3rd time is the charm. Well, the last 2 were incredibly charming so make your way to Podcamp Boston this weekend to interact with the Web ecosystem - I mean real people that know far more and far less than you do but have at least two things in common ... they want to share and learn.
Come on out. Bring a friend. And meet some new ones.
Tech Jimmy and I will be ranting about "Monetization" on Sunday at 1:30.
... OK, OK, you can say it ... Show me the Money!
Check out the complete schedule of presenters and events here
=
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Podcampers Unite! This Weekend
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Welcome To Oasis
Get a glimpse of how cool and fun Oasis is in our new video here
Let me know if you can read that note...
Sphere: Related Content
Let me know if you can read that note...Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
A Beautiful Thing for the World and Advertisers
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
This is the most wonderfully inspiring content I have seen since this Internet thing started.
Share your thoughts with me and your friends. We can talk about silly dances, how to motivate peace, children, lots of soccer balls, and connections around the world.
What a great project! Probably pretty cheap in relation to highly-produced spots - and this is taking off with Over 7 million plays on YouTube alone! But the only official sponsor Stride Gum is not moving very fast to ride this "media disruptive" wave (there is only a small image on their site along with the the usual desperate-for-attention CPG games and fodder).
Stride was smart enough to bankroll Matt's trip and not insist he wear their logo...but I hope they realize that the Content Train is chugging and has given them a chance to ride the slipstream. Where is the promotion to choose Matt's next destination... and donate money, vaccinations, gum, soccer balls, etc?
14 months, 44 countries, and lots of smiling faces - including yours!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Cloudy Today. Cloudier Tomorrow
Nick Carr inspiring the Cloud Computing Forum today with www.xconomy.com. The Cloud? IT's Next.
History repeats itself. History repeats itself. Nick's examples (also from his latest book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google) give us reference for the evolution of utility computing ... Software as a Service, Cloud Computing ... where pay-as-you-go tech services are now hosted "out there"and not on your own expensive, maintenance-needy, heavy, servers in a clean, cooled (more expensive) data center/closet.
So, everyone involved with all that needs to reconsider their business models!
This Blog is a good example. I (not traditional Broadcasters) have amazing control over what I publish, share, and view. Easily from any browser I access Blogger software. Nothing on my hardware or on my server. Blogger efficiently maintains the latest version of their platform for all bloggers on their cloud.
Amazon Web Services is becoming the cloud of choice for boot-strapping Web startups. For more about the 5 Clouds concept, see my post from last December.
It's all about shifting with the shifts of resources and control. The Advertising Industry is in an upheaval with this... reacting to the consumer-controlled "Power shift of Media" and, thus, different models of Agency compensation... clients are less likely to pay for mass (wasteful) broadcasting of brand messages. Please go here to see my post last year about this and Garfield's Chaos Scenario 2.0.
Today Carr described market opportunities with an historical look at shifts of control. In the 1850s Henry Burden could sell more pick axes and shovels to the gold miners (!) because he created more power than his competitors with his own waterwheel-powered energy supply. A key point is that 50 years later this solo model was dead but Burden's business was still strong because he shifted his energy source to the more efficient supplier - Mr. Westingouse's widely distributed steam powered electricity.
Leading to electricity and electric outlets in every house - plug and play potential! Consider all the innovation of products developed after electricity was available everywhere.
The business world is flat because of clouds. Consumers (and entrepreneurs) have the first and last say on their media and their brands - cheaper and easier.
How are you taking advantage of this latest shift?
Friday, June 13, 2008
Web 2.5 is Duct Tape on Concrete
These cheap and powerful applications (Blogs, Wikis, Twitter) are helping us learn about this new media world. This is great. But they are not yet really effecting the core foundation (concrete) of our businesses. The data is not connected with our master databases, org chart responsibilities are not changing to truly engage the customer, online requests are not tied into supply chains, etc... Companies have used duct tape to slap the Internet onto existing marketing processes.
Again, this is great because we are learning so much. But duct tape, in all it's majesty, does not work for long on concrete.
I want to talk about how to integrate what we are learning into the foundation of your company. This is inevitable. The efficiencies and cost savings are huge, the customer knowledge and sales opportunity are huge... when do you want to go huge?
A few months ago I posted a little on the duct tape removal for the Media/Entertainment Industry from OnMedia NYC.
Since most marketing decisions should revolve around driving sales, here is a chart from BtoBOnline that should incite conversation about what we are spending our money on and what is actually working. Executive Seminars seem to be the most valuable... a great way to get out to teach AND learn (click on image to enlarge):
Sunday, June 08, 2008
McD's User Generated Fun
Here's a :30 spot that was created for much less than the (nicely chosen) song rights. Please admire how simple can be cool.
For some fun, just take just 3 minutes to go to www.linerider.com to instantly turn a few of your lines into a crazy sledding expedition.
You can save them, go mobile, and soon play it on your Wii. This below one is artfully mesmerizing:
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Engineering A Better Life - Dick and Jane 2.0
Yvonne Spicer of the National Center of Technological Literacy and I are looking for ways to combine our efforts to facilitate a more educated and capable society of Students, Teachers, and Business. We are discussing ways to leverage Social Media to accomplish their agenda.
NCTL's goal is to integrate engineering as a new discipline in schools nationwide and to inspire the next generation of engineers and innovators.
We are looking at ways to redefine "engineering"... more like correctly define it as the concept of thinking, efficiency, planning, design, logic, life!
