MattDickman.com

Buzz Friday (week of March 30)

Here is a look at what is happening across a couple of sites I keep an eye on. Let me know if there is anything you would like me to add on.

Items I am watching:

• Justin.TV is making a big splash on the left coast. Interesting product placement possibilities.
  
• Good to see another Cleveland agency do something cool to promote excellent work. Kudos to Brokaw.
  
• Twitter is hotter than a Dell laptop battery. Will it last? I use it and it definitely has its place...I'm just figuring out what that is. See multi-modal, micro publishing at its best and follow me here.
  
• A lot has been said lately about Second Life losing luster as a marketing vehicle. It has its place if strategically aligned with a marketers goals and, like blogging, is staffed appropriately (e.g.; don't create a store and abandon it).
  
• I filter through over 300 blog feeds each day so you don't have to. Click here to go to my link blog (updated in real time) or click here to subscribe to the feed. Enjoy!
  

Top Five Technorati Blogs

1. Engadget
   
2. Boing Boing
   
3. Techcrunch
   
4. Gizmodo
   
5. The Huffington Post
   

View Top 100

Top 10 Technorati Searches

1. Kathy Sierra
   
2. Youtube
   
3. Sanjaya
   
4. MySpace
   
5. Molly
   
6. Learning 2.0
   
7. Iran
   
8. Dell
   
9. Andy Clarke
   
10. Shai Agassi
    

Top Five Web2.0 Movers of the Week (using Alexa data)

1. Newsvine
   
2. Stickam
   
3. Woot!
   
4. Wikia
   
5. Zoho
   

More

Top Five Web2.0 Sites (using Alexa data)

1. YouTube
   
2. MySpace
   
3. Orkut
   
4. Wikipedia
   
5. hi5
   

More

Top Five Marketing Blogs from Viral Garden

1. Seth's Blog
   
2. Creating Passionate Users
   
3. Duct Tape Marketing
   
4. Gaping Void
   
5. Marketing Shift
   

View the top 25

Top 5 "Viral" Videos Right Now

1. Karl Rove Rapping It Up
   
2. Sad Kermit - Hurt
   
3. Otters holding hands
   
4. OK Go - Here it goes again
   
5. Kiwi
   

More

Technorati Tags:
trends, buzz

Use it or lose me

When a customer (or potential customer) comes to your site, what information do you ask of them? If you're a good marketer, you are driven to learn as much from each person as possible. Now, that being said, there is a wrong and right way to do this. Have you ever been to a site and the signup form looks something like this:

First Name
Last Name
Email address
Zip Code
Company
Job Title
Education Level
Household Income
Industry
Company size
Name of your Mother's cousin's niece
Your blood type
Your mother's cousin's niece's blood type

Obviously some of these are fictitious, but much of what is asked for today is just as ridiculous. In reality marketers only need the first three items (first and last name and email), the rest should be determined through what I call Active Customer Discovery (see chart below). This exercise is all about lowering barriers to entry and creating honest conversations with customers.

The point of the chart is to show that information discovered over time (not all up-front) is more valuable, more accurate and easier to acquire. How you ask? Here is a quick example that's worked in the past:

• Collect the information I outlined above
  
• Send a thank you email to the person asking them to confirm their registration
  
• After confirmation, take the user to a thank you page that asks them if they would like to opt-in to your newletters/alerts/sponsor messages
  
• If you want somebody's age, offer a birthday club
  
• Offer poll questions, surveys and contests and record those results for each user over the course of time
  
• Come up with other creative ways to ask for information and then immediately add value to the customer
  
• Come up with a way to analyze the information to add more value to the site
  

Here are the basic questions to ask yourself before setting up your next signup form:

1. Do you even need the information? - Ask yourself this question and if you don't actually do anything with the information, cut it out. The risk you run is turning somebody away from your content by asking them something that you don't have a need to know.
   
2. Can you get this information someplace else? - Most geographic information (city, state, country) can be gleaned from your statistics package. People lie on forms so why even ask?
   
3. Do you give the customer something for this information? - If you're asking me for my household income, what are you going to do with that? Are you tailoring your product to show me less or more expensive items? If you're just using it for demographic fodder, there are better ways to get the information.
   

The takeaway is that the more you collect over time, the more you really begin to get insights into your customers. On top of learning more, you'll have more accurate information and people will have an incentive to update their information if it benefits them. So, if you don't use what I give you (if I give it to you at all) you just might lose me forever.

