(* Source: Paul Isakson *)

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

(* Source: Viralblog *)

Another year, another mashup. DJ Earworm created a mash up of the top 25 hits of 2009, according to Billboard; “United State of Pop 2009“. Last year, the DJ created the same kind of mash up for the year 2008. This video generated almost 2 million views. This year’s version, containing Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce, got over 4.5 million views in just 1 week time on YouTube alone. So enjoy the best of 2009, in a little over 4 minutes, one more time!

A Mashup of the Top 25 Hits of 2009, according to Billboard.

http://facebook.com/earworm
http://djearworm.com

The Black Eyed Peas - BOOM BOOM POW
Lady Gaga - POKER FACE
Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O'Donis - JUST DANCE
The Black Eyed Peas - I GOTTA FEELING
Taylor Swift - LOVE STORY
Flo Rida - RIGHT ROUND
Jason Mraz - I'M YOURS
Beyonce - SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
Kanye West - HEARTLESS
The All-American Rejects - GIVES YOU HELL
Taylor Swift - YOU BELONG WITH ME
T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake - DEAD AND GONE
The Fray - YOU FOUND ME
Kings Of Leon - USE SOMEBODY
Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo - KNOCK YOU DOWN
Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - BLAME IT
Pitbull - I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)
T.I. Featuring Rihanna - LIVE YOUR LIFE
Soulja Boy Tell 'em Featuring Sammie - KISS ME THRU THE PHONE
Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - DOWN
Miley Cyrus - THE CLIMB
Drake - BEST I EVER HAD
Kelly Clarkson - MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU
Beyonce - HALO
Katy Perry - HOT N COLD

Posted by brian tiong at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Gagan Biyani *)

Gagan says...

Some mobile startups do something that can’t be done online. Others copy an online business and bring it to mobile. And then there are companies like Scoutmob [iTunes link]. They take a great online business and make it ten times better by allowing you to take advantage of the service on-the-go.

Scoutmob is Woot on mobile, done on a local scale. Scoutmob provides location-aware coupons directly to your mobile device. They launch in Atlanta, and their first offer is for 50% off at Murphy’s, which is a 4-star restaurant according to Yelp. The offers, according to CEO Dave Payne, have a rapid expiration time (in this example, 24 hours), so you need to use the coupon within one day. They’ll have a different offer every day, so don’t weep if you can’t fly into Atlanta by midnight – you’ll be able to hit up Octane Coffee Bar and Lounge tomorrow.

For those of you who caught it, one obvious downside is “they launch in Atlanta.” That’s not to say Atlanta isn’t a cool place (hey, they brought us Coca-Cola and the Dirty Bird), but just that I doubt there are as many iPhone owners there as in San Francisco or New York City. That said, Dave’s existing business, SkyBlox, is a company that provides WiFi to 2,500 local businesses in Atlanta, so they’ve got an incumbent customer base to draw on for their offers.

Scoutmob seems to be entering an interesting business at a great time. Real-time and location-based mobile apps are hot as balls right now, and the virtual coupon business is making headlines too. Of course, it’s also super crowded – as there are many location-aware coupon apps on the iPhone, including Yowza!, which has made headlines because its founder is Heroes star, Greg Grunberg.

An interesting side-story (and a knock against Scoutmob) is that Dave has no technical expertise himself and does not have a technical team to make or maintain the application. Instead, he outsourced the technology to a web developer friend from college who didn’t know Objective-C. How the hell did he make an iPhone app with Push, a native UI and geolocation with a web developer? He used Appcelerator’s Titanium product, which enables web developers to create iPhone and Android applications. I’ve sat down with CEO Jeff Haynie, and Titanium, which is free, seems to be a cool way for web developers to create native-looking iPhone apps without having to code in Objective-C.

Scoutmob is available on the iTunes store and their first promotion is today.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *)

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(* Source: Brian Solis *)

Brian says...

"Real-Time Responsibilities (fully transparent and disclosed) of a New Media team could include:

Content Producers - Creates content necessary for client/company interaction with customers, peers and influencers, including videos, images, Web pages, blog posts, policies and guidelines, tweets, wikis, comments, online experiences, profiles, etc. In many cases, connectors and industry experts/strategists wear this hat and assign the creation of important content to either content producers, other members on the team with direct experience, or simply produce it themselves.

Digital Sociologists - Observes the cultures, trends, behavior, associated with communities, networks, forums and compares the interactivity around keywords and brands to contribute to engagement strategies, customer service policies and improvements and product modifications.

Digital Ethnographers - Ethnography is the branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. For those projects where a deep study of online culture and communities is critical, an ethnographer is ideal for documenting a descriptive study of a particular human society. As ethnography is based almost entirely on fieldwork, this role usually lives and interacts with the people who are the subject of study.

Research Librarians - Complements or augments in house or contract sociologists by analyzing relevant keywords used by customers, listening to and documenting conversations by content and sentiment, charting volume and frequency within social networks, identification and analysis of true influencers and tastemakers across media, blogs, and social communities, and presents data and charts for analysis by strategists.

Community Managers - Listens to conversations in social networks, forums, and the blogosphere documented by research librarians or through their own process, assigns relevant dialogue to appropriate team leads, manages the workflow and response status, and in most cases is the first line of response.

Digital or Social Architects - Digital or social architects are responsible for building the online bridges between company brand and consumers via widgets, sites, online dashboards, blogs, social newsrooms, social media releases, wikis, social networks, fan pages, forums, groups, and any other application, platform, or group responsible for hosting content, conversations, and interactivity.

Connectors - Informed individuals and teams that can connect stories to influencers and inspire activity, direction, and conversations. Connectors act based on intelligence, empathy, sincerity and the ability to truly “bridge” a story to someone else in a way that’s specific and compelling to them as an individual and also as it relates to their audience and social graph.

Industry Experts/Strategists - Someone has to act as the conductor to this all star orchestra. Qualified individuals have mastered the art and science of attaching new and traditional media to the bottom line of their business and also possess a deep understanding of and experience with customer empathy, market trends, and the governing technology that connects the people within desired market places.



These new, adjoined job functions create a new level of services that complement existing, traditional and necessary communications activities.

- Listening/Monitoring/Documenting – intelligence gathering and trend analysis

- Engagement in the networks and groups where relevant conversations are pervasive and warrant participation

- Content creation

- Conversation management and trafficking

- Influencer and tastemaker identification and networking

- Community management, empowerment, and cultivation

- Event hosting and franchising

- Story development and connectivity to “The Magic Middle” bloggers and Long Tail networks

- Humanizing company and product messaging and redefining the online journey and experience associated with the online presences associated with specific brand/products"

Posted by brian tiong at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Johansson *)

Posted by brian tiong at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Inside Facebook *)

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

(* Source: ThreeBillion *)

Janko Roettgers says...

Posted by brian tiong at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: MG Siegler *)

 A smart piece of production using the community tweets as content... karaoke anyone?

Posted by brian tiong at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul Isakson *)

Resonance from Continuum on Vimeo.

"As important as understanding what to do next is having the confidence in being right to make it real."

As I was catching up on Design Sojourn the other day, I came across this great video on Continuum's approach to and beliefs about design strategy. It's a very worth-while watch - providing a lot of good things to think about.

When you step back, it's really about putting people at the center of the approach, rather than profit or your own desires as a company. Not only is this relevant to design, but it is also paramount to creating great advertising.

One of the things that could easily get lost in this, but I think is important to call out, is our role as creative thinkers and strategists - to find ways to surprise and delight people. When you think about what makes a great product or a great ad great, it's often that there is something, or multiple things, about it that surprise and delight people.

That's why having a smart insight is one thing, but bringing an idea to life that addresses it in an interesting and relevant way is much harder, often takes more time, and really is something that not everyone can do.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Brian Solis *)

Twitter connects people through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and interests in one, highly collaborative and promising ecosystem. The Twitterverse advances micro interaction and connections through an expanding network of applications, engendering the potential for macro reach and resonance online and IRL (in real life).

Posted by brian tiong at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kumegirl *)

Kumegirl says...

Several years ago a lot of pundits were discussing generation C. Jake Pearce wrote in idealog in 2006;

“Trendwatching.com says it’s C for ‘content’, meaning Gen C are defined by their production of original material. The bloggers at Digital Hive say it’s all about ‘creativity’—that Gen C want to become co-creators of their world (“Don’t just sell me a car—involve me in designing it”). Tomi Ahonen, a Swedish telco consultant and author, has another definition: C is for ‘community’. He says young consumers walk around with “a gang in their pocket”, continually txting, phoning and pxting their friends and families. “No decision is now made as individual, everything is done in community. Tom Eslinger, Saatchi & Saatchi’s worldwide interactive creative director, says it’s all the above but is also C for ‘channel’. “You can have all the digital devices and creative skills you like, but opening a channel to reach millions of customers and fans marks out Generation C.”” Whatever people thought that C stood for ( the generation that had to deal with climate change, or generation cash) - there was an acknowledged shift.

How that shift has panned out has been best expressed by Nick Gadsby of the blog Dark London in a cluetrain related post

“It seems that rather than businesses becoming more like consumers, consumers were becoming more like businesses. Thanks to the communicative and distributive tools of the internet anybody could advertise themselves and lots of people did. This trend has only accelerated – players of online games form hierarchical top-down organisations, techies develop apps in their spare time, ebay and amazon encourage people to become virtual stores. Even the less commercially minded will cumulatively spend hours updating profiles and uploading photos. If the sprawling chaos of the Myspace profile was the infomercial, Twitter is the streamlined 30 second ad where detail is less important than impact. ”

This is the dynamic that now lies behind what is being referred to as The 4 C’s. Here the 4 c’s include converation, collaboration, crowdsourcing, co-creation, or here or here content, context, continuity and connectivity. Either way, c words are current in web 2.0 discussions.

The final comment from Dark London, “I think when businesses start aiming to be the experts again that then they will be ready to have a real conversation with consumers about what they are doing and what they should be doing because they’ll have an opinion and the confidence to debate its worth.”

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

(* Source: Amy Muller *)

Some nice examples here...

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

(* Source: Ben Parr *)

Ben says...

Google has been on a tear with Gmail lately - it has been releasing new features at a rapid pace. You can now watch YouTube videos within Gmail, undo sent messages, and as of this week, you are able to insert images into Gmail. These are all useful and wonderful features…if you’ve turned them on in Gmail Labs.

Gmail Labs, the Gmail version of Google Labs, has several dozen features you can enable, from location-based signatures to multiple inboxes - these features can take your Gmail experience to the next level. However, many people don’t know about Gmail Labs or haven’t taken the time to review all of the features. With that in mind, here is how to get the most utility out of Gmail Labs:

Step 1: Understand how you use Gmail

Before turning on every feature available in Gmail, assess how you use it currently - is your Gmail mostly used for personal contacts? Is it a business account? Do others ever use your Gmail account? Do you attach a lot of images?

Answering these questions and more before adding features will save you a lot of trouble and a lot of headaches.

Step 2: Review the available features

After assessing how you use your Gmail, it’s time to take a look at all of the available features. Read all of the descriptions to get an idea of what each features does and how it can help you.

