Quotes for the week ending 24 November, 2007

“This isn’t a completely new business model; cellphone companies have offered similar deals for a while, but this is the first time I’ve seen this approach applied to mobile broadband.”

CNet review of Amazon’s new service claled “Amazon Whispernet,” to support it’s sleek new eBook reader called Kindle. The cost of wireless browsing books at Amazon is built into the product.

“Copywriters wrote copy. Art Directors directed art … But what’s also needed is the evolution of €”the next iteration. But what does this look like? An Information Architect who completely grasps Human Computer Interaction but can also think fluidly €”can do things like rapidly create prototypes, facilitate user testing, understand visual design and occasionally write copy. This kind of individual possesses a multi-dimensional creative brain that has evolved over time.”

David Armano, VP of Digitas, guest writing for Influential Marketing, a blog by Rohit Bhargava.

“We’ve always joked the holiday is like the running of the bulls … This year it will be the fast-walking of the bulls though because we have implemented a crowd control…”

Matt Maestas, manager of Target in Tempe, Arizona, on how the mad rush of shoppers would be managed on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

“The wireless industry can’t be an extension of the Internet because wireless bandwidth is finite. It’s a fixed resource, and it is shared bandwidth. The more people who use it in a given area, the less data speed they have.”

Andrew Seybold (on The Lehrer Rerport) commenting on Google‘s plan to enter the wireless industry. Google’s Eric Schmidt countered that this was the same argument made about the Internet years before.

Facebook’s behavioral targeting: good, bad and inevitable

You’ve probably heard the news that Facebook has added what’s almost the equivalent of Google’s Ad words. I say almost, because there are some key differences, since we do not subscribe to Google, among other things.

The program, called Facebook Beacon, is quite interesting –and controversial. That’s why I like it. It pushes the envelope. It sure raises privacy issues, because no one wants to involuntarily share personal information with one’s personal network.

Facebook states that there are safeguards, but its critics (who created a protest group on, you guessed it, Facebook!) won’t buy that. The Facebook group has 5,802 members.

I don’t quite agree with all this weeping and gnashing of teeth. No one forces you to joint a network. As one visitor to the protest group wrote, “I don’t understand. They made the site, they make the rules. If you don’t like it, leave. It’s how they make $ and what drives innovation”

Some of you will recall how people got all in a dither when Amazon began a “recommendation” feature using cookies that tracked purchases and saved that information to recommend products based on what people in a similar demographic had bought.

Back to Beacon, there are ways for subscribers to opt out of it, but it is annoyingly cumbersome. Opting into many services is an inevitable by-product of using social media. We could protest, stay as far away as possible from the network, or … just get over it.

In People vs Victoria’s Secret, small group wins

This piece of news epitomizes everything we know about the shift taking place. Of people taking charge of their social environments –online and offline.

To summarize, in Gilbert, Arizona, a “small yet vocal group” told the mall management that it did not want to see barely-clad women in larger-than-life size posters facing outside on the mall.

Others have slammed this as a prudish attitude. “Victoria Secret Sells Underwear people! What are they going to advertise, hand bags?” commented one. But the fact is, the hoi polloi can –and will– make demands. You may recall Abercrombie & Fitch discontinued a catalog when accused of treading into soft porn territory, and had also backed down and pulled offensive T-shirts before that.

On the other side of the world, in Australia, a coalition of consumer organizations has launched a “dump soda” campaign. This includes asking that the Coca-Colas and Pepsis “Stop selling sweetened beverages” around schools, and a broader call to cease marketing to those under 16 in print, broadcast, via product placement, on mobile phones, at athletic event, via packaging etc.

Victoria’s Secret may not want to get into a ‘values’ face off. Parent company, Limited Brands, emphasizes social responsibility in terms of values such as: “doing what’s right,” “Being inclusive – in our thoughts and behaviors” and “Working for the greater good” –for the enterprise and the community.

T-shirt protest of typeface

This is what happens when you let people who don’t actually understand branding or visual identity take a couple meetings with their overpriced design agency and then start “deciding.”

Sounds familiar?

This was a comment on the web site called Trajan Sucks, protesting the use of the typeface Trajan on the University of Kansas basketball shirts. It was brought in to replace an older serif typeface.

They had this to say about their loyalty to the game and their disloyalty to the typography police:

“We disenfranchised students, alumni, and fans need not acquiesce to this blunder. Make no mistake, we will support our team with zeal, but we need not accept the administration’s sartorial tastes”

FaceBook’s social surveillance

Facebook is on everyone’s agenda. I am attending a 5-part webinar hosted by HigherEd Experts on everything Facebook. It covers a lot of the basics, but Fred Stutzman, a PhD student-turned-lecturer comes at it with a deep understanding of what’s going on in this space, in terms of offline-to-online socialization, identity production, privacy and that tricky beast called “social surveillance.”

What’s that?

It’s a phrase that has its origins in deep surveillance methods that include location monitoring and data mining. Which is what social networks have a potential to do, when you think about it. Students are using social networks to do more than upload photos of their dorm. They keep tabs on their circle of friends in a form of benign surveillance.

