Symblaze Research & Coolness

Online advertisers may gain from downturn

2007-09-24T10:01:00.000+01:00

Click to link to original story Financial Times story

By Aline van Duyn in New York

Published: September 23 2007 19:10 | Last updated: September 23 2007 19:10

Online advertising spending is widely predicted to continue its strong growth even if a US economic downturn squeezes the advertising sector as a whole.

Indeed, pressure on companies to cut costs if the economy softens could even hasten the switch in spending from traditional media to more targeted and measurable digital forms.

Some of the US mortgage lenders embroiled in the recent lending crisis have stepped up online spending, attracted by the ability to entice people to click on ads.

“If marketing budgets shrink, and they are often the first to be cut in a downturn, digital will still continue to grow,” said Eric Bader, managing director of digital at MediaVest.

“The focus will be on advertising that can be measured for effectiveness, and online will gain share relative to television, newspapers or radio.”

Online is the fastest-growing advertising sector, and could reach over $20bn this year, just over 7 per cent of the total $285bn US advertising market.

In the last US downturn, online spending was slashed, resulting in the collapse of many new media companies and billions of dollars of writeoffs in investments which had counted on online ad revenues.

Since then, the growth of search, dominated by Google, as well as other forms of online advertising, and the growth of networks that allow advertisers to target certain types of audiences, have increased confidence in web spending.

Among US mortgage lenders, Countrywide has, for example, increased its share of online ad spending from 21 per cent to 55 per cent in the last 12 months, according to Sanford Bernstein.

Mortgage advertisers, estimated to account for 3.4 per cent of US online advertising, might scale back spending if there is a recession, but the effect would be limited. “The greater robustness of online advertising, the prevalence of paid search as the primary ad format and great geographical diversity of revenues of the large players make a repeat of the 2001-2004 bubble scenario unlikely,” said Sanford Bernstein.

Safe Bedside Table Great For Peace Of Mind And Occasional Overnight Beatings

2007-08-23T15:24:00.000+01:00

Taken from www.ohgizmo.com

By Andrew Liszewski

While an alarm system will let you know if someone has broken into your home it won’t do much to stop a determined intruder once they’re inside. So instead of sleeping with a gun under the pillow try this Safe Bedside Table instead. When not in use it looks like a normal bedside table with modern design stylings but in the middle of the night if you think there might be an intruder the table turns into a club and shield giving you somewhat of a fighting chance.

Designed by James McAdam the Safe Bedside Table was created in response to a report that 50% of people in London were worried about security and kept some sort of self-defense close by while they slept. And while the table isn’t available for sale anyone with a lathe, bandsaw and basic carpentry skills could probably just build their own.

Really Amazing Tool for Dynamic Image Resizing

2007-08-22T11:11:00.001+01:00

Looks to be still under construction, but impressive. Check out the video...

Online Market Research Crisis: Decisions Based On Bad Data

2007-08-21T13:49:00.000+01:00

From this post on AdAge

Jack Neff Discusses Current Procedures' Scientific Flaw

NEW YORK (Adage.com) -- Package goods companies that buy huge amounts of online market research are increasingly frustrated by the procedure's scientific flaw, according to Ad Age editor-at-large Jack Neff. In this six-minute video interview, he discusses both the serious problems that are making increasing numbers of advertisers wary of online research results and the September meeting organized by the Advertising Research Foundation to address the issue. Over the next year, the Foundation's newly formed Online Research Quality Council hopes to hammer out industry-wide standards for online survey vendors.

Wants for Sale

2007-08-16T11:45:00.000+01:00

Here's a pretty cool concept, with simple execution. This guy in NYC has a list of things he wants, and apparently doesn't have the $$ to pay for them. So he's creating art depicting the specific desire, then selling each piece for the cost of that item. This 12x12 image of a steak sold for $18.39. (Note: all the cheap items are already sold.) But he appears to add to the page periodically, so check back often.

Link to the wants, here.

Rocio Romero prefab home

2007-08-15T16:42:00.000+01:00

The term prefab brings to my mind some pretty horrific visions. Something post-War, Los Angeles, in the Valley perhaps. But now, thanks to the efforts of modernist magazines like Dwell, sustainable architecture is making a comeback (I have no idea if that lest sentence makes any sense....)

I have been a fan of Rocio's work since the first LV home appeared on her site. Now, with options such as the LVL (oversized version of the original), basements (read: entertainment center!), and garages, she's definitely got something I want to live in. Her homes are built in America and can be delivered in a container to your build site for incredibly competitive pricing. And you'll be living in a modern masterpiece.

Now to find the perfect location for construction...

why spec creative doesn't pay

2007-02-14T14:31:00.000+01:00

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=114928

Why Spec Creative Doesn't Pay

Looking for a New Agency? Don't Ask for a Sample Campaign. Ask the Team Out for a Few Beers

By Tom Denari

Published: February 12, 2007

Unless you keep reading past the first couple of sentences, you're probably thinking I'm going to explain why giving away speculative creative work devalues the most important thing agencies have to sell: our ideas. And while that notion is true, it isn't the reason you should not ask for spec creative work. Asking for spec creative could actually damage your brand.

Risky Business: A faucet-brand-as-fashion-label strategy could have been rejected.

It's reasonable that a company looking for a new advertising agency would want to see what it's going to get before they hire them. Unfortunately, a spec campaign has little chance of moving your business forward. Why? Because a spec campaign is typically developed with only the most dangerous input: the preconceived notions, biases and personal experience of the team creating the work. A pitch process doesn't provide enough time or resources to enable the agency to do the appropriate amount of consumer-insight work. Without proper understanding of the target audience and the marketplace, how can the agency possibly develop an appropriate strategy? Advertisers have long complained that their agencies don't take the time to get to know their business or their customers. Yet many of these same advertisers choose an agency based on a spec campaign developed with shallow consumer insights, if any at all.

Collaborative partnerships
Second, you'll get a strategy developed without your input. The best client-agency relationships are collaborative partnerships, where strategies are developed together. If the agency and client have not worked through the process together, the agency may end up at a place very far from what the client expected. And, even if the agency ends up in the right place, the client won't accept it because they weren't on the journey together.

And finally, you'll get really comfortable, safe work. The spec creative process creates an incentive to please you first and consumers second. Remember, the goal is to win your account, which means agencies likely present campaigns that they think you'll really like. The campaigns that usually win in spec shootouts are familiar, comfortable and more direct. These ads are focused on what the advertiser thinks is important. They make the selection committee feel warm and fuzzy -- and finally understood. Unfortunately for pitch-dependent advertisers, the campaigns that usually engage consumers and drive sales are the ones that are surprising and unexpected. They start with what's important to the consumer, not the advertiser.

Let's face it: A campaign that's new and different is hard to buy from people you don't know. The spec shootout eliminates any positive friction between a good agency partner and client. You should hire an agency that will challenge you and fight for the ideas and campaigns that will most likely engage your potential customers and motivate them to action. This kind of relationship allowed us to develop a revolutionary brand strategy for Delta Faucet Co.'s premium brand. The development of our ads for Brizo came through a deep study and understanding of multiple target audiences, as well as plenty of discussions with our Delta clients. Had we presented the idea of a faucet brand as a fashion label in a spec-pitch situation, it's safe to say that the idea -- and our agency -- would have been dismissed.

A better process
So what's a better process? Think about what you're trying to do. Hopefully you're looking for a long-term relationship, much like you do with a potential employee. Think back to when you were interviewing for your CMO job. Did they ask you to sketch out a marketing strategy? Of course not. You couldn't have known enough about all of the variables that needed to be studied to develop an adequate plan. You were judged on your past performance and a rigorous interview process that determined whether you would be a good fit for the organization. You should treat your agency search in the same way.

Tom Denari is president-principal, Young & Laramore, an agency whose clients include Steak & Shake, Stanley Steemer and Goodwill retail stores. He was previously director-client services and director-strategic management at Y&L.

First, really get to know the firms you're considering. It may be the most valuable time you and they can spend in the selection process. Instead of having the agencies spend ungodly hours developing a campaign that might never be used -- or, worse yet, might be very ineffective -- have them commit to a two-day session of intense interviewing.

Spend time with the agency principals. Interview them individually. Find out what they believe in.

Interview the team members individually. Find out if they really like and respect each other. A cohesive team will be much more productive than one that has trouble getting along. Go out to dinner with the team. Have a beer with them. Find out if these are the people with whom you want to work for the next five to 10 years. Remember, you'll likely have bumpy times with your agency. All good relationships encounter conflicts. Make sure you can work with a group that might present something you won't like.

Still think that a non-spec process is risky? Not nearly as risky as choosing an agency based on a campaign that's designed to win your business, not move your business.

Google, Microsoft, and Others Agree to Code of Conduct

2007-01-22T15:07:00.000+01:00

From http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/003585.html

Microsoft, Google, and two other technology companies will develop a code of conduct with a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote freedom of expression and privacy rights, they announced Friday.

The two companies along with Yahoo, and Vodafone said the new guidelines are the result of talks with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

Technology companies have come under fire for providing equipment or software that permits governments to censor information or monitor the online or offline activities of their citizens. For example, last year, Google's approach to the China market was criticized over its creation of a censored, local version of its search engine.

A Yahoo subsidiary was cited by human rights groups for working with Chinese police to identify political activists, who were ultimately arrested and prosecuted for posting anti-government opinions and information online.

The parties involved said that they would develop a framework that would hold signatories accountable for their actions in the areas of freedom of expression and privacy rights.

The groups participating in development of the guidelines include: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Business for Social Responsibility; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Human Rights Watch; and Reporters Without Borders.

From Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service

Network-based Marketing: Using Existing Customers to Help Sell to New Ones

2007-01-11T19:58:00.000+01:00

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1637&CFID=3560857&CFTOKEN=73028886

Network-based Marketing: Using Existing Customers to Help Sell to New Ones

Published: January 10, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton

Marketers have long used all sorts of demographic and geographic data to target potential customers -- age, sex, education level, income, zip code. But there's another variable that companies may want to consider: Who is connected to whom?

A study, co-authored by Shawndra Hill, Wharton professor of operations and information management, found that consumers are far more apt to buy a company's product if they are "network neighbors" with existing customers. Mining data from "social networks" -- who talks to whom or who emails whom -- could allow companies to pinpoint likely customers who otherwise would be overlooked. Hill, Foster Provost of NYU's Stern School and Chris Volinsky of AT&T Labs Research detail their findings in a paper titled, "Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters via Consumer Networks," published in May 2006 in the J ournal of Statistical Science.

"One of the main concerns for any firm is when, how and to whom they should market their products," the authors write. "We provide strong evidence that whether and how well a consumer is linked to existing customers is a powerful characteristic on which to base direct marketing decisions. Our results indicate that a firm can benefit from the use of social networks to predict the likelihood of purchasing."

The study examines the influence of social networks by studying a large telecommunications firm that was marketing a new service. '"Network neighbors -- those consumers linked to a prior customer -- adopt the service at a rate three to five times greater than baseline groups selected by the best practices of the firm's marketing team," the study finds. "In addition, analyzing the network allows the firm to acquire new customers who otherwise would have fallen through the cracks, because they would not have been identified based on traditional attributes."

While the research focuses on people linked by way of a telecommunications company, the findings can apply to other social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, according to Hill. "What these networks are enabling you to do is find likely customers who you may not have complete information on. The networks enable you to find potential customers who are linked to your existing customer base."

The concept of network marketing -- a recognition that links between consumers help sell a product -- is not new. Often it involves word of mouth. If someone recommends a new restaurant to friends and acquaintances, who then in turn tell others about it, the network effect is at work. A famous person may be able to create a huge network of believers around a given product. Hill's paper offers the example of Oprah's Book Club. The TV star recommends a book to her viewers and suddenly it becomes a hit. Likewise, marketers helped create a buzz around The Da Vinci Code by mailing 10,000 free books to influential individuals and booksellers.

