Micro Persuasion

Social Networking Demographics: Boomers Jump In, Gen Y Plateaus

There's a common misperception out there that all of the blogging, Twittering and Facebooking is being done by twenty and thirty-somethings. That, in fact, turns out not to be true. Baby Boomers (those born 1946-1964) are the fastest growing users of social networking sites and are also increasingly reading blogs too. Meanwhile, Gen Y interest in these services has plateaued. This all according to the latest Consumer Electronics Usage Survey from Accenture.

According to the study, baby boomers...

• Increased reading blogs and listening to podcasts by 67 percent year over year; nearly 80 times faster than Gen Y (1 percent)
• Posted a 59 percent increase in using social networking sites—more than 30 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
• Increased watching/posting videos on the Internet by 35 percent—while Gen Y usage decreased slightly (-2 percent)
• Accelerated playing video games on the go via mobile devices by 52 percent— 20 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
• Increased listening to music on an iPod or other portable music player by 49 percent—more than four times faster than Gen Y (12 percent)

Meanwhile, Gen Y...

• Participation slipped in virtual worlds from 23 percent to 19 percent
• Consumed no more video online than they did last year
• Blogged and contributed to wikis less (it's down from 35 to 33 percent)

The baby boomer results don't surprise me. What does jump out at me is how the most technologically savvy generation we have seen to date is slowing their adoption. Could they be suffering from social fatigue or do they have enough technology in their lives already? Perhaps they are returning toward more face-to-face venues, which anecdotally, I have heard. It will be interesting to see how this progresses next year.

Additional data from the latest Accenture report is summarized here from TWICE.

The Newspaper Reporter of the Future is Here Today

The word newspaper is really a misnomer today. Or at least it will be soon. Increasingly news is delivered digitally and it's interactive. People are certainly writing newspapers off for dead, but I think they have a bright future (in digital form) and it's right in front of them.

Everyone's looking for a solution to the newspaper problem. But the answer is right under their nose. The picture is slowly evolving through the breakthrough work of individual reporters who are using social media to build a stronger connection with their audience (and their own personal brands in the process).

There are tons of examples. Dwight Silverman is one. But here's another that's also near and dear to my heart. It's so spot on that it's noteworthy as an example of where the news business is heading - or where it needs to go.

In the US baseball spring training is getting underway in full swing in Florida and Arizona. I am a Yankee fan and have been paying close attention to what Peter Abraham has been doing. He should win awards for breaking ground in sports journalism.

Abraham is the Yankees beat writer for the Journal News in Westchester county (a NYC suburb). According to Burrelles Luce, it's the 94th largest newspaper in the US with a daily circ of 100,000 readers.

Abraham is on the scene in Tampa where the Yankees are training and he's doing it all - in addition to filing regular reports for the paper that appear in print. Here's an inventory of his social media footprint....

First, he has a blog with a full-text feed that includes several posts/day and hundreds of comments/day from readers. It dates back to 2006.

In addition, Abraham has a Facebook group that has about 1600 members.

He is posting photos from spring training using his iPhone. Note the gear the others are using by comparison.

There is a podcast up on iTunes that right now is updated daily with audio.

FInally, today he was using both CoverItLive and Mogulus to have a live video/text chat with readers.

All Abraham is missing is Twitter, YouTube and maybe Flickr but he seems to be doing just fine with what he has here.

Now imagine for a moment that Abraham wasn't a Yankees beat writer but instead covering your company or industry for the business section. Or imagine she is the newspaper's food columnist. This multi-platform method of engaging is right for all of them. If every reporter did this on staff they can build not only a more engaged audience, but also redefine local media since it's all potentially global.

For PR professionals, this is a boon. More content creates more opportunities for us to tell our stories and to also engage journalists using these same channels. If we're not there as individuals and companies then we won't be top of mind.

What Abraham is doing represents not only the future of journalism but also what PR professionals themselves need to do to build connections in the years ahead.

Three Digital Business Models That Could Rock Your World

The following is also my column in next week's AdAge.

During a recent exchange with one of my colleagues he posed a thought-provoking question that I hadn't quite pondered. "What new digital business models might take hold over the next four to five years," he asked.

This question should be on every marketing and media executive's mind. As we've seen, the Net is so disruptive that big ideas can come out of nowhere and reinvent advertising overnight - even in a recessionary climate. Google, for example, commercialized pay-per-click ads just after the dot-com crash in 2000.