If you’re confused, read Google’s introduction to Gmail Labs and read our gmail coverage to get more in-depth information on specific features.

Step 3: Activate and try out features

Reading won’t be enough to understand these features, though - you’re just going to have to activate them and try them out yourself. Some, like “Vacation Time!” and “Right-side chat” are straightforward, while others like “Multiple Inboxes” and “Mouse Gestures” take a little more practice and training to get used to.

When trying them out, note your reaction and whether you want to keep it initially or not. Don’t activate anything you don’t need - this will just hinder your Gmail experience.

If Gmail Labs features become too complicated or if something goes wrong, use the Gmail escape hatch to deactivate features. This link returns you to the no-frills version os you can permanently deactivate features.

In the same line of thought, don’t keep features activated that you don’t use. These are still experimental features - things can go wrong like layouts or load times. Minimize your risk (and your clutter) and turn off any feature you aren’t using.

Step 4: Keep up-to-date with new features

Google seems to put out a new feature every week. This week’s feature, embeddable images, was a big one. Here are some simple ways to keep up:

Subscribe to the Gmail blog: Gmail tends to make all of their Labs announcements on their blog.

Create a Gmail Labs Google Alert: Google Alerts or an RSS feed of Gmail Labs can give you immediate knowledge of new features, although it may be filled with other noise on Gmail products.

Follow Mashable’s Gmail coverage: We try out best to cover the most useful Gmail information - read our Gmail articles for details on specific features.

GMail Labs: Top 10 Features We Recommend

Now that you’re getting started with Gmail Labs and its cool features, which ones should you start with? These features, in our opinion, are worth a spin:

1. Offline: This allows you to view your messages anywhere, even if you don’t have wifi.

2. Tasks: Tasks takes your to-do list and makes it part of Gmail. Tasks makes it easy to add items to your to-do list, even allowing you to take emails and turn them into tasks.

3. Superstars: This feature helps you organize your folders with different star icons. Be sure to determine what each icon means to you.

4. Mouse Gestures: Mouse Gestures allows you to scroll through your emails without clicking on multiple links or touching your keyboard. Swipe your mouse right with the right click held down to read your next email or go back to the inbox by swiping down.

5. Email Addict: On Gmail too much? Activate this and a link will appear at the top of the page, allowing you to take a 15 minute break. Great for when you have a lapse of self-control.

6. Navbar drag and drop: Navbar drag and drop makes it easy to organize your Gmail screen by dragging and dropping the items in the menus in the order that you want.

7. Multiple Inboxes: If you’re a Gmail power user, like most of us at Mashable, you have a lot of different mail sources and lots of labels. See more information at once by activating Multiple Inboxes. Note: this creates new inboxes for labels, not inboxes for secondary Gmail accounts.

8. Inserting Images: The newest Gmail Labs feature is a useful one that makes sending images a lot easier.

9. Create a Document: Turn any email into a Google doc with this useful little Gmail Labs feature.

10. Google Calendar gadget: If you’re a regular user of Google Calendar, activate it to link your Gmail to your Google Calendar.

Good luck with your Gmail experience!

Posted by brian tiong at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Micro-blogging is getting micro-payments. Tinker, the micro-blogging topic tracker from Glam Media which we covered in depth last night, is now live. The service tracks specific topics on both Twitter and Facebook, and allows these “event” streams to be republished as standalone widgets on blogs and other sites across the Web. I’ve embedded an example below showing the subsequent Tweets about our original article.

With the launch, Glam Media is also creating a professional micro-blogging network for journalists and bloggers who want to sign up to cover specific events or topics via Twitter or Facebook. It will be called the Tinker Micro-Bloggers Network. This will be a vetted subset of Tinker users who are advertiser-friendly. Glam is working on a micro-payments system to share revenues with approved micro-bloggers from ads in their associated widgets and Tinker streams.

All existing Glam Media publishers are automatically part of the Tinker Micro-Blogging Network. Glam also hopes to attract professional bloggers and journalists, who are pre-qualified (including any bloggers who are part of other blog advertising networks such as Federated Media, BlogHer, and TotalBeauty). Others can apply to be part of the network as well.

In order to make advertisers more comfortable with the concept of associating their brands with these micro-conversations, Tinker will offer a “safe” mode so that ads never appear near obscenities or specified keywords. Event moderators can also use the filters to block specific keywords or people from appearing in their curated stream.

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

(* Source: John Biggs *)

It’s hard to find a good stuff reader. Twhirl and Tweetdeck are good for Twitter and every other social networking whatever service has its own Air app, but there’s no one place you can put all your stuff in a readable and usable way. Enter Skimmer, a stuff reader by Fallon, an ad agency in Minneapolis. Presumably named after the great comedian and talk-show host Johnny Carson, Fallon has decided to brighten up its front walk with a unique Air application that brings Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, and Facebook to one place.

Why is an ad agency creating a Twitter app? Had you ever heard of Fallon before this? Didn’t think so. Moving on. [Folks have pointed out they did the BMW films and a few other campaigns. Feel free to ask some people on the street who they are, though, and I believe you'll be quite surprised.]

The folks at Fallon who showed me the service described it as a feed reader for designers. Fallon’s precious art department wanted to use the services we peons use every day but the application design was too muddled and messy. Their solution? Roll their own system using the latest in user interface design techniques taken from the catwalks of Paris.

The application, available on Fallon’s website, is still pretty wonky. It crashed a few times for me on OS X and there are still some issues in posting Tweets. The real differentiator, however, is the way Skimmer shows Flickr photos, videos, and avatars. The photos and videos appear in-line whenever your Flickr freunden post new pics or your YouTube favorites churn out another video. The system also allows you to add large, hi-resolution avatars to your account so other Skimmer users can see the true you and not some 50×50 pixel representation.

There are three screen modes - full, widget, and regular. The fullscreen mode is for crazy people who want their readers to take up the entire screen, the mid-sized is just about right, and the widget turns the reader into something more like Twhirl.

If I were a high school chemistry teacher I’d write “Good ideas but needs work” on the top of Skimmer and hand it back with a B-. The app needs some technical polish - in terms of usability it’s already pretty slick - but if you’re looking for something to bring a few of your services into one fairly attractive app then give Skimmer a try. It can only get better.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Cameron Chapman *)

Cameron says...

Last year we featured over 100 web applications to organize every aspect of your life, from your belongings to your social calendar, and more. Since then, many have been significantly improved and lots of new apps have been released.

From basic to do lists to event planning, fitness, educational organizers, and more, here are 100 new applications to get you even more organized.

Have a favorite? Tell us more about it in the comments.

Organize Your Stuff

LivingSocial - Organize your interests (restaurants, video games, books, TV shows, etc.) and share them with others.

eMove.com - Online tools to help you move.

BookBump - Complete book organization, including in-depth management tools, instant bibliographies, and organized book lists.

GuruLib - Home library organization application.

allmythings - Secure home inventory software that offers both free and paid plans.

WhatYah! - Organize and create complete lists of your movies, games and TV shows and share them with your friends.

TuneUp - Automatically cleans up and fixes your music collection, relabeling files, finding missing cover art, and even notifying you of upcoming concerts based on your collection.

PutPlace - Organize, store and backup all your digital stuff in one place.

Closet Assistant - A complete wardrobe management application that even includes an events calendar, so you know what events you need to dress for on a given day, and can plan accordingly.

Booktagger - Keep track of all your books, discover new books to read based on recommendations, keep lists of books, and even start an online book club.

Organize Your Shopping

No More Notebooks - Manage your shopping wish lists, research and compare prices, and recommend items to friends.

Rearden Personal Assistant - Online application that helps you book and organize services from trusted suppliers.

Wishlistr - Create customized wish lists that you can organize based on event or other criteria.

iStorez - Create your own personal mall to simplify your shopping.

Organize With Lists

blist - Create shareable online lists for managing every part of your life, from projects to finances to gifts.

vitalist - Getting Things Done list organization and management application.

do it, do it, done! - A simple to do list creator and manager.

Listphile - Community-powered list and database site.

Whimber - Online creator of printable to-do lists.

Wipee List - Free, easy-to-use online task management.

SimplyChecklists.com - Pre-made checklists in a variety of categories to get you organized.

iDo - To-do list for Getting Things Done (GTD).

checkser - A wiki of existing checklists that also allows you to create your own.

Doomi - Super simple to do list manager.

NowDoThis - Incredibly simple to-do list manager that only shows you one task at a time.

Listaculous - GTD list application.

Listas - Shareable list creation from Microsoft.

Organize Your Information

Hordit - Online file and information storage and organization that offers free unlimited storage for your PDFs, spreadsheets, documents, YouTube links, scanned images and more.

NutshellMail - This app organizes and consolidates all your email accounts, plus all your social networking accounts.

Shoeboxed - Receipt organization app that also organizes your business cards.

Joodo.com - Organization app for your photos, videos, friends and more that also offers media sharing and tools to find new content.

LaterThis - Save and organize websites you’d like to revisit later when you have more time.

Luminotes - A personal wiki for gathering and organizing your notes and information.

Zenbe - Integrated email and calendar that also manages your attachments and allows you to share items with others.

Pageonce - Organize all of your online accounts in one place and get alerts for payment due dates, financial transactions, cell phone minutes, and more.

Clipperz - Password organization app that also helps you organize and track any of your sensitive data (PINs, IDs, SSNs, etc.).

Feedoor - Feed management app that lets you merge, manage, and do more with your RSS feeds.

chi.mp - An online life management application.

Scrobbld - eBay and PayPal order and payment management.

Evernote - Capture and organize information from your mobile device, laptop, or any other device or platform that’s convenient.

fluxiom - Enterprise digital content management.

springpad - Online notebooks to organize everything in your life.

Zootool - Online organizer for your images, documents, videos and links.

Second Brain - Complete organization of your social media, files and bookmarks.

Picporta - An automatic photo management app.

Zettels - An online personal organizer.

Voyage - RSS feed organizer.

The Alphabetizer - Free app to put any list in alphabetical order.

Pocket - Organization for all of your bookmarks that includes sharing.

Users-Edge - Organize your data and information using a variety of pre-made templates.

Ziggs - Organize your online brand and image all in one place.

Agglom - Organize your links in sets and lists to create multimedia pages, rss feeds, slideshows and more.

Eluma - Keep all your online stuff - web sites, podcasts, blogs, RSS feeds, etc. - organized in one place.

Organize Your School Life

Notely.net - A complete student organization suite that includes schedule, calendar, note-taking, and more.

zotero - A Firefox extension that helps you keep your research sources organized.

NoteStar - Organize your research paper notes.

Utilium - Organize learning materials for your students and lower their course material costs.

iProcrastinate Mobile for iPhone - A free homework and task management application.

Schoolhouse 2 - A Mac homework manager that includes tasks, notes and file attachments.

Organize Events, Teams & Trips

Wigadoo - Plan outings with friends (whether a night out on the town or a ski trip in Aspen) and organize everyone’s finances to make your trip happen.

WedSnap - An entire suite of wedding planning tools.

MeetingPuzzle - Helps arrange meetings based on convenient times for everyone involved.