Some network marketing involves "implicit" rather than "explicit" advocacy, the paper notes. For instance, a woman carrying a designer handbag is, in effect, marketing the purse even if she doesn't tell her friends or coworkers that they should buy one. "Firms commonly capitalize on influential individuals (such as athletes) to advocate products simply by conspicuous adoption," the authors write.

The availability of vast databases of information these days can allow companies to do "network targeting," taking advantage of documented links between consumers. While traditional marketing research can offer detailed profiles of potential customers, and that's certainly useful, it doesn't reveal the social connections that exist between consumers.

The researchers focused on a large telecommunications firm that was marketing a new Internet-based communications service. The company organized a direct-mail campaign to target potential customers for the service using various demographic and geographic characteristics. Because the service involved new technology, the targeted group was deemed likely to be interested in high tech.

The company also made a marketing pitch to another group -- people who were "network neighbors," meaning they communicated with an existing customer of the service. (Company records allowed the researchers to see who communicated with whom, though names were kept anonymous.) "People who communicated with a customer who already had the service were more likely to purchase the product than people not communicating with someone in the network, about 3.4 times more likely," Hill says.

The take rate was highest for those "network neighbors" who were already considered good prospects using traditional marketing attributes: They were almost five times more likely to buy the service than people who did not communicate with an existing customer. But even "network neighbors" who were considered poor prospects using traditional marketing methods were about three times more likely to buy the service than consumers who looked like good prospects but had no connection to a customer.

"It is tempting to argue that we have shown that customers discuss the product and that discussion helps to improve take rates," the researchers write. But they could not prove that. "Telecommunications firms are not legally able to collect information regarding the actual content of the communication, so we are not able to determine if the consumers in question discussed the product," they note.

Another possibility is that because people often tend to talk to people like themselves, their buying tastes would be similar regardless of whether they ever discuss the product. "Social theory tells us that people who communicate with each other are more likely to be similar to each other, a concept called homophily," the researchers point out. "...Linked consumers probably are like-minded, and like-minded consumers tend to buy the same products."

It's possible, Hill says, that by tapping into consumer networks, companies are taking advantage of certain attributes that aren't identifiable through traditional marketing research. "It may well be that direct communications between people is a better indicator of deep similarity than any demographic or geographic attributes," the researchers write. In other words, who you talk to may be more important than where you live.

Gadgets vs. Grapes

Companies are forever looking for ways to identify and target potential customers; being able to do it better could both save them money and increase profits. Marketing campaigns are expensive and not effective if the right people aren't targeted. "Firms make marketing decisions based on how much they know about their customers and potential customers," the researchers say. "They may choose to mass market when they do not know much. With more information, they may market directly based on observed characteristics."

According to Hill, taking network data into consideration could help companies better focus and fine tune their marketing efforts, even when a company has the best marketing research at its disposal. But would the "network effect" work the same with all types of products? Hill and her team tried to answer that. "We expect the network-neighbor effect to manifest itself differently for different types of products," they write.

Specifically, they note, people are more likely to talk about "a new, high-tech gadget or a recently released movie. We expect there to be less buzz for less 'sexy' products, like a new deodorant or a sale on grapes at the supermarket."

The researchers were able to test that theory because the telecommunications firm happened to be selling two products, its new Internet service and a new pricing plan. While network neighbors were far more likely to buy the new service, the "network effect" was not as pronounced when it came to signing up for the new pricing plan. "This difference might be due to the new service creating more word-of-mouth or perhaps we are seeing the effects of homophily," they write. Again, without knowing the content of the conversations, they couldn't say what was at play.

The researchers suggest that their findings could prove useful for a variety of companies, not just telecommunications businesses. "For example, eBay recently purchased Internet-telephony upstart Skype for $2.6 billion; they now also will have large-scale, explicit data on who talks to whom," they write. "With gmail, Google's email service, Google now has access to explicit networks of consumer interrelationships and already is using gmail for marketing; directed network-based marketing might be a next step."

In addition, social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook could be "fruitful fields for network-based marketing." Blogs, which tend to attract people with similar interests, could also be harnessed.

As for concerns about privacy issues that are raised when companies use a customer's personal information to help sell their products, Hill acknowledges that firms that use direct target marketing walk a fine line between generating value for their consumers and intruding on their privacy. But, she says, "we show in our study that a wider variety of consumers are made aware of cost effective telecommunications products than would be aware of them without the targeted marketing strategy. Overall, the cost savings and additional features result in tangible benefits to the targeted consumers."

Ultimately, she says, "firms own their customers' data -- including email content and MySpace messages -- and legally can use it for such purposes as target marketing and fraud detection. Therefore, consumers should be aware that when they reveal both traditional and social network personal information to firms, this information might be used for target marketing or other purposes."

Hill has presented these findings and follow-up research at several conferences this year, including one on social networking sponsored by Yahoo. As more data that can be used to directly link consumers becomes available, the potential for network marketing will grow, she predicts.

She and her co-authors presented an interesting scenario of how even academic departments might take advantage of network marketing. "The enrollment in specialized classes could be bolstered by 'marketing' to those linked to existing students," they write. "Such links exist ( e.g., via e-mail). It remains to design tactics for using them that are acceptable to all."

The full paper, "Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters via Consumer Networks" can be found at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0606/0606278.pdf

Modeo Launches Live Mobile TV Beta Service In Nation's Largest Metro Area

2007-01-09T13:59:00.000+01:00

HOUSTON (Jan. 8, 2007) – After more than three years of development, Modeo has launched a live, commercial quality mobile TV beta service in New York City. The Modeo beta service includes live video content from leading network programmers such as Fox News, Discovery Channel and others, as well as streaming audio content from Music Choice, to Modeo Mobile TV Smartphones. Initial distribution of the Modeo Mobile TV Smartphones to beta service participants began in the last week of 2006 and will continue throughout the first quarter of 2007.

In addition, Modeo plans to deliver live broadcast signals from the Las Vegas Convention Center during the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Jan. 8-11. Visitors to CES in Las Vegas will have an opportunity to preview Modeo's service and Smartphone functionality in demonstrations with Microsoft Corporation and HTC, the developer and manufacturer of Modeo’s Smartphone, in Booth 7144. IBM will showcase the new Modeo Mobile TV Smartphone in Booth 36631 in South Hall 4, Upper Level. Modeo will also deliver live broadcast signals and demonstrations during the Mobile DTV Alliance press and analyst event at the Gordon Biersch Brewery on Monday, Jan. 8 starting at 5:30 pm.

More About Modeo’s New York Beta Service

Modeo will stage its New York City beta activities in phases throughout the first quarter of 2007. Activities include the initiation of a formal beta test group that is scheduled to commence in late January. To further showcase the DVB-H mobile TV opportunity, Modeo is offering service to a select group of wireless carriers, reporters, industry analysts, financial analysts and content providers. Modeo anticipates several hundred users will participate during the course of the Modeo beta service.

Modeo is working with several key partners as part of this milestone event for the emerging mobile TV sector. Centercode Inc. is managing Modeo’s formal beta test group activities. GCR Custom Research LLC (formerly Gartner Custom Research) is providing consumer use and service analysis. M:Metrics is providing Modeo the capability to capture actual user log data through the sophisticated measurement methodology of M:Meter. Building on Modeo’s previous trialing activities, participants in Modeo’s New York beta service will provide valuable feedback on a variety of parameters, including programming content, coverage quality, ease of use of the Modeo Mobile TV Smartphone device and overall use case scenarios. Modeo expects to use this feedback to evaluate network distribution options with wireless carriers.

“Modeo is pleased to have this opportunity to showcase our progress toward delivering on the promise of mobile TV,” commented Michael Ramke, Modeo’s recently appointed president and former vice president of marketing and business development. “By moving beyond technical trial efforts and into true commercial grade network service, we continue to position Modeo as an integral player in the dynamic mobile TV space. Participants in our New York beta service will have a front row seat in the evolution of mobile TV.”

Modeo is a DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) pioneer: In 2003 Modeo secured, through an affiliate, unencumbered spectrum rights through a Federal Communications Commission auction and began conducting technical and consumer trials of its mobile TV service in Pittsburgh in 2004.

“The Modeo DVB-H Smartphone is a pioneering advancement in the world of mobile communications and entertainment,” said Todd Achilles, vice president of sales and marketing for HTC America. “HTC is extremely pleased to be working with Modeo on this significant milestone in the evolution of wireless entertainment.”

Industry Insights

Leading mobile entertainment industry analysts, including Frost & Sullivan and IDC, project the mobile video market will exceed $1.5 billion by 2009. Multicast networks like Modeo, which use the global standard DVB-H technology, are expected to be the largest and fastest growing segments of the mobile video market. DVB-H trials and service are underway in several countries, including the United States, Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and Singapore. The standard is supported by the Mobile DTV Alliance and leading wireless and technology member companies that include Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Intel, Philips and Microsoft.

About Modeo

Modeo LLC is a subsidiary of Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE: CCI). Modeo has the ability to deliver a rich media service comprised of live TV channels, audio channels and podcasting content over its Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld (DVB-H) network to a variety of mobile devices via its nationwide spectrum holdings. For more information on Modeo, please visit www.modeo.com.

About Crown Castle International Corp.

Crown Castle International Corp. engineers, deploys, owns and operates technologically advanced shared wireless infrastructure, including extensive networks of towers. Crown Castle offers significant wireless communications coverage to 76 of the top 100 US markets and to substantially all of the Australian population. Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 11,500 and over 1,300 wireless communication sites in the US and Australia, respectively. On October 6, 2006, Crown Castle announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Global Signal Inc. (NYSE: GSL). Global Signal owns, leases or manages approximately 11,000 towers and other wireless communications sites. For more information on Crown Castle, please visit www.crowncastle.com.

Cautionary Language Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on the current expectations of the management of Modeo and Crown Castle International Corp. Such statements include, but are not limited to, plans, projections and estimates relating to Modeo regarding: (i) the development, deployment and testing of Modeo's broadcast network and service, including contemplated timing and geographic scope, (ii) services and content to be offered by Modeo, (iii) the size of the mobile video market and (iv) the growth rate of multicast networks and DVB-H technology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including that Modeo's business model and the mobile media market are unproven and may produce results that are significantly less than anticipated. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those expected. More information about potential risk factors which could affect Modeo's results is included in Crown Castle International Corp.'s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Modeo is a registered trademark.

War for "the 4th Screen"

2007-01-08T08:14:00.000+01:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/07/yourmoney/mobile.php

By John Markoff

Published: January 7, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO: For functions from e-mail and instant messaging to mobile MySpace and ESPN, computer users are increasingly turning to the "fourth screen" — the one on their cellphones — which is evolving to adopt more characteristics of the three previous generations of screens: movie, television and computer.

That shift may well be underscored on Tuesday when Steven Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, is expected to unveil an Apple phone representing his company's new mobile communications strategy — highlighted by a device that may include Jobs-inspired refinements like a sleek ceramic case and a transparent touch screen.

Industry executives and competitors say that Apple has developed the first of the next generation of devices that are closer to personal computers in pocket form, meaning that they will easily handle music, entertainment, productivity tasks and communications on cellular and other wireless networks.

But while Apple quickly dominated the music-player category after it introduced the iPod in 2001, its challenge with a phone would be far more difficult.

While Apple was early to portable digital music, it would be distinctly late in entering the world of Internet- connected digital hand-helds. Arrayed against it are giants including Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft, in addition to entrenched hand-held companies like Palm and Research In Motion.

Also waiting to enter the fray are powerful Internet companies like Google, which cannot afford to be cut off from users who now rely on them in the desktop computing world.

"Apple is about to touch off a nuclear war," said Paul Mercer, a software designer and president of Iventor, a designer of software for hand-helds based in Palo Alto, California. "The Nokias and the Motorolas will have to respond."