Here are three models that might evolve over the next few years.

Advertiser-Supported Advertising: Brands are increasingly launching their own content platforms. Some, like Budweiser's BudTV, go it alone. Others partner with online media properties. P&G, for example, embedded Capessa inside Yahoo Health.

In the future some of the more successful marketer-sponsored content sites will accept advertising. The retail space is especially ripe here. Barnes & Noble's media site, in theory, could partially support itself by allowing publishers who they already co-market with to buy ads. Under such a scenario, transparency is critical.

Advertiser-Subsidized Devices: Content is a commodity. The barriers to entry are obliterated. Still, this means we all need to make choices - human attention doesn't scale. So how do you get consumers to choose your stuff? Simple. Use incentives.

Marketers will partner with consumer electronic companies to co-brand white-label gadgets. For example, a Gap-branded set-top box could come with exclusive video podcast subscriptions. Upstart device manufacturers that are looking to enter markets with entrenched players will be the first to dabble with this approach.

Just-in-Time Advertising: Digital advertising creative and planning, like any marketing discipline, follows an arc. It's planned, placed, measured and eventually evaluated, tweaked or tossed. However, in the digital world, brands need to be more nimble.

With the help of new technology, marketers will rely on "just-in-time" campaigns that adapt to conditions. Basically, this takes the Dell manufacturing model and applies it to advertising. Ad creative will morph based on certain triggers. This will include sales/ERP data, blog chatter/consumer feedback, weather/external conditions and more.

Saturday Morning Streams

Jason Calacanis and Fred Wilson have started a new form of blogging that's more Twitter style. It consists of brief commentaries on a myriad of subjects. Here's my shot at it as I sit in a Starbucks with my iPhone waiting for my car to be serviced. Let me know if you like this approach. I will add links later on. 

My move to Wordpress is not progressing as quickly as I would like. The WP team is making a Herculean effort to maintain my permalinks. They are terrific to work with and I really appreciate their efforts. If I can't take my permalinks with me I will stick with Typepad.

The iPhone version of Typepad meanwhile is quite good. I hope WP gets a similar interface.

The age of Web 2.0 innocence is well behind us. Some say it ended when Flickr sold. I see the sale of YouTube as the marker. I miss the innocent days when money wasn't the big motivation. The mania feels very much like 1999 without inflated IPOs.

As more brands begin launching their own content sites they may find themselves competing with the media. The media companies should get in front of this by enabling brands to create content. Yahoo's brand universes follow this model. BTW we haven't heard much about these sites. I like the concept. 

The whole Joe Torre episode depresses me. The man gave the last 12 years to the Yanks and was very successful. He deserves better.

The iPhone sorely needs cut and paste. Cmon 1.1.2.

Very few community sites have had staying power over the years. Two that come to mind are iVillage and eBay. Many others have wilted.

There was just as much news from companies that did not participate in the Web 2.0 conference than those that did.

I hope Twitter doesn't sell anytime soon. Can they hold out? My gut says no.

Google Docs, Zoho and Microsoft's eventual entry into the web based office wars could really replace most wikis. The versioning is quite good in these apps.

I am using Gmail for a big research project and it worked quite nicely as a database. I think a lot of people are overlooking how useful and versatile web mail is.

Most of the top podcasts on iTunes are dominated by the big media companies. They really did a great job embracing the technology.

Behavioral targeting is the big rage right now in online marketing. The challenge is that consumers are becoming more aware of the privacy implications.

Maybe I should try this blogging format more often! It fits my mobile lifestyle.

The Dawn of the Hyper-Networked PR Era

The old axiom in business is that it's not what you know, but who. With so much collective knowledge now available online for free, the saying holds more than ever. Pure-play PR professionals must invest heavily in strengthening and expanding their networks for the industry to remain vital.

Public relations practitioners, especially those who work inside agencies, know relationships count. Over time many agencies specialize and/or develop practices. This deepens their knowledge of the sector as well as the journalists who cover it. But this alone won't sustain the profession going forward.

For starters, nowadays every public-facing employee has a PR role, even if it's not their trade. In the Hyper-Networked PR Era, a video of a single repairman asleep on the job can spread around the world, eroding a company's reputation. On the positive side, grassroots or sanctioned corporate bloggers inside giant and small corporations have built tremendous goodwill for their businesses with key stakeholders and press.