Because of the rapid shift in demographics, there seems to be two Facebooks separated by an invisible line. Tread carefully when crossing over from your domain into theirs. Last year, a group calling themselves “Students against Facebook” created a sort of a backlash – using Facebook! – against its tracking/surveillance feature.

Quotes of the week 09/29/07

“The Internet has so much more potential than that, if only we free ourselves from the idea that it is just another medium for messages, like television, radio and print.”

Tim Manners, in Fast Company. “Socialized Media:” On the problem of marketers attempting to create a medium out of every conceivable space.

“By digitising the whole collection, we give access to the books without the filter of later judgments, whether based on taste or on the economics of printing and publishing”

Dr. Jensen of the British Library, on the news that they will digitise100,000 books from the 19th Century, and one million pages of 18th Century newspapers. These will be text searchable.

“Increasingly social networks are becoming a theater of operations for PR. So we need ways to track our interactions over time.”

Steve Rubel, on using a Gmail account as a social media hub.

“You’ve got people on cell phones, their Blackberries, and iPods while driving. Those are all distractions. Hopefully, when they see a sign they’re not expecting, it might make them stop.”

Mayor of Oak Lawn, Illinois, on putting up double-octagonal stop signs, with the bottom one displaying messages such as “Stop…and smell the roses.”

“There is no better way to keep embarrassing secrets under wraps than to chill those who expose them.”

Editorial in Arizona Republic on the need for AZ Senator Jon Kyl to support the Schumer-Specter bill that going before the US Senate that could protect journalists.

“They don’t want the world to see what is going on there.”

White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, commenting on Myanmar cutting off Internet access, and hence, news filtering out of the country.

“It’s not a Mona Lisa painting, it’s a car”

US District Court judge, Richard Berman on a ruling that requires New York City cab drivers to install GPS and credit card reader technology in the vehicles. Drivers protested that it would amount to giving away trade secrets.

Quotes of the week

“It would be mathematically impossible for us to get into that business, and we have no interest in doing it.”

Google, dispelling a rumor that it had hired former O&Mer Andy Berndt to crush Madison Avenue

“Unlocking a cellphone is copyright infringement. When you buy a handset from a carrier, it has programming on the phone. It’s a copyright of the manufacturer.”

Claim made by Canadian telecom exec, now debunked with the unlocking of the iPhone

“In the fight between authority and rebellion, cops may be (over) relying on tasers, but students are using the viral volts to the max.”

Fast Company, commenting on the Andrew Meyer incident of getting Tasered while attempting to ask a question from John Kerry at the University of Florida.

The days of “whiter, brighter, faster, new and improved” have had their day. Consumers are looking for connections. The stuff that matters. If any one of us can deliver our messages like Mister Rogers – by telling a story, being authentic and delivering a universal truth, we’ve won.

Mitch Joel on The Power of Authenticity in marketing and communications.

Stealth PR from infant formula manufacturers exposed

Some PR agencies will never learn. There have been plenty of cases where ‘flogs’ (fake blogs) have shown up, only to be traced back to PR agencies attempting ‘stealth PR.’ (Google Edelmen + Walmart and see.)

The latest one is for a group calling itself Babyfeedingchoice.org exposed by the Center for Media and Democracy as the front of the Infant Formula Council.

The site is very well done. It has areas such as “Moms and the media” with great quotes for lazy journalists wanting to get the other side of the story –people offended by seeing a mom breastfeeding an infant– and Resources with links to other similar sites. Looks very credible, until you dig around, and compare it to the saga of the fake Walmart blog.

Luddites and…people with legal degrees, take note

Who are the stumbling blocks to progress in your organization? I bet you could name a few who sit at your meeting and who have that glazed look when something risky/new/untested is suggested.

At a conference in the U.K. last week called Verge, Ogilvy Interactive has been discussing just this. More specifically how “luddites, conservatives, late adopters, naysayers, people with legal degrees and others in the organization” stand in the way of digital progress.

They were looking at how brands need to “listen, engage, experiment” to stay relevant in today’s networked economy. One post had this on marketing: “avoid fishing in a shrinking and over fished pool.” To which I feel like adding “avoid using the same bait when your move to a different pool.”

Not sure what the “people with legal degrees” was supposed to mean, but I often hear people complain that legal department often puts the damper on a campaigns. Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson for instance talk of  how it’s now in vogue for HR and Legal to ban Facebook, on the grounds of being concerned about employees spending too much time there, having no clue about the productivity gains being made because of these informal networks.

Using Craigslist, Google and Facebook for activism

My wife came across an unusual post when searching Craigslist for Montessori teachers. Among the many schools listed was a post from a ticked off parent warning people about a certain school in Mesa –the school happens to advertise on Craigslist. I have not seen this kind of activism on Craigslist before, directly insulting the advertising of another even though it is nothing new to online and social media.

It brings to mind a story I heard some time back where someone was so angry at a camera retailer that he took out pay-per-click ads for certain keywords on Google so that anyone typing in the name of the retailer who ripped him off would see the ‘ads’ that warned buyers of doing business with the store.

hsbc.jpgToday I heard an example of Facebook activism on For Immediate Release. It was a case of students in the UK using the social network to mobilize and protest against HSBC, a bank that had reneged on its promise of interest-free student loans. The latest update is that HSBC gave in!