In our regular Monday article, SAY Media analyses the week in a Venn diagram. This week, it’s about how mobile devices have grown to play a key role in our lives.
“Maybe I’m not as comfortable being powerless as you are”. Don Draper
Last week, the NY Times wondered whether tablet devices were on the verge of making PCs obsolete. It’s obvious that PCs can still do plenty of things that tablets and phones can’t, but it’s not an idle question. In 2011, Apple sold more iOS devices than all the Mac computers they’ve sold since 1984. We saw a remarkable lift in the percentage of SAY’s traffic from mobile browsers this past holiday period as wrapping paper fell off of iPads, iPhones, Kindle Fires, Nooks, and all the Android and Windows Mobile devices. (When in the last 50 years has Christmas day meant that you have to rethink the nature of ad inventory?) If you’re reading this in the evening, it’s more likely that you’re reading it on a mobile device than on a PC – the typical person goes mobile after 5pm and stays mobile for the rest of the night.
At SAY Media we’re adapting our products to take advantage of the roughly 20 percent of page views that are coming from mobile browsers. But the cultural change taking place goes beyond our business interests. Mobile is now both how we connect with each other and how we keep company with ourselves. In many ways, mobile is the new cigarette. Read the rest of this entry »
In our regular Monday article, SAY Media analyses the week in a Venn diagram. This week, it’s about SXSW, the annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival.
“For four days, SXSW is the capital of the Web”. Bruce Sterling
I’ve attended conferences and trade shows all around the world, but SXSW in Austin is my favorite by far. Considering I have never stepped foot on the actual show floor, some might find it funny I would say that. For me, SXSW is all about the people, experiences, music, and food outside the convention center.
As a lover of all things mobile, I’m most excited to see which application leaves the show with the most buzz. When startups from the Bay Area and New York converge on downtown Austin, it creates a unique test bed for mobile applications that has been a good leading indicator of which companies and trends will succeed in the coming year.
Looking at this year’s show, I think apps based around people discovery will become the talk of SXSW. It’s easy to use location apps such as Foursquare to find out which locations and parties are trending, but it can still be a challenge to connect with all the interesting people at these events. Read the rest of this entry »
In our regular Monday article, SAY Media analyses the week in a Venn diagram. This week, it’s about how sponsors can engage an existing community by enabling the site or the artist to do what they do best – often with prominent sponsorship, but without the sponsor driving the content itself.
“All those sounds are real. The only word for it is: amazeballs”. Adfreak on the OK Go Chevy Sonic SuperBowl ad
A few weeks ago, at the Midem conference in Cannes, famed music producer Mark Ronson spoke about his deal to create music for Coca-Cola. One of the questions that came up was about whether or not such a corporate relationship risks having his fans think he’s “sold out.” Ronson quickly dismissed the idea, noting that, as long as the resulting work is true to his ideals as a music producer, fans actually appreciate the brand for helping artists they love continue to make music. A week later, during the Superbowl, the band Ok Go unveiled their latest music video – which involves them using a Chevy Sonic to play one of their latest songs. It is, undoubtedly, a commercial – but it’s a commercial for both the band and the car at the same time. And none of their fans “mind” or think this is problematic. As I write this, the video has over 15 million views (a bunch by me – and if you haven’t seen it yet, you really should check it out).
Yet, at other times, brands have tried to sponsor content, only to find that it doesn’t work at all – that fans or communities are indifferent to outright hostile. So what’s the difference? Read the rest of this entry »
Joss Davidge, Business Director of brand experience agency BEcause, once again rummages through the web for marketing ideas that get people talking. This week he looks at two campaigns that raise awareness by putting people in unexpected situations.
The Israeli Alzheimer Association: The Wrong Movie
To illustrate what it’s like to suffer with Alzheimer’s the Israeli Alzheimer Association orchestrated a situation for cinema goers. After settling down to watch their chosen film the wrong one started to play. The video above shows the audience reaction as people start to question if they had bought the right tickets and become increasingly confused and upset. After a few minutes all was revealed when the film cut to an advert from the Alzheimer’s Association. The idea was to make the audience experience what it can be like to have Alzheimer’s and, according to the comments at the end of the video, it was certainly effective.
The cookie monster cometh. But hold on, don’t run for the hills – this is the time to refocus on transparent and trustworthy digital marketing, says Paul Hood.
On 26 May European privacy laws come into force in the UK giving people more control over what data websites gather about them. This means changes to what websites can do with cookies – small text files used to log data about repeat visitors.
Are you worried about the impact this will have on your digital marketing activity? Worried about finding workarounds that’ll allow you to continue to automatically collect customer data through cookies?