In the Hyper-Networked PR Era, journalists (pro and citizen) have done a great job building relationships with all kinds of stakeholders directly. This - arguably - reduces the need for PR professionals to fulfill this role and helps them get scoops too. They're turning to social nets, conferences and, above all, a transparent dialogue with their audience. Read Dwight Silverman's blog and first hand you will see what I mean. In addition, check out this recent post by Penelope Trunk on how journalists can use LinkedIn.

Marketers too seem to be adapting nicely to the hyper-networked environment. The ANA, which represents the largest marketers in the world, is advocating that advertisers become more collaborative. And they are. Don't believe me? Read Wikinomics.

The situation in the PR biz is less heartening. What I have seen at my own firm is terrific. However, I feel differently when I look at the pitches I receive from others in the industry. It feels as though many just expand their media lists to include bloggers, podcasters and other online opinion leaders without trying to build relationships. They spam us with meaningless information, just like they do with the media.

If this continues, these firms will see their networks devalue. They must not just focus on generating coverage. That's a byproduct of good relationships.

So as you go out this weekend and invest in your personal circle of friends and family, think about how to do the same in business. My advice? Proactively focus on becoming more networked. Join social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and others. Start a blog. Go to conferences where the influencers flock. Get to know us as people and you will expand your network and your value to clients.

In the Hyper-Networked PR Era, this is the most essential skill you need to thrive.

Bringing Editorial Calendars Into the Social Sphere

For years PR and advertising professionals have come to rely on the trusty editorial calendar. These are published and updated frequently by most trade magazines and some newsstand titles, newspapers and web sites.

You can find a bunch of "edcals" here, including PC Magazine, Variety, InformationWeek, Sports Illustrated for Kids, the Los Angeles Times (PDF) and American Lawyer. A few online media outlets have editorial calendars. CNET has a good one of their upcoming reviews.  Time.com has one too.

Editorial calendars break out some, but not all of the major feature articles an outlet plans to publish.  This helps PR professionals target their pitches to fit into these stories. However, it's really intended for media buyers so they can purchase ad space near very relevant articles. These are guides and the information changes frequently. Stories are dropped, others added. The information is usually part of a media kit. They tend to be sparse too.

There's a lot of room for innovation when it comes to editorial calendars. For starters, why shouldn't they be social? I would love to see someone take what Dell is doing over with Ideastorm and port that same crowdsourcing model to an edcal. This is another way to let readers have a direct say in what editors cover.

Bloggers, vloggers and podcasters don't have formal editorial calendars - nor do they need to. However, I am thinking that it would be helpful to those who a) receive a lot of PR pitches, b) allow advertisers to purchase space or c) both. This is a leadership opportunity for big blog ad networks like Federated Media, Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc to grab. Big media bloggers might want to consider it too.

In the interest of furthering this discussion (and structuring my life a little bit) I have published an editorial calendar for my blog. I am using Google Calendar here, but you can use any number of tools including 30Boxes, Outlook, iCal and Windows Calendar for Vista to do the same. You can also subscribe to it via RSS or view it on the web. It's also embedded it below. Right now I only have topics for this week listed. This is an experiment. Let's see where this goes. If it's a hit, I will continue it.

Note that the information in my edcal is sparse. I am not giving away my thesis or stealing my thunder. It's just a guide so you can see what's coming and provide ideas. Yes, it's a bit of a tease too. I admit. However, that's not the big idea here.

Hopefully this will make the PR pitches I receive more targeted and my posts more interesting. (I don't run ads on my blog so there's no need on that end). Pitch me via email with the word "edcal" in the subject or leave a comment below. You can comment on Google Calendars but I would rather it be here where everyone can easily react.

Further, I have appended/tagged all listings with the word "edcal." Now they are searchable from within Google Calendar. If you try this at home, use the same tag. That will create a giant searchable database!

Anyone else care to join me - at least for a week? Bueller? Bueller? Other ideas?

The Short Tail of Advertising

Do you publish for love or money? You can do both successfully if you run ads on your blog. However, selling ad space on your own is hard work. Ad networks like BlogHer, Federated Media,FeedBurner, B5 and BlogAds have done a great job to rush in to fill the void, but the shifting landscape will require them to adapt. I believe they all can.

