Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

The demise of paper (yes, the stuff made from trees) has been a longstanding prediction. Ever since the first time we realized that we could conveniently find, consume, save, produce, or modify information via CPU, the old school printing press was put on notice. Still, old school newspapers, magazines, and books have held on, defying expectations and proving more resilient than many expected, making fools out of those who assured us otherwise. That is, until two weeks ago.

The newspaper industry, hit hard by declining readership, increased printing and distribution costs, and disappearing ad revenue, has been long poised for a radical overhaul. It seems fitting that Detroit - a place that knows more than a little about decline and the challenges and roadblocks to reformation - has set out to lead the charge toward transformation toward a new model in newspaper delivery.

According to a press release from the Detroit Media Partnership (the publishers of both the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News), "The economics of the newspaper business demand change to survive... The dynamics of delivering information to audiences has changed forever due to technology... That means we have to change the way we deliver [the] news - not just in subtle ways, but in fundamental ways." Read: We're going digital.

I'll always remember 2008 not just for the political and economic drama, but also for all of the innovations in consumer technology that affected me.

In particular, this was the year the iPhone and its library of mobile applications became an integral part of my daily routine.  The iPhone's ever-growing app catalog has been a great source of utility and entertainment for me as an end user; it's also fascinating to consider these apps from an experience design perspective too.

On that note, here's an informal list of ten favorite iPhone apps from 2008, as well as a short wish list for apps in 2009.  With favorites from me and a few other Organics  (thanks Casey, Lisa, Marta and Tracy), this is by no means definitive but might prove helpful or fun for you or an iPhone user you know.

image credit: Optical Illusion [Flickr]

2008 was a year of tremendous ups and downs. It was also a year of bold declarations. One week a social media property would be declared the future... the next "big" thing. The next week it would be declared dead. Many platforms sought to monetize, very few of them have been successful. And with the economic condition, everyone has begun looking around and taking bets on which properties will still be around after the recession.

Today I took a look back at my (half) year in Weekly Digests to figure out what exactly happened in the past many months.

What's Been Happening This Year

It sounds like the punchline of a joke or something catchy to put on a t-shirt, but there is no stopping it. The over 40 crowd is flocking to Facebook and you know what... I think we are all going to better off because of it!! Why? The new demographic is going to inspire:

1. Interfaces to become more intuitive
2. Social graphs to shrink
3. Social platforms to open and branch out

Over the holidays, the last of my parents finally joined the Facebook club. One thing that distinguishes the social media immigrants from the social media natives is their understanding of how to use the tools. It might horrify a parent to know that their kids snicker when they reply to our messages on their own wall. Or when they sign their name at the bottom of a comment. But why should it?

These social media interfaces need to be more intuitive. Why should someone be expected to know the difference between a wall post, a note, a message, and a comment the instant they sign up? And just think about how Twitter must seem to a generation that doesn't fully embrace text messaging. Platforms that are unintuitive are going to miss out, as boomers don't wait around for things to get easier.

One of Greg Verdino's 2009 predictions, one I very much agree with, was on social graph shrinkage:

"We'll start using online social platforms to stay connected with the people we actually know and care about. Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter."

Boomers tend to be more guarded with the information they distribute about themselves online. I have been politely asked to untag unflattering photos, and watched as my parents cautiously add select "friends" only after a few messages have passed between them. It's polite, it's pickier, and in a world of social noise, we could learn a thing or two from that behavior. Perhaps friendship should be earned. Perhaps I don't really care about the lifestreams of hundreds of people I've never met before.

Finally, I think with the influx of social media immigrants we are going to see projects like Facebook Connect picking up a lot of steam. Boomers are savvy shoppers. They love using online tools and consumer reviews to make smarter buying decisions. Social platforms that branch out into the online retail world are going to become seen as something of value in the Boomer's eyes. They will change from the casual messaging tool to an easy way to get electronic advice from my tech-savvy son or figure out what my daughter-in-law wants for Christmas.

So I welcome parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles to come to the social media party. Because, while I may not like having to clean up my house because my parents are coming over, in the end I always realize that I like it that way better.

