Posts tagged as:

paidmedia

Mark Zuckerberg’s 30 second MBA, Mind control apps, and is Color the next Twitter?

The latest in new media marketing strategies and tactics:

Mark Zuckerberg | 30 Second MBA [VIDEO]

I really like this. Innovation is a process, not a lightning bolt. Great perspective from one of the true visionaries in business today.

Why Color May Be The Next Twitter

Given I’m in new media, I follow about anything that gets 2 out of these three: Money, Hype, or Users. Color has the first two in abundance. But I think the potential to become a social network is a little off. While I think it could be a big hit among the photogs, the photography category isn’t anything close to the sms category, Twitter’s launch pad. It also seems to be too event-related to really consume our waking hours the way Twitter does with so many people. That said, looking forward to trying it.

Nifty App Converts Email Into A Game, Helping You Blast Through Your Inbox | Co.Design

Maybe it’s just because I saw Seth Priebatsch’s SXSW preso on SCVNGR, but the concept of gamification seems to be gaining buzz. I admittedly think some of it’s over-hype, but this email tech shows how it can be as much about correcting or improving behavior than any long term rewards program. And maybe that’s where it’s most effective.

Missiles Into Models | Fast Company

These are seriously sick 3D maps. Just what I need, another reason to stay inside with my iPad. Be sure to watch the bottom video.

A New Gauge For Brand Strength: The Tangible Brand Test | Co.Design

An interesting stress test for brands. How far does your brand extend?

Add Location-Based Q&A With the Localmind API

I like this Foursquare API’s spin on the Foursquare platform. Use Foursquare to ask questions of people who’ve already checked into a place. Perhaps limited to a small number of questions, but it certainly adds depth to the Foursquare experience.

Children’s Hospital Boston

As top social media goals for companies often center around Facebook ‘Likes’, don’t be surprised to see more brands taking intrusive steps like this.

DIGIDAY:DAILY – 5Qs: Federated Media’s John Battelle

John Battelle answers 5 questions every ad person should be curious about.

PlaceIQ’s Location-Aware Advertising Can Target You Block By Block

The real potential behind mobile advertising is targeting based on information about the user. This gives a long list of reasons why mobile is so information rich to marketers. Now they just have to sort through all this data to create an easy-to-use way to apply and purchase this targeting.

Curation Tool Storify Opens To The Public

If you’re practicing content marketing, then you’re likely using aggregation as a form of content. And while that usually consists of Sharing or ReTweeting links individually, Storify helps you collect related links and create a storyline within that content. It’s probably best applied to audiences that are looking for a more complete point of view on a given subject.

Mind controlled apps hit the market | Technology | Los Angeles Times

Perhaps the most interesting area of mobile app technology will be when we start plugging those apps into heart and brainwave monitors. The couple of apps profiled here give a snapshot of the direction that’s going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How to drive change, brands increasing their social media spend, and mobile’s “phantom limb” effect

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

Most Marketers Plan to Increase Social Media Spend This Year [STUDY]

Another survey indicated increasing interest in social media by brands. 70% are planning to increase their social media budget this year. Most interesting is that their primary social media goal is to increase Facebook ‘Likes’, and that 87% report that social media is “important” or “very important” to achieving their biggest marketing goal this year. If anyone is doubted that social media has made it to the major leagues, this is pretty strong proof.

Why People Do & Don’t Use Location Apps (Survey)

The findings are interesting regarding mobile trends. I’m surprised at the number who don’t use location-based apps is as low as it is. That seems to be changing. That said, the numbers on this survey feel a little low for complete reliability.

Moat Banner Ad Search

It’s not often I care to search for banner ads, but it does play the full animation, and present details like where it was discovered and when it last ran.

MediaPost Publications Tell The IAB What You’re Spending In Mobile

I’ve stated a few times how the mobile industry is paralleling the early days of the ad industry. There’s currently a growing gap between the use of mobile and the number of advertising dollars being spent there. It’s the same opportunity early buyers of banners and Adwords enjoyed.

