will be under-measured due to the use of Flash.

Another great feature: these Flipbooks can be embedded on MySpace, hi5, Facebook, Multiply, Tagworld, Friendster and blogs. Other features include forums, clubs, networks of friends, tagging, contests and YouTube-style filters for finding the newest and most viewed profiles, plus those with the most friends and Flipbooks.

We expected Flip.com to rock, and it does - it’s one of the best new launches this year. In fact, there are only a few social networks we’ve reviewed in the past few months that are truly amazing, and Flip.com is certainly among them (the others include LiveVideo and Flixster). Ironically, though, the great user experience created by the use of Flash and ajax will make the site appear less successful than it actually is.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *) 

Great news for fans of the social music recommendation service Last.fm - they’re announcing a partnership today with Warner Music Group.

WMG is the world’s fourth biggest label, and Warner’s entire catalog from the US and Europe will now be streamed through the Last.fm player - in short, there will soon be many, many more big artists on Last.fm. The rollout will be phased, they say, with US users getting access first and Europeans getting the new music in a few weeks.

We also got some interesting tidbits about Last.fm: they’re reporting 15 million active users per month in 200 countries, and they say a premium, subscription-based version of the service is coming very soon.

Last.fm’s premier rival is Pandora, which has also been experimenting with different business models. Other rivals include MOG, iLike, uPlayMe and MP3.com.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Adam Turinas *)

Posted by brian tiong at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Fred Guillet *)

I posted about the Yahoo Brand Universe earlier this week.  Here is a first look at what Yahoo has done for gamers with the Nintendo Wii and everything you would want or need to do around it.

As Fred puts it

Delicious integration + flickr pix "wii" tagged + a dedicated yahoo group + Yahoo answers + Myweb results + other functionalities to comunicate inside this world and exchange video, product info...etc

Well Done Yahoo! 

Posted by brian tiong at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Marketing Shift *) 

Publishers continue to realize that the fastest path to increasing online revenue is to embrace social media, and acquiring Web 2.0 startups gets you there faster.

Sports Illustrated parent Time, Inc. just bought FanNation.com to acquire the community of fans who can generate volumes of traffic.

Being able to comment on, rate, and share stories is essential to online publishing, and buying a site that already has the tools in place (and audience) saves the cost of in-house development. Allowing fans to participate provides the loyalty that will keep them coming back.

While online ad revenue is growing quickly, it's still not enough to make up for print revenue losses. Sports Illustrated gets 15 to 20 percent of its revenue from online activities, but there's no reason why that figure couldn't be at least one-third with the proper implementation of social media.

The news isn't something "out there" for us to read and move on anymore. It's interactive, and the new media stars are in a good position to help old media make the transition.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *) 

PureVideo Networks, owner of StupidVideos, PureVideo and GrindTV, is set to go live with a fourth video site on Monday: HollywoodUpClose is a portal for celebrity videos.

The PureVideo team noticed that over a third of PureVideo.com’s 1.8 million monthly visitors were looking for celebrity clips, no doubt spurred on by big stories like the elusive Daniella Cicarelli clip. As a result of the high search volume, rolling out another site made sense.

HollywoodUpClose aggregates movie trailers, interviews and red carpet footage from sites like Yahoo Video and YouTube. But it also adds news from Topix and photos from news sites. Considering the celebrity-obsessed culture we live in, this portal idea is bound to succeed to a degree.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *)

Predictably, perhaps, YouTube is launching a Valentine’s Day promotion that follows the same pattern as the Coke-YouTube eCards at Christmas, and similar holiday promos by StupidVideos and Motionbox.

The sponsor this time around is Procter & Gamble’s Herbal Essences - the promo allows users to send one of six video cards starring a chubby Cupid character, upload their own clips or choose from their previously uploaded YouTube videos.

Alas, they don’t seem to have paid the top Tubers to create clips this time - so no chance of Renetto singing a ballad.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Baron Conway *)

I often spend time looking for music videos on YouTube, however finding them takes time.  I came across this site the other day - it provides links to almost every music video on YouTube.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul MacGregor via three billion *)

What is the word from the trenches?

In an end-of-the-year survey, ad:tech and MarketingSherpa asked online marketers what marketing tactics worked for them in 2006 and what they expected to concentrate their time and spending on in the months ahead.

Here is what the online marketers said:

First off, and keeping in mind that the sample consisted of the early-adopter ad:tech audience — not the whole marketing world — so responses were skewed accordingly, the marketers expect overall online spending to rise slightly from 47% of the budget in 2006 to 49% in 2007.

Not much change for a group that has largely already adopted online advertising techniques and strategies.

When the marketers were asked what worked best — and worst — the results were clearer. Search engine optimization (SEM) showed the biggest jump in 2006, while pop-up ads had the largest decline in favor.

In addition, marketers like house e-mail lists, but started shying away from rented e-mail lists.

Those findings were reflected in the answers to the question "Where's the money going in 2007?" Search marketing and e-mail marketing to house lists are in the lead for this year, while e-mailing to third-party lists is only going to be used by 13% of the respondents.

