THE DIGITAL BLUR

I’m headed off to Indonesia once again. The internet access in the remote area where I am traveling is incredibly painful and acts as a reminder of how dependent we are on high speed access. I finally figured out how to get Twitter to work while abroad (they have an international # to use versus a US based shortcode), so I’m going to try and Tweet updates daily if I indeed have mobile access.

You can follow me on Twitter and keep tabs on my adventure and generally on my ongoing Twitterisms on digital media, traveling and life.

See you on the flipside!

Do you have an ecommerce component to your business? Are you leveraging the recent hike in gas prices to drive more online sales?

According to a report issued last week by iCongo, one third (33 percent) of online U.S. adults indicated they are more likely to shop online rather than in-person at a store due to the high price of gasoline.

The iCongo survey also provides insight into consumer attitudes regarding the upcoming U.S. federal tax rebate. A full 45 percent of adults said they plan to make retail purchases with their rebate, if they receive one.

On a related note - President Bush says that if he had a magic wand that he’s say “Ok, Drop Price! I’d do that” … “but there is no magic wand to wave right now”…you had to see it on the Jon Stewart show, it was too funny! Anyway, here is the original video, but the way the Daily Show pieced it together was ROTFL funny…

MySpace launched their developer area earlier this year, and last month announced new tools for marketersto manage their branded pages. Up until now marketers have had to work with the creative team at MySpace and provide assets that were ultimately put together by MySpace. I’m seeing more and more social network integration deals across all of the nets (MySpace, Facebook & Bebo are really the only ones that I track), so this makes a ton of sense. Oh yeah, did I mention that MySpace’s revenue in 2007 was around $1 billion?

I’ve heard rumors that MySpace is now deleting pages from marketers when they are not paid branded pages (although that rumor is still unconfirmed).

I caught this postabout MySpace charging for App promotion yesterday (it includes slides from MySpace’s powerpoint where they are pitching this product). Ultimately I believe that this is a good thing. Consumers are swimming in widget/application overload, it’s far too cluttered already. Clutter makes discovering relevant experiences more difficult, and it’s good to see some of ther reigns being pulled in on that. On the other hand, diversity also fosters the potential of the creation of relevant content and experiences in the first place. So it’s a balance that needs to be struck. This move of course also unevens the playing field for the little guy once again - but in business the playing field has never been, and will never be even anyway. Let’s just say that new media has made it a little more balanced, but “even” is a pipe-dream.

Ultimately, providing the distribution platform to developers, so they can produce applications for consumers, and making consumers available to marketers (with all the associated vaults of data behind them) is the formula for growth and success here.  I love this space - social media rocks.

Google TV is now out of Betaand pulicly accessible.

Although not embraced to the degree they expected during the beta itself (my old agency’s TV buyers scratched their heads at it), this does offer the potential to create a marketplace similar to that of search, although the media dynamics are altogether different and the inventory is currently limited only to DISH. Media marketplaces represent a level of automation that commoditizes certain low value aspects of the buying & selling process that are labor intensive and erodes margins - it’s part of the future. Google TV merely sets a precedent on what is possible - trust me they are not the only ones attempting to create and automate a TV buying marketplace. Agencies have however been watching Google move into areas beyond their home turf, so to speak, and some of getting nervous.

I mentioned previously that in 2007 Martin Sorrell, chairman of WPP has referenced Google when discussing the competitive climate in the industry more often than he publicly discussed other agency holding companies such as Omnicom, or IPG. WPP also acquired or made investments in many media/technology companies in the last year or so, hedging their bets on a potential competitive suite of tools and products? Or simply diversifying a portfolio of complimentary companies to keep a level of spending under the same umbrella? Only time will tell.