Technorati Tags:
strategy, marketing, interactive marketing, trends, usability, social marketing, relevance, active customer discovery

Learning from Adobe's Kuler

Adobe Labs recently released a new community environment (named Kuler) that allows designers to create, share and interact with color palettes. Here are some interesting points in Kuler that can/should be applied to other communities and used by social marketers:

• Celebrate your customer's core tenets: Color choice is one of the key factors that separate good designers from great ones. Adobe has found a way to celebrate this building block and allow a task that is usually done in solitude to be expressed openly and in a supportive, peer-driven community.
  
• Hyper-focused: Adobe could have started a much broader network covering all areas of design, but they chose to have a focus. Now they can gauge interest and tailor the expansion of this network over time in a more cost-effective manner.
  
• Ties in to product (it's a utility): It's no secret that Adobe is looking to move its suite of products online. This is a brilliant step to start getting designers to work online and create a feeling for what is possible. This community site also allows users to download color palettes for use inside CS2/3 to extend the value of the information beyond the browser.
  
• Simple, tailored interface: What would you expect from a design company? The interface is clean, modern and utilitarian. Users can surf in a fluid environment using Adobe technology and learn at the same time.
  

As opposed to the usual, non-strategic corporate entry into community sites ("give me MySpace, but with my logo on it"), this is a good model for a consumer product company looking to get into the social fray. Start with a focus, add value to your customers, allow them to share and promote your brand through their interactions and test the waters for a more robust solution down the road.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, interactive marketing, user generated content, trends, social networks, usability, tagging, tags, Adobe, Kuler

Extend your reach beyond the browser

When your customer closes their web browser, do you still reach them? What piece of your brand do you offer them to stay near the top-of-mind? There are quite a few ways to do this effectively and add value to their experience.

• Desktop Background: Yes this is old, but that doesn't mean it needs to be mundane. Do something cool, give more options more often and make it something people will want to talk about. Even better if you can personalize the message.
  
• Icons/Avatars: People are using icons/avatars to identify themselves online and make connections. Create something interesting so fans of your brand want to show you off.
  
• Screen Savers: Creating rich, immersive screen savers is a great way to keep people engaged. It's easy to dynamically pull in information like RSS feeds, schedules, press releases and news stories and product information. The more dynamic these are, the more useful they'll be to the user and the better impression they'll have of you.
  
• Widgets: Widgets come in many flavors, but the overriding thread is that they allow people to take normally web-based information and use it in other places. This includes feeding in your blog posts, searching your site from their Dashboard or Vista's equivalent, displaying new photos and video you've published and the list goes on. The point it that you make your content easily portable so they can use it in their lives the way they want.
  
• Instant Message: On top of using an avatar, viable, new information delivery vehicles are emerging. IM allows people to get updates from you via an existing channel. They add you as a contact, you message them with content.
  
• Twitter: This micro publishing tool reaches consumers in the way they choose. This includes SMS, IM or web-based delivery. The power and potential of Twitter is largely un-tapped by marketers.
  
• Content portability: By this I mean, if you have video, offer it for the iPod. If you have audio, offer a podcast and easy ways to subscribe to the feed. If you have a web site, make the content accessible on a mobile device. Allow your customers to engage with you throughout their daily routine no matter where they are or how they got there.
  

New technologies are popping up all the time. Think about the impact of Second Life. Although it's a risky venture right now, we may see a shift in usage demographics if the right model is put in place. What other ways have you allowed your customers to take a piece of your brand offline?

Technorati Tags:
mobile marketing, marketing, interactive marketing, Twitter, widgets

Forget the consumer?

What is going on in some marketer's heads right now? It seems like the consumer is the last thing running through their minds as people move to protect and segregate content away from the masses. I've posted about the Viacom/YouTube lawsuit and potential impact to each site, but in the end the consumer loses and that's unfortunate.

Here is what the video landscape looked like just a few months ago. Youtube was the quick starting, innovative new contender on the scene. Users flocked in record numbers and showed marketers that the days of users being limited by technology to create content are over. From a user perspective, YouTube was ideal, a one-stop shop. It combined user-generated content with normal broadcast video content published by consumers. Music artists took to the medium and published pre-releases to their videos. Consumers showed their love of some brands by creating their own mashups and sharing them with friends. Agency.com used the site to publish a forced "viral" campaign that got many people in the industry interested in the possibilities.

