Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

A close friend of mine used to work at the Virgin Megastore here in San Francisco. An affable fellow, he coordinated the in-store sets by the rather diverse array of musicians who used to pop up to do a few songs. Increasingly, he also managed other areas of the operation when fewer musicians started showing up. As sales of music slowed and the store grappled to reorganize around merchandising, my friend started to lament his fate within the larger context of music retailing. "I didn't get into this to sell t-shirts," he said to me once. He quit and went back to work as a trombone player in a number of local bands.

Well, today is an interesting day. And somewhere this gentleman is probably going to see this post in my Facebook feed and have an interesting moment of introspection. Because there is not one, but two fascinating pieces of news coming out of Viginland today. First, yesterday marked the closing of the flagship of Virgin's Megastore chain--the 57,000 square foot, two level outlet in New York's Union Square. But much more significantly, today Virgin announced a plan that may eventually prove to unseat Apple's iTunes and redefine the model by which the increasingly digital world of media is consumed. In fact, if you're my musician friend you might want to sit down right about now.

Unlimited MP3 downloads. From the world's largest music family of record labels in the industry: Universal Music Group. For $24.50 a month.

People familiar with the service said it would cost 10-15 pounds ($16.30-$24.50) per month, which could appeal to parents concerned by children accessing illegal sites.
The service, which both sides described as a world first, would allow Virgin Media broadband customers to both listen by streaming and download to keep as many music tracks and albums as they want from Universal's catalog.

The music will be in the MP3 format, meaning it can be played on the vast majority of music devices, including the iPod and mobile phones.

The service, which would compete with Apple's iTunes, is set to launch later this year.

Unlimited MP3 downloads. For a flat monthly fee. Say it again. All of a sudden, the entire model of consuming music is flipped on its ear. Just like that, the primary consideration is no longer the cost or illegality of acquiring music, but the cost of storing it digitally. The ownership issue might even be rendered moot by a new breed of consumer--one who is probably also intimately familiar with the streaming-download model--that doesn't need to own the music to enjoy it pretty much whenever and wherever.

While I couldn't reach Lars Ulrich of Metallica for comment, one has to wonder how this model can adequately support the payment of artist royalties. Moreover, one has to wonder what this portends for all manner of copyright-protected media. Are subscription services the future of other forms of media as well? With this media increasingly consumed via digital device and stored on hard-drive(s), "ownership" in the sense defined by the thousands of LPs I currently have in storage may be headed out the door. We'll just pay some set amount, borrow what we want, in whatever degree of permanence we desire, and then press delete when we're done.

It's hard to believe, but it has been scarcely more than 100 years since the mass marketing of gramophones began and with it the era of the consumption of recorded music. Before that time, the only way to consume music was to see in performed live by someone else, or to play it yourself. With not everyone being talented in this capacity, the world of live performance was where the music really lived. As the record industry matured and American consumerism grew up alongside it, the propensity to maintain large music collections flourished. Now, perhaps the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction. If you can listen to or own virtually any piece of recorded music anytime you want, maybe the thrill and value of ownership is diminished. And paradoxically, perhaps this will return the original form of consuming music to greater prominence. I'll have to ask my trombone-playing former Virgin employee friend in ten years or so.

Daniel Turman

The U.S. Postal Service recently launched a very nice way to use augmented reality (AR). Their Virtual Box Simulator is unusual in that it offers real utility by allowing users to determine appropriate box size for what they want to ship. Simply print out their eagle logo. Then use your webcam.

Branded AR executions are under fire these days and agencies who use the technology are often derided for buying into a novelty that offers little value to end users. Some critics have even gone as far as to draw comparisons with Second Life.

Dan Neumann notes: Recently, I've seen a few executions that seem to defy much of this criticism. This is one of them.

Karri Ojanen wrote about a mobile application that broke through this with entertainment value. The Virtual Box Simulator is another. And it appears to bring much product and service value. How long before the other shipping companies follow?

Thanks to Dan Neumann for the link.
Sarah Jo Sautter

Adaptive Path, an experience strategy, user research and design firm recently announced the completion of their Mobile Literacy project. They studied mobile device usage in rural Gujarat, India.

As the lead Experience Architect for Chrysler International, I'm anxious to learn the full findings of their study. One tidbit of information agrees with what we learned researching our International mobile users. (Check out the Jeep South Africa site on your phone -- or shrink your PC browser.)

In many parts of the world, low cost mobile phones are more often used than PCs to access the Web. In fact, many international users do not own a PC, so they access the web exclusively from their mobile devices.

So what does this mean for those of us trying to reach these audiences? Here are three crucial tips to consider when planning:

1. First and foremost, do not ignore the need to create an exclusive mobile website. While many users will attempt to access your sites from their mobile devices, this will only lead to frustration. It's very likely that parts of the architecture, page weight, and technology will not work in a mobile web browser.

2. Take the time to consider your navigation and architecture. Top nav, side nav or however you've structured your navigation does not translate to the mobile architecture. Instead, you'll need to create a nested architecture and rely heavily on breadcrumb trail navigation.

