Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 279

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #163

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

The end of big (media): When news orgs move from brands to platforms for talent - Nieman Journalism Lab . "I missed this piece from the Nieman Journalism Lab , but it's a pretty smart prediction for the future of media, and a shift from brands to talent. Worth considering for books too--since as Julien Smith said, a book is just the longest form of content." (Alistair for Hugh).

BearDuino: Hacking Teddy Ruxpin with Arduino - ArsTechnica . "Want to get creeped out by toys from your childhood? Stick an Arduino inside a Teddy Ruxpin. A Portland artist has turned his art installation into a platform for budding roboticists. The results are unsettling. More unsettling is how easy it'll be to build robots at home in a few years, and what we'll do with them." (Alistair for Mitch).

Noam Chomsky: The Military Is Misunderstood - YouTube . "Noam Chomsky with a surprising take on what the US military (and it's huge budget) is actually for: government financing for new technologies." (Hugh for Alistair).

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' - The Guardian . "More on the NSA. Apparently they can track *everything* you do on the Internet." (Hugh for Mitch).

We don't really want to hear new music - Futurity . "Well, this is kinda fascinating. Human beings love change, experimentation and something new, right? Well... it turns out that we may be even more creatures of habit than we care to admit. Candidly, I'll default to music I know in the car instead of seeking out something new that I have never heard before. You? Plus, think about the implications of this research on how brands market and advertise their respective businesses." (Mitch for Alistair).

Today's Most Innovative Company: Bookvibe Finds Your Next Book Recommendation On Twitter - Fast Company . "This sounded very cool and made me very hopeful. I signed up and it's not really delivering what I had hoped for. In theory, this program will scour your friends on Twitter and help you discover books that you may be interested in. I could see this being great for many other areas of interest as well. Let's hope someone really nails this type of utility." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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alistair croll

arduino

arstechnica

bitcurrent

book a futurists manifesto

bookvibe

complete web monitoring

fast company

futurity

gigaom

hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

julien smith

librivox

link bait

link exchange

link sharing

managing bandwidth

media hacks

niemen journalism lab

noam chomsky

nsa

pressbooks

social media

solve for interesting

teddy ruxpin

the guardian

twitter

year one labs

youtube

Design Your Thinking Differently

How often do you think about design?

It could be the use of a font, the architecture of a building or why someone hasn't designed something to improve the zipper or the spoon (perhaps there is nothing to improve upon?). Be it aesthetics or the simple fact that everything beyond nature that we see around us was designed by someone, design is everywhere. It's not just art. The pylon on the street to the straw for your drink to the business strategy that governs your brand. I've watched documentaries like Helvetica and Urbanized, which have grown my interest in design and the human desire to design things better. There are two people in this world who understand design like no others. They happen to be brothers. They happen to own IDEO, one of the most innovative design agencies in the world. They are David Kelley and Tom Kelley. They have written incredible books like The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation (go read them). Recently, they spoke at the MIT Media Lab and were hosted by Joi Ito. This is a conversation that lasts a little over an hour, but it is well worth each and every minute. Unfortunately, they do not allow the video to be embedded below, so please click this link... and enjoy:

Media Lab Conversations Series: IDEO's David and Tom Kelley.

Tags:

architecture

brand

business book

business strategy

david kelley

design

design agency

design thinking

documentary

helvetica

ideo

innovation

joi ito

media lab conversations series

mit

mit media lab

the art of innovation

the ten faces of innovation

tom kelley

urbanized

Facebook Is About To Explode (In A Good Way)

Facebook is just getting started.

That may come as a shock to some. It may not seem all that illuminating to others. It's getting easier to hop on the hype wagon these days. Just yesterday, the stock price passed its IPO debacle. But that's not the reason you should reconsider what Facebook can do. It's also not enough to simply acknowledge it as such a massive online social network. In the past few years, Facebook has made some significant moves that have placed it on a course for a more expansive offering. Some of these offerings have worked extremely well, while others have failed, but commutatively, you can chart a course for this company and see that it is - by no means - a one trick pony.

The big new thing about Facebook.

