Why doesn't your computer's desktop look anything like your real desktop? That question led a research team at the University of Toronto to invent a totally new interface and way of organizing stuff on your computer. It uses expressive lightweight techniques that makes managing your digital life a little more intuitive.
Here's a marvelous spot for Coke that launched yesterday. Its part of the on-going campaign called "The Coke Side of Life". Its a charmling little story that reveals a bit of the magic that comes to life in that null blank void you experience while waiting for your Coke bottle to rattle its way out of the vending machine.
The piece was created by Rick Condos & Hunter Hindman at W+K Amsterdam, with spectacular motion graphics by Psyop.
Comedian Ricky Gervais claims to have beaten his own record for the most downloaded podcast ever.
His free weekly podcast landed a place in this year's Guinness Book of World Records with an average of 261,670 downloads per episode. But that figure rose to 541,329 by the time the first series of The Ricky Gervais Show ended in February.
Gervais stars on the podcast along with The Office co-writer Stephen Merchant and producer Karl Pilkington. The show largely consists of Gervais and Merchant teasing Pilkington for his idiotic ideas, including his regular Monkey News bulletin of news stories about apes.
Captain Jack may be back in theaters, but the roguish protagonist of Disney's upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has set his sights on raiding a whole new territory: the internet.
And thanks to immersive marketing company 42 Entertainment, fans of the movie can jump onboard with "Dead Man's Tale," an interactive online adventure with Windows Live Messenger as the vessel of choice.
"The game blends cinematic storytelling, chat, puzzle solving, social collaboration and innovative gameplay, all within the world created by the movie," says Susan Bonds, 42 Entertainment's VP of production.
This is a really interesting technology that projects interactive video images into air, free-space, that double as a virtual touchscreen. See the video clip to understand what I'm talking about.
While YouTube wanted to partner all along, NBC saw the existence of its content on YouTube as some sort of horrific abuse of copyright law and forced the video site to remove various NBC clips such as the famed "Lazy Sunday."
Now, NBC has reversed its line of thinking, realizing that keeping content off YouTube is similar to telling a 13 year old she can't use MySpace.
In a deal between the two, NBC will have a branded area on YouTube where various network programming clips will be uploaded on a weekly basis insuring far better reach and distribution than the net using just its own site. NBC will also promote the partnership on-air including a contest which calls for people to submit their own promotional spots for The Office. The winner will get their submission aired in August during the show.
Just when you think some brands are finally waking up to the death of the :30 second spot and adding some newer media, along comes a brand that jumps into TV for the first time. Bombay Saphire gin is advertising on television with two new spots. One features a martial artist carving a glass out of a block of ice to hold the gin and a second spot has an elephant gingerly stepping over and around martini glasses until she sniffs out the glass holding the Bombay. Beautifully done...well, I mean, for TV...
Against a background of techno, video screens and pulsating lights, shoppers on Saturday checked out the full line of Nokia's products at the opening of their first US store.
It is the first of four flagship stores that Finland's Nokia--the world's largest mobile phone maker and the No. 2 U.S. mobile phone maker--plans to open in the North American market, and the second in the world.
The move by Nokia into the retail arena is part of a push to showcase its brand, which often has to take a back seat to those of the service providers that sell its phones to consumers.
Nokia's store is in the hometown of biggest rival Motorola and a few blocks away from Motorola's temporary retail space that opened earlier this month.
The annual multimedia Sonar Festival transformed Barcelona into an ear-opening beatbox - celebrating the Japanese electronic music scene. With 80,000 attendees, global brands seized the opportunity to tap this youth scene:
Red Bull Music Lounge: Raging with high energy throughout the day, the Red Bull Music Lounge---situated inside Sonar’s day venue---delivered a ravishing lineup of performances sourced from their very own Red Bull Music Academy program. Unlike other sponsor areas, the Red Bull lounge was an absolute destination spot. Avid music aficionados came to check out the performers’ eclectic and often experimental sounds; those that needed a rest plonked themselves on the area’s funky furniture, and those that were after a pick-me-up grabbed a can from the endless barrel of energizing beverages.
