CEO Bloggers' Club

media trend links

• How To Make Money From CGM - Each site has a different philosophy or strategy, but the song remains the same: the user experience got them to where they are, but ad revenue will get them to where they need to be. How can these sites generate sufficient ad revenue without crossing audiences' tolerance threshold for advertising? - Ian Schafer @ ClickZ
• Fool Me Once, Destroy Your Brand - Tricks backfire over 90% of the time and can do lasting damage to a company's reputation, experts say. - Alice LaPlante @ Information Week
• Web 2.0 Lessons For Businesses - The impact of Google, MySpace and Wikipedia on corporate IT - Andy McCue @ Silicon.com
• Using the Web to Nuture Cantagious Behavior Among Customers -
  Leveraging the Web to get customers to do free product marketing and design work for you might sound like a dream come true, but you might not have the belly--or the luck--to succeed at it. Control freaks need not apply - Alice LaPlante @ InformationWeek
• Music Redefined As Nirvana of Riches - According to a popular new book called "The Long Tail," the music that really matters on iTunes is the many thousands of songs that only a few people buy. - Marc Fisher @ Washington Post
• Microsoft Still Lags Google Despite Facebook Deal - Microsoft has won an important victory in its battle for Internet eyeballs by linking up with Facebook, but even though it scored a technological coup, it is still miles behind Google in the world of online advertising and searches - Scott Reeves & Rachel Rosmarin @ Forbes.com
• Online Video Frenzy - YouTube ranks No. 1, but this puppy is in now in its own league. - Bambi Francisco @ Marketwatch
• IPTV To Surge By 2010 - an eMarketer report, "IPTV: The Global Picture," warns of "the potentially disruptive long-term effects that the convergence of TV and the Internet will bring to both platforms and their end users." - Shankar Gupta @ MediaPost
• Web 2.0 Breeds 'Got-To-Market' Mavericks - They avoid advertising, public relations or working directly with IT departments. So how do these firms expect to sell their hosted software tools and increase market share? We ask three Canadian startups to discuss their strategy - Shane Schick @ IT Business Canada
• How MySpace Is Antisocial - The website has 102 million users -- but not much willingness to work with outside companies. - Wade Roush @ MIT Technology Review
• Blogging For Dollars - It's not just a hobby -- some small sites are making big money. Here's how to turn your passion into an online empire. -Business 2.0
• How Many Billions Is YouTube Really Worth? - The 'broadcast yourself' website is riding a wave. - Edward Helmore @ Guardian Unlimited

media trend links

• MySpace Is Fastest Growing Web Brand - Among today’s top 10 Web brands, MySpace is leading the charts, increasing 183 percent, from 16.2 million unique visitors in July 2005 to 46.0 million in July 2006. Google ranked No. 2, growing 23 percent, from a unique audience of 76.2 million to 94.0 million. - SDA Asia
• What TV Shows Would You Watch On Your Computer? - The worlds of TV and the Internet are colliding oncemore, but unlike in the late '90s, now they have achance for a peanut butter/chocolate sweet match - Mark Glasser @ MediaShift
• Finding Sense in Social Networking Deals - Commentators don't have a sense of where the next big deal will be found. YouTube, a wildly popular video-sharing site, is moving toward an ad-supported model; it gets mentioned often as an opportunity for the right player to make a big partnership. Regardless, said JupiterResearch's Gartenberg, "Look for more scramble in terms of deals." - Jessica Mintz @ BusinessWeek
• Will Fox Change MySpace? - The question facing the MySpace founders now: Is it possible to sell out without selling out? - Patricia Sellers @ CNN Money
• MySpace Backer: Sale a "Mistake" - Brad Greenspan reluctantly sold his stake in MySpace to News Corp. Now he’s gone to Asia to prove he can build an empire. - RedHerring
• Let Companies Buy & Sell News - Tribune: Ownership Rules Must Change in 'Age of YouTube' - Editorial in LA Times
• 7 Ways To Integrate TV & the Internet - Here are the best ways to combine TV and the web to boost consumer engagement. - Mike Wokosin @ imediaconnection
• TechCrunch UK Launches - TechCrunch UK is all about UK based and/or focused startups. - TechCrunch
• Online Consultants Turn Lieberman Down - So far, two Democratic online marketing consultants have turned down the campaign because they don't want to cross party lines - MediaPost
• Social Networking - Social Networking doesn't have to just mean building up your list of MySpace "friends." - Sean Carroll @ ABC News
• Sony Gets Serious With Web Video - "We want to be where the audiences are," said Sony Pictures' chief executive Michael Lynton in a statement. The acquisition, he said, showed Sony's breadth of involvement in the field of digital online entertainment. - Parmy Olson @ Forbes
• YouTube Impacting Political Landscape - said Robert Gardiner, advertising expert and republican media consultant: "With You Tube I mean bang it's out there you send it to your friends they send it to their friends the press picks it up." - ABC 7 TV.com/San Fran

media trend links

today's topline media2 trends: There's some dissapointment with Snakes On A Plane having only driven $15.2 million in its opening weekend? No way. I saw the movie and even though it's not a blockbuster, it's entirely entertaining, kitchy and most importantly - memorable. It's a movie surely driven by marketing maniacs with a great sense of nomenclature and use of the Internet as a direct response media vehicle. And it has all the makings of a long-term cult hit- a movie teens and adults alike will want to rent and pop in the DVD player at every imaginable time the party is starting to die down. While the pre-movie release momentum is over, the post movie marketing momentum is yet to be seen.

