CATEGORIES
RESOURCES
CONTRIBUTORS
Arcade Fire’s Interactive Music Video.
Not only is Arcade Fire awesome, but they performed live on stage with Bruce Springsteen.
Not only did they perform live on stage with Bruce Springsteen, but they made this fantastic interactive music video for Neon Bible.
This is a must-see. And the album is a must-have.
Posted in 
Are You a Fan of Deep Focus? How About a Follower?
Become a fan of Deep Focus on Facebook by clicking here. There will be some exciting news announced via this page over the coming months, and you’ll probably hear about it there first…
In the meantime, if you want to follow me via Twitter, just click here.
Most Important News of the Year? Verizon Opens Its Network.
Do not underestimate this news.
Verizon Wireless will be opening its network to any phone or software application by the end of 2008. It will be the first carrier in the US to do this.
It will probably mean the other carriers will follow.
In simple terms, this means that technically, any mobile phone can be used on the Verizon Wireless network, as long as it is not locked by another carrier.
This is the move we’ve all been waiting for. We will begin to see tremendous leaps in innovation and software as a result of this. It will essentially remove the artificial limits placed on handset development by the tight self-regulation imposed upon manufacturers by the carriers.
And of course, this opens the door wide open for a Google mobile OS.
The iPhone is just the beginning folks. Start preparing for this NOW.
Next up? Set-top boxes. Trust me.
(news via MarketingVOX)
See Me @ Ad Age’s Media Mavens Event.
Reminder…
I’ll be speaking at Advertising Age’s Media Mavens event at the New York Hilton tomorrow morning. Registration begins at 9:30am, and information about tickets can be found by clicking here.
If you’re going to be there, find me, stop me, and tell me you read my blog. It’d make me happy.
Awkward Moments in Social Media: Molson and Facebook.
Ok. Lets pretend for a moment that you really didn’t know what people did on Facebook. Lets also pretend that you didn’t know what people did in college.
With that said, at what point in the "lets do something that will appeal to college kids" brainstorming process to support A BEER BRAND(!) did the red flag not slap someone in the face, kick them in the groin, give them a wet willie, and scream BAD IDEA!?!?!?
What situation? Thanks for asking.
Molson launched a contest on Facebook that invited college students to post pictures of themselves partying. The contest ended early, because college administrators and students freaked out.
Go figure.
Unscrupulust: Notes from the Social Media Underbelly.
The Wall Street Journal recently profiled an effort in France by Nescafe’s Dolce Gusto brand to incentivize bloggers to cover a new initiative, an interactive game. The way bloggers were incentivized was via a website called BlogBang.com.
Members of the BlogBang.com community (bloggers) were notified of the campaign via the site, and if they chose to write about the campaign, they would receive a link to their blog from Dolce Gusto’s homepage (this campaign may have come and gone, because these links are nowhere to be found on dolce-gusto.fr).
BlogBang, owned by ad agency holding company Publicis, has also tried other ways to get bloggers involved. Per the WSJ article:
BlogBang also has tried to draw bloggers into the creative process. Companies looking for new ways to pitch their products can post requests for bloggers to develop their own campaigns. BlogBang’s members can then put their homemade ads on the site. The one that gets the most clicks is spread around the bloggers’ Web sites, and the author of the winning ad earns a fee. Garnier, a division of cosmetics group L’Oréal, advertised its Fructis hair gel this way. Garnier couldn’t be reached for comment.
While this kind of effort may have the scent of good intentions, a long whiff of BlogBang doesn’t smell much different than PayPerPost (now called IZEA). Anytime the editorial content of blogs is tainted with cash, it de-legitimizes the medium. Even the promise of links is promising traffic which translates into potential ad revenue for the blog. Getting bloggers to create their own ads seems to take them away from what they are (probably) doing best: writing content for their readers. Collectively, readers are smart. They can smell a rat a mile away. Once they realize the content of the blog they are reading is influenced by money, they will move on.
Of course, bloggers receive free products for review all the time. But as long as those products come with the understanding that a) they may not be written about at all, or b) a review may, in fact, be negative, then it is on the up and up.
Publicis may thing they’ve got this blog thing figured out (BlogBang is losing $1 million/year), but the irony of the situation is that if they just employed the use of highly trained, skilled publicists, they might have better, more efficient (albeit not as easy) results.
Coincidentally, the day before the Blog Bang story in the WSJ, TechCrunch published a guest column by a gentleman named Dan Ackerman Greenberg, co-founder of a "viral video marketing company" called The Comotion Group. This column basically explains, in detail, how companies like Dan’s "game" video-sharing websites like YouTube. There are several unscrupulous ways of getting videos more views including fake headlines, paid links on blogs, infiltrating and seeding forums using fake accounts, spam, and numerous other cringe-inducing methods.
After receiving LOTS of negative feedback from the TechCrunch readership (understandably so), Dan was given the opportunity to do a follow-up post . In that post, he basically he doesn’t endorse all the methods he explained in his first post. Regardless, these ways exist, and even if you claim you are just serving them up to facilitate a "discussion", what you’re doing is poisoning the user experience.
What is becoming increasingly apparent to me is that as long as there are trends in online media, there are going to be people and companies looking to game the system, and trying to get rich quick — or at least make easy money. The problem is that with a practically infinite canvas, there are always going to be clicks to be bought.
There are numerous governmental agencies and consumer groups that serve to catch unscrupulousness in the act, but there has been an alarming lack of presence online. While groups like the Word of Mouth Marketing Association exist that set standards, who will enforce them? As much as I don’t want to see the government get involved with the web, how can we prevent spammers, scammers, and blammers from ruining the user experience?
Penny for your thoughts…
The *New* Silicon Alley 100.
Remember the Silicon Alley 100? It was something that Jason Calacanis used to do to get many in the industry mad at him. It was also a ranking of the 100 most influential people in the NYC new media biz. It’s back, kind of.
Check out the new version where YOU can have a say in who really are the 100 most influential people in Silicon Alley.
I’m nominated. Ok. I nominated myself. But you can vote for me by clicking here and make me feel better about being my only fan. Also check out Ari Paparo, Scott Heiferman, Quincy Smith, and many others…
T is for Thanksgiving, Fool!
T is also for World of Warcraft, who chose to use Mr. T in their latest spot. See what I mean? Mr. T = viral success.
Click here to see my one-on-one interview with Mr. T, or just watch below (again).
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Brand Nudity: The “I’m Thankful for Dudley Moore” Edition
So if you know me, you know I love to talk about how brands need to be honest. And if they feel uncomfortable being honest, they need to change.
If you’ve been in my office, you’ve probably seen my pristine mint-condition poster for the film Crazy People, starring Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah (it also features Uncle Floyd [Vivino], but that’s another story).
If you haven’t seen this movie, go rent it.
Want a crash course in being honest with the consumer? Check out this great recap of the film below (mildly NSFW, language):
Sure it goes overboard. But the essence is correct. While taglines and slogans are no longer the best ways of communicating brand honesty — I would say that is done through customer service, social media, and real dialogue — you can still learn a lot from Dudley Moore.
Paul Reiser, even.
Poll: New Name for “Cyber Monday”?
I hate the term “Cyber Monday”. It reminds me of the bubble. My money and intelligence are real, not “cyber”, and it just feels like another concept created to get more people to shop just after Thanksgiving. So I propose a new name. Something a little more passive. Or calls it out for what it really is.
Anyways, what are your thoughts? Vote or add your own choice below.
