Tim Ferriss Joins Interwoven GearUp 2008 Keynote Line Up
April 1, 2008 – 9:33 am“The upfronts” — when TV networks tell advertisers what’s on and advertisers plunk down billions to buy time — are going to be a bit different this year, post Hollywood writers strike. The diffference starts this week. Joe Adalian, the TV editor at Variety, explains to Kai Ryssdal.
This BMW ad situated in the center of Moscow city is the biggest ad in Russia (probably the largest in the world). The square size is more than one and a half acres (6000 m2). It uses a number of full size cars stuck on the board with back lights and headlights turned on in the evening.
Check out 17 more pics of the big BMW ad space in Russia after the jump.
Source: English Russia
Download | Play 
Download | Play (h/t Heather)
This Week with George Stephanopoulos notes the passing of classic actor Richard Widmark, advertising executive Hal Riney, foreign policy adviser William Hyland as well as 14 service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, bring the total casualty count to 4010, according to icasualties.org. In contrast, according to IBC, there were 388 confirmed deaths of Iraqis last week.
Last week, we featured an apparent hack of the digital billboards in LA by an artist. This week, Rob Walker points us to a detailed examination in the Post Gazette of the ways billboard firms are twisting the arms of municipalities to get old billboards converted into digital ones:
Beginning June 1, Texas will allow digital billboards along state highways, even within cities, if municipalities want them. Houston, Dallas and Austin have bans on new billboards, but San Antonio’s city council voted in December to allow 15 digital signs as permanent “experiments,” to the dismay of the San Antonio Conservation Society, Scenic San Antonio, the American Institute of Architects and neighborhood groups.
…In Long Beach, Calif., three neighborhood groups are fighting the construction of six digital billboards along local freeways; each sign would be 40 feet high, with a 30-by-20-foot screen. The Long Beach City Council’s budget oversight committee endorsed the billboards in January, but council will hold hearings on the proposal in a few weeks. The budget committee has good reason to favor the billboards: Their owner would split the revenue with the city, bringing in an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million annually, according to the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
Profit-sharing is just one tactic outdoor advertisers are using to get municipalities to warm to digital signs. They’re also using existing billboards as leverage to reduce their number in exchange for permission to erect digital ones. In San Antonio, twice as much square footage must come down for each digital billboard that goes up.
…”We’re there 24-7,” Clear Channel Outdoor chief executive Paul Meyer told the Washington Post last year. “There’s no mute button, no on-off switch, no changing the station.”
Places: With billboards, cities are facing the digital decision
Seattle Public Schools’ enrollment guide is filled with promises for the fall: The district’s booklets advertise more Advanced Placement…
Every company would love to have customer lock-in. Customers who can’t leave, and who continue to create revenue for you. The money just rolls in. Over the last decade, lock-in has evolved from shrinkwrap software to the online advertising world. Back then, customers were locked into Microsoft (and a few others) by file formats. Today we are instead locked into web services–especially social networks–by restrictive Terms of Service agreements. The battleground for customer freedom has changed from engineering to legal. Here’s my first-take assment of how things got started with file formats, and the strategy shift to the online world.
You could email your spreadsheet to a colleage in India, but they couldn’t read it without buying Excel. You were locked in to Microsoft by the engineering difficulty of reading their data format. Today you could authorize Facebook to scrape your friendlist and personal info from your MySpace profile, but they are legally disallowed from doing this. You are locked in to MySpace by the legal provisions of MySpace’s terms of service.
1990’s and Microsoft
I interviewed at Microsoft in Redmund the summer after graduating from college. They treated me like royalty, even giving me a rental car. I protested to the recruiter on the phone, “But I’m not yet 25!” Bemusedly she explained, “Listen, we’re Microsoft. There won’t be a problem.”
I was offered a position on the Microsoft Money team. They had just cracked the file format of Quicken; the fruits of six months’ work by a team in India. That was an unusual position for Microsoft in the 90’s: they usually were the one’s setting the format standard. Back then it was said that 98% of the world’s documents were created with Microsoft products. And saved in Microsoft’s file formats.
File formats were the lock-in of the 90’s. You had to keep using Microsoft products because you had to work with everyone else, and they were using them too.
Today file lock-in remains an issue, but not nearly so important. Microsoft’s formats have been cracked wide open. My Mom reads attached Word documents in Gmail without realizing the format–she just clicks the “Read this” button.