Death Stalks the Twittersphere, Offering a Lesson in Consumer Exposure | Bob Garfield – Advertising Age

it’s important for brands to be aware about privacy issues like this to make sure community engagement campaigns aren’t stepping over the creep factor line. I’m sure the awareness factor of this campaign is off the charts. I’d be more curious what the conversion rate is.

How mobile phones are turning into phantom limbs – Telegraph Blogs

I have to say I’ve experienced the same thing. Really demonstrates why this is such a powerful medium. Especially for the early adopters who are before all the noise erupts.

Driving Change: Eight Learnings. | Reinventing

A must read from someone who’s done a lot to drive change within a pretty traditional agency.

Apple to Sell Square Device in Retail Stores – MarketingVOX

If you’re not familiar, Square is a credit card swiper that simply inserts into the headphone jack of an iPhone. And presto, instant credit card acceptance. That combined with it being from the founder of Twitter, it’s definitely one to watch in this space.

Design a Winning Ad Age Cover to Snag a Trip to Cannes | Global News – Advertising Age

Great idea for young creatives.

 

 

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Facebook is like cuddling, tablets killing pc’s, and Nike’s data revolution

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

Facebook Triggers Same Hormone As Cuddling

So that explains it. This may be obvious to many. After all, if something’s addictive, it has to be producing some strong, positive effect.

Gartner: tablet hype fueling worldwide dip in PC sales

At Ad Tech this week, Jeffrey Cole from USC Annenberg spoke of trends, and predicted that tablets become the computer of choice for almost everyone except people doing processor heavy tasks, or writing. With a wireless tablet, I could even see them working well for writing. What this means for advertising is even more of a lean-forward experience. Driving quick, near-term engagement is easier the more actively engaged the user becomes. And that’s what tablets do constantly with their hands-on swiping and pointing.

iPhone App Takes a 3D Scan of Your Face, Prints a 3D Model

While most people don’t have 3D printers, the fact that you can create the model with a photo snapped from an iPhone is remarkable.

What Is the Future of Gamification? [Survey]

With apps like Foursquare hinting at the potential of gamification, here are some projections of where that concept could extend.

Airbnb Lets You Rent a Country … For $70K a Night

If you haven’t heard of Airbnb, they’re a fascinating startup story. Their creativity has shown from the beginning, and they continue to demonstrate that through buzz-generating stunts like this.

YouTube sending repeat infringers to copyright school

This is a great solution to a sticky problem. Seems like every time I start thinking Google doesn’t get how to communicate and stay in touch with their customers, they do something brilliant like this.

Nike Seeks Fellow to Start an Open Data Revolution

I’ve posted a lot of articles recently on the growing impact of data on brand development and marketing. Nike’s taking a big leap here, and while this article focuses more on the sustainability angle, if you consider products like the Nike+, there’s clear potential for a big consumer-facing impact, as well.

NuCaptcha’s Advertising Network For Video Captchas Goes Self-Serve

Proof that pretty much every nook and cranny of the Web is open to some form of advertising.

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Xbox Kinect is marketing’s new frontier, the best unsubscribe process ever, and content creation vs curation

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

Why Xbox Kinect Technology Will Be the Next Frontier for Marketers

I’ve posted a lot of Kinect lately, and here’s another article directly addressing the marketing opportunities for brands. What’s likely most appealing about Kinect for brands is the ability to create highly personal interactive experiences on a mass scale. Unlike SecondLife, which felt geeky, Kinect is far more organic.

“yeah thats not what I was looking for at all.”

Hysterical account of a design who just doesn’t want to give the “client” what they’re looking for.

You are unsubscribed

This has to be the most creative unsubscribe process ever. Even though I still unsubscribed, it certainly impacted my impression of the brand.

Why Curation Is Just as Important as Creation [OPINION]

Excellent perspective on what I think is the key opportunity for many brands interested in the content marketing space. Sure, creating content will help you exercise your brand voice and define your differentiation. But aggregation can also display a point of view and a sense of knowing what’s going on. It’s also puts the brand at the center of a conversation topic.

Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog » Blog Archive » To what end? The question that kills media reinvention

A theme I touch on a lot is the cross-fire currently happening between the publishing industry and the marketing industry. With publishers acting more like advertising agencies (Meridith is a great example) and advertisers needing to create more long-term resonance and less push-messaging, you could go through this article and pretty much substitute ‘marketers’ for ‘publishers’ and have a very relevant piece on content marketing.

