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July 29 2010
Fun and Games with Zynga
Last weekend, the New York Times ran an article titled “Will Zynga Become The Google of Games?” exploring the meteoric rise of “play platform” Zynga. To be true, the social gaming company that was once solely dependent on the fate of rising network Facebook is now branching out in earnest as it pursues an apparent mission to become the platform of choice in the casual gaming world…while making piles of money in the process.
The ascendancy of Zynga is something brands should certainly take heed to because it speaks volumes to the power of providing people with a recreational “time out” from the grind of everyday life. All too often, brands take themselves a little too seriously in trying to place a well honed, copy-driven, feature-packed brand message in front of its target audience.
However, wouldn’t it be interesting if brands concentrated a little more on giving people an “escape” instead by putting more fun into the paradigm of marketing? In other words, what if a brand turned an intrusive marketing message (that people honestly seek to avoid) into a game instead that people would seek to play…again and again? That would be a neat trick. And it’s easier said than done in an authentic and original way, but it would likely come with endless rewards. Just ask the team at Zynga…and look at their impressive stats below while you’re at it.
Via: Online Schools
July 24 2010
Moodmapping with Twitter
A group of researchers from the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Sciences and Harvard Medical School recently unveiled the results of a study they undertook to map out how happy or sad Americans were at different times of the day and week. They accomplished this by analyzing the sentiment in over 300 million messages sent through Twitter from 2006 to 2009. The results were captivating to say the least.
Some of the results confirmed intuitive expectations (people are happier at the edges of the workday in the early morning and late evening) while some were not so obvious (the unhappiest moments of the week occur Thursday evenings).
However, one of the best parts of the results overall were how they were partly delivered: through color coded cartograms or mood maps of the United States. Below is a time-lapsed video of the mood map over a 24 period (cycled twice). The size and the color of the states on the map fluctuate with Twitter traffic volume and mood – the heavier the message traffic, the larger the state proportionally and the mood shifts from red (unhappy) to green (happy) accordingly.
If this study is a testament to anything it’s the increasing significance of Twitter as a platform to tap not only real-time information from an immense user base but also sentiment. And for brands, this gets even more interesting when Twitter analysis goes a few layers deeper to match sentiment with the brands themselves…as well as their competitors.
Taking the real-time pulse of brand health, as measured by consumer sentiment, is one of the holy grails of marketing research. That is the very reason why more social media tracking technologies, metrics and dashboards have cropped up over the past couple years than you can shake a stick at. It goes without saying that the one or handful of companies who really crack the potential of Twitter and other platforms to measure not just moods but moods specific to marketers’ brands will be, not unlike the states in this study’s cartograms, happy and green for years to come.
July 21 2010
Flipboard – The First Killer App for the iPad?
Flipboard is one of the hottest new apps for the iPad and is being touted as first real “Killer App” for the device by some. It’s a brilliant app that facilitates browsing social networks and other content on the iPad in an innovative way. The super-cool interface lets you browse your accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and to browse news content as well. As you might expect given the company’s name, the interface lets you flip through accounts and articles as if you’re turning the pages of a magazine.
Beyond the sexiness of the interface, Flipboard’s other big selling point is the fact that it prioritizes content using social algorithms, so that instead of looking at a stream of real-time content, Flipboard users see the content that’s getting the most engagement from their friends and from Flipboard users in general.
As for other devices, Flipboard is definitely considering a move beyond the iPad, but says that for now, it wants to focus on optimising and improving for this device.
July 13 2010
Ahead of the Curve
About a week ago, BBDO worked with Lowe’s , the home improvement retailer, to pull together an immersive all-day digital education, trend analysis and ideation day for Lowe’s entire marketing department called Digital Day. The day featured expert speakers from across academic and practitioner spectrums involved in digital including Dr. Eric Bradlow, professor at The Wharton School and co-director of the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative think tank; Chad Stoller, EVP of digital strategy at BBDO; Samantha Skey, Chief Revenue Officer at RecycleBank; Mark Himmelsbach, VP of Digital Strategy at BBDO and Chris Golier, SVP at Mobile Behavior. Trends were explored, issues were dissected and innovative ideas around mobile and social were generated throughout the dynamic day.
