(* Source: Paul Resnikoff  *)

Mobile phones are frequently viewed as a distinct media environment, separate from other platforms like PCs and television.  But as mobile devices increasingly assume computer-like characteristics and reach beyond carrier-provided signals, their status as a separate platform is starting to erode.  "The question is whether it makes sense anymore to license for a platform, or if we are now talking about a pervasive experience," said Ted Cohen, head of digital consultancy TAG Strategic, during an executive roundtable at MusEXPO in Los Angeles on Monday.

Cohen pointed to an oncoming generation of handhelds that include WiFi browsing and offer easy connectivity to PC-based collections.  Indeed, that future is already among us, and the emerging media consumer is clearly a cross-platform animal.  "It never made sense to license separately for mobile," said Ian Rogers, former head of Yahoo Music and current chief executive of Topspin.  "Mobile will eventually start to look more like the internet, and at that point, it stops making sense to view it as a completely different model."

Others etched a similar vision of convergence.  "It will be very difficult to tell the difference between a laptop on WiFi or WiMax and a mobile device, and you might make phone calls on both," said Chris Barton, strategic partnership development manager at Google.

But the ex-Yahoo Rogers touched upon the somewhat restrictive nature of the current mobile platform, one heavily controlled by carriers.  And that mostly defines today's landscape for mobile music and media, at least for those wanting to promote, sell, or acquire content on handhelds.

For carriers and major content owners, the present-day environment offers an easier mechanism for controlling customer billing relationships and extracting dollars from content.  "It really comes down to where the billing relationship is," explained David Pakman, chief executive of eMusic.  And that existing relationship makes its advantageous for carriers and other stakeholders to preserve the existing landscape.

But despite that carefully-crafted moneymaking machine, attendees continued to question the power of mobile platforms to deliver solid, independent revenue streams.  One pointed to a growing threat from tiny, flash-based storage cards, easily swappable among users.  Another pointed to side-loading among users, who predictably want to extend their massive, PC-based collections onto their devices.

Meanwhile, consumers are now getting ready for a beefed-up iPhone, perhaps the vanguard of a more sophisticated, powerful mobile device class that is stretching beyond carrier-imposed limitations.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Nic Tan *) 

I've been a little jaded by the Facebook phenomenon lately and I needed a different fix... Enter Ego (still in beta) by Punch Entertainment, a little startup in Mountain View. These guys used to port console games to mobile phones for carriers like Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile etc.

After playing it online for a day, I find that Ego is like a cross between a Tamagotchi, a Mii, Facebook and IM. Your avatar starts off with very basic attributes and levels up by developing a stronger persona or archetype through in-game interactions called Socializing. Going from high school to college to adulthood, you can be buddies with not only your friends, but with the whole American Idol crew, the folks from Lost (all AI driven) or random avatars with AI kicking in when they're not online - based on those users' past actions. As you progress in the game, you unlock rewards that help refine your personality instead of buying features.

Ego is built as a social networking game for mobile phones with online components through their site, a Facebook app and beyond. It was awarded "Most Innovative Game" at Game Developers Conference 2008. The target demographic is teens and up.

http://www.ego-city.com/

Posted by brian tiong at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: James Quintana Pearce*)

The market for rich media advertising on mobile—in the form of TV, video, games, user-generated content (UGC) and music—will reach $2.79 billion by 2012 predicts Screen Digest. The bulk of this will come from mobile TV advertising, tapped to hit $2.44 billion globally by that time, a figure which is pretty close to that predicted by Juniper. This is predicted to be more than 20 percent of mobile TV revenues, although there are bigger opportunities in free-to-air markets like Japan and South Korea rather than subscription markets like North America and Europe. Screen Digest warns that without its own metrics mobile TV “will struggle to be considered a stand alone advertising channel”. Mobile video-on-demand will claim $336. million by 2012. The other forms of rich media content aren’t predicted to bring in a lot of revenue, but will “provide a valuable source of innovative marketing opportunities for brands aspiring to connect and interact with their customers”. By 2012 60 million ad-funded games will be downloaded annually, predicts SD. (release)

Posted by brian tiong at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Paul Isakson *) 

Through all of the rambling that was the post titled, The Future of Advertising is Design, Linda was kind enough to leave a link to a post she put together in the comments which contained the above quote from the venerable Mr. Lee Clow.