The reason they need to change is that online advertising is clearly consolidating with the portals. eMarketer has a great round-up on the state of the biz. Some 55% of all ad revenues now flow to one or more of the major portals. Their share was growing even before Google bought Doubleclick. A separate article on WSJ.com notes that newspapers saw their online advertising dip. Again, the portals are a factor here.

So where does that leave the Long Tail? Bloggers, podcasters and social networks serve niche markets. This makes them relatively cost effective and attractive to advertisers. However, managing a media buy across a constellation of small sites is a big job. And while there are networks are doing a nice job aggregating these sites, it's still far easier to just consolidate all your ads through one or more of the big portals.

Blog ad networks would be wise to find a way to partner with one or more of these players. For a viable model, look to the PC industry. Even though the hardware and software markets consolidated there are a lots of value added resellers thriving. That's because they provided services on top of the technologies that were built by big iron vendors like Sun, Oracle, SAP And Microsoft. A similar model could prevail in a world where the portals are the Web OS.

HD Video Podcasts Arrive

Webware reports that the Washington Post is now offering a video podcast in high definiton for consumption on TVs. The video podcast was shot in 720p resolution. Webware found the experience less than ideal. Still, as bandwidth and storage increase you can all see where this is heading.

The Battle Between All-You-Can-Eat and A-La-Carte TV

Cory Bergman from Lost Remote is a brave man. He ditched cable and went with an Apple TV a-la-carte solution for a week. The result: he was quite fine, thank you. He found most of what he was looking for, saved some cash and discovered new programming and podcasts in the process. Oh yeah and he didn't watch a single ad!

At home I have a Microsoft Xbox 360 (they're one of our clients) and an Apple TV connected to my Sony HDTV. The content I download off the Internet for the two set top boxes has definitely eaten into my time with cable. The latter cannot be beat for live news and sports - yet. But remember, this is essentially opening day of a nine inning IPTV game. You can imagine all of the possibilities already as audiences start adding Internet-connected set-tops and niche HD content comes in from everywhere - professionals, brands and amateurs.

All of the TV nets, including HD-pure plays like INHD and HDnet that don't have a lot of competition yet, need to seriously wake up. The same goes for the advertisers that fund them. Please, please please read Bob Garfield's Chaos 2.0. He talks about the Long Tail's impact on the economics of media and advertising. Right now, TV is still dominated by it. Things are going to change quickly as people recognize the value of getting their free and paid content over the Internet. They will save more casual viewers money and also allow them to dig deeper into their interests. Every network should be making their goods available on these platforms. Not all are.

Cory's experiment proves that it is totally possible today to go a-la-carte - and we're just getting going. More on this here, here and here. Are you sick of me shaking this stick yet? I cannot be the only person in marketing who sees the collision coming. Maybe there's a "don't look at the train coming at you" philosophy since it's so disruptive and there's a lot of money at stake.

Become an Online Influencer by Modeling Tiger Woods

Photo by Craig Watson

If you're a golf fan then you know that this week is The Masters tournament, one of the four big majors in the sport.  I will be watching Tiger Woods closely. He's one of my biggest heroes. Not only does he have tremendous talent but he's driven to continually improve.

Recently, I picked up a great new book called Tiger Traits by Dr. Nate Booth. The premise is that you can learn a lot about success by studying arguably the greatest golfer who ever lived. However, as I dug into the nine secrets outlined in the book, I saw a lot of applicability for people who aspire to ascend in the Web 2.0 world.

Here's a closer look at the nine traits through a Web 2.0 lens. They are valuable not only for individuals, but also marketers who what to stay relevant in this chaotic environment as well as startups that are competing in a flat world where anyone can eat your lunch.

Identify and Develop Natural Talents

Tiger's talents for golf emerged early and is the stuff of legends. He started swinging a club at a very young age. If you want to become an online influencer (yes, corporate types too), you need to zero in on your talent. If you think about it, there are very few individuals who rise to prominence in more than one Web 2.0 galaxy. The more popular bloggers, for example, do not achieve the same level of success in say podcasting. The top diggers? Most of them write blogs you never heard of. Pick your spots and play to your strengths.

Create a Clear and Compelling Dream

What's your dream? Tiger's dream is to win more majors than Jack Nicklaus, who currently holds the record with 18 (Tiger has 10). My dream is that the chaos caused by new media will propel PR to become the lead marketing discipline. That's what drives me to blog. If you're creating content actively, make sure your passions come through.

