This is without a doubt the most amazing talk on the anthropology of YouTube I have seen in ages. You can read my full post on this here.
Very interesting and thoughtful presentation by Dr. Michael Wesch. It has changed some of my thinking already, and the tangent has just started.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Samsung Makes Illegal Advertising - Follow The Story You Want
Interesting use of online video from Samsung that I first saw on Illegal Advertising. In this video you can follow the story on YouTube and choose the path you want.
I think we will be seeing a lot more of this type of thing now that videos are becoming clickable and interactive.
I think we will be seeing a lot more of this type of thing now that videos are becoming clickable and interactive.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Scaling conversations infinitely still not possible
In almost every medium, in every space, across every generation it would appear that one common trend eventually surfaces.
Conversations don't scale infinitely.
Scaling conversations is achieved through two primary methodologies both of which will eventually degrade the conversation into a monologue, a free-for-all or an asynchronous experience.
In method 1 for scaling conversations, digital and analogue communication devices are utilized together with practical geographic and architectural gathering centres into forums known as meetings. These degrade for a variety of reasons including apathy, empathy, tardiness and even practical reasons such as schedules and task completeness.
In method 2 for scaling conversations each person, being, voice or messenger acts as their own epicentre, gathers bits of information over time and even during the conversation through a variety of means and then scattering, displaying, vocalizing or dispersing this through their various channels. Examples of this include webinars, instant messaging, micro-blogging, marketing and advertising. Feedback, comments, and requests to intervene are achieved in either real time or with some latency and are met with varying degrees of openness depending on the epicentral being. Network and software configuration issues also result in tons of side conversations during the conversation and can often delay or completely destroy the conversation.
As you can see, real-time conversations just don't scale. Sad.
Perhaps this is why Twitter works so well. It gracefully and immediately accepts its asynchronous nature, and its most avid users actually work with this in mind, gathering followers and friends who have their own lists of other followers and friends and randomly participating in hundreds or even thousands of conversations over an extended period of time.
Now the question is, when will Twitter scale? And if and when it does then will my hypothesis herein be proven wrong? Will I finally finish that other post I have been asynchronously writing called "When is this conversation about scaling conversations ever going to end?".
;-)
Conversations don't scale infinitely.
Scaling conversations is achieved through two primary methodologies both of which will eventually degrade the conversation into a monologue, a free-for-all or an asynchronous experience.
In method 1 for scaling conversations, digital and analogue communication devices are utilized together with practical geographic and architectural gathering centres into forums known as meetings. These degrade for a variety of reasons including apathy, empathy, tardiness and even practical reasons such as schedules and task completeness.
In method 2 for scaling conversations each person, being, voice or messenger acts as their own epicentre, gathers bits of information over time and even during the conversation through a variety of means and then scattering, displaying, vocalizing or dispersing this through their various channels. Examples of this include webinars, instant messaging, micro-blogging, marketing and advertising. Feedback, comments, and requests to intervene are achieved in either real time or with some latency and are met with varying degrees of openness depending on the epicentral being. Network and software configuration issues also result in tons of side conversations during the conversation and can often delay or completely destroy the conversation.
As you can see, real-time conversations just don't scale. Sad.
Perhaps this is why Twitter works so well. It gracefully and immediately accepts its asynchronous nature, and its most avid users actually work with this in mind, gathering followers and friends who have their own lists of other followers and friends and randomly participating in hundreds or even thousands of conversations over an extended period of time.
Now the question is, when will Twitter scale? And if and when it does then will my hypothesis herein be proven wrong? Will I finally finish that other post I have been asynchronously writing called "When is this conversation about scaling conversations ever going to end?".
;-)
David can't click, but you can click David
In the example below, David (Kevin Nalts, the YouTube superstar) is having trouble figuring out how to use YouTube. While he works it out you can click on the things in the video including the BudLight and Panasonic on the phone.
You can click the Edit in the upper left corner and play with the editing tools.
You can see other videos by Kevin at KevinNalts.com or you can check out more overlays at Overlay.TV.
Overlay.TV Beta 0.9 (I flog on my blog ;-)
As many of you already know, I left Yahoo! in California a couple months ago to join a Canadian startup called Overlay.TV. Well, I am happy to say today that we have completed a major milestone on our road to launching - Overlay.TV 0.9 Beta.
This is officially the last phase of our beta, and the good news is that many of the widgets, payment system and more are now fully functional in this beta version. Check it out at Overlay.TV or to stay on top of future updates, follow the Overlay.TV blog at blog.overlay.tv.
One interesting way to get a handle on how people are using Overlays is to browse through the Overlays with the Most Referrals - these Overlays have ultimately produced the most traffic for their creators.