I have always intended to do a shorter follow-up post to clean that mess up and this quote gave me the perfect lead-in.

What I intended to get at, but derailed with tangents, is that based on what Mr. Clow is talking about above - that what we do now (at least those of us who are to survive in this industry) is far bigger than what in the past has been called advertising - we have to think bigger than advertising at the beginning of creating ideas.

If an ad agency* is to prosper at whatever it is we'll call it in the future, they have to think bigger than the standard TV, Radio, Print and OOH model that then tosses a bone over to "interactive" by asking "the web guys" to put the TV spot on the web site. O.K., they also want a micro-site based on the TV spot. And make it a "viral" micro-site while you're at it. Oh, and get the PR agency to do a press release on the new campaign. There. It's all integrated now. Right? (Pssst. No. That's wrong.)

Where most ad agencies are getting into trouble, at least in my best guess, is that they are starting with looking at reaching the client's objective/goal by asking, "What's the ad campaign we need to create to solve this?" Or, "What's the message we need to tell people that will solve this?" If your approach is to start by assuming it's an ad, or starting by assuming the answer is to tell people something, then you're going to miss significant opportunities and as the quote above says, your client's brand will not be able to survive against others taking a bigger picture approach.

This is where the link to design came in. I didn't mean design will become advertising or advertising will become design. I simply meant that as an industry, we need to bring design thinking into the process to help us think bigger than advertising.

That's all. For now at least... Ha!

*For the record, we can plug "digital agency" into this equation too. If a digital shop is only thinking about how to best solve their clients' problems with web/digital solutions, they're going to quickly end up in the same situation. The only thing keeping them safe right now is that what's going on in the digital arena has everyone excited and so they're not taking the same heat as the traditional ad shops. Once the shine wears off the penny, they'll be hearing the same song.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

MyStrands has always had a very large push on the mobile front; being a European-based company has allowed MyStrands to explore this front more so than it could do strictly in the US. It’s latest announcement takes mobile access to MyStrands to another level, with scrobbling integration for Last.fm content.

With the latest update for MyStrands Social Player, Nokia users can scrobble tracks to Last.fm as they play music on the Symbian S60 3rd Edition and J2ME (optimized for Nokia S40) devices (download the respective applications here and here).

The beauty of such devices is that they do in fact act more like computers than mere cell phones, and Nokia has been at the forefront of app development towards this end. In doing so, Nokia has allowed companies like MyStrands to really pour a lot of resources into the development of mobile applications, which have large bearings on the web applications as well.

In providing scrobbling for Last.fm accounts, MyStrands bridges the gap between its own service, mobile devices, and Last.fm users, which can then broadcast listening activity and recommendations far beyond the realms of these three options.

Likewise, such mobile scrobbling integration with Last.fm means that users can search and discover new music from their mobile devices as wel, thanks to the MyStrands Social Player and reccomendation tools for songs and artists, as well as like-minded users.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Stan Schroeder *)

“Grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves
After all
It’s a competitive world
Everything counts in large amounts“

Stan says...

 
So, how much do you value Facebook? Do you think that Silicon Alley Insider’s fictional list of the most valuable web startups in the world comes close to at least some degree of accuracy, or do you think - an opinion I encounter daily - that most of these web companies aren’t worth anything?

Indeed, what is Facebook besides a new way to send silly pictures and solve quizzes with your friends? Sure, a platform for fun that connects millions worldwide is worth something, but 9 billion? Or 15 billion, which is the valuation based on the price Microsoft paid for a stake in the company. That kind of money can build schools, hospitals, roads. Can a virtual playground really be worth billions?

Actually, it can. Somber Depeche Mode lyrics from Everything Counts, bashing the music industry’s greed and - being their first truly huge hit - ironically making sure that Depeche Mode never runs out of money in the next 25 years, shed some light on this. Contrary to what many people believe, the value of money itself often isn’t really based on anything solid; US dollar was once based on gold, and you could, in theory, exchange each bill for a small amount of gold; those days are long gone. Stock market, which is where most of the money gets moved anyway, does not care about what’s happening now; it only cares about what’ll happen tomorrow. Simply put, everyone bets on a better future; if the promise of that future crumbles, the money disappears into thin air - just like it appeared.