Select Teachers, Heroes, and Teammates Who Guide, Inspire, and Support

Woods has a cadre of people who guide him in his game, personal life as well as his business affairs. It's commonly known as Team Tiger. Create a personal "board of directors" who help guide you. Mine includes my co-workers, family and also online influencers like Ross Mayfield, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer and others.

Be Confident

Tiger Woods plays to win and he's confident that he always will, even if he's down by a lot. I'm not always the most confident guy in everything I do, but when I blog I am. Most people who are  opinion leaders online are extremely confident (sometimes too much so!). When you blog, podcast, digg, create online video, be proud of what you do. Stake your reputation on it and others will follow you.

Manufacture Magnificent Mental Models

If you want to succeed in any activity - be it personal or business - you need to be able to "find your zone" to win. Tiger is known for having incredible powers of concentration. This can be tough at times. There are lots of distractions and detractors. Still, if you figure out what to tune in and what to tune out, you will succeed. Skip the gossip. Unsubscribe from the blogs that do nothing but spew smoke. Frown on distractions.

Let Actions Do the Talking

Tiger wins and that's all we need to know that he is a leader. The same applies online. Focus on your craft and your expertise. Don't obsess over your stats or Technorati ranking. Know what you cover and what you don't. Then, stick to it, create good content, do so consistently and often and you will succeed. The cream rises to the top. You will become known if you let your actions do the talking, rather than trash talking. The same applies for brands.

Constantly Improve in Good Times

The minute you stop improving, you're dead. This is why if you're in PR or marketing, you have to be dabbling with new technology constantly. After all, your customers are. Further, if you're blogging, constantly look for ways to improve. Don't take anything for granted. The same applies in business too. Tiger overhauled his swing twice in his career, even though he was at the top of his game.

Be Likeable, Be Grateful, Give Back

This one is huge. Sometimes people who become "web famous" forget where they came from. Companies get arrogant too. Everyone started at the same point. You have to give back if you want to succeed. Scoble, for example, constantly links to new voices and he's a downright approachable guy who puts his phone number on his blog. Tiger Woods will probably become the first sports billionaire soon, but he always gives of his time and money. That's a valuable lesson for every individual and company.

TV: The Next Great Development Platform

The personal computer was the first great development platform. The PC era ushered in giants like Microsoft, Apple, Sun and others. They all succeeded in creating great software that created operating system software that made computers far easier to use and more powerful. (Microsoft is an Edelman client.)

The computer - whether it is running Windows, Linux or OS X - is still a very robust market to develop for. Moore's Law has no immediate end in sight nor does our appetite for using our computers. Further, the gap between mobile phones and computers are narrowing with announcements like we saw from Microsoft today and Apple's forthcoming iPhone. So, for the purpose of this discussion I am lumping in mobile with computers as a single platform. The future remains bright for computers.

The second great development platform is the programmable web. Lots of businesses developed wonderful tools that work solely in a browser. The specific platforms - HTML, Javascript, Flash, Ajax, etc. - may change. However, the concept remains the same. Developers create web-based applications that, by being always connected, offer considerable advantages and value.

Clearly, with all of the new rich Internet applications coming on board, the Web has tremendous prospects as a dev platform. Further, now that millions of us are on broadband connections and the tools to create software has become democratized, we're just beginning to feel its impact.

Now let me throw a curveball at you. Think about what comes next. What hardware will emerge as a fertile ground where developers will want to plant some software seeds? Is there a piece of hardware that many people own that makes this all economically viable? The answer is yes and that platform is your television.

In 2007, for all but the alpha geeks, the cable and satellite companies determine who earns the right to have a place on your TV deck. That's changing. Attach an Apple TV, an XBox 360, and soon, a Slingcatcher and suddenly your TV can do things it couldn't do before. It can download video podcasts and other content from the Internet on the fly. Software is the magic that makes it happen. Further, if you purchase a Sony set you don't even need a third party box. These TVs have wifi and RSS built right in.

The TV is undergoing a renaissance. In five year's time, 50% of what the most coveted audiences watch on their sets will come off the Internet. However, it goes beyond the changes in video content. Television will run widgets and other connected software applications. These will be different from, yet complementary to what runs on a PC desktop or webtop. That's just the beginning.