T-Mobile Electronic Beats: Subtly intertwined in the festival, T-Mobile’s European Electronic Beats magazine was distributed around the day venue. In a strictly industry event, T-Mobile invited some journalists, record labels and DJs for a special session from German DJ producer Dominik Eulberg and Swiss vocalist Kate Wax. The brand’s presence at the festival was low key, underground and organic but effective in evoking curiosity.
Check out the link to go to the Sonar site, great content.
It’s no Black Card, but it’s still something you can whip it out to impress passersby. The American Express Butterfly Card is a standard credit card that’s available to members of AMEX’s Gold Card members. What makes it so special, what makes our hearts sing, is that it folds in half, letting you store it inside of a svelte, metallic case the size of a keychain.
You can tell by the PR pictures on the AMEX Web site that the Butterfly Card is meant to be a status symbol. And of course, who doesn’t have friends who would be impressed by a folding piece of colored plastic?
Here's a cute way of showing all the information and uses of your Blackberry. These oversized outdoor installations promoted mobile banking, mobile flight information and mobile news.
Here's an interesting take-over effect on this Xanga blog. When you roll the mouse over one of the top menu buttons (the one with the green-yellow logo), the whole page background changes dramatically to display a "secret message".
Clicking the button whisks you to the "SubLYMONal" site, where you are asked to enter a code. When you enter the code, you are introduced to "Lymonics".
The whole thing is a promo for Sprite and is tied to The Lost Experience (see my previous post on that).
BMW this week became the first advertiser to use TiVo's new interactive advertising features within a program, embedding interactive tags into an episode of Speed Network's Test Drive series featuring its new M line of cars.
This is the first time an advertiser has used the tags within a TV show.
They appear during a few different points of the Test Drive episode that features BMW's M line, offering users the chance to sign up to receive a brochure, help them find a nearby dealer, or let them watch an exclusive product video for the new M line of cars. BMW is also using tags in commercials to remind viewers to record the Test Drive episodes featuring BMW.
Full color high def video projections will soon be appearing inside tunnel and station walls in the London Underground. Replacing posters on the walls opposite the platforms from the start of next year, the advertisements will be shot across from projectors installed above passengers' heads.
Fully computer-controlled, in addition to advertisements, it will also be able to beam across everything from football scores to lottery results.
So it seems the combination of carbonated beverage and nucleation site rich Mentos has spawned a lot of web chatter.
Is Coke behind this video? Is Mentos? Who knows...they've kept it quiet if they have and in doing so have created entertaining content starring the brand that doesn't wreak of corproate marketing. If this is pure consumer generated content, the brands are benefiting and can only screw it up if they try and curb it.
Click on the link to see the original site it appeared on, which bills itself as a "entertainment for the curious mind".
Here's more evidence that the traditional journals of advertising have failed to stay on top of what the industry is doing....not a clue...still hyping the TV spot.
"Coded messages, clandestine missions, even a scheduled appearance by former prime-time president Martin Sheen. Welcome to Cannes 2006 — where serving time in the jury room can get very, very heated. (We hope that most of the explosions remain on screen, not in the Gutter Bar.) Given that this year there are so many entries and so little time, let's get right down to the contenders for the Grand Prix. There are quite a few really big spots."
Here’s the setup: Adidas states very publicly that they want to own the World Cup – an event that attracts an audience bigger than the Olympics or the Superbowl. They outbid everyone else to become official sponsor. And wary of ambush by their arch-enemy (and one of the great television advertisers of all time) they lock out Nike ads in all 64 televised games.
Then Adidas opens the mass marketing floodgates: Estimates say Adidas World Cup spending will total well over $200 million.