Socializr - A free and complete online invitation, party planning and event sharing app.

Bistrola - Coordinate your get-togethers while keeping everyone happy and without alienating or bullying your attendees.

Crusher - Create and send invitations to events or parties and keep track of RSVPs and other information.

Event Wax - Event planning that includes an event website, payment processing (through PayPal), searchable and sortable attendee list, and more.

Goovite - Event invitation creator that doesn’t require registration.

SimpleSeating - Online seating chart creator that offers free and paid plans.

Eventbrite - Online commercial event planning for ticketed events.

Mobaganda - Easy to use party and event planning app that doesn’t require a registration or login.

MyPunchbowl - Online party planning and invitation organizer.

Pingg - Create your own invitations to email or print, and then track RSVPs, reminders, and more.

Presdo - Fast and easy planning for events, parties, and other gatherings.

GoodInvitation.com - Create free event invitations and manage your event plans.

anyvite - Create free invitations that can be viewed on a computer or through mobile, IM, or SMS tools. Also includes an after-event site where photos, videos and comments can be posted.

fluidTables - Create seating charts for weddings or other events and then create a PDF to share with friends and family.

prohmote - Promote your event without having to register or login.

PurpleTrail - Ad-free invitations and complete event planning with mobile access.

Zoji - Event planning that includes invitations, instant messaging, photo sharing, blogs, and more.

GoPlanit - Research and plan trips with your friends and get recommendations for things to do and see.

anywr - Contact management with built-in event organization.

center’d - Event planning that includes special planning tools, including ready-made plans.

MyInvites - Free online invitations and event planning.

Triporama - Free group trip planning.

TripCart - Online road trip planning.

Amiando - Event websites that include online registration, billing and ticketing, and more.

funpiper - Personalized event planning that includes SMS invitations and messaging.

Congregar - Event planning that includes tools to help find the best date.

I’m In - Free group trip planning.

DOPPLR - Organization tools for frequent travelers.

TournEase - Free golf tournament planning app.

Moreganize - Free event organization tools, including polls, surveys and to-do lists.

RosterBot - Free team event management app.

evite - Free online invitations and party ideas.

bestpartyever - Complete online party planning and tips.

Organize Everything Else

Chandler - Complete organizer for notes, to-dos, events, and more.

TabUp - Collaborative organization for your daily activities and more.

VIP 4.0 - Book and magazine layout organization and planning tool.

Ucareer.net - A career management app to assist in your job searches.

ProfileFly - Organize and promote all of your online identities.

RustyBudget - Online blog organization and management tool.

Gyminee - Track your workouts and what you eat, be held accountable, and get motivated, all for free.

Calorie King - Diet and weight loss tools to keep you on track and organized.

Zefty - Online allowance management for your kids.

Google Health - Complete health records management from Google that also includes information on potential medication interactions, different conditions and even lets you search for hospitals and doctors.

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

(* Source: Lee Ryan *)

Lee says...

"It’s possibly even easier to ignore the digital world in parts of Asia, but all of us are researchers though for different companies or freelancing. I don’t think we can continue to research and advise clients on brand communications as if it was 1999. I also don’t think it’s good for our industry to be at the back of the queue when it comes to experimenting, trying new stuff, and being prepared to have a view. I don’t know what the future of advertising is going to be, but i’m certain that there is a significant shift going on"

 

 

Posted by brian tiong at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin says...

This is what you get when you use a slick tool like Wordle (try it!) to run all the words used to make up the Terms of Service agreements of seven notable internet companies: cool visualizations that somewhat capture the essence of their content.

Pointless? Very. Cool? Definitely.

Here’s how Facebook’s Terms of Use agreement comes out (at least for now):

Yahoo (Terms of Service)

Digg (Terms of Use)

Google (Terms of Service)

Twitter (Terms of Service)

MySpace (Terms of Use)

YouTube (Terms of Service)

Posted by brian tiong at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin says...

I’m not going to discuss the economic meltdown and its devastating effect on technology companies and internet startups in this post, but rather something that crossed my mind earlier this morning: “Web 2.0″ seems to become more and more a void (and an avoided) term. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is definitely apparent.

So why do I say it’s fading? For one, because the number of startups that contact us and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message is visibly dropping (and that’s a good thing), and I hardly ever see it mentioned anymore on other technology blogs and news sites either. That’s not really tangible, so I took a look at the number of mentions of the phrase across the web, and they seem to be decreasing significantly, reflecting my feeling on this.

Judging by Google Trends, which shows how often a particular search term is entered relative to the total search volume across various regions of the world (and in various languages), the term started being used at the end of 2004 when Tim O’Reilly organized the first edition of the Web 2.0 Conference. Search queries for the term started picking up in the middle of 2005, when TechCrunch was started - with the tagline “Tracking Web 2.0″ by the way - and the number kept increasing until the end of 2007. After that, the trend is clearly downwards, falling back to the level it reached in early 2006 today. If the trend continues, there should only be a handful of people left who scour search engines for “Web 2.0″ by 2011.

Also noteworthy: take a look at the geographic regions that have generated the highest volumes of worldwide search traffic for the term over the years - it’s Asia, with the top 5 regions being India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia (in that order). Furthermore, Google Trends pegs the number one language in which people search for stuff related to the topic of Web 2.0 to be Russian before English.

And just in case you’re curious: “Web 3.0″ doesn’t seem to picking up much.
Let’s all rejoice.

Google’s “Insights for Search”, a beta service that analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you’ve entered - relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time - gives an even better overview:

Posted by brian tiong at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching, and while you’ve still got plenty of time to stock up on chocolates and other goodies, come February 14th there’s a good chance you’ll have forgotten about the big day entirely. That is, until your dearly beloved springs an incredibly thoughtful gift on you and you’re left wondering if you can somehow regift the Tony Bennett CD sitting in your closet without getting caught.

Fortunately, Animoto has you covered. The site has put together a new Valentine’s Day card that allows you to submit a handful of photos of you and your loved one to automatically a generate a great looking video-slideshow set to the music of an appropriately sappy love song. It only takes a few minutes to put together, but to anyone who hasn’t been exposed to Animoto before it’s pretty impressive - at least, it’ll buy you enough time to run down to the store and grab something a bit more tangible.

In conjunction with the launch, Animoto has also announced that users will now be able to include stock imagery in all of their slideshows (not just the Valentine’s ones) through a partnership with iStockphoto, which could come in handy if you don’t have pictures of roses and hearts lying around.

Check out a sample video here

Posted by brian tiong at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: trendwatching *)

"Captures the growing importance of 'generosity' as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

In fact, for many, sharing a passion and receiving recognition have replaced 'taking' as the new status symbol. Businesses should follow this societal/behavioral shift, however much it may oppose their decades-old devotion to me, myself and I.”

Read more on the 3 trend-drivers for GENERATION G here:

Download GENERATION G as PDF

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

(* Source: History repeats Digitally *)

David says...

This year will bring some rather exciting changes to the digital media landscape. In truth, all years have something new as the boundaries of technologies are being pushed, and as the result of the changing-behavior among users who are continue to embrace new services and what they have to offer. 2009 however, will be different in that consumption and the Internet usage is shifting as the result of the economic situation (at least here in North America).

This presentation hopes to shed light on some of what has happened in 2008, and what we can expect more of over the next 11 1/2 months.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Alan H Gerson *)

Good summary from Alan on the elements that an advertising campaign needs in digital today.

Alan says...

The importance of sound creative executions and integrated strategies cannot be overemphasized in today's online ad market. Follow these steps to get on the right track.

1. Capture interest and attention
Advertising is, of course, a specific communication strategy designed to shape consumer action towards, or opinions about, particular products or services. Advertising, like every other communication strategy, will not and cannot work unless it finds an audience and actually delivers its message. We live in an increasingly crowded media environment. The average consumer is exposed to thousands of different advertising messages every week. Many of those messages are repeated with a frequency that deadens the senses. Even finding the right potential customer and placing the advertising message in front of him or her does not guarantee interest or focus on what the ad message is trying to communicate. 

The new media consumers have been taught that they are in charge of what, where, when, and why they will pay attention to an ad message. Nevertheless, capturing interest and focusing attention remains the prerequisite for a successful advertisement.  More

2. Extend engagement
Engagement is a new hot metric. In the battle for the attention of the consumer, "time spent" is a valuable indication of whether the advertising communication has been successful, and delivering an ad impression does not necessarily equate to consumer attention and interest. There are all levels of impressions, but do they communicate in a world where consumers have the ability to scan, fast forward, jump, and abandon content with the touch of a button on myriad of different devices?

Therefore, truly engaging and focusing a consumer on the advertising message is increasingly valuable and effective. Engagement for a significant period of time, especially if that engagement is interactive, clearly indicates that the message has been delivered to a consumer who has -- by the investment of their time and actions -- demonstrated interest and attentiveness.  More

3. Activate toward client goals
Today, even if branding is the main objective, some sort of measurable action by the consumer that can be translated into a concrete return on the advertising investment is almost always a parallel goal.

Every marketer of every brand, product, or service has a hierarchy of real-world results they would like to see from their advertising. This goes beyond metrics and measurement. Ultimately, they want to see sales increase, or product sampling, or store visits, or a consumer database developed from information requests, or promotional registrations. 

Advertising, even brand advertising, needs to be able to multi-task and create real-world results in terms of sales or the establishment of a relationship with/or communication path to a potential consumer. Digital media, messages, and promotions are increasingly being bundled into an integrated marketing, advertising, and promotional strategy that activates a consumer toward specific goals or creates a communication path to a potential consumer for just that reason. 

4. Branding and brand building
All advertising can and should reinforce brand values or brand positioning, even if its primary goal is more directly sales oriented. 

In the digital age, the ability to use websites, microsites, and online promotions -- not only to create sales but to convey information about the company behind the product or service -- makes this a required part of any advertising strategy.

Never before in history have marketers had the tools that can so readily facilitate the ability to provide information in various levels of detail to consumers about their products and services, what they stand for and what they mean for their customers. More

5. Reinforce recall and retention
The multiplicity of channels, messages, and media can make it harder to make advertising messages stand out enough to be remembered or acted upon. Nevertheless, fostering message recall and retention remains a central goal of any advertising campaign.

Digital media and certain technologies provide new and powerful ways to accomplish this goal through their ability to reach consumers where they are, on a variety of platforms, and with messages of different lengths and complexities. Flexibility of approach, use of integrated strategies -- which include traditional media as well as digital platforms -- and creation of different messages that may communicate different pieces of information can all enhance recall and retention. Whether the message is price, value, brand or feature-based, nothing is more important today than the power of communities and the impact of promotions. Today's consumer wants validation and reinforcement from other consumers, and the opinions and testimonials of their peers are more important and impactful than the same words from a company spokesperson or message. More

6. Promote intention to purchase
The marketing chain for most products and services today is complex and multi-channel. Products are offered for sale through retail stores, through networks of distributors, through online stores, and in a variety of both online and offline direct messaging to former or potential customers. Advertising messages, wherever and however they are made or delivered, need to support the communication of product benefits, features, advantages, and uses. Especially in today's economy, they need to support the communication of specific price and value messages and incentive offers. More

7. Build an opt-in and viral database
One key difference between traditional media and digital media is the ability of digital media to readily identify its audience members and establish a two-way communication with willing individuals in that audience. Building a customer database that has fully opted in creates a valuable resource for all companies that can and should be used to inform, reward, thank and re-sell customers, increasing the lifetime value of that customer. Permission-based marketing was one of the first breakthrough concepts in digital marketing, and it remains a very valuable goal of advertising today.