And the coming convergence — or possibly collision — between cellphones and desktop computers is also yielding new forms of hybrid devices. Nokia and Sony have recently introduced hand- helds with innovative physical designs and new combinations of communication features, with screens that are more readable than those on cellphones.

Another entry is the Oqo Model 2, a hand-held computer being spotlighted this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including a mention in a keynote address by Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman.

Developed in a San Francisco warehouse office by a small team of portable computer designers who have previously worked for Apple and IBM, the device is a complete Windows Vista computer that fits comfortably in the palm of one hand.

It has a slide-out keyboard as well as the ability to connect to both wireless Internet networks and high-speed cellular service. Those who wish to use it as a phone can add a Bluetooth headset and use an Internet phone service like Skype.

"Our main goal is to reinvent the PC in a pocketable form," said Jory Bell, a computer designer who is one of the Oqo's founders.

What all of the hardware makers are hunting for is a way to capitalize on the cultural shift in mobile messaging and search that has finally led the United States to close the gap with Asia and Europe, which have in the past been far ahead in mobile data wireless applications.

The data revenue for American cellular carriers grew at an annual rate of more than 70 percent in the first half of last year. In the third quarter, Verizon Wireless, Cingular and Sprint each crossed $1 billion in data revenue for the first time. They were ranked fourth, fifth and seventh in the world in data revenue for the first nine months of the year.

"We've basically caught up with Europe," said Roger Entner, a North American telecommunications industry analyst with Ovum, a market research firm based in London.

Analysts say Japanese and South Korean companies have moved almost 50 percent of their customers to the advanced, data-oriented wireless networks known as third generation, or 3G.

But the United States is only about a year behind the Asian countries in that evolution, some analysts say.

"This is happening because of a number of factors," said Chetan Sharma, a telecommunications analyst based in Issaquah, Washington. "Some have to do with cultures and the others are purely business-related. The carriers are now realizing that wireless data is a substantial part of the business."

Not all of the traffic is being driven by messaging, as a remarkable variety of wireless data software applications is emerging.

When students at Montclair State University in New Jersey feel concerned for their safety at night, they can send a wireless digital alert from a cellphone setting a timer in the campus security office. If they do not turn it off remotely at the specified time, officers are alerted to their location. The program was developed by Rave Wireless, a New York-based maker of cellphone software for academic customers.

For Apple, one advantage in entering the wireless data market may be that it can develop both the hardware and the software for its own phone. But it would still need to rely on the cellular carriers.

In the past, Jobs has cited the carriers' control of mobile phones in the United States as a reason he had not introduced an Apple phone. Now that has apparently changed, and Apple's business strategy in offering an Apple phone will potentially be as intriguing as its industrial design.

Jobs has been rumored to have entered into an alliance with Cingular. That would suggest he has patched up a reported split that resulted in 2005 when Apple introduced its iPod nano on the same day that Cingular and Motorola introduced the Rokr.

Whatever his business strategy, Jobs is certain to have an impact. Recently, he told two associates, who asked not to be identified to avoid damaging their relationship with him, that he was more excited about his current project than he was about the Macintosh.

Six Predictions for 2007

2007-01-02T15:25:00.000+01:00

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3624325

By Mark Kingdon | January 2, 2007

A year ago, when I made my predictions for 2006, it was clear everything was in place for 2006 to be a watershed year – and it turned out to be just that. The two mega-trends were online video and social media. At the beginning of 2006, MySpace and YouTube were not part of digital media mix for most marketers. Now MySpace is at the top of the charts and YouTube made the cover of Time Magazine—or rather "You" made the cover of "Time" magazine.

Looking forward to 2007, I see six key themes that will shape the year:

· Niche Social Media Sites Achieve Critical Mass: I touched on this topic in my last column, but it's worth revisiting as vertical (or special interest) social networking sites are getting traction. Senior citizens, pregnant mothers, pet owners, wine collectors, sports fanatics, and adventure travelers are all examples of passionate communities offering opportunities. Look for lots of merger and acquisition activity in this space in the coming year as companies try to build their communities -- fast. Why? Any media property or entertainment company with a connected audience is quickly developing communities. People want to connect and they generate a lot of page views when they do.

· The Time for Mobile Video Has Arrived: For years, the promise of mobile video has loomed large in the media and in the consciousness of digital marketers but it's been slow to hit in the US. Thanks to the proliferation of video-capable mobile devices, there are now over 34 million mobile Web users. This provides a market hungry for rich media experiences. Look for mobile pictures and video to become a major content area for blogs and news sites.

· Interruptive Online Video Advertising Replaced by a User-Controlled Model: It's almost impossible to run a :30 spot in a pre- or post-roll placement. Even asking consumers to watch 5 seconds of irrelevant messaging is a stretch, especially in the consumer generated media space. In 2007, we'll see new models get traction in which the consumer has much more control over the advertising content they see.

· Confident Brands Will Turn Themselves Inside Out: Traditional marketing taught everyone to control the perception of their brand through careful adherence to brand guidelines and messaging strategies. Now, every consumer has a megaphone and a soapbox. The most relevant and connected brands will be built around the dialog they have with their customers and that their customers have about them. Look to sites like eBay (with seller ratings) or the developer forums hosted by major tech companies to get a sense of what to expect. Use what you learn to formulate your inside-out strategy.

· Growing the Talent Pool Becomes an Industry Imperative: Although there have been numerous stories written about the war for talent in the digital space -- and we all agree it's one of the most important challenges in our industry today -- we've done little to grow the talent pool. Instead, we focus on poaching each other's best and brightest, driving up turnover and labor costs. Not too smart. We need to work together as an industry (hello, IAB!) to encourage universities to offer digital marketing courses, even digital marketing degrees. And we need to work harder to attract talent from traditional advertising into our digital space then coach, train, and mentor them in what makes our space different and unique.

· Engaging Reach Emerges as a Mantra for Advertisers: In the world of digital communications, "reach" is just step one, not an end goal. Simply reaching a consumer isn't enough. And if you focus solely on engagement, you won't reach enough viewers to make an impact. That's why it makes a lot of sense to measure "engaging reach." First, we must look deeper when it comes to online advertising metrics. According to Rick Corteville, our executive director of media, "Interaction rates and view-through metrics (in addition to the normal clickthroughs) help us understand how engaged the audience is/was with the online experience. It's all about understanding the dialogue and depth of immersion. Additionally, we have to look at the entire consumer experience across multiple digital touch points. Sounds easy, but it isn't and we all know it. Do your Web site metrics and online advertising metrics connect to give you a more holistic view of the consumer experience? If not, then that's something to work on this year." Exactly right, Rick.

Based on the momentum in 2006, 2007 is poised to be the most exciting year on record in this industry. I encourage you to continue to push the edges, take risks, and explore fresh territory. Good luck, and Happy New Year!

Amazing 40,000 GBP 'dolphin boat' which can leap out of the water

2007-01-02T14:03:00.000+01:00

by LAURA ROBERTS Last updated at 23:00pm on 1st January 2007

It looks like something from a James Bond film. Shaped exactly like a dolphin, this boat is the latest toy for millionaire adrenaline junkies. The Seabreacher can jump 10 feet in the air and even perform acrobatic tricks.

Created by two water sport fanatics, New Zealander Rob Innes, 33, and Californian Dan Piazza, the Seabreacher is made of out of fibre glass, stainless steel and aluminium and uses the discarded canopies of US fighter jets.

The two-seater craft can submerge 2 ft underwater for around 20 seconds at a time creating the dolphin-like dive effect.

The price for a custom-made Seabreacher is not for the fainthearted and would cost in the region of £40,000.

Mr Innes said: "Because it's so light it pops out of the water like a cork. It can fly up to 10 feet in the air even if you are going at 15 mph.

"It's really just for fun. It's a 3-D jet ski. We liken it to a monster truck. In the end we would like to turn it into a recognised sport as you can race and jump. You can do a single or double roll in the Seabreacher which is great fun though the landing is quite rough.

"It is quite complicated to drive though - it's a workout to handle it. I would be wary of selling it on to people because there is the danger that after submerging you could hit a boat or a swimmer. We always stay in radio contact to check the surface."

The current Seabreacher model is 14 ft 10 inches long and weighs 1,000 lbs. It has taken eight years for the creative Innespace duo to make the two-seater vessel which they hope to turn into a model for 'aqua Formula One'.

The 175 horsepower engine enables it to 'fly' through water using an Atkins marine rotary engine. A super-charged 300lb engine is available which generates 240 horsepower, the equivalent of an engine used in a standard family car.

Mr Innes said: "The latest model is actually less dolphin-like in shape than earlier versions but the general shape makes it move more efficiently through water. It's always best to try and imitate nature in these things."

The cockpit has glass three quarters of an inch thick, taken from Raptor-22 fighter jets. This enables it to withstand re-entering the water nose-first without shattering.

The pilot and passenger are both strapped into their seats with four-point safety harnesses, similar to those used in rally cars, to protect them from the impact of diving and jumping.

Two fins, or wings, which are operated by hand-held joysticks allow the pilot to change direction while the tail, or rudder, is operated using foot pedals.

There are even two windows positioned near the foot pedals of the pilot so that any obstacles underneath the boat can be seen.

Future models will have a camera attached to the outside of the boat with screens visible to the pilot to make it easier to see swimmers or boat hulls underwater.

Seabreacher has a long snorkel concealed within the top fin which provides an airflow into the boat. During diving the butterfly valve closes to prevent the cockpit from getting flooded. Mr Innes said: "It's perfect for rich adrenaline junkies."

The Seabreacher will be available to test-drive from this summer.

CBS-related: YouTube Adds a Layer of Filtering to Be a Little Nicer

2006-12-11T12:48:00.001+01:00

from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/technology/11youtube.html?ei=5065&en=5e0a2cd2f836a07f&ex=1166504400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

YouTube Adds a Layer of Filtering to Be a Little Nicer

By MARIA ASPAN

When the video-sharing site YouTube.com was sold to Google, many of its users worried that corporate ownership would restrict the content of its videos. But now one of YouTube's corporate partners is changing the ways that users comment on those videos instead.

YouTube, which is host to many official CBS video clips under an October licensing agreement with the network, has changed its layout for some of the Web pages with CBS videos. Most YouTube videos are embedded on Web pages that allow viewers to read user comments, with some of them listed directly below the video. These comments can range from the coherent ("That was hilarious.") to the, er, less-so ("omg lol!") to the profane.

The comments on many of the videos posted by CBS have now been moved to a separate page; instead of sample comments underneath the videos, a link to "view all comments" takes users to a separate Web page where they can read comments without watching the video at the same time.

CBS began moving and filtering comments on some videos in mid-October, shortly after announcing its licensing agreement with YouTube, in order to remove "profane, unconstructive criticism," and off-topic political vitriol, said Quincy Smith, the president of CBS Interactive.

To many users of sites like YouTube, of course, being profane, unconstructive, off-topic and vitriolic is the point.

"We just want to make sure the front page is a little bit cleaner," Mr. Smith said, adding that comments containing certain profanities are caught by an automatic filter, while the remaining comments are then vetted by someone who works at CBS or YouTube and moved to the separate page. "We thought it was a better user experience, and it gives us a second to weed out the completely unuseful comments."

CBS is not the only content provider on YouTube to filter out "spam" messages from the user comments; representatives from YouTube confirmed that the Web site will often use such filters if complaints are raised.

"CBS continues to be one of YouTube's most important partners, but our community remains what's most important above all," said Suzie Reider, the chief marketing officer of YouTube, in an e-mail statement. "We work with all our partners, CBS included, to provide insight in what content will foster an environment that our community will be most responsive to."

The CBS deal with YouTube, part of many media companies' attempts to exploit the video site that distributed their copyrighted content, has so far yielded positive results for the network. According to an announcement the companies made on Nov. 21, CBS videos were among some of the most-viewed content on the site during the first month of partnership.