Where will word-of-mouth take this three star B movie? In all likelihood, the word-of-mouth network effects from this kitchy niche horror comedy will propel it to staying on the charts for weeks to come. (File under marketing techniques: ironic context scenario coupled with inflaming target online male demographic to action via new media virality tools.)

• Yahoo Sites Gain Modest Online Traffic Share Gain - In July 2006, Yahoo! Sites posted modest market share gains for the second consecutive month to reach 28.8 percent of U.S. searches, trailing Google Sites, which registered a 43.7 percent share. - comScore
• Hype On A Plane - Richard Schickel finally sees the movie that inspired the marketing campaign of the summer — and has a pretty good time - Richard Schickel @ Time
• What Exactly Is PR? - The antics of Ab Fab’s Edina and Patsy and the sometimes dubious activities of Max Clifford have led to a certain amount of confusion about what public relations actually is. - n-e Life.com
• Snakes On A Plane: Internet Hype Success - "It was just so ridiculous it was a good movie," said Colin Cowes, 15, from Minnesota, after seeing a morning screening in New York on Friday. "I went and saw it because I saw an ad for it on the Internet. Definitely the title got me in because it just sounds so random and stupid." - eitb24.com
• 13 Rules of Social Media Optimization - The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs. - Cameron Olthuis @ Search Engine Watch
• The Blog Ahead: How CGM Is Radically Changing the Communications Balance - Hall’s inspiration to share his knowledge of blogging began as he realized the huge impact that the Internet would have on communications. While working at CompuServe as a sales person, Hall witnessed how a company with 4 million subscribers could be beat at their own game by a rival company, AOL, with class act marketing. - eMedia Wire
• The Mass Market Is Becoming a Mass of Niches - Broadband Internet connection has brought with it an age of unprecedented abundance, linking us to a cornucopia of markets offering overwhelming choice. - Peter Hadekel @ Vancouver Sun
• SecondLife Community Convention: the second annual Second Life Community Convention will occur in San Francisco, California, from August 18th-20th.
• New Media Are Redefining Marketing - Marketers have become lazy in their definition of media. They pay lip service to the idea of media fragmentation and interactivity, but then continue to fall back on dilapidated, 20th-century channels such as ITV and the Daily Mail. They have forgotten that anything can and will be a medium. The target audiences of 2006 are about to remind them. - Mark Ritson @ Brand Republic
• '06 Ad Spending Up 7.4% As Few Abandon TV - While many marketers talk the talk about cutting back on traditional advertising media, Hewlett-Packard seems to actually be doing it. - BrandWeek
• Marketing Reality Check - Americans -- notably adults with steady incomes -- still get their content the old-fashioned way. - Ad Age
• Avatar Designer Launches Real World Clothes - The Chinese IM service QQ where users can design an avatar to represent them, is to take their brand offline and sell shoes in the real world, Pacific Epoch reports - Via PSFk
• YouTube Could Change Political Campaigns - Howard Wolfson, an adviser to Hillary Clinton, says politicians now have to assume "they are on live TV all the time. You can't get away with making an offensive or dumb remark." - New York Times
• Convergence Culture - When Chevrolet invited consumers to create online commercials for its Tahoe sport utility vehicle, environmental activists made brief clips lambasting it. - LA Times
• Looking for the Next (Big) Thing - "In some respects, there is a headiness that's very reminiscent of the late 1990s about the possibilities of technology, the mania surrounding it," said Tim Hanlon, svp of ventures at Denuo. - Ad Week
• How To Build Your Brand With Video - Now is the time to provide deeper, more interactive brand-centric narratives to your target consumers-- deeper narratives than print has traditionally been capable of providing. Alan Schulman @ imediaconnection
• YouTube Opens BrandChannel - Beginning Aug 22, YouTube will roll out its first Brand Channel, where Warner Bros. Records will promote Paris Hilton's debut album, "Paris." Brand Channels are much like the channels created for all YouTube users who upload their homemade videos to the site, though the purpose of a Brand Channel is to sell a product rather than to simply promote one's ability to attract an audience for their work. - Hollywood Reporter

media trend links

today's topline media2 trends: in my monetizing 2.0 series of comments kudos goes to marketingsherpa's latest article about how to get teens to pay for virtual content. Via recent deaths of web 2.0 players Daypop and Blogdex, let's hope brands find the Web 2.0 winners and monetize their utility quickly before further industry deaths start rolling the media into a popped-bubble mentality 2.0.

Web 2.0 has been taking harsh criticism for giving us all this creative capability -for free, making no one really pay for anything. But times are fast changing. Imagine a teen today buying a happy meal at McDonald's and opening it to find they have also purchased a "Go Card" giving them the capability to enter an online virtual world full of fun. A pass, if you will, to an online world via Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. Seems like offline promotions would be the best way to drive teens online and even keep them there. Once they are there, sites will have to provide a safe, parent-approved [walled?] environment. In no time, brands'll be there to gobble up the eyeballs acquired - and paying for it. This is hopefully the forthcoming model for many current non-monetized 2.0 sites perpetually labeled "beta" and "free".