Marta Strickland

To launch the new ESPN site, there was a nice Ford ad takeover yesterday. Much like the Apple page takeovers, this ad caught me off guard with its interaction with the video. I thought I was getting some breaking news alert when I came to the page and only when I saw mud flying on to the commentator did I notice the truck below. Although similar ads have been produced that interact with their host pages, this one goes a step further by using a Sports Center stage and cast member who interact as well. All in all, a great collaboration between a publisher and an advertiser.

Steve Conroy

When I checked-in at nwa.com on New Year's Eve, I saw the new feature of sending e-boarding pass to mobile phone number or email, I was curious what is this new feature is, so I selected to send e-boarding pass to mobile's email. Almost instantly, I received email with the boarding pass which contained a barcode, more specifically Aztec Code, and I was ready to go try it out.

When I got to the security checkpoint, instead of the piece of paper, I just place my iPhone on a scanner machine. The staff verified with my driver license, and it was done. When I got to my gate, all I had to do was to retrieve my e-boarding pass, and give my phone to the flight attendant to scan, and I was ready to travel. Fast and easy.

I'm really impressed that Northwest stepped up and utilized the mobile barcode method. It is not only convenient, it also save trees!! If you want to try it out, the E-Boarding Pass is currently offered on Northwest flights from Indianapolis, IN, Detroit, MI, and Minneapolis, MN to cities within the U.S and is compatible with hundreds of mobile devices.

QR codes are common in Japan and other countries in Asia have been following suit, using the code on various marketing promotions. The great thing about QR codes is that the can be used for mobile tagging on shopping, dining, transportation, social networking, entertainment...etc. I hope to see the US market using this technology more often soon.

Euphenia Cheng

On ThreeMinds we often post about interesting home page takeovers and online advertising. Just this week, in fact, there was mention of the Ford takeover on ESPN. However, we often forget to mention the original platform: the actual "billboard". Modern billboards continue to stretch the envelope in innovative ways, using physical space and perspective to intrigue and inspire:

Clever and Creative Billboard Advertising

It's important to keep a watchful eye on this medium for two reasons...

1. With online advertising slumping, people are less and less interested in the expected. Online billboards that play with the digital space, much like real billboards play with physical space, are going to break through the noise.

2. With the increase in smartphone sales and mobile web usage, our physical space is becoming our digital space. Real life billboards have the potential to become a gateway into digital with things like QR codes and touch screen interfaces.

Thanks to Tony Jankiewicz for the link!

Marta Strickland

I just (finally) watched a special on Sundance called Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye - released in 2003 (one year before the artist's death).

While I wasn't at all impressed with the directing or even the concept of the film, I was reminded why he's my all time favorite photographer. If you can get passed hearing his every word through an interpreter and what might be lost in translation (HCB is French) and just WATCH him speak and interact with his own work, you'll fall in love with this old man, too.

He comes across as this regular grandpa-style guy. He sits at his kitchen table pawing at stacks of photographs not concerned with fingerprints or creases or dust - with no regard for his work as the precious objects they are. He's just THIS GUY looking at his "snapshots" - delving back into endless memories of captured moments in his life. He's been just about everywhere in the world and met just about every significant person over his 40+ year photography career. And he's still just THIS GUY - this guy who lived 600 lives worth.

He wasn't caught up in the technology of the camera or the deeper meaning of his photographs. He didn't even print his own work. His only concern was capturing what he saw in a pleasing and "geometric" way. It's really beautiful to watch such a master interact with his work in such an unpretentious way.

He's inspired me all over again.

Sandy Marsh

As the old saying goes, "if you love somebody, set them free". Do this with social networks and you might just get more love in return.

Last May, Facebook announced Facebook Connect, an API that allowed "users to dynamically connect their identity information from Facebook, such as basic profile, friends, photos information and more, to third party websites, as well as desktop and mobile applications". At the time, it was a little difficult to picture what exactly that meant for brand and site owners. It signaled a trend of social networks' active decentralization of users and the ways they interact with content on the Web outside the social network's garden walls.

Red Bull offers a compelling campaign that illustrates this. Red Bull Connect rolls up a wide variety of extreme sport content harvested from its event sponsorship and allows users to interact with, comment, and share in all the usual ways afforded by "chiclet" buttons. Those sharing tools feed content back to Facebook and other social networks and (we always hope) help to promote that content.

