Posts tagged as:

technology

Led Zep YouTube mashup, an epic iPhone plunge, and visualizing cable news topics

The latest in new media marketing strategies, tactics and technologies:

100 YouTube Videos Come Together To Cover Led Zeppelin [VIDEO]

More than anything, I think this shows how something as seemingly simple as video sharing has impacted so many people in so many situations and environments, and draws a common thread across all of them.

This iPhone Survived a 13,500-Foot Fall

A great brand story, irregardless of what a freak event this may have been.

Track that bias: New app visualizes cable news topics live — Online Video News

The first 2 paragraphs of this are all you need to read to get a nice sense of how text analysis can be used to add depth and perspective to a batch of data difficult to otherwise get a good grasp of.

How Bing’s Editors Choose Sexy Images To Seduce You Away From Google | Fast Company

A battle of the page design strategies between Microsoft (Bing) and Google. While Bing has supported their page launch with a significant paid media effort, I can see how this more emotional greeting is a great shot at Google’s supposed strength; simplicity. It’s like the political debate strategy of attacking, not your opponents weaknesses, but their strengths.

AmEx Links Up Facebook With Coupon-less Deals, And Lets Merchants Go Social | TechCrunch

I really like how AmEx understands their value in this corner of the market — creating a coupon experience with less friction for the end consumer. The less behavior changing you have to do, the better.

Why are web workers happier? — Online Collaboration

Agencies often struggle with the idea of an out-of-sight workforce. This is an interesting counter to that.

Game Insight Shuns iOS for Android, Prepares to Tell Facebook Crime Story

If you were a Mac user in the 90s, you have to remember how slowly, developers started investing less and less effort in their Mac apps, relative to the PC versions. Android is looking more and more like the new Windows. Better? No. But cheaper, more widely available, and thus gaining a larger customer base? Yes.

Facebook Asks Users to Help It Get Local Business Owners to Claim Their Places

Using their community to build their database of businesses. Smart move.

REPORT: How Google Plus Stacks Up Against Facebook

Given Google’s lofty brand status and massive reach in the technology world, I’m not surprised to see them come out of the blocks this strong. I don’t think 10% of Facebook’s US traffic is really the traction point for them. But the next few months could be very interesting.

New Filing Shows Zynga-Facebook Exclusivity Goes Far Beyond Credits – Liz Gannes – News – AllThingsD

A revealing, if not interesting, exploration of the relationship between these two. Facebook clearly has little to lose in this deal, and it shows Zynga’s heavy reliance on Facebook for the success of it’s platform. Like all the brand pages themselves, Facebook has put themselves in a position where they’re the only game in town, and if it weren’t for Facebook, the reality is, companies like Zynga would likely be a shell of their current selves.

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Live nature video goes viral, an iAd gallery, and the best social TV app yet

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

US eagle webcam becomes internet sensation – Yahoo! News

A great example of how simple some forms of entertainment can be. This is an eagle’s next 80 feet high in a tree, and about 150,000 people are tuned in at any given time during the day to witness a remarkable view of nature. Live.

Here’s the link to the Ustream page with the video:

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

Want to See All iAds in One Place? Apple Has an App for That

If you’re doing any mobile advertising (which hopefully you are), then this is a great resource for what’s currently the richest mobile ad experience.

TV-Tagging App IntoNow Tries to Kickstart Discussions Around Shows

I’ve checked out a number of social viewing apps, and this looks to be the best interface by far. The most impressive feature is the Shazam-like ability to identify the exact episode of a show you’re watching, with a short sound sample. There’s still an issue around where you are in a prerecorded show. But this is an impressive start, and would certainly work for live TV.

Too Lazy To Count Calories? Now You Can Just Take A Picture Of Your Meal

This is pretty amazing for what it does, not how it does it. It also reminds me of services during the dot com era that involved information retrieval through swarms of human resources. I’m not sure it’s a long term model, but it gives you the taste for the potential. And who knows, maybe after humans logging several hundred thousand dishes, the machine learning will take over and automate it. At any rate, it’s an interesting app that, once again, could have been developed by any number of food or health related brands.

Location Based Photo Booth – Popwuping

It’s basically a portable photo printer that picks up on Instagram location info, letting anyone at the event print pics from the event. I could see this being a good schwag alternative for brands who want to give people a memorable takeaway.

Quakebook: From Tweet to Book in One Week | Post Advertising

A remarkable example of how fast marketers and content producers are reacting to events to produce topical content. To even come up with this caliber of title and book cover design so quickly is a feat in itself.

