via youtube.com
PYT: In my top 3 Jackson joints
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
DirecTV's Chris Farley spot just feels wrong
DirecTV's Chris Farley spot just feels wrong
I've generally been a fan of the DirecTV ads by Deutsch with the actors breaking character from classic TV and movie scenes to deliver the pitch. But the series has gotten dicey with the introduction of dead celebs into the mix. Last October, we had the spot with with Craig T. Nelson and Heather O'Rourke from Poltergeist, which was unfortunate, given that O'Rourke (who played Carol Anne) died tragically in 1988 at age 12. Now, a year later (hey, Halloween's coming up again), we get this Tommy Boy homage, with Chris Farley and David Spade. Farley, of course, died of a drug overdose in 1997. The whole dead-celebs thing is a gray area in advertising. Sometimes it seems less off-putting than other times. But you know there's an issue when an ad finishes and you hear audible groans from around the room.
—Posted by Tim Nudd
via adweek.blogs.com
Do you think they went too far?
I don't think so.
MediaFreak:The Weather Channel adds a movie night
The Weather Channel, already working to expand beyond rain reports and beach forecasts, has decided to start airing movies on Friday nights. The first selection is an obvious one: The Perfect Storm with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, coming Oct. 30. Later, expect to see the documentary March of the Penguins, the thriller Deep Blue Sea and the snow-bound horror flick Misery. Not sure yet where this idea hits on the Richter scale (is it the meteorological equivalent of MTV dumping music videos?), but the area's fertile if the network keeps steering in this direction. There are boatloads of disaster-porn choices, like Twister, Poseidon, Waterworld, The Day After Tomorrow and the upcoming 2012 (basically anything Roland Emmerich ever shoots). A little something for the kids: Ice Age, Ponyo and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Classics like Singin' in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz. The list is endless, especially when you count all those global-warming shockumentaries from the past few years. Depends on how far the Weather Channel wants to stretch the definition.
I like the diversification move here as long as they stay true to their roots (insert cough...MTV)
Google Analytics Now More Powerful, Flexible And Intelligent
Expanded Mobile Reporting: Google Analytics now tracks mobile websites and mobile apps so you can better measure your mobile marketing efforts. If you're optimizing content for mobile users and have created a mobile website, Google Analytics can track traffic to your mobile website from all web-enabled devices, whether or not the device runs JavaScript. This is made possible by adding a server side code snippet to your mobile website which will become available to all accounts in the coming weeks (download snippet instructions). We will be supporting PHP, Perl, JSP and ASPX sites in this release. Of course, you can still track visits to your regular website coming from high-end, Javascript enabled phones.iPhone and Android mobile application developers can now also track how users engage with apps, just as with tracking engagement on a website. What's more, for apps on Android devices, usage can be tied back to ad campaigns: from ad to marketplace to download to engagement. Check out the SDKs and technical documentation on mobile apps tracking to get started. And coming soon, you'll be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section!
It keeps going and going.........Game changer
Volkswagen to Rely Solely on IPhone App for GTI Launch - Advertising Age - News
Of course, there is a real danger the automaker will miss many prospects using only one narrowly targeted marketing tool. But Tim Ellis, Volkwagen of America's VP-marketing, maintains it is a highly targeted strategy to directly reach the GTI customer, a tech-savvy, social-media activist who spends time on mobile devices, most often iPhones. "It's a homerun in terms of the demo overlap," said Nihal Mehta, CEO of local-search and networking app Buzzd.
via adage.com
In five years this will be a highly targeted approach for a majority of the population. Watch out traditional media
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Logic+Emotion: You Might Be a Digital Anthropologist...
Some of the most forward thinking companies like IDEO have invested in hiring anthropologists, people who combine an intuitive curiosity with a learned skill for observation and pattern detection. These anthropologists come from all backgrounds, and the really good ones have developed methods and toolboxes for capturing behaviors in the hopes of uncovering the insights they are looking for.
Today, a big part of that toolbox has become the Web, which lowers the bar for curious people who can detect patterns but perhaps haven’t earned their formal degrees in the social sciences or have the experience of recording hours of behavior via A/V equipment. But there is a catch. You have to be willing to investigate, spend time in the virtual communities—you have to participate to some extent and you have to develop your own system for capturing data whether it be tagging via delicious, favoriting links or archiving media.
