In the past, marketing communications have largely interrupted otherwise valuable media-based experiences (e.g., that Chia Pet ad in the 80’s which interrupted your enjoyment of Jack Tripper’s comedic fumblings).

The emerging media paradigm, however, casts marketing communications AS valuable experiences in their own right (think Office Max’s ‘Elf Yourself’).

Add to this the idea that we’ve clearly moved from passivity to activity in our interactions with media over the last two decades (i.e., from passive receivers in a 3-4 network world, to active RSS-feed-establishing/YouTube-content-creating mavens).

(This move, incidentally, is consistent with my generation’s fascination with technology. TiVo, instant messaging, iPods; while fascinating to children of the 80’s and earlier, are largely unremarkable to younger consumers, who see technology as a given [the way we see toasters]…They seem only to ‘notice’ technlogy when it fails them.)

The upshot? I believe that we are headed for a NEW PASSIVITY in media; with the Googles/iLikes of the world anticipating what we want to consume (based, clearly, on our searches and tech-facilitated interactions with people, places and things) and serving it up for us in easy, non-intrusive, easily-configured contexts.

In the future, we’ll turn it on (whatever ‘it’ is) and it will just deliver loads of customized content (plus contextual ads and/or sponsorships, of course).

From passivity, to activity…to the ‘new passivity’.

Check out this presentation delivered by Gareth Kay (director of strategic planning at Modernista! in Boston) at an event hosted by Hall and Partners a few weeks back. He defines great ideas as those that create energy. Below you’ll see some of his criteria - from a brand and communications perspective. I attended and found it to be very inspiring and applicable to our work here at PHD.

I’ve pulled out a few bullets from his presentation below – really helpful for developing and selling our ideas to our clients. I’m happy to expand and relate his some of his commentary from the evening. For the full presentation go to http://freshmeet.wordpress.com/.

Energetic Ideas are Different
• The big idea behind the idea, not the big idea
• Be interesting and useful, not narcissistic
• Doing stuff, not just delivering a message
• Do lots of stuff, not just one idea everywhere
• Sweat the small stuff, not stopping at the big thing

Adding some fuel to the trend spotting culture at PHD, strategic planning gave a talk last week about hot cultural movements and emerging trends. Here’s a quick recap.

First off, culture is not highbrow or distant, it is simply what people think, do, and create. The keyword is people and culture helps us understand them. Trends in culture arise when a group of people, who share mindsets, behaviors and attitudes reach a critical mass or in research speak, sample size.

So the first step in successfully identifying a trend is to find a theme within what people, think, do and create. This can be anywhere, films, food, music, politics, art, architecture, sport, etc. The next step is to make sure that you can find this theme across multiple touch points and that it has reached a critical mass. The key is to always be on the look out. So try that new restaurant, go to that weird play, and keep spotting.

Thanks to everyone who joined us. Excellent questions, debate and dialogue!

To quote a line from one of my favorite superhero movies, “With great power comes great responsibility” and nothing typifies that quote any greater than the world of web 2.0. Thinking about starting a corporate blog? Well you better be transparent to your audience. Want to offer some sort of social networking application? Better ensure privacy is a top priority! And finally, in the case of Google, going to offer an application that touts you have a phone number for life? Well better make sure “for life” means “for life” and not “for a few weeks”.

Grand Central is one of Google’s most recent acquisitions. It’s a really neat service that consolidates all of your phone numbers down to one number that they provision for you. So for instance my cell phone area code may be (313), office may be (212) and home may be (732) however Grand Central will provide one consistent number based on an area code of my choosing and I can provide to those who I’d like to call me so that no matter what device I’m in closest proximity to, I’ll be able to make sure I can pick it up. Savvy user controls give me access to route whomever wherever whenever.

In August however the feel good telecom company story got derailed when Grand Central lost its ability to continue to serve approximately 434 users due to provisioning issues with a former number provisioner. No big deal, just re-issue those 434 new numbers.

Right.

Imagine if you’ve printed business cards, stationary, email signatures. Friends, family, etc. What a nightmare! And in true web 2.0 fashion, those 434 went to the blogs to voice their issues almost instantly tainting what I considered at the time a white hot service with unlimited potential.

A few months have passed, and Grand Central is back on track (can I stop with the puns?!). I was recently offered a beta via our very kind Google reps and so far so good - I like the service. I haven’t gone out of my way to evangelize my number however since the memories of the famed 434 remain etched in my mind.

