Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

It's that sad time of year here in the northern states. The inevitable cold. Sure, it will be fun for a while to bundle up in winter clothes, hot chocolate, fireplace, and the holiday season. But come January, the novelty has worn off and there is still three months to go.

Leave it to Google to turn their trends technology to mapping the flu season. While technology might not be able to bring sunshine to Michigan, at least it might make us smarter about not getting sick.

What's Been Happening This Week?

The Battle To Monetize
YouTube made two great leaps this week in the realm of monetization. First, they announced an AdSense-style model that allows video creators to bid on sponsored placement and search terms. Second announcement, which came yesterday, they are placing ads inside of video embeds. The ads are small and can be clicked on to disappear. I imagine there will still be a cry of annoyance from the YouTube fan base, but nothing as drastic as what might happen over at Facebook...

Facebook's monetization strategy and marketing techniques have been under far more scrutiny. A suggestion that marketer's use photo tagging to promote their message sent the bloggers and tweeters into a frenzy. Then, the Wall Street Journal threw some doubt on the launch of Facebook "engagement ads", ads that try and appear more like social applications. While marketers scratch their heads and users resist, I do think that there is some value to be had with the engagement ads. They just need to be in line with the spirit of the platform, like Ben & Jerry's managed to do during the election with it's free ice cream campaign.

The Tweet Cup Floweth
Twitter hit 1 billion tweets this week!!! That is 1000000000 140 character nuggets of link shares, nonsense, and occasional insight. The bird chatter is becoming hard to handle, but luckily people like Chris Brogan have let out their secrets of how to deal with Twitter at full volume. One little bird that has gone silent though is the MarsPhoenix, which has likely been wiped out in a Martian dust storm, one of the coolest ways to quit Twitter.

Meanwhile, there was drama this week over an app called Twitterrank. Hundreds of Twitter users handed over their usernames and passwords out of curiosity, crowd "wisdom", and vanity. Luckily it turns out the app creator's intentions were not for evil... this time.

Marta Strickland

This was a historic week... for social media, for voting, for America.

It's undeniable that this election and the campaign of the new President-elect Barack Obama has profoundly affected the industry I work in. Up until the big day, people were predicting results by measuring social media statistics and then following electing day results on Twitter. It was an overwhelming, but addicting amount of content to consume.

Then it was over. And many of us were left wondering what would become of the social technology that powered this election. Would the new President-elect tap into his groundswell to call people into service or to crowdsource policy reform? Would he embrace cloud computing to connect all Americans with relevant government data? Could he use this technology to create a transparent transition to the White House?

Yes He Can... and http://change.gov was launched to pick up the social momentum of the campaign and actually use the power of the people to, hopefully, change not just the results of an election, but our government.

But let's turn our attention away from politics and to two of the biggest social tools used during the election, Twitter and Facebook. What's next for them? They organized and informed during an election. They may have helped win a presidency. Are they ready to wear the grown-up shoes?

Let's look at Facebook this week. First there was the announcement that they would be joining forces with SalesForce to enable developers to create business applications. Then, there was hints that Facebook Connect could be rolling out soon, offering more useful application and integration options. But people aren't waiting for that... Retailers are already using Facebook more than any other network to promote their messages via fan pages and social ads. But many fear that the more profitable Facebook advertising becomes, the less usable Facebook will be as a social network.

Not as much has been happening with Twitter. There have been some great Twitter moments in the past, all of which prove that the success of the system is in the way people are using it. People are having to become more tweet-conscious as unfollow technology is allowing them to see people who stop thinking they are relevant. But eventually, Twitter is going to have to offer something to new and useful to its users (like groups!!), or they will leave for a less noisy micromessaging systems.

Marta Strickland

I am happily theming this Weekly Digest for Halloween. That way I don't have to discuss the economic downturn or the upcoming election. And I don't have to tell you whether Twitter is going to be used for good on election day or whether it is a tool for terrorism. Instead we can spend some much needed time discussion which Halloween Twitter icons we are going to use today!!

What's Been Happening This Week?