In our regular Monday article, SAY Media analyses the week in a Venn diagram. This week, it’s about the Spring 2012 issue of SAY Magazine, which focus’ on the new generation of food lovers and how the new digital publishers are satisfying their hunger.
“You learn by burning yourself and basically screwing up”. Chef David Chang, Momofuku
The food world’s old guard would have you know that haute-cuisine has for centuries resided under the purview of polite society. From the renowned kitchens of Carême and Escoffier came an undisputed mastery of craft and technique that have schooled generations of great chefs and informed the cuisine that would delight the palates of their well-heeled patrons. As for the common people, the great unwashed masses, let them fight for the nasty bits – the tendon-laced, sinewy cuts of meat, the throw-away scraps of rind.
As history has taught us time and time again, from great inequity rises great innovation. Modern-day democracy arose from the French and American revolutions. The uniquely American sounds of blues and jazz music derived from the pain, loss and injustice associated with being an African-American at the turn of the 20th century. Even the pejorative lyrics and do-it-yourself ethos of punk was a reaction to the monotonous sentimentality of 70s rock and the Western, capitalist homogeneity it epitomized. Read the rest of this entry »
Jason Cross, shares three shiny nuggets of inspiration from Tictrac, the history of marketing and the Superbowl.
Stumbled across this the other day. Tictrac. A personal analytics platform that aims to allow people to take control of their data, display it in a dashboard and use it to inform better life decisions.
It’s still in ‘closed beta’ (which is NuMeeja for ‘still being tested as it doesn’t completely work yet – go away and leave me alone to fix it’), but which sounds A LOT like the very sensible evolution of data management and permission management/sharing that Alan Mitchell (http://www.ctrl-shift.co.uk/) has been talking about recently. Frankly, I’m looking forward to it being available (some of my utility providers may be less keen for me to understand better exactly what is going on with my spending, of course!).
True, lasting performance is not achieved by tinkering. It needs a complete overhaul. It’s time to be brave, says Alex Marks.
Nearly all of us remember our first car. And many of us, particularly if you are male (I make the supposition than women aren’t that sad) will remember trying to make it look better or go faster. Not always an easy exercise with a V reg VW Polo, as I had. It didn’t stop me from trying, though.
I cut a hole in the air intake to let more air into the engine. I took out the carpets to get the accelerator further to the floor. I fitted ‘special’ spark plugs and a new exhaust. To my 17-year-old eyes, and those of my equally naive friends, this was nothing less than a Brunel-like miracle of engineering. The result was an increase in performance, sadly followed by a catastrophic melt down of the ‘big end’. Whatever that is.
In our regular Monday article, SAY Media analyses the week in a Venn diagram. This week, it’s about using mobile apps and always-on gadgets to track and analyze just about everything in daily life you can measure.
“Data is the new media, itself. It’s what we’re going to be swimming in. It’s what the economy is built on”.
Kevin Kelly
Silicon Valley startup, Fitbit, recently launched its new Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale. As you step out of the shower each morning and onto your scale, your weight, percent body fat and body mass index (BMI) will be instantly transmitted to your Fitbit account. From there you can monitor your weight over time, track your caloric intake, and see correlations between weight change and activities. You can even share the data with your doctor or blast it out to your social networks. Seem weird? It’s not. It is part of a new revolution called the quantified self.
Like finance, media, music, movies and maps before it, there is an explosion of innovation in the consumer side of health technology. Startups and savvy individuals are building cheap, easy-to-use devices to track a range of body metrics. Heart rate and blood pressure monitors, pedometers, sleep managers, pulse-oximeters, and BMI scales are among the most straightforward and common. Even mainstream brands such as Nike, Motorola and Jawbone have products already in the market. Read the rest of this entry »
In our regular Monday article, SAY Media analyses the week in a Venn diagram. This week, it’s about SAY’s next-generation digital publishing platform Orion.
“Great design is making something memorable and meaningful” Dieter Rams
The true beauty of auto engineering lies not in the elegant design and pristine exterior of a car, but in the powerfully intricate system of parts that make the experience of driving a car far more pleasurable than looking at it. While sexy curves may appeal to an audience of passer-bys, it’s what’s under the hood that really brings the car its caché.
As a media company founded on the principles of good technology, we have a deep appreciation for the guts of a product: the processes, algorithms, nuts and bolts that power amazing experiences. However, in the digital publishing world we’ve been underwhelmed by the inner workings of today’s content management systems – the engines behind this new media paradigm. There is a consistent frustration from editors and publishers that they can’t evolve their sites fast enough, can’t connect with their readers deeply enough and can’t distribute their content effectively enough. Read the rest of this entry »
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