Adfreak Weblog Launched by Adweek

Adweek has launched a weblog, "Adfreak." Jack Freuer, on of my favorite Adweek writers, is a contributor. Kudos to them for launching in true blog fashion with a solid blogroll with self depricating links to sites making parodies of their own publication and those critical of the ad biz. (via Adrants).

Senator Spector Key to Judicial Future

With a possible 3 Supreme Court Justices being replaced in Bush's next term, if there's one small fight worth joining, it's moderate senator Arlen Spector's bid to head the Judiciary Commitee.

FCC Lies to Push Forward Indecency Case

Using the Freedom of Information Act, Jeff Javis uncovers that only 3 people, out of the 159 claimed by the FCC, actually wrote letters to the FCC about sexual suggestive programming causing $1.2 million dollars in fines, chilling the speech of our media and trampling over the very meaning of the First Ammendment.

There's a second travesty in all of this. It is the blatant laziness (or even worse, submission) by the mass news media to uncover this while reporting on the story. Every jounrnalist claiming to have covered this story should be ashamed of the standard they have upheld.

The FCC should repeal the fines they issued. Other citizen journalists should file similar FOIA requests and uncover what really happened with the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction. And the mass news media should either get it together or just pack it up because you're worthless to us and you're losing to citizen journalism.

FCC Chills Speach of ABC Affiliates

KOMOTV: As many as 65 of the more than 200 ABC Affiliates chose not to air Saving Private Ryan due to fears of heavy fines and potential loss of broadcast licenses from the FCC.

Is branding dead, or just need to be redefined?

Hugh at Gaping Void gives us the top 9 reasons it's dead.

Number 4:

"Branding" is backwards looking. It's all about capturing past associations. It's never about what the business could become, but protecting what came before.

But an astute reader who works in branding counters convincingly in Hugh's comments:

brands should never be backwards looking, but tell the people - as you say - what the product is for. Make a promise and keep up to it.For me, the bradn itself is the key to the conversation between the companies and their stakeholders. It's like the common base for the conversation/discussion.Could sound like this:Company: "Hey, we know your problem and have a solution that's calles XYZ (the brand)."Customer: "Nice, but your XYZ lacks ...., fix it and I like you more."Company: "Ok, now we know better what you mean and will try."

P2P Search

Smart Mobs points us to a new P2P search tool called NeuroGrid.... keep your eye on this space.

Targeted Filtered Advertising

Dave Morgan introduces a simple but profound concept for internet advertisers in ClickZ today. Put consumers first in determining how to serve advertising. Why target advertising when it can be filtered. I ask Dave to take this a step further to social networks as a platform to filter advertising -- a socially networked advertising model as the basis of filtering. We just need to think way outside the box of relevancy, clutter, personalized offers and privacy that Dave suggests. Although they are a good start -- the consumer still doesn't drive the experience.

Web 2.0 Presentations

.... can be found here. John Batalle points us to this one on search.

Kiosk Marketing by Yahoo Local

Search Engine Jounral reports that Yahoo Local is putting its product in the thick of it to kick off marketing efforts by placing kiosks on the streets of New York:

Early next week, NYC Transit users will get first hand glimpse of a cleaver marketing tactic from Yahoo. Yahoo plans to install bus stop kiosks featuring Yahoo Local-Search in order to test user’s responses in one of the densest urban environments in the US. The first kiosk will be installed at W. 42nd ST and Eighth Avenue. A search for a cybercafe on 8th Avenue NYC produced a lengthy list of all cybercafes in the five boroughs including the first reference, a short two blocks from the epicenter of my search, W.42nd and 8th.

UniGoog

Google's Desktop Search has arrived. Great overviews by Danny Sullivan and John Battelle. Kottke has even grander thoughts.

Rojo

Keep and eye on this space (more http://www.rojonetworks.com/and Rojo Blog here) (via Allen Searls).

Rojo is a free, web-based service dedicated to helping information consumers efficiently discover, organize, read, and share dynamic content—such as online news and weblogs. Rojo enables users to easily search and subscribe to feeds (sometimes called RSS or Atom feeds) published by online content sites, blogs, discussion boards, and various corporations. Rojo helps users identify what content is most useful for them personally and Rojo's community-building features enable users to easily share relevant content with friends and colleagues. Rojo also offers services for publishers and bloggers to help them harness the emerging world of feeds.

More Podcasting

Marc Eisenstadt of Get Real has a very good overview of the who, what, where and when of Podcasting.