However, Red Bull uses Facebook Connect to both build awareness of its content within FB's garden, but also let's a user's Facebook login be the credentialing system for the Red Bull site. The effect? A user's comments are seen on both the Red Bull Site AND Facebook building traffic and awareness on both sites.

There are other brilliant interaction designs aptly described by Olivier Peyre. Definitely worth a quick read.

Michael Beavers

The weather is cold, the holidays are over. January is always an interesting month where we are ready for the changes that this new year might bring. Unfortunately this week, the first full week of the year didn't have much in the way of excitement. There were a few new announcements, but other than that much of what we've been hearing over the past few months...

What's Been Happening This Week?

The Good Type of Surprises
One of the big announcements at MacWorld this week is that iTunes is going DRM free. People are complaining about the use of AAC vs MP3 and the fact that previously locked music will cost an extra 30 cents to unlock, but the reaction is generally positive. Also this week, Google started exposing a bit of what looks to be a semantic web underbelly to their search engine, which must be making the current semantic search engines like Powerset sweat a little bit.

Hacks and Mash-ups
The big hack of the week was when famous tweeple such as Barak Obama and Britney Spears had their Twitter accounts taken over. The wine social network site Cork'd was hacked, and owner Gary Vaynerchuk continues to prove his expertise in social media with a timely and transparent response. And while the social media savvy are getting hacked, the not so savvy Fox News has begun to make a copyright issue out of the blog ProgressIllinois mashing up their news footage with blogger commentary.

Facebook and Online Video Continue To Dominate
The time spent watching online video rose 40% in 2008, proving the insatiable desire consumers have for literalized music videos and sleepy kittens. Facebook continue to ride the positive pr train into the New Year. They have 150 million active users and set all-time traffic records over Christmas. A new study shows that the Facebook user base over 30 is experiencing huge growth overtaking MySpace numbers, which has lead to some gen y kids creating groups in protest, Don't Let My Parents On Facebook. It's going from the cool kids club to something much bigger and more useful.

Marta Strickland

10 friends=1 whopper. Pretty simple proposition for those with a gazillion Facebook friends, huh?

Well, after having all 242 of my peeps (including the social hangers on) juxtaposed with a Whopper, it dawned on me how clever the game challenge is - it's much easier than I expected to add a 'friend' than it is to remove one. Housekeeping never was easy! Nevertheless, the proposition that some of your digital homies are worth 1/10th of a fast food product is hilarious.

If you have reservations about removing friends, don't worry too much - after 'flaming a friend out' (see pic) the app is designed to send a email to that person who probably won't take it as bad knowing you were just doing it for fun (and could add them back later?).

Great example of how a brand app can both leverage your social network and be a fun disruptor of it too ;)

http://www.whoppersacrifice.com/

Jay Bain

Calculating your Facebook Age... how the average age of all of your friends can be the most accurate indicator of youthfulness (not to mention hipness)

OK, I admit it. My first take on Facebook was that it was yet another tool for fancy free adolescents to while away the hours swapping abbreviated prose about love interests and outfits. Unapologetically, I proclaimed myself of the 'Linked In Generation'- building my own little virtual sphere of professional influence- even landing my last job completely through LinkedIn connections. Then, at a college reunion, a few classmates whom I had not seen since senior year mentioned they were on Facebook. And so, as a means to maintain these rekindled connections, I posted a profile and began to 'dabble'.

The first few weeks were filled with giddy reunions, spying on ex-boyfriends and increasing my adeptness at condensing 25 years of personal history into a three paragraph response message (using bullet points helps). Unlike my meticulously manicured LinkedIn persona, the Facebook me reflects a truer self- the eternal teenager who changes into ratty sweatpants the minute I get home from work, habitually lies to the dentist about flossing and read the Twilight series as if it were the bible.

Change.gov was launched within 24 hours of Obama's win on Nov 4th. And from recent updates, it appears that the incoming administration is truly authentic in their quest for transparency and creating a new way for the government to interact with its constituents.

The site now hosts the "Citizen's Briefing Book" - a place where citizen's can share their ideas on any number of issues as well as rank and comment on existing ones. The top ranking ideas will be complied and shared directly with the President. It looks like this component of the site has just launched, but as I quickly reviewed the comments, I was impressed with some of the ideas, as well as the thoughtfulness and respect with which they have been delivered. (The one flippant idea that I saw posted had already been voted to a -40 out of 100).