The big shift is that the new kind of “digital ethnography” I’m describing is there for those willing to do what it takes to uncover those insights. No special degree or professional recording equipment required. I’m fairly certain some company out there is going to tap into this idea of “direct engagement”—live interactions with real breathing people enabled by digital technology. Could be video, text, audio or a combination of all three. But I’m fairly certain that the small percentage of people who are experiencing it through networks such as Twitter are acting as collective canaries in coalmines signaling a desire for more live human connectivity vs. artificial intelligence.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Ad Industry Needs Pull Its Head Out of its Ass and Grow a Pair - Adrants
If you roll over out of fear, you are handing the other person the keys to your ball sack to put it bluntly. If you're submissive and bend over all the time, you will never earn the respect of the aggressor. But if you stand up, pull your head out of your ass and fight for your ideas, you will become a peer rather than a spineless speck of wasted space easily slapped down by the aggressor...who in most cases is a giant dickhead and needs to be properly put in their place anyway.
So consider your new-found bravery and confidence a strategy unto itself: to eradicate the world of pontificating fucktards (as George loves to say) with false senses of superiority.
via adrants.com
The Ad Industry Needs Pull Its Head Out of its Ass and Grow a Pair - Adrants
It's not about the technology. It's about ideas. As an industry, many of us are overly caught up with the available bells and whistles we have at our disposal and we rush in just because they are cool. We forget the most important point of advertising. Aside from it's primary purpose of helping brands sell stuff, it's about the idea. The Big Idea as Phil Dussenberry (not Donny Deutsch) always said. Once you have the right idea, everything else is easy.
via adrants.com
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Still Hating?
The season began with no Big East teams in either major top 25 poll. Most observers figured the league would be down after losing such stars as Pat White, Donald Brown, LeSean McCoy and Scott McKillop to the NFL.But through the first half of the season, the Big East looks as strong as ever. This week, there are three teams from the conference in both major top 25 polls. That's more than the Pac-10, and the same number as the ACC and Big Ten. The league has a legitimate national championship contender in Cincinnati, which is No. 5 in the BCS standings. The Big East has gone 26-7 in nonconference games, and its .788 winning percentage is better than every conference except the SEC.
The Content Factory, Sloppy as Hell
Thousands of other filmmakers and writers around the country are operating with the same loose standards, racing to produce the 4,000 videos and articles that Demand Media publishes every day. The company’s ambitions are so enormous as to be almost surreal: to predict any question anyone might ask and generate an answer that will show up at the top of Google’s search results. To get there, Demand is using an army of Muñoz- Donosos to feverishly crank out articles and videos. They shoot slapdash instructional videos with titles like “How To Draw a Greek Helmet” and “Dog Whistle Training Techniques.” They write guides about lunch meat safety and nonprofit administration. They pump out an endless stream of bulleted lists and tutorials about the most esoteric of subjects.
How to Give the People What They Want
Demand Media has created a virtual factory that pumps out 4,000 videoclips and articles a day. It starts with an algorithm.
The algorithm is fed inputs from three sources: Search terms (popular terms from more than 100 sources comprising 2 billion searches a day), the ad market (a snapshot of which keywords are sought after and how much they are fetching), and the competition (what’s online already and where a term ranks in search results).
Photo: Zachary ZavislakPlenty of other companies — About.com, Mahalo, Answers.com — have tried to corner the market in arcane online advice. But none has gone about it as aggressively, scientifically, and single-mindedly as Demand. Pieces are not dreamed up by trained editors nor commissioned based on submitted questions. Instead they are assigned by an algorithm, which mines nearly a terabyte of search data, Internet traffic patterns, and keyword rates to determine what users want to know and how much advertisers will pay to appear next to the answers.
The process is automatic, random, and endless, a Stirling engine fueled by the world’s unceasing desire to know how to grow avocado trees from pits or how to throw an Atlanta Braves-themed birthday party. It is a database of human needs, and if you haven’t stumbled on a Demand video or article yet, you soon will. By next summer, according to founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, Demand will be publishing 1 million items a month, the equivalent of four English-language Wikipedias a year. Demand is already one of the largest suppliers of content to YouTube, where its 170,000 videos make up more than twice the content of CBS, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera English, Universal Music Group, CollegeHumor, and Soulja Boy combined. Demand also posts its material to its network of 45 B-list sites — ranging from eHow and Livestrong.com to the little-known doggy-photo site TheDailyPuppy.com — that manage to pull in more traffic than ESPN, NBC Universal, and Time Warner’s online properties (excluding AOL) put together. To appreciate the impact Demand is poised to have on the Web, imagine a classroom where one kid raises his hand after every question and screams out the answer. He may not be smart or even right, but he makes it difficult to hear anybody else.
