Jaffe Juice

Social Media Top 10

I like this idea from Bryan Person. He's put together a social media top 10, which I think could really have some staying power in terms of listing a weekly Zeitgeist of stories making the news as it where.

Looks like I made the list in 9th position this week for my iPhone/Macbook barter experiment. Here's the full list:

1. Twitter
   I challenge you to find me a social media event where Twitter isn’t a topic of conversation.
2. iJustine - iPhone bill video
   Here’s what you do when AT&T sends you a 300-page bill.
3. PodCamp Pittsburgh 2
   Justin Kownacki & Co. are ready to go.
4. MobaTalk beta launch
   Michael Bailey has put plenty of blood, sweat, and tears into this project. Can’t wait to see the results.
5. Perth to host first PodCamp Australia
   The WA capital city will host the event in October.
6. 31 Days to Building a Better Blog - 2007
   Daily tips throughout August from ProBlogger Darren Rowse and his readers
7. Voxci
   A new audio social-bookmarking site from Jack Hodgson.
8. David.Finch
   Thought-provoking blogging on “media, productivity, technology, and …”
9. Joe Jaffe’s sponsored iPhones and laptop
   Whether you like his idea or not, there’s no denying that Joseph Jaffe has people talking.
10. Full-vs.-partial RSS feed debate
    I agree with Neville Hobson: full feeds are the no-brainer choice.

I guess I'd probably add "Skype Out" to this list BIG TIME.

Mitt Romney loves 30-second spots

Reading through an old Ad Age (July 9th) and I stumbled upon this blurb:

Mitt Romney leads the 2008 presidential candidates in TV ad spending, shelling out for 4,549 spots in local markets

...what a great opportunity to compare this spend to its ultimate ROI. So, if Mitt Romney is President of the United States of America come November 2008, I'll write a new book titled, "I was just kidding...the 30-second spot rocks" and if not, I'll just re-tag this post under "I told you so"

One more thing...should this not work out, we can always fall back on blaming the creative :)

Most innovative blog marketers

Bryan Eisenberg was over last night with his family for a Jaffe BBQ (ask CC...I'm not half bad) and we were chatting about blog marketing.

Along the vanes of UNM2PNM, I was thinking about which specific bloggers have really done the best job of marketing their blogs (and therefore themselves) along the way.

What I'm talking about specifically is someone like Hugh Macleod, who differentiated himself and build a following via his incredible cartoons/doodles or Seth Godin, who used a combination of his book platform plus a trackbacking only rule (one way link love), or Mack Collier with his Top 25 Marketing Blog list.

I thought it would be cool to get a list going of various bloggers and their specific strategies and tactics deployed to help establish, position and ultimately growth their audience, community and influence.

So "nominate" yourself or your favorite blog(ger) by highlighting a specific practice they used along the way. At the end, we should have a pretty good list which can be used or referenced by those starting out and looking to build their blog brands.

Who knows, maybe I'll even give away an iPhone to the most innovative blogmarketer :)

196.5: Holding pattern...

Nothing going on but the calories. I've been between 193.5 and 197.5 for just under 2 months (not coincidentally the same time since Jack was born)

Not disillusioned but definitely need to pick things up ahead of the end of the year when I'll attempt to get back into my wedding Armani suit for my brother and sister's weddings (not to each other)

Old thinking from an old consulting company, Toilet and Douche

I have to rant. I just read an article citing the release of a new Toilet & Douche study against the headline, "Old Media still resonate".

I could write an entire post on the headline alone...beginning with the fact that the new name for traditional media is now "old" media. Gee, how sexy does that sound? Well the good news is that your billions of dollars of legacy investment still has some value and that you're not throwing it away in its entirety. At least you can sleep with a tiny bit of conscience that you're not completely incompetent and negligent in your responsibilities (or lack thereof)

The study was conducted amongst 13-75 year olds, which already is ridiculous. These days, there are seas of difference between 13 and 17 year olds, let alone comparing practically 3 generations in 1 study.

...consistent across all generational segments—millennials (13-24), Gen Xers (25-41), boomers, (42-60) and matures (61-75)—nearly three-quarters of consumers said they enjoy magazines even though they acknowledge being able to read the same publications online.

WTF? I'm surprised 25% of people don't enjoy reading magazines. Let's talk about incidence shall we? Or how about whether people enjoy paying versus reading free magazines? And while we're at it, how about making the distinction between content and advertising?

...the "resilience of old media" remains a prominent feature of the landscape. "And one of the main activities online is going to a television Web site," he said. The survey found that 46 percent of consumers do that regularly, including over half (52 percent) of all Gen Xers.