Bloomberg: Personalizing the News for 20 Million People: Tech News and Analysis «

As a counter to the content farms, this is the way quality content is supposed to be generated with the use of technology. They currently track over 100 data points on every page, and use that to present the best information to each reader. There’s still a need for quality stories, but for most large publishers, there’s still a gap that needs to be closed regarding which of all their articles a given reader may be most interested in.

Hybrid Media: How Social is Enabling Event TV | MobileBehavior

An excellent slide show on how mobile and TV are merging to create new types of social viewing experiences.

Mobile By The Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Pardon yet another infographic, but there’s some great data in here. My favorite: 1/2 of all local searches are from a mobile device, and 86% of mobile Internet users are using their devices while watching TV.

Rebecca Black Means The (Internet) Fame Game Has Changed

A good take on this whole Internet Fame thing.

Report: Google Still Web’s Dominant Traffic Driver, But Some Niches See Facebook Gaining

Perhaps the most interesting search related stat is the referring traffic stat at some of the largest publishers. Most are still getting the bulk of their traffic from Google, although Facebook is growing more quickly. Still, Facebook has along way to go before they pass them.

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How to reinvent media, the Internet as spying machine, and a SXSWi recap

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

At SXSW, Advertising Was This Year’s Twitter, iPad 2 Was This Year’s Foursquare

If you happened to make SXSW this year, you’ll certainly relate to this post. And if you didn’t but missed being there, this will make you feel a little less so.

Google Geo Developers Blog: A new angle on the world with 45° imagery

If you’re displaying a map, this is a good way to make it pop off the page. And they can always go back to ‘map’ view.

YouTube Acquires Service That Makes Your Videos Better

YouTube, surely feeling the distant heat of Hulu, is pushing the technology side of the service more and more lately. With the explosive popularity of numerous photo apps to make our snaps look better, the idea of making people’s videos look better is an obviously smart thing to be focusing on.

Internet is world’s ‘greatest spying machine’: Assange – Yahoo! News

He’s right. But it’s not spying. It’s called ‘conversation analysis’.

Microsoft Office 15 Aims For Facebook Integration

Easily posting of MS Office docs to Facebook. Sounds like “FacebookLeaks” to me.

To what end? The question that kills media reinvention

A theme I touch on a lot is the cross-fire currently happening between the publishing industry and the marketing industry. With publishers acting more like advertising agencies (Meridith is a great example) and advertisers needing to create more long-term resonance and less push-messaging, you could go through this article and pretty much substitute ‘marketers’ for ‘publishers’ and have a very relevant piece on content marketing.

SMS On Steroids – eBuddy Debuts Realtime, Cross-Platform Messaging App

With mobile redefining the online UX, I could see an easy-to-use, socially-enabled SMS app to pick up serious traction in the social networking space. There’s currently a big gap between mobile social experiences like Facebook and Twitter, and SMS messaging, which is still one of the largest areas of activity for mobile users. Perhaps instead of companies focusing on all the features they can do with the current crop of social apps, the approach with the broadest appeal could be to start with SMS, and see what networking features you can build out from there.

Facebook Launching Prepaid Local Deals Subscription Service

With the mobile industry already well into it’s long predicted explosion of growth, Facebook is out to stake it’s claim to anything mobile or location-based. As Places took on Foursquare, their new Deals service is a direct shot at Groupon. Only Facebook can promote it’s deals in the Facebook newsfeed however prominently it wants. Which sounds like what they’re doing.

Study: Mobile Ad-Tracking Systems Are “Blind” To 80 Percent Of Apple iOS Devices

Very good to know the next time you’re reviewing your mobile campaign metrics (or someone else is reviewing them for you). This can be worked around through focusing on site metrics, like landing page visits, which is really what we should be looking at anyway.

Ads API Profile: AdParlor’s Full-Service Solution for Game Developers

Firstly, per the headline, I wouldn’t say this is only applicable to game developers. Facebook’s advanced targeting is a true revolution in paid media, and this in-depth overview will give anyone a good sense for how it can be applied.