The collective bet at this moment is that most forms of advertising will move to or somehow be connected to the internet, and that whoever builds the best platform for delivering ads online will tap into an enormous source of wealth. This is why Facebook is worth billions, and this is why Microsoft’s brass are currently bashing their heads trying to think of a way to take over Yahoo for 44 billion dollars.

Many of the startups from SAI’s list - from any such list, in fact - are hanging by a thread. Twitter may be worth millions now, but should Google somehow turn Jaiku (not likely) into a “better” Twitter, its value might plummet towards zero. That’s how things work if you’re a web startup, but it can happen even if you’re in the business of selling shovels, however solid the market may seem at the moment.

The question, of course, is are we overestimating the future here? We count everything in large amounts now, but it only takes one dark shadow of doubt or a disruptive new technology to reduce all those hopes and dreams to rubble. Well, perhaps not our hopes and dreams, since not many web startups have gone public; but certainly the hopes and dreams of VCs and other investors.

No one can really give an answer now. Until these companies (well, some do, but many don’t) start earning money, paying dividends, and showing solid financial growth over a couple of years, they could be valued anywhere between zero and couple of billions. One thing is certain: if you bet big, you either lose big, or win big. It’s still time to think big; the height of web 2.0’s irrational exuberance may be close, but we’re not quite there yet. If it all crumbles down like it did the first time around, at least it won’t be our money.

[image credits: www.todomusicaymas.com]

Posted by brian tiong at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *) 

| View | Upload your own

Morgan Stanley’s Internet Trends report from last month takes a big turn from previous reports - the focus is nearly 100% on social applications and how they are taking over the Internet (Yahoo apparently read it). Key takeaways:

• YouTube + Facebook page views > Google or Yahoo page views (and may be bigger than both combined)
• 6/10 top internet sites are social (youtube, live.com, facebook, hi5, wikipedia, orkut); none were on the list in 2005
• YouTube has 258 million users, 50% visit weekly or more
• >50% of Facebook users log in daily, 95% of Facebook users have used at least one third party application
• Skype revenue is $1.67/user/year, up 9% Y/Y
• 14 million photos uploaded daily on Facebook
• Google + Yahoo = 61% of U.S. Online Ad Revenue
• Google: $4.4b ad revenue in Q4, paid out $1.4 billion to partners
• Yahoo: $1.6 billion in ad revenue in Q4, paid out $429 million to partners

More here 

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

You start with Chilirec by choosing from a preselected set of a few hundred channels. Two downsides: you can’t load your own channels and you can’t listen to them normally before choosing to record. But once you to start recording, Chilirec will begin loading the songs into its Flash-based player so you can play them back at your convenience (somehow it knows just when songs begin and end, and which ones they are).

After you’ve built up a recorded collection, you can search through your songs using keywords that will match artists, titles and genres. You can also play recordings by channel, artist, and playlist. A “toplists” feature will presumably display the songs that are most popular across your selected channels, but it takes at least a day of recording to work.

If you want to play a song outside of Chilirec, you can click on an icon next to it and it will be saved as an MP3 on your desktop. It would be great to see them add a feature for bulk downloads in addition to the ability to load your own channels (for your local radio station, for example).

Chilirec is a nice tool for when you don’t know exactly which music you want to add to your collection. Other music search sites like Songza and Skreemr are better when you have an artist or song name in mind. And of course, Pandora and Jango are great for when you want to find music related to the stuff you already know you like.

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

(* Source: Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins *)

 Podtrac, TNS and eMarketer have put together a few reports indicating the effectiveness of podcast advertising relies on its longtail, as contrasted with the instant gratification methods more prevalent in other types of Internet based advertising like Google’s AdSense or YouTube’s overlay ads for video. The companies studied podcast advertising from February 2006 to March 2008 across multiple product categories and ad types. Unaided awareness for podcast ads was 68%, compared with 21% for streaming video and 10% for television

In eMarketer’s analysis of the data, Doug Keith, president of Future Research Consulting was quoted as saying: “The data suggest audiences are paying close attention to show content and the embedded ads within them which greatly increased ad effectiveness in the studies. The high unaided ad recall figures are no doubt the results of a less cluttered environment.”