Days like this are becoming increasing essential for companies and brands of all kinds for various reasons too numerous to mention in a few words. The one reason which arguably may be the most important is the fact that digital innovation doesn’t stand still. Although it’s tough to realize because we are living through it, we are in the midst of a bona fide age of disruption, where not only the modes of marketing are changing (if you still call it that) but entire business models that have stood the test of time for hundreds of years are coming apart at the seams. It may sound a little overly dramatic, but it’s true. The best way to stay ahead of the curve then is for your entire organization to stay ahead of the curve by taking in the state of digital affairs and taking up the challenge of tomorrow head on…on an ongoing basis. For the only constant in the digital marketplace is truly change itself.
June 18 2010
Digital Lab TV: Game On with Brian Elieson of Massive / Microsoft!
This week marks another edition of the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3, the video game industry’s pre-eminent trade conference and showcase. One of this year’s most anticipated new product introductions that generated huge buzz at the show was Microsoft’s Kinect motion controller technology (formerly Project Natal) that allows console gamers to control the on-screen action with pure physical body movements without the need for any physical handheld controller. This innovation and several more unveiled at the show this week are all contributing to interactive gaming being larger and more mainstream than it’s ever been. With the large captive audience that gaming attracts comes compelling advertising and brand engagement opportunities; opportunities that Microsoft’s in-game advertising division Massive tries to maximize on an ongoing basis. Earlier this year, the Lab was lucky enough to have Brian Elieson, Director of Products and Partners at Massive / Microsoft stop by to share some eye-opening insights on the ever-growing world of in-game advertising. He sat down with Digital Lab TV as well for a chat; check out the highlights.
June 14 2010
Location, Location, Location
One would be hard pressed to find a “hotter” trend at this moment than location based (or geo-location) social media.
But, beyond the adoption by the early social media technographic segments – brands and their agencies have yet to develop meaningful campaigns, yet alone platforms which full advantage of this technology or create deeper, more meaningful engagements.
This document is intended to evaluate this enabling technology and it’s possibilities with the realities of delivering on business objectives
Special thanks to Dawne Lee for the invaluable assistance in developing this document.
May 26 2010
Demo Day, Hooray!
Today marked the inaugural Digital Lab Demo Day: an all-day expo dedicated to connecting the best and brightest early-stage digital marketing and emerging technology companies with the pioneering staff of BBDO’s New York City headquarter offices. The companies in attendance were given the opportunity to “show off their wares” and engage with BBDO, an agency forward-thinking enough to give birth to the Digital Lab initiative and eternally committed to “The Work, The Work, The Work” for clients as varied as GE, AT&T, FedEx, HBO and Starbucks. The result was meaningful dialogue on what the future could bring for brands in terms of the new technologies as well as possible collaboration with BBDO in the future. Between 100-150 BBDO staffers from all disciplines, including creative, client servicing, production, account planning, new business and, of course, digital strategy, mixed it up with the Demo Day companies in attendance including GetGlue, Animoto, Booyah, Videoegg, Coupons Inc., Clientshow, Helium, MediaMath, Quattro Wireless, Major League Gaming, SinglePoint, Radian6, Wildfire Interactive, NextNewNetworks, Meebo, Peanut Labs, MegaPhone and AcrossAir. Many thanks to all who came and represented on both sides. The future awaits.
Photo credit: Ed Dillon.
May 21 2010
Can You Afford to Ignore a Billion?
For years we used to hear about mobile marketing as of a revolutionary idea. However, although expectations were high, for a long time it was regarded as a niche area of marketing communications, at least when speaking from the European perspective. The main obstacle seemed to be mainly the lack of connectivity required for delivering interactive and emotionally appealing content engaging with consumers through the “mobile Web”. However, with 174.2m smart phones sold in 2009 across the globe – representing a y-o-y increase of 15.1% – and mobile networks gradually increasing their bandwidth, mobile has become a medium that no marketer can longer ignore.
In simple terms, digital marketing is shifting from “the Web” to “the mobile Web”. Of course, it’s more complicated than that, but we are obviously witnessing another change in consumer behavior. While a few years ago Marshall Sella claimed in the New York Times that “a man with a TV is doomed to isolation, a man with a computer can belong to a community”, now it seems that similarly to TV, a cell phone without enabled data should be regarded as an isolated device.