But, this was short-lived. Here is a representation of what it looks like today. Users have to criss-cross the net to find what they want. The interactivity and commenting is not as powerful, the numbers of people watching each is drastically lower than that of YouTube and there may even be a little self-censorship going on every now and then as properties protect their sponsors and investors.

Here is a quick overview of the video content space from my viewpoint. It shows where each entity is heading with their recent moves. Customers want control, they want Tivo not regular TV. They want all of the content in one place, on-demand and they want quality on top of all of that.

The anti-consumer actions being taken in this space seems natural in the context of the internet. Think Napster vs. RIAA. How many more artists were people exposed to in that time period than ever see the light of day today. Again, Napster had the content in one place, the user had control and the companies broke it up. I wonder if the power of the citizen media can help out this time. Do you think these companies care about consumers or is it just the short-term dollar?

Loyalty breeds long-term profit. The more long-term they think the better off they'd be or somebody is going to beat them to the next new thing. But, I guess they'll just keep litigating and not innovating.

UPDATE: Check out Paul McEnany's post on the NBC/News Co. venture (dubbed "ClownCo" by Google) as well as Michael Arrington's post here. Make sure to read the last segment on Arrington's post, it's extremely telling of NBC's arrogance.

P.S. If you're new to reading my blog, welcome. Click here to subscribe to my feed.

Technorati Tags:
strategy, marketing, Google, video, interactive marketing, trends, social networks, YouTube, social marketing, Web2.0, Viacom, NBC

Magic in Manhattan

After sitting here thinking for quite some time, WOW is the best word to describe the blogger meetup in NYC this past Friday. I was able to learn about and connect with new bloggers, talk with bloggers who I was familiar with and meet some blogging heros of mine. Photos are available on Flickr (credit to CK for the shots).

How many times in your life have you walked into a room, never having met any of the people you are about to see and feel instantly connected on meeting them? I've always said that blogging is personal. You feel a connection when you chat with someone in the comments or read their posts. Loyalty extends to the blogroll and links inside posts. You can almost hear them talking to you. Now I know that meeting bloggers in person confirms those feelings and allows you to create immediate friendships.

CK, one of my blog heros, kindly set up the event and came through big time. CK has one of the best marketing blogs on the web and knows how to tell a story with great savvy. In person she is just as you would expect. Fantastic! CK is warm, energetic, a natural connector and a true marketer. CK has posted on the event here.

The first person I saw when I walked in the door was my other blog hero, Valeria Maltoni. Valeria is, as CK said the "blogging goddess". If you are looking to read an expertly written, insightful blog look no further. Valeria connects with you instantly in person just as she does on her blog and I learned so much just listening to how she connects and grows relationships. I have much more to learn from her. Valeria blogged about the event on her blog too.

Other bloggers at the event whom I have followed for some time were Lori Magno and her husband, Toby Bloomberg, David Berkowitz and Rebecca Edmonston. I also met some new bloggers and made fast friends. People like David Reich, Fard Johnmar, Mark Goren, Elana Centor, CB Whittemore, Megan Garnhum and Alex Geana.

So what were my takeaways from my evening? First, bloggers are very generous people. Everybody I talked to was open and honest, trying to connect people to each other and keep the conversations running once we all returned home. Second, blogging is personal, the connections are real and friendships can be made in a short amount of time. Third, people's offline voices are just like their online (you can't fake it on a blog or face-to-face). Fourth, bloggers are hungry to learn and discuss ideas to help each other out.

One of the best sayings I have ever heard is "People are created with two eyes and two ears and only one mouth...use them in proportion". In blogging, posting is like using your mouth. You have to do it, but the real value in blogging comes from replying to comments, commenting on other blogs, reaching out to bloggers through email and phone calls and meetups in person. So post often, but follow the leads of such blogging mavens as CK and Valeria and give back. Leave comments with value and add to the conversations going on around you. I promise, friendships and knowledge will follow.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, blogs, Flickr, CK, Valeria Maltoni, Conversations, NYC, David Berkowitz, Lori Magno, Toby Bloomberg

It's good to be back

I lived in New York City during my college internship with Mattel Toys and I still hold a warm place in my heart for NY and the people who live here. I'm back in town for a conference so blogging will be light this week. But, if you are in town this Friday, let me know and join CK and the gang for a blogger meetup. Viva New York!

Update: Check out my recap post here.