It’s great data, and bodes well for the producers in the podcasting world looking to make their bones and their living producing audio and video content.  As James Lewin at Podcasting News notes, though, since the data comes from a company that makes their living evangelizing podcasting, the data is a bit suspect.  What makes it even more suspect is the fact that it comes from PodTrac, a monetization group that unfortunately has a reputation amongst the podcasting producers’ community for a lack of responsiveness to talent inquiries, a severe shortage of advertising opportunities, and a history of slow payments.

Still, there’s an element of truth in the studies, even if study comes from a questionable source.  The nature of downloadable and on-demand media doesn’t lend itself very well to the impulse purchase, but more towards the brand impression mode of marketing.  There have been ongoing attempts by many of the leading podcast advertising networks, like The TechPodcast Network and Podango, to push CPA (cost per action) ads. These types of deals don’t pay anything to the content producer unless the listener/viewer takes an action, and usually does so using a certain URL or discount code.

Given that with video and audio, there isn’t really such thing as a hyperlink, it’s usually nigh impossible for the producer to receive credit for all the actions generated by the advertising. While I certainly believe in the medium of podcasting, and it’s ability to be, as these aforementioned studies show, at least seven times more efficient than traditional advertising, I have to wonder if CPA and the lack of the hyperlink has something to do with that cost effectiveness - at the expense of producers.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Mark Hendrickson *) 

The Facebook developer community is thriving but faces a good deal of uncertainty about its future. That was the general message from a session held at the Web 2.0 Expo today called “The Facebook Platform: Finding Success in the Facebook Economy.”

The session started off with a disagreement over how much money developers are actually making through Facebook. Naval Ravikant from Venturehacks estimated that over $100M would be made in 2008, whereas Joyce Park of Renkoo and Matt Sanchez of VideoEgg predicted revenues as low as $10-35M this year.

All panelists agreed, however, that CPM rates on Facebook are miserably low, perhaps averaging 15 cents. Developers have begun experimenting with other sources of revenue, such as the sale of virtual goods and premium services, but advertising still generates more than 80% of the platform’s revenue.

The panelists also agreed that Facebook’s recent moves to block viral distribution channels have made life harder for the developers of low engagement apps such as Slide’s FunWall. These apps suffer most because they depend on Facebook’s viral channels for their adoption, having given users little reason to invite their friends proactively.

In the long run, more engaging apps such as Scrabulous are set to do better not only because they attract more dedicated users, but because they provide better opportunities for direct monetization, even if their CPMs are also quite low. Ravikant made a point to say that travel, dating, book, and game-related apps have the brightest futures whereas “everyone else is kinda screwed”.

Despite the shift away from low engagement apps, the platform will remain the most attractive economically for independent developers. Small teams can crank out applications within days and earn decent paychecks, but large companies only have a handful of opportunities to make worthwhile returns on their investments. Ravikant made a point to discourage multi-million dollar investments in Facebook app developers, citing the difficulties associated with monetizing and maintaining a strong user-base. The sense I got, however, was that independent developers will also face hard times, since traditionally they don’t deploy high engagement apps.

The consensus from the panel was that Facebook needs to continue building a strong infrastructure for its developers. Park even suggested that Facebook roll back some of its restrictions on viral distribution since they were hurting growth of many legitimate applications (the distribution mechanisms were the main reason developers came to the platform in the first place).

She also wants Facebook to enforce its policies more clearly and fairly, since there are currently too many incentives to cheat. None of the panelists, however, were concerned that Facebook itself would trample many 3rd party apps with its own feature additions, since Facebook has the mindset of a platform provider, not an app developer.

