Digital Design Blog

Supernova ‘08: Marketing in the Network Age

Supernova, one of the best technology conferences, is kicking off in San Francisco next week. The theme is how to best navigate the “network age”, where mainstream consumers mix-and-match utility computing services to their liking and maintain a web of complex social interactions.

There are a host of top-industry thinkers on board, including Jonathan Schwartz (Sun), Esther Dyson (EDventure), Reed Hundt (Ex-FCC Chair), Clay Shirky (NYU), Joe Kraus (Google) and many more. And I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to speak on the future of digital marketing. Here are the details:

Marketing S.O.S!
Kiumarse Zamanian (Glam Media), Deborah Schultz (Social Media Consultant), Hugh MacLeod (GapingVoid), Kerry Chrapliwy (HP), Garrick Schmitt (Avenue A | Razorfish)

When it comes to marketing innovation, what’s the holdup? Practitioners from leading brands will tell us why it’s been difficult to realize the promise of new digital and social media technologies. With silos forming in the tech community and creative industry, we’ve left it to the brands to figure out how to bring it all together. We’ll explore: Where is the money, and what is really driving innovation? Can you determine the ROI of a relationship? And, how do brands restructure to move forward?

If you are at the conference and would like to meet-up, drop me a line. If not, I’ll post a wrap-up next week.

Tags: clay shirky, esther dyson, fcc, google, hp, joe krauss, jonathan schwartz, network, reed hunt, sun, supernova, wharton, yahoo

Posted in Advertising, Digital Consumer Behavior, Technology | No Comments »

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

This article by my favorite contrarian/futurist Nicholas Carr is the hot topic of the day. The main theme: Is the Internet changing the way we think? Still digesting, but well worth a read…

Tags: atlantic monthly, google, nicholas carr

Posted in Digital Consumer Behavior, Technology | No Comments »

You’ve Been Rickrolled!: When Geek Chic Internet Phenomena Goes Mainstream

This past week getting “Rickrolled” went mainstream. That’s when a number of political blogs, including Wonkette and Andrew Sullivan linked to a YouTube video claiming to show Michelle Obama going on a less than savory rant. The result: a mass mainstream audience getting “Rickrolled.”

Read more »

Tags: design, michelle obama, prank, rick astley, rickroll, video, viral, youtube

Posted in Digital Consumer Behavior, Social Media, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Note To Start-Ups: Advertisers Could Not Care Less About Your Site, App or Widget

A few of us attended this week’s Dealmaker’s Forum Under the Radar Social Media + Entertainment Conference in Mountain View. It’s a small conference, but one of the best, as it pushes all that’s great about the Valley - primarily innovation - by showcasing more than 35 great start-ups in compelling, rapid-fire way. Then, the conference brings in the much-needed almost American Idol-style reality check of VC, successful entrepreneur, and media exec judges to remind us all that innovation needs a good business plan to survive.

This year, the Dealmaker folks added a brilliant finish: a fire-side chat with some ad agency heavy hitters. The message to the start-ups was clear: even though big advertisers (think Tide, Coca-Cola) are moving some money to the web, they couldn’t care less about your site/app/widget. They need scale and mass audiences to sell their products and, in all honesty, they’d love to just keep buying media the same way they’ve done it for the last 70 years — without you.

The panel did suggest some options, though, for budding businesses and the best-judged start-ups tended to already be following these ideas: Read more »

Tags: ad agencies, animoto, aqka, bigstage, blog, cnet, coca-cola, crowdspring, curse, jacked, mediaforge, nesting.com, pluggedin, rga, sometrics, start-ups, tide, under the radar, venture capital, verisom, vusion

Posted in Advertising, Media + Entertainment, Mobile, Social Media, Web 2.0 | 6 Comments »

Disruptive Mobility Roundup: Virgin Mobile, Fon, and ZYB

Half the World’s Population Has at Least One Mobile Phone

The Daily Telegraph reports that mobile phone usage has reached 49 percent penetration rate globally in 2007, according to the International Telecommunications Union. The fastest growth was seen in developing countries in Asia and Africa. The report states that the growth of mobile adoption is occurring at the same time that fixed telephone usage is decreasing - mobile phone usage in Africa for example represents 90% of all telecommunications usage. There does however remain a “digital divide” in the form of bandwidth availability and cost, and this will remain a key challenge for governments and telecoms in developing countries in the next few years. |Via Daily Telegraph |