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Chrysler’s Twitter F-bomb, Kinect’s the new breakout consumer device, and a smart Twitter campaign from Kraft

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

Chrysler’s Twitter Account Accidentally Drops the F-Bomb

This is a simple but great example of how social media is flipping everything upside down. Not only does a Fortune 500 firm drop the F bomb in a Tweet, but the ensuing mini-crisis (though I’m sure it didn’t seem ‘mini’ to Chrysler) resulted in Chrysler gaining Twitter followers. Situations like this are proving that sometimes a simple mistake can give companies a more human dimension than millions of dollars of paid advertising.

Kinect’s Superfast Adoption Preps Consumers for Other Interactive Experiences – MarketingVOX

I’ve recently reported on some unusual ways people are using Kinect. What I didn’t realize was how fast Kinect was selling. It’s now topped the iPhone and iPad as fastest selling consumer electronics device ever, according to Guinness World Records. Combining both the mass appeal and the remarkable new uses, this technology is looking to create a big impact on digital communications and content development.

Does Your Digg or Facebook Connect Widget Cost Hundreds of Site Visitors and Thousands in Revenue?

Given that Google is starting to factor page loads into their ranking algorithms, this issue has even more weight. Note that there’s a great tool listed in this article for gauging how fast any page loads.

Kraft Treats for Tweets About Mac & Cheese | News – Advertising Age

This is a really smart campaign idea that comes directly out of knowing what people are saying about your brand online.

At Discovery, Pushing Back Against the ‘Content Farm’ | Advertising Age

With all the buzz recently about Google’s “Farmer” update to squash content farms, Discovery shows that the underlying principle of creating demand-related content makes sense for anyone interested in pulling viewers.

Skype To Start Running Ads This Week

Ads in your IM window aren’t anything new. Yahoo’s been doing that for years. But if they pick up the practice Google uses, of targeting ads based on your email conversation, then you could see something very interesting happening where ads are contextual to your IM or even voice conversations. Could you imagine having a conversation with someone about, say a good graphic designer, and while you’re talking, ads for graphic designers start popping up? Could be annoying, but could also be highly relevant.

5 Innovative Mobile Marketing Campaigns

Looking at the numbers on these campaigns, if you’re looking for immediate results, the ideas that work best seem to be those that tap into existing communities or user bases. Check the stats on the PowerMat promo on MyTown.

The Farmer Panda Impact Nobody Is Talking About

Great perspective on the value of good content marketing practices, versus black hat seo practices.

Here’s What Google, Salesforce & Sequoia Are Investing In

Follow the money. In this case, it’s going towards a mix of social media, search, and mobile.

Magazines’ iPad Editions Struggle to Keep Your Attention, New Study Finds | Advertising Age

A study that illustrates a point that Howard Gossage said years ago. “People don’t read ads per se, they read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.” Apparently the thin line between content and advertising also exists for consumers. It will be interesting to see if publishers start creating their own ad units to corral likely behavior related to the content their publishing. Thus, if readers see a snowboard image in the magazine, the publisher could find ways to bring relevant snowboarding content into the magazine. This is an obviously new problem, as they never dealt with readers jumping off to search Amazon in printed editions.

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The perfect iPhone game, YouTube and the NFL, and the most viral Facebook campaigns

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

The 5 Most Viral Facebook Campaigns

The difficulty in assessing these campaigns is also what’s unique about most of them. They weren’t launched by any identifiable sources. They’re also remarkably simple, technologically. Mostly just text status updates.

Get Free Chipotle Food for Watching NBC Promo on Facebook

A good illustration of how campaigns are getting more complex. In this case, i think it’s great how Chipotle has positioned themselves in this deal, leveraging their existing customer base to get NBC to give them considerable publicity, from probably subsidizing this promo, to their CEO being featured on the show.

YouTube in Talks to Broadcast NBA Games

I remember when Fox bought the rights to broadcast NFL games, making it the legitimate 4th network. And then ESPN, a cable company, took on Monday Night Football. Imagine if YouTube bought the rights to half the NFL games, and only showed them online? That’s one way to quickly get a lot of people figuring out how to connect their computers to their TVs. And yes, it would be expensive, but Google has a lot deeper pockets than the networks, these days.