Ravikant particularly looked forward to Facebook providing a good micro-payment system since it will spur innovation in monetization strategies, which could in turn inform how Facebook itself does business. Providing developers with better ways to make money is perhaps the most important thing Facebook can do now, especially if it continues to restrict how quickly its applications can grow.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

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

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

Ray Ozzie first hinted at it during a keynote speech last March. But tonight Microsoft is finally launching a preview beta of Live Mesh, a new Windows Live platform for syncing files and, eventually, applications across different devices. (Of course, for Microsoft, a beta means 10,000 people, so you have a pretty good chance of getting in if you sign up now—or not). Mesh is really a key element in chief software architect Ozzie’s efforts to make the Web the center of the Microsoft experience for consumers instead of the PC.

Mesh lets you set up a virtual desktop online, and connect different computers to it. Put any file into a Mesh folder and it automatically syncs between the online desktop and every connected computer. Select a file or folder and you can easily share its contents—photos, videos, music, documents—with any friend or family member. You can also remotely control a connected computer from the Live Mesh desktop. Right now, this works with any computer, as long as it is running Windows XP or Vista. But the longer-term vision is to truly make this work with any device. Mac and mobile versions are coming later this year. And eventually, anything from Xboxes and DVRs to digital picture frames and printers could be connected through Mesh.

A hundred of Ozzie’s engineers have been working on Mesh for the past two years. At launch, it may not seem like much more than a combination of Windows Live SkyDrive and FolderShare, but under the hood it is an ambitious platform play. Mesh is really aimed at developers. Not only does it provide a framework for syncing files between devices, it can also sync applications. The way it does this is by using a two-way RSS or Atom feed developed by Ozzie called FeedSync, formerly called Simple Sharing Extensions.

The basic foundation of Mesh is this feed-centric programming model. A Web developer can build an app using any programming language or tools he likes (Python, Ruby on Rails, Flex) and then sync it across devices and other applications using two-way feeds as the basic data and communication channel. The promise for developers, says product unit manager Abhay Parasnis: “If you Mesh-enable your application, we will let you extend it to other devices.”

Microsoft is offering a set of Mesh APIs that include storage services, membership, sync, peer-to-peer communication, and a Newsfeed feature that tells users the status of different folders and who’s accessed them. The same programming model works whether a developer is building an app for an offline device or for the Web

In many ways this effort is a counterweight to what we are seeing with Adobe Air or Google Gears, which are efforts to take browser-based apps offline. With Mesh, Microsoft is in effect reasserting the primacy of client-based applications. They need not be Windows-based, but I’m sure that won’t hurt. Developers can customize their apps for whatever device they originally reside on—whether it is a PC, a smartphone, or a set-top box—and then Webify them by syncing them to other applications across the Web. These apps could be more powerful than apps confined to a browser-like sandbox without giving up the connectivity of the Web.

One example given to me was a PC-based genealogy app that would update whenever a family member made a change on their computer. The problem with this example, and perhaps the problem with Mesh, is that there is already a solution to that synchronization problem. It is called Geni, and it is a Web app. What I’d like to see, though, is a Mesh version of Word or Excel. That could at least begin to answer the threat presented by Google Docs and other online productivity apps. Mesh makes ciient apps social by linking them together and to the people you know.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

Duncan reports... 

Sonific, an online music playing servuce similar to Pandora and Seeqpod, is to close May 1 as the company was unable to obtain licensed music rights in a way that made the service viable.

Gerd Leonhard, Co-Founder & CEO writes:

1) There are countless startups providing access to any and all music streams without any license whatsoever. However, when we approached the major record label decision makers in order to obtain licenses for some of the music in their catalogs we have routinely faced demands for very large cash advances and fixed per-stream minimum payments, pressure to give them ‘free’ company equity, and requirements of utterly bizarre usage restrictions. It seems that the industry’s major stakeholders still prefer this turf to remain unlicensed rather than to allow real-life, workable and market-based solutions to emerge by working with new companies such as Sonific. This is not the way forward.

2) We therefore had to realize that a company that wants to provide interactive streaming music services must either a) risk the constant complaints of their users, due to the lack of hit content b) proceed to use any and all music (this is routinely done by allowing users to upload their own MP3s) without the required licenses, and therefore be at the total mercy of the record labels at some point in time, and c) build a huge audience very quickly, based on having the content available - permission or not -, and then very quickly sell themselves to a large company that will take care of placating the labels while the money is plenty and the pockets are deep.

Unfortunately we don’t like any of these choices.

