Saturday, October 20, 2007

This is a rock band

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life - New York Times

The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life - New York Times

Here's an article in the NY Times about a shift away from traditional media by marketers. What I think is interesting is that the mainstream press isn't saying, "Everything's going digital". They are looking at from a broader perspective and recognizing how advertisers are merely shifting their support from content to tools.

Advertisers are moving away from making content "free" and towards making "tools" free. Those tools can be a running club or a matching making service. It can be digital or live in the real world.

This doesn't mean ad supported content is dead, it means the bar is raised. It doesn't mean "tools" will achieve an advertisers goals. Its means awesome tools will meet advertisers goals.

In the end, it will be marketers looking at their customers, (and to steal a line from this week's Private Practice) figure out what they want, and then give it to them.

BusinessWeek Debate Room E-mail Faces Deletion

BusinessWeek Debate Room E-mail Faces Deletion

As a professional digital marketing guy I always feel I am not reading enough, sharing enough, blogging enough. (as can be seen by this pathetic stretch between posts). But I do think the reason is that I am crushed by emails. Merely deleting them and filing them takes hours a day.

Can there be tools better than email to conduct business? Most definitely. Scoble is on to something here.

I manage a group of three people (hardly a daunting number) and they copy me on tons of emails to make sure I am "in the loop", can cover them if they decide to get sick or go vacation, and can advise if I see a major issue. Its very important I can do all those things. I don't need to engage with these emails on a daily basis but they clutter my inbox and take up valuable time. I can't imagine how the person that manages 30 people gets by.

There must be a better way. I don't know, as Scoble suggests, the answer is twitter and facebook though.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Mario Manningham doing the worm

U of M Beat Penn State. Enjoy your worm dance everyone.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Is Hulu Doomed? NBC To Begin Offering Free Downloads

Is Hulu Doomed? NBC To Begin Offering Free Downloads

I know that one day all entertainment content (TV's, movies) will be accessible on demand and delivered over the interweb. I saw it Quest commericials 8 years ago.

But, as I track all the moves of world's finest content creators I get a headache. Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, Yahoo, AOL, their own websites, smart people at these content companies are trying to figure out how to best monetize their product. God bless em, its a hard job. Tech geeks bloggers by the dozen rip content creators because they are preventing the world from realizing the Quest commercial.

Just because something is technically possible doesn't mean it deserves to happen.

Directors, writers, movie stars, need to get paid... Alot ... and so do studio exec's. If you don't like it move to Cuba.

Here's why nobody's figured all the content everywhere model. There isn't enough money in it yet. If all the ad dollars chased nerds with the best computers and fastest connections, TV content would be everywhere.

Alot of ad dollars sell toothpaste, Coca Cola, Camry's. Too many people that buy those products see too much buffering on the internet, the experience compared to TV sucks. When the hardware delivers an equal viewing experiences to TV, people will move to it in mass. That's when the ad money will be there, only then will the studio's and networks make real bold commitments.

So take deep breathe nerds, you'll get your Heroes on demand, everywhere soon enough. Walmart America just needs better hardware.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Gadget Ads!

Gadget Ads!: "M, "

Seriously Google. Go pound salt. You never let advertisers run ads through their own rich media ad servers on your network. The only ads that Google could run are text and standard flash ads.
For years, everywhere else on the internet I could run rich, interactive ads, that pull from databases, with video, etc.

Now, FINALLY, you allow advertisers to run the same ads on the Google Network that I could run everywhere else 3 years ago. You call it a Gadget, pop champagne bottles and we're all supposed to be impressed.

I know your secret Google. You changed the game with search and your chasing the game everywhere else. Maybe you've got enough cash and talent to innovate again, but this ain't it, not by a long shot.

Love,
The internet scrooge.

Bullied student tickled pink by schoolmates' T-shirt campaign

Bullied student tickled pink by schoolmates' T-shirt campaign: "n n "

Everybody pee's their pants its coolest! Good on ya Canada.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Game | Life - Wired Blogs

Game Life - Wired Blogs

Here's a story about a guy that see's a problem and is doing his part. He wants to make sure American kids work hard, get good grades, and can do his/her ABCs and 123s before he learns how to play Madden 2008. So Gamestop fired that crazy bastard.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The Holy Grail For Mobile Social Networks

The Holy Grail For Mobile Social Networks

When my phone tells me when an old friend I haven't seen is nearby and I find them that will be a powerful technology experience.