Mr. Smith said that CBS was trying to provide the best possible interactive experience for the viewers, noting that many YouTube users' critical comments are passed around the network. "We've got to encourage more feedback," he said. "I don't want to mess with the YouTube experience." MARIA ASPAN

Yahoo's Millard Cautious About User-Generated Content

2006-12-06T16:51:00.000+01:00

From: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=113628

At UBS: Few Good at Monetizing Those Pages

By Andrew Hampp

Published: December 05, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Not everyone is excited about the marketing possibilities of user-generated content -- least of all Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer at Yahoo, who defined the success of YouTube as "a lot of page views. What was their revenue this year?"

Yahoo's chief sales officer, Wenda Harris Millard, says sites like YouTube generate a lot of page views but not a lot of revenue.

Photo Credit: Yahoo

Online inventory has skyrocketed since the explosion of user-generated content, but, Ms. Millard said, "the reality is that there are very few companies -- if any -- that are doing what you would call a good job of monetizing it."

UBS conference
Marketers have been genuinely interested in harnessing this phenomenon for the past two years; it's Yahoo's job to show them how, she told analysts at the UBS media conference.

"All of a sudden, technology has facilitated the rise of the consumer voice in a way that is startling to many of us. But the reality is nobody's doing a great job helping a marketer understand how to leverage this stuff."

Ms. Millard was also none too impressed by the move to viral campaigns, having seen results on her own "test lab" at home.

"I have a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old, and they don't want to be [MySpace] friends with the Burger King king," she said.

Leading the social-media charge
Yahoo has long led the social-media charge with its e-mail, instant messaging and gaming services, tripling MySpace and quintupling YouTube in size.

"Social media is hard to monetize because that age group is so fickle," she said. "Think of all the failed magazines in this world. Nobody's ever been able to put their arms around it at the time. To hold them, you have to be very, very careful not only about the content but about the advertising."

"The question from a business standpoint is: How do you make money at this? It's fun, it's a blast, trying to figure this out, but I don't think anyone is doing it particularly well," she said.

'Peanut butter' memo
The panel's candid vibe continued when an audience member broached the topic of Yahoo Senior VP Brad Garlinghouse's now-infamous "peanut butter" memo from two weeks ago (the internal memo criticized the lack of focus at the company, comparing Yahoo's efforts across all its properties to peanut butter spread too thin).

"I had a really hard time deciding whether I wanted fluff or jelly with that," Ms. Millard quipped. "The reality is, if you really look at that, you could take Yahoo's name off of that and put on almost any company you've ever worked for. This company has grown from $720 million five years to nearly $6 billion today. Is it challenging to grow with that accelerated pace? Is everything perfect? Can we make decisions as fast as a company with 100 people? No. So I looked at it as pretty silly in terms of the noise that was made of it.

"But the reality is," she continued, "we are a company that has grown at an extraordinary rate, and that doesn't come without questions about your ability to move with competitive speed."

Follow-Up: Cookie-scented bus shelters killed in San Francisco

2006-12-06T09:12:00.000+01:00

From Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/05/city-officials-remove-new-cookie-scented-ads-from-san-francisco/

We love the smell of freshly baked cookies as much as the next guy, but smelling cookies at a bus stop is probably unlikely to get us to buy more milk (especially those of us who dig the soy variety). Still, that didn't stop Arcade Marketing, (employed by the California Milk Processor Board), to take the "Got Milk?" ads to a new level with an automated whiff of cookies inside bus shelters in San Francisco. However, the ads, which debuted Monday in SF's Union Square, Financial District, and Nob Hill neighborhoods, were ordered to be taken down by city officials on Tuesday. The city's Municipal Transportation Agency, which presides over the bus shelters, cited public complaints with regard to asthma and respiratory diseases by local activists (namely, the Environmental Health Network of California). That's it EHNC, we're not sending you any holiday cookies this year.

Yahoo! to reorganize...

2006-12-06T08:51:00.000+01:00

From: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117955163.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

Braun leaves post at Yahoo

Company to be split into three new operating units

By BEN FRITZ

After two embattled years on the job, Lloyd Braun has ankled his post as head of Yahoo's Media Group amid a massive reorg at the world's biggest Internet company.

CEO Terry Semel announced the changes Tuesday, near the end of a tough year that has seen Yahoo face intense public criticism and a 31% drop in its stock price.

Starting in the first quarter of 2007, company will divide into three groups focused on audience segments in an attempt to streamline and better compete with fast-growing rivals like Google and News Corp.'s MySpace.

Chief operating officer Dan Rosensweig is also leaving, effective in March.

New operating structure would have diminished Braun's standing in the company, apparently prompting him to resign.

Previously, Braun reported directly to Rosensweig.

But Santa Monica-based YMG, which encompasses all of the Netco's content sites, such as Movies, TV, Music and News, is now part of the Yahoo Network division of the Yahoo Audience Group. Yahoo Network, which also encompasses search, user-generated media, and the Yahoo front page, will be led by Jeff Weiner, previously the head of search.

Netco is looking for an exec to lead the Audience Group, overseeing Weiner and several other execs and reporting directly to Semel.

Braun likely wanted the job atop the Audience Group and didn't like the idea of having additional layers added between him and Semel. His departure wasn't included in Yahoo's reorg announcement, indicating that he resigned in response to the changes, rather than as part of them.

Remaining senior management at YMG, such as head of entertainment and games Vince Broady, music topper Dave Goldberg and head of news and information Scott Moore, will now report directly to Weiner.

David Katz, who previously headed sports and the Yahoo Studios original content group, ankled late last week in a move that now looks like it was connected to the internal shake-up (Daily Variety, Dec. 4).

Rumors of Braun's imminent departure started circling the former ABC prexy within months of joining Yahoo two years ago. His appointment was surprising, as he had no experience in online media.

His initial efforts to bring TV-style event programming to the Netco, such as a failed attempt to develop ABC project "The Runner" for the Web, were ultimately stymied.

After what seemed like more than a year of inaction, Braun recently settled on a more conservative strategy, bringing on a senior management team recruited from other Netcos and focusing on redesigns for existing sites, launching sites focused on food and technology, and low-cost, low-risk original programming such as viral video roundup "The 9."

Tuesday's changes strengthen the position of chief financial officer Susan Decker, who many believe is being positioned to take over for Semel. She is leaving her job as CFO to head the new Advertiser & Publisher group, which will oversee all advertising and business partnerships. Netco has had particular troubles this year with delays in a new advertising technology that caused it to lower its financial guidance.

Yahoo plans to create a new advertising network that joins all its sites with its thousands of distribution partners in an effort to better appeal to marketers, who have been increasingly turning to sites like Google, YouTube, and MySpace.

Third division in the new structure will be the Technology Group, headed by chief technology officer Farazad Nazem, which will oversee engineering and tech development.

Yahoo was previously divided by product group, rather than by audience segment. That led to some some frustrating internal divisions for execs. Many at YMG, for instance, wanted to work more closely with Yahoo Video (user-generated videos) and Flickr (for photos), but those sites were previously in a different product group. They are now joined together in the Network division of the Audience Group.

Semel seemed to acknowledge that Yahoo has in recent years fallen from its leadership position and described the changes as a way to seize that mantle from younger competitors.

"The Internet is continuing to grow and evolve at a rapid pace, and we're reshaping Yahoo to be a leader in this transformation, just as we did successfully five years ago," he said, referring to the time when he first joined the company after having co-led Warner Bros. for many years. "Our strategy capitalizes on big emerging trends and leverages our core strengths in search, media, communities and communications. We believe having a more customer-focused organization, supported by robust technology, will speed the development of leading-edge experiences for our most valuable audience segments."

Company emphasized that its new primary goals will be to create social media environments that encourage users to participate, rather than just consume; to take the lead in next-generation advertising platforms; and to better compete for top talent.

In a statement, Braun said YMG "has developed and launched a groundbreaking template for the next generation of media experiences on the Internet" and noted that "I am proud to have led this team of extraordinary professionals." He told the Los Angeles Times that he is "really ready for another challenge, perhaps one that combines old media and new media."

Bus Shelters get cookie scent

2006-12-05T12:51:00.000+01:00

From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061205/us_nm/cookies_ads_dc_1

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hoping to stir up thirst for milk, officials installed advertisements in several San Francisco bus shelters on Monday that give off the scent of freshly baked cookies.

The technology that creates the scent is very similar to that used in magazine ads. Scented adhesives are placed throughout the interior of the bus shelters, including under the benches.

"As long as they are not harmful chemicals, it's OK," one somewhat confused elderly woman said as she pondered the cookie smell in one of the shelters. "They are trying to sell milk? Is that it?"

The effort at five bus shelters is part of a campaign cooked up by the California Milk Processor Board, whose iconic "Got Milk?" campaign has adorned famous figures from around the world with milk mustaches for 13 years.

While olfactory marketing has long been a staple of perfume companies in magazines, Jeff Goodby, chairman of the San Francisco-based ad firm Goodby, Silverstein & Partners that created the campaign, said he knew of no other completely outdoor campaign.

#1 (business?) website in CZ

2006-11-29T11:41:00.000+01:00

from http://www.lupa.cz/clanky/kristalova-lupa-svatek-ceskeho-internetu/

Ceny Křišťálové Lupy 2006 uděleny

David Antoš, Martin Vyleťal – 24. 11. 6:00

Anketa Křišťálová Lupa 2006 - Cena českého Internetu dospěla do svého finále. Slavnostní vyhlášení výsledků a předání cen se uskutečnilo včera večer v restauraci Mánes na pražském Masarykově nábřeží. Který vyhledávač je podle čtenářů nejlepší? Kdo má nejzajímavější blog? Kdo dělá českému Internetu největší ostudu? Jak proběhlo samotné vyhlášení a kdo se jej zúčastnil?

Reklama

Až do vzniku ankety Křišťálová Lupa 2006 na českém Internetu citelně chybělo podobné ocenění zajímavých projektů. Spolu se snahou o zviditelnění celého odvětví a uspořádání akce, na které se budou moci setkat všichni v tomto segmentu důležití lidé, bylo hlavním cílem akce Křišťálová Lupa poukázat na nejzajímavější projekty a osobnosti, které na českém Internetu existují. Tato myšlenky není samozřejmě zcela originální. Od předchozích anket se však Křišťálová Lupa přesto odlišuje. Volbu totiž převzali do svých rukou sami uživatelé, a to jak v případě nominace jednotlivých subjektů, tak i následného hlasování. Tento způsob byl zvolen proto, že právě odborná veřejnost čtenářů Lupy mohla do hlasování nejlépe a nejobjektivněji promítnout své vlastní zkušenosti a porovnat klady, či naopak zápory konkurenčních projektů.

Průběh hlasování

Nominační fáze byla spuštěna v září a každý uživatel měl až do 22. září možnost nominovat své favority v celkem 13 kategoriích. Od 1. října následovalo hlasování, do kterého postoupilo v každé kategorii pět nejúspěšnějších. Své nominace získala i řada poměrně neznámých projektů, což je potěšující ukázka toho, že uživatelé dokáží najít kvalitní a zajímavé služby bez ohledu na míru jejich propagace.

Uživatelé z řad odborné i širší veřejnosti měli možnost podpořit z jejich pohledu nejzajímavější a nejlepší projekty, instituce, služby a osobnosti českého Internetu do 31. října. Hlasování se zúčastnilo téměř 11 tisíc čtenářů a na základě jejich rozhodnutí byli zvoleni vítězové jednotlivých kategorií. Tomuto postupu se vymykaly pouze dvě kategorie: Projekt roku a Anticena, u kterých o pořadí rozhodovala odborná porota. Ta měla na výběr ze třiceti projektů nominovaných v předchozí fázi samotnými čtenáři. Hlasování poroty se zúčastnilo 57 internetových odborníků, od manažerů IT společností po publicisty a akademiky. Podívejme se rovnou na výsledky Křišťálové Lupy 2006.