 

 

Posted by brian tiong at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Sam Flemming *) 

Sam says on his iMedia article...

As the global internet community is striving towards a more connected online landscape, China's new media is already showing signs of the 'future'.

In its recently published report "The Connected Agency", Forrester suggests that the agency of the future will be a "connected agency", which should have "a deep understanding of consumer communities, helping brands create and nurture connections, deliver targeted, on-demand messages, and network for talent and insights."

While the Forrester report does not cover China, the need for agencies to help brands connect is more urgent with an online consumer community landscape that is more active, more complex and overall more evolved than the West. The state of China's online landscape is indeed so. For the country, the internet has always been social, and internet communities have always existed in the mainstream. In short, in China, the 'future' is happening now.  

Unfortunately, in contrast to the greater presence and impact of online communities in China, it seems that agencies here are arguably less prepared and less knowledgeable than their Western counterparts. As a result, you often find agencies recommending copy & paste internet word-of-mouth (IWOM) strategies from the West that at best have little impact.

Before taking action, it's important for brands to have an understanding of the different types of communities. Let's take a quick review of the current Chinese internet word of mouth IWOM landscape to understand where brands have opportunities to connect with communities.
 
BBS as the core of the social Chinese internet
BBS, or topic-based online bulletin board systems, serve as the online nation's "water cooler" for every kind of situation and topic imaginable. While bulletin boards in the West have existed for years, in China, they have not only been in existence for sometime, they actually dominate with 35.5 percent of the 210 million Chinese netizens who use BBS on a regular basis. Most importantly for brands, there are active product communities for almost every category including automobile, mobile phone, parenting and cosmetics. Taking just automobile alone, we see over five million messages per month coming from communities built around specific car models that include detailed product feedback as well as queries related to customer service. In China, BBS communities are the first place to look for active, mainstream and influential consumer communities.

Blogs as diaries
Blogging is absolutely popular, with 23.5 percent of Chinese netizens using blogs regularly. However, blogs, for the most part, serve as personal diaries for individuals (not "power influencers").

Portals have blog "circles" around certain categories, but it would be a stretch to call these circles "communities." Microblogging (such as Twitter- type applications) is beginning to take off with sites like fanfou and jiwai, but has yet to hit critical mass. While there are notable exceptions for some categories, including technology, for the most part, blogs generally have incidental product mention with no real community.

QQ as an ecosystem
Over 80 percent of netizens use IM, with Qzone and QQ groups covering over 70 percent share. QQ is for all practical purposes a social nework service (SNS). Compared to Facebook, it has 50 percent more active social network users. Most importantly, QQ has proved itself to be a capable partner for brands, leveraging its platform for massive reach, even if not deep engagement. An obvious example of that is Coke's iCoke platform.
 
SNS has not achieved much traction -- yet
While SNS has yet to gain traction in China, Xiaonei is the SNS to watch as it burrows into the university mindscape to provide an alternative to local university BBS. Xiaonei will need to differentiate itself in order to stand out among booming QQ and BBS, and gain attention from those using the Chinese "social" internet.

Q&A communities serving info seekers
Baidu's "I Know" question and answer community, along with Sina's I-Ask, and Tianya's Wenda, has fuelled a segment that has not really taken off in the West. Brands like KFC are beginning to sponsor certain topics as a way to connect with targeted communities and it is worth exploring this hot area.

The many emerging others
Online communities that support product feedback and other consumer discussions already exist within BBS. We are now seeing new sites and applications which are trying to create better platforms for these communities. Dianping is a restaurant review site which will likely morph into a more successful Yelp. Douban is a music and book review community that fulfills the same need as Amazon reviews. Wodeyichu is a community site that leverages netizens' propensity to show off their new purchases with pictures; Meeli takes this a step further as a site where netizens list their purchases, with pictures and pricing. These platforms are emerging and are enjoying varying degrees of traction.

Of course, awareness of the communities is just the beginning. How to meaningfully connect with, support and participate is the next and most difficult step. Navigating partners and strategies within such a varied, vibrant and complex IWOM media landscape is arguably more difficult than in the West even as the opportunity is more compelling.