The Earth Without Human

YOU MANIACS. YOU BLEW IT ALL UP. GOD DAMN YOU. GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!!!!

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Seth's Blog: NBC and missing the point about power

Seth's Blog: NBC and missing the point about power

For those that don't know Mr. Godin, he has a distinct view of marketing as direct "relationships" between customers and companies. His view is that the consumer has so much choice, clutter, and lack of faith in advertising that companies that build informed, valuable and custom experiences for every single one of their customers will win.

He frames up the latest media news through this lens. I think he makes a lot of sense, do you?

Friday, September 7, 2007

Nokia pounces on iPhone price drop with Google ads - Engadget

Nokia pounces on iPhone price drop with Google ads - Engadget

Here is some slick search marketing. Anytime you can be relevant and topical, you will reap more clicks for less money. Good on ya Nokia.

MySpace.com - Pam/Jenna - 28 - Female - Scranton, US - www.myspace.com/pambeesley

MySpace.com - Pam/Jenna - 28 - Female - Scranton, US - www.myspace.com/pambeesley

The actress who plays Pam on the Office has a MySpace page with over 100k friends. Advertisers spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to create pages, with contests, polls, wallpapers, games, and god knows what else in order to get that get a fraction of that engagement.

This doesn't cost anything but talent's time. Maybe there's a better way of skinning the viral marketing cat.

Rick Ankiel received 12-month supply of HGH, News learns


The last couple weeks father's all over the country, turned on a ball game, turned to their sons and said, "You know Rick Ankiel, when he was 19 he was supposed the best pitcher in world. Then he failed like no other pitcher in the history of baseball and was ashamed in front of the whole world. His attempts to pitch failed for years, he had injury after injury, he was physically and mentally scarred. But he never gave up, he became an outfielder and is crushing the ball. He's the darling of all American sports fans because he worked hard and never gave up. Just remember Jr. work hard, follow the rules and you can accomplish anything."

Hulu vs Lulu: NBC and News Corp Sued Over YouTube Rival

Hulu vs Lulu: NBC and News Corp Sued Over YouTube Rival

A company called Lulu is suing newly named Hulu. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Newspapers with 2020 vision

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Newspapers with 2020 vision

I read this article and my first thought is "Jeff, your a crackpot. No newspapers in 13 thirteen years. My dad's sat down to dinner with an open Newsday for the last 30 years at least, he's gonna switch to some gizmo with touch screen?" What a whacko you are!

Then I thought, well my dad's gonna be 71 at the point. I not sure exactly how many advertisers are buying that demo. Maybe he's not driving the market at that point. Sorry Pop, love ya, you'll always be important to THIS advertiser. I just don't give a shit about what you buy anymore. And neither will anyone else.

SO... then I thought

I've focused my entire career on digital media and I still prefer a newspaper to an iPhone screen and If you can't sell me on a new technology, you won't be selling Walmart America on it.

Then I thought about the digital media that existed 13 years ago (1994).



In 1994 Yahoo received 1MM hits (according to wikipedia) Today that number would be 408 BILLION. (Comscore page views) And, as you can see its a different experience entirely.

Point is, 13 years is a long time and we will be remembering the iPhone as a silly, quaint, simple memory of an easier time, and we just might get all of our news digitally uploaded to a product that is a comfortable as a newspaper. Digipaper maybe?

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Widgets: The Next Generation

Widgets: The Next Generation

Everytime I read an article about Widgets I get excited because I am firm believer that strong marketing provides usefulness to its audience. And then once again, I see a countdown widget. It seems everytime I get a proposal from a vendor, there's a damn countdown widget in it. As if the most useful thing we as marketers could deliver is a clock that goes backwards.

The smartest thing I saw in this article is that STA travel was going hold contest for its customers to concept a widget that will provide actual value. I just hope the same guy who approved the countdown widget isn't a judge.

Monday, September 3, 2007

Rick Rubin - Recording Industry - Rock Music - New York Times

Rick Rubin - Recording Industry - Rock Music - New York Times

Testing out this blogger functionality.... but this is an interesting article. As fucked as the music is, the industry is savable. Maybe it will be de-centralized, maybe the revenue model will change, but people will pay for music.

Personally I think they need a killer app that will beat the iPod, they need subscription models that rewards the best seller artists and labels, they need guys like Rick Rubin making good music.

The subscription models are out there with Napster and Rhapsody but they haven't taken off b/c you can't use your iPod with it. iNBC just fired the first shot across the bow by pulling their content off iTunes, let's see if other content owners will the same.