Night Of The Living Dead
So what has been rising from the dead this week? Well AOL came back with a new home page design that is much improved and plenty of social features. MySpace is launching a new version of their profiles that are looking far more Facebook-like. And speaking of other news in the digitally dead, who knew it was a crime in Japan to virtually kill your online husband?

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Some things have been coming back from the dead, others have just undergone some sort of alien takeover. Twitter, or more accurately Magpie, is now allowing users to place advertising messages in their backgrounds. Gmail has added connection to Google Docs and Google Gadgets. Tivo and Netflix are creating a holy alliance for better movie streaming capability. And probably the biggest news of the week when LinkedIn announced that it would be supporting 3rd party applications!!

Body Parts... or anything leftover
Not everything was fitting my cute horror movie theme, but is worth reading anyway. Facebook has had some interesting user stories this week. Turns out that while surfing social networks at work is proving to be a useful practice, reporting that you are sick but then telling the truth (hangover) on your status update is not such a good idea. Other evil Facebook activity that has been occurring pits high school students against each other in the battle for college admittance. Students have been using questionable photos to try and ruin their competitions chances at prestigious schools.

That's it for this week. Happy Halloween!!

Marta Strickland

image credit: wiseacre photo [Flickr]

Are you ready to party like it's 2009?? It's hard to get in the mood when everything feels like it's falling apart. There is an air of uncertainty about how 2009 is going to shake down in the financial system, in the housing market, but also in the world of marketing and technology. So as the months wind down, the crazy predictions wind up. And no matter who wins the election (although Barack Obama has already won "marketer of the year"), I don't imagine the doomsayers are going to stop any time soon.

What's Been Happening This Week

I Know A Dead Parrot When I See One
Everything is dead, long live everything. Blogs this week have declared a lot of things dead... on the list includes online advertising, the facebook platform, and... blogging!!

The Facebook platform is the most interesting, because I think that rumor is somewhat substantiated. While I have previously stated that branded apps are a marketing wasteland, it seems the new redesign has pushed even general fun app use down. And as ReadWriteWeb has recently pointed out:

"The latest release of Facebook makes it nearly impossible for new applications to take advantage of the network effect.... Facebook has sent a clear message to developers - the platform is no longer a priority."

And even as the landscape for Facebook apps get tougher, you have new marketers jumping on board and proclaiming "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It will be Widgetized."

The Great Social Network Shuffle
The "site" that has proclaimed that it is not a social network, it is a social utility has decided it's time to ditch the 3rd party social utlilities. So what does Facebook care about? Well, according to this week's news... music.

Music? Isn't that for MySpace and imeem? With MySpace numbers dropping and imeem laying off staff, it looks like their might be an opening in the realm of music. But who knows next week... with news that Joost has failed in their new platform, we might start seeing things like Facebook TV and Facebook Film. Then we are really getting into the world of MySpace.

So what will next year be? Will we all get fed up with Facebook and go running to the microblogs or niche networks? Which will die the most shocking death: apps, online ads, blogs (I hope not)? Whatever happens in 2009, it is bound to be terribly interesting, so stay tuned.

Marta Strickland

It's been another "freak out" week in the world of social media. Many companies are laying people off, but many companies are running full steam ahead... hiring more people, developing more mature features, and (gasp) finding new revenue streams.

I have been somewhat off-the-grid this week at the Web 3.0 conference, which I will be speaking at today. As cynical as some people have been about the title, "web 3.0", I was happy to find many of the news items pouring into my delicious stream are falling in line with the next gen web. I will spend next week going into my definition and more importantly, how it will effect your online experience, but for now, I will just throw this idea out there.

The next generation of the web, whatever it's called, will be more relevant.

What's Been Happening This Week?

We Are The Creators Of Ads
As brands are waking up to realize that social media is having a major effect on purchase behavior, the social networks are waking up to realize that they need to provide better tools. This week MySpace launched a self-serve ad platform that allows users to create display ads and target into very relevant niches of the MySpace community. Google instantly followed suit offering display ads based on the adwords platform.