So Nike, shut out of its traditional strength, goes new media – but in the same epic, outrageous, courageous way we’ve watched them do mass media for years. The core of the idea, as always, is brilliantly simple: Joga Bonito..Play Beautiful.
Nike builds content around the Brazillian team that not only is among the elite in every World Cup competition but is also incredibly popular worldwide for the grace and sheer joy of their play. They create a broadband TV channel called jogaTV; they release viral videos, including Brazillian ping pong, that get viewed millions of times all over the web; they allow users to upload themselves passing a soccer ball to enthusiastic peers all over the world in a “soccer chain”.
And at the core of the campaign is a social media experience, launched in partnership with a little company called Google. Joga.com is Nike’s social media site for football fans, launched about 3 months ago across 140 countries and in 14 languages. Recently it’s soared in popularity, and is now the 961st most popular site in the world, according to Alexa.
In fact, over the past couple of weeks, Joga.com has at times gotten almost twice as many visitors as Adidas.com.
Stop and read that last sentence again, slowly.
Adidas will outspend Nike 2 to 1 during this World Cup. Adidas has played textbook mass marketing domination — buying up exclusive rights to all the traditional channels for distributing media impressions to this audience. Their name is even on the ball.
Nike went another direction, building a community around an appreciation for the poetry of the game, paying nothing for sponsorship, and to a large extent, creating it’s own media.
Adidas may yet be redeemed. But if this plays out that Nike outmaneuvered Adidas, the 2006 World Cup will be remembered as the cleanest “old marketing” vs. “new marketing” case study we’ve seen yet.
Interpublic Group is in final negotiations of a partnership deal with hot social networking site Facebook which would have Interpublic spend $10 million in advertising with Facebook each year in exchange for a 0.5% ownership stake in the company.
Well, I guess if you can't be bothered to figure out how to engage the social networking trend, just wave some money and buy it!
Its actually a smart move as Interpublic gains access to a wealth or research into the behavior of young people on this site and can offer its clients more than banner ads. Its also another way the ad industry is trying to figure out new revenue models.
Started by Harvard college student Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, it drew 14 million visitors in May of this year.
Its status as a fixture of college life was confirmed this month by a Student Monitor survey that found Facebook tied with beer as the most "in" item of college life, trailing only Apple's iPod.
Motorola and AMEX are the latest brands to join Bono's Project (RED), a social movement to engage global brands and individual people in the fight against AIDS. The project partners up with iconic brands to create a unique set of products that are branded red and who's profits benefit the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS.
Converse has a special shoe design, Motorola has a red version of the SLVR mobile phone, AMEX has a Red Card where 1% of all purchases is given to the Global Fund, and GAP and Armani offer special products as well.
The site JOINRED.com will allow inidivduals to define what (RED) becomes through social media.
The old days of dropping a few pennies into the UNICEF box are gone. People don't want causes, they need to feel connected to ideas and people and see that their small contribution does make a difference.
Consumer-generated online video content is continuing to flourish, but will young people start to resent the fact that big sites such as YouTube are raking in the profits when they’re doing all the work?
One company thinks so. Revver is a new site that’s similar to YouTube with one major difference: it shares revenue with users.
Video creators receive 50% of ad revenue associated with any clips they upload, and any users who drive traffic (known as “affiliates”) to Revver clips receive 20% of ad revenue.
In other words, people who “grab” videos directly from Revver and post them on their blog, MySpace profile or other networking site, IM window, or via email have the potential to make some serious profits.
The Lost Experience is an alternate reality game that is part of the ABC television drama Lost. The Lost Experience, which began in May, 2006, has used websites, voice mail, television and newspaper ads and a novel to give players clues to the game.
The show's creative team, including co-creator Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse, have engineered a sprawling interactive challenge to keep viewers immersed in the Lost universe during the hiatus between the end of Season Two and the start of Season Three.
Officially dubbed "The Lost Experience," the globe-spanning game will incorporate multiple media platforms and feature a distinct storyline outside the plot currently unfolding on TV's most mysterious deserted island.