Not only can advertising be used to drive potential customers to registration pages connected to sweepstakes or contest entries or purchase opportunities, but it can also be used to incentivize those customers to "refer a friend," thus building and extending the potential list to persons who might not otherwise have seen or responded to the advertisement. More

8. Create differentiation in the marketplace
Ultimately, the last goal of advertising I want to discuss is differentiation in the marketplace, which is an umbrella principle closely related to No. 1: Capturing interest and attention. 

The importance of sound creative executions, different media channels, and integrated strategies that allow an advertising message or campaign to reach its target audience and capture interest and attention cannot be overemphasized. These elements should be coupled with integrated advertising and marketing approaches that include strong promotional elements and that powerfully position the features, advantages, benefits, and uses of the product or service being advertised.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jason says...

After my first few weeks on Twitter I quickly came to realize that most people are not nearly as interesting as they think they are - my Twitter feed was constantly inundated with tweets describing such mundane topics as my friends’ favorite day of the week and what they had for breakfast. But within this apparent pool of mediocrity I found a few gems - Twitter users who managed to entertain me on a regular basis, and have kept me addicted to my Twhirl client for months on end. Now the time has come to bestow these great Tweeters with the honors they truly deserve.

The Shorty Awards, currently the top trending topic on search.twitter.com, is setting out to reward Twitter’s best and brightest with their own awards show. The contest is meant to identify the best Twitter users in over twenty predefined categories ranging from Business to Food, as well as any number of user-submitted custom categories (the site will weed out the ones that don’t get enough participation).

Posted by brian tiong at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Seth Godin *)

I've always enjoyed reading what Seth says, here another reason why.

Seth says...

Posted by brian tiong at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Jason reports...

Juice, a Firefox browser sidebar developed by Linkool International, has launched to the public. The powerful plugin automatically culls information from around the web whenever you search for or highlight a term, making it a handy reference tool that I could quickly get used to. It also doubles as a media storage tool, allowing you to simply drag and drop videos and image files into the sidebar to save them for later.

Juice pulls from sources including Wikipedia, Google News, YouTube, and our own CrunchBase (through its API) to offer users a quick at-a-glance summary of many popular topics. The sidebar is very polished, allowing for in-line video playback and expandable text summaries, and the media storage function is intuitive.

At this point it seems that the plugin’s database is still fairly small, as many searches (even for such common terms as “Superman”) result in a notice that “Juice has learned a new keyword”. Within a few minutes these new terms are added to the database automatically, and the issue will probably be gone within a few weeks of the public beta.

Juice is the first application from Beijing-based Linkool Labs to integrate the company’s “intelligent discovery engine” which uses “natural language processing” and “a dictionary management system” to produce semantic results. It’s impossible to tell just how much processing is going on behind the scenes, but search results are generally accurate, though it’s possible to find some words that will “trick” the system.

There are a number of Firefox extensions that offer integrated reference lookup, including CoolPreviews, Briteclick, and others that can be found here.

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

(* Source: ThreeBillion *)

Paul says...

User generated content has been an amazing phenomenon and has changed the way people use and consume the internet. The shift towards the consumer being the publisher has had profound effects on the way we market to young people. Whether that be the platform, the idea or execution.

BUT has UGC really changed the Internet? Moreover, has it REALLY changed the way we connect to young people in our marketing? The answer is not really, but there could be much bigger things to come. Here is a little presentation from 180360720.no and it's worth 5 minutes of your time. 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Marta Strickland *)

Martha says...

Little Big Planet is one of those games that defies explanation. On Friday, Eric Diem wrote, "I can't find the words to describe what a unique experience this game produces, so I figured it would just be easier to bring in my PS3 in so everyone can check it out."

So he did, and the impression that he left on the office was monumental. Jeff Bossardet confessed to me, "It is gorgeous. I have never been a gamer. For many years now I have thought that it may be advantageous, as an interactive professional, to understand the gaming world from a users perspective. I think I have found my gateway drug I mean game...Little Big Planet."

Why were we all so excited? Little Big Planet isn't just a game. It is a way to make games, mold games, and share games. The only limits are that of human imagination.

In its simplest form, Little Big Planet is a platform game, but it is a game that teaches you how to create your own levels. It provides you with different materials and all the tools you need to turn those materials into moving, changing, and logical objects. These objects can be set to react to different changes in the environment or actions of the players. The result is the ability for every player with patience and practice to create entire video games of their own.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The social element of the game is another side to the revolution. All worlds can be "published", which means they are open for the entire community to play. Those worlds can be rated, tagged, and shared. And, if the world creator so chooses, they can give the objects they create (villains, tools, etc) as gifts to other players to use in their levels.

Some see this all as a bold move in consumer-generated gaming, and others see it as opening the door to other greater deeds in co-creation. But everyone agrees it is a HUGE step forward for the industry. Just look at this guy who defied game-makers expectations and created a working calculator. Prepare to be amazed:

Posted by brian tiong at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: B-side *)

B-side is proud to announce that they will be co-producing a conference with PSFK in Singapore.

This is the 1st Asian PSFK conference and they have a stellar line-up of speakers.

Daryl Arnold, Profero
Nick Barham, Wieden + Kennedy
Rob Campbell Sunshine/M&C Saatchi
Jerry Clode, Flamingo International
Sonal Dabral, Bates 141
Mark Dytham, Klein-Dytham
Piers Fawkes, PSFK
Andrew Hoppin, NASA
Chris Lee, Asylum
Michael Keferl, CScout
Achara Masoodi, Mindshare
Colin Nagy, Attention!
Charles Ogilvie, Panasonic
Graham Perkins, Elasticity
Jeff Staple, Staple Design
Jackson Tan, Phunk Studio
Brian Tiong, b-side
Ian Stewart, MTV
Floydd Wood, Flamingo International 

More for information and registration click here

Posted by brian tiong at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul Isakson *)

I'm been a big fan of Paul for a while now and here is another reason why.  Paul talks about modern brand building is this presentation.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Valera Maltoni *) 

Valera says... 

Posted by brian tiong at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Helge Tennø *)

Helge says... 

Demonstrating the great potential of digital opportunities, and moving dollars and minds from the rather ineffective – and way to ominous – interruption marketing.

The angle I decided on was not saying that this is THE new thing, but rather finding the reasons why this is happening right now, and showing that this is a natural consequence of a larger set of trends and ideas.

The six important ideas/trends for Content Marketers are:

1. Culture
2. Technology
3. Mobility
4. Activity
5. Ineffective
6. Emotional Research

Posted by brian tiong at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Gregor Hochmuth *)

Twitter isn’t for everyone, and you may have dismissed the service a long time ago. But regardless of your own use, it’s hard to dismiss the phenomenon itself and the passion of so many that has built up around it.

No matter how long the outage du jour, Twitter users continue to stay attached to the service despite an ever-changing backdrop of alternatives.

Blogging isn’t for everyone either. But unlike blogging, Twitter enjoys a far a greater variety of users — they include people, many people, who would never think of starting a blog and people who would never touch an RSS reader. The 140 character limit is a plus for Twitter, but it isn’t all.

What explains the Twitter phenomenon then? What produces the positive feeling and the strong attachment among those who tweet? And moreover: How can other systems learn from this?

The answer lies in understanding Audience.
Twitter has a simple premise: You tweet & the message is pushed to your friends. The actual mechanics are slightly different (messages go to everyone who follows you, whether they’re your “friends” or not, assuming your stream is public) — but from a user’s perspective, the circle of receivers consists only of the people they know. Everyone else is part of a faceless crowd that’s hidden behind the follower count.

This simple premise holds the key to Twitter’s success: messages go to a well-defined audience. In the moment you release a tweet, you know who’s on the line and you have an idea of who can catch a glimpse of your message. @replies are the best illustration for this sense of audience: Even though Twitter is not a point-to-point message delivery system (let alone a reliable one), @replies are sent with the understanding that they will be read by the intended people because they are known to be in the audience. (Imagine a newspaper article that suddenly greeted a specific reader.)

Blogging on the other hand has no such clearly defined audience. An aspiring blogger who hasn’t crossed the chasm speaks into the void. Direct feedback can only come in the form of written comments (a relatively high barrier of effort) and it’s diminished by spam and vocal trolls these days.

FeedBurner’s subscriber count only provides the equivalent of Twitter’s opaque follower count and MyBlogLog didn’t solve this problem either.

So it’s not surprising that the majority of blogs are abandoned — the most-cited reason being “No one was reading it.” No one might be following your Twitter stream either, but Twitter is designed for network effects to take hold and given the natural reciprocity among groups of friends, it’s likely that most people have at least a handful of followers they know.

Back to Twitter: Why Audience works
Twitter works and enjoys such strong attachment because it provides real-time access to a well-defined audience. The backlog of all previous tweets is a guarantee of permanence (you can even search it) and you can catch up on it anytime. As a result, people use Twitter because they have an idea of who will see their lightweight messages and this sense of audience is reinforced by @replies, re-tweets and references in future conversations (online and offline).

Designing for the sense of Audience is a powerful tool to create cohesion and a sense of utility among users of a service. This lesson from Twitter can apply to many other services too. But before leaving the current discussion, it’s helpful to look at a service that has missed the full power of Audience so far.

Facebook: Designed for Audience? Not so much.
Facebook isn’t about Audience? That’s ridiculous, you’ll say — so let me clarify. I fully agree that social network profiles are all about self-expression and being seen, but a platform for self-expression isn’t necessarily designed for the audience that does “the seeing.”

Profile Pages on Facebook can have audiences of course, but this requires that users continually roam Facebook to look for news in their network. Facebook realized this limitation and introduced the News Feed. Its intent was to move a user’s “acts and performances” from the stage of the profile page to a single and central stage, a single place for Audience.

Sharing with the News Feed: Did it ever reach my friends?
Facebook was the first major social network to introduce the News Feed concept, which has since become a standard sauce for stickiness in many places (although not StudiVZ surprisingly). But Facebook’s implementation of the News Feed doesn’t capture the full power of designing for Audience: While Twitter distributes every message consistently, Facebook decides algorithmically which update is shown to whom. Algorithmic filtering is nice in theory, but such black-box behavior is simply unpredictable for the user.

“When I post new things, will my friends actually see them?”, one might wonder. And conversely: “Have my friends posted something that I’m not seeing? The news feed is cluttered right now with people I don’t care about.” Anything that’s unpredictable produces a feeling of uncertainty — and that’s never a comfortable feeling.

