Blogollob

Twitter Aggregation and Filters and Rev (oh my)

Well, it seems like only yesterday that most people were completely confused by the whole concept of micro-blogging.  Oh, wait, that WAS yesterday.

Now sites such as ExecTweets that was launched by the ad network folks at Federated Media where they display tweets from business executives across various industries shows that people see the value in tools to help sort through this stuff.  Oh, did I mention that Twitter will get a slice of that business?

Glam Media, another online-ad network and as they call it, lifestyle Web site, will be launching a site that will filter and bundle tweets according to their themes.  Advertising will be sold on these theme pages and they'll make revenue share deals with other sites who make the pages accessible on their sites.  A great example used in the Wall Street Journal this morning was placement of a J&J sponsored widget on Glam's site during the Academy Awards that featured tweets about the Oscars. 

This whole thing of leveraging interest (and a huge audience) in a live event to grab eyeballs all over the Web using a stream of tweets along with, say, some video certainly makes sense.  Curiosity, and a good measure of voyeurism clearly conspire to make this interesting. 

Converting these startegies/tactics/methods to dollars?  Well, that's another thing. But with over 9.8 million unique Twitter visitors in February alone, I'm betting there are more than a few very smart people working on it.

Herding a Trillion Cats

As recounted by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Willams in their book “Wikinomics” (2008),  Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired, reported that humans have published at least 32 million books; 25 million songs; 750 million articles and essays; 500 million images; 500,000 movies; 3 million TV shows, videos, and short films; and 100 billion public web pages. All in just the last fifty years!

This really made me start considering the incredible value of technologies and methodologies that do and will help us navigate this overwhelming amount of information. Granted, we are not trying to deliver everything to everyone, far from it. But we are absolutely passionate about delivering massive value to marketers and vendors alike. A rock star multi-dimensional directory resource is near the top of such discussion currently. Conceptually, this is certainly nothing new, it was just one of those moments where that sense of opportunity rushed over me…again.  This is only one of around a dozen interesting and useful features we are building at Upshot Institute.

At Upshot Institute, we have only just begun to consider ways in which we will evolve our content. We have a wealth of information and are constantly building and adjusting our thinking along the lines of what’s really important to marketers in such a tool. And of course what is realistic and useable.

Stay tuned!

The Newest Marketing Technology Information Source

Well, after 9 months (interesting gestation period) of alternating episodes of spinning ideas and focused execution, we’ve gone and done it. We launched Upshot Institute.

Fortunately, my business partner is a truly brilliant cross between total marketing technology geek, creative creator of creative, and sage soothsayer in all things marketing...oh, and sleep-deprived obsessed production maniac. Goes just right with my mashup of midnight maven of method machination, driven management structure businessey guy, and obsessed evangelizer of all things new and good in our ecosystem...yeah, riddled with ADD.

The way I see it, we’re perfect together...and we’ve joined forces to build Upshot Institute! I guess I can’t pass-up the opportunity to say that we are indeed “committed” to the Institute.

So, we’ve launched and we are here to help marketers make sense of marketing technology. Initially, we are providing a robust vendor directory, a white paper library, podcasts and webcasts featuring industry luminaries, and a host of other products and service for both marketers and vendors. We not only help marketers stay up-to-date on the hottest marketing technology, we encourage the exchange of ideas and prime the pump for new relationships between the hottest vendors and the marketing community.

OK, enough self-promotion. Head over to Upshot Institute and poke around. You’ll be glad you did!

SMB and the Elusive Web Video

So why is it that so many small and medium sized businesses have yet to figure-out that they too can play in the big-bad world of web video?  Well, it appears that many are not aware of just how accessible it is.  That, and many SMB operators really don't understand just how powerful it can be to do something as straight-forward as embedding video in their web site.

Well, while it is true that web video has been the domain of the big-budgeted in the past (there's the hint - past), the truth today is that some very cool vendors have come to answer the call for the down-trodden masses we fondly call the SMB.

The opportunity today is indeed a beautiful thing for the SMB.  Instead of facing the crazy expense of building the infrastructue themselves...dealing with specific servers and software where the dedicated servers alone could run $5,000 to $8,000 and the software coding and licensing another $8,000 to $10,000.  Oh, and let's not forget about distribution...a good delivery network could run $3,000 to $5,000 per month!  Really...it is not worth this kind of expense for a small guy to jump into the fray at that cost.