Either way, online brand managers must be educated and given clearer understanding that Web 2.0, via ajax, has given the Internet so much next generation interactive capacity, that it's almost laughable to think of anything pre 2005 as "interactive" in comparison. Via mashups of all sorts (from gaming to banking) it's clear that as video and the Internet move ever-closer together that the future of media could possibly be as measureable as CTR. Could it be possbile one day soon a person watching the TV will wonder: "Am I watching TV right now, or am I on the Internet?" It's up to 2.0 properties to continue to build and market their utility. As well as their brand utility. Once that is communicated and noticed, no doubt the brands will be there taking notice too. And monetizing the demographics, 2.0 style.

• How To Get Teens To Pay for Virtual Content - in a case study see how one company gets teens to convince their parents to let them buy online content. For some, it's so addictive that they actually are *grounded* and banned from the site for two weeks. - MarketingSherpa
• Chris Anderson Interview - Following the July release of his new book, The Long Tail, Wired Magazine’s editor Chris Anderson took the time to talk with Dealbreaker about long tails, critics and double entendres. - Dealbreaker.com
• Google Music Launches - Google Labs has launched Google Music Trends, a section of Google Trends tracking music listened to by users of Google Talk in iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player or Yahoo Music Engine. It’s an opt-in system that tracks both individually and in aggregate. The listings and search results are all accompanied by opportunities to purchase music. Google Trends was launched in May, along with the other projects like the Google Notebook and Google Co-op. - TechCrunch
• Why Snakes On A Plane Will Be A Hit - The 26-year-old is the marketing genius behind "Snakes on a Plane." But unlike most Tinseltown pitchmen, Finkelstein doesn't have a multimillion-dollar marketing budget or spend his days poring over focus group reports. - FoxNews.com
• Yahoo Big Idea Chair Award - A CMO Council panel of judges, drawn from leading marketing organizations, media and online channels, will judge submissions on the basis of campaign innovation, market intrusion, customer interaction, brand distinction, media channel selection, and functional integration. (What about brand intrusion?) - CMO Council
• Media Giants Beware of Web 2.0 Bubble - the rush to become a hipster online could lead mainstream media players to repeat the mistakes made at the height of the last dot.com mania and overpay for Web 2.0 startups - Paul Monica @ CNN Money
• Customer Satisfaction With Portals Down - Where are customers going to go if the portals don't offer them utility? Something Web 2.0 instead? - AdAge
• Consumer Generated Content Disrupting Online Businesses - says a report by JupiterResearch...content created through the voice of the consumer is reinventing advertising. Power is shifting "away from Madison Avenue," says Neil Sequeira of venture capital firm General Catalysts Partners. - Laurie Sullivan @ TechWeb
• Marketers Hope to Generate Buzz By Seeking Out Marketers - Companies are increasingly partnering with hobby bloggers to harness the burgeoning influence of online buzz. Through the digital grapevine, companies reap the marketing rewards of free publicity, higher rankings on search engines and immediate access to conversations with consumers. - Kim Hart @ The Washington Post
• Xbox Outlines 'YouTube' For Games - Microsoft is to offer a consumer version of professional tools used to develop videogames for the Xbox 360. - BBC News
• Welcome to the Youniverse - The question is whether the so-called "long tail" and niche culture, where money doesn't just come in from the big hits but from the enormous population of little known and least popular items — anything from song titles to obscure brands — is as pervasive and transforming as claimed. - Leon Getler @ The Australian Age
• Harness the Power of Collaboration - Fifteen years since the invention of the worldwide web, the growth of web logs, wikis, chatrooms, peer-to-peer websites, and multiple-player gaming environments is paving the way for new web applications for business. - Miya Knights @ ComputerWeekly.com
• The Agency's Role in a UGC World - As brands struggle to leverage user-generated content, this iMedia contributor says they should be looking to their agencies. - Mark Naples @ imedia connection

media trend links

today's media2 topline themes: ad agencies watching mock ads on YouTube and GoogleVideo to see just how creative consumers can be in making fun of their client brands? It's true. But beyond merely watching these mock ads to see how funny they are, agencies are keying into the powerful insights consumer generated media is giving back to brand managers: the ability to view the "brand irritation factor." Using the Internet and media 2.0 as one large focus group and as a lens into consumer views, agencies can now capitalize on their client brand weaknesses and hence give themselves fodder for developing campaigns more strategically.

Dell might be the perfect current example of a company brand holding many current "irritated" consumers, consumers who are seeing their laptops blow up right before their very eyes. These customers are starting to develop some very comical "mock" ads in response which are being uploaded as we speak. What's Dell to do about its current damaged image and reputation via its product recall? Certainly first fix the goods or replace them. But if there's some way to both accept the brand damage and face up to its defective products while also poking fun at itself, Dell might be able to build some online viral momentum with these cgm mock ads by integrating their themes into their creative strategy going foward. SOAP virility? In spite of massive brand damage, used correctly, studying consumer mock ads and integrating their "insight" could be a "firestorm" or a "bombshell" if you will, for generating some online traffic to Dell.com.