Technorati Tags:
CK, NYC

Like giving birth

There are some projects that you work on in your professional career that you invest yourself in a little bit more. You take them extra personally. You dedicate yourself to the project outcome being a success. The journey is rewarding and paved with tears, hard lessons and moments of pure, inspired innovation.

I had one such project launch a couple of days ago and I'd love to share it with you now. Disclaimer - I work for DigiKnow, an interactive marketer in Cleveland, OH, and one of our sweet spots is sports and entertainment. We've built sites and systems for some great sports teams over the years.

About a year ago, we came up with an idea for revolutionary venue marketing product and were extremely fortunate to partner with the Cleveland Cavaliers to get it done. The marketing team at the Cavs was fantastic and as driven as we were to come up with the best possible solution. The final product is a patent pending marketing system called SeatServer.

The product, located here http://seatviewer.cavs.nba.com, combines Flash and AJAX technologies to deliver a smooth, realistic experience. The solution shows real video views from each seat section, allows the team to add an up-sell message in each section (e.g.; "Did you know that for $10 more you could sit in the lower bowl?"), incorporates the team schedule and a lot more (check out the interactive 360 video in the seating chart pull down). On top of that, the team can showcase premium seating options and give you personalized directions from your front door all the way to your seat.

Sports teams are certainly becoming more aware of the fact that the experience is more than just what happens inside the arena. It starts when you come online, extends as you leave your house and concludes when they get back home. The more value teams can provide throughout that process the more successful their online efforts will become.

Do you have a project like this in your career? What did you learn?

Technorati Tags:
strategy, marketing, video, innovation, interactive marketing, trends, usability, Web2.0, technology, XML, AJAX

Page views are dying, but are visits the answer?

One the the main challenges of interactive marketing is measurement. For quite some time the page view has been the gold standard of analytics. However, as technology changes the page view measurement is quickly losing credibility and content publishers are looking for a replacement.

The problem: The specific problem is that as user-centered technologies like AJAX penetrate the market, there are less pages viewed. Simple eh? Here is an example I use in presentations when explaining AJAX.

It's April 14th at 4:45pm. You just started doing your tax returns (you know who you are). You're filing online and you come to a page that needs to find you local school district.

Old way -- you are shown a pull down menu with all of the states listed. You choose your state and the page reloads with all of the counties (that's one page view). You choose your county and the page reloads with all of the cities (that's two page views). You choose your city from the list and the page reloads with all of the applicable school districts (that's three page views). You then submit the form and get a big refund check.

New way -- you come to the school district finder page and see a list of states. You choose your state. As you click your state the list of counties appears immediately below (still one page view since the page did not reload). You choose your county and a list of cities loads (still one page view). You select your city and the list of school districts appears (still one page view). This saved you time as a user since you didn't have to wait for the page to reload, but the site lost two page views.

The first A in AJAX is where the problems lie. It stands for Asynchronous, which is a complex way to say that the data transfer is happening in the background and doesn't require a new page load. The technology is very powerful and really adds a lot of value to the end user since the web application works just like an offline application (when done right). A good example is Google's Docs and Spreadsheets applications which work using similar technology. If you go to docs.google.com and create a spreadsheet. If you didn't know you were in a web browser, you would think you were using Excel.

So that's the problem. A few people have proposed a potential solution as AJAX adoption spreads quickly increasing the number of sites where the page view is irrelevant. ComScore recently put their weight behind using the unique visit as the new standard. Here is a breakdown of what they've said:

• Unique Visits - this is the number of unique visitors who come to your site. Each user is tracked by IP address. This number will also give the best gauge of overall site performance and will also replace page views in the sales process.
• Average visits per visitor (30 days) - this number shows engagement on the site. The more visits per visitor the more engaged the person is with the content.
• Time on site - time on site is not a new metric, but is still very valuable to determine engagement. We will even see an 'average time per visit' using this metric and the average visits per visitor.

One of the biggest shifts that this will require is website valuation for sponsorship and advertising among SMB's. Most online ad sales people are just coming up to speed with setting real value on websites and they've been using page views. If you look purely at the numbers, 'unique visits' is going to be lower than 'page views'. How do you explain that to an advertiser? Steve Rubel does a good job outlining his concerns here. I'll dig into how this can be approached from an advertiser and site owner's viewpoint in a future post.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, advertising, interactive marketing, trends, technology, pageviewisdead, XML, AJAX, SMB

Viacom v. YouTube, litigation v. innovation?