Even with Facebook’s recent attempts to introduce smarter filters, users only have relative means to customize their feed (more of this, less of that). Furthermore, there is mostly just one kind of feedback that users can give on the News Feed: comments. Imagine a concert, in which you could only leave written notes as you left — no clapping, no booing.

Because users don’t really know who’s listening on Facebook and who isn’t, the platform hasn’t been embraced as a place to publish proactively. Publishing events or photos is mostly push-driven (and generates an email — “you are invited to an event” or “tagged in a photo”). But for everything else you share, do you know if it ever reached your friends?

Who capitalized on this gap? FriendFeed.
It’s the same setup as Twitter, but with more content: You know who’s listening and you choose the people you listen to. A useful premise but it also has a catch: the word “more”. Too much content, too many people — which is exactly the problem that Facebook is trying to address with its algorithmic feed. But what’s a solution then? It’s not the “middle ground” and it has nothing to do with smarter filters.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Arrington *) 

Mike says... 

Adaptive Path, a product development and consulting service in San Francisco, is releasing a new web interface concept called Aurora this evening. The project, which was developed in collaboration with Mozilla, is being released to the community via the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license and is available on the Mozilla and Adaptive Path websites.

Jesse James Garrett, the cofounder of Adaptive Path and the person who coined the term “Ajax,” is the lead designer for Aurora.

A video of the concept is above. People, places and things on the web are represented by objects in a three dimensional space. When users stop using objects, the objects drift off into the distance. Data objects can easily be dropped in and out of applications and communication tools are built into the UI.

Closely related objects are clustered together. As users rotate through the wheel (aka the dock) at the bottom of the page, the spacial view gives greater visual emphasis to clusters that are most closely related the object at the center of the wheel.

Aurora isn’t being productized - Adaptive Path is simply releasing the design and interface ideas into the wild as a “springboard” for an open discussion about how to evolve the user experience of the Web browser.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Chris Anderson *)

Chris says...

 
At some point in your life, you will wake up and discover that you have more money than time. And you will then realize that you should start doing things differently, which means not walking four blocks to find an ATM that doesn't charge a fee, driving for miles to find cheaper gas, or painting your own house.

This same calculus is the foundation of a big part of the "freemium" economy. We see it a lot in free-to-play online games, such as Maple Story, where you can buy things like "teleportation stones" to let you get from one place to another without a long slog or wait for a bus. Most of these paid digital assets don't make you a better player, but they do allow you to become a better player faster.

If you're a kid, you probably have more time than money. That's the force behind MP3 file trading, which is kind of a hassle and but is free (albeit illegal, of course!).  As Steve Jobs famously pointed out, if you download music from peer-to-peer services, fixing the messy metadata as you go, the time it takes to avoid paying means you're working for less than minimum wage. Nevertheless, that works if you you're time-rich and money-poor. Free is the right price for you.

But as you get older, the equation reverses and $0.99 here and there no longer seems like a big deal. You migrate into a paying customer, the premium user in the freemium equation.

As some of you may know, one of my other side projects is an open source hardware company (developing and selling aerial robotics technology), and so I've been following the emergence of the open source hardware world closely. It's a really interesting example of how to make money from free, one that adds a new dimension to the open source software world because it's about atoms (which have real marginal costs), not just bits.

The way most open source hardware companies work is this: all the plans, printed-circuit board files, software and instructions are free and available to all. If you want to build your own (or, even better, improve on a design), you're encouraged to do so. But if you don't want the hassle/risk of doing it yourself, you can buy a pre-made version that's guaranteed to work.

For instance, take the great Arduino open source microprocessor that our autopilots are based on. You can build your own, with full instructions. Or buy one. Most people do the latter. The Arduino team make their money from a certification license fee they charge the companies and retailers that make and sell the boards.

You can build a good business on this model, as Limor Fried (AKA LadyAda, picture above), has shown with her electronics kit retail/design/community AdaFruit Industries. She and her business partner, Philip Torrone, explain the economics and tactics in a presentation here (good summary here).

Short form:

1. Build a community around free information and advice on a particular topic.
2. With that community's help, design some products that people want, and return the favor by making the products free in raw form.
3. Let those with more money than time/skill/risk-tolerance buy the more polished version of those products. (That may turn out to be almost everyone)
4. Do it again and again, building a 40% margin into the products to pay the bills.

As Torrone said in an email, "I can't imagine doing a book, a video, a magazine unless I had a community that would rally along the way. In the end it always seemed to be about a story, people like to see the beginning, middle, end and plot of something -- and if there's a buy button somewhere, they sometimes click it and reward us for working hard."

Posted by brian tiong at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Jason says... 

Mariam Naficy, co-founder of failed beauty startup Eve.com (which went belly up when the bubble burst in 2000), has launched her latest venture: Minted, an online stationery store with a competitive marketplace reminiscent of the one found on custom t-shirt store Threadless.

The site offers graphic designers a community to showcase and (hopefully) sell their designs, which are voted on by customers. The best designs are printed and sold, with about 5% of the retail price going to the designer (this may sound small, but Naficy says it is near double what a designer might get from a traditional card company like Hallmark). On top of the revenue sharing, the site will also hold regular competitions, with winning entries winning on the order of $1000. To further sweeten the deal for the designers, all cards have the artists’ name emblazoned in fine print on the back (another thing you won’t see on typical greeting cads).

The store will sell a mix of designer-submitted cards and cards from established independent card companies. While Minted is starting with stationery, it will likely expand to other products in the future. Minted will initially only sell its cards through its online storefront, but Naficy says that there ample opportunities for partnerships and alternative distribution channels down the line. If the site is going to succeed, it will need to establish these ties quickly - few people are going to buy from a stationery store they’ve never heard of, giving designers little reason to submit their designs in the first place.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pandora’s internet radio has always been one of those sites that was really cool in concept, but too inconvenient to ever go mainstream. The service was long tied to computers only, and while it eventually expanded to special internet radios and some mobile phones, it still has yet to become a household name. But with the launch of Pandora’s new iPhone app last Friday, it looks like the service is about to hit critical mass. It’s a free, mobile, digital radio station that only plays music you like and lets you skip the stuff you don’t. And it rocks.

The personalized music service employs a small army of 50 musicians to create a “Music Genome” that describes each song according to 600 attributes. Listeners input a few of their favorite artists, and the site analyzes the Genome to serve up an endless stream of recommended music.

We introduced the app last Friday, when we called it our “flat out favorite application so far”, and since then it hasn’t failed to impress. Streamed music plays flawlessly over Edge and 3G networks - during a 40 mile drive I didn’t once run into any kind of skipping or static. Even better, the app currently has no advertisements playing, though we can probably expect that to change.

Unsurprisingly, Pandora’s usage stats are overwhelmingly positive. Pandora is currently the fourth most popular free app on iTunes (behind Apple’s Remote, AIM, and WeatherBug), and has reportedly been seeing a new listener every 2 seconds. Usage over the weekend hit an all-time high for the service, with 3.3 million tracks streamed to iPhone listeners alone. Perhaps more impressive is the retention rate of listeners, who are averaging over an hour of listening per day.

If there’s one thing that could kill the service, it’s ads. Pandora is going to need to monetize the app somehow - let’s hope it allows us to pay an upfront fee (say, $10) to avoid the annoying interruptions that have made listening to traditional radio a painful experience.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Calley Nye *)

Calley says... 

Google has partnered with Radiohead to promote the band’s music video for the song “House of Cards” from the album In Rainbows.

It’s definitely not your average video considering that there were no cameras or lights used: it’s all data. The video uses real time 3D recording, utilizing structured light and laser-enhanced scanners. Google is hosting the interactive video application at code.google.com and providing an iGoogle gadget for the video and application.

RADIOHEAD_HOUSE OF CARDS
	Gadgets powered by Google

The video was created by music video director James Frost, and the technology was handled by Aaron Koblin, who has done several other visualizations including the well-known flight pattern visualization.

To capture the 3D images, they used a structured light scanner from Geometric Informatics for the close proximity shots of the singers and a Velodyne LIDAR scanner for the landscapes. The LIDAR scanner uses 64 lasers to scan an environment and create an XYZ point cloud of data, which is then rendered and read by 3D software.

Radiohead got a lot of attention when it released its album In Rainbows for free online. This led to a lot of speculation about the future of the music industry and the way people will purchase music.

Since Radiohead identifies itself with the open-source ethos, it’s releasing the video’s data so that developers can remix it and make their own variations of the music video. You can download the viewers and data from the Google Code project page.

That page also has an in-browser data viewer for viewing and interacting with the video. The player is Flash-based, so you can zoom with the mouse wheel, or click-and-drag to move it around. The page also has links to the YouTube video, the YouTube group (for user-remixed videos) and the behind-the-scenes video.

This project may have interested Google because the LIDAR technology used in the landscape and large environment shots is similar to the system Google uses for their Google Maps Street View project. It’s just a very different application of the same technology.

Also see Aniboom’s contest where cartoonists are encouraged to create music videos for Radiohead songs.

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

(* Source: Dan Taylor *) 

Just caught up with the launch of Google Trends for Websites which extends the functionality of the original Google Trends (which charts the relative popularity of search terms) to offer site-specific traffic data. Whilst TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb are both rather sniffy about it, citing its partial data-set and lack of coverage for smaller sites, for me it adds a couple of interesting new elements in the form of the 'Also visited' and 'Also searched for' rankings (data which I don't think either Compete or Alexa provide for free).

Thus, the trends page for bbc.co.uk indicates that visitors to the BBC site are also visiting other broadcasters (ITV and Channel 4), middle-class retail outlets (John Lewis and Marks & Spencer) and a range of other, primarily task-oriented, sites (weather, price comparison, concert tickets, motoring and government services/information). It also reveals how popular 'bbc iplayer' has become as a search term.

Google Trends for Websites: bbc.co.uk via kwout

Google Trends for Websites: channel4.com via kwout

Posted by brian tiong at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Brad King via Marketing Shift *) 

Brad says... 

I was having a drink last week with a friend of mine who comes from a traditional marketing background and she was explaining how she'd come up with the marketing logo for her company.

She spent a great of time discussing what the image portrayed and why people would associate it with her company. It was quite compelling; however, I told her I disagreed. Her brand was her URL first and what people said about the functionality of the website second (they are Web company).

Now, there's lots of reasons why the icon is important (syndication, for instance), but ultimately, the success of her company is going to come down to two things: how easy is it for people to find you through Google and how are you going to communicate with those people in the blogosphere who are engaged in your product.

It's impossible for her -- or other companies -- to control the marketing message. The people will decide. The most important area she should focus on: tapping into the conversation and becoming a partner with her clients.

It's a never-ending job; however, the game industry has the right model. They hire community managers who attend to, seed, answer to and advocate for the people who are using their products. They are known entities, actual people speaking in plain language.

Of course, not every product will have a community, but that doesn't meant that you can't build communities around lifestyles associated with a product (although in her case, the community should form rather easily).

Posted by brian tiong at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Gavin Heaton *) 

Gavin says... 