Take Ford Focus for example: every month, there are over 150,000 messages around the car on automobile BBS communities. How can Ford be a part of these communities? Is it welcome? How can they join the conversation? In which communities are they being discussed? Are there other communities beyond auto BBS communities that might be relevant? To be a truly connected agency in China will require a different mindset that includes actually listening to and understanding local Chinese communities, not just knowing about them and treating them like a new media.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Larry Dignan *)

Larry says... 

Enterprise 2.0 will become a $4.6 billion industry by 2013 and social networking tools will garner the bulk of the money, according to a report by Forrester Research.

The report, released on Monday and penned by Forrester analyst G. Oliver Young, shows a few notable trends that are worth diving into. Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb first detailed the report. Here are the charts that jumped out for me.

That chart is basically the opposite of what I would have expected. Enterprise 2.0 (all resources) should appeal more to small to medium sized businesses as it may lower implementation costs and provide other productivity enhancements. Instead more than half of these smaller businesses aren’t even considering enterprise 2.0 apps while the giants are diving in head first.

Forrester defines Enterprise 2.0 as the corporate version of Web 2.0. Here’s the research firm’s definition:

In Forrester’s view, the key hallmark of Web 2.0 is efficiency for end users, and the ultimate goal is to use technology like Ajax, rich Internet applications, blogs, wikis, and social networks to foster productive, advantageous behavior among employees, customers, partners, and other networks such as Social Computing, the Information Workplace, and collective intelligence.

Meanwhile social networking will be the biggest priority followed by mashups by 2013.

The top spending categories aren’t all that surprising. For instance, social networking is a decent substitute for knowledge management applications, a category that companies haven’t quite cracked. In other words, social networking could yield ROI. Mashups could also deliver faster time to market and it doesn’t hurt that giants like IBM are pushing them.

Other key takeaways:

Web 2.0 tools and technologies focus on worker productivity and collaboration. Offerings like those from BEA Systems, IBM, and Microsoft and from pure-play vendors like Awareness, NewsGator Technologies, and Six Apart all factor into the enterprise Web 2.0 space.

Podcasting will the smallest enterprise 2.0 market with $273 million in projected spending by 2013.

Enterprise 2.0 apps will never see a blank IT slate: Legacy applications rule. Forrester writes:

Across the board, Web 2.0 tools enter a crowded space full of legacy software and processes that are difficult to displace and with which Web 2.0 software must integrate to be fully effective. Integration with lightweight applications like email and Excel, as well as heavier applications like Web content management suites, campaign management software, portal software, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, must all be addressed over time.

Business units will drive enterprise 2.0 adoption. The IT department remains an obstacle due to slim budgets and the need to maintain legacy hardware and software infrastructure.

Enterprise 2.0 companies (right) will struggle to make deliver big profits. Why? Workers (and consumers) are used to free apps. “The starting point has been set at free, and buyers will always have the option to try to exploit a free consumer-class service to solve an enterprise problem if the entry price gets too high,” says Forrester. If that scenario plays out you really have to wonder how enterprise 2.0 will generate $4.3 billion in spending by 2013.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

Duncan says...

UK startup WeeWorld is offering a avatar focused social networking service that is doing some great numbers.

WeeWorld is pitched as the “world’s first multiplatform visual identity” and offers a personalized Web experience that can be used across IM, blogs and social networking sites. WeeWorld users design a WeeMee, a customizable avatar that gets its own space, and embeding is fully built in for users. The site offers a social network platform in its own right, described as “a community offering of entertainment and exploration to enrich their online and mobile experience.”

Where WeeWorld gets more interesting is the link ins with big business. This from their email pitch to us:

On WeeWorld, users actually ask us for brands to help them express themselves. And the more we give them, the more they ask for … I think it works because it’s content, not ads. Plus it’s visual, fun, and helps our users express their mood and personality.

Brand advertisers and agencies are starting to get it and to get what WeeWorld is about. We’re in the midst of a big P&G PROM promotion for example. Girls are snapping up everything from make-up and hairstyles to beauty tips, while embracing brands like Herbal Essences, Crest Whitestrips, CoverGirl and more. They are even participating in brand-sponsored, surveys, contests and forums. Check it out at: weeworld.com/prom/.

comScore reports that the site did 100 million page views in March 2008 on 1 million uniques, and WeeWorld reports more than 21 million sign ups. The company took $15.5 million in their second round from Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital in 2006.

comScore notes the majority of users are female, and although many might presume that it’s a service targeted at kids, comScore notes broad usage among many age groups. 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Henry Wok *) 

Henry says... 