I still think they are missing the boat by not incorporating actual social content into the ad, a point I've been trying to bring up in discussions at this conference. But in funner ad innovation news, did you guys see that Obama Xbox 360 ad?

More Relevant Roll Outs
As FriendFeed opens the floodgates by incorporating real-time updates, Twitter is working on an integrated search functionality that will make finding those elusive tweet needles in the twitter haystack much easier. Flickr's new homepage redesign brings your friends photo content into main view, but I'm not sure that will be enough for them to catch up to Facebook which has made photo sharing the ultimate social experience.

For The Video Obessed
SNL is getting it's own video website. Let's hope that they finally embrace the social, allowing people to spread the content far and wide, instead of being the big bully in the room. YouTube and PBS are letting people vote via video, setting even new records for the sheer amount of social media surrounding this election. And building off of the MySpace music platform, MySpace launched a new karaoke video function.

As I watch the sun rising over San Jose mountains, I am off to another day of Web 3.0 fun. I am excited to bring you back all my learnings and thoughts, and hopefully you will join in the conversation!!

Marta Strickland

It's hard to pay attention to the news of the web industry this week. I've seen digests on other blogs become shorter and shorter. Right now, everything else going on in the world seems more interesting, scary, captivating, devastating...

But if you were paying attention this week, you would have seen an underlying trend, and that is this... social media is growing up.

What's Been Happening This Week?

The Playful But Powerful Google
Google had a few unserious moments this week. It introduced two joke features, an audio preview for YouTube comments and "mail goggles" for G-mail that prevent users from drunk e-mailing by forcing them to do math problems.

But as an ongoing trend, Google continues to be an innovator and a magnifying glass into online culture. They are implementing high-definition imagery and textual advertising into Google Maps. And, ReadWriteWeb had a great article on how one can use Google trends to analyze America's reaction to the debates. Popular campaign words, such as "maverick", saw a huge spike during the debates, as viewers at home everywhere in this nation turned to Google for a true definition.

The Social Network War Is Coming To An End, Or Is It?
It may happen in the next month folks. A battle that has been raging for more than a year might come to a close. As for the first time in US history, Facebook is set to overtake MySpace in traffic numbers. What could this mean? Will Facebook become MySpace like everyone fears?

Better question.. do we even need Facebook? The up-and-comer, Ning, just announced that it has hit the half a million mark with over 500,000 niche social networks. Maybe Facebook and MySpace are they the Netscape and AOL of the 2.0 world? They started the trend, but will fail to innovate quickly enough, as more nimble companies grow in popularity.

Enterprise Embraces Social While Everything Else Falls
Despite reports that half of social media campaigns will flop, there is more and more enterprise dollars being invested in the space. As risky as it may seem, it is far more risky to do nothing. We have 93% of consumers saying they want brands to join them in the space. And we also have compelling statistics to show that their purchase behavior and brand opinion is being shaped by social media experiences.

This space is evolving at intense speeds. We've moved passed the time of "my top 8 friends" and superpokes. Best Buy is building an enterprise Twitter for employees. Digg is flushing out those who are trying to scam the system. YouTube is building in e-commerce options into their site.

The good times are over. RIP. Things are about to get a lot more serious.

Marta Strickland

image credit: Irving Geis

We all love statistics!! Whether factual, misleading, or downright wrong... they are bite-sized and delicious. They make this whole crazy world quantifiable and human behavior easier to deal with. This weeks featured statistic comes from the 2008 Cone Business of Social Media Study:

"93% of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites and 85% believe that these companies should use these services to interact with consumers."

Hurray for social media, which is continuing to seep it's way into the hearts of consumers and companies alike.

What's Been Happening This Week...

Twitter Continues To Grow Up... Mostly
Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, got named one of Business Week's 25 Most Influential People on the Web. But what's funny about Twitter's success is that it wasn't intended to be used for what it is now. It's no longer about "what are you doing?", it's about communicating in the fastest way possible to the masses.

