Filed under: COOL SHT, Feature | Tags: Angelino, Apple, Beauty, ESPN, Facebook, Foursquare, Glamour, iPad 3, Jeremy Lin, LA, Linsanity, Mountain Lion, New York City, NY Knicks, NYC, Pop-Up, Twitter, Whitney Houston, WhitneyHoustonRIPocolypse, Winter
THIS WEEK: HOUSTON, WE HAVE LINSANITY
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Stan Honda / AFP / Getty Images / February 18, 2012
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Whitney Houston’s funeral Saturday drew more star power than the Grammys the weekend before including Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keyes, R Kelley, Bobby Brown, and Aretha Franklin. Wait, those last two weren’t there. Bobby Brown left because of a “seating incident” and Aretha Franklin had leg issues even though she performed in concert that very night. [raised eyebrows] I thought Kevin Costner’s words concerning his work with the star on the Bodyguard were intriguing. Not only were they clearly heartfelt but they demonstrated the challenges of being a worldwide star. Incidentally, both the Grammys and Whitney Houston’s funeral both clocked in at 3.5 hrs.
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After being in NYC for 10 days, I attempted to mimic that city’s RIPocolypse love. From snow storms to Whitney’s death, everything on Foursquare is a RIPocolypse in New York City. I also wanted to see if a location of this nature would trend in Los Angeles like it trends in NYC. One problem. It never showed up in search results. I contacted one of the co-founders of Foursquare who told me the search results take a bit to update. 3 days later. Same issue. I know we’re on the opposite coast and a little bit farther south than where digital hearts show their affection, but damn it, we Angelinos are digital nerds too. Where is the love?!
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Apart from the digital snafu, I also noticed how polarizing Whitney Houston was when I asked friends to check-in to my newly dubbed WhitneyHoustonRIPocolypse. Some were eager to jump on and some simply flat out said no, not because they didn’t want to break out Foursquare, but because they didn’t “feel the love” for Ms. Houston. I do find it intriguing that certain folks feel so negative towards the pop singer because of her demons with drug abuse. I certainly don’t condone it. That said, entertainers, while making a ridiculous amount of cash, are owned by their audience, incapable of living away from prying eyes. Entertainers have the ability to inspire so many but they are human beings like all of us. Let’s be honest, we all have our demons. So, with that, I will continue to want to dance with somebody and yes, my love is your love.
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Along with the pop star’s farewell, the din of Linsanity, an homage to the popular NY Knicks player Jeremy Lin, has been reaching fever pitch. Unfortunately, ESPN made the mistake of running a racially fueled headline on Friday bringing Lin fans to punches. Thankfully for the fans, the Harvard alumnus finally joined the social network and took the dive into his first public Facebook page.
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In other news, a warmer winter has slowed sales of typical winter purchases, gossip surrounding the coming iPad 3 announcement on March 7th has erupted, and Twitter gets yet another boost from Apple, this time with the release of the Mac operating system Mountain Lion. Take that, Facebook overlords.
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Some more Cool Sh-t:
Beauty on the Go: Pop-Up Shopping Wall
Filed under: COOL SHT, Feature | Tags: Apple, Brian Stelter, CBS, Clive Davis, CNN, Death, Gabrielle Giffords, Google, Grammys, Huffington Post, Inamo St James, Jennifer Hudson, London, NPR, NY Times, Piers Morgan, Pinterest, Providence, PSFK, Redbox, Reuters, RI, Shira Lazar, TechCrunch, Tommy Jordan, Twitter, Valentine's Day, Verizon, What's Trending, Whitney Houston
THIS WEEK: DELAY TO GRAMMY & SPEED TO TWEET
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First thing’s first, Happy almost Valentine’s Day with a little love from Google and some geeky Valentine’s Day cards.
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By now, you’re well versed in the loss of Whitney Houston Saturday night at the Beverly Hilton directly before a pre-Grammy event being thrown by the man who discovered her: Clive Davis. I recommend reading the rest of this post with the following background track. Whitney Houston’s voice has been making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end since I was a little girl. She also convinced me, incorrectly I might add, that pink eye shadow was a fantastic decision for a 7-year old. May she rest in peace.
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Last night, Jennifer Hudson paid tribute to the talented Houston belting out “I Will Always Love You” in a truly sweet and very simple performance. For all of the producers of the Grammys, please take notice of what happened in your show last night. The sad passing of Ms. Houston brought emotion back to your show. Music is the fabric which connects us together and recognizing this stitching is what transforms a show from meh to great.
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Unfortunately, CBS didn’t get the memo about the connecting powers of music. While the east coast was watching the Grammys live as it was happening in LA, the west coast had to wait 3 hours to watch a show which was happening, for some, in their own zip code. So, let me address CBS directly. Delaying your broadcast of the Grammys on the west coast is one of the most ridiculous, vile things a broadcaster could possibly do. Here are some tweets from Piers Morgan of CNN, Brian Stelter of the NY Times, & Shira Lazar of What’s Trending (formerly on CBS) outlining the failure.