Survey Finds High Rate of Tablet Adoption Among U.S. Immigrants

While this article focuses on the popularity of the iPad over other devices, I think the bigger picture is about the adoption of tablets in general (whichever market penetration stat they use — 4% or 13% — it’s still high for such a new category). I’ve seen tablet prices under $100, and if you consider the combination of a computer that’s very cheap and very easy to use, it’s not hard to see how this is going to radically change computing.

Hacker Makes Facebook Look Like MySpace, Gets Hired

A great story about a guy who hacked Facebook, and then got hired by them. Most interesting is how Facebook’s reaction and ongoing relationship with the hacker varied 180 from how MySpace handled the issue. It’s a single incident, but indicates the depth of how Facebook gets what social media culture is all about. It’s also a great indicator of how corporate culture is changing, as companies should be wanting to hire people like this, not throw them in jail.

MediaPost – news and directories for media, marketing and online advertising professionals

While there’s no shortage of talk about the rapid and structural change of our industry, few posts lay it out so clearly and succinctly as this. Of particular note is this quote: “the report advises that companies develop digital marketing strategies ‘as closely as possible to the business unit’”. It’s marketing’s shot at getting the CEOs ear again.

YouTube – Bill Bernbach on Creative Qualities

I’m certainly not a traditionalist when it comes to marketing, but this video of Bernbach talking about the traits of good communicators is timeless. I love the example he gives of the asylum at the end of the video.

Little Magic Stories: Interactive Art With The Kinect [VIDEO]

Kinect is showing some serious potential in transforming how content is created and delivered. This video shows two kids on a stage interacting with an entirely digital world around them, shown on a projection screen. This is in a similar vein as Avatar Kinect, which I reported on about a month ago (link below). As the production cost of these virtual worlds drops precipitously, the ability to create all sorts of worlds in which we can interact with is going to open up types of content previously unheard of.

Apple to Cut the Starting Price on iAds [REPORT]

If anything, I think this points to Apple’s need to understand that the bulk of their market probably won’t be the big spenders. It’s something Google has understood, and practiced, very well. Mobile, perhaps more than any other category, will do well to appeal to local businesses that spend money more spontaneously, and with much lower spend levels.

Tiny Wings is everything perfect about iPhone games

While I still think Angry Birds is a much more elegant game, this is certainly enough fun for $1. Another example of how it doesn’t take a lot of funding to make an interesting and addictive game.

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Lil Wayne vs Oreos, SEOs ugly side, and your phone as your remote — for everything.

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

Lil Wayne Crushes Oreo’s Attempt at Facebook Record

Kind of an Ashton Kutcher/CNN Twitter race redux. Not really shocking that the celebrities are taking the victories, either. No matter how much brands work it, they can’t out humanize a human.

Search Optimization and Its Dirty Little Secrets – NYTimes.com

If you didn’t catch this article, which exploded on the search blogs this week, read it. It doesn’t matter what aspect of the marketing industry you’re in.

Mobile Phones Will Serve as Central Hub to “Internet of Things”

I’ve posted before on the futuristic ‘Internet of Things’. I like this depiction of the mobile phone as the remote control to, not just your iTunes or TV, but to pretty much everything around you.

A Better Mobile Experience | Facebook

In these images of various phones employing a deeper Facebook connection. In viewing, these feel more like cosmetic issues, but taking individual Facebook components and distributing them across the phone UX does a couple of things. It makes Facebook more omnipresent, promoting use of it’s technology. Secondly, having these integrated into the phone’s database will improve the convenience, and ultimately the reliance people have on Facebook.

Facebook Promises Deep Integration on Many Devices

The big takeaway here is that Facebook wants to be everywhere, and they’re also accumulating the most accurate database of information about your likes and dislikes. Powerful combination.

Make a ClickTurn Ad — ClickTurn

While the value of content marketing is growing, there are still questions about the relationship between content and paid media. Content runs a broad gamut, so it’s not like all content is headline, article copy, and of course, the ensuing community discussion. But when your content can be condensed to an RSS feed, with a headline and copy (or video or podcast), then this is a great option for taking that content message out to paid media units. It’s much like the new Facebook ad units pulling in your Newsfeed posts as the messaging. Only these creatives can go in the places Facebook ad units can’t.