"A lot of people have speculated about what's going on on the island," says Mike Benson, ABC Entertainment's senior vice president of marketing and one of the project's masterminds. "Why are these people are here? Are they in purgatory? Is it all just one big coincidence? We want to make sure that we're creating that same sort of experience that people get from the show—and we're hoping that people start to speculate about what this story is that we're trying to tell."
Brands have gotten in on it too. Jeep, Verizon, Monster.com and Sprite have been woven in.
Its a remarkable idea and story that is a hybrid of marketing and content creation.
Click on the link to see the Wikipedia page on the entire experience & storyline.
Instead of someone else deciding what's important news, you, me and that other guy do. Who needs an editor!? This is the wisdom of crowds in action.
Registered users submit marketing articles to the virtual library, and other users “mark” the ones they like to provide a scale of importance. It’s a really easy way to keep up with industry news without having to wade through all the trade publications.
Here's a new technology that makes my think the world of Minority Report isn't that far away. These interactive touchscreen displays respond to touch pretty well and can connect and display content in new ways.
Lenovo created a spoof website, The Lenovo Tapes, which pretends to let viewers in on some super advanced technologies being tested by the company.
The site's anonymous creater and insider has supposedly received some purloined video tapes revealing the secret research. Once viewers click through the tapes the joke is apparent.
The video clips are simple and exaggerating some features to seem very futuristic, but in doing so it actually makes the point about what the real features are.
This site has gotten 3 million hits in the last two weeks, and the videos are on YouTube and by themselves have another 250,000 views.
While Axe may have made fun of guys without girlfriends in a previous campaign called Get A Girlfriend, they aren't completely heartless and have followed up that campaign with Got A Girlfriend. After watching the spot, you'll realize it really is more fun to play quarters with your girlfriend.
DoCoMo developed a technology that can be used to embed URLs and text data in broadcast audio. Consumers' mobile phones "listen" to the music/audio and extract the embedded URLs/data
About 100 characters can be transmitted in a second. The technology is called orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM).
On the same note, it appears that Nokia began shipping its new phones with built-in reader for 2D barcodes.
How to make sure people will pick up your ad? Put it inside a lost wallet. This one from Sao Paolo is for their version of Wall Street Journal. Wallets were scattered around the city and contained a sticker that said something along the lines "You found the wallet. Now find out how to fill it up". They could've stuffed in brandedcredit card receipts or even money with ads on them.
After a generation out of print, the original Choose Your Own Adventure series is back. First published in 1979, the books let readers remix their own stories – and face the consequences. A quarter-billion copies sold worldwide as kids raced to discover lost civilizations, navigate black holes, and go in search of … the Yeti.
This summer, eight of the original titles return to bookstores, revamped with 21st-century references (cell phones!).
The Internet is a sort of giant Choose Your Own Adventure. Clicking through links as you experience and seek information. They should extend the novels online somehow, create digital stories.
Amazon continues to push their content into some new areas. They've put a short film on the site’s home page by creepy American Express pitchman M. Night Shyamalan in which he reads passages from his first children’s book, Lady in the Water.
As book marketing goes, this is a marvelous idea. It brings a book to life in a way that 15-second TV commercials never could. And TV is reserved for only a small group of titles anyhow, so there's a "democratization" happening.
In the Shyamalan film, the author’s reading is interspersed with commentary about why he wrote the book, and it often cuts to shots that linger over the book’s illustrations. Rarely do you see books given such loving treatment. It’s sure to boost sales.
Ever get bored of the same candy-coated touristy travel channel shows? Check out TurnHere. Its a great collection of video gudiebooks and artistically done insider info on all kinds of travel destinations.
TurnHere produces professional digital videos, which convey authentic experiences of places and activities in cities and neighborhoods around the world. Each TurnHere digital film is driven by an individual filmmaker’s vision with engaging narrators, insider perspective and high entertainment value. TurnHere lets you explore local music scenes in towns across the country.