Vítězové

Firemní web

1. Vodafone.cz
2. T-mobile.cz
3. Škoda-auto.cz
4. Cz.o2.com
5. Symbio.cz

Verizon Wireless to Offer YouTube on cell phones

2006-11-29T11:13:00.000+01:00

From Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-11-28T113911Z_01_N27190861_RTRUKOC_0_US-YOUTUBE-VERIZON.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-C2-NextArticle-1):

By Sinead Carew and Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless said on Tuesday it would deliver selected video clips from YouTube to cell phones starting in December in a bid to increase subscriptions to its mobile media service.

YouTube, the leading online video sharing site which was bought by Internet search leader Google Inc. this month, said it hopes to expand beyond computers to phones. It did not reveal the financial terms of the deal.

Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc, has been betting increasingly on text messaging and advanced services like music and video for growth as phone call prices keep falling.

But so far only a small minority of U.S. consumers use features like video on their cell phones. Verizon Wireless hopes the huge popularity of many home videos shown on YouTube could help boost use of its Vcast wireless media service.

"The user-generated content space is a very important sector in media," said Robin Chan, marketing director at Verizon Wireless, who believes the deal could help increase its service revenue.

"Vcast subscribers tend to be higher-value customers in terms of ARPU (average revenue per user) versus traditional voice subscribers," Chan said.

Under the YouTube agreement, consumers who pay a $15 monthly fee for Vcast will be able to use their cell phones to view consumer-generated content posted on YouTube's Web site.

Chan also said customers would also be able to post videos from their phones to YouTube more easily than before by using a five-digit short code instead of an e-mail address.

Verizon said about 20 million of its customers have phones that could support Vcast. But only about 10 percent of these phone users have subscribed to Vcast, according to estimates from Ovum analyst Roger Entner.

YouTube said the pact with Verizon was exclusive for a short period. It did not say when it would be free to pursue additional deals with other wireless providers.

YouTube, which gets more than 100 million views of its videos a day, is exploring whether it can integrate YouTube into a variety of handheld devices with Internet connections.

"Mobile is just one of the things we're looking at," said YouTube's co-founder, Steve Chen. He did not give details.

AND

From San Jose Mercury News:

(http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16110496.htm)

YouTube in deal with Verizon

By Sarah Jane Tribble

Mercury News

YouTube plans to announce a deal with Verizon Wireless today to bring user-submitted videos from the Web to mobile phone customers nationwide, marking the biggest marriage yet between a video Web service and mobile phone carrier.

The deal, in which no financial details were released, means customers who use Verizon Wireless' V Cast video and music service will be able to access some of the popular Web site's videos from their mobile phones, starting next month.

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen called this the company's ``first move into the mobile space'' and said his goal is to make sure all mobile phone users have access to the videos. He declined to say how long an exclusivity arrangement with Verizon would last.

``The great thing about the emerging new phones, they all come with the ability to take pictures and video at the same time,'' Chen said. ``Now everybody with a cell phone in their pocket will be able to upload it without going back to their computers.''

Only pre-selected high-quality videos will be available for viewing on Verizon's YouTube channel. Users are also be able to upload to the YouTube Web site after shooting video on a Verizon phone. YouTube, which was founded in February 2005, reports 100 million video views a day.

Industry analysts said other carriers are expected to quickly follow suit by pairing with YouTube or finding other partners to create content for the nation's 219 million mobile customers.

``This area has a whole lot of potential, if you think beyond ...voice and text messaging,'' said Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of new products for research firm Telephia. ``All the major service providers who cater to the consumer household are trying to capitalize on extending their content.''

So far, mobile companies have found success with voice and text messaging services but struggled to find people willing to pay for video services. Verizon's deal with YouTube -- which is so popular that Google agreed to buy it for $1.65 billion earlier this year -- bolsters the growing belief that mobile video will both find a market as well as begin making profits, Agarwal said.

Mobile video services like Emeryville-based MobiTV and other television services for Web have reached 5.1 million subscribers in the third quarter of 2006, which is about double the number who used the services during the first quarter, Agarwal said. In addition, he said, revenues for mobile video caught up with revenues from mobile gaming in the third quarter, bringing in $140 million.

Mobile phone users are asking for more content and YouTube fits what they want, said John Harrobin, vice president of digital media and advertising for Verizon Wireless.

``We absolutely believe in the YouTube dream and recognize that among the content that performs best on our entertainment network is really that water cooler, snacking content that YouTube is famous for producing,'' Harrobin said. ``People get lost in YouTube.''

To be sure, YouTube and Verizon have something to offer each other, said Mike Goodman, program manager for digital entertainment with Yankee Group.

``It provides Verizon with significant new content experience and there's an advantage for YouTube as well as it increases their audience,'' Goodman said.

It's no accident that YouTube seems ideal for mobile, Chen said. The company talked about it within months of launching.

``Other than the desk top there are few other places content is being viewed. The mobile handset is ideal,'' Chen said. ``There are a lot of times where you just want to be entertained for a few minutes.''

BloggerSnap

2006-11-28T12:56:00.000+01:00

BloggerSnap would be a good tool for Web 2.0 integration on client websites to allow members of communities to easily upload their photos…might pose problems with moderation, but worth considering…

More info on www.bloggersnap.com

From their website:

„BloggerSnap is a little tool which allows your visitors to easily post on your blog or website a snapshot taken with their webcam! Different gallery options are available, in order to store the snapshots posted and to display them nicely. BloggerSnap offers smooth integration with major blog engines such as Blogger, WordPress, DotClear, etc. It's fun and completely customizable!“

3 Big Brands Reinvent Themselves with Blogs

2006-11-28T08:51:00.000+01:00

Text is on multiple pages. This article is worth a look as it includes some relevant examples and good advice... This is only first few paragraphs...

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/12540.asp

Published: November 27, 2006

By Tom Hespos
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Introduction

It would be easy to look at your latest online display ad report and come to the conclusion that many people simply don't want a deeper relationship with your company. However, the opposite is usually true. In the age of big box stores and marketing strategies that keep customers at a polite distance, people crave the type of business relationships of yesteryear, where they had special relationships with the companies from which they bought things. We crave "Mom and Pop-ness," but find few successful marketers that have the time or inclination to celebrate our enthusiasm for brands and products.

We want to hack the ivory tower, deliberately avoiding the mechanisms companies set up to keep us at arm's length. We feel special when our enthusiasm, criticism and importance to a company's business is acknowledged and celebrated. Some companies are realizing this, and they're setting up scalable ways of speaking directly to the market through the internet.

Along with these new programs comes the realization that this direct dialogue is critical. Customers expect it, and prospects are looking for it, too, particularly when they're in a business relationship they're unhappy with. When considering all the effort we put into database marketing -- looking in great detail at loyalists, switchers and other categories of customers -- such programs begin to look like no-brainers.

Here are some folks from the first wave, along with tips on how you can enter the marketing conversation the right way.

The End of Lazy Marketing

2006-11-27T18:34:00.000+01:00

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623635

Last week, WebSideStory hosted their Active Insights Conference in New York and kindly invited me to be the keynote speaker.

My talk addressed an important milestone in our industry, so I thought I'd share some highlights:

First some context:

The Internet is quickly becoming the “can't live without” choice (Arbitron PDF download) over TV.
Creation and connection rule as the social Web becomes the big story of 2006. There are more people on MySpace today (than were Internet users in the US in 1998. (Just for fun, google "addiction to MySpace," then "addiction to TV." Look at the number of hits. Interesting isn't it?)
People are walking Tivos as they unconsciously and consciously filter out the 3,000+ messages we blitz them with every day.
The Internet accounts for only 6 percent of marketing spend and 24 percent of consumers' media consumption. Very quickly, those figures will equalize at the expense of TV and print.

What's this mean for marketers? Simple. We're moving away from a world where you can create a juicy piece of advertising content, buy some media and broadcast a zillion impressions to over-saturated consumers. I call this Lazy-Man's Marketing. It is/was easy, but it's not necessarily effective. We're moving into an era of engagement. Winning brands will be those that give something of value in order to get attention and begin a dialog with consumers.

It's hard work—this engagement business. Things will be much more challenging, and big-brand CMOs know it.

I've recently had a few conversations that really brought the point home for me. A Fortune 500 CMO recently asked, "Mark, we've been increasing our budget for the Internet every year. And it hasn't been hard to justify. But the really big money has been locked up in TV. How can you make me feel comfortable moving that money to the Internet?"

With most CMO's tenure averaging just 21 months (one campaign cycle) smart marketing executives know three things. First, with roughly 6 percent of their budgets invested in the Internet and roughly a quarter (or more) of their customers engaged online, they know they need to move their money to where their customers are. Second, they're betting their jobs. And third, the Internet is inherently measureable and they want answers -— quantifiable ones. It's our duty to give them good ones, or we risk their jobs and our own.

Suppose a CMO came to you and said, "I'm thinking of tripling my spend on the Internet next year. How much should I spend and where? And how will I know if it works?" What would your answer be? If she asked if you're willing to bet your career on the outcome, what would your answer be?

These are tough questions to answer. Our picture of online consumer behavior is incomplete. Blind spots obscure the view.

The purchase path a consumer follows is actually quite complex, particularly for considered purchases. Consider the automotive category. Nearly three-quarters of people go online before visiting a dealership. They spend about five hours on 5-10 sites researching vehicle choices and prices. They don't follow a linear path, nor do they pass through a well-defined sales funnel.

People aren't sheep. They're not going to neatly follow the path you lay. In fact, they often research your product or service in areas on the Internet that are completely outside of your control and not easily measurable, like social networks. To add more challenges to the mix, even in the areas we create and manage, new technologies such as AJAX and RSS don't naturally lend themselves to measurement. While we know how consumers respond in search and what consumers do on some HTML pages, we have to work hard to address the blind spots so we can answer the tough questions being asked of us right now.

Measurement will be a key variable in the argument we make to shift spend from traditional media to online media. Its tougher in a world where consumer generated content (a good part of which is about your or your clients' products and services) is the fastest growing content area on the Web.

So what do you do?

Think about what it means to be in the era of engagement. First, engage consumers in a dialogue. Be open. Listen. Respect their answers. Let them sample your brand. Let them comment and contribute. Give them space to create their personalized version of your brand experience and hope they badge themselves with it and become your advocate. You must set up a measurement dashboard that allows you to see how you perform in an open world.
Remember that your brand is a distributed experience. Instead of thinking about upper funnel and lower funnel, think broadly about your consumers' experience. They look at more than your site. They hunt and peck across a wide variety of places you can't control. Consider the entire online experience, not just your site experience.
Use a flexible measurement tool and think creatively. Flexible tools allow measurement, but not necessarily straight out of the box. If you think about emerging Web technologies such as AJAX and RSS as "events" (all analytics packages track events), you can begin to track anything so long as you can insert a touch of code the tool can recognize.
Create experience and measurement briefs up front. After you launch, it's usually too late to come up with a measurement strategy. Plan ahead. It's important to build analytics into every experience, particularly at the beginning, so you're not left empty-handed when it comes to good answers around return on engagement.
Don't do this alone. It really does take many people with diverse perspectives and skills (we call this approach getting "Three Minds" together) to arrive at the right answers quickly. When you plan a major campaign, make sure you have a diverse team at the table: strategists, creatives, technologists, and analysts. That way, you can figure out how to build an exceptional experience for consumers and measure it successfully.

I've waited five years for the big question. It's finally here. Let's work together to answer it.