As to new online marketing tactics that marketers are considering, blog, social network and video ads lead the way as emerging tactics in 2007.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jay Meattle *) 

Time is a limited resource.. As much as we hate to admit it, we each only have 24 hours on any given day to ‘do things’. In December 2006, we had 44,640 minutes to do whatever our hearts desired — be it sleep, eat, watch TV, jump rope, or spend time online.

Since we each have a fixed amount of time in a given day/week/month/lifetime, we all probably (I know I do!) want to spend it wisely. As such, when we are online we tend to spend more time on sites that are worthy of our attention. After all, who wants to waste time? So, the big question is, where DO we spend all our time online? Which websites are more successful in capturing our attention compared to others?

Take a look at the chart below:

Key Observations:

• Only 20 domains capture a whopping 39% of all our time spent online.
• Only 2.1% of our time is spent on Google.com (includes all sub-domains).
  • This surprised me somewhat, given how much I *think* I use Google everyday. I still think I use Google quite a bit, but now realize I don’t spend much time on the site itself. Google is NOT a portal with loads of content. Gmail and Google News are the only services that I spend considerable time on. Search, Maps, etc are quick look-up utilities, as they should be.
  • Even if one adds time spent on YouTube.com (#12) to Google.com’s (#5) tally — it still only adds up to 2.7%, and is well below time spent on Ebay.com (#4).
• MySpace (#1) is miles ahead of Yahoo! (#2), however Yahoo! impresses. Yahoo holds a significant lead over Google+YouTube.com, MSN+Live.com and AOL+AIM.com. Yahoo simply needs to merge with MSN to take #1 (hint hint)
• The presence of Adultfriendfinder.com on this list is surprising, but hey, everyone needs a friend, or two!

Posted by brian tiong at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Andy Kazeniac *)

Earlier this week I posted how brands are using consumer generated ads during the SuperBowl.

Andy contacted me to inform me that Doritos are the run away leaders. 

Have a look at the results so far.

 
Doritos’ all-online “Crash the Super Bowl” contest encouraged consumers to produce, submit, and vote on their favorite spots. More than 125,000 people visited the site during the first two weeks of January, 10 times as many people than visited Doritos.com. Kudos to Doritos, this promotion sets the standard for how to get the most out of Super Bowl spending.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: b-side *) 

The news below confirms a prediction I made late last year on the approach to how Yahoo is meeting the challenge when they lost their most visited website title to Myspace.  They have chosen a vertical approach by aggregating smaller communities instead of the horizontal approach of Myspace.  It will be interesting to see how this strategy plays out.

Yahoo has announced plans to launch 100 new websites this year that will showcase various entertainment brands, including video games, TV shows and movies.

The company introduced its "Brand Universe" initiative to reporters this week at its Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters.

Initial sites will focus on the Nintendo Wii; game titles "The Sims" and "Halo"; TV shows "Lost" and "The Office"; and the "Harry Potter" and "Transformers" franchises, with the rest to be announced by the end of February and launched by year's end, the Associated Press reported.

Features on the Nintendo Wii site on Yahoo include related news and reviews from around the Web, photos from Flickr, message boards and a buyer's guide.

"We don't connect the dots for our users around those brands," said Vince Broady, Yahoo's head of games and entertainment, CNET News.com reported. "Brand Universe is designed to fix that problem. What we are really trying to do is create environments where fans of brands can hang out when they are online."

Posted by brian tiong at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Sam Cassels *) 

TOKYO STYLE CLASH was a project by Publicis Japan for their client BEAMS, done in collaboration with Nick Knights ShowStudio.  It was a chance for Toyko’s most stylish to battle it out and find out if they were HOT or NOT?  A roster of 9 international and local photographers set up studio in the front window of BEAMS' over the course of three days.  With queues reminiscent of the opening of the Apple Store in Ginza, over 1,400 people showcased their personal styles in preparation for the Style Clash!

All the images were then used to create the interactive game HOT OR NOT which randomly paired contestants in the Style Clash that was played out over six weeks on SHOWstudio.com. The celebrity panel along with the voters from all around the world collectively decided who really has the hottest look in Tokyo!!

I hear from Sam that over 1.5 million people played the game.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: b-side *) 

The ColorCode project I have been working on for the past 6 months (that I could not talk about) has finally launch in Singapore (first country in the GSM world outside of Korea and Japan) with Singapore Press Holding. 

 

"Our aim is to make it a part of life in high-tech Singapore. Over time, we want these codes to be everywhere, in newspapers, on T-shirts, signages, name cards, birthday cakes, and so on, and zapping them will become as natural as breathing," says Mr Leslie Fong, Executive Vice President of Marketing, SPH.

While Europe and the US are still wondering what QR codes are, ColorZip has developed ColorCode to allow mobile phone users to launch, download and/ or purchase anything, from Wap/ Web pages to music ringtones, to mobile video, to purchasing concert tickets.

The information is not in the barcode itself, but on a remote server accessible through the code. So when you scan a ColorCode with your mobile phone, it connects to a server and downloads information, then presents it to you.

Try it out... all you need is a phone reader that you can download for free. 

