DigitalNext

Why Google Android Is Already Confusing

And Could That Spell Trouble For the Burgeoning Mobile Brand?

Posted by Dan Frommer on 11.06.09 @ 01:50 PM

The good news for Google's Android mobile operating system: It's finally getting a lot of good support from mobile phone manufacturers and carriers.

The bad news: Because so many different companies are involved in the mix, it's at risk of becoming very confusing and fragmented. That's already starting to happen.

For example: Let's look at just one feature -- support for multi-touch "pinch" zooming -- on the two sexy Android phones that Verizon Wireless introduced this week.

The Droid Gets Google.com Real Estate

Part of the All-Out Push for the Verizon Handset

Posted by Abbey Klaassen on 11.06.09 @ 12:05 PM

"Sesame Street" is not the only one getting plum placement on Google.com. Droid is as well, with 42 characters of promotion, right underneath Bert and Ernie.

Google's done this sort of self-promotion before, notably with its browser, Chrome. But real estate on the world's most recognizable home page (The copy? New! The Droid is on sale now. Learn more.) is a huge boost to any brand. It's all part of a teaser campaign to generate interest for the latest Android handset, which goes on sale today. Droid is also taking over Times Square at 12:30 EST, when people will be able to control two of its massive billboards using voice commands.

Social-Media Pranksters Had Fun With Walmart's Caskets

And What We Can Learn From It About Monitoring Your Brand's Health

Posted by Craig Daitch on 11.05.09 @ 08:43 AM

When it comes to social media, it's best to start with a solid listening strategy. And while you're fine-tuning the "what, where, when and how" as you're eavesdropping on conversations around the social web, remember that while analysis can be assisted through technology, it's by no means a fully automated process.

Take, for example, the recent press release announcing that Walmart has begun selling caskets online. A bit odd, but as it was introduced with Halloween around the corner, the news caught on and was aggregated across the social web.

As the casket story grew, it began to trend on social news sites such as Reddit, and because Walmart empowers its consumers with the ability to rate, comment and share product reviews, a few clever folks started writing fictitious (yet highly entertaining) comments about the products on Walmart.com. The hilarity of the reviews began to border on the absurd.

Why Digital Agencies Aren't Ready to Lead

They Lack the Balance of Exploration and Exploitation

Posted by Ana Andjelic on 11.03.09 @ 12:43 PM

Ana Andjelic

Any conversation about digital marketing these days includes at least one mention that traditional agencies just "don't get it." While this may be correct, what's equally true is that digital agencies are not ready to take the lead.

Look at the typical digital agency. It excels in exploring new horizons. It supports a flat and loose organizational structure in which a developer has access to the CEO. And it makes sure everyone's opinion is heard. It's one big crazy family.

Digital agencies are having a ton of fun experimenting with ideas, technologies and strategies to find new alternatives superior to obsolete ways of doing marketing. That's what they do best.

The problem is, this is the only thing they are doing.

Facebook's Big Changes: Action Items for Marketers

Social-Media Site Streamlines Apps Before Fanning Across the Web

Posted by David Berkowitz on 11.02.09 @ 12:28 PM

David Berkowitz

Facebook's latest round of updates announced this week will affect everyone: marketers, developers, publishers, consumers and anyone else remotely connected to their site and platform. And some of the changes will especially impact marketers.

In a rare move for any company, Facebook not only announced what changes will take place, but it publicly offered a timeline for when it will happen. Of course, the timeline may shift, and some specifics have yet to be ironed out -- I've found in consulting both with Facebook executives and analysts covering the announcements that, many of the details aren't yet known and a number of important questions cannot yet be fully answered. However, marketers should still appreciate the wealth of information Facebook has provided on these changes, including a gallery of screen shots.

Ten Things Social Media Can't Do

A Healthy Reminder for Setting Expectations

Posted by B.L. Ochman on 11.02.09 @ 10:23 AM

B.L. Ochman

Amid the endless pronouncements about social media -- often shortened to "social" these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about -- is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet.

Social media can't:

1. Substitute for marketing strategy.
   A Twitter campaign or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy.


2. Succeed without top management buy-in.
   Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback and trust employees to talk to customers.
   Read More

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Why Anyone Can Create a Successful Social Application

As These Case Studies Show, You Have No Excuses

Posted by Josh Bernoff on 10.29.09 @ 11:08 AM

Josh Bernoff

I just finished recognizing 13 highly effective social applications in the Forrester Groundswell Awards.

What hit me about this year's winners were that they prove that excellence in social media can come from anywhere.

Judy Consumer's Head Is in the Clouds

Or at Least She's Starting to Look up

Posted by Judy Shapiro on 10.29.09 @ 10:22 AM

Judy Consumer, in this case, a mom who does freelance sports photography, asked me the other day, "I wonder what all this talk about computing in the clouds is about? I have so much footage that I need to access and I do it today with external drives. Managing these external drives is driving me nuts."

Now, if this was an isolated comment, it probably would not have aroused my interest. But that was the third time I had heard that type of question in about two weeks. It was hard not to take notice.

So when this Judy "Photographer" Consumer asked me the question, I was thoroughly curious as to what she understood about cloud computing. So, I started to answer her question with another question. "Well, what do you know about it?" I asked. "Not much," she said, "but a friend of mine suggested it when he saw how I fussed with my storage drives. So what do you think?" At this point in the conversation, she wanted an expert technology opinion -- a role I am wholly unsuited for. But she insisted. "I bet you know a lot. What do you think?"

Where's the Outrage Over Online Video Viewership Claims?

Marketers Need to Understand What 'Most Watched' Really Means on Web

Posted by Jim Louderback on 10.28.09 @ 09:32 AM

Bob Dole famously cried "Where's the outrage?" during his presidential run against Bill Clinton. I'd like to revise that, with a twist, when looking at some recent internet video viewership numbers: I'd add in "where's the analysis?" to "where's the outrage?"

My outrage began when I read a Multichannel News story claiming that Univision's web series "Vidas Cruzadas" had become one of the "three most-watched online properties ever," with 2 million video streams served. The story was served up as fact, without any analysis whatsoever.

My beef: 2 million views, across 16 episodes, works out to roughly 125,000 views per episode. And if their views followed the typical online-video trajectory, the first episode probably accounted for more than half of those total views, with the balance eking out 50,000 or less.

However you slice it, however, that's hardly enough views to put "Vidas Cruzadas" into the top 100, let alone the top three. Here at Revision3 we've got a lot of shows with more than 2 million lifetime views -- and a couple that consistently do better than 150,000 an episode. Two million's not bad, but it certainly is nothing to write home about -- or to shoot off a press release over.

In Search of Exchange 3.0

What's Still Missing to Bring the Biggest Advertising Budgets Online

Posted by Andy Atherton on 10.27.09 @ 12:51 PM

Andy Atherton

The recent launch of DoubleClick's Ad Exchange 2.0 (AdX 2.0) has ignited tremendous excitement over the near-term financial upside in online display advertising. After years of search monopolizing the market's attention, we see the biggest players -- Google and Yahoo, the big agency holding companies and others -- redoubling efforts in display advertising optimization.

The business media is framing the upcoming battle as Yahoo vs. Google, but other players will fight hard too. Why? Because display is a huge ad market and, unlike in search, no winner has yet been crowned. The next 12 to 36 months will determine who takes this next, highly lucrative online advertising prize. However, the outcome won't be determined merely by the short-term competition between AdX 2.0 and Yahoo's Right Media or more generally by any competition between players that only address the direct-response (DR) market.