Baby Connection: The Two-Part Baby Making App That Brings Dad Into The Process

What makes this app unique is the way it brings two users of the app together into a unified experience. That capability not only provides innovative features, it also gets to the emotional core of the procreation process: Teamwork.

“First iPad Magazine For Kids” Makes Its Debut [VIDEO]

One of the persistent complaints is read in iPad magazine reviews is that they’re not taking advantage of the technologies capabilities to redefine the reading experience. The video shows some impressive screens, and the apps free. Now if my iPad would just arrive.

Selling Something Other than Ads // NoahBrier.com

The POV displayed by Bloomberg on this quote is pretty close to the mindset a lot of businesses interested in the content marketing game. If you’ve been spending 100s of millions on push messaging, it’s not surprising they’d be interested in something that generates more long term value, especially in the CRM category.

Obama’s Re-election Campaign Puts Facebook Front And Center … Literally

Given the impact of Obama’s first election campaign, it would make sense for marketers to pay attention to his reelection campaign. It’s interesting to note that they’ve taken their best practices from the 2008 campaign and applied them to this effort. Interestingly, they’re starting out very simple, and building out from there. That’s some great insight for brands wondering how to approach social media.

 

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The mother of all mashups, Color’s social graph play, and 6 verbs for the future

The latest in interactive marketing strategies and tactics:

Mega-mashup Memolane Helps You Remember Everything

Definitely the mother of all mashups. It takes all your social media sites and makes everything you’ve posted to any of them searchable. That restaurant you visited in NYC last summer and checked in on Foursquare? Found! This really makes a lot of sense, and while I’m not sure there’s a big enough market for this as an independent business model, but there’s definitely a strong appeal to this.

Color’s Implicit Social Graph and How Facebook Could Respond

Color’s been getting A LOT of hype. Seems a little premature to me, given that ratings on the app store are mostly negative complaints about a terrible user interface. That said, this article gives us a good look at various data points companies like Facebook are out to gather. And as marketers, we’re the ones they’re gathering them for.

HOW TO: Play Recorded Twitter Conversations In Sync With Your Favorite Shows

Fantastic new feature for anyone who wants the ‘social viewing’ experience for recorded tv content.

The 6 Verbs For The Next 20 Years Of The Connected World

If you read Creativing often, you know I’m a fan of Kevin Kelly’s writing. I like the way he breaks down the major communication trends he sees shaping up, into 6 verbs. Obviously relevant for an interactive medium.

The 3 Types of Self-Destructive Corporate Tweets

Another opportunity to learn from other’s mistakes. Hopefully, instead of your own

Who Curates the Real-Time Web?

I like the POV of this article in terms of what’s the right blend between machine and human involvement in the curation process. Both sides of that equation are key components for brands wanting to include curated content in their content marketing mix. Which I believe they should be doing.

If You Like Flipboard, Check Out Zite – It’s Easier to Use

In content marketing there’s a lot of talk about curation vs. creation. Curation’s great, as long as it’s relevant. Tools like this one referenced, and it’s music equivalent, Pandora, are great because they’re simple. That’s what aggregation offers potential content marketers. A simple way to collect and present relevant information. It’s all down to how you screen and select your content.

Among Media, TV Is Still on Top | Advertising Age

TV spending is still at the top for it’s awareness and reach. The online component, becoming more and more intertwined with TV, offers a place to take the viewer to the interactive level. This will certainly be one way marketers will be ‘integrating’ the two going forward.

Seth’s Blog: Small screens and big decisions

With the mobile craze in full swing, Seth Godin provides a good reality check.

10 Web Design Elements that You Shouldn’t Overlook | Webdesigner Depot

Some foundational but great to brush up on design considerations for any Web page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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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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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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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Our growing Facebook addiction, last Sunday’s Social Bowl, and the latest Chief Marketing title

The latest in new media marketing strategies and tactics:

comScore: Facebook Keeps Gobbling People’s Time

Where are people getting the time? From the looks of it, from their MySpace account. YouTube also continues a very strong upward arc (as much as Compete.com data is to be believed).

Social Media: The Final Piece of the Super Bowl Advertising Puzzle

This was way overdue. If you look at the value the Super Bowl brings, it’s mass audience. One of the few times a year when that happens on a national and even international scale. Communities often run into a common problem — they don’t have value until they have people — and the first one in is like the first person to buy a fax machine. Thus an event like the Super Bowl gives brands an opportunity to reach and connect a large group of people at once. Giving fledgling social community efforts the jump start they just might need to get over the hump.