IDC’s analysts predict that already this year, the number of data enabled cell phones should reach more than 1 billion. This means only 300,000 less compared to the number of desktops connected to the Internet. Also, we can be quite confident this ranking shall change fast, with the number of cell phone connections growing 2.5 times faster compared to desktops. This means the connected mobile device overtakes the old-fashioned desktop already by 2013.
More relevant, more effective
Now, what does this fast change mean to marketers? Communication agencies will have to act as content developers, delivering entertaining or useful branded content and applications to mobile users. The advantages of mobile marketing are obvious – it is the cooperation with network operators what makes mobile the one-to-one marketing tool of today. Using data supplied by operators, we are able to target users according to their age, gender, interests, sites they visit, spending, geographical location and even the brand of mobile device they use.
Making marketing communications more relevant means a greater effectiveness as well. Showcases from the Czech Republic show that the average CTR of targeted banners placed on the “mobile Web” is approximately 30 times higher compared to the “classical Web” with response rates to direct communication reaching more than 12%.
However, let’s not forget that the “mobile Web” is not only a medium but a nearly perfect distribution channel as well. By clicking on a banner and filling out a form, the user is able to order goods and services, reserve concert, theatre or cinema tickets or to book flights, test drives and to receive discount coupons. Mobile is a very personal channel offering instant interaction and is therefore predestined to become an integral – if not the most important – part of future marketing campaigns.
Kristián Hloušek, Strategic Planner, Proximity Prague
May 18 2010
Booyah!
While New York-based Foursquare steals much of the headlines nowadays when it comes to the topic of location-based mobile platforms due to its remarkable growth (over 1 million members in a little over a year) and potential for real-world location-based marketing, there is an increasingly visible West Coast based startup that is quietly taking the mobile world by storm with a growth curve that actually leaves Foursquare in the dust. The company’s name is Booyah and its lead-off mobile game MyTown, a digitized twist on the game of Monopoly that lets is users “buy” real estate by checking into real-life locations, is making the world take notice. The game recently hit the staggering 2 million user mark (Foursquare has approximately 1.2 million users) and is on track to gain about 500,000 users a month! This supersonic growth rate likely played no small part in convincing Accel Partners to recently inject $20 million into the company. So what is it that’s driving this rocket-fueled rate of growth? Earlier in the year at SXSWi we asked David Wang and Lexy Franklin that very question. Here’s what they said.
May 14 2010
Can the iPad Save Traditional Media?
The iPad is the latest, and arguably most compelling reason for marketers to back further away from traditional media companies and engage consumers directly. Previously, brands needed print and broadcast media to reach their consumers efficiently and effectively. This is no longer the case. That’s because with technologies like the Apple iPad, brands are more capable and empowered than ever to go it alone when it comes to creating and disseminating content. As such, marketers who think like media executives stand to gain share and improve loyalty for the brands they serve. In this exclusive Proximity white paper, we examine the tremendous opportunities and upside of the “marketer as content provider” model.
May 11 2010
SEO & The Importance of Links
Search optimization can be a baffling and esoteric subject. Google’s search algorithm is a more closely guarded secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola. But for today, we’re going to break down one of the older and more important search tactics used to rank well in Google – links.
After all, you can handle all the on-page elements perfectly; proper title tags, great copy with just the right amount of keywords, proper H tags, etc, but if no one ever links to it, it probably won’t rank well. Why is that, you ask?
Simply put, a link is a vote for your site. Google sees links as a way of determining authority or relevancy.
In fact, before Google there was Backrub.
Google’s precursor in 1996 was called “BackRub,” a search engine research project headed by Larry Page at the computer science department at Stanford. Page reasoned that the entire Web was loosely based on the premise of citation – after all, what is a link but a citation? If he could design a method to count and qualify back links on the Web, as Page puts it, “The Web would become a more valuable place.”
Despite realizing that a raw count of links to a page would be valuable in assigning value/authority, Page also wanted to determine a methodology that would reveal not just who was linking to whom, but more critically, the importance of who linked to whom, based on various attributes of the site that was doing the linking. Sounds reasonable, right? A link from CNN should carry much more weight than a link from a 12 year blogger with three readers. So Page went on to develop a very complex algorithm that is now known as Google.
So enough on that, you’re here to learn about links.
Specifically “inbound” links, or links from other sites that link to you.
As stated previously, there are some links that are better than others. For example, Google values inbound links from .edu’s and .gov’s above other Top Level Domains because of their (supposed) non-commercial nature. But these are typically difficult to get so let’s focus for now on some basic link building tactics.