Who will create the de-facto OS for your TV? Right now that's anyone's guess. The leaders are all the stalwarts from the PC era - e.g. Microsoft and Apple. And we haven't heard from the leaders who program the web yet. Companies like Google, for example. In addition, there are the companies who make the boxes (the Tivos of the world) and the cable/telcos who re-sell their boxes. These will run software too.

What is certain, though, is that once again TV is a growth business thanks to the Internet and software. And therefore the Golden Age of Television may be a head of us, not in our rear-view mirror.

Sirius and XM Officially Merge

Orbitcast, which has been tracking the satellite radio biz for quite sometime now, says it's official. Sirius and XM Satellite have announced they are merging.

That's certainly good news for radio heads. However, there's still a big problem with satellite radio - the iPod, Zune and other MP3 players. Lots of people forgo radio entirely in favor of mixing up their own content, complete with podcasts. XM and Sirius should play up live content. That's going to be their strong horse going forward. And it's one that MP3 players won't touch until they pull content in from cellular wireless networks. (Disclosure: Edelman handles PR for the Microsoft Zune.)

Awesome New Widgets from LabPixies

If you want to see what can be done with widgets, take a look at LabPixies. They have a ton of great widgets and they have recently added three more that are terrific. For now these only run on Google, but I imagine they will run on other platforms soon enough. In addition, each widget has an embed code. I am embedding the code here so you can play around with them here. (RSS readers will need to click through)

Odeo Podcasts gives you the ability to listen to millions of  podcasts from right on your personalized home page. Using this widget, you can browse different categories and play episodes. (I can't get the embed code to work properly here but it does work on Google)

Flickr Slides brings beautiful images in a slide show format to your personalized home page. You can set it up to monitor a specific tag.

TechBlogs is simply a widget that streams headlines from TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Slashdot and Engadget in one mini window.

For more, visit the LabPixies site. There's lots to choose from.

Podcast Advertising to Hit $400M by 2011

According to a a new report from eMarketer, podcast advertising is expected to climb from $80M to $400M by 2011. What's interesting here is that experts predict that new Adsense-like algorithms that facilitate smarter placements are what's going to drive growth. The study also pegged the total universe of podcasts at 90,000.

Unfortunately, for all you indy podcasters out there, this does not bode well. With all of that competition for ad dollars, the money is going to flow to folks who have ad sales reps. This means mainstream media podcasts and podcasting networks will benefit most.

Web 2.0 Indicators: Tracking Buzz, News and Jobs

Pretty much every few months since I started blogging three years ago I have needed to add another category or two to the site. The reason is simply because there are new innovations that are dotting the horizon. Many of them could have a significant impact on marketing communications. Usually, I add a category when the buzz has reached a point where I feel like I will be covering the subject often. For example, last year I added widgets.

Regulars here know I love data. I believe that if you really commit yourself to studying it, you can learn a lot. Two tools - Google Trends and Indeed Job Trends - are both invaluable, especially when you look at them together. You can get a feeling for if a technology is hype or they are really creating new kinds of jobs that didn't exist before. Let's take a closer look at the charts below.

The first comes from Google Trends. It compares a) searches and b) news volume on the following terms over three years: widgets, "Second Life" (as a phrase), blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds. What's interesting is in 2006 searches for Second Life skyrocketed and surpassed searches for the word "blogs." Also notable, news volume for these two terms touched in October, before Second Life sloped back downward.

OK, so clearly we see there's a lot of interest in Second Life and it's coming close to matching the buzz around blogs. So is all this interest in Second Life generating new jobs? Well, no - not yet. The most popular job category by far when you compare these terms on Indeed.com is blogs, followed by podcasts. Second Life hardly even registers.

So what's all mean? Well, the evidence is anecdotal but it appears as though blogs and podcasts, which skyrocketed to prominence in 2004 and 2005, are now mature. They are largely flat when it comes to hype but they are generating more jobs. So with Second Life hype climbing, will it start generating jobs? Stay tuned,

CBS News Offers Full-Length Katie Couric Podcast

The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is now available as a full-length video podcast. Previously only snippets of the broadcast were available. As of today, downloads of NBC Nightly News' full-length video podcast still top both evening news programs from ABC and CBS, according to iTunes.