Real Beauty, Real Breakthrough in Consumer-Fortified Media

2006-11-27T18:33:00.001+01:00

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623811

Pete Blackshaw | October 31, 2006

Let me open with a curious confession. I've been a bit obsessed with the Dove brand's Evolution video spot. I'm watched it dozens of times, shared it with others, talked it up around the office, and tracked its progress with the intensity of monitoring the ups and downs of my own blog.

What gives? Yes, Unilever's a client in my day job, but it's miles off my beat. Plus, we're in the syndicated business and work with dozens of other consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands.

What makes this spot special and worthy of conversation is it brings a unique set of fresh new teachings about both consumer behavior and the future of digital marketing.

First, some background. As part of the already talk-worthy Dove Real Beauty campaign, the brand placed a highly provocative and well-produced 75-second video spot featuring an attractive woman sitting down for a rapid-fire beauty makeover against a backdrop of high-tempo music on both its Web site and YouTube. Ultimately, the transformation finds itself on a computer for a number of special effects and facial manipulations. When the overhauled face finally makes it onto a billboard, you practically have to squint to find a semblance of the original person. This leads to dramatic kicker tag line: "No wonder our perception of beauty is so distorted." Messaging around the Dove Self-Esteem Fund follows.

Ten Key Takeaways From Real Beauty

Needless to say, the spot has been a viral phenomenon. I've been monitoring online campaigns since my early days in interactive marketing at Procter & Gamble, and this still-unfolding campaign stands out for a host of reasons:

Success by the numbers. The YouTube metrics along are quite impressive: nearly a million views, hundreds of comments, and about 2,400 "Favorites" rankings. Plus it made a host of YouTube honors. But, the YouTube metrics are only part of the story. The well-coordinated campaign deeply penetrated the blogosphere, crossed global boundaries, served as context for deeper textual discussion, and entered a host of social networks. For 10 days, it topped the charts of linked-to brand videos on both BlogPulse (owned by my firm and Technorati.
Success by viewer engagement. In many respects, this spot perfectly puts the concept of viewer engagement in perspective. A key goal of the engagement initiative is to explore and qualify new metrics and measures that push well beyond the overly simplified reach and frequency metrics. In Dove's case, there were views, comments, blog entries, links to blog entries, forum entries, board mentions, video responses, tell a friend, and even video mashups and manipulation that took the message in different, yet mostly reinforcing, directions. Each of these metrics informs perspective on ad effectiveness.
Evolution as consumer-fortified media (CFM). Unlike the vast majority of viral videos out there, this ad was 100 percent brand or agency created. But it was fortified by intense consumer commentary, conversation, and dialogue. Put another way, co-creation was an end results but not the starting point. Looking ahead, expect CFM to become a key success criteria for brands looking for tangible evidence of consumer appeal, involvement, and engagement. Every Super Bowl ad, for instance, has latent potential as CFM, but it's not a guarantee.
Audience penetration. Far from the "Snakes on a Plane" phenomenon, where the folks who created the buzz were marketing bloggers, not the actual movie prospects, the Evolution ad resonates unusually well with the target audience. If you carefully analyze the buzz and conversation, it's clear this spot resonates with women quite deeply.
Evolution as social currency. Part of what's fueled the virality and sustainability of this campaign are the thousands of consumers who have embedded the video into their own blogs. More important, the ad's content has social currency. This is also a driving force behind both YouTube's extraordinary growth. There's a huge misperception that most consumers find YouTube through the home page. What's powering the social media revolution right now is the notion of personalized content syndication, whereby we bake key features, utilities, or so-called widgets into our personal blogs and Web pages.
Evolution and emotion. In reviewing hundreds of verbatims comments, what struck me was the sheer depth and intensity of emotion around this campaign. This is important because emotion is so central to brand loyalty; emotion also correlates with depth of word of mouth and consumer-generated media (CGM) creation. Evolution has succeeded in stirring emotions around notions of changing society and "I too am beautiful." If you put all the CGM related to this campaign in a blender, you'd see a unique set of emotions bubble to the top: empathy, compassion, rage, empowerment, excitement, and even cynicism and defeatism. Like it or not, all this feeds dialogue and conversation. The big caveat is all this is very difficult to repeat with consistency or precision; often it backfires.
Search dividends. We won't really know for quite sometime whether this campaign truly sells cases, but one thing is very clear: the Dove brand will reap a massive dividend of targeted free advertising via search for years to come. This unprecedented volume of archived ad buzz for a beauty-care brand creates a wide long tail search funnel to the brand. Put another way, millions of new roads lead to Dove, even searches that may seem peripheral to personal care or beauty. This is the opposite of the damage Jeff Jarvis inflicted on Dell computer. This is a very big deal because women, especially influentials, increasingly use the Web to search for beauty solutions and answers. A joint study we just completed with AC Nielsen's Homescan Panel found nearly 70 percent of women actively use search to research products and services. Long term, this campaign may be a gift that keeps on giving.
Synergy and consistency. What fortifies this campaign is a believability factor among consumers talking about it. They find the brand really cares and has compassion. This screams in the brand Web site's strong receptiveness to feedback. In contrast to most CPG brands, including many other Unilever brands, Dove steps up to the plate in a big way to invite consumers to provide candid feedback, participate in online communities, or exercise other-share-your-opinion venues. Put another way, there's harmony between the high-expression YouTube platform and the brand Web site. In digital marketing, everything must hang together, and consumers always value consistency.
Freedom from :30 spots. At exactly 75 seconds, the video spot is two and a half times as long as a :30 spot. Had it been one second shorter, it just wouldn't have worked. Video production affords brands far greater flexibility and agility to take whatever time is needed to get the big idea across.. The only constraint is the consumer's attention and receptivity; ergo, it must be engaging.

There's clearly a strain of counterculture in this ad campaign, and it's just too early to tell if there will be any side effects from this approach. But clearly this campaign is pioneering a new genre of advertising that merits our closest attention and engagement.

Are you listening?

5 verticals making mobile work

2006-11-27T18:33:00.000+01:00

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/12305.asp

Introduction

To market to consumers on their mobile phones effectively, you need to figure out how to convey your brand as a useful service. Brands that share common themes with cell phones -- mobility, convenience, instant gratification, timeliness, social connection -- have been quick to crack this code.

Let's take a look at a few verticals that are making it work.

Consumer packaged goods

Consumer packaged goods (CPGs) companies have long known that product packaging can be a powerful vehicle for a brand impression and consumer engagement. Mobile turns the package impression into an interactive exchange between the consumer and the brand. CPGs are using mobile marketing to increase sales with mobile coupons and contests by promoting text-in short codes on the package. They are even using mobile to deepen customer intimacy by inviting them to text in to share their thoughts, their secrets and even their perspectives on imponderables like beauty and aging.

Strategy: Pepsi, Xbox and World Cup
Beverage companies have been one of the first to use mobile with "on-pack promotions." On-pack promotions typically include a code that the consumer can see only after purchase and opening of the product (e.g., under a bottle cap) and invite the consumer to text a unique number to an SMS shortcode for an instant chance to win a prize. In April 2006, Pepsi launched one of the most high profile text-to-win campaigns to date around the World Cup with the "What's In Your Locker?" Xbox 360 promotion. The on-pack promotion -- promoted on hundreds of millions of Pepsi containers and backed by a major TV campaign featuring British soccer stars old and new -- gave customers the chance to win an Xbox 360 every 90 minutes of every day over a two-month period leading up to and during the World Cup.

Results
With millions of entries over the course of the contest period, Pepsi was able to highlight and heighten its sponsorship of soccer during a critical period-- the World Cup. A soccer promotion via the mobile channel enabled Pepsi to connect with its key youth demographics, get more mileage out of sponsorship properties and increase sales of its product. Consumers liked it because they got immediate gratification, something they couldn't have through other media while they were out and about. The theme of instant gratification reinforces a primary attribute of the beverage.

Support from product packaging and TV ads

Quick-serve restaurants

Possibly the perfect medium for driving traffic into fast food restaurants, the mobile phone brings, well, mobility, but also time and location targeting and high access to the youth demographic. It is no surprise that Burger King and McDonald's have pioneered a number of mobile marketing programs.

McDonald's mobile offers
McDonald's rolled out a direct response marketing campaign aimed at driving localized retail traffic during the traditionally slower late evenings with a series of weekly mobile coupons for late-night offers. Consumers could sign up for mobile coupons on the company's Late Nite Lounge website. The campaign was also supported by mobile advertising banners running across several popular mobile internet sites, where consumers are targeted by age and location and time of browsing.

Mobile coupons

Results
Click rates for the campaign -- launched exclusively in the New York metro area -- were more than double the industry average. The program received hundreds of opt-ins during the first week, and opt-in growth continued throughout the length of the program.

Mobile coupon and voucher programs can connect directly to the majority of retailers who measure marketing success in store visits and phone calls rather than internet clicks. Receiving a coupon on your phone is a time saver, and convenient compared to getting the scissors out with the Sunday paper.

Again, the medium reinforces the brand message: quick and convenient.

Entertainment

"American Idol" taught Americans how to text message. Now it seems that every reality show has a mobile voting mechanic as a means to reach beyond the screen and engage with viewers. Networks are also using mobile to drive "tune in" first by enticing viewers to interact, and then by reminding them to watch.

A&E's bountiful campaign
A&E tapped into the power of mobile to promote one of its most popular shows, "Dog the Bounty Hunter," and found that mobile programs drive short and long-term viewership, network loyalty and word-of-mouth exposure. "Dog the Bounty Hunter" is a series about the adventures of real-life bounty hunter, Duane "Dog" Chapman. Chapman is famous for bringing more than 6,000 fugitives to justice and also for his unique sayings, or "Dogisms." For example, according to Dog, "To be a winner, you have to know what losing feels like."

Viewers of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" were able sign up to receive weekly messages from Dog on their mobile phones and also send in their own shout outs or "Dogisms" by texting into a short code. Consumers benefited because they got time-targeted reminders that their show was about to begin. This is a great example of conveying your brand as a service.

Mobile messages

Results
Qualitative research conducted during the mobile campaign revealed that mobile marketing not only drove "tune in" for television programs but also increased brand perception of both the show and the network.

62 percent of participants said they are watching "Dog" more as a result of the text message campaign
65 percent said they would watch more "Dog" in the future due to the text message campaign
66 percent said they would watch A&E more in the future due to the text program
93 percent will recommend the network to their friends

Travel and hospitality

When it comes to the hotel industry, a little loyalty and a lot of convenience go a long way. Progressive hotel groups are building mobile programs that extend the power of the internet to the customer's pocket. It's easier for the mobile consumer to manage the craziness that often surrounds a travel experience. Indeed, hotels and mobile phones share the same core audience-- the mobile consumer.

Mobile possibilities
Imagine on the day of your reservation receiving a confirmation text message from your hotel providing you with the hotel's address and local phone number and a link to the hotel's mobile internet site where you might find directions, hours and an outline of the hotel's amenities. After your stay, you might even have the option to earn extra loyalty points by responding to a text message survey asking you to rate your stay.

Such a program fosters loyalty and also preempts calls into customer care centers by providing the traveler with the information he needs when he needs it. And the consumer views it as a unique value-added service from the brand.

Financial

European and Asian financial institutions are using mobile to send account balance and other alerts as a value-added service.

A leading retail bank recently charged a friend of mine $40 for two overdrawn checks (she didn't know that her husband had written a large check for a vacation rental). She was livid that her bank would stick it to her for this first time transgression after 10 years of loyal business. She asked me for banks that offer text alerts, and is seriously considering switching brands. Rather than charge consumers for such a service, savvy marketers are realizing that this is a perfect opportunity to convey their brand as a service and make their customers' lives better.

Banking on-the-go

Alert services typically are configured and managed on a website and, like packaged goods, often include room for the brand to upsell services like auto loans

Conclusion

More than traditional media, in mobile marketing what's good for the consumer is good for the brand. Consumers are ready for your brand to get with it and offer value rather than the same old brand bludgeoning job. Effective marketing on the personal device, and more generally to today's fickle consumer, requires nothing less.