3. Be ready to pare down your content. Your mobile website shouldn't be simply a modification of your existing site. Leave out information that isn't relevant to a user on the move. It's not a likely that a mobile user will browse for extended periods of time, so it's important that you surface the information most relevant to them.

Anthony Viviano

San Francisco residents now have an easier way to complain. Mayor Gavin Newsom, a big Twitter user (he first announced his bid for governor of California via Twitter), is looking to kick the city's customer service up a notch. Residents (or really anybody that's on Twitter) can send Tweets to @SF311 reporting potholes, city de-beautification adbandoned vehicles and more.

Based on the Tweet signatures, it looks like the city has a couple people devoted to reading and responding to these Tweets. They say they want to reciprocate the follow, but they are currently only following about half of their followers. But I guess I should give them some slack. It's only their first day at this. (And they already have 28 Tweets!)

They also encourage you to direct message (DM) your complaints.

"Hi, we're processing your Tweet. For faster service, please us a DM as only DM's are monitored real time"

Initially it sounds like an efficient means for resolving problems. If this works, it'll be interesting to see if other cities follow. But I see a few things that may cause some hang-ups.

1. How do you detail your complaint in 140 characters or less? Some problems just require more explanation.
2. How do they keep it positive? Why would I want to follow them? Will they ever start the conversation instead of just responding to it?
3. Can't you only DM someone if they're following you? So how will that service request response work if there's no follow?

Would you like to see your city do this? And do you think it makes for faster resolution of city problems?

NOTE: Thanks to David Feldt for the news.
Sarah Jo Sautter

Exhibit A: BooneOakley's new website.



Did you click? Press play. But try clicking from the traditional URL too: booneoakley.com. See how you were seamlessly ported off to the YouTube video. It is the agency's site. One that has embedded links to the portfolio and all other points of relevant interest. And all presented in convenient YouTube format. Shareable, embeddable, and comment-able. And , as one commenter noted: "Boone Oakley - 1, The rest of you hacks - 0."

Exhibit B: Getyourbasketballon.com.



Blast Radius hires Charlie Murphy from The Chappelle Show to star in an elaborate and ingenious mythology around the man who beat out Michael Jordan for the last spot on his 10th grade basketball team: Leroy Smith. Deliberately lo-fi, the site's brilliant integration of YouTube and social media is matched by the talent on hand. Better still, it promotes Nike subsidiary, Brand Jordan, without a single Jumpman logo to be seen. And Charlie Murphy as a ludicrous basketball motivational specialist? It's like unaired Chappelle show sketches.

Now, for the rest of us? Time to get our YouTube on.

Daniel Turman

PS. Hat tip to Sacha Reeb for finding the BooneOakley site and providing the following commentary: "Smart site placement. Direct viral path. Endless seeding possibilities." Agreed. See Exhibit A.

PPS. Not all of the Leroy story is a myth. He really did beat out Jordan for the one spot for a sophomore on their team, largely because he was taller. And as an homage, Jordan used the name "Leroy Smith" as his alias when checking into hotels throughout his career.

Photo Credit: Jeroen Diepenmaat

Social music discovery and recommendation services have exploded in recent years. It's nice to see DRM schemes crumble and looking around it seems that that the rapid fragmentation and proliferation of these services is likely to continue for some time. Changes to licensing and distribution models that spanned several generations have forced people to choose how they want to discover, consume, and share music.

In thinking about all the ways I discover, consume and share music it became apparent that the services one uses are a good predictor of all sorts of personal, geographic, and social tendencies (more on this in a later post). Here's a rundown of my habits.

For music discovery I've used Shazam to tag the occasional track here and there, but I use Hype Machine more than any other service. I have a few friends who work in the music industry and post tons of music videos on Facebook. I find their posts invaluable. There are a few blogs I check regularly too. And, lots of people on my IM network use various clients that allow them to display what they're listening to throughout the day.

MySpace music seems to have become the de facto homepage for many bands - probably because it's so easy to stream full tracks from their media player - so I poke around over there once in a while. It would be tough to go back to a world without the Pandora iPhone app and living in NYC, with so many bands passing through, Sonic Living has become an indispensable resource for keeping track of upcoming shows.

Of course, there are tons of music videos on YouTube, so I'm there now and then. Both Last.fm and Imeem are tried and true veterans that get some play when everyone else is failing to quench my thirst for something new. I also scrobble iTunes and Hype Machine with Last.fm so I have everything in one place.

As far as sharing goes, I post playlists to a great site called 8tracks so I can share them over Twitter and Facebook. We stream playlists and often entire libraries on our office iTunes network and I'm into that too. So much so, that I downloaded a little utility called iTunes Monitor that lets me see who's listening to my playlists.

I know there are some big names missing from this list, so it would be great to hear what the Threeminds readership thinks of my music ecosystem and how they meet their discovery, consumption, and sharing needs.

Dan Neumann