The Future of Mobile Tagging in Marketing, Branding & Communications

If you’re working on a mobile project or looking for interesting mobile ideas, this is an exhaustive list of mobile tactics that have been used. Well worth flipping through.

Got marketing technologists? 1,000-fold growth – Chief Marketing Technologist

Interesting, and not really surprising, tracking of the growing interest in the job title “chief marketing technologist”.

Facebook Ads Can Now Specify Any Page Landing Tab as a Destination

This should drive up both conversion rates for Facebook ads, as well as increase ad sales and testing, as advertisers can now advertise numerous destinations on their Facebook Page. In addition, the article speaks to the ever-opening Facebook Ads API. While this company isn’t shy about thier dislike for Google, this gives you the sense it’s more love-hate.

Sponsored Stories Now Available in the Facebook Self-Serve Ad Tool

Facebook is really moving into interesting territory in terms of bridging paid media advertising with content development. When you consider how well Facebook has integrated itself with the outside content world, they’re in an area with a lot of headroom.

ComScore: Hulu Is Watched Twice As Much As The 5 Major TV Networks Online Combined

This speaks to the importance of good user interface and convenient access. Compared to the TV remote, surfing to different websites for content feels almost archaic.

The Rise of LinkedIn as Login of Choice [Infographic]

One of the big questions in social networks is, How many is enough. For some that meant one: Facebook. But new data is indicating that people using third-party login for business-related sites are increasingly using Facebook. An early indication that people could be looking for different ways to present themselves across the Web. No surprise there.

A Sneak Peek at 2015′s Smartphone: Sophisticated Reviews on the Go, Courtesy MIT | Fast Company

Most looks into the future aren’t as tangible as this. And if there’s one industry in who’s future I’m highly interested in, it’s mobile. At the core of this process is text analysis — mining text and mapping their meanings to give them new value and insight.

Smells Like Team Spirit | Slideshows

Another good content example that’s not expensive to pull off — I’m sure they have no problem getting various CEOs to give 30 seconds of advice — and hits their target audience right between the eyes. The addiction of short-form video snacking is in full grip here. Numerous brands trying to reach the business market could do this.

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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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Trends for 2011, StumbleUpon is a traffic referral giant, and business presentation as art

The latest trends in social media and content marketing.

Logic+Emotion: 11 Actionable Trends For 2011

Very solid predictions on where companies should be placing their emphasis in the social media and content marketing space.

5 Web Technologies and Trends to Watch in 2011

One of the more tech-focused trend projections I’ve seen.

I Didn’t Know You Could Do That With Google Docs

Imagine a video showing nothing but the creation process of a business presentation that’s 450 pages long and full of charts, data and bullet points. Oh, and it currently has over 1,000,000 views on YouTube. Companies have more ways to tell their stories than ever before. They just have to get creative with them.

Foursquare Puts The Kibosh On Friend-Tip Spamming

Recently I read a good post that addressed the potential issue around companies being able to game social networking systems by encouraging users to “Like” them, thereby inflating the actual love for the company. That may seem good for social media marketing in the near term, but if Facebook and others are basing their search engines on that type of algorithm, you can see how easy it will become for companies to game that system, eventually rendering it useless (anyone remember search engines right before Google came out?). With this move, Foursquare is clearly dealing with this type of situation.

eBay: Mobile Sales Grew From $600 Million To $2 Billion In 2010

While mobile’s been genuinely hot for the past year or so, people have still doubted it’s ecommerce potential. And while there are certainly a lot of holes to be filled, this is some remarkable data confirming that when given a shopping environment they’re comfortable navigating and purchasing from, they’ll shell out the bucks.

Avatar Kinect brings magic of motion-controlled chatrooms to 360

I never thought I’d see a SecondLife-type VR system and Microsoft appearing in the same post here, but when you look past the cliched confines of this current technology, I think there’s big potential. And while social media may be shaping up to be more about our real selves than our imaginary selves, I think this potential runs more into the entertainment/gaming area. There will always be appeal for escapism, and I could see this being more about creating fictional characters with real personalities than anything else. Think anyone being able to create a Max headroom and run their own talk show.

Data: StumbleUpon Beats Facebook As Top Social Referrer

If this holds, StumbleUpon will be looking at a lot of potential for generating revenues from advertisers. And it certainly should place them on the list of content development and distribution partners.