We all know a good story when we hear or read it, just like we know a good film when we see it. But there are many, many elements that need to come together to ensure that a story "works". From the youngest age, we have been conditioned by storytelling ... there are conventions, expectations, structures and rhythms that need to be respected (or broken). There are archetypes that can be manipulated and themes that can be called upon, and there are even standard phrases (think "once upon a time"). But often, content creators of all kinds (from brand storytellers to creative directors) forget the basics -- the beginning, middle and end.

In the past, I have worked with teams to work through these elements. I have pushed the beginning, middle and end because it provides a context within which we can tell stories. This is especially important in digital storytelling because context can often be a battleground, signifying everything or nothing. The role of the digital storyteller, however, is to reign in the context -- to provide a focus. Precisely because the context can be so broad, the digital storyteller, must take a lead from the scientist -- to study the micro, to set an agenda that cannot be seen by the naked eye -- and deliver the razor sharp insight that will draw participants into the web of the story.

How is this done? Like anything, you need to start with an idea. This is the 1%. A good idea will get you started but an idea on its own is dormant. There is another 9% that is planning. You need to think through the what, why and how of your story. You need to consider the methods you will take to bring your idea to life.

The next 40% you need to focus on execution. This is the actual doing of the work. This brings together the idea and the strategy and makes it available to the world. The remaining 50% is participation ...

It is this final 50% that is the MOST important element. Without the participation of an audience your project is a failure. In the digital story, all MEANING is co-created. That means that, after launch, your digital story continues. It needs feeding. You need to respond to the nuances of its reading. You need to ENGAGE.

Perhaps this is why brands struggle with the concept of digital storytelling. Perhaps this is why it is harder to plan for and activate/support a digital story ... because they can, and do last forever. Mostly ...

Katie Chatfield has created a fantastic presentation that explains and profiles Marcus Brown, who is in my view, one of the premier digital storytellers of our time. In this presentation, Katie steps through the process of digital storytelling, charting the rise, life and ultimate ending of some of Marcus' characters whose digital exuberance spilled, at times, into real life. There was clearly a beginning, middle and end -- and maybe even a hint at resurrection.

For those who are seeking to understand the alchemy, imagination and sheer effort required for digital storytelling, Katie's presentation is of immense value. And for those of you who have not experienced the joy of Sacrum or the smiling nihilism of Charles Stab and their inventor, Marcus Brown, welcome and enjoy.

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Posted by brian tiong at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Jason says... 

The Filter, the media recommendation engine that we covered last April, has opened its doors to the public. The Peter Gabriel-backed company offers an entertainment start page that provides recommendations on movies, music, and online video (it is mostly focused on perfecting its music recommendations for the time being).

In the following video Peter Gabriel explains why we need sites like The Filter to reduce the overwhelming abundance of information available online down to a manageable level.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Gavin Heaton *)

Gavin says...

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(* Sourre: Mike Arrington *) 

 








New startup Infectious wants to satisfy that urge that we all undoubtedly have to spice up our car a little. Make it unique. Express our personality. Etc. Founder Tim Roberts, who was part of the founding Twitter team, says that your car is the most visible social product you own, but it is also the least expressive.

Infectious sells specially designed vinyl stickers that can survive up to two years through car washes, the desert sun and Canadian winters, no problem. And when you want to take the stickers off because your friends won’t go near your car (or you need to sell it), you just blow a hair dryer on it for a few seconds and start peeling - your paint job won’t be affected. This is the same stuff they use to put advertisments on taxies and busses.

You can purchase one small sticker (see TechCrunch writer Mark Hendrickson applying one to his car in the video below) or get stickers that cover the entire car. All of the designs are done by artists, who are paid for their work in exchange for granting exclusive licensing rights to print on vinyl. The artists retains all other rights. Eventually, Roberts says, users will likely have the ability to upload their own art and turn it into a product that they and/or others can buy.

Infectious stickers don’t really compete with bumper stickers. It’s for people who may hire and artist to design art for a car and then get a custom paint job. These projects can easily run into the thousands of dollars, and aren’t reversible, so few people do it. Infectious wants to broaden that market to people who may do this on a whim, and then remove or change it later.

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(* Source: Max Gladwell *)

Green living has been a growing focus for the world today and Max shares some examples with us today on how aggregating communities with social media might be the way forward to saving our earth... read on. 

Max says... 

1. Do-Good Widgets: If you’re Facebook page was a car, these would be your bumper stickers. Only these do more than spread the message. Widgets are standalone web applications that can run inside any web page. They take many forms, ranging from the absurd to the truly useful and socially valuable. The best ones engage us in ways that lead to action, awareness, and even fund-raising. Facebook was the first to offer them, and MySpace recently followed. Other social networks offer widgets, but these two have a scale that gives them unrivaled potential. Causes is the 800-pound gorilla in the do-good widget space with millions of daily active users on Facebook alone. If you support a cause, chances are you can find it in Causes. We support 14 ranging from “Recycle not Waste” to “Ride Bikes” and “GREEN“. Each Cause enables you to recruit others and make donations.

A new suite of widgets from Dank Apps called Social Change offers widgets for three main initiatives: Stop Climate Change Now, which raises funds for The Nature Conservancy; Earn For AIDS, which raises funds for the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative; and Earn for Breast Cancer, which raises funds for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Each of these allows you to send karma points to friends and play games, all of which generate donations from sponsors.

I’m sure I’d get hate comments if I didn’t also mention Lil Green Patch, which has helped to save over 20 million square feet of rainforest.

2. Get a Green Job: The business networking space is currently dominated by LinkedIn, but JustMeans has a new social media platform that “rallies both companies and individuals around social responsibility.” As you make your way through the registration and profile-building gauntlet, you are posed with two unique questions: What kind of change do you want to create in the world over the next 12 months? How do you plan on creating this positive change? The site encourages networking between members by recommending matches based on shared interests. Plus, you can network with companies themselves as “stakeholders”. Companies as well as nonprofits set up their own profiles, similar to Facebook Pages, where they can post content about initiatives and CSR efforts. An entire section of the site is dedicated to job listings. This is business networking with a purpose.

3. Greenstream: Twitter is a way to stay in touch with friends and keep up with breaking news. It is a source of both cutting-edge news and unchecked banality. It all depends on how you want to use it. You can follow CNN, BBC, GreenOptions, and MaxGladwell as “micro-blogs”, where you receive bits of news and links in 140 characters or less. Or you can track the musings of iJustine and Aubs for pure entertainment value. Recently, we started a new Twitter channel called the “greenstream.” Whereas Twitter asks, “What are you doing”, this adds “that is green?” So if you’re shopping at a farmer’s market, drinking fair trade coffee, or carpooling to work, these qualify as Tweets for the greenstream. Just tag your Tweet with “#greenstream”, and it will be indexed for viewing by all. Alternately, if you want to Twitter a green tip, just enter “#greentip” and check the index page for those.

4. Hugg a Story: Hugg.com is the green counterpart to the wildly popular Digg.com. These are social news sites that enable users to vote and comment on what’s important (and what’s not). This process places the power in the hands of real people who, collectively, determine which issues get attention, rather than leaving it up to the major news organizations to tell us what’s important. The great thing about them, though, is that they get better and more accurate as more people participate. So it’s your civic and social duty to Hugg and Digg stories that matter to you.

5. Join the “Make The Difference Network“: Actress Jessica Biel, in a collaboration with her father and brother, just launched a social network that connects people and businesses with charitable organizations. Make The Difference Network already has a number of prominent celebrities signed up as members, complete with their favorite causes. Each of the site’s constituencies has a profile platform, and it’s free for all to participate. The “Find Your Wish” section gives people some direction in matching their personal interests or passions with charities ranging from addiction and animals to labor and literacy.

6. Go Shopping: Your purchasing decisions matter. Though presidential elections come once every four years, you vote with your wallet every day. Combined with the tools of social media, you get social shopping. Alonovo describes this as “the power of millions of informed, aware and caring people acting in concert. For a better world.” The company provides a platform in which to interact with fellow conscious consumers, to research products based on a range of social and environmental criteria, and ultimately make informed purchases through Amazon.com. You choose a charitable benefactor, and 50-100% of the commission paid to Alonovo is donated on your behalf.

OsoEco, which is currently in private beta, takes a different tact. Using a bookmark feature for the Firefox browser, you can pull products from any retail site and import them into OsoEco with one click. It’s much like a wiki in this way (more below). Then you review the product for others to see and rate. According to the company, they “created OsoEco to answer our own questions about what’s green, what’s sustainable, and what kinds of things we should buy and do that are good for our communities and, not to sound completely cheesy and cliche, our world.”

7. Contribute to a Wiki: Most are familiar with Wikipedia. It’s a fantastic resource for information and an even more incredible phenomenon of collaborative creation on a global scale. What’s incredible to consider, though, is that it’s just the beginning. As author Clay Shirky points out, it’s a drop in the well compared to the untapped potential of our cognitive surplus. PlayGreen.org is one example of how wikis are being built for specific topic areas. Anyone can contribute or edit articles such as How to build a green PC and RecycleBank. Imagine an entire Wikipedia of knowledge and human experience dedicated to specific issues like global warming, cancer, autism, and renewable energy. That’s where we’re headed.

8. Start Your Own Social Network: Ning has made starting a social network as easy as signing up for an email address. For an example, see the Max Gladwell network or any one of more than 100 networks tagged with “green”. The platform guides you through the customization process, where you can add features like a blog, news feed, videos, calendar, and assorted gadgets (widgets) to give it more utility. This is perfect for organizations on a tight budget that want a place to aggregate information, organize, and keep its members connected. With a bit of coding skill and a premium account, you can customize however you’d like and integrate your own sponsors or advertising.

 
9. Get Sponsored: SocialVibe is leveraging the traffic we generate from our social networking pages to fund various causes. It works quite simply. You sign up and select from a list of sponsors to endorse, ranging from PowerBar and Cherry Coke to Adobe and Apple. Next, you select a cause to support. We picked an environmental index of sorts that includes “water quality, global warming research and preventative measures, wildlife, agriculture, rainforest preservation and sustainable production of food and building materials.” SocialVibe places your ad on your social networking pages and can also generate code that you can embed most anywhere. When it’s viewed, you generate donations for your cause and also earn points and other perks for yourself.

10. Broadcast Your Message: The cost of web broadcasting (webcasting) has effectively dropped to zero. A number of new technologies are making it possible for anyone to have their own live online TV channel. Indeed, signing up for Ustream.tv is like renting your own production studio. While you’re broadcasting live, viewers can communicate with you and other viewers through a chat interface, and you can even add a co-host. Your “shows” can be archived for later playback, and you can post them to YouTube or your personal pages for further distribution. Ustream also provides a social networking platform and a number of ways to promote your shows, such as through Twitter alerts.

Seesmic has a much different approach with “video conversations”. It’s similar to Twitter in many ways, only instead of posting text entries you record video clips. Other users respond, which forms a thread of video clips that become a video conversation. These clips can be embeded anywhere you want, such as your MySpace page or blog. In fact, Seesmic offers a plugin feature for blogs where you can leave video comments. While there’s nothing particularly green about these video technologies, they represent a next step in communications and an efficient means for producing and distributing green messages.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dan Taylor *) 

Dan says...