While you are deciding whether or not to do that ;-) I have embedded a recent Overlay below that gives a basic example of how you can add text, links and products to an Overlay. Here the sock puppets have been given an interactive upgrade so you can order the socks, the toy guitar or the CD that provided the original inspiration.
This is officially the last phase of our beta, and the good news is that many of the widgets, payment system and more are now fully functional in this beta version. Check it out at Overlay.TV or to stay on top of future updates, follow the Overlay.TV blog at blog.overlay.tv.
One interesting way to get a handle on how people are using Overlays is to browse through the Overlays with the Most Referrals - these Overlays have ultimately produced the most traffic for their creators.
While you are deciding whether or not to do that ;-) I have embedded a recent Overlay below that gives a basic example of how you can add text, links and products to an Overlay. Here the sock puppets have been given an interactive upgrade so you can order the socks, the toy guitar or the CD that provided the original inspiration.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Let's work out this Social Media for Business thing....
This morning on Twitter @AmandaChapel (strumpette to some) took a line of fire on @ChrisBrogan regarding the "social media elite prove their disconnect from business" based on this article about GM layoffs.
Amanda Chapel tweeted, "Social Media Elite Demonstrate Complete Disconnect With Business http://tinyurl.com/6hqty3 @chrisbrogan, 'But GM uses Twitter?' WTF?"
Everyone including GM, Amanda and Chris are right and there is perhaps a potential for more intelligent debate to continue in order for the community to arrive at a common voice about strategy, objectives, tactics, measurement and efficacy in this emerging media or medium (you choose).
To prove the point that we in the web and software space have known this all along I took a blog post from Mercury Rising's Scott Annan over at Mercury Grove and did a find/replace on software/autos.
Read it here:
The next generation of autos will be built by companies with vision, the ability to execute, and a vibrant, engaged, and active customer community that will drive product innovation.
The idea is pretty obvious and the execution is pretty radical.
Today autos companies use a prescriptive approach to autos design - the autos defines how people should work (”A better way to do things!”) - and use forums, salespeople, and conferences to create a passive feedback loop with their users.
This leads to innovation being led by a small number of marketers and engineers who want to develop autos to make money.
The future of autos will move the company from the center of the innovation process to the periphery, replaced by the people who use the autos who will drive innovation by engaging in discussions about best practices, success stories, shared metrics, and ideas for radical improvements.
This leads to innovation being led by a large number of subject matter experts who want to use autos to achieve business objectives.
Which makes a lot more sense.
Success will be determined by the strength of the community, the quality of the ideas that come from the community, and the ability of the company to execute them - which is radically different than the current model with success being defined by winners of “feature wars”.
At Mercury Grove (ed: out here in the social media world), we believe that the foundation of community-driven autos requires three ingredients:
1. Professional, passionate people with the proven ability to execute.
2. Effective, transparent processes that actively and aggressively engage people.
3. Passionate people who want to be involved in the process of achieving more with autos
This is the future of autos.
...that's it. Nothing changes but the names... Hopefully Scott Annan won't mind what I did with his thoughts to prove the point.
Amanda Chapel tweeted, "Social Media Elite Demonstrate Complete Disconnect With Business http://tinyurl.com/6hqty3 @chrisbrogan, 'But GM uses Twitter?' WTF?"
Everyone including GM, Amanda and Chris are right and there is perhaps a potential for more intelligent debate to continue in order for the community to arrive at a common voice about strategy, objectives, tactics, measurement and efficacy in this emerging media or medium (you choose).
To prove the point that we in the web and software space have known this all along I took a blog post from Mercury Rising's Scott Annan over at Mercury Grove and did a find/replace on software/autos.
Read it here:
The next generation of autos will be built by companies with vision, the ability to execute, and a vibrant, engaged, and active customer community that will drive product innovation.
The idea is pretty obvious and the execution is pretty radical.
Today autos companies use a prescriptive approach to autos design - the autos defines how people should work (”A better way to do things!”) - and use forums, salespeople, and conferences to create a passive feedback loop with their users.
This leads to innovation being led by a small number of marketers and engineers who want to develop autos to make money.
The future of autos will move the company from the center of the innovation process to the periphery, replaced by the people who use the autos who will drive innovation by engaging in discussions about best practices, success stories, shared metrics, and ideas for radical improvements.
This leads to innovation being led by a large number of subject matter experts who want to use autos to achieve business objectives.
Which makes a lot more sense.
Success will be determined by the strength of the community, the quality of the ideas that come from the community, and the ability of the company to execute them - which is radically different than the current model with success being defined by winners of “feature wars”.
At Mercury Grove (ed: out here in the social media world), we believe that the foundation of community-driven autos requires three ingredients:
1. Professional, passionate people with the proven ability to execute.
2. Effective, transparent processes that actively and aggressively engage people.
3. Passionate people who want to be involved in the process of achieving more with autos
This is the future of autos.