The result is a factory stamping out moneymaking content. “I call them the Henry Ford of online video,” says Jordan Hoffner, director of content partnerships at YouTube. Media companies like The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, AOL, and USA Today have either hired Demand or studied its innovations. This year, the privately held Demand is expected to bring in about $200 million in revenue; its most recent round of financing by blue-chip investors valued the company at $1 billion.
In this industrial model of content creation, Muñoz-Donoso is working the conveyor belt — being paid very little for cranking out an endless supply of material. He admits that the results are not particularly rewarding, but work is work, and Demand’s is steady and pays on time. Plus, he says, “this is the future.” He has shot more than 40,000 videos for Demand, filming yo-yo whizzes, pole dancers, and fly fishermen. But ask him to pick a favorite and he’s stumped. “I can’t really remember most of them,” he says.
In an era overwhelmed by FlickrYouTubeWikipedia-BloggerFacebookTwitter-borne logorrhea, it’s hard to argue that the world needs another massive online content company. But what Demand has realized is that the Internet gets only half of the simplest economic formula right: It has the supply part down but ignores demand. Give a million monkeys a million WordPress accounts and you still might never get a seven-point tutorial on how to keep wasps away from a swimming pool. Yet that’s what people want to know. Ask Byron Reese.
via wired.com
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Hot Diggity
Nokia develops phone that recharges itself without plug-ins
The Guardian reports on a new prototype phone from Nokia that is able to power itself on nothing more than ambient radiowaves – the weak TV, radio and mobile phone signals that permanently surround us.
The power harvested is small but it is almost enough to power a mobile in standby mode indefinitely without ever needing to plug it into the mains, according to Markku Rouvala, one of the researchers who developed the device at the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, UK.
... Instead of harvesting tiny amounts of power (a few microwatts) from dedicated transmitters, Nokia's prototype is able to scavenge relatively large amounts of power — around a thousand times as much — from signals coming from miles away. Individually the energy available in each of these signals is miniscule. But by harvesting radiowaves across a wide range of frequencies it all adds up, said Rouvala.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Elephant in the Room: Your Digital DNA
The Inevitable Future
The convergence of our physical world and the digital world continues to merge everyday due to more and more physical objects becoming increasingly connected to the ominous machine we call the internet. Soon, we'll always be "on," connected to the web and creating data that defines who we are. However, this “ultimate surveillance” raises many concerns and questions about personal privacy, making it all the more important to become aware of where we’re headed and what we should be concerned about.
Privacy On the Endangered Species List
The idea of “privacy” has been ruptured by technology. The value of putting your information on the web greatly overshadows any recognition that the more information you reveal, the more useful that is to corporate interests. So talking about personal ownership of data online in terms of control is currently a fairy tale. Once your data is out, it's out.
Additionally, the problem continues to worsen with the growth of the “free” web because most platforms with web services have turned an external benefit (my data) to the foundations of their business models. The free services I receive are “paid for” by my attention and my data.
As a result, global awareness of privacy has fallen by the way side. A free email service found that 40% of its 11 million users didn't know that it was common practice for email providers to habitually scan personal emails for keywords, useful in advertising. Some users only realize that their personal emails are being used in this way after noticing strangely optimized ads around their inbox.
Wasting Their Time and Money
It is thought that the more data companies can gather about their customers the deeper the insights they can generate. With the intention of leading to longer, more profitable relationships. Instead, many companies are finding that transactions with their customers are too limited for them to get an accurate picture of customer motivations and any data they gather, quickly goes out of date. Additionally, the attempts to fill these inaccuracies by gathering more data simply intensifies the possibilities for intrusion.
So how does a company manage to treat their customers with some sense of dignity without actually zooming in on them from the wide angle (segments) to telephoto (individuals)? Any effort to evolve CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools with in-depth analytical capabilities that peer into the overwhelming cloud of consumer data have failed, unable to build any meaningful insight into who their customers really are while staying within legal limits of customer data protection.