While everyone was paying attention to the stock price yesterday, Facebook also announced something called "embeddable posts" (more on that here: Mashable - Facebook Introduces Embeddable Posts). Soon, readers of blogs and content publishers will be able to take their content, grab a small line of code and post these news items outside of Facebook's walled garden (on blogs, websites and more). Much in the same way that you can embed a YouTube video on any website, soon users will be able to embed Facebook posts (that are made public). Users simply copy and paste this little snippet of code and place it on blog entries or anything built with HTML. Currently, this feature is being tested with companies like Mashable, CNN, The Huffington Post and others. This functionality of pushing Facebook features beyond Facebook is similar to what they already offer in allowing external blogs and websites to use the Facebook commenting engine.

Why this is a big deal.

This move helps put Facebook content (much of which is driven by photography and videos) all over the Web. It allows Facebook to track trends and what is being shared in new and dynamic ways but, ultimately, the easier Facebook makes the content that is being produced on the channel as shareable and findable as possible, the harder it becomes for Facebook users to not use and increase their usage of this service. From a marketing perspective, it also allows brands to make their Facebook content more shareable and findable in a world where the half-life of posts to the newsfeed is near real-time. If you couple this with Facebook's recent acceptance and integration of hashtags (more on that here: Inside Facebook - Examining Facebook's hashtags), you can better understand how all of this personal and brand-related content that we share is now going to have some kind of alignment back to Facebook. Yes, a world where Facebook is everywhere (much like the broader moves we've seen Google make in the past decade, as it transitions from a search engine into something much bigger).

It's not just about hashtags and embeddable posts.

Facebook begun the tearing down of the walled garden a while back. Back in 2010, Facebook began the process of allowing users to "like" just about anything (more on that here: The New Face Of Facebook), so being able to now embed Facebook posts and Facebook comments anywhere and everywhere is a natural, smart and strategic move. Furthermore, we have yet to see Facebook truly deliver on the potential of integrating a true commerce and marketplace platform that could exist both within and beyond the Facebook experience. Yes, Facebook as an engine of currency and commerce is not that dramatic of a thought (more on that here: F-Commerce - Rise Of The Facebook Consumer). While Bitcoin and other virtual currencies continue to build buzz and intrigue, Facebook is well-positioned to develop and grow a truly global currency.  

One more thing.

Mobile is everything. In my second business book, CTRL ALT Delete, I call it the one screen world. There was a brief moment in time, when Facebook's future looked questionable. It had been developed on a Web and browser-based platform and as mobile, smartphones and tablets grew at exponential paces, it seemed like Facebook wasn't keeping speed. What we learned from this past week's surge in stock price is that Facebook now has bullish results on mobile advertising, but that's not even half of the story. In a world of disruption and speed, Facebook switched to a mobile-first strategy in about six months and has not looked back. So, if you couple all of these components together (embeddable posts, hashtag marketing, the like button extended outside of Facebook, Facebook as a potential currency and their speed to adapt to mobile and capitalize on it), it looks like Facebook continues to chart a very important course in how we all connect - wherever that may be.

Regardless of how you feel about Facebook, these realities can't be ignored by brands today.

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bitcoin

blog

cnn

content

content publishers

ctrl alt delete

f commerce

facebook

facebook commenting engine

facebook commerce

facebook content

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facebook ipo

facebook marketing

google

hashtag

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html

inside facebook

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mashable

mobile

mobile advertising

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newsfeed

one screen world

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smartphone

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the huffington post

virtual currency

walled garden

website

youtube

The First Rule Of Social Media Is: You Talk About Social Media

Forget about the conversation.

If the first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about Fight Club, then the first rule of social media is that you must talk about social media. Don't shoot for a conversation, simply do your best to make your content as shareable and as findable as possible. That is the true core of what makes something social in the first place: the ability for someone to even know/find it and their ability to share it. If those two locks can get opened, every brand has the opportunity to then hit a level of engagement, and from there - if you're really cooking with gas - you may... may!... get some semblance of a conversation.

Do as I say. Not as I do.

It's no news that this blog doesn't follow or bends a lot of the commonly held best practices for what makes something boogie online. That being said, those best practices are translated to the work that we do with our clients at Twist Image, and it never hurts to look at what gets results to be inspired to improve the work that we do. If you create content, you know the cold hard truth: the half-life of digital content is short... and getting shorter. How often do you look back on content that someone created a few months ago? A couple of years ago? Not often. Sadly. Recently, I came across this amazing SlideShare presentation put together by Upworthy titled, 10 Ways To Win The Internets. In it you will see not how to create content, but how to boost your content by thinking differently about things like headlines, images and where those share buttons should be placed. In the past few days, I've found myself going back to the content in this presentation multiple times. Interestingly, it this presentation is from 2012.