This is what you want to focus on and use as your poster child for the resilience of old media i.e. the fact consumers go to websites of their favorite TV shows (most of which are embarrassingly lousy) How about focusing on the resiliency of all the magazines that are shutting down or the continued hemorrhaging of newspaper readership.

"Television is still a core activity...even though we see the expected amounts of online, text messaging, cellphone use [and] games—consumers are doing more things, but still watching television. It is always on."

Television is BACKGROUND noise. The Web is always on. TV is comfort food that just makes you fat and lazy. Come on...when every legitimate organization and study is reflected on cataclysmic change with respect to the demise of old media and the rise of new media, how can we be talking about TV as the rock and grounding force of media?

...there was also an unexpected result regarding digital video recording devices such as TiVo. "It's the Xers and boomers that rely on DVRs for television use," he said. "But the number-one use for DVR is not commercial skipping."

What's unexpected about this? DVR's are not purchased to skip ads, but to give their owners a more evolved holistic viewing experience. Lofty words I know, but it's more about digital versus analog, as opposed to illegal downloading of music versus purchasing a CD if you get my drift.

The rest of the piece is unreadable, including nuggets such as "overall there was more receptivity to print ads than to Internet advertising"...er that's because it's so easy just to ignore a static ad that's been around for as long as the people responsible for this survey (ok, maybe not as long)

Look. If you're desperate for some validation that the status quo is still hunky dory, then maybe this blog isn't for you. At the end of the day, I've never said "old media is dead" and/or "you should invest everything into new media or even new marketing", but I do get rather pissy when people are so intent on perpetuating a failing business model, as opposed to figuring out how to evolve it.

Alice's Tea Cup

On Tuesday, I decided to take my 6-year old daughter to work with me. She had a nasty fall at camp a week earlier and this was one way of treating her to a bit of Daddy time.

We had a blast...taking the train, attending a breakfast meeting at my "Cheers", Pershing Square and coming in to the office.

We also visited Alice's Tea Cup in Manhattan (Upper West Side) - think Serendipity meets Alice in Wonderland.

Alice's was actually Derek Mehraban's (his post is here) idea. Derek is a reader, listener and fellow new marketing brother-in-arms. We meet in Ann Arbor last year for the first time.

He's also a Twitterer and it was my early morning tweet which brought us together. I also received several other e-mails and direct messages to meet that day. Unfortunately, Derek won out due to his secret weapon: 2 lovely daughters for Amber to play with!

It's just another demonstration of SOCIAL media in work...connecting people; putting the humanity back in media.

Proof of Conversation (now go and sell more 30-second spots)

A Frank Magid Associates Millennial study conducted on behalf of ABC Family shows unequivocal validation in favor of word-of-mouth above all forms of paid media when it comes to finding out about "cool, hot and latest" products/services etc.

Combining the top 2 boxes (i.e. important and very important) reveals a landslide of support behind conversation:

• Friends: 71%
• My Kids (Millennials are growing up): 54%

The next tier of influence comes from content itself (which I guess justifies the ABC Family investment) - for example, programs on cable TV: 35%

TV commercials weigh in at just 29%.

3 interesting insights here:

1. No mention of "online ads"; just "websites" @ 38%. Not sure what to make of that
2. Social networking sites comes in at 28% (in line with TV advertising). I'm wondering how this differs from the "my friends" category. From a methodology standpoint, is the distinction here between "fun wall" and "skyscraper"
3. Blogs prop up the list at pretty much the same level as billboards. Personally, I think that's pretty remarkable, given both category's tenures.

I wonder what would happen if marketers invested their dollars relative to this chart.

We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time

I'm sure there are many variations on the story, but the way I remember it, legendary NFL coach, Vince Lombardi, was once questioned after losing a game and he said something to the effect of, "in my entire career, I never lost a single game...I just ran out of time"

It struck me as a sublime way to help us (as businesspeople) cope with the whole notion of "failure" versus "success".

As we discuss on the latest episode of Across the Sound, what seems like today's failure is often times tomorrow's delayed success.

Being quick to judge is bad enough, but in today's volatile climate, where job tenure is as fickle as ever; where both mainstream media and bloggers suffer from either schizophrenic journalism or premature speculation (there are drugs to treat this disorder), it is incumbent upon us to think big picture, long term and stay the course - especially with naysayers jump on the bandwagon and try to derail innovation and progress.

Vince Lombardi was a visionary in that he was both optimistic and pragmatic. He realized that failure is only failure when it is seen as an end unto itself and/or when there are no learnings or insights which can be addressed the next time round.

It is not that dissimilar with new marketing experimentation.

ATS #87 - A Month-long Celebration of Experimentation Sponsored by Real Pie Media

This episode is sponsored by Real Pie Media, led by Kirk Skodis, a long time listener of ATS. Audio comments and suggestions to +1 206 203-3255. Join me and Jaffe Juice on Facebook.