...that's it. Nothing changes but the names... Hopefully Scott Annan won't mind what I did with his thoughts to prove the point.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
RSS for ROI
Very cool launch today from AideRSS - PostRank measures the myriad ways that readers link to, vote up, comment on, Twitter about, or bookmark a post. You can also integrate it with Google Reader, but rather than go on about it, I will let @melle explain it:
You can read the story on TechCrunch here or just jump right in and grab it from AideRSS
You can read the story on TechCrunch here or just jump right in and grab it from AideRSS
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
No users. No experts. Just plain old peeps.
One thing that is clear today (literally, today) is that the crowd is actively outpacing the journalists, technorati and experts with a constantly corrective, scathing, responsible approach to fixing the flaws in the FUD.
Several articles I have read today on TechCrunch, Chris Brogan's site and others had way more depth, interest and diversity of thought and input in the comments than in the actual articles.
Someone killed the "wooots" and "love it" and "idiot" commentors I guess, or moderated their one through three word binary wastefulness into the dust. And in its place grew a learning tree, a sharing place and the collective wisdom of the masses.
We are not users.
We are not experts.
We have spoken.
We are right.
Several articles I have read today on TechCrunch, Chris Brogan's site and others had way more depth, interest and diversity of thought and input in the comments than in the actual articles.
Someone killed the "wooots" and "love it" and "idiot" commentors I guess, or moderated their one through three word binary wastefulness into the dust. And in its place grew a learning tree, a sharing place and the collective wisdom of the masses.
We are not users.
We are not experts.
We have spoken.
We are right.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Twebinar - all those who fit hail the Twebinar
I learned something very valuable today. Wait. No I didn't.
I didn't really learn it as much as it kind of came to me while watching the Twebinar, that long awaited brainchild of Radian6 (who I think completely rocks) and Chris Brogan (who I think hosted it, even though it said JJ something or other under the guy in the top left...)
The premise is simple.
Use Acrobat Connect to broadcast a bunch of pre-canned videos and don't bother using the chat window built into the app, instead opting for a much more public chat to take place about the content streaming on by in the whale-plagued Twitter, which was actually holding up to the perfect storm of 500 mavens posting to 500 mavens about what 500 mavens should well know by now.
It was indeed an awesome primer for social media newbies, but I wasnt aware of any of them in attendance. It did indeed give clear examples of how really huge companies were doing things in small ways some of the time. And, low (real low) and behold (if you were in the first 500 viewers) almost all of the mavens put in a reel for us to be in awe of.
What did I learn?
1. Echo chamber, echo chamber, echo chamber, echo chamber....
2. There are clearly both an "I" and a "ME" in social media, in that order.
Okay it wasnt that bad, but @melle got a lot of followers out of being grumpy, so I thought I would jump on that bandwagon. What? Ever!
I didn't really learn it as much as it kind of came to me while watching the Twebinar, that long awaited brainchild of Radian6 (who I think completely rocks) and Chris Brogan (who I think hosted it, even though it said JJ something or other under the guy in the top left...)
The premise is simple.
Use Acrobat Connect to broadcast a bunch of pre-canned videos and don't bother using the chat window built into the app, instead opting for a much more public chat to take place about the content streaming on by in the whale-plagued Twitter, which was actually holding up to the perfect storm of 500 mavens posting to 500 mavens about what 500 mavens should well know by now.
It was indeed an awesome primer for social media newbies, but I wasnt aware of any of them in attendance. It did indeed give clear examples of how really huge companies were doing things in small ways some of the time. And, low (real low) and behold (if you were in the first 500 viewers) almost all of the mavens put in a reel for us to be in awe of.
What did I learn?
1. Echo chamber, echo chamber, echo chamber, echo chamber....
2. There are clearly both an "I" and a "ME" in social media, in that order.
Okay it wasnt that bad, but @melle got a lot of followers out of being grumpy, so I thought I would jump on that bandwagon. What? Ever!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Many still catching up, world moving on
iMedia is picking fights today with headlines including such posturing as "How Google will kill ad networks" and "the end of rich media" and such. It strikes me that there is a whole world of businesses still catching up on the new new things for online advertising, and yet we as an industry continue to posture way out in front of the curve.
That said, I kind of agree with the end of rich media - like rich internet application, new media and other now ambiguous terms it often makes it very hard to position new services and technologies - like my current pet project, Overlay.TV - using these staple terms.
Let's examine for a moment why John Vincent, the founder of EyeWonder, considers this "end" to be nigh. Findings of an anonymously fielded online survey of online advertising influencers conducted by EyeWonder in March 2008 highlights the inadequacies and confusion within the industry. The survey revealed that:
Hopefully I will be able to share that here shortly.