A while back, when Viacom sent their cease and desist letter to YouTube/Google, I wrote a post declaring that it was getting ugly. It's beyond ugly now, it's downright hideous. Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion in damages. Yes I said $1 billion.

Om Malik @ GigaOm has a great post which sums up a couple of key points:

• Viacom missed out a couple of years ago to create a YouTube-like network
  
• Viacom is behind the 8 ball and is doing this in part to catch-up
  
• There is question if YouTube is even violating the law
  
• YouTube's traffic numbers spiked after the takedown announcement and continue to rise
  

I understand what Viacom's rationale is. It's their material, but at some point you have to look at what is more valuable...the eyeballs or the content. Consumers are choosing where they consume content. The era of content creators dictating where these venues are is coming to a close. Consumers are in control and publishers should a) realize this is happening and b) put their content where the most people can see it and come up with a plan to monetize it.

Wouldn't Viacom be better off in the end to provide high-quality videos with pre-roll ads on YouTube? Does their litigious stance show they really care about the customers?

Paul's not happy about this either.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Google, video, user generated content, trends, YouTube, Viacom

Social network demos skewing up

I came across an article on eMarketer's site showing some interesting trends in the age demographics of social network users. The graph below shows that in just under three years the demographics have shifted to a majority of users being over 25.

The days of thinking about just reaching teenagers through social marketing are over. More and more people are using these networks to connect with friends and do business. The trick at this point is finding where your target audience is spending their time. More people are splintering into more niche-oriented networks to fulfill specific needs (e.g.; Flickr for photography, Coastr for beer connoisseurs). MySpace has a huge volume of users, but in the "long tail" nature of the internet, they are spreading out to find the mix of content that is right for them.

Technorati Tags:
strategy, marketing, MySpace, interactive marketing, user generated content, trends, social networks, social marketing

What's your first screen?

Mobile devices are often referred to as the "third screen" (the television and computer are screens one and two respectively). I came across this article today which looks at the increased usage of mobile phones to access the web. According to the TNS Media and Entertainment study, 76% of mobile users in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy access the web via their devices.

Bob Greenberg of R/GA was quoted in the article:

"I always hear about the cellphone as being the 'third screen,' but I think about it as the first one. It's with me all the time."

I completely agree with Greenberg's point on a personal level, I've thought the same for some time now. My screen order is:

1. Mobile (with me 90% of the time)
   
2. Laptop (using 60% of the time)
   
3. Television (Use via Tivo 10-15% of the time)
   

I have to temper my perspective, however, with the fact that I am a marketing geek. I need 24x7 email and net access, I Twitter a couple of times a day and I have an insatiable desire to have the latest gadgets even if I really have no use for them.

So, here is a quick poll. What's your first screen?

Technorati Tags:
mobile marketing, strategy, marketing, innovation, interactive marketing, trends, mobile

Grocery stores and your website

I hate going to the grocery store. It's not that I mind spending my Sunday there. I don't even mind the crowds. What I do mind is the archaic way stores are set up. It seems to me that grocers are permanently stuck in the 1950's. My particular problem is that I don't have an expectation yet of where certain products are in the store so when I look where I think they should be I get frustrated and leave.

To add to my frustration, I usually go into the store prepared. I have a list ordered by how the store is set up (keep in mind this only works in one store as each has a different layout) and I do this to avoid walking 15 miles per shopping trip going from one side to the other. Here are a couple of examples so you know what I am talking about.

1. I use artificial sweetener in my coffee. When I go to the coffee aisle to pick up a bag of beans I expect that the sweetener would be close at hand. But no. I have to walk to the baking aisle to get it. So a) it doesn't make sense to me and b) it wastes my time.
   
2. If you are fixing an italian dish and you need sliced tomatoes and tomato sauce they are in two different places. One in the "soup/suace" aisle and the other in the "Italian section.
   

I know that selling shelf space is a big way grocers make money. Companies pay for space and there are more products than ever competing for attention. But, at some point the needs of consumers needs to be taken into account. Why not spread items into places that make sense? This wouldn't eliminate space, just spread it around. If I do get frustrated and leave, I am less willing to come back. I am willing, however, to skip using the manufacturers product.

Now, think about this in terms of your web presence. Do you make people go find the information they want or do you bring it to them? If you are selling a product, do you show the user all of the accessories, warranties, photos and related products on one page within a single click or are they on their own? Are you linking in related content at each place it makes sense or are you keeping things corralled into neat piles?