A great example of this occurred this week when Laurel Papworth, Australian blogger, decided to pull together an instant consultancy to respond to an RFP from Vodaphone. She put out a tweet and within 4 hours later, she had pulled together 65 people, they had set up a website called The Twitter Agency, and were exchanging tips and strategy via blog posts.

Big Twitter blunder this week came today when citizen journalism falsely reported that Steve Jobs had a heart attack. CNN carried the report, Apple stock dropped, until it was revealed it was false. Could this become a growing trend?

"You've got people who are trying to game the system to (possibly?) game the market or influence other events. The 'news market' will eventually start filtering these reports out, which raises the price of being a reliable news source and slightly degrades the Twitters and iReports as useful sources."
Mike Hudson

Web Apps: Alive, Dead, or Evil?
It was a weird week for the world of widgets and web apps. Mashable basically called web apps a necessary evil. And the rest of the blogosphere couldn't agree on whether the web app was dead or growing. Facebook announced that their apps are now portable to friendster, and Netflix finally launched an API to make their data available for widgetization. But is this all too late... AllFacebook has presented some pretty convincing charts that show a huge decline in web app installation, since the Facebook redesign.

One area that isn't down is mobile apps. Facebook launched a new version of their iPhone app this week. And presidential candidate Barack Obama released an iPhone app to help supporters connect and get involved, stay up to date on breaking news, read up on Obama's position on issues, and more.

Marta Strickland

I found this post really hard to write. My delicious steam has run pretty dry. My Twine updates have been noticeably slim. The world is understandably focused on other things. The economy, the bailout, the debates, people finding new ways to poke fun at Sarah Palin.

So I've had to breathe deep, clear my mind, and then give some serious thought to...

What ELSE Has Been Happening This Week...

Remember That Thing Called Google Android?
Oh yeah, didn't that phone that has been shrouded in rumors for the past year finally release actual details and a video demo? Yeah, THAT happened this week. And while Apple fanyboys are already listing the reasons why it's no iPhone killer, app developers are lining up for a platform that is going to offer way less restrictions.

The New PC Campaign, Ask And You Shall Receive
After people spent all of last week complaining about the irrelevance of the Seinfeld-Gates commercials, Microsoft turns around with an inarguably better series where people proclaim "I'm A PC". As soon as the commercials debuted, the blogosphere called for a user-generated portal where users could claim their PC-ness. Well, they must have been psychic, because Microsoft launched the very site they described the next day.

The State Of Social Media
All of us are hoping that the new president's first "State Of The Nation" address in January will come bearing better news than the past 48 hours. But in the meantime, this week we got two reports on the state of Social Media. Technorati launched their series, The State of the Blogosphere. And Opera updated their series, The State of the Mobile Web. Each worth a read.

The Twitterverse Is A Reflection Of Us
Alright, I made it a couple of paragraphs without thinking back to our current political situation. But luckily I'm not the only one sucked in by it. You only have to look at the newly launched Twitter Election page to see how fiercely the discussion is raging on. The tweets are flying faster than a news ticker now and are only going to speed up. Many are wondering if the platform will be able to hold up to it's primetime debut in tonight's first Presidential Debate.

Just don't watch the Twitter stream too long, or you might find yourself hypnotized, instead of outside enjoying the last days of warm weather...

Marta Strickland

Well, it's that time of year again, International Talk Like A Pirate Day. So don't be surprised if your tweets are filled with overuse of the letter "r", if you get poked with a hook hand on Facebook, or if Google looks just a little bit different.

What's Been Happening This Week...

International Launch A New Design Week
Apparently there was some aligning of planets in the social world that caused a gravitational pull to the "republish" button. Twitter and Friendfeed released subtle redesigns this week, sure to piss off some followers. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has been hard at work defending the "controversial" new Facebook redesign. Yawn...

More interesting this week were the redesigns that will feature added functionality. MySpace is launching a bigger, better music service that turns everyone's profile into their own Muxtape. IMDB is adding video clips and even full length movies and TV shows. And Joost has finally released a web browser version. Each release came with mild applause but mostly just a lot of cynical bloggers scratching their heads.

