Not doing it for me. But what do I know.
Big piece in USA Today — talking about leveraging social media as a sponsor:
“Blogging from China. The Beijing Games are the first to allow athletes to blog during the Games. In the past, athletes could blog only until opening day, then resume after the Games ended. But new International Olympic Committee rules permit blogging during the Games.
Lenovo doled out computers and video cameras to more than 100 Olympians, asking them to tell their tales. Lenovo.com/VoicesOfTheGames has contributions from athletes representing more than 25 countries.”
These are making their debut during the Olympics. I’d really appreciate any feedback. I’ll disclose my favorite later. These are Ogilvy and Mather spots. I’ll get the credits on the creative and production teams from my colleagues this evening. Time to hit the beach.
We call this one “Troll”
This one is “Laser”
And “Castaway”
Finally, “Sumo”
Today’s NYT has a piece by Steve Lohr on the occasion of IDG (publisher of InfoWorld, PCWorld, CIO, etc.) achieving the vaunted print/online revenue crossover.
“In 2002, 86 percent of the revenue from I.D.G.’s publications came from print and 14 percent online. These days, 52 percent of the revenue is from online ads, while 48 percent is from the print side.”
I joined IDG for a brief period in 2005 to help with that transition, ultimately leaving at the end of the year to come to Lenovo. What I saw was a company in the throes of a difficult transition from decades of print excellence to the more ephemeral but pressing world of online news. Print and online dichotomies were tough, but in the end it was the red ink that pushed the print legacy to one side (InfoWorld went online only) and broke down the old artificial barriers between print and online editorial staffs.
Mike Friedenberg and Bob Carrigan were the two guys I worked most closely with, and both are prominently and deservedly called out in Lohr’s piece.
While publishing is not the profit engine of Pat McGovern’s empire (that honor falls to his venture capital operations), it is the flagship of the global brand, and seeing the transition occur, sooner than most traditional publishers, is a good sign for the future of a pretty beleaguered profession.
Astroturf: Fake Bloggers, Go Directly To Jail!
Fester points to Gawker:
“..the UK is about to make it a crime for companies to misrepresent themselves as consumers in their online marketing. That means, for example, that a company setting up a fake blog to hype its own products could be prosecuted, fined, and jailed. Free speech? Whatever. This is an awesome development. And bloggers can be locked up, too!”
AdAge has the story here.Â
Randall Rothenberg: War Against the Web – Business on The Huffington Post
This column by IAB CEO Randall Rotherberg on the HuffPo got me worked up. If you work in web marketing, web publishing, or any web content field that depends on advertising to sustain your business — then read this and get pissed. The privacy goo-goos are out in force and need a lesson in web anonymity. I’ll post in depth on the issue when I get out of this airport.
Meanwhile, read Randall’s post:
“Every Web site you visit is a product of “third parties.” The Web is a web; when you browse, anonymous data is exchanged continuously among service providers, sites, ad-delivery companies, content developers, analytics firms, and many others. Place undue operating burdens on this ecosystem, and it’s the ad-supported specialty sites, niche media, independent blogs, minority publications, and Mom & Pop dot-coms (thousands of which depend on third-party representatives to sell and convey their ads) that will suffer the most. Right behind them will be the traditional newspaper and magazine companies that are developing third-party online networks to augment their reach.”Do-not-track” is synonymous with “do-not-improve.” Observation of Americans’ consumption behavior has been a staple of marketing research at least since Tocqueville reported on our obsession with “commercial and industrial occupations” nearly 200 years ago. So, too, today: Online behavioral analysis is essential if marketers and media are to enhance their products, services, entertainment, information, and news offerings. Regulatory restrictions on the collection of anonymous preference information will consign us to an economy based on inefficient speculation. How can we advance the way we communicate the virtues of green cars, social investing, or charitable giving? Guesswork, I guess.
Yahoo to roll out a new ad system. Ok.
Yahoo to run Google ads. Weird.
Yahoo to get into bed with AOL to stave off Microsoft. Weirder.
Microsoft to get into bed with News Corp. to really gang up on Yahoo. Weirder still.
It’s all wrong. I went to the Microsoft digital upfront last week in New York and the emphasis was on shows. Not technology. Not context. Not apps in the clouds. But shows. Celebrity gossip, funny home improvement, stressed out moms, and college music festivals. Great stuff for the right brand — but it’s like the early days of Microsoft when Microsoft seemed to be taking the content-is-king thing seriously. Yahoo — remember Lloyd Braun? — also used to be into shows. So I guess there’s synergy going there.
I guess.
So our CEO is on CNBC last night, talking about the super skinny X300, and he lets it be known that it is spill resistant. There is actually a drain built into the machine to funnel liquids out of the machine and away from the electronics. I have never had occasion to find out if it works.
The co-anchor says, “I’ve got a bottle of water right here …”
Our CEO — a former college wrestler (Lehigh) not known for backing away from a challenge — picks up the machine and says, “Try it.”
The TV guy starts pouring away, CEO yanks the machine back, saying in effect, “I didn’t say give it a bath!” The machine is soaked. Not just the keyboard, but the entire bottom half of the machine.
Discussion goes on, then they decide to push the power button and see what happens. Drumroll please. The machine lights up. All is beautiful, high fives all around.
Here’s the video.
Ouch! Newspaper revenues take biggest plunge on record | Tech news blog – CNET News.com
Uncle Fester points us at this grim news:
“Total print advertising revenue last year dropped 9.4 percent to $42 billion from the year before, according to the Newspaper Association of America. That’s the biggest decrease since the NAA began measuring ad expenditures in 1950.
“Total advertising revenue, including online revenue, decreased 7.9 percent in 2007 from the year before.”
I want to see the percentage state of online revenue in the newspaper industry — that last paragraph infers a decline in online revenue for newspapers, which I know is not the case in the UK at least.