A New Era
The simple acknowledgment that customers equal individuals interacting with a business and that they want to interact on a peer-to-peer basis, is a good start. Instead of companies “relating” to me through branding and messaging, they could communicate and transact with me based on my real preferences, not market research, demographics and averages gathered from misinformed, out of date data.
The idea of peer to peer (customer to vendor) markets is built around more than transactions. It is lead generated, with the customers intentions driving the conversation. It’s about markets, not marketing, where customers don't have to go from vendor silo to vendor silo, collecting deal information and misconstrued hype. It gives the customer more control, allowing them to notify the market of their intent to buy, and have sellers compete for their purchase.
Imagine companies being able to relate to customers, consistently and persistently. I’d like to imagine being able to take charge of my information and data, notes and records about past transactions, my purchase history
, future plans and ideas, preferences and knowledge about all areas of my online life. All this while protecting my privacy to the degree I find comfortable. I want to share my data as I wish, no longer controlled by a platform providing some functionality in exchange for my data (Facebook, Amazon, etc).
In essence, my transactions and purchase history are locked into vendor silos, spaces designed to contain bits of my data (i.e., photos, content, relationships, transactions, purchase history, movements and knowledge.) I lack the means to perform the three simple functions, capture, manipulate and share my data on the web before and above anyone else. Being able to do this persistently amounts to establishing and driving my own online identity.
Enter D.N.A.
The importance of my data should warrant the establishment of institutions that hold my information like a bank. Safety deposit boxes for my information that data banks hold but can’t touch unless I allow them access or pay a fee in exchange for their services.
Hypothetically, lets say I belong to a data bank that I’ll call D.N.A., (Data Now Available) for all intents and purposes. The name D.N.A. also implying that it contains all the information that makes me-me in the online world.
I believe it should start with equipping me with tools based on existing technology and applying an understanding of how I use such tools online. The tools need to help me to reclaim my data, piece together my fractured identity and allow me to drive it forward with all of the benefits that it can bring to both myself and those I interact and transact with. From the vendor point of view, this offers the opportunity to eliminate huge amounts of guesswork about who to market to, about what, via what channels, and when, thereby cutting costs
and generating greater returns.
A Day In the Life: Utilizing D.N.A.
Social Web:
There would be an incentive for companies to create plugins for D.N.A. as a way of extending their expertise and be involved in the relationship. “A plug-in consists of a computer program that interacts with a host application (i.e., web browser or an email client) to provide a certain, usually very specific, function on demand. For example, Virgin Atlantic would design a plug-in to receive my travel data from my D.N.A. The plug-in would be designed in such a way that Virgin Atlantic would only be able to retain data if I allow them to and perhaps offering me a better deal if I’m willing to do so.
Flickr:
Another plugin example would be the use of Flickr within my D.N.A. Once I have the option of putting my Flickr data within my D.N.A. I can create new data, import existing data. I can then manipulate it; mash it up, trend it, analyze it, collage it. The plugins will allow me to apply functionality to the data in D.N.A. without having to insecurely post anything within the Flickr platform.
Groceries:
I put together a list of recipes from various sites, like Epicurious, AllRecipes, RecipeZaar. I cut and paste the ingredients lists into an email I send to myself so I'll have it on my Blackberry. Now, there are four supermarkets on my way home from work. My goal is to spend as little time, gas and cash as possible shopping. Ideally, I get everything I need at one store.
I cut and paste the ingredients from the recipes into a D.N.A. shopping list plug-in. I then expose this data to the four stores along my driving route and I get back a grid showing which stores have which items at which prices, plus a total price for each. This potentially saves me a trip to a second or third supermarket and provides the best deal. Additionally, there’s more the plug-in could do, for example, if it knew my loyalty card numbers, it could show me personalized discounts for various items on the list or even specify things I had liked in the past but had forgotten when making the list.
Acme Inc. (Lowest Price)
You might be wondering how business will compete in a bidding system against a company that persistently offers the lowest price. Allow me to use Acme Inc. as an example.
Acme succeeds on selling a range of products at a lower cost than its competitors. Great, but remember the principle, "You can have it Cheap, at Good Quality and Quickly, choose any two". Say I want to buy a new cage for my parrot. My criteria is that he likes it. So I want a solid returns policy from the supplier and I don’t care how much it costs but I do want it tomorrow! So I would want to establish some kind of personal policy. Therefore, while Acme is the cheapest it doesn't win my business because it can’t meet the requirements in my policy because it can’t get it to me right away or it can’t provide a guaranteed returns policy.