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If you want to know why the entertainment business is stumbling, here is one of the best examples. While we were all tweeting away about the Grammys on the east coast, our digital counterparts on the west coast were sitting and watching the events unfold in 140 characters of text rather than in video. By the time the west coast was ‘allowed’ to watch, many social media enthusiasts had already ‘watched’ the show. The reason live events, like this one, are so powerful is based heavily on the connection we feel to family, friends, and strangers alike in different time zones taped together by the social networks. Facebook and Twitter sit us all down on our community couch, and like in Coolio’s ‘Fantastic Voyage’, we somehow all fit. Last night CBS, you disconnected us. You put us in competition with each other. You delayed a show on the west coast which was happening live IN THAT MARKET. You ran tweets on your own live feed which literally ruined the biggest moments of your own show for that audience. Please don’t cry to me about the legal ramifications continuing to persist an antiquated model. Fix it.
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Back to Miss Whitney. What you may not know about her death is that it was reported 27 minutes before major news outlets on Twitter. This, along with stories like it, represents a significant shift in the reporting of news, one that has rested in the hands of professionals with journalism degrees and now has shifted to anyone with a smart phone and a Twitter account. But slow down Gossip Girl. It’s not that simple. Twitter urges us to believe that speed should always be prioritized. Speed is pretty tasty especially when Keanu Reaves is starring. That said, there are several examples of Twitter setting the stage for misinformation.
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One such example is evident in the reporting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ “death” beginning with a tweet from NPR. Of course, Ms Giffords was shot but not in fact killed. NPR’s tweet created a cavalcade of tweets from other major media organizations including the Huffington Post and Reuters. What this represents is the classic antagonism between speed and quality. Major news organizations like the New York Times and others have to weight the information in front of them and double-check the sources before they can officially report on anything. Citizens on the street don’t have to double-check their sources and therefore speed to tweet before asking any questions whatsoever.
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So, which is better? Should the NY Times run a Twitter feed of a news story in progress on their site even before that news is verified? I try to play anthropologist on my own behavior when I’m trying to track a story of this nature. I immediately access my own Twitter feed with the anchor text of whatever I want more information about, in this case “Whitney Houston.” The sources I find there are partially verified by the fact that I follow them, increasing their accuracy at least in certain respects. I have become an editor of my Twitter feed, attempting to verify accuracy on my own, rather than waiting for the NY Times to do it. Why? We all want to be the first one to ‘break’ a story to our friends, confirming that we are in-the-know and on top of events like this one. I found out about Whitney Houston’s death in Providence, RI while visiting my mother. She had gone into a bathroom in the restaurant we were eating at and came out armed with information that another woman had told her after reading a text on her phone. While in the car on the way back home, I verified the news on my social networks, again, playing editor to the information supplied.
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In other news, Pinterest experiences the slap of the hockey stick to 10MM users drawing substantial growth from the middle of the US, one dad teaches his teenager a lesson with a 45 and her laptop. Apple rises to the top, and Redbox reverse engineers to add a streaming service.
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Some more Cool Sh-t:
Giving Your Order with the Click of a Table
Filed under: COOL SHT, Feature | Tags: #twitterblackout, ACTA, Anonymous, Apple, Car Window, Facebook, Forbes, GM, iPhone, Mitt Romney, Pinterest, President Obama, Republican, Ruby Zhang, State of the Union, Superbowl, Twitter, USC Annenberg School, Weibo
THIS WEEK: BETWEEN POLITICS & CENSORSHIP, THE TWITTER PAGES
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
While the Republican candidates continue to crucify each other in debates and public speaking engagements, Twitter has become a critical tool for candidates to engage their audiences. With 10 times more users on Twitter than during the 2008 election and the sites’ ability to break news faster than major news outlets, Twitter is certainly flexing its muscles in the political campaign space.
While Twitter fist pumps in politics, the site felt some public backlash over the weekend. Forbes claimed that Twitter had committed “social suicide” when they released news that they would be withholding tweets in particular countries (i.e. China, etc) Twitter users like Anonymous planned an online revolt on Saturday January 28th claiming they would not tweet in protest of Twitter’s action (#twitterblackout).
This move by Twitter was certainly not motivated by their desire to censor but more importantly to try and infiltrate China, a market which had 485 million online users at the end of June, more than any other country in the world. Twitter is banned in China, based entirely on the fact that the company, up until now, has refused to allow the government to censor tweets. Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, has allowed open access to the government. The site is used by 250 million users. On Friday, I sat down with Ruby Zhang who moved from China to Los Angeles to study at USC’s Annenberg School. She walked me through Weibo and explained the advantages to Twitter:
- Mainly, her friends from home all use the site and therefore the clear advantage in China is simply that it has mass scale. Twitter will have a difficult time infiltrating given this fact.