• Does Every Organization Need A Web 2.0 Strategy? - I read with interest this morning Gartner's new 2006 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle which they released last week. I find the Hype Cycle to be both good reading as well as a useful reality check. - Dion Hinchcliffe @ ZDNet
• Snakes On A Plane Isn't Just A Movie - When a 4-foot black snake slithered out, he tried to hit it with a handheld radio, and "it fell on my feet," says the kitchen and bathroom salesman, 62. "I grabbed him behind the head, and he coiled up around my right arm and started squeezing." - Kitty Yancye @ USA Today
• Agencies Are Watching As Ads Move Online - It is the mock ads that are capturing the attention of ad agencies, which are slowly becoming used to having their work transformed from a slick, polished television spot into a mock ad reminiscent of a spoof from “Saturday Night Live.” - Julie Bosman @ The New York Times
• The Outlook for Corporate Blogs - 2006 was the year for early adopters of corporate blogs. Based on these indicators, 2007 is shaping up to be the year that the fast followers will kickstart corporate blogging. This wave will spur greater experimentation with topics, audiences and formats, leading more companies to jump into the blogosphere. - Jim Nail @ Cymfony
• YouTube, MeWatch - rapid growth, consumer control, hyper word of mouth promotion, hungry competitors. Welcome to YouTube's world - Abram Sauer @ BusinessWeek
• Nielsen Starts Video Ad Banner Tracking - The move reflects growing interest among marketers in measuring the effectiveness of online video ads. - Mark Walsh @ MediaPost
• Microsoft Has A Starter Kit for Aspiring Game Designers - Microsoft is expected to announce the fall release of tools that will let aspiring game designers write games on a PC, test them on an Xbox 360, then sell or share them on Xbox Live - Robert Levine @ The New York Times
• The Viral Marketing Hall of Fame - MarketingSherpa's editorial staff reviewed nearly 100 detailed entries to pick the Top 12 viral marketing campaigns for our 2006 Hall of Fame. - MarketingSherpa
• Is There a Lifecycle for Brands Anymore? - If you look critically at brands you could ask: is there a lifecycle for brands anymore? In the old world, manufacturers launched brands and models projected the brand’s usefulness. But in a world where consumers are engaged potentially in everything, any negative publicity through blogs or online communities could kill brands quickly and cut short its lifecycle. Conversely, consumers could become engaged in what was thought to be a dying brand and bring it back - Prasad Sangameshwaran @ Business Standard India
• Camptastic! - With only its so-honest-its-hilarious title, 'Snakes on a Plane' invited the masses to spoof the film, design posters, and even write dialogue. It's a wicked good time, but is it a good thing? - Ty Burr @ Boston Globe
• We're In Outer-MySpace - The Los Angeles-rooted MySpace has acquired supremacy within the American youth culture. - Robyn Doolittle @ Toronto Star
• Google Adds Big Friend - While the deal has more upside than down, analysts say it still carries risks. Among them: MySpace might prove a fad, and Google, which may pay $900 million for its MySpace rights, might cannibalize some of its own advertising business. - Mike Hughlett @ Chicago Tribune
• Second Life, The Database of Aspirations - Clearly, a large number of people are in virtual worlds, and many of them are in that magic demo: males 21-35. You can place a banner in the world, and a lot of people will see it. That isn't the idea, though. If you're going to enter this world, think of ways to add actual value to it. - Gary Stein @ ClickZ
• Blog Marketing for E-Commerce Sites - How many raving press stories have you seen on corporate blogging recently? MarketingSherpa decided to take a look under the hood of one ecommerce site's blogs that have gotten enormous press attention. - MarketingSherpa
• What Engagement Really Is - If you want engagement, other media can claim it, but only the web can prove what the cost per engaged user is, whatever your metric. - David Smith @ ClickZ
• Marketing With Social Media - Part of a ClickZ track, this session was moderated by Rebecca Lieb and included Gary Stein of Ammo Marketing, Scott Meyer of About.com, Hans Peter Brondmo of Plum, a new social networking service and Brian Monahan from IPG - Lee Oden @ Online Marketing Blog
• Web 2.0: The 24-Minute Documentary - What is Web 2.0? Are we in a bubble? What are the business models that will work on the web today? What is the role of publishers in a user generated world? How important and how big is the early adopter crowd? - TechCrunch
• Fox Feeds the Online TV Frenzy - Its plans for selling TV programming via the Web could presage a boom in free online video - supported by ads, of course - BusinessWeek
• The State of the Agency
• Blocking MySpace - At a minimum, perhaps congressmen need to better educate themselves about the deceptive statistics they use to write new laws. - Editorial, Daytona Beach News Journal
• Second Life Rocks - Acts like Duran Duran and Suzanne Vega are turning to the online virtual world of Second Life to make themselves heard. - Robert Andrews @ Wired News
• Fox Feeds the Online Frenzy - Says Peter Levinsohn, head of Fox Digital Media: "You will see an announcement shortly about the possibility of making content available in an ad-supported way on our station Web sites." - BusinessWeek
• Advertisers Can Find Second Lives In Metaverses - If Second Life was on the periphery of your marketing initiatives, as blogs or social networks might have been a year ago, it's now time to take a closer look at the opportunities and risks associated with this experiential medium. - Mark Kingdon @ Organic via ClickZ

media trend links

today's media2 topline themes: the media's coverage and opinions of blogging and consumer generated content seems to be increasing and tied ever-closer to two things: 1) increased corporate website traffic and sales conversions, and 2) increased consumer engagement with brands. as the day of the flashing banner display ad on publisher sites seem pale in comparison to today's brand manager goal of engagement, social sites look increasingly appetizing-not just because their "cool" or "in" - rather because of the amount of time people are sitting with their personal computers using these online tools. and while past Internet traffic measurement tools focused on "hits" and "impressions" as more people spend time social networking while watching "Lost" or "The OC" an accepted and useful engagement statistic is bound to come to fruition as TV and Internet use cross. Let's hope. I'm spending a lot of time on blogger and I haven't seen an advertiser engage me here quite yet. It can only be the same for other many Web 2.0 user-generated tools which are virgin territory for monetization and brand engagement. if audiences are fragmenting, so too should advertising.