Importance of Knowledge and Dialogue
Change is inevitable, there’s increased economic benefit to companies that give back control to their customers versus those companies that continue to either restrict or abuse their customers data. However, the rate in which change arrives depends on customers refusal to play along anymore and demand change. Times have changed. Privacy and our notions of it must adapt too. And that starts by developing the language to discuss these matters in a way that’s obvious and noteworthy to those who are concerned about these issues. Simply demanding the protection of one’s privacy is now a hollow and unrealistic demand; now we should be talking about access, about permissions, and about review. It’s not until we deepen our understanding of the components of identity, of personal data and of personal profiles that we can begin to make headway on exploring the economic aspects of customer data, who should control it, have access to it, create, read, update, and delete it.
So give me tools, flexible and modular, to reclaim my digital DNA, help me piece together my fractured identity. And then allow me to drive it forward with all of the benefits that it can bring me and to those I interact and transact with. We all need a well developed view of the future and to each invest in the aspects that work to make that future come true.
The convergence of our physical world and the digital world continues to merge everyday due to more and more physical objects becoming increasingly connected to the ominous machine we call the internet. Soon, we'll always be "on," connected to the web and creating data that defines who we are. However, this “ultimate surveillance” raises many concerns and questions about personal privacy, making it all the more important to become aware of where we’re headed and what we should be concerned about.
Privacy On the Endangered Species List
The idea of “privacy” has been ruptured by technology. The value of putting your information on the web greatly overshadows any recognition that the more information you reveal, the more useful that is to corporate interests. So talking about personal ownership of data online in terms of control is currently a fairy tale. Once your data is out, it's out.
My personal information, or some of it at least, is already up for sale somewhere in the world and I’m being sold to the highest bidder by every company and 
platform that has any of my information. I’m a part of the multi-billion dollar business of buying and selling the personal data of the more than 400 million North American internet users for "targeted marketing campaigns". My data is a positive externality to the vendors and platforms that capture it. A positive externality is something that is not part of the value traded in market exchanges. It is something one of the parties in the trade benefits from, without having to pay for it. For example, when I am buying something from Amazon, my data is external to the transaction, they are not paying for it and I am not being paid for it. Nevertheless, the vendors benefit by using the data in ways that help their business, from mining to selling it on. I have very little legal protection against this, even with the Data Protection Act and other restrictions on those who capture my data.
platform that has any of my information. I’m a part of the multi-billion dollar business of buying and selling the personal data of the more than 400 million North American internet users for "targeted marketing campaigns". My data is a positive externality to the vendors and platforms that capture it. A positive externality is something that is not part of the value traded in market exchanges. It is something one of the parties in the trade benefits from, without having to pay for it. For example, when I am buying something from Amazon, my data is external to the transaction, they are not paying for it and I am not being paid for it. Nevertheless, the vendors benefit by using the data in ways that help their business, from mining to selling it on. I have very little legal protection against this, even with the Data Protection Act and other restrictions on those who capture my data.Additionally, the problem continues to worsen with the growth of the “free” web because most platforms with web services have turned an external benefit (my data) to the foundations of their business models. The free services I receive are “paid for” by my attention and my data.
As a result, global awareness of privacy has fallen by the way side. A free email service found that 40% of its 11 million users didn't know that it was common practice for email providers to habitually scan personal emails for keywords, useful in advertising. Some users only realize that their personal emails are being used in this way after noticing strangely optimized ads around their inbox.
Wasting Their Time and Money
It is thought that the more data companies can gather about their customers the deeper the insights they can generate. With the intention of leading to longer, more profitable relationships. Instead, many companies are finding that transactions with their customers are too limited for them to get an accurate picture of customer motivations and any data they gather, quickly goes out of date. Additionally, the attempts to fill these inaccuracies by gathering more data simply intensifies the possibilities for intrusion.
So how does a company manage to treat their customers with some sense of dignity without actually zooming in on them from the wide angle (segments) to telephoto (individuals)? Any effort to evolve CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools with in-depth analytical capabilities that peer into the overwhelming cloud of consumer data have failed, unable to build any meaningful insight into who their customers really are while staying within legal limits of customer data protection.
A New Era
The simple acknowledgment that customers equal individuals interacting with a business and that they want to interact on a peer-to-peer basis, is a good start. Instead of companies “relating” to me through branding and messaging, they could communicate and transact with me based on my real preferences, not market research, demographics and averages gathered from misinformed, out of date data.