Link Building Strategies
Generic Link Building: This is the low-hanging fruit and often the first step in a link campaign. It involves submitting to directories, low-tier search engines and adding your URL to social profiles.
Content Link Generation: Specific content written for the purposes of distribution. Examples include press releases, article marketing, advertorials, blog sponsorships and product reviews.
Social Media – Social Bookmarking Link Building: As an added bonus, if you have compelling enough content you can actually drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your site with a front page of Digg link, for example. The list of sites to tackle is long but here’s some of the biggies: Twitter, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz and Slahsdot, to name but a few.
Alternative Media Links: This is for creation of videos, widgets, podcasts and apps, all of which link back to your main website.
Audience/Blogger Generated Links: Creating contests/sweeps to allow users to create/share content and link back to our site. An example could be a photo/essay contest for bloggers or even a Twitter contest asking people to retweet a specific message for entry.
Wikipedia Links: Wikipedia is one of the greatest authority web sites in Google’s eyes. There’s probably not a web site that ranks better for more diverse keywords than Wikipedia. Despite Wikipedia instituting no-follow tags (code to tell Google not to pass along any “value” or “trust” in the link to help combat spammers), it’s hard to not value getting links there. An example of how to achieve this properly would be to publish an original/compelling interview with a prominent person in your vertical that would allow you to add this as a citation to this person’s entry on Wikipedia.
Organic Links: Creating stellar, unique content that receives links simply because it’s awesome. Because it’s shareable. Because it’s valuable. This is the best scenario and one that consequently takes the most effort.
Syndication: An excellent tactic when pairing up with an authority site. For example, a colleague here on the search team runs a popular MMA website and worked out a syndication deal with Yahoo! Sports. In addition to the content deal, on every article that runs on Yahoo! Sports (another one of the greatest authority sites on the web) there is footer copy with embedded links pointing to MMAjunkie.com.
Anchor Text
So allow me a quick word about the actual text within the link itself, which is called anchor text, a crucial element in link strategy.
In the following example, if you use “here” as the words users are going to click on, you’re telling search engines that the page being linked to is about the topic “here”. If you use “Anchor Text” as the anchor text, you’re more accurately telling the search engines the linked page contains information about “Anchor Text”.
Read more about Anchor Text
is better than
Read more about Anchor Text here.
It’s very important to determine what the optimal anchor text is when beginning a campaign.
So that seems like a good primer. We hope this has been helpful for you and your clients as you start thinking about raising your websites visibility in the search engines.
Search engine optimization is a process, not a project. It takes time and diligence to achieve those coveted top rankings and the (free) site traffic that is the reward.
How Many Links Do I Have?
One last actionable tip. If you want to see how many links your site (or a competitor’s site) has in Google, you can use the command: link:http://www.yoursite.com on Google and it will return the relevant results. Now, Google doesn’t supply all the links for reasons too long to go into here, so if you want a deeper dive try Yahoo’s Site Explorer. There are plenty of other online tools to help as well.
Or better yet, feel free to reach out to our search engine optimization experts to learn more.
May 07 2010
The Intimacy of Twitter
We all know that thanks to Twitter, news now travels at speeds of epic proportions. Just this morning, we learned from a CNN Breaking News tweet that Times Square was being evacuated again for the second time in six days, and before we knew it, Mashable had compiled some Twitterers’ photos of the scene from heights of 22 stories. Information sharing is no longer a linear relationship between news companies and its audience, but one that is multi-dimensional and increasingly intimate. The photos below illustrate vast emptiness of a site through which half a million people walk through every day.
Once in a while, we come across opinions that declare Twitter is dead, but in actuality, it is a flourishing medium that can bring a city of 9 million people together. Sure, some of us don’t want to know what everyone is doing every hour of their day, but the implications of mass inter-communication are far less superficial.
May 04 2010
Pandora’s Secrets of Success
Everyone’s favorite online personalized radio service, Pandora, has been on a tear recently. First, it was announced that the company that narrowly escaped death a number of times since its founding in 2000 is estimated to earn $100 million in revenue this year, then Ford announces that it is planning to be the first auto manufacturer to integrate the service into its cars and, most recently, it was made known that Pandora is partnering with Facebook for social music. We at Digital Lab TV caught up with Pandora Chief Technology Officer Tom Conrad earlier this year at SXSWi to see what we could learn from this incredible music startup that could.