[Pic of the week: Kyocera's Virgin Mobile Festival Special Edition Wild Card...via Engadget ] Read more »

Tags: daily telegraph, devices, fon, gartner, kyocera, Mobile, virgin, zyb

Posted in Mobile | No Comments »

Don’t Stop Believing: YouTube Is The New A&R

Bypassing a reality game-show, ala INXS, Journey scours YouTube to find a replacement for lead-singer Steve Perry. The result, Arnel Pineda, a 40-year-old Perry sound-alike from the Philippines. Journey’s new record with Pineda, Revelation, is out today. (The New York Times) Stunning, amusing and fantastic.

Update: Nice video segment from CBS on Journey and the “Information Superhighway”

Tags: cbs, journey, new york times, nytimes, steve perry, youtube

Posted in Digital Consumer Behavior, Media + Entertainment, Social Media | No Comments »

Google Android Comes To Life: Demo Video From I/O In SF

Google’s Android has progressed by leaps and bounds since CES. The demo at Google’s I/O developer conference in SF is stunning. Definitely will give Apple and BlackBerry a challenge when it launches later this year. Check it out here (demo starts at 21:07):

Tags: Add new tag, android, apple, application, blackberry, google, googlephone, i/o, iphone, nokia, video, youtube

Posted in Mobile, Technology, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

Empty Promises, Damaged Brands: When the Digital and Physical Collide

With the increasing focus on total customer experience – the philosophy that micro-experiences in their entirety are strong influencers in defining a brand – I still find countless examples of experiences that make the user jump unnecessary hurdles or, worse, fall short of a promise that some marketing department has made, albeit with good intentions.

Case in point: at first blush, Circuit City should be one of the darlings of 360 experiences. You can research a product or store, get advice from Consumer Reports, peruse their City Center blog, purchase products online or by phone, and – if you simply must have it now – there’s an option to reserve and pay for it online so that it’s ready and waiting for you within 24-minutes at the nearest retail store.

Sounds like shopping nirvana, right? Wrong! Read more »

Tags: brand, brand experience, circuit city, customer experience management, digital, experience, experience economy, micro-experience, physical, post-sales experience, retail, retail experience, total customer experience

Posted in Advertising, Design Tactics, Digital Branding, Digital Consumer Behavior, Technology, Web 2.0, eCommerce | 2 Comments »

On Muxtape, Twitter, and the Future of Web Services and Platforms

My favorite web service of 2008 is Muxtape which, inspired the analog mix tape cassette culture of the 80s and 90s, allows users to create their own mixes — typically 12 songs — upload the files, sequence the songs and post. One of the pure joys of the service is simple, stripped down aesthetic that encourages joyful random discovery. End users can flip through the Muxtapes randomly (by design) and stream an entire mix or sample single songs.

The only drawback to the service was that it was too hard to find other users/mixes that had similar musical tastes. Too random, perhaps. Enter MuxFind, a simple search engine that allows users to search by artist name, muxtape user name or by keyword. Suddenly, a great Web service gets 10x better because a 21-year-old German student named Jan Oberst created an application on top of a great service.

And he’s not alone, MuxSeek debuted a few months ago and was created by a user in Japan. As was this Google Custom Search service, created earlier this year by an anonymous user.