Funding Lessons from a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

If you haven’t heard about this story, it has a lot of great branding, marketing and product development elements. Be sure to watch the video on the company’s site.

Has Google Admitted Defeat in the Social Web Race?: Tech News and Analysis «

The battle between Google and Facebook only seems to get more and more interesting. This is a good read, although I seriously can’t imagine Google already throwing in the towel, whatever trends the analyst sees.

Marcel the shell | The Glue Pot

I’ve been reading Clay Shirkey’s “Cognitive Surplus”, which speaks to the mass power of creativity that’s continuing to be unleashed through the accessibility of content creation tools. This video is another good example of that.

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The latest wearable cameras, Twitter and the future of TV, and YouTube’s extreme ironing

The latest in content development trends for digital marketing:

Twitter and the Future of TV

Some good examples cited on how Twitter is impacting TV viewing, forging trends in the social viewing space. There have been a lot of social viewing apps roll out, but they all seem to lack the big missing ingredient in social media: Audience size. Twitter has that, although it’s a scattered and primarily one-directional communication. What I like about the show examples is they’re creating a sense of personalization despite Twitter’s mass media platform, not unlike the way celebrities have been using it.

Wearable Cameras Move Beyond Sports to the Mainstream – NYTimes.com

A couple of remarkable features from the new Looxcie ‘wearable’ camera. It clips on your ear and records video, sending it to an Android phone. And it has a 30 second buffer, so you can keep it on, and if you see something happen, you can push a button and grab the past 30 seconds of footage. A lot of opportunities here for marketers looking for new angles on content development.

YouTube to Launch New Discovery Tool Tonight; Here Comes Extreme Ironing

If you think YouTube has saturated the public taste for bizarre video, it’s more like they’re just ramping up. You have to read about these various types of video content to believe it. Not only is there a series of ‘extreme ironing”, there are subgenres, like “underwater extreme ironing” and “skydiving extreme ironing”. And YouTube is going to help us sift through all this with a new feature, YouTube Topics. If you’re a brand and thinking all the good content opportunities are taken — even in video — you might want to rethink that. Or at least hire some good creative thinkers.

SkyFire Pulls In Nearly $1 Million In Its First Weekend On The App Store

Generally I don’t recommend large brands get into the app game to create a new direct revenue stream. But this example certainly points to a lot of opportunity. The big differentiator here is, in addition to a product with an obvious appeal to many iPhone users (it plays Flash files on the iPhone in a rather clever manner), they’ve been generating good buzz, and for quite a while. So while it may seem like an overnight success, the company has been producing products, and generating buzz, that paved the path for this type of explosive sales growth.

The Dangers of Content Marketing on Facebook | Geoff Livingston’s Blog

This is a great point to be aware of, but it’s also one of those areas that brands simply have to look at practically. Facebook wants rights to posted content to protect themselves from an image showing up in an ad, presentation, or whatever, and then them getting sued for not ‘owning’ it. But the author’s point is correct for additional purposes. Most brands should not rely on a social media property they don’t own for their ongoing content development programs. For one, if their content is worthwhile (and not completely tied to the social network experience), then they should be featuring it on their own site as well. And secondly, even the most powerful social networks have no guarantee of longevity. Think MySpace.

Facebook Serves Nearly a Fourth of U.S. Display Ads | ClickZ

Facebook’s volume puts them at number one, more than twice as much volume as Yahoo, the runner up. This from a company that several years ago didn’t have much of an ad program. What I’m both hearing and seeing is that Facebook doesn’t necessarily drive the highest response rates, but their cost-per-click number are very strong. And of course, the farther down the conversion path you take the metrics, the more important the numbers are to advertisers.

1.0 Is the Loneliest Number — Matt Mullenweg

The idea of agile development has been slow to take off in marketing, and it’s understandable, given that marketing itself is a rather agile process. But I think as content development starts to play a larger role in company’s marketing efforts, it’s going to be a feasible approach for a range of content efforts. This is a great take on what that process can be like.

Even Merton Hasn’t Been On Chatroulette In Months

Great story on Merton, who’s probably the best thing to ever happen on Chatroulette. The video of his Chatroulette performances is a must see.

Attention Hockey Fans! Watch the NHL on Roku, Boxee & More

Having long ago cut the cable, and tiring of TV hacks like Ustream for watching Monday Night Football, I applaud the NHLs efforts in taking their content to the audience.

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