It reminded me that good ideas can come from anywhere.

Victoria Thorpe

image credit: brianpoulsen [Flickr]

I'm a huge hockey fan and I visit my favorite sites on an almost daily basis. Usually for me it's more about who scored last night, what the latest trade rumors are, and so on. But a recent post from the On Frozen Blog and article from the Washington Times made me think about how accessible hockey coverage and information has become even in the last 2 or 3 years.

"Hockey's not lost in translation. 'New media' " has had a profound impact on coverage of sports in general and hockey in particular. The result has been access to new information about European players that members of the ;old media' in North America would struggle to provide. For years, fans have read quotes that were limited either because of a player's grasp of the English language or his comfort level with the North American media." Corey Masisak, The Washington Times

I grew up playing hockey (and still do.. just not well) plus I'm Canadian so believe me when I say my bias isn't intentional. With this said, I do believe the NHL to be by far the most international of all North American pro sports. Many of the hockey's superstars hail from overseas - Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic & Slovakia to name a few. Last year for example, 8 of the league's top 12 scorers were from across the pond.

That's why the use of new media has been such a game changer. First you had a few people sharing interviews and translating them on message boards. And now you have bilingual bloggers doing interviews and foreign television video clips spread through YouTube.

Maybe it's just me, but mention Hockey & New Media in the same sentence and you'll get my attention every time.

Patrick Dunphy

Editor's Note: You can read more about Adam and his passion for sailing on his sailing blog.

I am on the cusp between Baby Boomers and Gen X, so a bit of an old geezer when it comes to social media. I blog, I facebook, I link-in but the one thing I have not wrapped my head around is Twitter. I subscribed to it a year or so ago and have not used it much. I occasionally get someone "following" me but it must be quite disappointing for them, as I rarely tweet. Even in my more exciting moments my tweets are along the lines of "train late again", "doing email", "in a taxi", etc... not exactly Tom Clancy.

Lately though, I started to give it a second look. During the Mumbai attacks there were reports of Twitter feeds being used to keep people abreast of what was going on. Clearly, Twitter isn't all about creepy strangers "following" you.

I am mad passionate about sailing. I recently was on Jonny Malbon's great blog. Jonny is racing in the Vendee Globe on Artemis. The Vendee Globe is the Everest of Sailing - one sailor alone, going non-stop around the world for 4 months sailing the toughest seas in conditions like the Perfect Storm. To put the race in context more than half the 30 competitors have retired, mostly through equipment failure, a testament to how tough the race is.

Jonny has a twitter feed on his blog. Here was a guy sailing in the Southern Ocean, in 40 ft seas, terrible weather, the threat of icebergs but he can cheerfully send messages about how things are going. It was in this way that I learned probably ahead of most people and before it appeared on the various sailing web sites about his gear failure and ultimate retirement. It felt intimate and important.

In 1989, When the first race of this kind took place, the winner and ultimately only sailor to finish the race was out of contact for several months as his radio failed. He could not even let his loved ones know that he was alive. He has no clue how he was doing relative to the other racers. He might as well have been in the 18th century. In contrast, today's sailors can email, tweet, send video, audio, telephone and even update their Facebook if they want to from anywhere on the surface of the Earth.

What a wonderful modern world we love in! Time for my nap.

Adam Turinas

I could start off this week's digest by telling you how the first images of the Hudson River plane crash showed up on Flickr and Twitpic. Or how media outlets from NPR to CNN are going to use social media to make Inauguration Day the most accessible ever. But there is no longer a story to be told there... instead social media has become an integral part of how we tell stories.

What's Been Happening This Week

Social Networks Are Still Booming
Despite some of the negativity towards using networks for marketing in the close of 2008, social networking is still the #1 growth area in online marketing. Reason being, more and more people join every day and segments like the 18-24 range are seeing that 75% of all people online have at least one profile. While Twitter has yet to find its business model, they experienced 752% growth in 2008, being used for anything from citizen journalism to washing machine alerts.

New Features Launch
To celebrate their 8th birthday this week, Wikipedia has launched some new tech alliances including a structured search with Yahoo and Flickr integration. Twitter launched a friend suggestion tool, which reminds me of a less useful Mr. Tweet. Internet TV is back and bigger than ever, and YouTube is joining the fun with TV screen optimized services for the Wii and PS3. Facebook is making its markup language extensible so that custom tags (badges in Causes, songlists in iLike) can be shared across applications.