Here are 10 ways to win the Interwebs...

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10 ways to win the internets

blog

brand

content

content marketing

conversation

digital content

fight club

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social media best practices

upworthy

What TV Is And What Will Never Be

We like to watch.

Don't forget that. You can plug in all of the Apple TV units that you want, and bump up the number of Netflix subscriptions too. You can tell us how exciting Google's new Chromecast is (and, yes, it's very exciting), and you can even convince me that more and more people are using their smartphones as companion devices to television. While all of this is true and dramatic, in terms of the media landscape, we still like to watch. Changing these screens to be touchable (like an iPad) may be an eventuality, but we like to watch. Will TV screens become the next iteration of Google Glass, whereby we don't need the glasses but all of our screens can be interacted with through voice commands or heard via bone conduction devices? Could well be, but we still like to watch.

Passive media is as passive media does.

There's that scene in Minority Report. You know the one. Where every screen knows Tom Cruise and is cramming his every walking movement with a call to action that makes us all perk up and realize that advertising at scale probably won't be all that effective. We step back. We push TV advertising by including product placement, sponsorship and more. It's hard to watch the stupidest of sitcoms and know if the star of the show is wearing that baseball cap because it's fashionable or because they're paid to. These are the same celebrities that are being paid to tweet as auxiliary media to a TV buy from an agency (don't think that isn't happening). Every brand is trying to figure out a new angle in a world of infinite channels. We used to talk about last night's TV show around the watercooler at work. Now, we talk about the tweets and Facebook posts about last night's TV show around the watercooler that we watched on time delay or PVR'd and skipped the commercials entirely.

Make no mistake about it: TV is going to be severely disrupted soon.

From Netflix models to the integration of YouTube, Hulu and beyond. It won't be long before the TV set - as we know it to date - is simply a bigger version of the things we can do on our smartphones and tablets, plus all of the stuff that our televisions currently do. But, we haven't talked about the most important component in this equation, have we? We've talked about the TV industry, the technology, the hardware, the software and even the content that drives it, but haven't talked about you. The context of the consumer. All of this chatter about how television is going to move from a lying on the couch environment to a leaning in one (think about how much video games have pushed this forward), seems to be missing the true context of the consumer. I don't know about you, but there comes a moment in my day when I simply want to lean back and let the content do the heavy lifting. No chatting, sharing, liking, friending, commenting, curating, ranking, delegating or debating.... just sit back, watch and let those airwaves wash over me... ahhhh....

What do you want your TV to do?

The television industry is doing everything within its power to maintain control. Apple, Google, Twitter and others are looking to (or have already begun to) disrupt it. There are even those within the TV industry that are pushing to disrupt themselves (how Steve Jobs of them). Still, you can add all of the features, widgets, apps and connectivity of these devices and we may still net out in the same place: people just like to sit back and watch TV.

I could be wrong.

Maybe we do want our TVs to just be a connected screen. Maybe we do want our TVs to be a bigger iPad. We'll soon see. Still, with all of the technology and connectivity that TVs currently have (and how advanced they're going to get), I'm willing to put some serious dollars towards the notion that the vast majority of people will still use them in the exact same way: flicking around while sit back for brief moment in time to be entertained instead of focusing on whatever is going on in their own lives.

Tune in. Drop out. Right?

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advertising

apple

apple tv

apps

bone conduction

brand

chromecast

companion devices

connectivity

consumer context

content

facebook

google

google glass

hardware

hulu

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media

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minority report

netflix

passive media

product placement

sitcom

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What Publicis Omnicom Is Screaming At Our Industry

Digital is everything. That is the conversation that every marketing, advertising and communications agency needs to be having... today.

The newsfeeds are filled with opinions, perspective and half-truths about the mega-merger of Omnicom and Publicis. Whether you're looking to their corporate speak as to why this merger makes sense, or whether you're listening to the armchair quarterbacks (like me), it's interesting to read between the lines. What is abundantly clear? This is all about the transformation of advertising agency into digital agency. Period. End of sentence.

Brash talk?