Hosted solutions make web video truly accessible for the, well, less-than-big-budgeted operation. Companies like UpStream networks www.upstreamnetworks.com, stream hoster www.streamhoster.com, or fliqz www.fliqz.com are just a few examples of what appear to be game-changing technologies (certainly for the SMB).

Very cool stuff...looking forward to speaking with these folks soon.  So much happening and it's all great news!  More to come (really)!

Gotta love 2005!

I was recently recalling some meetings in or around the year 1999 or 2000 where we agonized over how to, when to, and even whether to spend time trying to figure-out the realities of digital video advertising. We just knew that it would be here soon enough, but we wanted to be ahead of the curve of course.

It was pretty darn easy to imagine lunch with the board and have someone ask, harmlessly enough (yeah, sure), “So, Steve, what’s our digital advertising strategy look like for the next three years?”. Images were instantly conjured-up that included more than few “um’s and uh’s”…invariably sprinkled with phrases that had the word “depends” in there (no pun intended)…usually associated with network concerns. All the while working hard not to revert to the tried and true technobabble tap dance that may be invoked in an attempt to lose those who think they “should” know of what we speak and address topics for which we may not be fully prepared to discuss. Basically, your garden variety deer-in-the-headlights scenario was typically avoided. Ugh.

Well, in 2005 there seemed to be a real surge in the number of companies showing-up as enablers of, providers of (content, services, etc.), and overall brilliance mavens in the world of digital video…in particular digital video advertising. From networks to content providers, marketers were suddenly able to get some real help and see some of the possibilities as now affordable and deliverable. This made both professionally produced (and premium priced) as well as user generated video content gain quick ground as a credible, if still “potential”, revenue stream.

The availability of high speed internet connectivity along with new compression technologies made a big difference in the speed with which adoption could occur. All of the promises that those us in the high-speed network infrastructure space were making were actually starting to occur. Too bad we were originally promising it in 1998-2001…from our $200 128k DSL connections to the behemoth ILECS manifest destiny attitude to drive HFC to every man, woman, and child in the world…pardon me, I digress.

We all knew the early players, Windows Media Player, The FeedRoom, Yahoo’s launch and promises, and MSNBC all who were indeed early in this space but most of us struggled to see a clear path to revenue. Digital video advertising was expensive…certainly when compared to the CPMs associated with more traditional TV-based work. The prevailing wisdom prior to 2005 was that this whole digital video world was going to be about subscriptions, not ads. Today, of course, we have huge marketers producing and serving-up copious volumes of beautiful high-quality online video advertising. And ringing the register they are.

Will gatekeepers with a “foot on the data pipe” be forever an issue?

After reading Sam Gast’s article in Conde Nast’s Portfilio.com about the good ‘ol web neutrality debate and Comcast’s practice of “network management” (an aging issue for sure) in which they choose to meter video uploads ostensibly to manage traffic during heavy traffic periods, certainly makes one think. With this kind of activity, they essentially restrict the flow with their foot on the pipe through which others may be attempting to deliver their wares.

With web video adoption growing exponentially and the ever-expanding selection of technology and tools from which marketers may choose, the need for reliable broadband pipes is paramount. Does anybody remember the days when we used to bemoan the fact that “the network” was so badly overbuilt and everyone knew that there was more dark fiber in the ground than could ever be used? When will we reach the point where high-speed access can finally be treated as, well, a public utility? I know, I know, this is a well wrung-out debate. Ahhh, gotta love the effect of the mighty dollar (errr, insert currency of choice).

With tools and technologies from cool straight-up conversion and editing tools like Blaze Media Pro to top flight sophisticated internet-delivered rich media specialists such as Maven Networks, or Unicast providing literally everything the marketer could want in rich media, content, targeting, production, analytics, distribution, etc., we should not need to wonder whether or not our audiences will be able to receive the message due to some anti-competitive practice engaged-in by those scrambling to make up for lost ground due to their legacy outdated operating models.