Social Media Doesn't Always "Get" Social Media
And just when a flurry of new features rolled out this week, some networks prove again that they don't always "get it". YouTube rolls out automatic video muting for videos that have copyrighted music, which might seem like a necessary compromise until you think of all the undesirable consequences. Next, Facebook kills the highly popular Whopper Sacrifice application just as it was gaining traction.

Marta Strickland

It's no secret that Barack Obama has been expediting the transition of power from the Bush regime administration for some time now. Whether mundane--the national shelter search for the perfect Labradoodle comes to mind--or as serious as Gaza, Obama is making his will felt in much the same way that he did throughout the campaign. That is, he is delivering carefully crafted public statements, then reinforcing them with specific actionable items via the great-big e-mail list of record.

To wit, some days ago Barack and Michelle Obama called on Americans to make Martin Luther King Day a day of national service. Today, the e-mail blast went out to supporters with with Google-mapped service locations, a sortable index of projects big and small, and of course a call to action that is hard to ignore. Needless to say, in my Obama-friendly corner of the world, numerous options for pitching in popped up rather quickly. In other parts of the country, sometimes the sledding has been a little tougher. But inspiring stories are starting to hit the media radar, as Americans of all stripes start to buy into the whole "we're in this together" Obama thematic. Here's one from the heart of Bush country, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News.

Bryan French and some other regulars at the Sunshine Club, an Arlington bar, decided to answer the call of President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, to perform public service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

But when they went to a national Web site listing Martin Luther King Jr. Day service opportunities, they found none in Arlington.

So they thought up their own. They decided they would help a needy family with food, clothes, house repairs - whatever was most pressing. French listed their event on the Web site (usaservice.org), asking for volunteers.

"We figured we'd have the five of us, and maybe a couple of more," he said.

But as of late this week, more than 70 people had signed up. Mission Arlington, a local charity, has agreed to identify at least one and possibly two families for the swelling group to help Monday.

And this, from the former battleground state of Ohio, courtesy of BlogCleveland.

For years, Maureen McEnery made time to attend a celebratory concert on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and she thought that was a fitting enough way to spend the day.

But that was before she viewed a "Change is Coming" video issued in late November by Barack Obama's transition team and found herself wiping away tears. The video urged Obama supporters to stay organized and find something to do to have an impact on their community on Jan. 19, the King holiday.

"It was just an amazing call to action," said McEnery, 52, of Shaker Heights.

When she and fellow ex-volunteers from Obama's Shaker Square campaign office met to discuss the idea, someone suggested collecting food donations, and another came up with a title, "Food for Change."

"Nothing I've ever worked on with groups has come together so easily," McEnery said of the food drive for Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland, set for 1 to 4 p.m. Monday at Shaker Square.

The next few months promise to be very interesting as the Obama presidency takes flight. What will we be asked to do? And what role will technology play in the asking? Welcome to the "New New Deal" folks, with fireside chats on YouTube, e-mail blasts with hyperlinks galore and some foresight applied to where they lead you. But most of all, it seems that a truly gifted organizer of people is at the tiller.

Today is an historical day for America. While we are all preparing to record our "where we were when it happened" stories, the network communications industry has been hard at work for the past nine months getting ready for the big day:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/technology/19cell.html

Today may be an unprecedented day for network carriers in the U.S. as they meet the demands of a younger, social-savvy who will be participating in the inauguration by their preferred methods of communication - sharing stories, thoughts and information in real-time via text, photos, email, Twitter and other social networks. (Oh yeah, some of them still talk of the phone too.)

In anticipation of unmanageable volume, the phone companies have made a request that consumers practice prudence tomorrow when communicating with friends and family. This request, in turn, has raised concern with consumer advocate groups, as well as yours truly. Network bandwidth is a commodity and as consumers, we have a right to expect that it will be there (in working order) when we need it. But, following through on this theory, it also makes me wonder...should we be thinking about conserving bandwidth in the same way that we do our natural commodities such as water, oil, etc... Do we have the right to unlimited usage, or should our individual and collective environmental conscience extend to the airwaves? What is the environmental impact of a day like today?