Today and Social Networks
In today’s internet world, file formats don’t matter so much. When was the last time you bought software because it was the only way to read or write some files? The online world has different frustrations. When I sign up for a new service, why can’t I point them to my MySpace page and say “Here’s my info, always look here for updates”? Why can’t Outlook’s spam filter see who my friends are in Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn? And what happens when today’s Facebookers are 70 and realize that all their life’s photos and thoughts and love letters are in one serivce, and there’s no way to hand these down to future generations?
This is my data. Why can’t I process it like files on my computer using whatever tool I choose? If I make a picture in Photoshop, Adobe can’t stop me from putting it in my Word document. If I put 2 years’ minutia of my life into MySpace, why can NewsCorp’s lawyers stop me from transferring it into Facebook, or downloading a backup copy for myself?
Unlike the file formats of yesteryear, there are no engineering challenges here. All the data is right there on the web pages. It doesn’t take a genius to program a server to download your Facebook page and scrape out your data: friends, interests, messages, photos, and the rest. Some have tried to build applications that do this. Robet Scoble was busted for testing one such attempt by Plaxo.
As a sometimes software engineer myself, the power of legal words are amazing. All of this innovation and user choice is eliminated by these short sentences:
Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to … (8) using the account, username, or password of another Member at any time or disclosing your password to any third party or permitting any third party to access your account [and your information];
In addition, you agree not to use the Service or the Site to: … use automated scripts to collect information [even your own] from or otherwise interact with the Service or the Site;
Of course the picture isn’t nearly as cut and dried as I’ve made it out here. In a later post I want to work through the different mechanics–both financial and engineering–that run an ad-supported web service and push them to require these restrictions. But the takeaway here is that this problem will not be solved by engineering genius. There is no developer teams India working to crack the computer code that will give you freedom to switch social networks. Who will crack the legal codes of today, or how will they be forced open?
This is a very official looking document we received in February, offering us the opportunity to refinance our mortgage and pull out nearly 300,000. Be sure you click on the thumbnail and look at the larger version. It gives official-looking legal citations, numbering, and even a government-looking seal on it.
I’m sure we landed on a list for this as a result of our required applications for grant and scholarship funding for our middle son. Whatever the reason, see if you can find anything on this document telling you that it: a) Isn’t official; and b) Is a scam.
Then go try a search on the Internet for American Premier Funding (A subprime mortgage bundler). Here’s a hint as to the misleading-ness of this mailing: Doesn’t the “APV/OV” in the address next to the seal look extremely official and government-y? APV stands for “American Premier Funding”. I have no idea what “OV” stands for. I’m guessing it’s an internal code of some sort.
Oh, and 204(a) of the National Housing Act, as amended in 1989 does not apply to our neighborhood or to us, as I’m sure we would have discovered had we been stupid enough to respond.
A commenter on my other blog suggested that most of the folks going into default on their mortgages were scammers who were looking to get rich quick. I challenge him to view this document and tell me who is the scammer and who is looking to get rich quick.
The sad thing about this is that a lot of people probably saw this as an opportunity to climb out of their credit card debt they’d been able to climb into so easily. I don’t blame this completely on the credit card companies, but it’s a symptom of the wider malaise in our culture and our economy that suggests the companies extending credit are good, buying things you can’t afford is good, and accepting interest rates in excess of three times prime in addition to fees is normal.
Related: Slaying the Subprime Vampire
This is crossposted from the political blog since it concerns a broader audience than the political one.
Technorati Tags: subprime mortgages, american premier funding, mortgage scams, advertising, lies, mail, deception
From March 29th Honolulu Advertiser
(Readable at original size)
ROI of Listening
NTC Presentation Notes
3.20.2008
Slide 1
Introduction: Even liberal arts kids can measure. Its not all about math. You can measure stories and connections through documentation, too.
Slide 2
American Red Cross background: Post Katrina, ARC knew there were negative blog posts about it but had no capacity to respond or even monitor. Hired social media integrator to combat bloggers and to increase organizational transparency.
Slide 3
Listening is the What: First order of business to get handle on existing conversation. Hundreds of mentions across social media platforms each day. Exponential increase in times of disaster, nature, man-made and PR varieties. We monitor and track all of it, and respond to a lot of it.