April 29 2010
Less Tools, More Communication
“We can put together a fan page in Facebook, add a new profile in Twitter, make a track list in tune with our own brand at Spotify, hire an adwords campaign at Google and there you have it.” As you’re reading this, for sure there’s someone (related to some kind of media, agency, an advertiser or from anywhere else) saying something similar in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Paris, Madrid, Toronto or wherever you think about.
All of the sudden and sitting at the same table, we’ve all become experts in something regarding the bastardized and beat up Social Media and its multiple tools. And only by saying the magic words at a given time, there’s an immediate satisfaction with what’s been said and heard and everyone’s confident of being part of the “momentum” of the communication industry, hoisting the flag of the “power to the consumer”, so nicely said but so seldom met and executed in reality.
A massive fetish relationship with technologies is what we are witnessing. Orgies in new terms and intentions that are never fully met, only by letting ourselves be carried away by the tsunami of tools that surround us every day and which we believe will be useful for our business purposes.
Everyone wants to be the hit of the moment, have thousands of friends on Facebook and have more followers than Ashton Kutchner on Twitter. In the process, huge amounts of digital information are generated with presentations and whitepapers talking about trends and improved ways of doing things. “The 10 trendiest”, “the best 50”, “8 best ways to”, “101 best places for”, “25 most successful cases”… the same formula achieving results, with piles and piles of books of dubious origin sold at bookstores, find in the Internet the best culture medium.
Meanwhile, consumers and users could care less about advertising messages, the products and services we have to offer them as long as we keep treating and delivering them promises in an intrusive and silly manner with messages bordering on the obvious.
Something I really miss from traditional advertising is the shame. Yes, the shame of not doing something different, original, innovative at the moment of communication. We’ve seen multiple campaigns that are simple copies or adaptations of actions that were a hit of the moment in Germany, Sweden, USA, Japan or wherever. But the generation of an almost invisible – and not because of inactivity, quite the opposite – massive army of people desperate for winning a position in this activity has made room for campaigns bordering on shame. In general, the works are judged and seen by people who, out of lack of knowledge or simply by choice, prefer turn looking the other way, and nobody says anything about this issue.
Therefore why try to do something different? Something that comes “without a factory warranty”, because no one’s done it before? Right? Let’s just adapt this or that, bring it to the present by loading it with every single application of social media available; see if we can replicate it in mobile platforms and voilà!, you get quicker client approval, everything’s cheaper than it should and the rest of the agency, who’s never seen a One Show Interactive yearbook or who’ve just learned that Cyber Lions have existed for only two years don’t even notice what’s happened.
What if before focusing on the technologies, the trends and the successful recipes of others we spend a while pondering and putting into practice good ideas? Ideas that transmit emotions, that move people, that make the person receiving them experience some sort of reaction, that generate a positive impact in the people, that can transcend the screens where they are born, that can turn into true experiences, that at some point can be memorable. If all of the above happens, the desired and often over used “viral” thing will develop on its own without a doubt.
Let’s propose goals. With a clear idea in our minds of what role the different executions will have within the strategy. Establishing when to use each thing and when it’s just not appropriate. Let’s understand the codes and the right times for each tool, platform and technology; learn to read between the lines and see what they will add to our ideas. We should know beforehand (that’s what it’s about in the end, ‘cause it’s easy to see things when they are already put to work and have an opinion on the facts in front of us) the possibilities and potentialities of the idea we want to carry out in practice.
Let’s see the whole, emphasizing later on each part; but let’s see the totality of the action as a whole, understanding it as a system that will work with the synergy and coordination of each one of its components with the rest. Let’s try looking for new solutions by blazing new trails instead of walking on old ones; comfort is the enemy of innovation. Our role as suitable communicators is using things properly in accordance with and based on our knowledge and know-how and from experiences preferably from our own. Really at the end of the day that’s the only way to learn. Less tools, more communication.
- Fernando L. Barbella | Interactive Creative Director, BBDO Argentina
April 23 2010
Ambient Sharing
You never know who else will like Jersey Shore.
I recently gave a digital trends presentation where I talked about the future of sharing and how the evolution of today’s tools, technologies and distribution systems will allow us to communicate, find and discover new things.