Victoria Thorpe

In the spirit of Inauguration Day, try your hands at decorating White House with fiscally responsible Ikea furniture:

http://embracechange09.com/

As part of their Embrace Change '09 campaign, IKEA also set up a mock oval office in the Main Hall of Union Station that allowed passers-by to sit behind the presidential desk, and launched a motorcade of limos strapped down with IKEA furniture that road around in the DC area.

Fang-Yu Lin

With the US presidential term officially flipping over at noon, it's not terribly surprising that whitehouse.gov has already been redecorated. It's the same high quality we've seen from the Obama team throughout the campaign and a large step up, in my humble opinion, from the already impressive change.gov.

The site is built very well under the hood as well, it's all 508 compliant as required by law and they took the route of polished markup to get there. jQuery 1.2.6 was used for all the wiring, and they offer numerous RSS feeds (I'm still not over the novelty of governmental RSS but here we are).

Phil Dokas

P.S. Developer extra credit: it even *validates*

As Barack Obama's inaugural address has had a day to sink in, there is a passage that has inspired me to think about how progress sometimes mean going back as much as forward:

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true."

This inauguration and indeed this new administration has used new technology in fascinating ways. But as much as it has been forward-thinking, using all the newest in social media goodness, it struck me that this is also a return to the times of tribal councils and of campfire conversations. Technology is enabling conversational intimacy for the masses in ways we haven't experienced in a long time.

It's not just government of course, and it's not just what has been happening recently. Just look at where we have gone with storytelling in the past thousand years. It turned from the oral history of many to the written history of few. Slowly but surely the power to read and write came to the masses, and then with the internet we were able to share our stories. With Wikipedia and citizens journalism, we are writing history as a collective as it happens.

And it's not just our behavior, but it is also our technology. In a great post at ReadWriteWeb, Alex Iskold talks about how in a world that is increasingly becoming more digital, we are actually making a return the physical. Interfaces are becoming more natural and reacting to a familiar and yet new style of physics. Things bounce and slide, they fall and zoom, only no friction... it's effortless, it's better.

We are progressing and we are returning. And hopefully that will mean the best of both worlds.

Marta Strickland

Named one of InfoWorld's top tech startups for 2008, Perceptive Pixel is the company that created CNN's "magic wall" map during last year's political campaign:

http://www.perceptivepixel.com/

Designers could take some cues from this touch screen technology, especially when creating an interface that allows a user to dig deep and yet have a sense of how to come up for air.

Also, the systems are currently retailing for $100k, which is affordable for some ambitious clients. Think digital-out-of-home. Think auto show.

Nikki Duncan

Most of us would say money. And yet money alone does not motivate better work or increase job satisfaction. Do we work for money because there is an underlying premise that people don't like to work and must be bribed to do it?

That may have been true for the industrial revolution, but a key difference between the industrial economy and the digital economy is that the role of the worker has shifted from brawn to brain. Knowledge is now a key differentiator, so is it also time to revisit this most fundamental value equation?

A year ago, Seth Godin wrote about the passionate worker:

A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and curiosity, not fear.
The passionate worker doesn't show up because she's afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it's a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation... because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour.

A recent Businessweek article, "Will Work for Praise" describes how web entrepreneurs are making money through armies of volunteers willing to work for free to build their own personal brands. In a web 2.0 world, there is an implicit symbiotic relationship in place around resource exchange: entrepreneur(s) with money provide(s) platform and technology, volunteers with time provide relevant content to build a personal brand and help others.

Adam Smith, who is widely regarded as the father of modern economics, lived and wrote during a similarly challenging transition from an agrarian to industrial society. Before he published The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote a classic treatment of ethics that laid the foundation for his free-enterprise classic. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith proposed that beyond economic pursuits, there are moral pre-requisites to capitalism. Human nature isn't just about self-interest but it also includes important motivators: sympathy, empathy, friendship, love and the desire for social approval.

The Wealth of Nations draws on situations where man's morality is likely to play a smaller role -- such as the laborer involved in pin-making -- whereas the Theory of Moral Sentiments focuses on situations where man's morality is likely to play a dominant role among more personal exchanges.

If people want to work and are willing to do it for free or some other value exchange in the digital economy, should businesses adapt to this new sensibility?