Lonely Planet Guide Books just got a lot lonelier. Click on the link below to check out some of the video clips.
A stranger walks into a bar and pours himself a beer.
It's not the opening line of a joke, but rather an apt description of the first ever digital campaign for Stella Artois, courtesy of Stockholm-based digital agency Lowe Tesch.
Entitled "L'étranger," the online experience invites users to step inside the virtual setting of the classy Le Cercle Bar et Brasserie, where they actually star in an interactive drama that begins with the ordering of a Stella Artois.
"Most digital campaigns are based on interaction, but often the audience is taking part in the events only as a silent observer," says digital account director Måns Tesch. "We started wondering how we could make the interaction more immediate. We wanted the audience to feel like real guests in the bar. You will decide how to react to the challenges and your choices will affect the outcome of the story."
This "AdAge" article is revelatory, can you believe this? I thought it was from "The Onion" not "AdAge".
AdAge Headline: "Print Publishers See Digital as Way to Strengthen Brands."
Oh, wow, I mean, I would never have guessed that the Internet and digital could help strengthen brands!? This is the pathetic state of our industry? The bar is so incredible low. To think that this is the conversation happening and these are the idiots that are making decisions for the future.
Here are some choice quotes of "brilliance" from these progressive media mavens in the article...
"We've found that if we leverage content properly online, we can increase sales."
"As Martha Stewart said, we have to be careful we don't miss the boat."
"The plethora of digital platforms have often been cited as the reason print will not survive, but Mr. Sareyan argued that the competition has only made strong magazines stronger."
"Anything the internet allows consumers to do, we want to make sure we are offering consumers the chance to do it with us," ("us" being a magazine...um, ever blogged or listened to a pdocast inside a magazine??)
"The richness and quality of the content they are delivering seems so much stronger to me compared to 10 years ago."
Agency people (and the marketers who love them) have this annoying habit of fearing anything that might jeopordize our beloved :30 seconds of brilliance, such as TiVo.
The reality is that TiVo is becoming a Personal Video Channel for people, and (surprise surprise) there are plenty of opportunities for marketing -- if we embrace the medium and develop smart creative solutions for it.
TiVo announced this week that subscribers can now light up their big screens with Web video from The New York Times, the National Basketball Association and iVillage, among other offerings. The deal comes as TiVo is feeling pressure to expand beyond standard DVR capabilities. The new service, TiVoCast, is the result of a partnership announced last month between TiVo and Web TV startup Brightcove.
I was surprised, ok, maybe "shocked" to learn from Steve Reubel's blog that the electric company has RSS feeds!
"At first, I thought the power authority would only syndicate press releases, but they actually have a feed that streams every update to their Web site. What a simple way to build a relationship with customers. That's more than my local cable company or for that matter the vast majority of all companies can say."
Its simple, not complex and all useful content that's opted in for by the consumer and regularly updated by the provider.
...and if the electric company can get it, what about our brands & clients?
Digg is getting ready to make a big push into other areas outside of tech news. The consumer-edited news site will add coverage of world news, entertainment, politics, and more, according to CEO Kevin Rose.
A major redesign is in the works too. The changes will roll out in the next 30 days. Digg is gunning after categories that have a lot of passionate people expressing themselves online. The site has become a poster child of the "wisdom of crowds" & consumer control.
Ok. Concentrate for this one. Gamespot reports that production has started for a James Cameron film, codenamed Project 880, that sort of acts like a multi-player game:
"In my next film, I can only tell you what we're planning on doing, which is simultaneously developing a major motion picture and, hopefully, a major game title that coexists in the same world that shares characters," said Cameron. He continued, "Going into that world will actually inform those watching the film and vice versa. I don't want to say anything more than that, because I don't want to give away some of the cool stuff that we're working on."
We're seeing this happen already with TV. ABC's "Lost" and Canadian "ReGenesis" have extended the content and plot of the show into realistic rich interactive experiences that use the web as part of the narrative and allow people to discover parts of the story and influence it in the show itself.