As social media continues to be embraced, we are finding that there are more ways to share than ever before as “sharing” has become a key feature for existing and new software based products. Why? Because sharing allows us to discover new things. In the past, we learned about new products, music, content, and more from mainstream media and advertising. But now we are discovering new things from friends and strangers, based on similar interests and their willingness to share.
I have a keen interest in the area of “ambient sharing.” I like to describe this category as when devices and services share our accomplishments, interests and updates on our behalf. Think about it as machines operating your personal social networks for you in a very trusted way.
At first, ambient sharing is met with fear and paranoia:
“Why would I want someone to know that I just did this?”
“Why would I want someone to know where I am?”
“Why does anyone care about my weight?”
“Who cares that you ran five miles?”
All of these are good questions. But you also have to ask yourself how a discovery system could operate without input from others?
Recently, the co-founder of Foursquare Naveen Selvadurai came to BBDO to give a presentation. Some users asked if they could use the service but hide their location. To which Naveen responded by saying, “Yes you could, but if your friends did that too, would you know where any of them were?” With this statement, Naveen illustrated that for the service to work, you need to give in order to get.
By putting (sometimes exhaustive or non-relevant) information into the system, we take, what Clay Shirky calls, a “share then gather” approach to releasing our content. We put our interests, updates and content out on the Internet where only those with similar interests will find it. If they aren’t interested, they won’t see it.
Call of Duty
One of my favorite sharing and discovery stories involves a fellow BBDOer with whom I share similar interests in running. However, it wasn’t until my X-Box posted some “Call of Duty” achievements as a Facebook status update that I discovered he was also a dedicated gamer who probably goes through two games per month (that’s a lot considering his other interests). Never would I have ever discussed gaming with him, but I think that now it is all we talk about.
What happens when your cable box adopts similar functionality and shares the show that you are watching? Is it more of a risk or a reward? The risk is that your friend’s will know that you like “Jersey Shore,” but the reward could be finding out that six of your friends also love the show. Now you can talk about it!
Withings scale
Chances are that you are already using products that can share on your behalf. Garmin now lets you publish and share your recent workouts. Services like Last.fm will update your status based on music that you like. You can buy a WiThings scale that will tweet your weight (how’s that for digital peer pressure!). Or you can share your recent purchases with Blippy.
I’m keeping an eye on ambient sharing and more importantly, how brands can play in the space.
Chad Stoller
Chad Stoller – EVP, Digital Strategy, BBDO North America
April 22 2010
Digital Lab TV: Planting the “Seed” of the Future with AOL’s Saul Hansell
What exactly is AOL Seed? A recently revealed skunkworks project developed by AOL for its next phase of evolution as an independent company? A new model of distributed online content sourcing and development optimized for the digital age? A way for the unknown amateur journalist and photographer in many of us to get published and paid? Apparently it’s all three according to Seed.com Programming Director Saul Hansell, who was kind enough to give Digital Lab TV an overview of the initiative last month outside of the Seed booth at SXSW. Let’s take a look.
April 21 2010
Gawker vs. Digital Lab – Nick Denton Rules!
Today The Digital Lab was honored to have the one and only Nick Denton, founder of online media powerhouse Gawker Media, in our Lab headquarters in New York City. During his visit, he discussed everything from the changing dynamics of journalism and the implications of the iPad to the generational divide in gossip consumption and the story behind the story of the lost next gen iPhone. Nick, who grew Gawker Media in under a decade from a single blog into an online empire featuring preeminent content destinations such as Gawker.com, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Deadspin and Kotaku, was interviewed by our very own BBDO EVP of Digital Strategy Chad Stoller in front of a packed house of BBDO executives and staffers. The result was an always compelling, often times humorous and thoroughly enlightening dialogue. Below are some of the highlights:
Breaking the story of the next gen iPhone (and the back story of the poor sob who lost it in a bar) – Nick admitted that he “couldn’t have made up a better story” than the one his Gizmodo blog broke earlier this week revealing an actual prototype of the next generation iPhone that was accidentally left behind at a bar by an Apple employee. Nick conceded that the story generated a huge jump in traffic on Gizmodo. And while the incredible back story of a hapless Apple employee leading to the premature reveal of a new phone from a company notorious for its secrecy has taken on a life of its own, he explained the reality was that most of Gizmodo’s core audience was focused on the features of the phone itself once they visited the site.