That said, I kind of agree with the end of rich media - like rich internet application, new media and other now ambiguous terms it often makes it very hard to position new services and technologies - like my current pet project, Overlay.TV - using these staple terms.
Let's examine for a moment why John Vincent, the founder of EyeWonder, considers this "end" to be nigh. Findings of an anonymously fielded online survey of online advertising influencers conducted by EyeWonder in March 2008 highlights the inadequacies and confusion within the industry. The survey revealed that:
- 62 percent of the respondents agree that the term "rich media" is too "generic and meaningless."
- 66 percent of industry execs surveyed did not believe that "rich media" accurately defined today's online video ads.
- 76 percent of agency executives did not believe it to be an adequate term to cover "emerging platforms" -- mobile, IPTV, etc.
- 68 percent agreed that a new category name for "rich media" is needed (term "rich media" doesn't capture where digital advertising is headed in the next five years; it is too generic/meaningless).
- 92 percent of agency influencers had a positive to neutral opinion of the term "Interactive Digital Advertising," finding it more accurate than "rich media."
Hopefully I will be able to share that here shortly.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Edicts for Monday
The world has enough neo-classical drones.
Two thirds of the population must learn to identify the branches of government.
20% of people should study astronomy at least to get the earth sun thing straight.
Economics doesn't want your input - it wants your soul. Give it input. Keep soul.
Delve beneath the surface and answer fundamental questions.
Stop consuming 1.4 tons of pork per year.
Resume the flow of nature into people's lives.
Continue on approach to global humanity carrying capacity.
Do not cry out wordlessly for help.
Smash the hall of mirrors.
Clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish.
Question the model.
Question the math.
Thank someone.
Thank everyone.
Press play.
Press pause.
Two thirds of the population must learn to identify the branches of government.
20% of people should study astronomy at least to get the earth sun thing straight.
Economics doesn't want your input - it wants your soul. Give it input. Keep soul.
Delve beneath the surface and answer fundamental questions.
Stop consuming 1.4 tons of pork per year.
Resume the flow of nature into people's lives.
Continue on approach to global humanity carrying capacity.
Do not cry out wordlessly for help.
Smash the hall of mirrors.
Clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish.
Question the model.
Question the math.
Thank someone.
Thank everyone.
Press play.
Press pause.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Broadband doesn't change the rules, even if it does change the game
Every day advertising seems to be thrown into the abyss of opinion, change, progress and subservience to the technology goddesses . Broadband technologies are essentially (apparently) rewriting the rules for every business, remaking many industries, and apparently its going to take a team of millions to decipher how advertising should respond to the challenges. I'm in.
According to Stephen P. Bradley, a Harvard professor, there are 3 key concepts that need to be considered in the path of evolution from Marlboro Man to BMW Films (which are no longer available on BMW site but still up on YouTube) to Subservient Chicken. I quote this article:
· Broadband technology is becoming more important to advertisers because of its ability to move the consumer closer to a transaction decision and to deliver clearly segmented audiences.
· The advertising industry is wrestling with this transformation in part by merging with media companies and by launching creative ad alternatives.
I am struggling with exactly this issue right now, actually still struggling to some degrees would be more appropriate. Despite spending years in the ad business, working at Yahoo!, meeting with the world's top agencies to discuss this and driving product strategy that is meant to address exactly these issues - I still feel like we are waiting for the bright light to go on, and maybe that is exactly the problem!
Let's look at Marlboro Man to understand what I mean here. In his day, only a handful of advertisers used "spokespeople", hardly any ads used nature and roughing it as their way to tell the story, and most importantly, the Marlboro Man was in a lot of places in his 45 year reign of bringing early death to his loyal followers (1954-1999). Prior to the Marlboro Man creation by Leo Burnett, they were out and about with a "Mild as May" campaign that extolled the gentle virtues of the brand targeted at woman, and in a matter of weeks they had transformed the campaign into a masculine, outdoorsy, cowboy focused squarely on the aspirations of the lesser sex.
Same situation applies with BMW Films series The Hire, which saw Clive Owen doing a fast-paced increase of 12% sales and driving 11 million views and 2 million website registrations in a matter of four months. Prior to this BMW was struggling with how to elevate their brand status and effectively engage a somewhat elite audience that was starting to do more and more research online prior to purchasing a car.
Subservient chicken - well, suffice to say we all play with our food, we just hadn't really done it like this before.
If these are indeed some of the cornerstone examples, then I have to push back on the Harvard-trained theory of the problem, and the same said quest for a solution. The solution is exactly what it always has been.