This is a new form of media, storytelling and creating content.
Motorola beat competitor Nokia to open its first bricks & mortar store with the opening of "Destination Q" in Chicago in the former Terra Museum of American Art. Nokia's store will open later this month down the street.
The Motorola branded space coincides with the launch of Moto's Q smart phone w/ Verizon. The space offers consumers a chance to experience all of the Moto/Verizon Wireless products in one place and see how the product fits into their lives.
The store will be open through at least the summer, and there are plans in the works for other temporary stores.
Great outdoor ad amongst the heavy advertising blitz for the World Cup. Certainly eye catching and blows up the notion of a square little sign on the side of the road.
Here's a quote from new media & PR guru Steve Rubel on the marketing potential of BlackBerries:
"BlackBerries aren't entertainment gadgets but business tools. Nevertheless, the BlackBerry is an incredibly fertile marketing ground if we can find a way to court the businessperson to letus in. It's more valuable real estate than the back page of The Wall Street Journal."
This thought hits right on the new realities of how people communicate and want to be communicated to. A flat print ad is one thing, but a BlackBerry is with business people all the time everywhere. How much of the day are their eyes and minds focused on receiving a message from this screen?
The key here is that we can't slap an ad in it. Its got to be content that this type of personw ould want, its got to become something that's opted in for. If the businessperson welcomes the brand and its content in, you've got a potentially powerful dialogue with the target.
BBDO has recently produced a smart transit ad, which has an operational headphone jack fixed with it. The moment anyone plug in the headphones he or she would be able to hear samples of music that is made accessible through pepsiaccess.ca. Now every Pepsi comes with a PIN that can be cashed in to access music, concerts, events and other things. Click on the link to go to Pepesi Access.
A survey among US college students has found that Apple's iconic iPod music player is more popular than beer, according to Student Monitor.
Participants were asked to rate various items as 'in'. The list covered items as diverse as text messaging, downloading music and bar hopping. The iPod topped the list with a 73 per cent approval rating from the 1,200 students questioned. Apple's player won the affections of only 59 per cent last year.
But this year, 'drinking beer' also had digital competition from social networking site Facebook, which held joint second place as most popular activity with 71 per cent of the vote.
Cold Stone Creamery is ready for its close-up shot. The popular ice cream maker has changed its "to go" packaging from white to a bold red color in an effort to score better in branded entertainment deals. The old packs weren't camera friendly.
The brand doesn't spend a cold cent on TV but they do believe in branded content. More than that they are actually adjusting product to work better in that medium.
On the quirkier side...Cold Stone was featured in a show of "Monster Garage". A suped up ice cream delivery truck with flames appeared. Cold Stone plans to use it to drag race against their competitor's trucks in the streets. Watch out Mr. Softee!
Although buzz about the World Cup is barely audible here in the U.S., European excitement is scoring beyond the pub. The European fashion industry has caught the fever with a number of World Cup-inspired pieces:
• Prada, as part of their Unspoken Dialogue t-shirt series that invites edgy artists to reinterpret the luxury brand, has commissioned French artist HNT (aka Honet) to commemorate the World Cup on cotton. The result is a head butting Little Prince with a $285 price tag that makes it more of a collector’s piece than a beach cover-up.
• H&M has launched a World Cup Collection featuring t-shirts, vests, caps, badges, flip-flops, swimwear and bags with a retro-vibe. With flip-flops around 6 bucks and bikinis for around 10, it’s probably a cheaper way to celebrate than hitting up the local bar to watch a game.
• Colette: Parisians can bypass watching games in the local bar-tabac by catching a screening at the lifestyle emporium’s basement bar. The store is also stocked with an eclectic selection of World Cup products, such as Nike’s limited edition Footscape woven sneakers and t-shirts with names of fave players by Rather Not Say.