Viral? You decide...

2006-11-27T18:22:00.000+01:00

http://pics.livejournal.com/tongodeon/pic/0004xhys/

Web 2.0 Summit a tech schmoozefest

2006-11-27T18:21:00.000+01:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/09/BUGAEM8OA61.DTL

Thursday, November 9, 2006

All things Internet were the topic at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, where technology luminaries including Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen spoke Wednesday.

And while big names draw crowds, for most attendees this annual meeting of digital media entrepreneurs is an opportunity to keep up to date with the latest in the technology industry, schmooze and strike business deals.

What's hot is easy to find out. Just listen in on a few conversations and you're bound to hear ample discussion of Google and its pending acquisition of video-sharing Web site YouTube. MySpace, the popular social networking site, was also a big talker. Startups at the conference are focusing on a wide range of business models, including search, online video and social networking

Bezos' talk focused not on book-selling, Amazon's primary business, but the more technical and less known side of the company: offering its data and services to software developers.

Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe Systems, the San Jose softwaremaker, talked about the encroaching ambitions of Microsoft in various fields of software, a development that he called flattering. He then thanked Google for releasing products that compete with Microsoft's software business, such as calendars and a word processor, because, he said, Microsoft is distracted by it.

"I'm thrilled that Google is there, because they are the heat shield," Chizen said.

Many of the same characters who populated the original dot-com boom are also in evidence at Web 2.0, some in prominent roles.

John Battelle, the program chair, engaged in some playful give-and-take with Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker before her presentation, recalling how he and Meeker had run "Internet Summit" conferences from 1998 to 2001, when Battelle ran the Industry Standard magazine and Meeker was "queen of the Net."

Tony Perkins, who wrote a book, "The Internet Bubble," in 1999, moderated a panel. Andreessen, the wunderkind behind the Netscape browser, flogged his new startup, Ning. Kim Polese, who adorned business magazine covers in what's now called Web 1.0, promoted her new company, SpikeSource, which packages a Web 2.0 software suite for businesses.

Author Kevin Kelly, a former Wired magazine editor, assessed the crowd. "It's young but not that young," he said. "All of these people have been through this once or twice. These are people who have been through Web 1.0 and succeeded, failed or something in between. They're lifers."

For that crowd, Kelly said, the dot-com crash was better than a master's degree in business. And now they're back. "Web 2.0 is the next season," he said. "They're entrepreneurial to the bone."

For all the "Bubble 2.0" cracks, however, Scott Meyer, CEO of About.com (a division of the New York Times Co.), said, "It's not Bubble 2.0 because you don't have companies going public on no revenue. It is all the same people, 10 years older and hopefully a little smarter."

He said that in Web 1.0, people bragged about how much money they raised and how many people they hired. "In Web 2.0, it's how little money you raise, how few employees you have and how virtual you can be," he said.

Mena Trott, president and co-founder of the San Francisco blogging software company Six Apart and a Web 2.0 stalwart, said she noticed a shift in the attendees this year.

"There are more suits here," she said.

The Web 2.0 Summit, organized by O'Reilly Media of Sebastopol and CMP Technology, ends today after a three-day run at the Sheraton Palace Hotel. The list of speakers also included Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, and Barry Diller, chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp. The conference ends with a rare public interview with David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo.

How to Build a Super-Sticky Homepage

2006-11-27T18:20:00.000+01:00

From http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/12444.asp

Published: November 15, 2006

By Joseph Carrabis

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Introduction

There are many sayings about the power and longevity of first impressions. The one I like best is "you never get a second chance to make a good first impression." The trouble with first impressions is that they work at a non-conscious level. Someone's off-putting and we can't describe why; it's just a feeling we get. We say, "I got a bad vibe from them" or "they gave off the wrong message." And it doesn't matter if that bad first impression is valid-- all that matters is that that bad first impression colors everything that comes after.

Human first impressions have an analog on the web. The first impression a website or marketing material creates leaves a lasting impression that influences all future transactions. Visitors might shop a site but not convert on it and not know why. If they do convert, they might spend $20 here, but $200 somewhere else.

We're going to learn what first impressions some homepages may be creating and how to fix them as necessary in this article via a simple, two-step process:

1. Analyze the homepage to determine what demographic it reaches most easily, and what first impression it gives that demographic.

2. Suggest simple corrections to increase each site's effectiveness within that demographic based on the results.

Three sites were chosen in each vertical section by iMediaConnection and NextStage. The homepages were downloaded with IE 6.0, Firefox 1.07, Netscape 7.2, Opera 8.51, SeaMonkey 1.05 and Flock 0.76 on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006. Analyses were performed by NextStage's TargetTrack tool and research staff. Nothing below the fold was considered; first impressions are just that-- once the visitor begins to interact with the site the first impression is finished. Each section concludes with a table overview of the gender and personality types that vertical's sites will appeal to most strongly.

Let's begin!

GenY etailers

KarmaLoop

KarmaLoop's homepage is interesting for several reasons. The way the eye scans the page makes the sunglassed figure the first recognizable aspect of the page. Unfortunately, someone staring at you wearing sunglasses doesn't generate warm fuzzies. The page content, however, is strongly male-oriented. It is the type of male who would be drawn to this page that intrigues me. The separation of the characters in the image, the male behind the female, the expression on their faces-- do lots of males you know like being challenged with a lack of intimacy? The color choice is a power motif, but with the female in control (she's relaxed in the car).

Suggestions:

1. Unclutter the page.

2. Remove the recruitment boxes (bottom left) until after the visitor's been qualified as a likely candidate.

PacSun

PacSun's homepage gets two things correct right out of the gate: a group of equals having fun together (this demographic is strongly into social networks) and the use of brand names in that image, hinting that the brands are the cause of the fun. The site is also visually clean (a big negative for KarmaLoop's site) and demonstrates that PacSun understands how to 360 their audience-- there's a link to "Pac Radio" so you can listen while you shop. The more sensory activity you can engage your audience in, the greater chance you have of capturing them for present and future business.

Both PacSun and KarmaLoop are "Hacker Safe." KarmaLoop puts it up top and at the end of the visual scan, which voices that it's a big concern to either KarmaLoop's customers or management. PacSun has it on the bottom right, an excellent spot because it's out of the visual scan and, when it is seen, is placed to instill comfort and security rather than alarm. PacSun is also male-oriented, but they demonstrate a very different male (check out the image).

Suggestions:

1. Add an RSS feed (something KarmaLoop does) in addition to email.

2. Both sites could benefit by text-messaging when friends are shopping the site, making it a gathering place.

XThreadz

Yes, well...not really sure where to go with this one. Unless someone was getting a link directly into their store, this page would be a game ender. First, visitors have to know what they want (not good for a demographic that takes its cues from a highly mobile peer group) and believe that they'll find it by following the link (not likely as the page is almost antiseptic in appearance). All computers and browsers indicated there was a popup being blocked and that cookies were being dropped. The page also asked visitors to download Flash 5.0. Anytime you take visitors away from the shopping experience, you lose them.

Suggestions:

1. Assuming the goal is to get people shopping, put some products right up front so that visitors can a) shop and b) get an idea they've come to the correct place. There is a link to the store on this page (several, if you look at the source code) and an image of products would be a more obvious link to get people shopping.

GenY Etailers Summary Table

Site	Gender Orientation	Personality Orientation
KarmaLoop	Male	Rebellious, loner types; what my generation thought of as James Dean wannabes, or your basic "Rebel without a clue" types
PacSun	Male	Socially oriented; forms opinions then confirms them with others; tends to think of things in black or white absolutes
XThreadz	Male	Focuses on problems without offering solutions; moves toward goals without ever attaining them

Financial services

Fidelity

All three financials we investigated shared a male orientation, although not a strong one. Both Fidelity and Merrill Lynch's sites have elements fostering a belief that the future will be better than today-- a good message to send if you're an investment house. Fidelity's homepage is not browser aware, which is a negative, and is left-biased regardless of browser. It has a very clean layout, but the print was small in all browsers. The title bar has a "Log In" option next to the logo and "Contact Us" at the far right. Switching the position of these two elements might increase visitor confidence in Fidelity's ability to answer questions quickly and accurately.

Suggestions:

1. Move the page to the center of the screen.

2. Use a larger font. If you're going to use green, use "money" green consistently.

Merrill Lynch

Merrill Lynch's homepage shares some of the same placement flaws as Fidelity's, but ML's homepage is also browser aware. That's a plus as it demonstrates a willingness to work on the user's terms-- a good thing if you want someone to trust your investment advice. The color choices simultaneously show warmth and cooling, and are framed so that the individual components are cool while there's heat around them-- nicely done. The image at the top indicates people are more important than dollars, which is a clue that ML's demographic is slightly different from Fidelity's.

Suggestions:

It's tough to make suggestions on what should be working well without knowing more about their traffic patterns, but here are some topline tips:

1. Because ML's demographic appears -- based on this analysis -- different from Fidelity's, leave the page left-biased.

2. There's room for more "highlights" in the bottom middle of the page, but their demographic has a greater "risk-taker" nature than does Fidelity, so it's also good to leave the visitor wanting more. Making them click demonstrates curiosity, if not commitment on their part, and that's a good thing.

Schwab

Schwab's demographic took us by surprise as it sends a message that it's better to be pessimistic than optimistic. It will attract people who are uncomfortable taking risk (maybe to convince them there's no risk involved with Schwab), but then nothing is done to convince them that investing with Schwab isn't risky. It's attractive to people who like to micro-manage, but doesn't provide them with obvious tools to do so. Also, Schwab's color choice went beyond bland and into the realm of uncomfortable. Last item-- the only human face on the site is in the lower right and is small compared to other action items on the page, indicating a lack of the human touch, interest or response. All of these things are echoed in the personality types who'll be most attracted to the Schwab site.

Suggestions: I finally get to sound like a consultant-- "it depends..."

1. If Schwab's goal is to separate itself from the pack, good job-- change nothing.

2. If Schwab wants to attract more of Fidelity's and ML's audience, add some human faces to the homepage and use warmer colors. A help item with a human face right up front would be a plus.

Financials Summary Table

Site	Gender Orientation	Personality Orientation
Fidelity	Male	Looking toward a good, rewarding future; makes plans and has confidence they'll bear fruit; forms an opinion then discusses it with others to make a decision
Merrill Lynch	Male	Looking toward a good; rewarding future; very hands-on, are risk-takers; are convinced by a positive performance
Schwab	Male	Not risk-takers although believe risk is inevitable; tend to micro-manage, do not like to plan; believe there's trouble ahead

Travel

Travelocity

The Travelocity homepage makes good use of colors, as the colors chosen show clear separation of tasks. The layout tends to favor people with a negative attitude, and that might be a good thing (i.e., attracts those not happy with their current situation), although a wider audience would be drawn by a centered page. This is also a male-oriented page. Contrast the image on this page with KarmaLoop: same position, radically different message.

Suggestions:

1. This page attracts people who "believe what they see," so using more images or larger images under the main image would be a plus.

2. This page will most likely attract people with poor planning ability who are unhappy where they are, so a "Get-Away Planner" would be a big plus.

3. The bottom left says, "We look out for you...even before you go." That's a powerful message to this audience, so make it more prominent.

Orbitz

Like XThreadz, all browsers blocked an Orbitz's popup-- not a good thing. Like Travelocity, Orbitz makes good use of colors to visually separate tasks, although the right-hand color combination will drive eyes to the left-hand block (perhaps intentional as the left-hand block is an obvious product path and is much cleaner on the screen). This page will attract a different demographic from Travelocity and Lonely Planet-- one that is much more social network savvy (and perhaps younger: college through late 20s). If this is the goal, use an image or two of a group engaged in an enjoyable, travel related activity (similar to PacSun).