I’ll give it a few months and report back with any updates/take aways from using Grand Central.

I love my BlackBerry to the point of obsession. Honest, I’m not sure what I’d do without it. Concurrently, as most of my colleagues will attest to, I’m very “active” on Facebook. So imagine the gleeful smile on my face when I was informed that RIM and Facebook announced a partnership at CTIA where a new Facebook app will be available for download today.

Apparently the app will allow users to get their news feeds and other notifications pushed directly to their devices. Additionally, users can customize their alerting preferences while Facebook services are also integrated into other parts of the device. For instance, in the camera application, users can tag photos on the device and upload them directly to their Facebook account. T-Mobile will be the first operator to offer the application embedded in the BlackBerry devices it sells, but Moskovitz said it will be available for download to any BlackBerry user later today.

While I applaud Facebook for continuing to expand their reach past their social networking competition, I’m even more excited for RIM as this plays directly into their push strategy. I’ll be following up this post with a UI review once I’ve downloaded the application.

By Emily Smith

It seems that celebrity gossip and world news are suddenly one and the same.

Of course Hollywood gossip is not a new obsession in this country, but it is certainly becoming more and more difficult to avoid. Reputable news sources like The New York Times and CNN aren’t complete if they don’t at least hint at the scandals of the rich and famous: Now, even my grandfather could tell you Lindsay Lohan just got arrested for another DUI charge and cocaine possession 11 days after she left rehab, Paris Hilton has been in and out (and in and out) of jail, and Nicole Richie is 85 pounds, pregnant and in court for her second DUI charge in four years. Larry King even had to consult the popular celebrity blog TMZ.com to conduct his high-profile interview with the hotel heiress—a website that the New York Times just featured last week as the gossip source celebrities fear the most.

You could argue that Americans have taken this guilty pleasure a bit too far, and maybe there’s something to be said for that, but I think this constant craving for celebrity content in the news is a clear sign that people are really seeking a certain lightness in the daily headlines along with everything else that is happening in the world. The bottom line about celebrity gossip/news is that, these days, it can be a real comfort to be reminded that at least some of us are less screwed up than Hollywood’s teens.
The top ‘news’ sites: celebcocktail.com, celebritysmack.com, derekhail.com, perezhilton.com, pinkisthenewblog, popsugar.com, tmz.com

Blogger Danah Boyd wrote an anecdotal piece recently on the growing socio-economical divide between Facebook and MySpace’s audiences. Her point of view is interesting and is just starting to pick up traction.

In layman’s terms she states that Hegemonic American teens (i.e. middle/upper class, college bound teens from upwards mobile or well off families) are all on or switching to Facebook. Marginalized teens, teens from poorer or less educated backgrounds, subculturally-identified teens, and other non-hegemonic teens continue to be drawn to MySpace. A class division has emerged and it is playing out in the aesthetics, the kinds of advertising, and the policy decisions being made.

What I found most interesting was her study on the Military’s stance on banning soldiers from creating MySpace accounts but showing leniency with Facebook.

Viewing Class Divisions Through MySpace & Facebook

It’s hard to go a single day without hearing the word “iPhone”. In fact, a Google search query will illicit 76,300,000 responses. Not bad for a product that’s yet to touch a retail shelf. And while I concede the iPhone will certainly be considered a revolutionary device from the context of form and function, I’m not sold on it being a revolutionary experience ; the purpose of the iPhone, at least in my opinion, and based on Steve Jobs’ transcripts from speaking engagements is more focused on the convergence of technology (iPod, phone, email, web). So while I appreciate the tangible beauty of the device, I ultimately categorize it as a souped up Blackberry. I hear the masses marching towards my office with torches as I type…

My point isn’t to bury the iPhone prior to its commercial release. I obviously welcome innovative thinking when it comes to technology. That’s why today, I’m overly excited at the prospects of AT&T’s most recent innovation: Shoot and Stream.

Shoot and stream is mocoNews marketing lingo for live video streaming from your mobile device. You want to know what true convergence is? Look no further than video streaming, where AT&T’s goal is to make their Video Share (their official name for the service) service accessible over any of the three primary screens that customers use most frequently: the wireless device, the PC and the television.

AT&T is formally offering utilitarian examples of their new offering, focusing on on-the-go deal makers. For example - a real estate broker who can’t meet face to face but wants to showcase a specific property to his/her client.