Though still small, Muxtape, which now boast a daily user base of 100k users, and leverages Amazons’ Web Service platform, is quickly becoming the model for a new breed of web services that grow in usage and prominence when they become platforms. Read more »

Tags: api, beta, custom search, developers, facebook, google, jetblue, muxfind, muxseek, muxtape, platforms, services, southwest airlines, tweetscan, twhirl, twitter, web, zappos

Posted in Advertising, Design Tactics, Digital Consumer Behavior, Social Media, Technology, Web 2.0 | 3 Comments »

Emerging Media Trends: Getting (Wii) Fit, UGC Cell Phone Minutes, Contextual TV

1. O.K., Avatar, Work With Me – The Introduction of the Wii Fit

What is it? The Wii has become the best-selling gaming console of our time, selling more than 25MM systems worldwide. It appeals to people of all ages—everyone from grandparents to hardcore gamers find the Wii’s games (e.g. bowling and tennis) to be fun and intuitive. Soon, consumers will be able to experience the latest technology from Nintendo, called the Wii Fit. The sensitive “balance board” that comes with the game is placed on the floor and allows users to try simple exercises. Each user creates a personal profile, which can include potential weight goals. The system tracks a user’s weight and BMI as well as their performance on exercises. (Source: NYTimes – I encourage you to visit the site and read more about the testers’ experiences with the device)

Why is it interesting? Consumers are not going to resign their gym memberships anytime soon, but the gaming industry is gaining mass appeal by introducing products that are no longer for a niche audience. Busy, multi-tasking moms may now have a chance to exercise in the middle of the day. It could also open up new options for those that are living in small apartments/condos where cardio machines take up too much space. While the Wii Fit does not promise body builder physiques, it is yet another extension of gaming experiences into the real world.

Read more »

Tags: Advertising, Analytics, facebook, Mobile, nintendo, nytimes, tbs, virgin, wii

Posted in Advertising, Digital Branding, Mobile, Social Media | 1 Comment »

R/GA, AKQA and Avenue A | Razorfish on the Future of Digital Agencies

I spent last week in New York at our agency’s annual event, the Avenue A | Razorfish Client Summit. Part soirée, part agency showcase and part marketing conference, the event gathers some of the industries top thinkers and marketers for an intensive two-day session on the future of the Internet and advertising.

This year’s guest list was stellar: Guy Kawasaki, Jeff Zucker (NBC Universal), Charlene Li (Forrester), Sir George Martin (Beatles), Duncan Watts (Yahoo!/Columbia University), Andy England (Coors) plus more from Facebook, Joost, Slingbox, Tivo and Microsoft.

But one of the big highlights, in my opinion, was the Agency of the Future Panel with Bob Greenberg (CEO/Global Chief Creative Officer, R/GA), Tom Bedecarre (CEO, AKQA) and Clark Kokich (CEO, Avenue A | Razorfish). In a wide-ranging 45 minute conversation, the group talked about the changing digital landscape, the challenges that all digital and traditional agencies will be facing in the coming years and how each of their respective agencies are broadening well beyond digital. In my mind, there were three major themes that really stood out: Read more »

Tags: Advertising, agency, akqa, Analytics, avenue a | razorfish, creative, critical mass, digital, digitas, nike, organic, rga

Posted in Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Consumer Behavior | 1 Comment »

Facebook Releases Top 25 Most Popular Pages: Brits Dominate

Our office is buzzing this afternoon about the recently released Top 25 Most Popular Pages on Facebook. The top spot goes to Barack Obama with 834,550 supporters, followed by the BBC program The Chris Moyles Show with 426,635 fans, Apple Students with 415,440 fans and Victoria’s Secret PINK with 350,983 fans. The complete list is posted on the the Inside Facebook blog.

For those not keeping track, six months ago Facebook launched “Pages” as an ad/promotional vehicle for businesses, brands and celebs to have a home on the increasingly popular social network. One of the most interesting aspects of the Top 25 “Pages” is the prominence of UK-oriented programming/cultural topics — The Chris Moyles Show, The Stig and Top Gear — which make up 30% of the top 10 pages. The dominance of music related pages is overwhelming as well, comprising 40% of the top 25 pages.

Clearly, Facebook still dominates with the college crowd, despite attracting and broader (i.e. older) audience since opening up the system. And while the Top 25 doesn’t spill any real secrets to marketers/advertisers, it’s still quite an interesting window into the social activity on Facebook.

Tags: apple, barack obama, chris moyles, john mccain, nutella, pink, social influence marketing, stig, students, top gear, victoria's secret

Posted in Advertising, Digital Branding, Digital Consumer Behavior, Social Media | No Comments »