Let's discuss how you can participate - easily (Without Breaking Stride ... WOBS) - while making an important impact.
Start by reading on their site about "Our Nation in Crisis." Then look at their powerful Supporters and consider where you intersect. This is an important professional and personal agenda because it effects the success of our society and business. My first Blog post in 2000 has one of my favorite quotes that is relevant for this agenda - it's the Emerson one that defines success.
Key elements to leveraging the Web to engage this community:
- 12 Social Networking Resources (like Mashable)
- Harness the new rules/opportunities of Branding
- Tapping celebrities
- Advertising is dead - valuable content lives
- Control your Personal Brand
- Transparency is the rule
- Business Week covers their coverage of Blogging and Social media (very 2.0)
- Their articles on the Future of Social Media
How can we work the vast education system?
- Concentrate on the NEXT ideas that they have not yet put into their own system, agenda, method, silo, dead-end... Pick your battles. Don't waste (too much) energy challenging or trying to change any existing agendas
With so many new ways to learn, We need new ways to teach
- We could call it "Dick and Jane 2.0"
- Yvonne has a great question she asks teachers. "Are we preparing our (students) for their future or our past?”
= Sphere: Related Content
Internet Week NY - Random Raves
A week long block party across every block in Manhattan. Wow, this is good. See more coverage of this extravaganza at Mashable
At IAC , the calm before the amazing storm known as NY Tech Meetup, Scott Hieferman, CEO of the industry-galvanizing Meetup, ponders their awesome new Meetup features!
Below is a shot from the belly of the beast...
At NYU, I Want Media set up a live program called The Future of Media.
Analog (mostly print) and Digital fur was flying between the traditional media panel and the new media - namely Eric Schonfeld from TechCrunch - who successfully positioned the disruptors as thoughtful visionaries and practical business men.
As the old school system tries to manage the new speed of decisions and delivery, the Webfolk are writing in a fun, relevant style while breaking stories, not just annotating (er, stealing) from the BigBoys.
The contenders:
- David Carr, New York Times media columnist
- Keith J. Kelly, New York Post media reporter
- Kenneth Li, Reuters global media correspondent
- Johnnie L. Roberts, Newsweek senior writer covering media
- Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch co-editor
- Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair media columnist
And for those counting.... HERE ARE THE WEBBY AWARD WINNERS FOR 2008
Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Advertising 2.0 ... Big and Small
There were two panels today that transcended the usual buzzword bingo at Advertising 2.0, a 2-day conference here in NY by Digital Hollywood and Advertising Age where the top dozen New Media terms were repeatedly defined, combined, and exhausted by noon the first day. The reality check is that there is still need for more sharing of successful deployments that should increase mandates to re-design marketing processes around digital.
The two most valuable panels came in two sizes:
- Big - Keynote Roundtable State of the Industry
- Small - Widgets as a Platform
The “State” panel was very good. (even if the Moderator was distractingly attention-hungry) They summed up the issues with relevant examples from real deployments of interactive advertising campaigns. Laura Lang set the stage with a refreshing position on customer-focused marketing and the real change that is taking place within companies to interact with Client 2.0.
Scott Sorokin added key elements to the Carat philosophy about this change... no more buying time to interrupt. Marketers must make life better for their customers, actually create relevant time (and value) then be invited in and interact within it. Nike Plus is a great example that reflects his point - Marketing is not a spectator sport anymore ... it is a contact sport.
Here's the line-up (in the picture left to right):
Laura Lang, Chief Executive Officer, Digitas
Keith Fox, President, BusinessWeek
Scott Sorokin, President, Carat
Dave Morris, Chief Client Officer, CNET Networks
Chet Fenster, Director of Content Creation Mediaedge:cia
Michael Kassan, Entertainment and Media Consultant, Moderator
The Widgets panel was interesting for a few reasons. The title of this Strategic Workshop was “Widgets as a Platform: Content, Commerce, Communications” – that’s a lot to expect from these cute little things (that you see in the Test Lab over there on the right).
Here were the leaders of the real future of the Web at a very early stage trying to sort through all the issues of a new medium - business model, compete or partner, standards in specs and reporting, etc. Here is a new distribution concept where the audience is simultaneously creating, distributing, and viewing.
I believe Widgets have an uphill battle worth fighting. This very small (very – 2 % of online budgets)needs to convince marketers of the obvious... that driving traffic to their site isn't the only way to gauge success of a campaign. That campaigns are short sighted when you can have a longer relationship with your customers than 13 weeks. That counting the number of email addresses on your list is folly. That it is OK to put their brand into the existing conversations - to fish where the fish are - as Will Price of WidgetBox calls it, "Off Domain Consumption"
Here's the line-up:
Walter Schild, Founder and CEO, Genex
Will Price, CEO, Widgetbox
Cynthia Crossland, Senior Director of Advertising, RockYou
Sonya Chawla, Senior Director, Advertising, Slide
Michael Berkley, co-founder & CEO, SplashCast
Ben Pashman, Vice President, Business Development, Gigya
Jennifer Cooper, co-founder and CEO, MixerCast
Sun Jen Yung, Managing Director, Investment Banking, Collins Stewart - Moderator
As an example, Here is my WidgetBox – a mini, portable version of this Blog. It allows you to put an updated view of what I am posting on any other site. Dozens have. You may want to. Or not.
Knowledge is power. If I want to know what my readers are interested in, here is a look at the number of daily clicks within all my distributed Widgets for the last 30 days:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