It's self-serving for me write this (I own an independent digital marketing agency), but it's true. Have you seen any chatter about how much better this merger will be in terms of personalized service to the brands that they serve? Have you read anything about how this merger will make the work more creative for the clients that they serve? Has anyone been talking about the legacy of award-winning work that a combination of Omnicom and Publicis can now bring to make the work that much better for the clients? How about the efficacy of client services and project management to return better work at a more efficient price to the brands? Nothing. It's all about digital. It's all about data. It's all about how the new Publicis Omnicom will compete (or be better frenemies) with the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon. How will this new entity leverage all of this data that is being collected to bring better results back to their brands?

We're not in the TV industrial complex anymore, Toto. 

The tenants of an advertising agency to work - hand-in-hand - with their clients and provide creative solutions that ultimately increase sales through engines of advertising and engagement feels like small potatoes when you start staring at a Publicis Omnicom in the face. The main thrust of the agencies within these networks is to create ads that get people to buy things. No, we're not completely leaving that terrain for a new terra firma, but it does seem like that this new mega-deal is shrouded in buzzwords that have everything to do with technology and digital, while next-to-nothing in relation to creativity, strategy and insights.

What's your digital plan?

Whether you're a marketing agency or a brand, you're going to have to make some tough decisions in the next few months. These multinational advertising networks hold within their grasp the vast majority of advertising and marketing agencies that the bigger brands use. With it, comes the lion's share of the media dollars as well. They're using words like technology, data and digital, while the more commonly used vernacular of our industry (the creative, advertising, strategy, insights and more) are hardly whispered into the bigger dialogue. On a personal note, Twist Image never truly felt like it was a part of the advertising industry. Back in 2000, when were a handful of people, we were busy hiring programmers and developers to work alongside the creative and client services in the hopes of creating a better result for the brand. We weren't about advertising. We were about business solutions. We knew (and felt) that technology was (and would become) an integral part of how marketing gets created, accounted for and optimized. For over thirteen years, we have been banging this drum, and it has finally started to come to fruition. It seems like Publicis Omnicom sees this as their future as well. Television is becoming more interactive. Newspapers are distributing and monetizing their content in a more fuzzy way (paper, Web, tablet, etc...). Radio is starting to sound a lot more like "audio anywhere" than something relegated to airwaves in a locked geographical position. With it, all of the marketing that surrounds it is adapting as well. Digital channels are being created - each and every day - that offer new ways to connect with consumers. Some of it is a content play, and some of it involves putting an ad around the content. Brands can now leverage a direct relationship with their consumers to really push engagement and a semblance of loyalty.

Disruption is digital.

So, while the disruption may have been crystallized by digital, it's clear that all marketing now needs digital at its core. It may also be true that consumers have (what I call) a digital-first posture, and this means that everything is now digital. Of course, this doesn't diminish the power of the creative or the strategy (quite the contrary... it makes it more important than ever), but it does mean that without data, optimization, iteration and a keen eye on the math and nuances of your marketing performance, that the best creative doesn't even rank on the scale when a merger like Publicis Omnicom happens. And, for my dollar, that says a lot about an industry that is about to be disrupted that much more in the coming years.

It sounds like this merger is all about one thing: digital (ok... maybe money is the real one thing).

Tags:

ad creative

advertising

advertising agency

advertising industry

advertising network

amazon

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facebook

google

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marketing performance

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omnicom

project management

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radio

tv

tv industrial complex

twitter

Famed Comedian, Marc Maron, Talks Podcasting And Building An Audience

Episode #368 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

This is a big week for Montreal. We have the Just For Laughs comedy festival in town (full disclosure: Twist Image built the Just For Laughs website). It's the place where anybody and everybody involved in the business of comedy converge on this city for galas, one-off shows and parties. In the past few years, comedy has latched on to new media in a big way. From comedians using Twitter to connect more directly to the wild success of Funny or Die. We have seen comedians like Louis CK leverage new media to truly build a direct relationship with his fans, to celebrities like Joan Rivers (In Bed With Joan) and Jerry Seinfeld (Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee) turning to Web-only programs. I think that Marc Maron is to thank for a lot of what we're seeing these comedians do. Since 2009, he has been producing his podcast, WTF With Marc Maron. The show is produced twice a week and features in-depth conversations with comedians and other entertainers that deep dives into their craft and life. He's had a who's who of the industry join him. The success of his podcast has furthered his stand-up comedy career, led to a bestselling second book, Attempting Normal, and his TV show, Maron (broadcasted on IFC) just got picked up for another season. I sat down with Maron, this past Friday (prior to a live recording of his own, WTF With Marc Maron). Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #368.

