A deep dive into digital marketing

Let’s get social

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Chicago, Community, Conference, Google, Social Networking, Twitter

Last week Google, at their Chicago office, hosted an afternoon event on social marketing along with a rawkstar party later that evening.

The event featured two keynote speakers: Jeremiah Owyang, Sr. Analyst Forrester and Paula Drum, VP, marketing, H&R Block. It was great to meet both of them as I’d spoken with them via phone, email and twitter but not met face to face. Both of their presentations were great, as expected.

Prior to Jeremiah’s presentation he sent a tweet that I’d be tweeting the presentation and thanks to Mrs. Naslund’s Freshman typing my typing speed allowed me to keep followers up to date. Interestingly his one tweet added about 30 followers, again showing the power of social networking.

Dick Costello, that’s right of Feedburner hosted a panel discussion, which unfortunately I couldn’t stay for however you can catch the photos of the even here (thanks Kate for posting on Picasso). And in addition to the photo’s Google has also posted PDF’s of the presentation which are here as well.

If you want to see the archive of tweets from the presentations they are here, but you’ll have to go back a few pages as well.

Dog Pile - yes another post on the new Twitter update

Posted by Chris under Browsers, Community, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter

Yesterday Twitter made an update to their web interface. Can I say thanks Ajax!

Biggies are moved the tabs to the right, updates refreshed via Ajax (yep much faster loading) and a slightly tweaked UI.

The UI has been cleaned up a bit and made the star and reply swoosh beside every update into hover state items.

Find out more, check out your own twitter page or read their blog here.

I like it but I’ll still be using the web app’s for the most part as I wrote about here.

Digital Ethnography - a reminder

Posted by Chris under CNMS08, Community, Research, Social Networking, trends

I’m pretty sure you’ve seen these video already, which are from, Dr. Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University.

The below video was played at CNMS08 as part of a presentation from Constance M. Yowell, of the
John D. & Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which reminded me, maybe some people haven’t seen it.

The video  summarizes in a great video form what students face, do, act, etc.

You can follow his blog here and YouTube channel here. He’s got a lot of great content on both but check out his YouTube channel for some of the student videos as well, good insight on today’s Millenials

CNMS08

Posted by Chris under Advertising, CNMS08, Chicago, Community, Conference

Tomorrow is the first day of CNMS08 and there’s going to be a lot to take in as the schedule is jam packed. There’s lot’s of great local talent presenting Monday and Tuesday and if you can’t make the full conference you might want to check out the CNMS08 social event tomorrow night from 6-10pm.

I’ll be tweeting the sessions, for as long as the battery lasts, or hopefully I can grab a seat near an outlet. And you can catch it here.

Here’s a link to the PDF of the summit schedule or the PDF itself cnms08_planner_v6

There is no I in team but there is a me

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Community, I wish I'd thought of that, Research

crowdSPRING at DEMO

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Awards, Chicago, Community, Conference

Check out the great presentation from the guys from crowdSPRING at DEMO. My good friends from crowdSPRING, Ross, Mike, Pete (running the demo) and dennis Ryan, CCO from Element79. Then vote for them here, I think they deserve best DEMO presentation!

oh and pass it on!

Pandora going bye bye - say it isn’t so

Posted by Chris under Broadband, Community, Technology

In what may be the end to Pandora, the recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) to raise royalty fees that will cover the administrative costs of SoundExchange, may well be the end for Pandora

More info on the fees can be found here, thanks to ars technica, but this would seem to spell the end for not only Pandora but other great intenet broadcasters like Radio Paradise.

So stay tuned (pun inteded) but in the coming months as the new fees come due we may hear a lot less music out there.

Crowdsourcing a trend or…

Posted by Chris under Community, Mobile, Search Engines, Social Networking

Maybe because I’ve been reading a few books, posts, articles, etc. on crowdsourchign lately but it seems we’re at another lift in the plateau of crowdsourcing.

I know it’s been out for a while but ChaCha has really caught my eye lately and more from the guide vs. the user. Sure I could just look up the stuff myself on google but why if I can have someone else do it for me. And this brings me to the guide.

It’s a very interesting model of crowdsourcing for $.20 an answer I can spend, as they say “15 minuets or 15 hours” answering questions that come in. Kind of intersting for say someone who has a few hours to in which they are otherwise not engaged. Or a retiree who can’t get out to work easily but has their computer right there, well I could go on but you get the idea.

Sort of plays right into other activities that ordinary citizens can do at the leisure of their computer, but in this case get paid for it.

I think it’s a trend to watch both in crowdsourcing and tapping into a market that may not be reached through help wanted ads but are imminently employable none-the-less.

Why we blog

Posted by Chris under Community, Social Networking

“Talking about your blog is the social equivalent of talking about your dog. It’s a dull conversation for everyone but you.”

A friend emailed me the recent post from Merlin Mann on 43 folders in which he comments on a recent post from Jack Shedd’s blog “Tacky,” which as Merlin calls it “a razor-sharp polemic on the industry of cheese-food manufacturing that “pro blogging” has turned into.”

I found the article a fantastic read, take a read to it first then check out Merlin’s comments so that would be

click here

then here

For someone who blogs: because they want to, feels they have a point of view to share and the act of writing/publishing also makes me a greater reader/content consumer then ever before, Jack’s article really resounded with me.

And for the days that I’m tired, and feel like I’ll post something tomorrow his last paragraph is worth a read alone.

“Despite the utter-bullshit so much of Anderson’s long tail has proven to be, the core idea that everything finds an audience should be held up and remembered. Clung to fastidiously; A life raft for the ignored, for the invisible.

If you’re worth reading, someone will read you. If you’re worth watching, someone will watch you. If you’re worth hearing, someone will listen.”

I’d extend this beyond just blogging but to any UGC. The tools are easy and getting easier so everyone can be in the content creation business. One could argue that only great well produced/written stuff gets watched but you’d be as wrong as Chocolate Rain, Numa Numa and of course the aggregator of all that Pork and Beans.

Which bring me fully around to Forrester’s technographic tool. Huh? I thought you were talking about blogging. Actually I’m talking about interaction and Jack’s post tackles the blogging side of it. The flip side is that for each content creator there are lots of collectors, spectators and critics. So take heart dear publisher you are the tip of the spear.

are you representing?

Posted by Chris under Community, Fashion, I wish I'd thought of that

T-shirts as always seem to be the ultimate way to represent. From Threadless, the ultimate in crowdsourcing design, to natch, one of my favorites, SevenTenths. Maybe it’s me but there are t-shirts that I just can’t seem to part with, that have some special hold for what they represent. Some are trips to far away places, others are a reminder of a time/event/thing sometime in the past. Maybe it’s just a Gladwellian pull for me, that upon sight they immediately conjure up a feeling.

So when along comes a couple guys hawking T’s that represent each and every one of the Chicago El stops, well they just might get my $15. Afterall what says Cubby or Sox fan more then sporting the appropriate T/el stop. And what’s more green then giving prop’s to public transportation.

Put this in the “I wish I’d thought of that”