Tags: KatieCouric, CBS

Strike the Phrase "Social Media" from the Lexicon

With the democratization of media we've come to rely on a bunch of terms that are now completely unnecessary. These include "social media," "user generated content" and - my favorite - "consumer generated media." Do any of these matter any more? I dislike all of these words and have stopped using them. Eric Hansen proposes we go with new media but that doesn't quite work either. The reason is it's ALL media. The lexicon will hopefully change.

The problem with all of these balkanized phrases is that they connote that the content created by digitally empowered individuals is somehow bush league. It's like we're a separate entity from the rest of the so-called "mainstream" journalists, filmmakers, photographers, etc. who do what we do and get paid more for it. We sit in a special dish like leftover meatloaf so we need a special name. If you use these phrases you're unintentionally perpetuating that myth.

I've been chronicling the changes in media over the last three years on my blog and been in awe of it even longer. In 2004, 2005 and into 2006, as "we" became more influential, the phrases were helpful as the world began to take notice. But now, it's different. We've arrived.

In 2007 we have people like Rafat Ali and Michael Arrington who blog for a living and do nicely. We have startups like PodTech.net and vloggers like Robert Scoble that are recreating what Tech TV was unable to sustain. Are these individuals part of the "mainstream media" because they get paid to create full-time or are they part of the "social media" because they're more accessible? it all seems kinda silly, huh?

The fact is that everyone who is contributing to the dialogue - be it in video, text or photos - has earned the right to be called media. Let's can the compartmentalization and recognize once and for all the world has changed. We are all media - period.

For Advertisers iPhone is a Game Changer, Apple TV Isn't

Unless you live in Guam, you probably know by now that Apple announced its long anticipated iPhone and shipped the Apple TV extender. You can read about the devices on a bazillion other sites, but start with Engadget. Let's instead think about the impact for brand marketers.

The biggest news for advertisers is that the iPhone will bring advertising to mobile devices in a way that people will accept. The reason is that the device includes an embedded version of the Safari browser. This enables consumers to browse the full HTML versions of their favorite Web sites with ease and zoom in on the content. This content, of course, includes banner and search advertising. As you can see from the screen grab below, the ads that are on the New York Times Web site are browsable right on the device. The iPhone is a game changer in so many ways, but let's not overlook this one.

So what about the Apple TV? This product, although certainly exciting from a consumer POV, offers very little value for advertisers. The reason is that it's basically a media extender. It streams purchased content from the iTunes store onto a TV. And oh by the way, only in 720p, not 1080i high definition. And while this content can include video podcasts, it's not going to create more appeal for the channel among brand marketers.

As Scoble says, the Apple TV achieves parity with the XBox 360, which supports PC to TV streaming out of the box. As a new XBox 360 owner I have come to love this feature. My family loves viewing pictures on my big high defintion TV. The Apple TV does the same with content from the iTunes store, but it's not nearly as exciting as Sony putting Internet connectivity in every TV or as Microsoft turning the XBox into an IPTV receiver. (Microsoft is an Edelman client and we do work on the XBox business.)

So, if you're scoring at home, iPhone is going to have a huge impact on mobile marketing. Apple TV won't have the any kind of impact on TV advertising.

Tags: apple, iphone, appletv, macworld

Digg is New Media, Diggnation is Old Media

In an interview with AdAge Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson riff on digg and their successful podcast, Diggnation. What's struck me is that while digg is a novel form of media where the wisdom of crowds prevails, the latter is, well old media.

According to Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, Diggnation gets 250,000 to 350,000 unique viewers for each week. They say viewers, but to me this means downloads since it's very difficult to track eyeballs on a mobile device. Further, the entire Revision3 network, according to the duo, does 1.5 to 2 million downloads a month.

The article also touches on the fine line Diggnation walks when it comes to the ever eroding church/state line between editorial and advertising in a world where the entrepreneur wears both hats.

Tags: digg, diggnation

Feed Your iPod with CBS YouTube Clips in Three Steps

CBS has a partnership with YouTube to feature snippets of their shows on the video sharing site. The problem is I don't want to watch them there. I want to watch these clips on my video iPod when I am on the go. Here's a simple solution. This will also work on PSPs.

1) Take the CBS RSS feed from YouTube (note this works for any YouTube feed)
2) Run it through YouTube Podcaster
3) Click the subscribe in iTunes button and you're good to go

Technorati Tags: CBS, iPod, Lifehacks, YouTube