The idea of peer to peer (customer to vendor) markets is built around more than transactions. It is lead generated, with the customers intentions driving the conversation. It’s about markets, not marketing, where customers don't have to go from vendor silo to vendor silo, collecting deal information and misconstrued hype. It gives the customer more control, allowing them to notify the market of their intent to buy, and have sellers compete for their purchase.
Imagine companies being able to relate to customers, consistently and persistently. I’d like to imagine being able to take charge of my information and data, notes and records about past transactions, my purchase history
, future plans and ideas, preferences and knowledge about all areas of my online life. All this while protecting my privacy to the degree I find comfortable. I want to share my data as I wish, no longer controlled by a platform providing some functionality in exchange for my data (Facebook, Amazon, etc).In essence, my transactions and purchase history are locked into vendor silos, spaces designed to contain bits of my data (i.e., photos, content, relationships, transactions, purchase history, movements and knowledge.) I lack the means to perform the three simple functions, capture, manipulate and share my data on the web before and above anyone else. Being able to do this persistently amounts to establishing and driving my own online identity.
Enter D.N.A.
The importance of my data should warrant the establishment of institutions that hold my information like a bank. Safety deposit boxes for my information that data banks hold but can’t touch unless I allow them access or pay a fee in exchange for their services.
Hypothetically, lets say I belong to a data bank that I’ll call D.N.A., (Data Now Available) for all intents and purposes. The name D.N.A. also implying that it contains all the information that makes me-me in the online world.
I believe it should start with equipping me with tools based on existing technology and applying an understanding of how I use such tools online. The tools need to help me to reclaim my data, piece together my fractured identity and allow me to drive it forward with all of the benefits that it can bring to both myself and those I interact and transact with. From the vendor point of view, this offers the opportunity to eliminate huge amounts of guesswork about who to market to, about what, via what channels, and when, thereby cutting costs
and generating greater returns.A Day In the Life: Utilizing D.N.A.
Social Web:
There would be an incentive for companies to create plugins for D.N.A. as a way of extending their expertise and be involved in the relationship. “A plug-in consists of a computer program that interacts with a host application (i.e., web browser or an email client) to provide a certain, usually very specific, function on demand. For example, Virgin Atlantic would design a plug-in to receive my travel data from my D.N.A. The plug-in would be designed in such a way that Virgin Atlantic would only be able to retain data if I allow them to and perhaps offering me a better deal if I’m willing to do so.
Flickr:
Another plugin example would be the use of Flickr within my D.N.A. Once I have the option of putting my Flickr data within my D.N.A. I can create new data, import existing data. I can then manipulate it; mash it up, trend it, analyze it, collage it. The plugins will allow me to apply functionality to the data in D.N.A. without having to insecurely post anything within the Flickr platform.
Groceries:
I put together a list of recipes from various sites, like Epicurious, AllRecipes, RecipeZaar. I cut and paste the ingredients lists into an email I send to myself so I'll have it on my Blackberry. Now, there are four supermarkets on my way home from work. My goal is to spend as little time, gas and cash as possible shopping. Ideally, I get everything I need at one store.
I cut and paste the ingredients from the recipes into a D.N.A. shopping list plug-in. I then expose this data to the four stores along my driving route and I get back a grid showing which stores have which items at which prices, plus a total price for each. This potentially saves me a trip to a second or third supermarket and provides the best deal. Additionally, there’s more the plug-in could do, for example, if it knew my loyalty card numbers, it could show me personalized discounts for various items on the list or even specify things I had liked in the past but had forgotten when making the list.
Acme Inc. (Lowest Price)
You might be wondering how business will compete in a bidding system against a company that persistently offers the lowest price. Allow me to use Acme Inc. as an example.
Acme succeeds on selling a range of products at a lower cost than its competitors. Great, but remember the principle, "You can have it Cheap, at Good Quality and Quickly, choose any two". Say I want to buy a new cage for my parrot. My criteria is that he likes it. So I want a solid returns policy from the supplier and I don’t care how much it costs but I do want it tomorrow! So I would want to establish some kind of personal policy. Therefore, while Acme is the cheapest it doesn't win my business because it can’t meet the requirements in my policy because it can’t get it to me right away or it can’t provide a guaranteed returns policy.