Providing customers with this service is easier to do online than anywhere else. Space is easily gained and there are analytics programs that can be applied to make sure people are not leaving your site pre-conversion. If they are leaving, you can easily react to make sure they are finding what they need. Think like your customer (or simply ask them what they think). When they click, what do they expect to see? Are you meeting their expectations?

Buzz Friday

Here is a look at what is happening across a couple of sites I keep an eye on. I'm looking to make this a regular feature, let me know if you find it helpful or would like me to add more information.

Top Five Technorati Blogs

1. Engadget
   
2. Boing Boing
   
3. Creative Commons Deed
   
4. Gizmodo
   
5. Techcrunch
   

View Top 100

Top 10 Technorati Searches

1. Antonella Barba
   
2. Youtube
   
3. Dell
   
4. MySpace
   
5. Clay Aiken
   
6. Matt Sanchez
   
7. Baudrillard
   
8. Awp
   
9. Captain America
   
10. American Idol
    

Top Five Web2.0 Movers of the Week (using Alexa data)

1. Remember the Milk
   
2. Ning
   
3. ZeFrank.com
   
4. Fotki
   
5. Newsvine
   

More

Top Five Web2.0 Sites (using Alexa data)

1. YouTube
   
2. MySpace
   
3. Orkut
   
4. Wikipedia
   
5. hi5
   

More

Top Five Marketing Blogs

1. Seth's Blog
   
2. Creating Passionate Users
   
3. Gaping Void
   
4. Duct Tape Marketing
   
5. Marketing Shift
   

View the top 25

Top 5 "Viral" Videos This Week

1. Web2.0 Beyond E-text (2nd Draft)
   
2. Lost - John Locke - Speed Painting
   
3. Gangsta Happy Feet Remix
   
4. CPAC 2007: The Unauthorized Documentary
   
5. Vote Different
   

More

Technorati Tags:
trends, buzz

The death of "e"

From the very start of the rise in popularity of the Internet the "e" has played an important part in the naming of companies and services to ensure consumers knew they were digital. Think e-commerce, e-books, e-business, e-marketing, e-tc.

As of late "e" has been removed from its position of power by new web2.0 companies who are leaving the "e" out of their names left and right. Just look at Flickr, Zoomr, Bringr, SuprGlu, Phixr, blufr, WishListr, Hottxt, Sonr, Gabbr, scanR, Colr, Flagr and Coastr to name a few. (You can look for more yourself here.) Even the venerable "i" has seen a sharp decline, only being propped up at the moment by Apple.

I think the more important takeaway is that the "e" is irrelevant now. It's not e-business it's just business. It's not e-marketing it's marketing. I hear more and more people refer to e-mail simply as mail. What the "e" stands for is still important, but it's just implied. Older forms of communication and business are needing a modifier to be understood. (e.g.; snail mail, print ad, face-to-face meeting).

What do you still use "e" for? Do you modify traditional media so people understand you?

Technorati Tags:
marketing, trends, deathofe, technology

More great environmental, interactive advertising

One of my favorite trend watching sites is PopURLs. The information is timely and relevant and I have the ability to control a lot of the content on the page. One content area on the page shows the top 18 photos on Flickr at the moment (see a screen capture below). As you'll notice, the 18 images starting from left to right are from Flickr. The last three spots in each row are actually part of an ad for Hammer and Coop, a 70s action parody from BMW's Mini brand.

So what makes this kind of environmental advertising work?

• It's obviously custom-made for this site and shows the brand cares enough to tailor the creative
  
• It interrupts the user in an unexpected way to be more memorable
  
• It's in line with the tone of the site and the audience
  

Here is the Mini example:

By comparison, here is the normal way this area looks...blatant and easily ignored:

Technorati Tags:
marketing, advertising, innovation, interactive marketing, trends, Hammer and Coop, popurls

Cool, branded and ad-supported

If you are an advertiser (or marketing company creating ads) wouldn't you love for people to see your work and say "damn, that's nicely done and cool"? I was looking through my Twittersphere and came across a link to the Pandora music service. In order to bring music to people for free, the site serves up advertising to users.

Pandora allows advertisers to leverage technology and design to enhance the user experience. The page load that I saw was a very nicely done Altoids Chocolate surround. This combines their campaign which feeds in user messages to the advertising across the ad networks that Altoids uses.