Nick Denton in the Digital Lab
“Conversational Journalism” – Nick explained that the skills and talents of journalism honed in the traditional media world often do not translate well to the online world of blog-based journalism. That is because traditional journalists have never really had a need to be concerned about feedback from their audience. In the online world, however, where audience commentary is instantaneous, the writers on Gizmodo’s properties have to be as equally concerned with generating and engaging with the audience for their stories as well as writing the stories themselves, leading to the dynamic of “conversational journalism, “ a term coined by Nick.
Incentivizing journalists based on traffic – In line with the unique characteristics of online journalism, Nick admitted that he incentivizes his Gawker Media writers based on how much online traffic they bring to their stories. This, he explained, creates a new model of journalism where his writers also act as “hustlers” and do what is needed to promote their brands and satisfy their audiences as opposed to courting corporate PR professionals. As a result, Nick conceded that Jason Chen, the writer who broke the iPhone story through his personal connections, will have a very good month in many ways.
Generational divide in the gossip world – Nick declared that there were two worlds that made up the gossip-media following audience: the old school 60-something year old establishment “page six” crowd and the under 40-year old contingent that could care less about “page six” but instead wants to know everything about what’s relevant to their lifestyles, like the latest dating exploits of President Obama’s speechwriter Jon Favreau, for instance. Nick confirmed that Gawker.com definitely catered to the latter group.
The iPad could be a flop – Nick stirred the room with his claim that the iPad, Apple’s newest super tablet, could very well be a commercial flop. Although he admitted that the device definitely has appeal, he felt that its selection of applications fell way short of what they needed to be. He also compared the magazine publishing industry looking to the iPad as its savior as being similar to a terminally ill patient looking forward to a breakthrough treatment that simply won’t work. To top it off, he also hinted that the opening week sales for the device fell well short of what Steve Jobs had hoped for.
And those highlights were just for starters. We were all very fortunate to have Nick come down from his lofty perch on top of a $300 million plus online media empire to share his views with the Digital Lab gang today. He definitely brought the goods, inciting provocative thoughts and offering critical ideas, reaching far and wide.
Be sure to stay tuned for the exclusive video recap of Nick Denton’s Digital Lab interview, to appear right here on Digital Lab TV in the not too distant future.
Nick Denton staying connected to his Gawker empire
April 20 2010
Proximity/BBDO Guerrero Launch The Digital Lab in the Philippines
April 16th marked the official launch of the Digital Lab in the Philippines. The Philippines lab is an extension of the Digital Lab initiative, a multi-faceted program designed to drive digital thought leadership and to provide a significant added value service to Clients of Proximity BBDO.
Digital Lab Philippines
The physical “Lab” provides a vibrant environment for staff and clients alike to learn about digital marketing and strategy, understand how digital is shaping marketing, and learn how they can better integrate digital into their broader marketing plans and strategies. The Lab also is a space to interact with new technologies that are hitting the streets such as the iPad. Client conferences and training sessions are also at the core of the Digital Lab offering.
The Philippines lab launch was celebrated with a Digital Lab Live! event in Manila, featuring an array of notable speakers from the Proximity Worldwide network, Google, and Facebook. The event was attended by numerous Proximity/BBDO Clients including Pepsi, P&G, Nestle, BDO and J&J.
- Richard Fraser, Regional Managing Director, Proximity Asia
April 19 2010
Being an Early “Abandoner” is an Option
We are overwhelmed. Bombarded. Stunned. Overexposed. Every X amount of days, something new grabs the attention of all the people who, in one way or another, work in or is related to the new technologies and/or new media (communicators, advertisers, economists, technologists, researchers, journalists, and a loooong etc.) in a furious and apparently unstoppable manner.
Suddenly, everything should be absorbed ASAP. That Kindle makes Amazon sell more ebooks for the Holiday Season than traditional books; that trying Formspring is a must because everyone is using it and we feel like trying it even if we don’t really know if it’s worth having an Ipad just to see what happens. A 17 year old Russian kid created Chatroulette and spun out of control so we have to get in to see why it’s such a huge success; if you don’t use Gowalla you should be using FourSquare to let everyone know where you’re at and what you’re doing, if you don’t update Twitter every couple of hours you will cease being relevant… ONE MOMENT PEOPLE, LET’S STOP FOR A MOMENT!