Lori Laurent Smith

It is hard to talk about social media this week without talking about the Obama administration. First, the historic inauguration day saw record numbers of tweets and traffic, highlighted by the fabulous Facebook Connect implementation from CNN. Not one minute after Obama was sworn in and a new WhiteHouse.gov launched with a first blog post that promised four years of "transparency" and "collaboration" from the administration. The next day we were reliving the experience stitched together in user-generated 3D using Microsoft Photosynth and anxiously following news on whether Obama would get to keep his precious Blackberry.

I was also inspired by a post by Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang who put it all in the perspective of the generation of children coming of age in this exciting time. For them, they will have always been able to friend their president on Facebook or follow the White House Twitter stream. For them, there has always been a wiki like the Washington Post's WhoRunsGov, where you can keep tabs on all the senators and government like they are the hot new celebrity.

The way this country is run is changing... and not just because of one man, it's because of all of us.

What Else Has Been Happening This Week?

It's hard to follow that, but there were a few announcements from our favorite social media players. Twitter has potentially passed Digg in traffic volume, which begs the question why the would all the sudden be putting limits on their API? YouTube is continuing to roll out smart features, such as the ability to download videos to your hard drive and "click to buy" functionality for things like music videos and television shows.

Marta Strickland

With hopes to share some of the success of ad agency based sitcom "Mad Men," TNT has developed a weekly cable series called "Trust Me" premiering Monday. The fictional agency, Rothman, Greene & Mohr, featured on the show will be developing campaigns for real, non-fictional brands. Brands such as Dove, Bertolli and GM will be sponsors of the show and also integrated into plot lines. In a time when entertainment weighs in heavily on capturing the short attention span of modern consumers, this form of audience engagement has great potential.

There will be an online gaming component to the show, where viewers can act as creative directors for the brands. It's another level of brand interaction that dovetails the long standing trend (i.e. Guitar Hero) where users can romanticize the art and beauty of a finished product without having to do any real work. Why does this type of entertainment strike such a powerful chord? Because it's rewarding and interactive, but most of all: pure fun.

The creators of "Trust Me" actually make it a point to not make the creative process and plotline of the show too in depth and/or realistic to the real life point of view. When asked about the show, the EVP for Turner Entertainment mentioned, "the threading of sponsor brands through the plot lines is definitely being treated with kid gloves, to make sure it's not considered too 'inside' or overbearing."

The main hurdle the show will have to overcome is to avoid coming off as an hour long commercial for the featured products (even though that's exactly what it is). To accomplish this, the content will have to engage viewers to the extent that they feel immersed and entertained and then, only after this point will users be able to look at the brands introduced as inherent to the plot line. Sounds just interesting enough to watch and see.

The link to the NY Times article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/media/22adco.html?_r=2&ref=media

Jonathan Turri

In the great-big world of the Internets, there are so many elements that are almost constantly overlooked. Take the loading indicator. It's something that we've basically grown accustomed to ignoring. And in most instances the reason for that is fairly simple: they are boring.

Every now and again, however, I stumble across a loading screen that briefly stops me in my tracks. Ten or so per year might even cause me to reload the page, just so I can see the loader again. Fortunately, I've recently discovered that there are equally passionate  people bigger nerds than I over at Big Spaceship, who have actually created a site solely devoted to the art of the loading screen. Other agencies submit their best loaders for consideration, with the result a somewhat mesmerizing montage: the infinite loader.

Anyway, click and enjoy the site that's all about the waiting.

Daniel Turman

The National Film Board of Canada turned 70 this year. To celebrate this major milestone, they've launched a new website. It's a goldmine of Canadian filmmaking which features over 700 films, both old & new which are all available for online viewing, for free.

From the site itself:

"Our collection includes animation, documentaries, experimental films and alternative dramas. We showcase films that take a stand on issues of global importance that matter to Canadians - stories about the environment, human rights, international conflict, the arts and more. Works that push the boundaries, give a voice to the underrepresented, and build bridges between cultures."

Seeing such classics such as "The Sweater", "The Cat Came Back" & a personal childhood favorite "The Log Drivers Waltz" was a trip down memory lane that brought a smile to my face.

Visit the site, experience some Canadian culture & enjoy. I know I did.