As Wired's recent article on the fierce rivalry between leading gadget blogs Engadget and Gizmodo illustrates, no-one likes to be pipped to the (blog) post. So, it was with some frustration that I fired up my feed-reader this morning to discover that Daniel Langendorf from ReadWriteWeb spin-off last100 had posted an op-ed piece entitled 'What if Apple re-enters the console gaming market through the iPhone?' covering much of the same ground as a post that has been kicking around in my drafts folder for the past couple of months entitled 'Will Apple's next play be gaming?'.

However, whilst Langendorf joins the dots on Apple's likely play for mobile gaming with the iPhone / iPod Touch (check out the video of SEGA demoing Super Monkey Ball for iPhone if you've not already seen it) and speculates that they might follow it up with an "integrated game console for the living room - either a new product or the next iteration of the AppleTV", he doesn't connect the two, which in my mind is where the really interesting play is.

What the iPhone lacks as a domestic gaming platform is a big screen and what Apple TV lacks is an appropriate controller. Put the two together, connected via WiFi, and you've potentially got a Rolls Royce Wii (admittedly, with a price tag to match and you probably wouldn't want to throw your iPhone around the living room the way you do your Wiimote). That said, the potential of the iPhone as a controller for a secondary console is pretty interesting to my mind, combining the accelerometer of the Wiimote with the touch-screen of the Nintendo DS to theoretically provide a motion-sensing two-screen experience (e.g. tilt device to steer plane, stroke screen to target missile). Multiplayer would just be a matter of your mates whipping out their iPhones, selecting your WiFi network and joining the game, with information relating to the status of their on-screen avatar displayed privately on their iPhone.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (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) | TrackBacks (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) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

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

(* Source: Mark Hendrickson *)

KidZui is an ambitious project, launching tonight, intended not only to make the internet safe for kids (aged 3-12), but to provide a browsing experience that caters to their cognitive powers and surfaces the best juvenile content as well.

The concern for children’s safety on the net has been around for years and has usually been addressed with software that attempts to blacklist all the worst parts of the web (and pornographic websites in particular). The fundamental problem with this type of software is that no blacklist can be complete given the rate at which the web grows each day, so holes through which children can access the inappropriate content they’re supposedly protected from are bound to appear.

KidZui takes the opposite approach to these traditional solutions. Instead of blacklisting all the “bad” sites, it whitelists only the “good” ones. The application, which is essentially a custom browser built on top of Internet Explorer and Safari technology (depending on the platform), has been in development for three years. During that time, the company has hired around 200 teachers and parents from across the United States to scour the net for appropriate sites and content. So far they’ve whitelisted about 500,000 websites, as well as many videos found on YouTube. Spiders have helped to gather this content, but ultimately all of it was reviewed manually by humans.

As a result, KidZui has effectively cordoned off a safe area where parents can let their children roam free. This safe area will grow for KidZui as a whole. Each time a kid clicks on a link to an unapproved site, it will go into a moderation system and either approved or denied within an hour. The area can also grow or shrink for each KidZui user. Parents can decide to whitelist certain sites, such as Facebook, not ordinarily allowed for KidZui users. Or they can blacklist a site, such as Club Penguin, that their kids spend way too much time on it.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Servant of Chaos *) 

I been recently thinking a little (maybe a lot) on the future of marketing and I guess, like Gavin been focus on the big picture.  Maybe a little micro focus will not hurt... read on, I suspect Gavin is thinking in the right direction and would love to hear his comments in the week coming on his new blog topic series -- entitled The Future of Your Brand Is ...

Gavin says...

At the end of 2007 and in the early part of 2008 I watched as a series of predictions hit the web. Some of these posts and articles predicted the end of this or that, or the beginning of something else. Some looked at trends, others at opportunities. Sometimes the focus was observational. And while I don't normally go in for trend analysis, I felt a strange sort of pressure to come up with my own list of predictions. I began stewing on it ... and it became worse with every new, additional post that I saw on trends. But then I realised that the only expectations were my own. I felt released. And now a good two months into the year, the focus on the future has been forgotten -- we are, everyday, seeking to define and create it with our words, actions and ideas. We are thinking on the fly, strategically doing and jumping in feet first. If anything, 2008 is more of the same ... more blogging, more social media, more connections and ideas, more conferences and meetups. I don't know if it IS faster that 2007, but it feels it.

I came to the realisation that when it came to insight I needed a little more focus, not less -- I needed to zero in, not fly at 10,000 feet.

Out of the haze I settled upon two meta-trends -- the trends of trends:

 

• Micro-transformations -- Micro-transformations refer to the miniaturising of consumer behaviours into ever smaller discrete steps. This fragmentation of direct experience is driving a range of sub-trends that are, in turn, being facilitated by economic, technical and social changes.

• Infatuations -- In a globalised world, our infatuations are taking on new dimensions. No longer is infatuation one-way, but it is bi-directional … what we love now returns that love in an equally idealised form.

 

More here 

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(* Source: Three Minds *) 

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(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

A new startup called Lingtastic is coming out of stealth today that wants to lower the cost of professional translation services. Using a distributed team of freelance translators around the world, customers will be able to call in, and the translator with the lowest bid will take the call. Instead of $100 an hour or more, CEO Chas Watkins expects the hourly rate to be as low as $18. (Lingtastic will take 20 percent as its cut).

The service launched in closed beta today for Spanish-English translations. Other languages will be available when the site launches publicly in March. If you want to try it out, send an e-mail to TC [at] Lingtastic [dot] com saying why you want to use the service. TC readers will get preference in being accepted to the beta.

Lingtastic will provide both live interpreters and translate text messages from one language to another. Watkins imagines many scenarios for his services. Any hotel or car rental agency across the world can have a live interpreter by simply calling. Sales people trying to reach potential customers in foreign countries could use the service. Or simply someone trying to flirt with someone they meet on a social network who lives in another country. Text translations can be sent via e-mail, SMS, or posted to Websites. There is a developer API as well. Here is how Watkins describes the service:

In the live release next month a customer with an account will be able to request a live interpreter from our website and they will receive a call from that person in seconds. They can specify language, specialty, max price and skill level and the interpreters compete for their business. That call can come on a normal phone, cell phone, skype, Yahoo, Google talk, or MSN. We can even conference in a third party on any of those applications too!

The most important aspect of our service though is the interface we have built to this system. That allows developers to quickly add our service (or resell it) from their own software or social site. This will allow people to quickly develop applications that can translate text, or have live interpreters call them to chat with friends from within any website or service.

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(* Source: Steve Rubel *)

Steve says... 

Content: it's everywhere. Content is in your inbox, your feed reader, outdoor media, your living room, your pocket and, increasingly, on every web site you visit. It also increasingly resides on sites built and managed by your favorite brands, which are bypassing the media and going direct.

The democratization of publishing is without a doubt a revolution. When we're all dead and gone, the 21st Century will be remembered as a Digital Renaissance - one that rivals the original that preceded it by 700 years.

The Internet has empowered billions of people and is distributing their creativity across millions of niches and dozens of formats. Quality and accuracy, of course, can vary. However, virtually every subject either is or will be addressed with excellence - by someone, somewhere.

However, the glut of content as we all know also has a major downside. Our information and entertainment options greatly outweigh the time we have to consume it. Even if one were to only focus on micro-niche interests and snack on bite-sized content, demand could never ever scale to match the supply. Content is a commodity. The Attention Crash is real and - make no mistake - it will deepen.

Enter the Digital Curator. A curator, in a cultural institution context, is a guardian or an overseer. According to Wikipedia, he/she "is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and their associated collections catalogs. The object of a curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it be inter alia artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections."

Museum curators, like web users, are faced with choices. They can't put every work of art in a museum. They acquire pieces that fit within the tone, direction and - above all - the purpose of the institution. They travel the corners of the world looking for "finds." Then, once located, clean them up and make sure they are presentable and offer the patron a high quality experience.

Much the same, the digital realm too needs curators. Information overload makes it difficult to separate junk from art. It requires a certain finesse and expertise - a fine tuned, perhaps trained eye. Google, memetrackers such as Techmeme and social news sites like digg are not curators. They're aggregators - and there's a big difference.

The call of the curator requires people who are selfless and willing to act as sherpas and guides. They're identifiable subject matter experts who dive through mountains of digital information and distill it down to its most relevant, essential parts. Digital Curators are the future of online content. Brands, media companies and dedicated individuals can all become curators. Further, they don't even need to create their own content, just as a museum curator rarely hangs his/her own work next to a Da Vinci. They do, however, need to be subject matter experts.

Curators are not editors either. The notion of an editor inherently implies that space is finite. Online it's not. Curators don't need to necessarily be trained in cutting, but in knowing where and how to unearth those special high-quality "finds" and to make them presentable. It's just as much about the experience and the way the information is presented, as it is the content.

If you look for them, curators are everywhere. Mahalo is a thriving community of curators on virtually dozens of subjects. The tech section of the New York Times web site and the My Times site, both of which highlight blogs, is another. Last but not least is the IAB Smartbrief. If you're interested in online marketing and have time to read only one source, this is the one to turn to because they curate.

As content universe expands and floods niches, there will always be a market for Digital Curators. The key for brands, individuals and media companies will be to identify those niches where they have deep expertise and to become the best in the world at serving them. I guarantee if you do this well and consistently, your long-term success is essentially guaranteed. And even if you do not have the energy to become a curator, you will certainly be influenced them.

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(* Source: Josh Catone *) 

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(* Source: Fang-Yu Lin *)

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(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

Duncan says... 

IBM released an interesting new report earlier this week that predicts the end of advertising as we know it within 5 years.

To quote IBM

Traditional advertising players risk major revenue declines as budgets shift rapidly to new, interactive formats, which are expected to grow at nearly five times that of traditional advertising.

To survive in this new reality, broadcasters must change their mass audience mind-set to cater to niche consumer segments, and distributors need to deliver targeted, interactive advertising for a range of multimedia devices. Advertising agencies must experiment creatively, become brokers of consumer insights, and guide allocation of advertising dollars amid exploding choices. All players must adapt to a world where advertising inventory is increasingly bought and sold in open exchanges vs. traditional channels…

The report observes four change drivers tipping the advertising industry balance of power:”

• Control of attention,

• Creativity,

• Measurement, and

• Advertising inventories

Consumers’ attention has shifted, with personal Internet time rivaling TV time. Consumers have tired of interruption advertising, and are increasingly in control of how they interact, filter, distribute, and consume their content, and associated advertising messages. IBM’s survey findings demonstrated that half of DVR owners watch 50 percent or more of programming on re-play, and that traditional video advertising doesn’t translate online: 40 percent of respondents found ads during an online video segment more annoying than any other format.

Amateurs and semi-professionals are increasingly creating low cost advertising content that threatens to bypass creative agencies, while publishers and broadcasters are broadening their own creative roles. Advertisers are demanding accountability and more specific individual consumer measurements across advertising platforms. Self-service advertising exchanges are attracting revenues that were once exclusively sold through proprietary channels or transactions.

The Full report here (pdf) makes for interesting reading, particularly for anyone working in an advertising related business. A lot of it states what many of us already know, but it doesn’t hurt to have this validated in writing.