BusinessWeek has an article in their latest issue about Social Networking going mobile. Its an interesting idea. In Japan people are writing to blogs right from mobile phones, its becomne part of the culture. Its also the reason why the #1 languge of blog posts on the web is Japanese, NOT English as some might think.
People are always on the go and a mobile device with them. Mobile is allowing people to not only stay connected but to engage and tap whenever they want their communities and networks.
There was an important in-depth article in the New York Times magazine recently which looked at the future of books. By reacting to the current controversy around Google's scanning of books, the article's author and Wired magazine founder, Kevin Kelly, explores the evolution of not only the printed word but media itself.
The article talks a lot about a "universal library" and that there is a type of intelligence common on the Web, but previously foreign to the world of books.
Jeff Jarvis adds to the piece with this exerpt from his column in The Guardian:
"Today, any medium that defines itself by its medium is in trouble: newspapers, broadcasting and books must be valued for their substance over their shape. Is a book bound paper? Or is it the ideas and information within? If there are better ways to share knowledge, why should it suffer the limitations of the page?"
Google has released a Google Video player for Mac. It has a simple interface and is designed to play videos downloaded from Google Video. Some of the interesting features are that you can browse scenes within the video using thumbnails and you can skip to anywhere in the video, even if that portion hasn't downloaded yet.
Fader Magazine is offering PDF downloads in iTunes of their print magazine. Southern Comfort is sponsoring the download. The PDF includes other Fader advertisers, which receive additional circulation from the iTunes edition as a free bonus. Its another form of distribution of content.
Its a great way to build more subscription for the magazine and extend it online as well. It will be interesting to see if other print pubs get in on this and if they create content specifically for this digital medium versus just repackaging the print.
I'm not certain who created these or if they are promting anything, but they are from Belgium and feature really well done visuals featuring barely dressed Asian women playing football. Click on the link for more of the photography from the original site.
I'm growing tired of seeing a guy dressed up in a Chicken Suit to sell sandwiches, but what's interesting is that CP+B keeps innovating the way their chicken creation engages with people.
This time its Hukcin' Chicken. A guy dressed in a chicken suit performs crazy tricks on a dirt bike. What's clever is that the site and the tricks that he performs gets more daring based on the number of people that go to the site. A nice twist on the viral idea.
In yet another collaboration of lifestyle giants, W Hotels has joined forces with Puma to create a travel line called TrainAway. W Hotels believes that putting brands into entertainment (ie: American Idol) is not as effective as puitting entertainment into the brands. So W Hotels is positioning itself more as a content and media place.
The W/Puma partnership is meant to keep guests fit and inspired while traveling, the “kit” includes the very first MP3 audio tours crafted specifically for running the streets of Berlin, London, New York, and Paris with narrations by local celebrities and athletes detailing running routes, landmarks, and fun facts to help navigate the path. The accompanying clothing line for men and women includes a jacket, shirt, shorts and sneakers—all designed to fold into themselves, while the zipper transforms the jacket into a sleek duffel protecting all the garments. Very 007, on the go.
Odeo is a wonderful site to search for and find podcasts and other audio content. What's interest is that they have launched "Odeo Studio" which lets people record audio comments and submit them directly to different podcasts very simply and easily all within the browser. The easier that becomes the more people will be inclined to post and participate in these social media and conversations.
Charlene Li of Forrester Research held an amazing panel on the impact of technology on the content & media business at a recent meeting of traditional media heavyweights. She had an all star social media panel with people from Del.icio.us, Google, Six Apart, Digg and WetPaint. (What's telling is that the panel was on average about half the age of the audience!)
Media companies in the past derived their value from either: 1) their distribution channel; or 2) the content they created. The panel believes that in the future media companies will generate the bulk of their value from their ability to aggregate and serve audiences better than the competition.
It doesn’t matter if the media company actually creates or even controls the content that draws people. Channels will be transparent A case in point: digg.com produces no content of their own but has a very unique way to look into the interests of its users.