Slide 4
Why We Listen : ARC wanted to correct misinformation, to be informed about public opinion, to track conversation trends, to identify influencers, to create relationships.
Slide 5
Outcome of Listening:
Successfully correcting misinformation
Able to track conversation trends (for example, know that most people who post about blood donation also mention type of cookie they receive afterwords this informs advertising, PR outreach to increase blood donations)
Instead of combating bloggers, found most are passionate and positive and want to help, so now engaging them and giving them tools to tell their stories on big platform.
Slide 6
Outcome of Listening:
ADOPTION: Sharing social media mentions internally is increasing ARC employee social media adoption
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Compiled data for each line of service (Blood, Disaster Response, International Services, Health & Safety, Service to Armed Forces, Preparedness) with info regarding various aspects of customer service and the end user experience.
STRATEGY: Able to inform PR strategy example: J&J sues ARC for trademark infringement, monitoring real time mentions informed immediate strategy.
Slide 7
Listening Process Step 1: The search
Not rocket science just keyword search across social media platforms, lots of em (Technorati for blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Terraminds, Facebook, etc).
If have special circumstance, use special additional keywords to track. For example, did lots of J&J searches during first days of trademark lawsuit.
Slide 8
Listening Process Step 2: Blog Update
Cull all of the daily mentions into a daily update email thats distributed widely to internal ARC audience.
Compile by line of service and/or subject matter, depending on days news.
Note which posts I need help answering, consult with subject matter experts.
Generally keeps everyone abreast of daily conversation.
Slide 9
Listening Process Step 3: Response
Determine who will get a response, whether its a thanks or something that needs fixing/addressing.
Spend time reading, watching, or looking at the other content before responding.
Use judgment in avenue of response: email, comment, or leave it alone.
Slide 10
Listening Process Step 4: Tagging
Tag all posts mentioned in the Daily Blog Update by line of service and other appropriate keywords
Over time, evaluate areas where people find their intersection with the Red Cross to be compelling enough to post about publicly.
Good for tracking past outreach
Slide 11
Listening Process Step 5: Reporting
Send monthly update of aggregated conversation data categorized by line of service or disaster or big event
J&J example: We watched mentions to determine where various industries stood so wed know whether to back off or continue our aggressive PR push to shame them into dropping the suit.
Slide 12
Listening Metric: Authority
Use # of readers and tools like Technorati authority to determine influence of mentions.
Authority matters but is not everything. Sometimes most compelling story or most pressing issue comes from social media user with smallest influence.
Slide 13
Listening Metric: Anecdotal Evidence
Internal Feedback
The blog update helps me do my job better.
Makes me feel more connected to our stakeholders.
Helped me understand the power of social media.
External Feedback
Most one-on-one outreach results in positive public response
Im glad to see you here
Thanks for reading!
You really helped me.
Great to interact with a human being over there.
Write it down!
Document all of the anecdotal evidence of return on investment and keep it in one spot so you can easily grab it when questioned.
Slide 14
Challenges to Measuring ROI of Listening
ARC is stodgy and slow to change. Lots of baby steps are necessary for organization-wide adoption of social media.
Culture shift is huge for this organization. It is happening, but slowly.
Slide 15
Challenges to Measuring ROI of Listening
Firewall. Only a handful of employees are able to access ANY social media sites.
If more employees were able to view and interact, impact of listening would be MUCH broader.
BUT with some of the evidence here, Ive nearly convinced senior leadership of need for opening access.
Slide 16
Successes in Measuring ROI of Listening
By documenting the conversation, created value. Everyone wants the feedback now.
Documenting successful one-on-one outreach with stakeholders lays groundwork for future social media campaigns.
Taking the baby step of listening has made the case for integrating appropriate social media tools in all ARC communications opening the door to 2 way communications department instead of one way.
Slide 17
Successes in Measuring ROI of Listening
By reading and reaching out, created external value as a listener. Send message that you matter as a stakeholder by taking time to listen and incorporate your ideas.
Achieving higher degree of transparency.
Slide 18
Key Learnings in Measuring ROI of Listening
Listening is a gateway drug to increased social media adoption
Easy to aggregate conversations into data to recommend systemic change and to inform organization of trends and possible strategies.
Dont forget the little guys they can become passionate influencers with continued relationship building.
Hal Riney, a Seattle-born advertising executive who helped build San Francisco into a creative center for advertising with low-key, upbeat…