Agencies are further recognizing the need for a new model, but still haven’t done much but talk about it. The AAAA’s leadership conference kicked off last week and the NY Times even covered the bold statements from the speakers. I’ll just pull a few quotes from the piece:

“Strap on your seat belts,” “All these challenges will no doubt put a strain on all our organizations,”  “Every one of us will be re-engineering and re-inventing, but the end result will be a positive one.” - Irwin Gottlieb, Group M

“Stop whining,” “shouldn’t be scary,” “a huge opportunity for us” “If you want to participate, you’ve got to start hiring young people,”  “and don’t tell them what to do — ask them what to do.” - Lee Clow, TBWA Worldwide

“The system worked well for 40, 50 years,” “Now we have to think differently and do each other’s jobs.” - Ben Silverman, NBC/Universal

“Create new opportunities for advertisers and new opportunities for information.” “The scale of this is underappreciated.” - Eric Schmidt, Google

You gotta love how Eric Schmidt seems to be the only one focused on data and information - in my humble opinion that is what it’s all about - he who has the most data (and knows what to do with it), wins.

I really wanted to come back with a bang after taking a month off from posting to the blog (sorry! it was a necessity). I was in Indonesia and a few days in Singapore mixing a little business and pleasure. Although the mobile market out there is incredibly interesting, unfortunately sometimes interest access in Indonesia was like watching the grass grow. 

You gotta love the fact that you can go away for a month and when you come back, certain things actually are different - well, maybe not that different, but some aspects of evolution have actualized during my month long hiatus. So the next few posts will be my digital mixing bowl of thoughts on a few specific topics that I feel are very relevant to our ongoing evolution. 

So…first…

China’s Internet population exceeds that of the US- that’s a huge deal, with ramifications on a global scale. Although there exists the potential for US companies to move further into emerging markets like China, in the land of knock off products, bootleg music and movies, why should the internet be any different? With Chinese clones of YouTube & Facebook, the economies of these countries will benefit from the lack of true protection on the ideas spawned by the internet industry here in the US - what does that mean for our poor dollar? Of course this didn’t happen overnight.

I’ll be on an expedition in Indonesia on a much needed break for through the end of April. With limited internet access I can’t do much blogging, so until I return…

This is from my MediaPost column published today…

I WANT TO MAKE A bold prediction: TV on the Internet.

The siloing of online and TV audiences will never work the way networks expect for three simple reasons.

1) The innate difference in consumer viewing habits of short term versus long form content as it relates to the access environment surrounding your PC and your TV respectively. Where the former environment is less comfortable and not meant for “couch potatoes.” while the latter is normally an environment appropriate for passive viewing (although that can all change quite easily).

All metrics show that the longer the video content, the smaller percentage of completed plays. (Read: Less engagement.) As it relates to advertising in particular, according to Doubleclick’s video ad benchmarks 2007, consumers only view about 10.5 seconds of a 15 second ad and 18.5 seconds of a 30-second ad.

2) An online media buy against a TV program requires different evaluation criteria and decision making processes than when buying TV. It’s not even close to a replacement, and calling it a compliment is even a stretch. A TV buy is targeted against a passively viewing broad demographic, while an online buy is purchased against a much more defined target, after comparing all the other possible media investment allocations within the medium.

The audience that watches a particular program on TV is not the same as the audience that watches it online — and even if they were, there may be better places to reach a more refined subset of the target online after evaluating the audience dynamics and relevancy of the placement.

During the MediaPost OMMA Hollywood conference, a CBS Exec called for combined TV plus internet ratings. I wonder if this is a premonition of where the market is heading, or just a way to make their waning ratings of certain programs look better (although TV networks never do that right?)

3) Location shifting devices will at some point become standard issued optional hardware from your MSO, similar to the way they rolled out generic DVR’s after the proven success of Tivo. Location shifting will enjoy a similar adoption curve as time shifting has. Try to live without your DVR or location shifting device once you’ve started using it. You just can’t put that genie back in the bottle!

Enter Slingbox. This wonderful little location shifting device has been on the market for a handful of years already and last year was acquired by Echostar. You can pick one up for less than $200 and there are no monthly fees. The brand stands to be the “Tivo of location shifting”. I ponder the impact on TV networks and their digital migration/experimentation plans once the MSO’s all offer similar products. Vcast? MobiTV? Who needs them?