Importance of Knowledge and Dialogue
Change is inevitable, there’s increased economic benefit to companies that give back control to their customers versus those companies that continue to either restrict or abuse their customers data. However, the rate in which change arrives depends on customers refusal to play along anymore and demand change. Times have changed. Privacy and our notions of it must adapt too. And that starts by developing the language to discuss these matters in a way that’s obvious and noteworthy to those who are concerned about these issues. Simply demanding the protection of one’s privacy is now a hollow and unrealistic demand; now we should be talking about access, about permissions, and about review. It’s not until we deepen our understanding of the components of identity, of personal data and of personal profiles that we can begin to make headway on exploring the economic aspects of customer data, who should control it, have access to it, create, read, update, and delete it.
So give me tools, flexible and modular, to reclaim my digital DNA, help me piece together my fractured identity. And then allow me to drive it forward with all of the benefits that it can bring me and to those I interact and transact with. We all need a well developed view of the future and to each invest in the aspects that work to make that future come true.
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Alhambra
The vast Alhambra fortress in Granada, Spain has so much carved Arabic writing that no one has ever had the ability to catalog it all. Finally, using modern technology, it's being done. Experts are currently collecting over 10,000 inscriptions that have no one has translated in over 500 years since Ferdinand and Isabel evicted the Moors from their mighty fortress. Using the high-tech gear, they've managed to translate about half, and have compiled over 3,000 in a DVD. I've been all over the Alhambra myself and I can;t imagine how painstaking the catalog process must be on those vaulted cathedral ceilings.
So far the inscriptions are mostly the Nasrid motto: "There is no victor but Allah." But in accordance with that particularly fruitful time in Arabic culture, there are many other things written on the walls, from poetry to aphorisms, such as "Be sparing with words and you will go in peace."
Saturday, January 10, 2009
"Trade me for a dog and shoot the dog"
Burger King has been coming up with some hilarious campaigns over the past few years, ("Whopper Virgin," "Subservient Chicken", "The King") and this is no exception. Enter the "Whopper Sacrifice," a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.
In an era where our social-networking obsessions continue to define social interaction how wonderful that Burger King is poking fun at the whole digital mess.. "Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test," the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. "Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we'll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.
The funniest part: The "sacrifices" show up in your activity feed. So it'll say, for example, "Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper." Unfortunately, you can't delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.
It's a good thing I accept whomever as a friendon Facebook becuase I've made a New Year's resolution to eat more red meat.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Androids at Walmart?
In the next 15 years we are going to see the first androids hit the market, showing up in wealthy homes as novelty assistants. Shortly after, we'll see them being sold to more middle class individuals as highly advanced sex partners. And as we've witnessed with the VCR, the porn industry can greatly influence the development of a new technology. After funding sky rockets and the technology improves, causing the price to fall, we will see these human like machines in a majority of households across the world. Some have even predicted as the technology and development improves to the point where it's difficult to tell the difference between an android and a human that some people will start falling in love and marrying them. I'm not sure how far this will go but I do know that androids will be a part of our lives in the future and I think it's important that we start to consider this fact and get used to the idea so as to not have any social upheaval. If handled properly from the beginning this technology could greatly hep mankind advance more rapidly.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Great for Domino's -- Bad for our waistlines
Thanks to a new agreement with Domino's, owners of TiVo set-top boxes can now order food directly through their televisions, and even track delivery time so they know just when the pizza guy will be showing up to bring them a nice, tasty treat.
Here's the deal:
When a Domino's ad or product placement shows up, TiVo users can click through with their remote controls to order pizza.
Or they can access an on-demand ordering screen through a TiVo menu. It's similar in theory to the deals that TiVo has with Fandango for movie ticket ordering or with Amazon.com for ordering products related to TV shows, except that you get a pizza and pounds.
"This is the first time in history that the 'on-demand' generation will be able to fully experience couch commerce by ordering pizza directly through their television set," Rob Weisberg, Domino's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "You'll see a television ad for Domino's, and you'll click, 'I want it' through your remote. In about 30 minutes, your pizza will show up at your door." And then you won't just be a couch potato, you'll be a Digital Age couch potato.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Golden Age of Advertising
Before there was Marlboro Man, there was Marlboro Baby. This month the New York Public library is celebrating the golden age of advertising, when doctors, babies and even Santa endorsed smoking. Below are 19 ads from the library's collection. Enjoy.
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