Tags:

advertising podcast

attempting normal

blog

blogging

brand

business book

business podcast

comedians in cars getting coffee

david usher

digital marketing

facebook

funny or die

ifc

in bed with joan rivers

itunes

jerry seinfeld

joan rivers

just for laughs

louis ck

marc maron

marketing podcast

maron

podcast

podcasting

twitter

wtf with marc maron

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #162

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

The Two-Minute Game that Reveals How People Perceive You - Harvard Business Review . "This sounds like a HuffPo fluff-piece, but it's actually research from Harvard associate professor, Michael Norton . I won't spoil the twist for you; play it and see what happens. And when you're done (if you're in the US) watch this clip from Amy Schumer , which is a pretty accurate depiction of the dynamic Norton refers to." (Alistair for Hugh).

Jay-Z's 'Magna Carta' App Raises Privacy Issues, Turns Off Some Users (Including Killer Mike) - Billboard . "If an album is an app, and its terms of service leave listeners wide open, is the future of music data mining? Billboard seems to think so." (Alistair for Mitch).

api.gduverger.com . "Alistair talks a lot about the 'quantified self,' a movement to use various apps and devices capture and analyze data about yourself: your sleep habits, caloric intake, distance walked each day, etc. Ex-Montrealer, Georges Duverger , takes that notion to the next level, and has built (or at least floated the idea of building) an API (application programming interface) for the data he is capturing about himself, to allow other developers to build applications around his data." (Hugh for Alistair).

Bob Mazzer On The Tube - Spatialfields Life . "Remember the 80s? In England? Here's a collection from photographer Bob Mazer of pics taken on the Tube in London from way back before anyone even knew what a browser was." (Hugh for Mitch).

Forget The Science -- Here's A Fun Sociological Explanation For Why We Haven't Discovered Alien Life Yet - Business Insider . "In short: maybe they're just not that into you." (Mitch for Alistair).

The End: Barnes & Noble in Silicon Valley - Bloomberg BusinessWeek . "There's a lesson here. I just don't know what it is. Barnes & Noble does their best not to wind up like Borders. What happened? Well, they went 'digital'... but they're not Google or Amazon or Apple . Change is hard. Completely reinventing yourself when your company is that big is next to impossible. Whatever happens next, I'll be sad if their physical stores disappear. Regardless of how I read books (on my iPhone with the Kindle app ), I still don't want to see this brand go away. Love their massive stores." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags:

alistair croll

amazon

amy schumer

apple

barnes and noble

billboard

bitcurrent

bloomberg

bob mazzer

book a futurists manifesto

borders

business insider

businessweek

complete web monitoring

georges duverger

gigaom

google

harvard

harvard business review

hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

iphone

jay z

killer mike

kindle

librivox

link bait

link exchange

link sharing

managing bandwidth

media hacks

michael norton

pressbooks

social media

solve for interesting

spatialfields life

twitter

year one labs

Uber Is A Magical Company. Is It Worth Over Two Billion Dollars?

Is Uber worth north of two billion dollars?

That is what the rumor mill is spinning about the amazing car service that Tim Ferriss described as: the ability for anyone to feel like a foreign diplomat. You turn on the app, request a black sedan and you're off to your next destination (with a minor price variance from a taxi). It's a company that is explicitly tied to the collaborative economy and one of the emerging companies that many people are looking to as the future of business. Travis Kalanick, the CEO of Uber, speaks at Fortune Magazine's 2013 Brainstorm Tech conference.

Watch this:

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fortune magazine

fortune magazine brainstorm 2013

tech conference

the collaborative economy

tim ferriss

travis kalanick

uber

On The Agenda Tonight: Rebooting Business

Is your business ready for a reboot?

Tonight, was the broadcast of The Agenda with Steve Paikin on the topic of my second business book, CTRL ALT Delete. The 30-minute conversation can be seen right here:

The Agenda with Steve Paikin: Mitch Joel: Rebooting Business.

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business book

ctrl alt delete

reboot business

steve paikin

the agenda

the agenda with steve paikin