When Disney took to YouTube, it was clear that a line had been drawn in the sand. But there’s more to the YouTube effect than the fact that its’s all about the users. Here’s what Charlene Li of Forrester has to say about the Samuel Jackson movie, Snakes on a Plane advertised on YouTube.
Media
Live Buy It and the power of sms
SMS marketing is an area that hasn’t seen a lot of movement, especially in the US. But a new program called Live Buy It will be an experiment worth watching. The New York Times reported yesterday how Lucky magazine will begin offering readers in September a way to buy from eighteen marketers. If it sounds a lot like PayPal’s Text2Buy, it there’s a reason. The service is powered by PayPal.
Expect to see other media companies adding similar programs as a value added service for their advertisers, allowing a marketer to create a campaign that can be tracked in terms of sales, rather than impressions. Publishers, especially online publishers have begun to look for ways to keep advertisers more loyal. They may not have seen the connection between cell phones and their product at first, but they will. With SMS, the possibilities are endless. TextMarketer in the UK, has a feature where someone can conduct a reverse auction via SMS!
Podcasts take it away
In a recent survey, 72% of respondents said they downloaded or listened to podcasts on technology topics on more than one occasion. That’s a very high number, and a sobering one, considering it comes from a Universal McCann survey. Reported by Marketing Vox.
I feel vindicated about the insights into white papers and reports, as I have been encouraging many people to think of podcasts as the better delivery system for content we traditionally dump into PDFs. According to the study, nearly 60% of respondents said information on business or technology topics via white papers would be "more interesting" if they were delivered via podcasts. But not just in B2B marketing. How about internal marketing? I believe that much of the content that gets lost on company intranets would be better used if employees were given the podcast alternative.
Just watch slogan for CBS, lame
I can’t see why CBS News would use such a lame slogan, "Just watch," for the transition of Katie Couric. There’s so much more to news today, even on the CBS site, which ironically tries to get viewers to do more than just watch. It’s more like just customize on their site with RSS feeds, cell phone alerts, podcasts, and my favorite the build your own broadcast, that allows you to add stories as playlists. Someone should have told them, too, that Fox news has been using ‘just you watch’ for quite sometime now. I would’ve thought the ‘just’ (do it) sloganizing was in retirment by now.
Thomas Friedman delivers
Another an ad stunt on Amazon Fishbowl. Starring Thomas Friedman dressed up as an UPS driver on a delivery run. It plugs the expanded version of The World is Flat.
If you’ve read the book, you’ll know why Amazon teamed up Friedman with UPS. In the first edition, Friedman has a section on UPS ("the ones who wear the homely brown shorts and drive those ugly brown trucks") that illustrates his flat-earth theory –how the company’s huge logistics operation makes small companies compete better. Now if only an ugly brown truck were to pull up outside my house…
Ubiquitous computing meets media measurement
At the company I work for, iCrossing, we like to say that "if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it." For years, people pooh-poohed measurement because, of course it was nearly impossible to measure what people did after they watched a commercial, or read a story about a product. Ubiquitous computing has changed. People do provide feeback, if you ask, and if you know where to look.
So the news of Nielsen Media launching into tracking not just online, but out-of-home behavior, is more or less extpected. New meters will evolve to track how consumers interact with messaging on mobile devices. They call it A2/M2 which stands for Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement. Now, not only can we measure the post-media experience, but we can measure what customers do while being engaged in the medium. Multi-media-tasking is rising, and we know that people do use mobile phones or go online while watching TV, or while reading a newspaper. Smart advertisers can leverage this, if they engage in what Google calls ‘dayparting.’ That’s the ability to turn on and off keywords, so that searchable keywords are available only at the times the advertiser expects it’s specific target audience to be searching.
Good luck, Scoble
News that Robert Scoble is leavng Microsoft, is indeed quite a story. He’s been a huge influence to many of us, because his posts were candid, philosophical, and sharp in a world where a lot of puffery gets far too much credit and buzz. (If you haven’t read Naked Conversations, the book he co-authored with Shel Israel, go beg, borrow or steal a copy.) Listen to him, for instance, interviewed on his move, about moving towards the ‘fast slope up.’
Speaking of the Scoble-effect, his new employer says its site crashed and was down for an hour yesterday, when news got out that Microsoft’s most famous employee was joining them.
Good luck Robert. You give all writers, blogggers and communicators something to be proud of. Looking forward to your PodTech posts.
iTunes – more than just music
Now that TV shows are popular downloads on iTunes, it’s about time to think of the once-upon-a-music site as a media and content distributor. This week, there was news that World Cup fans in Germany could download city guides, when travelling to Germany.
So how about school’s posting lectures? Or companies distributing press releases? Take this example. Abilene Christian University has an agreement with iTunes to put their course material there. This is probably based on the old Apple model of being the device for students, so the iPod is a much better fit than a PC. Apple’s site, "iTunes U" talks this up, and why "course content must be portable."
eBay not a walled garden
The news that eBay will restrict bloggers on its site from mentioning competitors does not make sense at first. But they seem to have some flexibility. Bloggers will be anle to link to outside vendors, despite some element of control.
The new feature eBay Blogs have neat features. Steve Rubel revealed earlier last week that tage and skype integration will be part of the offering.
Social Media Press Release: it’s about time!
Shel Holtz writes (in New Communications Review) about the introduction of something called a ‘social media press release’ by Shift Communications, but does not come down too hard on the old media press releases as most people do.
His point: While saying he does not argue with the folk that say the press release is often not newsworthy and poorly written, there is still value in them. He makes a great case –that the media often adapt, and don’t just allow someone else to write their obituary. "new media do not kill old media. Old media adapt and evolve."
As for the Social Media Press Release, it issued its own press release in the new format, that includes a purpose-built del.icio.us site. if you’re wondering what’s so different about this press release format, check here. Someone issuing a press release cn mix and match non-linear media elements into the release, including an RSS feed, a photo, a podcast or a video, or all of them.
The social media approach to press releases defintely fills a void as we straddle the analog and interactive world.
Hoipolloireport 