In the Future, Robots Will Surf Their Own Internet | Fast Company

First machines beat us at Jeopardy. Now they’re getting their own social network.

Facebook Page Redesign 2011: All You Need to Know

Given I’m still seeing a lot of Facebook Pages that haven’t updated to the new format, I’ll post this. It’s an inevitability — all Pages will convert March 1st — so no reason not to jump in and figure it out.

LinkedIn Channels 80s Corporate Instruction Videos

I like the concept behind these videos — using the Upright Citizen’s Brigade in short comedic videos demonstrating their service. My issue with the campaign is that it defines ‘content’ the same way so many newspaper publishers do. Thinking that the content experience is not greater than what they publish, disregarding the community as part of the experience. There’s no commenting, but plenty of options to share. Feels very one-sided. I also find it odd that they’re running ads in front of their content, which really feels more like an infomercial than episodic entertainment.

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Angry Birds goes to the Super Bowl, content farming’s future, and Facebook’s most successful ads.

The latest in new media marketing strategies and tactics:

“Angry Birds” To Star in Super Bowl Ad

Not sure which is more remarkable. That a 99 cent social game for mobile phones is running a Super Bowl spot, or that said game is being turned into a movie. Seeing them embedding game play components into the commercial is cool — brings alternative tactics like that to the forefront given the global impact of the spot — even though that trick has been done before.

Facebook Introduces a Credibility Score With New Social Commenting Plugin

This is great news for brands hoping to attract quality engagement on their site and Facebook Pages. Anyone involved in monitoring Facebook Pages comments for brands has dealt with trolls. This tool is helping identify them, exposing their behavior to members of the community. This should also be functional on a brand’s site pages, and overall should lift the caliber of discussions on their Facebook-networked properties.

The Rise And Fall Of Content Farms

This article is a great read on why brands looking to create distinction should avoid the mass-generated content-farm approach. The bottom line is, Google has an entire building packed with PhDs presently trying to prevent this model from succeeding, because it’s not adding value to the search results driving their business . That may change, but it will likely mean changes to the current content farming business. The article’s comments are full of contrarian views, and I’m curious if it’s from some of those 380,000 writers at content farm Associated Content?

Apple, Campbell’s Say iAds Twice as Effective as TV – Advertising Age – Digital

Is anyone even remotely surprised by this? A new ad unit with unprecedented intrusiveness on a media device users are enamored with. Sounds a lot like the Internet and banner ads in, say, 1995. What this really supports is that companies should approach new media more aggressively overall.

Sequoia-Backed Hearsay Launches Social Media Platform For Corporations With Local Branches

A way for brands to manage social media across franchises makes a lot of sense. I’d guess this service takes off big.

Artist Heat Map Makes Music Discovery Visual

I’m a fan of Rhapsody, and one of my favorite features of the site is the module on an artists page where they show related artists who came before, during or after the artist your viewing. It gives a nice sense of relationship and lineage to the world of music. Hitlantic has essentially taken that and made it visual. It’s a little rough right now, but they’re still pre-VC funding (another example of how small creative groups are developing big ideas).

Coca-Cola Reveals 15 Finalists in Branded Mobile App Contest

This is an interesting idea, and I applaud Coca-Cola for taking the forward steps they have in the area of UGC. Now that UGC is moving past ads and into apps, though, I feel it’s taking on much bigger territory, and in addition to hiring an agency to develop your creative or running a contest, there’s a third option. Monitor what’s going on, and buy or coop it. Commercials are very limited in scope, and there certainly aren’t nearly as many people creating them as apps. Much of that is because there’s limited monetary up side to creating a commercial, unless you’re pursuing a career directing or producing them. But apps live in a much larger arena. Instead of throwing a UGC contest, which most people will tell you takes a lot of admin, why not monitor what’s going on and then work a deal with the developer, possibly even taking over the app for a reasonable buyout? With over 300,000 apps in the Apple store, there’s no shortage of talent to pull from.