Jeff Javis is blogging the heck out of Web 2.0 and in doing so previews Idea Lab's new search engine Snap. Also see Web 2.0's coverage.

Update: BoingBoing smacks Snap for a pitiful linking policy.

Torrent Casting

In the same vein as podcasting, Slashdot discusses the reality of creating your own television network via bittorrent, a popular method of p2p file sharing. More here and here.

Feedster's complete Web 2.o coverage.

Blog marketing explosion ... (well, "explosion" might be pushing it).

Podcasting

Imagine a world where portable audio blogs existed. Where you could take an audio clip from your blog world and listen to it on your way to work, at the gym and on the plane. Portable, time-shifted radio programming that you control. Because you want control. You need control to fit everything into your life. But not only do you listen. You participate. You create. The next thing you know there's a blogosphere of audio programming that you control what you listen to, when you listen to it and what you contribute. And it's not broadcasting. It's narrowcasting to and from your realm of passion. Just like blogs.

But it's already here. Thanks to Adam Curry and others, via podcasting, we citizens are creating our own programming, we are downloading it, and listening to it on our iPods on our way to work, at the gym, and on the plane.

Jeff Jarvis and Doc Searls have much more... (too much to quote, so I encourage you to read it all).

The More Things Remain the Same

Doc Searls digs up a long lost classic from 1995 (this is essentially pre-commercial web or just when just a few were entering the game, folks). How true it is today:

1. The Internet is the ultimate base medium -- it will either undermine or support all other media. Think of the Internet as a phone system, a postal service, a library, a distribution hub and a yellow pages -- all in one. Only, unlike all those traditional institutions, nobody controls it. Anybody can participate in any of those roles.
2. On the Internet, all communications are personal. The "mailto" link on every working Web site goes to an individual. If a site lacks that link, or if nobody responds to a mailing across that link, the site is virtually dead.
3. Communication = conversation. Markets are conversations, whether they consist of one person or ten million people. Marcom needs to take advantage of this fact, both within the company, and between the company and the conversations that constitute its markets. **
4. A company's "Intranet" connections should equal or exceed its Internet connections. Without groupware you get gropeware. Whether you use Notes, Groupwise, Collabra or POEMs (Plain Old E-Mails)... you need to make, and use, your internal connections. In fact, your company will be no more effective than its collaborative platform. Making that platform work should be everybody's -- especially marcom's -- job.
5. Customers are the best sources of useful information -- and the most abundant. Now they're good for a lot more than money.
6. There is no strength in isolation. Ivory towers are the last refuge of the clueless.
7. Relationships matter. More sales are becoming marriages, and fewer are one-night stands.
8. Service is everything. If you can't service your customers, they'll find suppliers who will.
9. Branding requires substance as well as style. If you can't walk your talk, nobody will follow your lead or listen to what you say.
10. There is no market for messages. In fact, there never was, but now the customer is in a position to say so.
11. Logic and reason sit on the mental board of directors, but emotions cast the deciding votes. This is why share of heart matters more than share of market and even share of mind.
12. The purpose of marketing communications is not just to tell & sell but to learn & earn. Every company needs to learn from customers and to earn their interest and loyalty. If they don't, they'll talk to nobody and sell nothing.
13. There is no market for secrecy. Customers rarely demand that companies keep secrets. But they always demand more information. Don't hide it.
14. Your "position" is a fact, not a statement. And the only fact you can't change is where you come from. This is the one thing you can't lie about, and the first thing people want to know about you.
15. Marketing should be as simple as a handshake. Your marketing should answer the same questions people ask strangers when they meet for the first time:
    • Who are you?
    • Where do you come from?
    • What do you do?
    • What are you doing here?
    • Where do you live?
    • Who are you with?
    • Where are you going?
    If your answers to any of these questions are unclear, or if you can only explain them at length, you're not making sense. This helps: one or two word answers work best.
16. Information isn't data -- it's the communicable form of knowledge. Derived form the verb to form, information literally changes what we know. The goal of a communications strategy therefore is to inform and to become informed. It must work both ways -- an exchange that makes a difference for both parties.
17. Competition is necessary to a marketplace, but not sufficient. Customers want choices; and every product choice results from many people, and many companies, adding their goods together, not just opposing each other. The next time you hear a story about the U.S. versus Japan (or Mexico, or Germany...), look inside your PC. On average you'll see labeled products from up to 13 different countries. Peace at work.
18. Conversation isn't win/lose or even win/win. It's play/play. Think of marketplaces as homes and communities, not just as ball courts and battlefields. The press loves sports and war metaphors for a good reason: stories are about conflict and struggle. No story starts with "happily ever after." This is why the press' job is to make trouble, often where there isn't any. Really, they can't help it. But the truth is usually much more complex, much less dramatic and rarely as conclusive as the stories told by the press. Just remember: if a customer loves your company and buys your product, that doesn't mean he's taking your side. If you think he is, you may end up fighting your wars alone.
19. Honesty is the only policy. "If you can fake that, you've got it made," George Burns says. Unfortunately, most of us can't. It's very hard to fake one side of a conversation. And truth is a lot easier to maintain than a lie.