• Interview With David Ellis, Director of Snakes On A Plane - David Ellis, the director of Snakes on a Plane, is interviewed by a collection of bloggers about the experience of working on the film. - Google Video
• Blogging As Much A Business Trend Now As Internet Use Was - corporate blogging is predicted to be the single greatest trend to emerge in the business community since the Internet became a standard industry tool more than a decade ago. - Michael Oldfield @ Chronicle Herald Nova Scotia
• Marketing Jesus Christ - Black evangelical pastors use state-of-the-art technology, media and entertainment products to spread the gospel - Ingrid Walter @ Toronot Star
• Your Life As An Open Book - AOL’s misstep last week in briefly posting its customers’ Internet search queries has reminded many Americans that their private searches are not entirely their own. - Tom Zeller @ The New York Times
• User Content Driving Up-And-Coming Sites - Nielsen NetRatings finds that in July 2006, five of the ten fastest-growing sites on the Web are driven by user-generated content. - Geoff Duncan @ Digital Trends News
• Does Skype Own the VOIP Brand? - When people think of VoIP, they think of [the brand] Skype. - Networking Pipeline
• The eBay Brand Interview - eBay's influence and market impact are beginning to set unprecedented customer expectations in terms of convenience and selection. - Brand Sequence
• The Long Tail Foresees A Marketplace of Pixel-Size Niches - A new technology-fueled explosion of choice is upending the rules that have underpinned the entertainment industries for decades. - Lorne Manly @ New York Times
• Social Media Deals - Web 2.0 bubble or social media revolution - where VC's are betting their money- Paid Content
• Media Companies Losing Control - The digital natives are restless. British youth who have grown up with the internet aren't happy with traditional media. - Marketwatch
• First Bites of SOAP Come From Internet - It started off as just another sure-to-be-bad B-movie. So how did "Snakes on a Plane" turn into the most anticipated film of the summer? The Internet. - Rachel Leibrock @ Scripps Network
• How We Learnt To Chase our Tails - Everyone's talking about The Long Tail, so much so that it's become a blockbuster, thus defeating its central premise. - Armando Iannucci @ The Observer
• Attentioneering #9 - Michael and Umair Haque of Bubble Generation examine the state of play and strategic implications of Media 2.0 in the first of a series of podcasts. - Great Leaps Forward
• Vonage Slashes Internet Ad Dollars By 2/3rds - Vonage's slide in Internet advertising rankings could mean any combination of several media focuses - Russel Shaw @ ZD Net

media trend links

today's media2 topline themes: Monetizing Web 2.0 is well-underway with the Google/MySpace announcement and talk of NewsCorp buying YouTube. But wait! Murdoch says no to the rumors, meanwhile YouTube has quietly started accepting rich media banner ads from AOL's Advertising.com. In hand, in the same mindset that folks are chattering online about the forthcoming "Snakes On A Plane" release, some folks are searching online social media venues to learn more about the foiled London bombing plans. Snakes and now liquids on planes? What more can we expect to be fearful about when flying the "friendly" skies.

• Snakes On a Plane Flies High in Cyberspace - By harnessing the power of web-based communities, the Snakes phenomenon presents itself as a new Hollywood marketing model - Media & Guardian Online
• User-Generated Content Drives 1/2 of Top 10 Fastest Growing Web Brands - In the last year, MySpace has grown faster than Yahoo, Google, or any of the other of the Web's top brands - Nielsen/NetRatings
• Why CIOs Need to Know About Ajax and Mashups - Ajax, mash-ups, location-aware software and sensor mesh networking are among the key emerging technologies that are set to have a significant impact on businesses over the next 10 years - Gartner Research
• Weighing A Switch to Mac - Retail stores, iPods and new Intel chips are increasing the appeal of making the jump from a PC to a Mac - New York Times
• Marketers Are Barging Into the Blogging Circle - When Nokia Corp. released its camera smartphone last fall, the marketing campaign cut back on news releases and flashy ads. Instead, the company sent sample products to amateur bloggers - Kim Hart @ The Washington Post
• The Next Great Internet Land Grab - Social networking, user-generated content and online videos are taking over the Web. - Kevin Mireles @ Editor & Publisher
• Corporate Blogging: Great Liberator or Oxymoron? - In the end, we're all trying to come across as more trusted and credible -- or at least on parity with how consumers trust one another. In the process, we're raising the bar of expectations. Expectations in the age of consumer cynicism and control are hard to meet. - Pete Blackshaw @ ClickZ
• How Google Could Change MySpace - Google's new alliance with Fox Interactive Media could see MySpace evolve into a Web 2.0 e-commerce platform - eMarketer
• YouTube Partners With Ad Networks - YouTube has quietly started accepting rich media banner ads from networks including AOL's Advertising.com and behavioral targeting company Tacoda - MediaPost
• Online Video Stats Say It All - A recent report from technology research firm In-Stat indicates that the potential market for online video content worldwide will grow from 13 million households in 2005 to 131 million households in 2010 - Ben Macklin @ eMarketer
• Where To Find the World's Hottest Startups - From Aussie blog mining to Finnish friend finding, CNN has located the planet's most innovative new sites. - Erick Schonfeld @ CNN Money
• Social Media & the London Terrorist Plot - So far, I haven't been able to find anything quite so dramatic coming out of the British airplane bombing plot (in part because it was foiled before it could take place, of course) but there are bits and pieces trickling in from various corners of the blogosphere and social-media outlets. - a Globe & Mail blog post