Suggestions:

1. If the goal is to increase right-hand screen activities, either move the page to the center of the screen or use a different color scheme (a soft red comes to mind).

2. Should less screen space be given to the existing left-hand elements, place images of groups at destinations in the center and use these as jumps to quick and easy product paths.

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet gets big kudos for homepage design. This site will attract visitors with a strong goal orientation (the destinations map) and are socially oriented with a "black or white" attitude to their travels (the top image). Color use is good and draws the eyes down the page so that all screen elements are recognized before navigation begins-- also excellent. There are strong social elements on the page (e.g., video competition, Thorn Tree, articles and photo features). These should be emphasized, possibly by placing links along the unused portion of the left hand menu and below the "About Us" item.

Suggestions:

1. The screen is a little cluttered. The layout will attract people who like a clear delineation between "heres" and "theres," so using more whitespace between action groups would make visitors more active on the site.

Travel Summary Table

Site	Gender Orientation	Personality Orientation
Travelocity	Male	Believe what they see; focus on immediate tasks; are not good planners
Orbitz	Male	Strong social orientation; listen to others' opinions before making decisions; worry about the future; pay more attention to what goes wrong than what goes right
Lonely Planet	Male	Highly goal-focused, have positive outlooks; will respond best to plans with clear beginnings and ends, have a social orientation; tend to have a "black or white" orientation

Automotive

KBB.com

Like Lonely Planet, KBB.com makes excellent use of color to draw the eye down the page, with the two top block colors pushing the eye toward the right action block. The "80 Years of Trust" image plays well to the "believes what they see" aspect of the audience, and the page layout as a whole (tool and information orientation) is a draw to the "time and process" orientation of the audience. A real plus is that 90 percent of the page is above the fold-- something lacking in several other homepages we analyzed. Demographics who "believe what they see" don't often go looking (i.e., scroll below the fold) for information; what they can't immediately see simply doesn't exist to them.

Suggestions:

1. The "black or white" orientation would be better served by a cleaner layout, as mentioned in Lonely Planet.

2. Featuring a "Troubles" or "Problems" or "Things to Watch Out For" section would be a big draw to this audience.

Cars.com

Cars.com draws much the same audience as Orbitz, so the same rules apply.

Suggestions:

1. Color use could be better because the mid-screen action items have a push color rather than a pull color, and this audience doesn't like to be pushed.

2. There's no obvious social component to the page; including one would be a plus.

3. Like KBB.com, a "Troubles," "Problems" or "Things to Watch Out For" section would be a plus with this audience.

Toyota

Toyota gets big kudos for design, as well. The central placement of the page causes the visitor to be centered in the action, which is a vehicle in motion. The fact that the vehicle is directionally moving up to the right -- a positive direction in western culture -- is also a big plus. The page is visually clean-- another big plus for this audience.

Suggestions:

1. This audience has little to no time-management skills, so placing reasonable time-to-completion values next to each shopping tool (bottom left) would help this audience make more use of those elements.

Automotive Summary Table

Site	Gender Orientation	Personality Orientation
kbb.com	Neutral	Believe what they see; have a "black or white" orientation; form opinions but confirm them with others; are time and process focused when making decisions, tend to have a negative outlook on things
cars.com	Male	Strong social orientation; listen to others' opinions before making decisions, worry about the future, pay more attention to what goes wrong than what goes right
Toyota	Male	Prefers to experience things firsthand, will listen to others only to confirm their own thoughts; have a positive outlook on life; are highly reward oriented, tend to focus on what's immediately around them; little to no time management skills

Mobile providers

Sprint-Nextel

Sprint-Nextel is an oddity in that it doesn't demonstrate any aspect of a recognized driver for cellular communications-- community and social networking factors. The page is visually clean and the banner color drives the eye into the center of the page, but once there, there's no obvious action item, no clearly recognizable product path or action path to drive the visitor deeper into the site.

Suggestions:

1. A quick fix would be to change the banner's "The Power to Talk More Every Day" to "The Power to Talk More to More of Your Friends Every Day," driving the social aspects home.

2. A change in banner color to something warmer would also help, as would some images of people talking to each other (even if it's two guys communicating at a construction site) or some of the other social tools mentioned previously.

US Cellular

US Cellular's homepage is also an oddity, but for completely different reasons. The site is male-oriented by design yet the central graphic shows a very powerful female-oriented image demonstrating a strong social network in action. Nicely done! There are several social network factors on the page -- a big plus -- as well as a smiling Joan Cusack inviting visitors to check out online-only offers. The color scheme is good and uses soft colors all around. (Cars.com could take a lesson here.)

Suggestions:

1. This site does a lot well, so making suggestions is like adding two percent where 90 percent already exists. The only real suggestion is based on the personality types that would be drawn to the site; the central top image would benefit by a "success story" link because this audience makes decisions on what works, not what doesn't. In other words, it's not about your network having more reach than your competitors', it about what your subscribers could do because your network had more reach than your competitors'.

WALD

Working Assets Long Distance (WALD)'s homepage is incredibly clean-- a big plus for a socially aware and social cause active market that like clean delineations between what's good and what's not. The statement, "We've got you covered," is an excellent double-entendre to this provider's audience, even if it's not an intentional one. The bottom of the screen shows causes. This is excellent placement for what -- to many people -- tend to be emotional issues. The "Working Assets members are connecting to a better world" is a true driver for this audience. Excellent color choice and a central layout are big pluses to an audience that is motivated by what could be rather than what is. Three basic main menu items is all this audience would need and would probably accept. More options would be considered "muddying the wa-ters." All in all, nicely done.

Suggestions:

1. This is another example of adding two percent where 90 percent already exists. The only real suggestion would be to add success stories authored by subscribers and linked to each of the mentioned causes. This would let the visitor know that WALD does what it says-- a big plus for people who "believe in firsthand experience."

Mobile Providers Summary Table

Site	Gender Orientation	Personality Orientation
Sprint-Nextel	Neutral	Believe what they see; have a "black or white" orientation; form opinions but confirm them with others; are time and process focused when making decisions; tend to have a negative outlook on things
US Cellular	Male	Have an extremely positive outlook on life; have no concept of time or what's involved in getting something done; make decisions based on what works; not what doesn't work
WALD	Male	Believe in firsthand experience, not risk-takers; tend to have a negative outlook on things; are willing to recognize and deal with problems; are socially active; are willing to focus on what might be rather than what is

Conclusion

As mentioned in the introduction, analyses was performed by NextStage's TargetTrack tool and research staff. The power and accuracy of NextStage's TargetTrack tool is a matter of record; it has predicted top business performers and election outcomes with equal ease.

There are many things that go into a First Impression Analysis. We consider what's above the fold. We also consider how much is below the fold and whether or not what's above the fold is a driver to make the visitor scroll. The fact that some pages only behave well in specific browsers is considered because this creates an impression that people using other browsers aren't in the company's market, and that flash or "oomph" are more important than conversions in those demographics.

The take-away from this exercise is that websites, like people, can make a good or not so good first impression, and that first impressions affect everything else that happens on a site. The bad news is that most site owners are unaware of First Impressionitis and how simply it can be solved. NextStage has dealt with colleges, management groups and even marketing firms with websites that drove people away without anyone knowing why, the only evidence being dwindling numbers in their analytics.

What needs to be remembered is that first impressions are made when visitors open websites just as surely as they are when meeting someone for the first time. The analysis itself is based research and concepts discussed in my iMedia columns, in NextStage's whitepapers, in presentations and lectures and in "Reading Virtual Minds".

YouTube goes 'moblogging'

2006-11-27T15:39:00.000+01:00

The future Google unit has big plans to help consumers create and share video with their cell phones. But so do a lot of competitors.

By Michal Lev-Ram, Business 2.0 Magazine writer-reporter

November 3 2006: 2:00 PM EST

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- The mobile phone industry got some leftover Halloween treats this week. Red-hot startup MobiTV landed another $30 million in funding, bringing its total cash horde to more than $100 million. And YouTube said it would add its popular video-sharing features to mobile phones.

That's two big announcements from two key players. But which company is likely to have more success? YouTube, for reasons that have little to do with the company's $1.65 billion sale to Internet goliath Google (Charts).

Here's the reason: Consumers want to share content more than they want to watch TV shows on their cell phones. At least that's what they told In-Stat, a technology research firm, this summer. Sending a clip of Junior's soccer match to Grandma, it seems, is much cooler than watching the latest 'mobisode' of "Desperate Housewives" on a two-inch screen.

At the tone, leave a video-mail

"It was striking to see how strongly people feel about using video to communicate," says David Chamberlain, the In-Stat principal analyst who conducted the consumer study.

On Wednesday, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley told attendees at an advertising conference that the video-sharing site will allow users to send clips to other YouTube members within a year, according to a Reuters report. YouTube users already can upload clips from their phones to the company's site and then watch from their personal computers.

Hurley told the advertising execs that video-sharing via mobile phones is an obvious next step for the company. "[I]t's going to be a huge market," he said.

'Moblogging' - the industry term for the nascent mobile user-generated market - is expected to reap $13 billion a year in advertising and subscription revenues come 2011, according to Informa Telecoms & Media, a research firm.

A rough start, but the timing could be right

YouTube's push into the mobile market is both good and bad news for entrepreneurs like Alex Kelly, the CEO of San Francisco startup Veeker.

On the one hand, it validated Kelly's vision. So far mobile operators have had a hard time offering inexpensive, easy-to-use and fast services that consumers can use to share images and videos captured with their cameraphones. Only about 50 percent of U.S. mobile phone subscribers with built-in cameras actually snap photos. Even worse, a meager 3 percent shoot videos.

"There have been barriers," concedes Kelly.

Not surprisingly, Kelly thinks that technology has overcome the obstacles. In late October, Veeker rolled out a free service that lets users publish short video clips, which the company calls "Veeks," taken with their cell phones. Registered users can then send their output, via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), to Veeker.com and other sites that accept HTML embed codes, including MySpace and Blogger.

Veeker members have used the service to leave "video voicemails" for friends and to create personal video diaries.

"Mobile video is very immediate, and that's what people are looking for," says Kelly, who's betting the advertising revenues, both on Veeker's website and embedded in videos, will sustain it. "I think [demand] is going to grow a lot faster than people predicted."

YouTube: the kiss of death?

Veeker isn't the only company hoping to work some moblogging magic. Tiny Pictures, based in San Francisco with $2.8 million in funding, just launched Radar, a service that lets users publish photos on its website or to a closed network of friends. Meanwhile, registered users on JuiceCaster can use their cell phones to post to weblogs and social networking sites.

Juice Wireless, the two year-old New York shop that operates the JuiceCaster network, is teaming with College Tonight, a social network that will use cameraphones and video to help college students stay plugged in to their local social scene (brace yourselves, parents, for public videos of fraternity toga parties).

YouTube's move into mobile video could be a boon for startups like Veeker. Rivals could start scouting for their own mobile video service - and that's always good news for smaller players looking to be acquired.

But it could also mean bust for these upstarts. Where YouTube goes, cutthroat competition follows. Jill Aldort, a senior analyst with Yankee Group, says Veeker at al. will have to move fast to avoid getting crushed.

"YouTube has the critical mass, and it's hard to create a social network from scratch," explains Aldort. "If the little guys can get in there and launch services faster than YouTube, they'll have that going for them."

The biggest risk of all? Mobile video will never live up to expectations. That's the prediction from Ken Hyers, an ABI Research senior analyst. Hyers estimates there will be a scant 655,000 mobloggers worldwide at year-end. He expects that number to quadruple to 2.7 million by 2011. That's just a fraction of the estimated 3 billion mobile phone users around the world.

"For most people there's simply not enough going on in their lives that they're going to be uploading pictures on a regular basis," Hyers says in a statement.

Maybe those were tricks in the Halloween goody bag after all.