Much more here and in Doc's post.

What the Bubble got right.... by Paul Graham. (thanks John Batelle). Something to really sink your teeth into ... which I haven't had a chance to do yet.

Tragedy of the Advertising Commons

from Marketing Profs

Google Overtakes Overture's Local Match

....or Media Post just goofed big time.

Poynter released their latest eye tracking study with interesting results for advertisers and architects.

Shut Up and Talk

Listening has been trumpeted as one of the skills that makes a great leader or manager. I think listening makes one a good blogger too. Stowe Boyd quotes James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds," in a section which argues that those who are more talkative in small groups are perceived as being more influential. Stowe sees a correlation to this and blogging.

Curious Search

Just about to pick up The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, a story that is told through the voice of a young autistic boy, and noticed my new favorite blogger, John Battelle, has a great look into the allegory between the novel and search:

I'm not entirely sure why, but this really hit home with me, after a year or so of interacting with the engineers and mathematicians who drive innovation in search. It's not that, as a group or even as individuals, the geniuses behind search are autistic. But as a culture, and in particular, as a product, search certainly can be understood to be face blind in the very least - unaware and/or unable to discern the cues we as users give it.

And there is a certain...coldness to search, an aloof, detached, and passionless side to it, where all things which can be indexed, are indexed, and a certain arrogance with regard to those things or people who don't understand how to retrieve that which is in the index.

I can't put my finger on it in this passage, nor will I try any more than I have, but, in the end, this is why we read novels, to feel that which otherwise we might not even notice.

Viral marketing. Literally.

A Google Browser? Jason Kottke thinks so and it makes perfect sense to me too.

Democratic Marketing

Independence Air, the new low-cost carrier based out of Dulles, is putting its marketing in the hands of their customers. Members of their frequent flier club are asked to choose Independence Air's next promotion.

Stuart Henshall's beginnings of a Manifesto on Social Networking.

Dell and Gateway must not have learned how to differentiate in Advertising 101.

Reading Jeff Jarvis's continuous thoughts on transparency and mass media's lack thereof has made me think, does the lack transparency also make us stupid? The type of transparency Jeff talks about is that which enables people to gain a better understanding of a writer's, or for that matter a media organization's, point of view. But does opaqueness also shade us from knowledge, not just honesty and truth?

Another Scott Knowles has a blog.

Amy Blogs!

I've been trying to get my wife Amy to see the fun in blogging for a while now. Write what you're passionate about. Connect with others.

It wasn't resonating ....until now.

Amy has taken up the big challenge of running the Marine Corp Marathon. She has been sending out weekly updates to all her friends and family and her training. All of which have been written really well. I suggested she start a weblog. And she did.

So far she has 3 entries (number 1 is still my favorite). I'm still trying to get her to use a blog roll. There are tons of other running blogs out there I discovered via Google -- okay I'm passionate about blogs, and Amy is passionate about running. She doesn't get that part yet --- her audience is really just friends and family.

She is already up to 8 miles!

If you hold any value in the freedom of speach, read this.

Amazon Blogs... err... Plogs

If there hasn't been proof enough that blogging is mainstream, Amazon is toying the concept in a new content layout called Plogs. Right now I only see this as a new way of ordering content, but the potential is there, especially in the area of collaborative filtering across outside blogs and in the use of RSS. Rafat Ali says:

what I would like is that if Amazon can spider services like Technorati to see other references (from other blogs/media sources) to a new book released, and present that ecosystem as part of the "plog" recommendation...
As such, the blog meme is powerful than you think..the chunk-sized bites are about to take over the world...sorta.
I can see implications of this integrated into its A9 search engine

Stowe Boyd adds:

I can't tweak very much, can't change look/feel, move things around -- just toggling on and off the monetary value of purchases made -- and I can't actually add any content. Wouldn't it be sensible to have my own reviews, etc.?

Is this only a mechanism to push information to me? Even so I like the format. But there is no RSS feed, so I guess you have to actually go and read the damn thing.