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(* Source : Walstreet Journal *)

A feel-good film about a girl from the Chinese countryside who moves to the big city to discover love, blogging and Starbucks will premier this month in an unusual venue: Shanghai's subway.

"A Sunny Day," is scheduled to play exclusively on thousands of high-tech flat screen monitors on Shanghai's subway cars and station platforms.

Girl meets boy and Starbucks in 'A Sunny Day,' to be shown in installments

Tailored for an audience of 2.2 million who cram onto China's biggest underground railway each day, the full-length feature film will be shown in daily segments of a few minutes each over 40 weekdays, soap-opera style. Subtitles in Chinese will help commuters follow the dialogue over the subway noise, and multiple daily rebroadcasts and tie-ins on the Internet are designed to ensure no one misses any of the cliffhangers.

Instead of an ordinary film, the so-called "subopera" is a blend of drama and advertising. A venture between Starbucks Coffee Co. and PepsiCo Inc. financed and helped produce the drama as part of a campaign that kicks off today in Shanghai to introduce bottled frappuccino drinks to the Chinese market.

"It's quite unique and demonstrates a departure from conventional marketing," says Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman. The coffee company hasn't traditionally advertised, Mr. Schultz says, adding that a soap opera can be effective since it creates "real entertainment for our customers and along the way there is a complementary message." PepsiCo, which will bottle and distribute the Starbucks-branded drinks, referred questions to Starbucks

The film has a clear commercial bent. In some shots, the mermaid from the Starbucks logo gets as much face-time as the movie's big turnstile draw, Huang Xiao Ming, a 29-year-old pop star who is so well known he is sometimes called China's Justin Timberlake.

Still, "A Sunny Day" is no infomercial. Mr. Huang's character "CC" is a struggling musician who strums his guitar for coins in the subway, and falls for big-hearted Sunny, who is trying to get over the death of a boyfriend and fit into a new job.

During the shooting on a recent Sunday, as a gaggle of teenage women sneaked onto the set, Mr. Huang described the subway a "fashionable, very modern" venue that will appeal to a trendy audience.

Subways around the world have long featured visual distractions. A century ago, platforms were showcases for art, like the swank metro stations in Paris. In the 1970s, spray paint enlivened the dank and dangerous New York subway, and in the 1980s, the late Keith Haring helped make graffiti a respected art form with projects like "Studio in the Subway."

This year, the Berlin subway's 1.5 million daily passengers were the judges in a weeklong festival of 90-second, silent films called "Going Underground."

Advertisers are also pressing beneath the streets. Sidetrack Technologies Inc. of Winnipeg and New York-based Submedia LLC place light-board advertising in subway tunnels in several cities around the world, giving riders the motion-picture like effect of seeing a flipbook.

China's $20 billion advertising industry is increasingly adopting the global trend toward marketing disguised as entertainment. In addition to Hollywood-style product placements in TV shows and movies, a rapidly expanding segment is directed at an emerging middle class during the workday hours with slickly crafted TV-style ads in taxis, airplanes and even elevators.

More here 

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(* Source : Leigh Alexander *)

Launches The Sims on Stage Beta

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(* Source : BBC News *)

Jonathan Fieldes says :

The tool could be embedded in blogs as well as used in gaming Metaplace demo

Users of Metaplace, as it is known, can build 3D online worlds for PCs or even a mobile phone without any knowledge of complex computer languages.

The web-based program is the brainchild of Raph Koster, one of the developers of massively multiplayer online games such as Ultima Online.

Users make the virtual spaces from simple building blocks.

The results, which could be used for gaming, socialising or e-commerce, can be embedded in a webpage, facebook profile or blog.

"We are out to democratise virtual worlds and bring them to absolutely anybody," said Mr Koster, founder of Areae, the company behind Metaplace.

"You can come to the site, press a button and have a functioning virtual world that supports multiple users in about 30 seconds."

Web puzzle

Second Life is one of the most popular virtual worlds

There are already a number of popular virtual worlds such as Second Life, There and Entropia Universe. In addition there are games worlds such as World of Warcraft (WOW).

Most of these require a person to download specialist software or buy a game and there are no links between the different universes.

"They're all walled gardens," said Mr Koster.

In contrast, Metaplace is entirely web based and connections can be made between all of the different worlds.

"We modelled this on the web," said Mr Koster. "You can think about each world being a webpage and every object within in it is a link."

Users can create the worlds using different methods.

People with no programming background can use the graphical interface and choose worlds from a number of templates, such as a shop or a puzzle game.

They can also clone worlds developed by other Metaplace users.

More competent visitors to the site can build a world from scratch using the tool's own programming language known as metamarkup.

The language is "platform agnostic", according to Mr Koster, which means that it can be used to create worlds which can run on anything from a powerful PC to a mobile handset.

User control

We want to see 10,000 virtual worlds so that lots of wild and crazy stuff gets made because that is the only way it will advance as a medium Raph Koster, founder, Areae

"Others may want to make a book club that is integrated with Amazon where people can get together and chat every Thursday night about a book but they can actually see the pictures of the books on the wall, click on them and buy them," said Mr Koster.

"The applications are pretty open."

When complete, each world is given its own page on the Metaplace website.

 More here

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(* Source : Nextgreatthing.com*)

Sherrie Hui says : 

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(* Source: IMediaconnection.com *)

Krisserin Canary says:

Coca-Cola has embraced social networking, expanding its online strategy with a new Cherry Coke MySpace campaign. Shane Steele, Coca-Cola's director of emerging media and online advertising, discusses the company's new approach to Web 2.0.

Shane Steele is Coca-Cola's director of emerging media and online advertising.

Krisserin Canary: The new Cherry Coke campaign  is indicative of a move towards more interactive and involved MySpace campaigns. How did you approach creating this campaign? What were your priorities?

Shane Steele: Our main priority was to generate awareness and excitement with the relaunch of Cherry Coke and launch of Cherry Coke Zero amongst today's multicultural youth. Social networks offer an amazing opportunity to engage our target audience and communicate with them on their own terms. We needed to break-through the clutter and contemporize the brand by speaking to our consumers in a relevant and meaningful way. We understood the influence of the MySpace community and we wanted to give one lucky teen the chance to own it. We wanted to empower self-expression, inspire creativity and enable teens to showcase their passion for the Cherry Coke brand.

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(* Source: PSFK *) 

Jeff Squires says...

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(* Source: Techcrunch *)

Rand Fishkin explains how to Wiki Jack...

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(* Source: Trendhunter.com *)

Surfing the web can be a lot of fun, but it’s even more entertaining when you can share the cool stuff you find with a friend. Problem is, there isn’t always someone with you. Physically, that is. You can check out pages with virtual friends online – every site you visit is a potential social encounter and chance to meet a like-minded person. All you have to do is download the software at Weblin.com and then, with each page you visit that is being viewed by another Weblin user, your customized avatar pops up at the bottom of your screen. Your little buddy will hang out there if you leave him alone, or you can interact with other visitors. “Weblin makes you and others on the Web visible as small avatars. There are others on the same page you are on right now. Weblin opens a new and exciting world on every website.”

More related articles

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(* Source: IMedia Connection *)

The Little Deviant campaign uses an array of innovative elements to underscore the xD's non-conformist personality. These facets include a cinema spot that debuted in key markets on June 15, the Little Deviants interactive website that launched the same day, a pop-up spectacular print ad, a banner campaign and other guerilla activities that kicked off earlier this month.

In the storyline, the xD's virtual accomplices -- a number of uniquely monstrous little Deviant characters -- torment "Sheeple," the conformist clones who paint the world and its inhabitants a dull gray. The xD itself unleashes Deviants from underground, and through the campaign's website, visitors can join the mischievous gremlins in customization... all in the spirit of replacing dreary compliance with vibrant creativity.

More here 

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 (* Source: Informationarchitects.jp *)

We have done it before: The 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. We have done it again – and better. Upon popular demand – here is iA’s next Web Trend Map:

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(* Source: Adam Tornes *)

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(* Source: David Felt *)

It is always refreshing to see old attempting to understand the new and not be afraid of the change but to embrace it with such gusto and recognise it's potential.  Long live! The new media king has spoken.

Rupert Murdoch says 

Traditional companies are feeling threatened. I say, bring on the changes.

Everyone knows that networking--once a face-to-face affair, sometimes captured in a Rolodex--is now worldwide, instant, and impervious to constraints of distance, time or cost.

Those of us in so-called old media have also learned the hard way what this new meaning of networking spells for our businesses. Media companies don't control the conversation anymore, at least not to the extent that we once did. The big hits of the past were often, if not exactly flukes, then at least the beneficiaries of limited options. Of course a film is going to be a success if it's the only movie available on a Saturday night. Similarly, when three networks divided up a nation of 200 million, life was a lot easier for television executives. And not so very long ago most of the daily newspapers that survived the age of consolidation could count themselves blessed with monopolies in their home cities.

All that has changed. Options abound. Fans of small niches can now find new content they could never before. Going elsewhere for news and entertainment is easier and cheaper than ever. And people's expectations of media have undergone a revolution. They are no longer content to be a passive audience; they insist on being participants, on creating their own material and finding others who will want to read, listen and watch.

Consequently the old media are threatened by the erosion of our traditional profit centers. Certainly we can't count on things like print classified advertising being around forever. Similarly, DVRs undermine the mainstay of broadcast television's business model: the commercial.

Nonetheless, it would be wrong to conclude from this that the age of content is over. On the contrary, people want content more than ever, and there is a role for companies that can provide good stuff--"good" being the operative word. Quality is more important than ever, because the marketplace is more ruthlessly competitive. Options are not merely one click of the remote away; devices undreamed of a few short decades ago are at least as tempting as a change of the channel.

Old media can survive--and thrive--in this new environment, but they must adapt. We must learn how younger generations of consumers prefer to receive their news and entertainment, and we must meet those expectations.

The good news is that we are learning--and fast. Take the type of media I know best--news. News is in more demand than ever, but the vast network of Internet-savvy news junkies want their news with several fresh twists: constantly updated, relevant to their daily lives, complete with commentary and analysis, and presented in a way that allows them to interact not just with the news but with each other about the news. They won't wait until six o'clock to watch the news on television or until the next morning to read it in isolation. This plainly provides a challenge for news providers but also an opportunity to be far more engaged with the audience.

Companies that take advantage of this new meaning of network and adapt to the expectations of the networked consumer can look forward to a new golden age of media. Far be it from me to suggest that either I or my company have all the answers. No one does. But the future of media is a future of relentless experimentation and innovation, accelerating change, and--for those who embrace the new ways in which consumers are connecting with each other--enormous potential.

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(* Source: James Chadwick *)

James says...

Last month Slideshare ran a competition to find the world’s best presentation. They got over 400 enteries and they just announced the winner and runners-up here. 

The winner was Shift Happens, an overwhelming collection of powerful statistics about the shifting power dynamics in the world today. More proof that stats and facts, not soft rhetoric, are the most powerful form of persuasion and communication.

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(* Source: Misha Cornes *) 

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(* Source: Adam Turinas *)

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