Great creative transcends cultural barriers, fragmentation, and even the medium/message borders that we need to carefully observe with mediocre creative. We are going to have to crack this same nut here at Overlay.TV, and already I can say without a doubt that it is in the conversations with Amber Mac, Kevin Nalts, iJustine, EMI, JWT and all the other very forward-leaning, uber-creative types we are talking to that the real ideas are evolving. And each time it is that difference - that unique creative spark - that transcends the platform, delivery, technology, and even the current audience demo and psychographics of the individuals or brands involved.
Great creative unfragments audiences. Great media, technologies and platforms put more simply, serve to support a more rapid unfragmentation.
Let's not confuse ourselves any longer with a technology discussion. Take it for granted and get the into the bar or boardroom with a pencil or projector and start brainstorming now!
According to Stephen P. Bradley, a Harvard professor, there are 3 key concepts that need to be considered in the path of evolution from Marlboro Man to BMW Films (which are no longer available on BMW site but still up on YouTube) to Subservient Chicken. I quote this article:
"
· Traditional advertising vehicles such as television are becoming less interesting to advertisers because of fragmented viewership and inadequate user data.· Broadband technology is becoming more important to advertisers because of its ability to move the consumer closer to a transaction decision and to deliver clearly segmented audiences.
· The advertising industry is wrestling with this transformation in part by merging with media companies and by launching creative ad alternatives.
"
I am struggling with exactly this issue right now, actually still struggling to some degrees would be more appropriate. Despite spending years in the ad business, working at Yahoo!, meeting with the world's top agencies to discuss this and driving product strategy that is meant to address exactly these issues - I still feel like we are waiting for the bright light to go on, and maybe that is exactly the problem!
Let's look at Marlboro Man to understand what I mean here. In his day, only a handful of advertisers used "spokespeople", hardly any ads used nature and roughing it as their way to tell the story, and most importantly, the Marlboro Man was in a lot of places in his 45 year reign of bringing early death to his loyal followers (1954-1999). Prior to the Marlboro Man creation by Leo Burnett, they were out and about with a "Mild as May" campaign that extolled the gentle virtues of the brand targeted at woman, and in a matter of weeks they had transformed the campaign into a masculine, outdoorsy, cowboy focused squarely on the aspirations of the lesser sex.
Same situation applies with BMW Films series The Hire, which saw Clive Owen doing a fast-paced increase of 12% sales and driving 11 million views and 2 million website registrations in a matter of four months. Prior to this BMW was struggling with how to elevate their brand status and effectively engage a somewhat elite audience that was starting to do more and more research online prior to purchasing a car.
Subservient chicken - well, suffice to say we all play with our food, we just hadn't really done it like this before.
If these are indeed some of the cornerstone examples, then I have to push back on the Harvard-trained theory of the problem, and the same said quest for a solution. The solution is exactly what it always has been.
Great creative transcends cultural barriers, fragmentation, and even the medium/message borders that we need to carefully observe with mediocre creative. We are going to have to crack this same nut here at Overlay.TV, and already I can say without a doubt that it is in the conversations with Amber Mac, Kevin Nalts, iJustine, EMI, JWT and all the other very forward-leaning, uber-creative types we are talking to that the real ideas are evolving. And each time it is that difference - that unique creative spark - that transcends the platform, delivery, technology, and even the current audience demo and psychographics of the individuals or brands involved.
Great creative unfragments audiences. Great media, technologies and platforms put more simply, serve to support a more rapid unfragmentation.
Let's not confuse ourselves any longer with a technology discussion. Take it for granted and get the into the bar or boardroom with a pencil or projector and start brainstorming now!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Wii launches video channel
You can now download and add a video channel to your Wii if you have it connected to the Internet.
While the initial offering is pretty limited, it definitely has a lot of potential. The other consoles have long been able to play videos, but those videos haven't really been organized into a "channel" per se. Wii effectively simplifies the organization of the videos and introduces a pretty slick player and nav to peruse the trailers, mini-documentaries, product demonstrations, and gameplay videos. Browse the game guide pages to get information about your favorite games on Wii and Nintendo DS, and you can also recommend games or view recommended games.
It uses a digest format of the most recent videos when you first load the channel, then it lets you skip ahead or choose the ones you want.
What I found most interesting was that you can even click to order games straight from your Wii, if you have the Internet Channel installed. There are not a lot of great examples out there of video shopping yet, but it is definitely interesting to see them evolve around recommendation, referral and sharing. I see this as another indication that the medium is evolving to direct response.
Check it out
While the initial offering is pretty limited, it definitely has a lot of potential. The other consoles have long been able to play videos, but those videos haven't really been organized into a "channel" per se. Wii effectively simplifies the organization of the videos and introduces a pretty slick player and nav to peruse the trailers, mini-documentaries, product demonstrations, and gameplay videos. Browse the game guide pages to get information about your favorite games on Wii and Nintendo DS, and you can also recommend games or view recommended games.