media trend links

today's media2 cmo topline themes: with a seeming media swarm around long-tail catch terms like the "98% rule," "the download culture," and "paradigm-changing statistics" there is however skepticism by several intelligent sources about the data analyzed by Chris Anderson. Why? Well, they've all seen hype before via Web 1.0, so weariness awaits. But, either way, we have to ask ourselves what happens when a book is based on an article written two years ago and once published finds its premise data, "out-dated"? We could back-date data analysis, but the current popularity of the book's readers want to apply its lessons to present day events. Can they? Yes and no.

For a new and launching Web 2.0 company, you can easily apply the insights of Chris Anderson's download statistics. For a developed Internet-based company you sort of still can, but then comes the brick and mortar world (the world Web 2.0 and Internet folks are supposed to stick with) and Chris' argument apparently weakens. Lee Gomes says Chris may be right, but advises us to wait until the "tail shakes out". Either way, "the tail" - those nerdy high school unpopular business plan kids you looked past while on way to being the prom king seem to have found a nice little voice for themselves with "The Long Tail" be it with mainstream readers. If anything, Chris Anderson's new book brings strong publicity to the potential power of niches and the effect could be the continued discovery (and search for) some amazing new breeds of creativity and business models...all brought to us exclusively by your local webtop Web 2.0 viral marketing capability.

• The Economics of Scarcity Vs. Abundance - Does the Long Tail represent what some would call a "paradigm shift"? Who will the Long Tail benefit most: consumers, producers, or intermediaries? Is it limited to things that can be digitized, thereby excluding most products for which inventory carrying and other logistics costs for unpopular items are prohibitive? - James Heskett @ Harvard Working Knowledge
• Going Long - In the new “long tail” marketplace, has the blockbuster met its match? In recent years, eBay has sharply increased its commission rates; Amazon has admitted charging its customers different prices for the same goods; and Apple Computer has stubbornly refused to make its iTunes service compatible with portable music players other than iPods. Has the New Economy really moved past the familiar “winner take all” dynamic? That depends on whether you’re looking at the long tail—or at who’s wagging it. - John Cassidy @ The New Yorker
• Long Tail, Big Load? - Anderson's theory... is that while brick-and-mortar commerce is reliant mainly on big hit items, the Web, with its infinite capacity for niche marketing, can focus on things that do much less volume but which will, over time and in aggregate, wind up selling more than the big hits. - Gawker
• It May Be A Long Time Before the Long Tail Is Wagging the Web - maybe Mr. Anderson really has unlocked the sort of new business rules the cover promises. I say we wait before ripping up any business plans. Let's see how the tail shakes out. - Lee Gomes @ The Wall Street Journal
• The Long Tail's Math Begins to Crumble - The subtitle of The Long Tail is "How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand", but his [Anderson's] numbers don't appear to justify such hyperbole. - The Register
• The Long Tail - A Review Part 1 - Anderson's book has garnered much attention in the press, at least as much for his position with Wired as for the book's subject. His position has given the book a weighty feel, and, like others in the technology press, that concerns me a little. - Brad King @ MIT Technology Review
• The Long Tail - A Review Part 2 - To my dismay, Anderson's introduction is spent trying to convince readers of two points: that niche markets have been an overlooked part of traditional sales for many years, and that he has created the first economic "framework" of the digital age. I'm dismayed largely because the first point, while true in a general sense, doesn't reflect the reality of digital commerce; and, on the second point, he disregards more than a decade of economic forecasting and study from entrepreneurs. - Brad King @ MIT Technology Review

media trend links

today's media2 cmo topline themes: The word today is easy. Why easy? Here's why: easy builds brands. I still remember back in 2000 being at an AdTech trade show and seeing this small trade show booth in the corner with a colorful logo above it titled "Google". It sounded crazy, it looked whacky and frankly no one was standing at the booth. The ironic thing was that many people were standing at the booths of Web 1.0 companies (whose brands have long since vanished). But, in the back of my mind (hmmmmm) I thought back then there was something about that little bugger called Google - and I found it intriguing. What was it? More than just simplicity, it was (not to steal from Staples) easy.

I almost laughed when I initially looked at Google's "empty" home page back in 2000. Who would have known five years later that same home page would be the main gateway to the Internet in 2006? With all of the other search engines and portals jamming as much content on page 1 as possible, making the Google homepage look inept, Google was different from day 1 by being easy. Different in the sense that it not only looked easy vs, its complex competitors, it also made approaching and understanding the Internet easy. I can only therefore parallel how so many new Web 2.0 companies, though not [yet?] clouded with ad dollars and affiliate incentives, are gaining intensive media traction (as seen below) because they offer consumers utilitarian value and reach directly into the depths of an ever-growing Internet. Counterintuitively, if easy can work for Staples and Google, then figuring out how KISS (keep it simple stupid) and dumbing it down can work for the rest of us building brands and businesses too should be step 1.