Thinking About “Traditional Thinking”

As an industry, we have applied far too much “traditional thinking” to new media, which holds its own set of unique dynamics that you cannot ignore. For the record, I may be a digital native, but I’m not part of the “Digirati” who claim that we are taking over all traditional forms of media and everything that is not new or different is therefore bad.

Of course “traditional thinking” is not bad, per se. But it does not seem to ever translate well within the world of digital media because it is one way thinking and works against many of the unique attributes of the media. The benefits of these attributes — relevancy, immediacy, interactivity, connectedness, interoperability, addressability, accountability — are also reflected in consumer behavior. Applying approaches to content distribution or marketing that is disguised as consumer-centric but in actuality is not, will go nowhere.

Case in point - pre-roll video. This non engaging, intrusive, expensive, less than contextually relevant placement wreaks of traditional thinking — how could this become the “standard”? Keep in mind that we have historically referred to audiences as captive, usually a term reserved for caged animals and prisoners. I task us with never using that term again in the context of media.

The New Guard Cannot Reign Until Some of The Blood Of The Old Guard Is Spilled

Successful Web2.0 brands (think Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Digg and a plethora of others) have enjoyed organic and often exponential growth and are displacing, or at the very least competing head-on with established brands who have decades of brand equity. What is driving this growth? (Hint: It’s not magic!)

As technology has enabled media to evolve into something new, we have tapped into the unique attributes and the potential of this new media, which has given consumers what they want, even if they didn’t realize or demand it initially. There exists a social fabric of the web itself, which has a mathematical growth pattern, creates a collective experience, and transcends the ability to project its trajectory based on human logic and intuition alone.

Not mandating your company to learn how to understand this dynamic, apply new thinking to new media, and evangelize this approach throughout all levels of the organization, can only result in one outcome - your eventual downfall. Of course it starts at the top, if your C-level execs don’t buy in, you can’t expect to turn a big ship around when the captain’s not part of the effort.

Change and adaptation is not about technology, it’s about a mindset and a commitment to being successful. It’s about education, and it’s about collaboration, both internally and externally. However, the formula to future success will include the application of data and technology at all levels of the organization. Failing to do so will prevent efficiencies at scale and will create a void of critical insight required to maintain a competitive advantage. This rings true for agencies, publishers and all businesses.

Evolve or Die?

Well, in the humble words of Jacques Cousteau, “If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.”

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin J. Martin today released additional information regarding the provisional winners in Auction 73 (the 700 MHz Auction).  The Auction raised a record $19.592 billion, advanced new wireless open platform policies, created opportunities for new entrants and small businesses both nationwide and in rural markets.

But will it create real change? Very doubtful - mainly because Verizon & At&T were the largest winners (acquiring 80% of the new bandwidth), thus making the largest national carriers even larger. Although this was of course no surprise.

Don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing wrong with the large carriers further bulking up. In fact, hopefully it will mean infrastructure improvements and the advancement of mobile web experiences for both consumers and marketers alike. But this certainly doesn’t seem like the beginning of competitive pressure on the carriers as the motivating force behind that advancement. Currently it is the infrastructure of the carriers that is our weakest link in mobile marketing.

The FCC statement continues to state that “A bidder other than a nationwide incumbent won a license in every market. As a result of the 700 MHz Auction, there is the potential for an additional wireless ‘third-pipe” in every market across the nation. Additionally, 99 bidders, other than the nationwide wireless incumbents, won 754 licenses – representing approximately 69 percent of the 1090 licenses sold in the 700 MHz auction. The Auction therefore drew wide-ranging interest from a number of new players. For example, Frontier Wireless LLC (EchoStar), which is widely viewed as a new entrant, won 168 licenses in the E block to establish a near nationwide footprint for its services for consumers.”