It uses a digest format of the most recent videos when you first load the channel, then it lets you skip ahead or choose the ones you want.
What I found most interesting was that you can even click to order games straight from your Wii, if you have the Internet Channel installed. There are not a lot of great examples out there of video shopping yet, but it is definitely interesting to see them evolve around recommendation, referral and sharing. I see this as another indication that the medium is evolving to direct response.
Check it out
Friday, May 23, 2008
Blogging is really good for you
Think about it.
All day long we write, twitter, blog and generally engage in the act of some form of expressive writing that may or may not be work-related and if we aren't Michael Arrington then we probably wonder sometimes what we get out of it.
Turns out that the more expressive, personal and creative we are the better it is, and in fact we are getting a lot more out of it personally than Michael is. We are actually getting healthier, happier, more immune and improving our mental health.
Scientific American's Jessica Wapner has wrapped it all up here and it is good, sound judgement on all our parts to do a lot more than just document the plays of the players and pontification of the pundits.
So let's drag out that thesaurus, search our souls, light a candle and take a few of our online social minutes every day to make the world a better place, and our lives a little better.
All day long we write, twitter, blog and generally engage in the act of some form of expressive writing that may or may not be work-related and if we aren't Michael Arrington then we probably wonder sometimes what we get out of it.
Turns out that the more expressive, personal and creative we are the better it is, and in fact we are getting a lot more out of it personally than Michael is. We are actually getting healthier, happier, more immune and improving our mental health.
Scientific American's Jessica Wapner has wrapped it all up here and it is good, sound judgement on all our parts to do a lot more than just document the plays of the players and pontification of the pundits.
So let's drag out that thesaurus, search our souls, light a candle and take a few of our online social minutes every day to make the world a better place, and our lives a little better.
Tom Raferty Accepts offer to Join Redmonk on Twitter
I find it amazing, interesting and a sign-o-the-times that Tom Raftery just agreed on Twitter (he was recruited on Twitter, the offer was made on Twitter, and he accepted on Twitter) to join RedMonk as an industry analyst covering Greentech, cleantech, Energy Demand Management and sustainability. If you haven't already heard a ton about Tom, he definitely has his own Eire brand and has always been one to address the world's bigger issues.
From the Redmonk blog:
"Greenmonk has been an interesting journey and a real world example of burstiness. I started the blog as a personal project because I feel strongly about sustainability issues, but about six months after launching it, ComputerWorld UK contacted me to discuss partnering opportunities. IDG also sees the importance of the Green agenda, and I am grateful they took a punt on me. The partnership made me realise that Green wasn’t just a personal interest, it could be a business too. Its still early days for the green agenda, but we’re reaching a few tipping points which should drive more media traffic than ever to solid green content, research and analysis. The next big eye opener was working with Interop on Energy Camp, at David Berlind’s behest.
When I started GreenMonk I wanted to focus more on people than technology, to focus more on social media tooling, for example, and how it could encourage us to change our behaviours. Over time however I have come to a different conclusion, as stated by changed strapline, which now runs GREEN FROM THE ROOTS UP, SUSTAINABLE FROM THE TOP DOWN."
What I find more interesting is that in the few years I have know James and crew at RedMonk, they have changed my mind about the importance, function, interactivity, sophistication, knowledge and accessibility we should expect from an industry analyst or firm. The move to open source analyst firm, the constant dialogue, the usefulness of having a relationship with them, and the pure utility of analysis has taken on new meaning for me and I think we should all celebrate this shift in the industry.
Sure I can pay $20K for a whitepaper, and $100K for research and perhaps might still do that, but the direct impact of that behavior will be never be as insightful, purposeful or eventful as riding the wave with a team of experts literally at your side, and at the side of all that matters and is important.
Congratulations to Tom Raferty for following the tweets to what I am sure will be a successful venture for everyone that chooses to listen. On personal note, I found this relevant because I found out that our CEO, Rob Lane, thought I was a great candidate for the role after he tweeted on meeting me...social media is directly impacting our lives, careers, and planet more and more each day.
From the Redmonk blog:
"Greenmonk has been an interesting journey and a real world example of burstiness. I started the blog as a personal project because I feel strongly about sustainability issues, but about six months after launching it, ComputerWorld UK contacted me to discuss partnering opportunities. IDG also sees the importance of the Green agenda, and I am grateful they took a punt on me. The partnership made me realise that Green wasn’t just a personal interest, it could be a business too. Its still early days for the green agenda, but we’re reaching a few tipping points which should drive more media traffic than ever to solid green content, research and analysis. The next big eye opener was working with Interop on Energy Camp, at David Berlind’s behest.