• How Has Online Technology Changed Small Business Marketing? - Online options not only provide new channels for small businesses to communicate and market their products and services, but also offer the capability to deliver customized, one-to-one messages - SmartBiz
• Leveraging Social Media - Scott the CEO of About.com says you need to know that success in social media = engagement + authenticity x target audience reach - Search Engine Roundtable
• PR 2.0: Integrating Your PR Efforts With Social Media - PR 2.0, social media, the next generation of PR—whatever you want to call it, taking advantage of the new technology tools available to your business is a cost-effective way to expand your outreach. - Chief Marketer Magazine
• Duran Duran Gets Second Life - The British quintet that once conquered the "Ordinary World" is set to take on the virtual world, announcing Monday on the band's Website that it will become the first major musical act to create its own virtual universe inside Second Life - eOnline
• Where's Web 2.0? - Unlike the dot-coms of the late 1990s, many of which counted on the proliferation of online eyeballs to overcome shaky business models, Web 2.0 companies aspire to profits, cash flow, and recurring revenue. Their embrace of new technologies and open-source software like Ajax, enabling the creation of richer Internet interfaces, has dramatically lowered operating costs. - Boston.com
• Blogs Fertile Ground to Launch New Products - Companies are partnering with bloggers to harness the influence of online buzz. - Washington Post
• Mainstream Media Meltdown - Chris Anderson's blog backs up his new book with some stunning statistics. -The Long Tail Blog
• Why Murdoch Won't Buy YouTube - I would attach a very high probability of a FIM (Fox Interactive Media) spin off. - Om Malik
• Networks Look to Internet to Boost Word of Mouth - For the first time, CBS and NBC are offering full pilots of new fall shows on iTunes and Netflix weeks before their official on-air debuts - Variety
• eBay Sellers Turn to Teen Hangout MySpace - MySpace.com wasn't set up as a business site. But it's perfect for meeting new people and promoting oneself. - Auction Bytes
• Online Social Worlds Offer New Emerging Market - A new market emerging from virtual reality into the real-world global economy is growing by leaps and bounds, according to Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup Inc., yet remains largely unknown to the financial services industry. - Insurance Networking News
• The Moral Panic Over Social Networking Sites - Critics call the Deleting Online Predators Act an election-year stunt that could do lasting damage to youth culture and education - MIT Technology Review

media trend links

today's media2 c-level topline themes: everyone's starting to pull on the long-tail and diggin it. Snakes on a plane - is it a hit because of its creative or its online marketing? Let's do a cell test, but I think the former. While XM inventories are now available on Google AdWords, media buyers can now conveniently purchase media space with their eBay accounts. Finally, the hypers of virtual gaming beg us to leave our real lives behind. (Not yet!)

• "Google Effect" Looked at by IDC - According to a newly published IDC study, a digital marketplace has emerged that both expands upon and threatens traditional markets. The study reveals that this marketplace, composed of gateways, nodes, and hubs, is growing rapidly due to a confluence of demand, technologies, customers, and changes in how people live their lives. The study finds that while this new economy threatens the business models for advertising, technology use, and distribution, it also creates significant opportunities for software, services, and hardware vendors. - IDC
• MyAds on MySpace - social networks can make money from advertising- MarketWatch Blog
• "Snakes On A Plane" Campaign Takes Takes Web 2.0 to New Marketing Heights - This new brand of Internet marketing, which is inexpensive and highly effective, has been integral in creating an astonishing buzz (hiss?) about "Snakes on a Plane." In fact, the movie producers wisely noticed the attention the film was receiving on the Net and even re-filmed parts of it, incorporating lines that fans had made up in fake previews they'd created. - Ted Samson @ InfoWorld
• The Web Brat Pack 2.0 - the "smart money" is on Digg -- called "the new New York Times" -- to become an advertising magnet a la MySpace. - BusinessWeek
• Advertisers Turn to eBay to Buy TV Time - nine top advertisers are joining forces to create and test an online marketplace for buying advertising time during "online upfront" - The Wall Street Journal
• Leave It to the Professionals? Hey - Let Consumers Make Their Own Ads - The Web has created a new breed of amateur creators of advertising, and the ad industry is starting to embrace them. - New York Times
• Advertising: When Guerrilla Goes Bourgeois -As big brands adopt the street-theater stunts once reserved for startups, it may mean the end of the surprise effect that made them work - Reena, Jana @ BusinessWeek
• Second Life & Virtual Reality As Community-Building Tool - Second Life is a massive virtual reality environment. It's not so much a game as a global conference call that takes place in fantastic imaginary settings. All sorts of activists could set up kiosks around the virtual public square. - ePluribus Media
• Service Providers Struggle to Reap 2.0 Bonanza - many Internet service providers may have thought they had hit a goldmine with the advent of Web 2.0 about a year ago, but the process of translating the hype into cold cash is taking its toll on some players.- ShanghaiDaily
• Interview With Second Life Business Magazine Editor - SL is a platform and is accessed for a variety of different reasons. I don't believe Wells Fargo, MLB, American Apparel and all the other major brands came to SL to escape. Although, I'm sure there are many people that may enjoy SL as a means to escape the complications and frustrations of their RL, or merely just to live out fantasies. But, that doesn't mean that everyone using the platform is trying to escape. - via Shel Holtz
• Netscape Reveals Paid Social Bookmarkers - Netscape has revealed the first 10 paid contributors to its recently launched social news site. - Will Head @ VNU Net

media trend links

today's media2 c-level topline themes: AOL's pullback, big media taking little long-tail Internet media's lead, the Internet as global publicity vehicle causing more brand damage (and reach) than ever previously anticipated. Finally, MySpace grasping the attention economy of the entire advertising industry (alongside YouTube), but MySpace also taking a full-frontal PR assault from the federal government for teen safety and endangerment issues. Sounds like online media buyers (paid media) and crisis communicators (earned media) need to work together on MySpace - in order for its clouds to clear.