CHART OF THE DAY: The Most Successful Facebook Ads

While data by industry leaves a lot of room for variance among creative executions, it’s interesting to note the general response rates. And while I’ll always have an issue with the Click-thru Rate metric, Facebook currently doesn’t feature view-thru data for their paid media ads.

DealExtreme: $93.60 M001 7″ Touch Screen Google Android 1.6 Tablet PC

Android tablets for under $100. This may be an extreme example right now, but it does indicate the direction things are going, and the growing commoditization of technology devices. No wonder Apple’s putting so much effort behind selling apps and not just the devices that display them.

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TED welcomes the ad industry, Taco Bell crisis conversation analysis, and mobile trends for 2011

The latest in new media marketing strategies and tactics:

TED Talks the Future of Advertising | Post Advertising

TED is looking for ad campaign submission that contain ‘ideas worth spreading’, their theme line.

Customers ask Taco Bell: Where’s the beef? | Buzz Study

A good look at how the recent clamor around whatever Taco Bell puts in their tacos looks from a conversation analysis standpoint. I’m actually surprised to see so much positive sentiment, but then again, there’s very little neutral sentiment, which often has the lion’s share. And overall, this obviously isn’t the type of conversation companies want to see revolving around their brands.

10 Mobile Trends for 2011

I’ve posted other mobile trends article before, but consider them all a good, quick perusal. The thing that always strikes me about the mobile market and it’s emergence is the parallel between it and the Web back in the 90s. Growth faster than many can keep up, lot’s of technical hurdles to overcome, and a lot of over-enthusiasm in some areas while at the end of the day big leaps in overall consumer behavior.

The Old Spice Guy Returns [VIDEO]

He’s baaaack. And not much indication of where this is going, although this certainly isn’t as out there as the previous campaign.

7 internet sins that could make you go viral with your friends – CNN.com

While most brands would NEVER commit any of these errors, it’s good to note that — in an age when companies are trying to sound like people — some mistakes that people make. Of particular note is the Failbook mention. Definitely worth a trip over to that site.

Corona – A simple mobile app development platform

Last week i covered the 14 year old who’s gaming app knocked Angry Birds of the top spot in the Apple app store. I’ve seen several people inquire about what would be a good starter app to learn, or have their kids learn. This is the app the 14 year old learned, and apparently it’s very well designed. For one thing, look at the site design. it’s almost a page off the Apple site. The idea of a mobile platform development app looking like a consumer product page is striking, especially if you compare it to what most small, independent software sites have looked like over the past twenty years.

25 Years of Digital Vandalism – NYTimes.com

There aren’t many who’ve been at the merger of technology and culture as completely as William Gibson has, and this is an interesting comparison of his fiction relative to reality when it comes to hacker culture. With technology being the great enabler it’s been over the past decade or two, it’s interesting to see him make the acknowledgement that he saw things as being more corporate driven, and that in reality much of what’s happened — at least in hacker culture — has been less about evil empires and more about random individuals.

Facebook’s Latest Acquisition Aimed at Improving Local Deals

If you want to know the future of new media advertising, look at the investments the leaders in the space are making. In this case, Facebook is throwing a lot behind the combo of local + social + targeted. This is a good read on how the rest of the industry is trying to beat them to this space.

Visits to Twitter.com Fell 14% in 2010 [STATS]

The chart looks smooth and not haphazard, but keep in mind there are a lot of ways people use Twitter well outside visiting Twitter.com (e.g., mobile, 3rd party apps). Looking at Twitter.com data on Compete.com, it looks much more random. And I’m not always confident in Compete data, either. But this trend would be a sign of a maturing audience, and also indicate that many of those who came on board while Twitter was getting a lot of celebrity hype, may have decided Twitter isn’t really for them, and it’s going back to a more early adopter user base, which would explain the lower usage but with higher frequency and more efficiency.

Facebook – Display Advertising HowTo Videos

The display advertising side of Facebook is probably the most interesting thing happening in paid media right now, imo. Obviously it’s not the graphics or motion, but once you get under the hood are start looking at both the targeting capabilities and the various interactions you can employ, you can see how they’re charting some interesting new territory between paid and social media. Anyone who feels they’re not up to speed on digital marketing tactics should watch these videos.

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