And the whole social angle -- seeing updates to your buddies' wishlists, for example -- isn't integrated at all.

It will be interesting to see how Plogs affects sales. Unless they leverage some of the ideas from above, I don't see them helping.

Looks like Plogs is only in beta, so some might not be able to see it in action.

Short Clutter Spans

I've always stated here that ad clutter has diminished the effectiveness of advertising. This seemingly common sense notion has had me perplexed for some time as to why agencies and advertisers continue to pack as many messages into a bottle as possible. Not only does this make the advertiser lose, it makes the media property lose as well. They are perceived as cluttered, annoying and disprespectful of a customer's needs. It would seem there would be less and less clutter as the audience demands it.

Of course, sometimes common sense doesn't win out. A study is needed to prove the obvious. BURST Media took that step today in releasing a study which shows that clutter not only makes advertising ineffective but also creates a negative brand impact.

Key findings included:
-1/3 of web users (34.2%) say they will tolerate a single advertisement per web page
-Another 1/4 (26.7%) of respondents say they will tolerate two advertisements
per page
-1/2 (51.2%) of respondents say they have a less favorable opinion of an advertiser’s product or service when their advertising appears on a web page they perceive as cluttered
-More than 1/3 (36.8%) of respondents say they immediately leave a site if it appears cluttered
-Fully 3/4 (73.4%) of respondents who remain on a site they perceive to be cluttered say they pay less attention to advertisements appearing on its pages

These findings should be extended to other advertising. We would find longer but less frequent TV commercials more effective, same with radio, and the list continues. It's not short attention spans that we have, but a need for clearer communication. Hopefully this is a first step in the market reacting to the overall shift to a more consumer empowered marketplace.

26.2 Miles!

Amy has decided to run a marathon. It started as a half marathon and she decided to go for broke. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is sponsoring her training and the money she raises we'll go towards their programs. Here's a bit from her website:

"I have chosen to run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC on October 31, 2004. This will be the FIRST race I have ever ran in my life. Actually, this is the first major athletic event I have ever participated in. I could barely finish a mile in middle school gym class. And now I'm going to run 26.2 miles throughout the monuments of Washington, DC. "

Google Files for IPO: "A management team distracted by a series of short term targets is as pointless as a dieter stepping on a scale every half hour"

Looks like it's official. Google filed for its IPO today. I find myself wanting to quote their entire filing .... so instead of me doing that just read it. You will never believe how much you can enjoy reading an SEC filing. Typical Google, a breath of fresh air.

ESPN.com - NFL - Ex-NFL player Tillman killed in Afghanistan

ESPN.com - NFL - Ex-NFL player Tillman killed in Afghanistan: "'In sports we have a tendency to overuse terms like courage and bravery and heroes,' said Cardinals vice president Michael Bidwill, son of the team's owner Bill Bidwill, 'and then someone like Pat Tillman comes along and reminds us what those terms really mean.'"

The Web as Door-to-Door Salesman

Wish I had time to read this, but if the sub-head is any indication, this should be a good read:The Web as Door-to-Door Salesman. "Blogs and online communities force marketers to rediscover the human touch of old-style direct marketing relationships (first of three parts)."

The Trifecta

There's a reason things have been ... well... a bit non-existent here ... Besides getting married in two weeks (woe! [err .... whoa!]) and buying a new house a couple months ago, I just started a new job. At big bad AOL.

Besides my passion in p2p marketing (eg. blog marketing), I also have a very strong interest in the development of local search. I stumbled across a great opportunity to join AOL's Search & Directional Media Group. My experience at TMP, which I seldom talked about here, was tightly focused around local internet marketing. Specifically the field of internet yellow pages. Which is exactly what I'm focusing on at AOL along with its integration into the new field of local search.

While I won't be talking too much about the field here ... as I never heavily covered local search in my blog, and I don't want to come across as a spokesman for AOL's local search plans.... I do want to say how pleasantly my outside view of AOL, which the press without a doubt shaped, has been smashed. From my first interview to my first 2 weeks on the job, I have met nothing but very friendly, approachable, smart and passionate people. Sure, I'm in the honeymoon stage, but a colleague from the recently AOL acquired Singingfish, shared the same sentiments as we were talking last night. There are a few things I might disagree with stategically, but I don't think there is any company the size of AOL that an employee wouldn't say the same thing about.

That's where I've been and where I am going. I'll throw a link of interest up here and there, but expect things to continue to be light here until after the honeymoon (that's the honeymoon after the wedding).