• MTV+AOL+CNN = YouTube - With the current trend of online users flocking to user generated media sites like YouTube and MySpace --- and blogs --- professional media organizations are finding themselves having to fully embrace these concept - Fast Company Blog
• Strategy Shift for AOL: Free - AOL said Wednesday it would give away e-mail accounts and software previously available only to customers who paid as much as $26 a month. AOL now hopes to chase additional online advertising dollars instead. - Associated Press
• Awakening to the Powerful Potential of Blogs - Mel Gibson's downfall is the latest example of the Internet's power to, as they used to say in my neighborhood, "call out" celebrities. - Philadelphia Inquirer
• Spoke - taking on Hoovers as a small business resource, Spoke is now giving away contact information on 30 million individuals at more than 650,000 companies. - Search CRM
• How the Web Was Won - Less clear is how advertising dollars will migrate from TV and other mass media into the Web's micro-formats. The future of advertising was fuzzy in 1998 and remains so today. Its evolution has packed many surprises, the biggest being the birth of search-engine ad auctions , which displaced banner ads to claim the lion's share of Internet ad dollars. - Leslie Walker, The Washington Post
• MySpace Kills Off Magazine - The local [Australian] version of the US style bible Nylon has fallen victim to the recent - and unexpected - availability of the entire issue of US Nylon on the internet, on both the booming community site Myspace and the US Nylon website, before the same content was published in Australia. - The Australian

media trend links

the media2 c-level topline: Brands using widgets is the theme of the day. Via the launches of both Sutori and CREAMAid it's clear brand managers see widgets as Web 2.0 "killer apps" to build and maintain customer relationships. Tools, tools, tools - it's about empowering online users, being useful to them and thus bringing them home to the website, repeatedly.

• Sutori is Here - At the moment, you can click a brand name in the tags and see all the most recent posts on a company, but there’s not an aggregated view yet - it also lacks a search box. But it’s early days and I’m 100% positive that these features are on the to-do list. - Mashable
• YouTube Vs. MySpace - The video sharing site has taken a 3.9% share of global internet visits a day compared with 3.35% for MySpace, according to internet analysis company Alexa. - GigaOm
• Ad Placement Gets Extreme - Look for publicity messages on everything from eggs to air-sickness bags as companies compete for offbeat niches to create that extra bit of buzz - BusinessWeek
• Small Is the New Big - In a long-tail theme Seth Godin argues in his new book release that all businesses (and all of us) have to start to act like small and agile businesses in order to succeed. - PSFK
• Is Your Company Leaking Customers? - Unless you are tracking your customers through the sales process, you may lose them. - Promotion World
• Video Killed the AOL Star - Consumers aren't warming up to tollbooths and ad breaks with YouTube around. Even if one were to snap up YouTube and euthanize the model by monetizing it in cumbersome ways, there are dozens of YouTube wannabes ready to take its place. - Rick Munarriz, Motley Fool
• The Value of Blog Advertising - Blogs provide advertisers an excellent opportunity to reach a devoted audience niche. - BL Ochman
• Is Virtual Life Better Than Reality? - Living online — with dream house, job, friends — may be preferable for some - CBS News
• Facebook, MySpace and Other Social Networking Sites, Dangerous or Opportunities? - Unlike most sites where even regular visitors spend at most minutes a week and look at a handful of pages, visitors to social networking sites often invest hours a day at the sites, view hundreds of pages, and disclose a tremendous amount of information about themselves and their friends. - Onrec.com
• Online Video to Surge Tenfold by 2010 - this according to a new report released Wednesday by market research company In-Stat. - MediaPost
• CREAMAid is Here - CREAMAid which stands for “Customer Relationship Extension And Management” allows companies to “manage” the conversations about their brands. - Mashable
• What Constitutes A Click? - Google searches for a standard definition of "click" - BusinessWeek

media trend links

• Should Marketers Make Friends on MySpace? - The volume of advertising in MySpace and other social networks is expected to balloon in the next few years, and much of it could blur the lines between socializing, entertainment and marketing. - CNET
• Google Brand Value Leaps Over Old Media - Google is the biggest mover on the 2006 list of the Top 100 Global Brands, ranked by consulting firm Interbrand. At No. 24, Google comes in higher than Sony, Reuters and MTV. The report reflects how the 8-year-old Internet giant is now using its dominance to shake up old-school media. - BusinessWeek
• AOL Video to Offer User-Generated Content - Launching on YouTube's heals, AOL announces AOL Video - Washington Post
• The Rise of the Designer Capitalist - NY Magazine carries a very important look at the activity and motivations of counter-culture capitalists in the US called 'The Brand Underground'. - PSFK
• Second Life: The Virtual World Beckons - it's not pre-fabricated - it's made by users online. - Associated Content
• Web 2.0 Profit Angle: Extreme Self-Promotion - In “Moguls of New Media,” The Wall Street Journal traces how one early MySpace “friend” has aggressively used MySpace’s free hosting and tools to self-promote herself and her own commercial Web site properties and offline businesses - ZDNet
• "See Me" Generation - Bloggers close door on discretion while living life in the public eye - Albany Times Union