I think what AT&T wants to say however is Live Streaming will be the key that opens new doors to the world of User Generated Content. Now everybody has the potential to be a paparazzi. Blogging has become more personal with the flick of your phone. Channels will be created and YouTube could be forced to evolve very quickly if Video Share takes off, and I predict it will.

This is an exciting time for content and the mobile industry. The lull over the first wave of mobile content (ringtones, wallpapers, j2me games) is dissipating, and we’re going to have to brace ourselves for a mobile content/services tidal wave of giant proportions - MMS has finally arrived, and now with a Video Share rollout, the possibilities truly are endless.

By Emily Smith

America’s youth is more ambitious, over committed, and competitive (both with themselves and their peers) than ever. It is getting increasingly impossible for a high school senior with a 4.0 and perfect SAT score to get into one of America’s top colleges or universities unless he or she also single handedly founded an orphanage and helped run it on the side. (That’s not even a hypothetical situation—I actually have a friend who did that). In my college dorm common room this year, underneath the typical mess of old pizza boxes, beer cans, play-station controls, and cable bills were also my friends’ subscriptions to The Economist, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. The point being, many college students are regularly investing in both booze and business tips with the same fervor.

A recent New York Times article sites a study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor that found an unusually high business start-up rate among its 18-24 year olds (more than ages 35-40) in the United States compared to other developed nations. “American children play a much more influential role in society and enjoy a remarkable degree of autonomy. Teenagers receive higher allowances, have greater access to credit cards, and have more money to spend on culture, or, in some cases, to spend on starting a business.” In fact, just seconds ago, my friend emailed me a link to a belt company she started when she was fifteen that is now extremely developed and successful.

Today, the college student’s hero is more likely to be Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard sophomore/creator of the popular website Facebook.com than Will Ferrell’s character in Old School. In other words, it’s cool to have a brilliant idea, and the cool kids with the brilliant ideas are getting younger and younger and want you to notice. As a generation, they feel slightly entitled to non-entry level positions, raises before they are necessarily deserved, and an elaborate social life all at the same time.¹ What I feel is important to learn from this is that America’s over zealous teens are serious about wanting to be taken seriously. Advertisers could use this to their advantage by playing to their egos, treating them as sophisticated consumers, and being aware that, yes, eighteen year olds are reading The Economist, but still playing Grand Theft Auto.

 ¹ Source: CNNMoney.com “Gen Y at Work” May 15, 2007




Every year some of the world’s greatest thinkers and doers come together to discuss and exchange some of the world’s most interesting information. This event is known as the TED conference. Probably never heard of TED I assume? Well if I had to describe the personas who makeup the general audience I’d define them as CEO’s, Physicists, Psychologists, Researchers, Creatives, Architects and Anthropologists to name a few. Sergey Brinn and Larry Page of Google fame are advisors; so is Jeff Bezos of Amazon, along with Dean Kaymen - who invented the Segway.

I’ve tried to follow the annual events at TED through blog posts, press, etc. since something monumental always transpires.

Enter Blaise Aguera y Arcas who wins my award for most amazing technology provider I can apply towards media today.

Blaise is the architect of Microsoft’s Photosynth technology. Think of Photosynth as a new way to display images on the web. Boy that didn’t do Blaise justice. Let me try again:

Think of Photosynth in the same way Steve Jobs approached the iPod or better yet, iTunes. A cleaner more comprehensive way to browse online imagery. Blaise implemented a new methodology for exploring related groups of images using a complex imaging algorithm developed in part by Microsoft Research. This allows a user/viewer to interact with objects of arbituary size - you only load what you need at that very moment. He’s also crafted an absolutely revolutionary way of constructing 3D image mapping through multiple user contributions of the same image- I wont’ get too geeky. Just watch and be amazed when he starts discussing Notre Dame…

Okay back to the relevance of media. Since you’re only loading what you need in an “on demand” environment (similar to Virtual Earth), you can load incredibly high resolution imagery onto one page. So in the contexts of say, an automotive brouchure, you could feasibly drill down to smaller images of very high resolution. Think about it. We have cameras that take 10 megapixel images yet we don’t have the scalibility on our browser to display it. Blaise’s team solves this convincingly. Web browsing becomes a bit more exciting and real estate online will change drastically if Photosynth ever makes a commercial debut.