Here is an example of a non-branded and branded surround. Pretty clear choice eh?

Kudos to the Altoids ad team. Not only is the page more aesthetically pleasing, but it combines user-generated content to add value and connect on a more personal level with consumers.

Technorati Tags:
strategy, marketing, advertising, innovation, interactive marketing, user generated content, trends, social marketing, Twitter, altoids, Pandora

Immediacy vs. accuracy, the information battleground

What ratio of immediacy-to-accuracy is important to you? If something is reported within minutes of it happening, does that have more value to you than something that is more accurate, but is delayed a day? This is the realm in which traditional media and bloggers compete and the battle is heating up.

Immediacy, by its very nature is not always accurate vis-à-vis being accurate takes more time. Information consumers are having to face this challenge in increasing frequency now. Let's look at this from the two sides of the equation from a consumer's perspective.

Bloggers:

Timeliness is the essence of blogging. No medium in recent years allows more people to publish more content quicker. As a result of this, however, accuracy suffers. To combat the inaccuracies consumers have adjusted their expectations when reading blog content. Bloggers re-publish posts as facts are sorted out or new information becomes available.

Traditional Media

On the other hand, consumers have a different expectation of traditional media. Traditional media has a reputation (hopefully) for accuracy and factual reporting. You can just hear the movie line now can't you? The big, burly publisher turns to green reporter and says "I need more copy on this and you need another source." This is not a discussion that happens in blogging.

Back to my opening question, what do you value more? If you have a source that lets you know breaking news first, won't you be loyal to them over less timely choices? Have you been burned before by relying too heavily on a blog or Wikipedia entry that wasn't accurate? Check out the following diagram for a visual of how this question presents itself to consumers and publishers. The ideal situation is to find a balance between speed and accuracy. This can vary from topic-to-topic and market-to-market as coverage changes.

Traditional media is being put under more pressure to deliver blog-like timeliness, but maintain their accurate reputation. Bloggers are, contrarily, being put under more pressure to be accurate in posting. The consumer's expectations need to be adjusted in each case. Traditional media can post blog content and update it as news breaks and details become more clear as long as the consumer is clear it is a blog. Bloggers need to be more careful on stating information as fact if it is opinion and keep blog posts up to date with current information.

In the end, the line between the two media is already blurring. Newspapers and magazines turn to user-generated content, comments and traditional reporting as a way to keep readers interested. USAToday.com just announced (today) a new, user-community format. Reviews of USAToday's move have been mixed, but the shift is definitely happening. Publishers need to realize the value of immediacy and consumer input. Bloggers need to work on overall accuracy and traditional media partnerships to give a more complete picture of a topic.

Here is some food for thought:

• Can traditional media reach users in the way bloggers do?
  
• How can traditional media change the expectations of consumers?
  
• What can bloggers learn from traditional reporting?
  
• Does it matter to you where you get news from?
  

Let me hear what you think.

Update: Steve Rubel has a post with his take on the challenge.

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strategy, marketing, wiki, innovation, interactive marketing, user generated content, trends, social networks, social marketing, Web2.0, Conversations, USA Today

Buying exposure in social media

I am seeing more and more instances of companies and individuals trying to buy exposure online. CK had a post a couple of days ago on a company which allows MySpace members to, in essence, buy friends. Each friend is $.99 and they even drop you a message to look more real.

Today I read a story on Wired.com talking about a service which allows users to buy diggs on Digg.com. Users pay the company (User/Submitter) $1 per digg. Despite Digg's efforts to stop this, the author saw some results from the campaign before diggers brought the story down themselves.

This is surely the tip of the iceberg here. Microsoft's been accused of trying to pay a blogger to change their Wikipedia entry. Why not pay for some blog comments or Flickr favorites? Hell, you could become bigger than Scoble if you paid enough people.

Businesses could find this tempting, but would be ill-advised to take part in paying for inclusion. If you want to be talked about, do something amazing. Jump into the conversation with your customers and add value to their lives. The thing with these online, social communities is that they're full of dedicated, loyal evangelists who would love nothing more than to gain some cred by calling you out. And they will.

Just say no to paying for popularity. Get popular by giving your customers ways to talk about you (tagging links, blog entries, etc.) and provide something to talk about.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, advertising, interactive marketing, user generated content, trends, social networks, social marketing, CK, tagging, Conversations