Odd Pairings, Sometimes 1 + 1 Equals Confused
Speaking of cynical bloggers... there was A LOT of strange partnerships announced and discussed this week that just fed a frenzy of posts. There was, of course, the on again off again Microsoft-Seinfeld rumor mill. First everyone hated the commercials, then they were warming up to them. Then, there were rumors they were dumped, when new ads were released. And just today I read that there are still plans for new commercials featuring Gates and Seinfeld. Confused, yet?

Other confusing partnerships included Best Buy's purchase of Napster and of course the whole cluster of brands who have joined the grandiosely named Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE).

The Double Standards Of Digital Intimacy
But that's all industry garbledy-gook. The REALLY interesting stuff that happened this week was along this continuing meme of "digital intimacy". When does society demand coverage and when is it deemed a threat to privacy and personal barriers.

Digital Intimacy good? CurrentTV partnered up with Twitter to get tagged (and I'm assuming selected) tweets on television screens around the nation during the presidential debates.

Digital Intimacy evil? It's up for debate whether this is evil, but the popular consensus is that Berny Morson, a Rocky Mountain news reporter, took things too far when he twittered the funeral of a 3-year-old boy. Many in the press took objection to Berny's ethics after the fact, while the rabbi who officiated the funeral saw it as "somebody sharing to a wider community [that was] interested and felt connected to this sad event."

What do you think? Where do we draw the hard lines of privacy?

Until next week...
Marta Strickland

I'm back from vacation, and ready to report on this week's social media news. Why so much focus on social media, you might ask? We'll, I'm obsessed for one, but for two, I really think that social media is changing the world we live in today. Did you know...

"Six degrees of separation has fallen to three due to the impact of social networking and developments in technology," according to a study carried out by O2.

We are closer together than ever!! And even though 58% of people don't know what "social networking" means, that doesn't get me down. It's just a matter of time before those people's lives become affected by social media, too. In fact, what they don't even know is that they probably already are.

What's Been Happening This Week...

Big Network Power, Small Network Growth
Proving the power of the masses this week, Facebook activism continues to rise and the US Department of Homeland Security used MySpace to link people to up-to-date hurricane alerts.

As for small networks, Ning has been quite successful, enabling the launch of over 400,000 niche communities. Developers have taken notice and two Ning-competitors launched over the last week. Webjam, a UK based company, launches as a direct competitor to Ning, hoping to win over users with DIY web services and widgets. Groupsites hopes to be to productivity and collaboration as Ning has been to a more casual and leisurely networking experience.

Microblogging Advances Further Mainstream
Speaking of productivity, it might not be a word you'd commonly associate with a microblogging platform such as Twitter, but to much surprise to many, the winner of this year's TechCrunch50 was Twitter-for-business start-up Yammer.

It's not just the early adopter blogs buzzing about tweeting. There were inspiring articles on both NYTimes and BusinessWeek recently about the power of Twitter.

And despite the recent drama with AMC and Twitter, old media channels are starting to embrace the channel. Even CNN has been heavily promoting their use on the air, calling from replies from their audience.

Old Media Playing Nice With New Media
CNN isn't the only old media + new media love fest that has been happening lately. Google has decided to archive and index one of the oldest forms of media, newspapers. And while digital is going after old, old is also becoming more digital. You might have seen the earlier piece this week about Esquire's new issue complete with a blinky e-ink cover.

But it isn't just about playing nice. As Mashable points out, new media might actually save old media and it's advertising-based revenue stream. The argument goes something like this. As TV shows become more and more interactive, allowing you to Twitter to your news anchor in real time or vote on what happens next, there will be a bigger draw to actually watch IN REAL TIME. Real time means, for those of us who have long succumbed to the magic of DVR, no fast-forwarding through commercials.

Some of you might have just shuddered at the thought of returning to a life of TV commercials. If only the traditional broadcast advertising industry can also embrace the power of interactivity, then maybe we wouldn't mind watching them so much.

Marta Strickland