Direct download here

iTunes Subscription here

R.S.S. Feed here

1m15 - An update from Tim Coyne on his progress to get an audition on HOUSE!

5m30 - Welcome Real Pie Media's, Kirk Skodis. We chat about how we came to know each other and how/why Kirk decided to take me up on my computer for a month's sponsorship barter offer

13m30 - Kirk feels like he owes me a laptop for 2+ years of "free" ATS. I think that's a great idea and am appealing to all listeners to pay up or shut up :)

17m - What comes next after a laptop? A second one? A HD Flat Screen TV with Surround Sound? How about a mini-cooper or a house? Where will this end? Ultimately it's all about value. We discuss new marketing sponsorships and the resulting conversation.

20m30 - Whilst we've been chatting for 15 minutes, has this been an "ad" yet or has this been a 15-minute conversation? That said, I now ask Kirk to introduce himself, his company and why he chose to participate in this particular experiment.

25m15 - The Long Tail of New Marketing ROI - from UNM2PNM to this. Why Failure is often just delayed Success.

33m - Getting bored with new media versus waiting for the next big thing.  Echo chamber serial criticism without the constructive part. We discuss Second Life as the poster child for misunderstanding the value of experimentation.

42m40 - We finally reveal what I'm getting...Vaio or Macbook Pro??? Brand loyalty just went out the window as I cede an entire operating system to Kirk.

48m - An invitation to a geekfest in Westport - details TBD

49m20 - Final details of the sponsorship: The charity angle, an upcoming 3-way discussion about innovation and experimentation in movie marketing with Chris Thilk and finally the "Experimentation Case Study Challenge" with a good-cause prize (offsetting carbon emissions for 1 year) Here's my first submission. Send in your MP3 submissions to [email protected] or  call +1 206 203-3255

56m45 - Recapping the month-long "Celebration of Experimentation" sponsorship courtesy of Real Pie Media, which will include a 3-way conversation with myself, Kirk and Chris on movie marketing, the "Experimentation Case Study Challenge" and of course continued conversation on where this ATS experiment goes and ends up...

Additional links:

Real Pie Media -  http://www.realpie.com

Kirk Skodis' Blog - http://www.filmplug.com/blog

Chris Thilk's blog - http://www.moviemarketingmadness.com

Real Pie Media Art Director, Long Tran's blog - http://www.tranism.com/weblog

Native Energy (would most likely use them for carbon emission offset) - http://www.nativeenergy.com

We realize you have NO choice in airlines

So I'm sitting at Orlando airport and supposed to fly back at 6.20pm. Only I'm now leaving at 10.30pm. So instead of getting home around 10.15pm, it's going to be around 2.15am.

I'm obviously pissed and the only thing that is somewhat redeeming is that my kids would have been asleep anyway (I can't tell you how often these incessant delays end up meaning I miss the kids bedtimes).

My beef is three-fold:
1) Why are more people not recognizing or exposing the fact that LaGuardia (in particular) and the other NYC airports are hopelessly inept, with technology, systems and processes that are woefully out of date and in need of refurbishment? Just come out and admit it already. When I take a wrong turn on my car's GPS route, it adjusts. How hard is that?
2) Why are the airlines not stepping up and taking this battle to the FAA?
3) From a marketing perspective, why are airlines not turning this huge negative into a positive. Take my current experience with Delta today. As a Platinum customer, I expect to be treated a little differently (I just do). Instead of taking some responsibility, they just shrug their shoulders and say, "not our problem. It's the weather"

WEATHER IS YOUR PROBLEM. You fly. You fly in weather. It's your problem, not mine.

Excuse me? Aren't you the airline that's supposed to be changing? So change already. Change the status quo by putting me up in a hotel for the night. How hard is that, especially if you have (and if you don't, go get one) a relationship with a hotel chain. Why not give me a choice? Instead of spending 4+ hours which tick over into the wee hours of the morning, give me the ability to get a good night's sleep and start afresh tomorrow.

Most likely, I'll still elect to get home and get my trip over and done with.

And then they send an apologetic e-mail with the following verbiage:

We apologize for the inconvenience. We realize you have a choice in airlines and we're working hard to ensure that Delta meets all your travel needs

This is like Cingular advertising itself as the network with the least amount of dropped calls. Come on, why be content being part of the pack instead of trying to pull away from it? There is this unspoken belief - both on the part of marketers and consumers - that ALL airlines, telco's etc are equally bad, so why bother switching or taking a stand.

I find that to be incredibly risky and perhaps it's time to call the bluff of lip-service-service.

It's time to stop sitting on the sidelines and avoiding the conversation.