Posted by brian tiong at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)

 (* Source: Piers Fawkes via PSFK *)

A while ago, we argued in a post called 'Will We See A Dumbed Down Virtual World Beat Second Life?' that a virtual world with less functionality and more gameplay like Grand Theft Auto could supersede SecondLife. With disappointment over accurate resident numbers in Second Life, commentators are shifting their focus from the virtual world to the hugely popular online video game World of Warcraft.

Clay Shirky argues that video games have a better chance of adoption than non-game worlds. Here are his three reasons:

Games have at least three advantages other virtual worlds don't. First, many games, and most social games, involve an entrance into what theorists call the magic circle, a setting with simplified and knowable rules. The magic circle saves the game from having to live up to expectations carried over from the real world.

Second, games are intentionally difficult. If all you knew about golf was that you had to get this ball in that hole, your first thought would be to hop in your cart and drive it over there. But no, you have to knock the ball in, with special sticks. This is just about the stupidest possible way to complete the task, and also the only thing that makes golf interesting. Games create an environment conducive to the acceptance of artificial difficulties.

Finally, and most relevant to visual environments, our ability to ignore information from the visual field when in pursuit of an immediate goal is nothing short of astonishing (viz. the gorilla experiment.) The fact that we could clearly understand spatial layout even in early and poorly rendered 3D environments like Quake has much to do with our willingness to switch from an observational Architectural Digest mode of seeing (Why has this hallway been accessorized with lava?) to a task-oriented Guns and Ammo mode (Ogre! Quad rocket for you!)

SECOND LIFE: Put your money on World of Warcraft - Valleywag

Posted by brian tiong at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Florian Peter *)

Interactive Online Video makes it possible to search inside online videos and to hyperlink objects, people and everything else shown in the video.

Trend Description:
Interactive TV makes it possible to get bacground information about the product featured in an advertisement or about a certain director or actor. Interactive or reactive online video takes this concept a step further. This will enable the vast archives of online videos to become searchable. Certain moments, segments, objects, people, or any other content of the uploaded segments can be tagged and made interactive. Viewers can search videos by keyword and actually interact with its content.

Cases:

Coull.tv
Coull.tv is a community video sharing web site, similar to YouTube. But users cannot only upload and share their videos, as well as vote and comment on them, they can also search within the video content and interact with objects, people and everything else shown in the any uploaded online film. The “Video Activator Tool” allows members to specify and tag certain parts and contents of their video, making it searchable. That means, viewers can actually search by keywords, define and follow objects within a video and make comments on them. Pictures within a video become clickable like a link on a webpage.

Gotuit - SceneMaker
Unlike YouTube or Coull.tv Gotuit just wants to put professional content online. The digital media company claims to provide a “new class of on-demand video products” which can be delivered to multiple platforms including broadband, mobile and cable. To further enhance the viewing experience Gotuit developed some patented features, which allow the navigation and search of a video scene by scene. Segments and scenes can be chosen from the play list menu. So far the metadata, which makes this advanced navigation possible, is collected by Gotuit staff. With SceneMaker, Gotuit has now made the technology available for the public. According to Gotuit, SceneMaker enables social video tagging, meanong users can tag scenes from inside videos on YouTube, Metacafe and other websites. Users can apply descriptive tags or keywords to any scene, share just certain scenes from a video or embed individual scenes on MySpace sites or personal blogs.

Blinkx
Blinkx is a video search engine, fed by audio and video content from the web and content partnerships. Users can search for content and create personal TV. Blinkx automatically conducts searches based on the content being viewed by each individual user. With blinkx, TV users get linked automatically to news, movie trailers and other video formats on demand. In Video Smart Folders, the blinkx technology automatically updates content based on the users viewing preferences.

Trend Impact:
Interactive online videos will open a whole new way for brands to utilize video blogs and social networking sites like YouTube or Metacafe in order to promote their products. Coull.tv even encourages users to find out more about the certain gadget some celebrity in a video is using. Which lipstick does lonelygirl15 wear? Nothing which cannot be tagged…

Posted by brian tiong at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *) 

There are too many contests being launched on YouTube these days for anyone to keep track: YouTube Underground, the YouTube-Southwest ad contest, MyCadillacStory and RealHousewives to name a few. CBS also used the site to launch a contest involving the Super Bowl: users could submit 15 minute clips to be included in the channel’s Super Bowl coverage.

In fact, we note today that a holding page has appeared for the official YouTube Super Bowl event, which will allow users to vote on the ads after the game. Incidentally, iFilm wrote to tell us they post the Super Bowl ads every year right after they air - they may post the ads before YouTube.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that McDonalds is now launching an ad contest on YouTube - the “It’s Your Break” campaign asks users to submit ads for their new Honey Mustard Snack Wrap - the winner gets his or her clip shown on the YouTube homepage on February 19th. The snack food is offering talented YouTubers a big break, says the McDonalds marketing department, touting a slogan that must have taken at least 5 minutes to think up.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Reuters *) 

Sweden plans to be the first country to open an embassy in popular virtual world Second Life.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)