Non-nationwide incumbents showed significant interest in rural areas as well. 75 new players won licenses to serve 305 rural areas of the country (428 Rural Service Area licenses in total). Winners in these markets will provide increased access to broadband and greater choice in wireless service for consumers living in rural areas.”

I guess only time will tell. It is interesting to note however that Google, one of the many bidders for licenses who we all figured would have put their best foot forward to acquire some of this new found bandwidth, , did not win any, and that Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures was one of the lucky winners. Let’s see what that means, if anything…

I’m getting very frustrated at the hoopla that some privacy groups and legislators are creating over the issues surrounding behavioral targeting and the collection of online data in general.

How many times do we have to drill into their heads that the vast majority of online tracking is not personally identifiable and therefore does not violate any privacy. In fact the relevancy created by proper targeting benefits the consumer as much as it does the marketer!

By the way - thank you NY Times for helping to further blow the issue out of proportion! … and thank you for making Comscore an inadvertent accomplice. The article from March 10th “To Aim Ads, Web Is Keeping Closer Eye on You” was inevitably going to lead to increasing the paranoia among those not-in-the-know. They write “Five large Web operations — Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL and MySpace — record at least 336 billion transmission events in a month, not counting their ad networks.”

So what? Who cares? This is data that creates a more relevant experience for consumers and for the most part does not capture any personally identifiable information. It’s a win-win for all involved. Give it a break already!

I wrote a piece for Mediapost, published May 3, 2005 titled “Who Ate My Cookies?“, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to rehash the point that I tried to drive home nearly 3 years ago. The piece was actually more-so about an increasing trend of consumers clearing cookies, however, it is appropriately accurate to demonstrate a world without higher level targeting capabilities, something that many legislators would like to see happen based on a false pretense of privacy concerns.

Here is what I wrote 3 years ago in “Who Ate My Cookies?” (Part I):

CLICK! The recent influx of research on this topic makes one thing clear to me - this is just the tip of the iceberg! As media progresses, it will all become digital and something akin to a cookie will be a logistical necessity to keep order and prevent clutter. Tomorrow’s consumer, the teenagers of today, will understand this concept, but how do we educate today’s consumer to become tomorrow’s consumer? Let’s hear it from the source…

Joe Consumer is 35, he is a professional with HH Income of $75k, and has over five years of online experience. Joe uses a software tool to detect spyware, viruses, and other unwanted software on his computer…

I enjoy my online experiences. I buy at least one item from Amazon every other month, and I enjoy the convenience of Amazon one-click. I get my news content from multiple sites and enjoy my content preferences and the lack of clutter on the pages I read online almost every day. Some sites even cater content to me as if they understand my general interests. The thought of having to pay for my content disturbs me. I appreciate not having to pay for content that is subsidized by relevant advertising that interests me, which is displayed in moderation… sometimes I even respond to it. I used to get surveyed regularly regarding products and services that had no interest to me whatsoever, but now I don’t mind answering surveys every so often regarding topics that involve my interests. I love my online experiences!

COUNTERCLICK! Cookies aren’t such a big deal. So they help us maintain order and prevent clutter, consumers have been programmed to believe that cookies are bad - and perception is reality, right? Let’s hear it from Jane Consumer…

Jane Consumer is also 35-year-old professional with HH Income of $75k and over five years of online experience. Jane lives in a parallel universe without cookies…

The Internet is a frustrating place. I hate having to re-type my log-in and passwords for the sites I visit regularly, sometimes I don’t remember, and give up. Half the sites I visit won’t allow me to read a page of content without paying a subscription fee. And what’s with the irrelevant content and cluttered advertising on the free sites? I have seen the same ad a hundred times today. These sites don’t know how to cater to their customers. I’m surveyed constantly, I can’t stand it - don’t they get it that I don’t want to answer the stupid survey? Although I love staying in touch with friends and family, and I cherish my online communities, I’ve pretty much given up on using the Internet as much as I used to; it is so difficult to get the information I want without paying for it or being bombarded with advertising for products that I don’t care about.