Back in the early 60s, the American sociologist Everett Rogers coined the term early adopter, when he developed his Theory of the Innovations and the different categories of individuals in relation to those innovations. That’s where the group mentioned in the first paragraph is, exposed and ready to use with fruition each new thing that incipiently appears in the market. That’s where the manic disorder starts. The mania of being connected to everything, in most of the cases, all the time.
Laptops, netbooks, smartphones and other gadgets give us the possibility of a 24/7 connection and the exposure to the collective and primal reaction of “I gotta have it, I don´t know what for, but… we’ll see…”. And suddenly we find ourselves –sometimes voluntarily and other times involuntarily, managing profiles, user names and passwords that have a direct or indirect influence on our lives, at professional, personal and family levels.
And we use time, that is limited, as if it were unlimited. Paradoxically, we believe that many of these tools will allow us to administrate and take better advantage of time. Is that true? Do we really have to adopt each new thing attaching it to our routine in pursuit of having more and more access to potentially everything because one day it will be useful or beneficial for us? Aren’t we developing a kind of addiction and like every addiction it’s impossible to see it because we are inside it? (We are all acquainted with the statement “I use it when I want to and when I don’t to I can leave it. I’m in charge…” Huh?) For sure we’ve all had our “Enjuto Mojamuto moment”…
Maybe it’s because of what the neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp affirmed after studying all kinds of mammals and their emotions. He arrived to the conclusion that the act of searching (both in abstract and tangible terms) is the force that moves us to get out of bed, face the day and venture into the world. That force is fed by a neurotransmitter hormone called dopamine. In fact, the hormone is believed to influence our sense of time. (Time again, that abounds, or at least it seems to). Panksepp says that dopamine is activated by the need to search, of finding something unexpected or by the expectation triggered by “the new”. Ring a bell? Have you ever sat in front of the Web without a plan but expecting to see something new?
Here we are then. Overwhelmed. Bombarded. Stunned. Overexposed. Surely more than one of us is already suffering from Continuous Partial Attention syndrome, that unstoppable urge to check sources of information, sharing, distributing and awarding new meanings to it with the aim of assuring that nothing is escaping us, or at least almost nothing. The syndrome appears in our leisure time, in a day of studies or at work (And no, being connected at all times to all those things is not working – I’m talking to you Mr. “2.0 consultants” and techno fetishist gurus and ninjas). So is fighting against this possible? Of course it is. You just need a little willpower and a little willingness not to pay attention to what they’ll say.
It’s all about making the decision to be an early ¨abandoner¨(or whatever other name we decide on using). It’s leaving behind those things that we don’t need which make no contributions to our interests, occupations and lives. I’ve been in Facebook for a while and left 18 months ago and I’m not missing anything. I can still contact those people I want to have some sort of contact with via the phone, SMS, email (and for a while now, of course, via Twitter DMs). And everything is going well.
I tried the famous Formspring, got bored and abandoned it, I didn’t want to insist. And I got out of Google Buzz as soon as I noticed it affected my patience in my inbox by showing me posts from people I don’t know and from whom I have no particular interest in or need right now to know their opinion on issues or subjects we don’t have in common either.
I’ve never adopted Delicious and I go through life recommending links to people who are interested via email, instant messaging or a simple face to face conversation. Of course, I use some tools and platforms that are very useful –at least for me- like Twitter, LinkedIn, some other network or niche based on Ning, I enjoy music at Spotify and make use of several more of these toys, but NOT ALL OF THEM.
It’s not necessary to be overexposed for so long to so many and such different technological stimuli that one day we realize that our routines and ways of perceiving reality depend 100% on us living with them. WE ARE NOT FORCED TO ADOPT EVERY BRAND NEW TECHNOLOGY launched to the market. Being “outside from it” is not bad, it’s just going back to being a bit more ourselves. Adopters or abandoners? What do you think?
- Fernando L. Barbella | Interactive Creative Director, BBDO Argentina
April 17 2010
Digital Lab TV: Getting Organized in the Google Era with Douglas Merrill
So what do you do after serving as CIO to arguably the world’s most important tech company? Write a book and start a brand new company of course. That’s essentially the storyline behind our next SXSW interview; we had the pleasure of cornering Dr. Douglas Merrill, former CIO of Google, at SXSW last month and spoke to him about the panel discussion he was highlighted on as well as his future plans to take over the world. It’s not easy being brilliant.
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