We’ve been analyzing historical TechMeme data to dig a little deeper than the leaderboard information on the site that shows top blogs over the trailing 30 days. Mark McGranaghan and I are slicing the data in a number of ways and will publish it shortly on CrunchBase.

For now we thought we’d show a teaser - below are the top 100 tech bloggers/authors, based on the total number of headlines they have had on TechMeme from January 1, 2008 until today. The data isn’t 100% perfect as we’ve been grabbing it only once per hour, so a headline that was up for less than one hour may not be counted. But in terms of tracking the most popular bloggers, the data is meaningful. Since a lot of the top leaderboard blogs are multi-author, this helps to shake out who’s actually writing the popular stories.

Full list is below:

Posted by brian tiong at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)
 

It's all about engagement.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Digital Music News *)  

More sampling means more buying, at least according to Last.fm cofounder Martin Siskel.  Just recently, Last.fm started offering full-length, on-demand access to a considerable catalog, instead of 30-second samples.  That has now caused a "direct and positive impact," specifically a 119 percent gain since January.  "In just over two months it's become clear that people will buy CDs and downloads if they get access to the kind of service we offer," Siskel said. 

Siskel pointed to a potent combination of previewing, discovery, recommendation, and social networking, elements blended smartly by Last.fm.  Specifically, Siskel referenced an Amazon-based increase, though the company also has affiliate partnerships with iTunes and 7digital.  But the specifics ended there, and the company declined to detail hard numbers.  That raises questions about the absolute volumes involves, and introduces the possibility of insignificant totals.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 (* Source: Servant of Chaos *)

But while the consumer landscape has undergone a profound change, it is easy to see why business is slow to move -- for no matter how advanced we are in our "home life", evidence of a leakage from home to profession is minute. Take for example, the humble wiki. How many of you heard of a wiki? How many of you have you have used one? How many have set one up? Who has read something on Wikipedia?

Now I am guessing that many of my blog's readers would raise their hand at at least one of the previous questions. But now ask yourself, does this apply at work? Extend the same question to blogs. Does your company have a blog? Are you involved in it? If not, why not? What are the barriers preventing you?

More here 

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

(* Source: Ed Peto *)

Mathew Daniel says...

As Olympic hosts and country-of-honor at MIDEM, China’s music industry is an increasingly common feature on the western agenda. There is, however, almost a whiff of the ‘Wild East’ in the way companies are approaching licensing in the Middle Kingdom.

It has to be realized that the vast majority of labels at MIDEM are probably currently unscathed by piracy in China and that’s likely because their music is so obscure in the Chinese consciousness that they have not even had the dubious honor of gracing the servers of China’s notorious MP3 search engine, Baidu.

Piracy in China often gets a lot of attention but many forget the other Ps of marketing and these are the basics that labels intending to come into China should first focus on. For dramatic effect, let me first quote Tim O’Reilly when he said that “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy“.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that one is worse than the other as it is a case of horses for courses. I would also add that in China, in true Darwinian fashion, one man’s piracy is another man’s marketing. But as O’Reilly explained, piracy eventually develops in a manner akin to progressive taxation in exchange for greater exposure and appeal: There is always the regretful possibility that one may eventually despair at the crossroads of Robert Johnson.

Ed Peto’s piece about the music business in China also noted the labels’ part in engendering piracy in China:

“The arrival of western product in the early 90s came courtesy of ’saw-gashed’ CDs: Excess stock and deleted titles from western majors attempting to avoid taxation and disposal costs. These CDs had their cases cut to mark them as defective and were then shipped in to China through free-market economic ports like Guangzhou, only to end up on the black market. An end result that can be seen as a partial shooting-in-the-foot for the western majors who then had to come in and fight against the pirate networks they inadvertently helped set up.”

Kaiser Kuo, one of the pioneers of China’s rock scene added, <