August 8, 2008

Notes from the interactive and new media world.

In the world of new or social media the two approaches that free up budget to focus in this area are Negative Press and Competitive Superiority. Apparently the competitive spirit is still alive and well and people still don't like bad news or being in second place.
Want to read the content of a website returned to your cell phone? Just text the domain to DOTCOM (368266). Content is returned as a series of text messages - much easier to read. Tagga is one of the new entrants in the 1.9 trillion message market. The free service reserves some of the 160 characters for ads, the premium service eliminates ads.
Privacy settings on mobile social platforms becoming one of the differentiators among Loopt, Britekite, Dodgeball, and Fireball. There are many reasons one might want invisibility, different levels of exposure, and even avatar-esque locations.
Radio station WJBQ used email and text to have listeners submit and vote on 'cute baby pictures'. (I'm thinking the pictures were posted on the web site, but in this day and age who knows.) There was clear evidence that demos drove the tactic of choice - teens texted, adults emailed. mSnap provides its platform for free to radio stations and generates revenue from ads and syndication. "For an Atlanta country station, the offer of a private concert by Kellie Pickler led to a war among high schools and over 2 million texts in about nine days of promotion." (not to be confused with mobile snap)
If you thought the $1,000 TV spot was just for local car dealers think again. Spot Runner's investors in the $50m round included LVMH - the owner of more than 60 upscale brands including Moët & Chandon, Hennessy, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Donna Karan, Sephora and TAG Heuer. So if luxury brands, the epitome of creative, are thinking this way - what about normal brands?
BOREDOM: the primary reason teens are online (Pew research). This makes lead generation an interesting topic for discussion - make them curious, give them something useful.
Quote: The famous British economist John Maynard Keynes once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” In this arena the facts and underlying assumptions change daily. Be flexible and open minded!
Fox continues to find that social networking and advertising are oil and vinegar. Traffic up; ad sales down. Hmm.. maybe we need to find and emulsifier to create a vinaigrette.
In the continuing debate about advertising on social networks it must be remembered that it ain't like television. In a discussion on Future Now's site was the following comment on why you need to think about BOTH content and ad: While a poorly-targeted TV ad reflects badly on the advertiser (and not the network), a poorly-targeted Facebook ad reflects badly on the network (and not the advertiser). The reason is that Facebook integrates advertising WITHIN their programming (my news feed) while the TV network traditionally keeps it separate.... In this sense, Facebook has a much greater responsibility than TV networks to make their ads relevant. When they don’t they compromise their product experience, and damage their brand, all in exchange for a few pennies per CPM.
Women Bloggers are different than the general online population (see table below). These women find information both useful and influential

Online Women Demographics
	*General Population*	*BlogHer Women*
Married/Living together	62%	77%
Number in HHD	3.2	3.2
Have children at home	46%	58%
Employed full time	34%	45%
Education
High school graduate or less	20%	4.8%
Technical or trade school graduate	5%	3.0%
Some college/university	40%	25%
Graduated from college/university	22%	37%
Some post-graduate work	5%	10%
Masters or doctorate degree	9%	20%