Patrick Dunphy

image credit: tubefilter.tv

"Agency of Record" is a very funny webseries detailing the inner workings of a the fictional Ad Agency "WTF Worldwide". Everything from bumbling creatives, virtual conference rooms, extreme deadlines to fictional product lines featuring energy drinks, snack cakes & children's toy is covered. It's a hilarious tongue-in-cheek look into the world of Advertising.

There's only 5 episodes so far - the first of which is 10 minutes & the rest are about 6 minutes each. Once I started I couldn't stop till I watched them all.

There's a great tie to a companion website www.DaveandRick.com. If you watch the series you'll see many references to the site which does exist. It appears to still be in it's infancy as there are currently only about 1000 members on the "roster".

Season 1 is wrapped & now I'm anxiously awaiting Season 2. Of note the entire series is sponsored by Adobe.

Patrick Dunphy

Tsumineko Mew Mew Tower
This charming game with a hand-drawn look is from B3 United (a Japanese iPhone developer) and is very simple for anyone to play. The Jenga-like stacking of as many cats as possible is made more realistic as you lean your iPhone to keep the tower from falling over (I've gotten to 3 meters, 15 cats so far). This .99 game is a really good example of creativity and simplicity in game design ;)
http://www.animevice.com/news/i-finally-want-an-iphone/298/

Ustream.tv Viewing App *
Get your puppy cam kicks, mobile style. This free app came out just in time for the Inauguration; you can view live video in portrait or landscape mode. In the app you'll also see the streams' chat threads, and if you login you can participate too. Video frame rate (of puppies, so far) looks pretty good! If anyone viewed the inauguration using the app, how well did it work? Caveat: Requires WiFi, iPod Touch compatibility questionable...
http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2009/01/19/ustream-is-in-the-apple-app-store/

* Over the holidays I mentioned hopes of seeing Hulu on the iPhone in 2009. As you can see with Ustream, the tech exists - but other business constraints might prevent it from happening. I still have my fingers crossed!

Rock Skipper
As long as you're careful not to throw your iPhone across the room, this .99 game is also a fun demo of the iPhone's accelerometer, which is used to create the physics of throwing a rock for the maximum number of water skips. The users who are giving this a top rating must be more forgiving than me - I wish the 3d hand and animation looked a little better, along with the hard to read typography. Still, pretty cool for the price of a cookie!
http://www.apptism.com/apps/rock-skipper-3d

Jay Bain

What's Been Happening This Week?

Facebook and Twitter Still Growing
Pope Benedict XVI warned the pubic that they might be spending too much time on Facebook, only moments after launching an official Vatican channel on YouTube. Despite the holy (and ironic) words of warning, Facebook and Twitter continue to explode. Twitter was recently valued at $250 million, and Facebook is now seeing 10.8% month over month growth rate and twice as many page views and users worldwide over MySpace.

Attitude Changes Put Pressure On Social Media In 2009
But it's not all rosy in the social web gardens. Both marketers and users are starting to become more demanding. Community managers are now expected to tell a convincing ROI story.

ReadWriteWeb made an interesting list of the 10 ways social media will change in 2009. Among those was the need to "create meaning and value", where social networks can no longer be about features and applications, but about connecting around meaningful and relevant topics. The social web will need to create fluid social networks that follow us from device to device, and connect us to the right people at the right time. In 2009, the web might finally start to become a great party host.

Will Semantic Web Play A Key Role This Year
I have often mentioned that the key to solving our social web problems is the semantic web, and so I was delighted to see several stories this week. First, Cogito platform, a sophisticated semantic search technology is aiming their sites on the mainstream world of online advertising. Second, a favorite semantic web startup BooRah has figured out a new way to monetize semantic web through monthly reports and tracking tools for restaurateurs.

Marta Strickland

Barack Obama wasn't the only big winner of the past few months. Chicago-based Sol Sender--of the digital brand consultancy and design studio that bears his name--didn't do too badly either. In partnership with motion-design studio Mode, Sender and his firm developed what is now the most iconic political campaign symbol in American history: the Obama "O."

There probably isn't much that I can say about the O that hasn't already been said better by someone else, so I'll keep it brief. Instead I'll offer up a short, two-part video, featuring Sender himself. In the video he describes the process that led to O's creation, as well as its evolution as an agent of inclusiveness and symbol of transformation.

Part one above, part two below,

Daniel Turman