When I started GreenMonk I wanted to focus more on people than technology, to focus more on social media tooling, for example, and how it could encourage us to change our behaviours. Over time however I have come to a different conclusion, as stated by changed strapline, which now runs GREEN FROM THE ROOTS UP, SUSTAINABLE FROM THE TOP DOWN."
What I find more interesting is that in the few years I have know James and crew at RedMonk, they have changed my mind about the importance, function, interactivity, sophistication, knowledge and accessibility we should expect from an industry analyst or firm. The move to open source analyst firm, the constant dialogue, the usefulness of having a relationship with them, and the pure utility of analysis has taken on new meaning for me and I think we should all celebrate this shift in the industry.
Sure I can pay $20K for a whitepaper, and $100K for research and perhaps might still do that, but the direct impact of that behavior will be never be as insightful, purposeful or eventful as riding the wave with a team of experts literally at your side, and at the side of all that matters and is important.
Congratulations to Tom Raferty for following the tweets to what I am sure will be a successful venture for everyone that chooses to listen. On personal note, I found this relevant because I found out that our CEO, Rob Lane, thought I was a great candidate for the role after he tweeted on meeting me...social media is directly impacting our lives, careers, and planet more and more each day.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Moving on from Yahoo!
Big change to smaller things...
The time has come to move on from Yahoo! and in some sense to close a chapter of large corporate evangelism and marketing work and get back to my entrepreneurial roots. Sure I may have mastered career development for others, coaching, piggybacking onto sales efforts in order to drive future agendas and influencing the product development roadmap, but I have been doing that in the context of the big huge we - and it really hasn't netted me much beyond a few points on share options and a hell of a lot of air miles.
So - at the end of the day we have a bitpakkit with solid corporate chops and a track record of playing at least a small role in some wildly successful platforms and ideas getting shipped, inspected, used and adopted - Microsoft.NET, Web Services, SOA, Flex, Yahoo! AMP! to name a few.
Over this time a few key trends on the internet have kept me very amused, engaged and leaning forward and one of the key ones is online video - video advertising, video sites, video editors, products, codecs, etc... - and I am going to jump headfirst into that space with a bit of a different spin. Why compete? Why fight the trend? Why focus on destinations? None of these ideas make any sense anymore. People go where they go, do what they do and use what they want.
Instead, I am going to focus on the meta aspects of video and its myriad uses and users - ultimately finding a home at the intersection of the content and the viewer and the relevance of that specific interaction of watching and finding relevance in what we watch. I know I have seen a million things in videos, but there is no real record of that.
Well, maybe we can change all that...maybe we can give users tools to say something, find something, point out something and even refer something to someone else and build a metacloud of user value on top of the streaming pixels that flow by in the billions per second.
Ben Watson
VP, Marketing
Overlay.TV
The time has come to move on from Yahoo! and in some sense to close a chapter of large corporate evangelism and marketing work and get back to my entrepreneurial roots. Sure I may have mastered career development for others, coaching, piggybacking onto sales efforts in order to drive future agendas and influencing the product development roadmap, but I have been doing that in the context of the big huge we - and it really hasn't netted me much beyond a few points on share options and a hell of a lot of air miles.
So - at the end of the day we have a bitpakkit with solid corporate chops and a track record of playing at least a small role in some wildly successful platforms and ideas getting shipped, inspected, used and adopted - Microsoft.NET, Web Services, SOA, Flex, Yahoo! AMP! to name a few.
Over this time a few key trends on the internet have kept me very amused, engaged and leaning forward and one of the key ones is online video - video advertising, video sites, video editors, products, codecs, etc... - and I am going to jump headfirst into that space with a bit of a different spin. Why compete? Why fight the trend? Why focus on destinations? None of these ideas make any sense anymore. People go where they go, do what they do and use what they want.
Instead, I am going to focus on the meta aspects of video and its myriad uses and users - ultimately finding a home at the intersection of the content and the viewer and the relevance of that specific interaction of watching and finding relevance in what we watch. I know I have seen a million things in videos, but there is no real record of that.
Well, maybe we can change all that...maybe we can give users tools to say something, find something, point out something and even refer something to someone else and build a metacloud of user value on top of the streaming pixels that flow by in the billions per second.
Ben Watson
VP, Marketing
Overlay.TV
Monday, December 03, 2007
The Machine is Us/ing Us
Excellent video - not much to add. Maybe it is important to recognize that this is a bubble, and not everyone has access - but that doesn't change that it is important to rethink everything - and wherever possible to introduce new levels of trust, honesty, respect and quality in everything we do.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Wow! That's a cool search result...
