Archive for the 'Technology' Category

Three interesting stories that caught my eye in the last few days:

1. From today’s Los Angeles Times - now that Neilsen is for the first time ever measuring ratings not just of TV that people watch when it is broadcast but also the shows that people “time shift” - er, that means use a Digital Video Recorder to record - shows that might otherwise have been a ratings flop and be taken off the screens, might get some good scores because people are watching them later. So it’s like a stay of execution! Cool.

2. From today’s Ad Age - Rio De Janeiro has decided to ban outdoor advertising, as other big Brazilian city Sao Paulo has done, as a way to reduce “visual pollution.” Other cities around the world have taken similar steps and Ad Age asks if this may be the shape of things to come. I sort of hope so.

3. From every media source everywhere last week - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.com, is thinking of selling 5% of the social networking website he founded for a price that would value the whole thing at about $10 billion. And Zuckerberg is still in his early 20’s. Wow, he’s my hero: not just for creating a great website that people have been drawn to in their millions, but for not selling to Yahoo! last year for a measly billion dollars.

What do all of these stories have in common, I hear you ask?

Well, clearly the shift from old intrusive media formats to new ones that rely on consumers coming to them and not the other way around, contniues. Old media - like big billboards that shout a simplistic mesage in big letters - are a dying breed. Consumers have the controls and are consuming content when they want it, not when it’s fed to them. DVR’s alow them to watch the TV shows they like when they’re good a ready, not when the broadcasters tell them too. Facebook understands the value of loyal consumers that want to hang out with their friends online.

For people who don’t see one another that often and hate the formality of occasional emails or phone calls, Facebook is a fun and effective ways to stay in touch. For marketers and content creators - for they are one - to succeed they need to recognize thhe shift in power from corporation to consumer and come up with the goods that people want. Sounds obvious, but there’s a whole lot of feet-dragging going on.

I’m convinced that the worlds of social networking and multiplayer online games (MMOGs) will soon be one.

They moved a step closer today. It was annouced that superbig Japanese ad agency Dentsu (bless you!) is putting a virtual Tokyo on marketers’ favorite alternate univese, Second Life. They paid many Yen for the virtual landspace, but are convinced the investment will reap big rewards from brands who wish to have a presence in their new virtual city.

It’s funny, but the online virtual worlds found in MMOGs - of which Second Life is loosely one - are usually strange and mystical ones that offer an escape from the humdrom of everyday “real” life, but in Second Life one is being created that more and more is starting to resemble the Real Thing (now there’s an idea - a world EXACTLY like our own called “The Real Thing” and sponsored by Coke). Soon they’ll be so similar, there’ll be little point in going to visit the virtual version. Or will it be the other way around….?

I was pretty uninspired by the sound of Google’s new ad service on YouTube that was announced Tuesday. The way it’s described in the media, about 15-seconds into the video a semi-transparent image appears on the bottom portion of the screen, inviting viewers to click for more information. It disappears after 10 seconds if the viewer doesn’t respond and the viewer can rid of it earlier if desired.

I thought companies like Google got the need to move away intrusive ads. With its Adwords program had found an innovative - and hugely lucrative way - to show “sponsored links” without getting in the way. Yes, apparently Google’s data shows that people don’t mind ads on YouTube, but if that’s the best the Big G can do then I’m not impressed. For years now the TV boys have been using this method of putting ads on the bottom of their shows to plug the next one or some upcoming special, and it ain’t that pretty.

Far more interesting is the idea that you, as a online video viewer, can click things in the video itself to find out more. The technology is available now and it would be fun not knowing by clicking onto something what comes up. Do you remember when VH1 was good they had those bubbles that would pop up on music videos giving spurious info about the person dancing in the background or whatever? Why can’t YouTube do the same, but with the viewer doing the searching? Some clicks could lead to inance and noncommercial funny factoids and others to retailers websites.

Let the viewer do some of the work - they’ll love you for it. If Punk Marketing is about anything it’s about consumers being active participants the conversation not just passive recipients of the information.

This is just a bizarre story.

A resident of virtual world Second Life is suing another resident for trademark and copyright infringement. The avatar Stroker Serpentine has taken exception to another avatar, Volkov Catteneo, for copying his software that allows one avatar to have sex with another. Sex beds
are, according to Second Life newspaper The Second Life Herald, a staple of the SC economy and the lawsuit claims that Catteneo has copied Serpentine’s version, which retails for the equivalent of about $45 in the virtual world, and is selling it for a third of the price, thus depriving the former of profits. Part of the problem for Serpentine is finding the identity of the person behind the Catteno’s avatar so he can sue his virtual ass.

This all leads to a the question of why would anyone pay money for their avatar to have sex?

Or am I just being naive?

Perhaps the lawsuit is a ploy by creators of Second Life, Linden Labs, to keep the publicity machine for it going for the virtual world and keep revenue coming in?

Or am I just being cynical?

Your wait time is now 3:43.

I called my bank because they screwed something up (read: I screwed something up but I’m still sure it’s somehow their fault… or my mother’s fault. I’m ok with either), and while I was waiting for an operator an automated message announced: how much time I’d be waiting (approximately), the site where I could check general information and then, that I also had the option of entering my phone number at which time I could hang up and an operator would call me back without me losing my spot in line.

Nobody likes being left on hold, but the things I hate most about being on hold were all addressed by this company’s system:

1) I hate not knowing how long I’ll be on hold – sometimes it’s easier to go to the place of business rather than sit on the phone, so I feel empowered with the information I need to make the decision to wait or to hang up.
2) Isn’t there an easier way? Telling me where I could find the easier-to-answer questions on the internet was great. I didn’t feel like they were patronizing me (um… and yes, I have often felt patronized when I’ve listened to automated messages tell me I can find out information on the internet. As if I haven’t already tried that.)
3) If I wanted to wait and talk to a REAL LIVE PERSON (I feel like it deserves the caps and the bold, as it is so rare), I could actually have them call me back – and they even said that I wouldn’t lose my place in the order. It’s like this phone system was made for a neurotic person and oh, did I appreciate that!

Seriously, the only thing that they could do to make my experience better would be to allow me to choose my own music to listen to while I wait. Please Press 1 for Elton John.

(A side note – if you ever have the chance, call the company that handles the motivational speakers for Fish! Philosophy, I’ve never actually asked a person to put me back on hold before… but I did want to hear the punch line of the joke I had just been listening to).

Everything you do is a reflection of your business ideals – even your phone voice automation. What does your company tell your clients when you put them on hold?

Punk-Fresh,
Nadia Cornier

Disclaimer: My annoyance with being put on hold is only a reflection of my own personality flaws and does not necessarily reflect the feelings (or flaws) of the Punk Marketing authors or anyone else, actually. Misspellings are my own. Great ideas are stolen, but names and particulars have been changed to protect the guilty. Any and all concerns or gripes about poorly formed ideas can be addressed to my favorite HS English Teacher, Mrs. Smith of Toms River HS East in New Jersey.