Certainly, this quick note does not do justice to the minutiae and analogies too numerous to mention that inevitably call to us in this discussion. But even on the surface, when a “media company” (isn’t that the thing to call yourself these days?) can act like they are performing a public service when they limit or delay the presentation of a competing product or service delivered over a network that should be, but isn’t, “open”, it is just wrong. Of course, when the content is something a given set of gatekeepers favor, suddenly it is no longer a bottleneck issue. Hmmm.

What did the snail say when he jumped on the turtle's back? ....... "Whoooaaa!"

Sometimes I think small and medium business operators out there feel like that snail. Even when they find a marketing tool or technology that appears to provide some incredible “new” capability to them, they are very often dismayed to find that they were all hot and bothered about something, well, “so last week”. But it still gives them a rush (“wow, this mail merge thing is soooo cool!”)

I look at a couple of good friends whose businesses I would put squarely in the SMB category. They inevitably end-up with a “friend of the family” or “buddy of my buddy’s buddy (named Buddy)” who is going to hook them up with a deal. We know how that usually goes. Yeah, they have a website that opens and it even has PICTURES…maybe even talkies! OK, a link or two as well. Ahem.

The tired old ways of getting the eyeballs (radio, print, television, direct mail, trade shows, etc.) will always be there for this population to some extent, but the new ways of spreading the word and ideas (blogs, video, social networks, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs, etc.) are steadily proving how well they work. The SMB operator, though, is often too busy and too far behind the curve to really know that they, too, can have great stuff working for them!

A good marketer needs to understand what’s out there…new…or not-so-new. Unfortunately, most will never even know what they are missing as they load the Minivan with crates of direct mail pieces and doorknob hangers featuring the special of the week. They assume the snazzy marketing technology is all too expensive and will require a guy with the propeller beanie on staff. If only they knew.

Just look at things like Constant Contact, an email marketing and survey tool that is inexpensive (like $75 per month for unlimited campaigns to a list of up to 5,000), robust, and extremely easy to use for the typical non-technical SMB, to an easy web video tool like Easy Web Video where for $97, the user can quickly put up some decent video content on their site. Easy Web Video uses V2F technology to address the file size issues associated with video and it comes with video editing software that’s pretty slick. Yeah, the Easy Web Video website is a little tedious and feels a bit like a Ronco pitch…but it is very approachable for a non-technical SMB. There really are many choices out there and most can do a great job of helping the SMB get up and running with some really cool technologies that will exponentially improve their go-to-market efforts.

However, these technologies are still largely blind items for many SMB’s out there. If only they could just go to one place and get understandable, relevant, and accurate information about marketing technology. They’d be a happy bunch if they could just find the help they need to make sense of marketing technology and tools!

Well, OK…I guess we’ll be making a lot of new friends really soon.

Who Else Wants to Understand the Choices in Marketing Tools and Technology?

And we’re off! I hope you come along for the ride…

This is the first in what will become a long line of blogs discussing what I learn during my journey to unravel and demystify some of the amazing technology and tools that are out there to serve marketers and those who want to use the tools and technology and dress-up like marketers (don’t say it).

Over the past 20 years or so, I have occasionally looked-up from my work with any given group, team, company, or agency and imagined the prefect gizmo appearing before me that would deliver exactly what I needed to help me with a specific (or not-so-specific) marketing challenge. This typically included fantasies that included tools to accelerate or track a project, deliver a better set of data, improve visibility and measurement of results, or even just beautify some output. Alas, what usually occurred was the inevitable realization that I would need to jump-in and try to figure-out what is out there to meet my needs at that moment. Let the black hole of search begin its ominous sucking sound…ugh.

This effort usually resulted in some pseudo-sophisticated game of musical chairs where I would research, analyze, and evaluate any number of solutions that were “close” and when my Acme Atomic Analytics Internal Alarm Clock buzzed, I would throw the dart and off I’d go. Sometimes this left me with a great new tool to help me along…and sometimes, well…not.

I will be seeking-out the newest and some of the not-so-newest technology and tools for marketers. My mission is to understand as much as possible in order to produce meaningful blogs and create discussions around what may work best for any given purpose. Learning about who is doing what in the area of marketing technology and serving that up in bite-sized (ok, some full meal-sized too) bits should be an interesting journey.

By the way, this blogollob thing is tied to a larger effort (coming soon to a monitor near you) that will deliver more resources and connection in the marketing technology and tools area. Come on over…it’ll be fun!