I searched for U2 on Yahoo! today and something very cool happened. I got back the above result - not just a direct match but a very thorough set of of options for me to continue on from. I think this is significantly game-changing...and here's why:- from an SEO perspective, I need to ensure I have content in the various channels that this technology can retrieve from.
- from a local information, maps perspective etc (try searching for a San Francisco dry cleaner) you would have to verify that your data is in all those locations
- from a media perspective, I want to have all forms of media available for my brand, I want to think about how major brands play together with my brand, and how I can get to the new "top" of the page
I've been playing around with it, trying searches in travel, sports, movies, etc...very cool. Congrats to the Y! search team for making me rethink search as a viable media format!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Re-invent this blog (formerly A Creative Passionista is reborn)
I am re-inventing this blog.
I am reclaiming my own turf at the same time.
I am doing a one man project back to the future.
The smallest amounts of information (literally constrained) that are fired around the internet to nowhere in particular are obviously online ads. In all their myriad forms, they represent the millions of creative hearts, minds and hands that wake up every day to rethink how to get people what they care about, in a way they find acceptable, at the right time, and at the right place. No small challenge, and I am happy to be playing a part in taking this on again.
After a topsy-turvy career through the technology industry, all of my experiences, training and more are being brought to bear on my primary passion - advertising and design - specifically the creative aspects of advertising and design.
I have joined Yahoo! where I will be heading up the creative assembly and tools business, specifically focused on the advertising space, and how creative users can better and more easily create, manage, deploy, store, assemble, optimize and collaborate in an end-to-end process designed to replace the clunky, manual and disparate interfaces we have to use in order to create and manage award-winning creatives online.
I say award-winning because these are the creatives I ultimately care about. Flashy, gimmicky, noisy, irrelevant, poorly created advertising is the bane of the internet! But, clever, relevant, targeted and well-designed creative can actually add to the value of a surfing, or snurfing (yeah, I'm on a boring concall right now) the web.
So I'm on a mission. Go back to my roots as a creative director, designer and advertising professional - bore into this with my years of web services, xml and application platform marketing - and get it all together for some of the best creative soup we have seen in a while. Mix into the soup some really clever ideas on how user-generated content, mashups, social media and the online experience can truly begin to integrate with pure brand or direct response worlds, in ways that make sense, in ways that users really want - and I think we have a winning combination.
I may be wrong. I may fail. But if I do, the online advertising world will remain as harsh, dark and gloomy as it sometimes seems today, and eyeballs will continue to turn away in disgust and dispair, and millions of hours of personal effort by users around the internet will continue to go unnoticed and unrewarded, and the promise of the truly social and relevant internet will go unfunded and eventually only work when fully funded by unethical interests in the aggregation of personal data and information (wait, that may be happening now!).
I know - it's too much for just one man. I'm hiring...
I am reclaiming my own turf at the same time.
I am doing a one man project back to the future.
The smallest amounts of information (literally constrained) that are fired around the internet to nowhere in particular are obviously online ads. In all their myriad forms, they represent the millions of creative hearts, minds and hands that wake up every day to rethink how to get people what they care about, in a way they find acceptable, at the right time, and at the right place. No small challenge, and I am happy to be playing a part in taking this on again.
After a topsy-turvy career through the technology industry, all of my experiences, training and more are being brought to bear on my primary passion - advertising and design - specifically the creative aspects of advertising and design.
I have joined Yahoo! where I will be heading up the creative assembly and tools business, specifically focused on the advertising space, and how creative users can better and more easily create, manage, deploy, store, assemble, optimize and collaborate in an end-to-end process designed to replace the clunky, manual and disparate interfaces we have to use in order to create and manage award-winning creatives online.
I say award-winning because these are the creatives I ultimately care about. Flashy, gimmicky, noisy, irrelevant, poorly created advertising is the bane of the internet! But, clever, relevant, targeted and well-designed creative can actually add to the value of a surfing, or snurfing (yeah, I'm on a boring concall right now) the web.
So I'm on a mission. Go back to my roots as a creative director, designer and advertising professional - bore into this with my years of web services, xml and application platform marketing - and get it all together for some of the best creative soup we have seen in a while. Mix into the soup some really clever ideas on how user-generated content, mashups, social media and the online experience can truly begin to integrate with pure brand or direct response worlds, in ways that make sense, in ways that users really want - and I think we have a winning combination.
I may be wrong. I may fail. But if I do, the online advertising world will remain as harsh, dark and gloomy as it sometimes seems today, and eyeballs will continue to turn away in disgust and dispair, and millions of hours of personal effort by users around the internet will continue to go unnoticed and unrewarded, and the promise of the truly social and relevant internet will go unfunded and eventually only work when fully funded by unethical interests in the aggregation of personal data and information (wait, that may be happening now!).
I know - it's too much for just one man. I'm hiring...
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