- Images in line on Weibo.com’s home page. Many Twitter folk don’t visit the online site but instead connect through Twitter clients like Tweetdeck and others. Visuals are processed by the brain far faster than text. Twitter has made inroads to add visuals in-line but they certainly have room to grow.
- Easier list and categorization features. When’s the last time you used a Twitter list? Fantastic feature but it has been de-emphasized in design updates.
In other news last week, President Obama’s State of the Union got a snazzy interactive update showing side-by-side graphics while the President spoke. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) may be even more insidious than the more well-known SOPA/PIPA, USA Today’s Superbowl Ad Meter will finally include Facebook ratings, Apple delivers blow out earnings proving that more iPhones are sold per day than babies born in the world, Pinterest is showing serious strength in pushing consumers to retail and Facebook plans to file their IPO next week.
Some more Cool Sh-t:
Re-Imagine: What’s Outside Your Car Window
Filed under: Feature, ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA, WIRELESS | Tags: Adam Ostrow, Ashmi Dang, Caroline McCarthy, Cnet, Daily Marauder, David Hayes, Deep Focus, Facebook, Flipboard, Ian Schafer, Mashable, News Corp, News Corporation, Rishi Malhotra, Rupert Murdoch, Social Media Week, The Daily, Twitter
THE FUTURE OF NEWS: FLIPBOARD VS. THE DAILY
Taking a stance on Flipboard vs. The Daily, two iPad applications which supply news content to their audiences, highlights the friction between old media and new and distinguishes the ways two companies are bringing information to users. Flipboard is a social magazine launched in July 2010 by Mike McCue and Evan Doll touted by Apple as iPad App of the Year and one of TIME’s top 50 innovations of 2010. The Daily launched in February 2011 by News Corp., designed to be the first iPad-only newspaper.
To fully discuss the future of news, I’ve brought together a group of folks with different perspectives for the weigh-in. Below are the three main contributors. Along with these, there are several other powerful perspectives weaved in along the way.
Ashmi Dang: Digital Marketing Consultant specializing in entertainment
Caroline Giegerich: Editor of Daily Marauder, Master of whimsy
David Hayes: Digital marketer in theatrical at a studio and curator of finely wrought bytes at Stilllifewithinternet.com
The Secret Sauce
“Flipboard is the “platformifiication” of publishing, open to anyone who wants to publish through it. The breadth of content available trumps the quality of individual pieces of content, with the experience being different for everyone that uses it. The Daily is “magazines as medium”, and is a literal interpretation of what the future of magazines can be – a multi-dimensional interpretation of a formerly two-dimensional edited, curated document.” Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus
A:
Flipboard allows me to be the secret sauce by giving me control over what I read. My usage is mostly concentrated on my Twitter feeds. Pulling them into Flipboard offers me a way of stepping out of the live steam to do some social listening, as well as responding and ultimately boosting my Influence Score by having dialogue with what I’ve read. An application that simplifies the process of doing all that, through a visually pleasing and unique UI, helps feed my social-networking-news-consuming-junkie needs.
For a newspaper, the biggest draw is the editorial content. The challenge for The Daily is convincing consumers that their version of the news is worth paying for. Right now, there are five categories, one being Sports which I don’t read. Of the remaining four, I’m already able to find most through my existing news channels, and others that are of importance to me are simply not covered. The value proposition and product differentiation don’t exist in terms of my needs with The Daily.
C:
In the days of the newspaper, the news editor was king, culling together a meticulously curated product from the ranks of the professional journalist. In the new era of social media, the control of content has shifted from ‘professional’ to everyone. Twitter, on the short form, and blogs on the long form have empowered the masses to become an army of content creators. Flipboard simply aggregates this new army of content creators to create a new breed of broadsheet. If my broadsheet could speak to me, what would she say? Well, she would most likely say something different minute by minute as the news developed. Flipboard fulfills this promise creating a lean back experience of news that has been curated by both the reader and their amalgamation of friends and contacts.
The Daily, on the other hand, is a traditional newspaper that has been re-packaged simply for an iPad product. One issue is delivered and served with the sections you’ve come to expect from a traditional newspaper. No personalization. No curation of the masses. This difference evokes the glaring friction traditional media has been battling with for so long: ceding control. Content creators no longer require journalism school or fancy degrees. Recognizing this is the secret sauce of Flipboard. Ignoring it is the Achilles Heel of The Daily.
D:
While The Daily is attempting to recreate the experience of reading a newspaper for lean back devices, Flipboard’s aim feels more ambitious: Create a “personalized social magazine.”
Quality as News Source
A:
Flipboard is a platform driven by my work in curating the best content for me and also offers some pretty great optional channels of aggregated content. Ultimately, I’m in charge and it comes down to my willingness to ensure that I’m reading quality information.
With The Daily, Caroline McCarthy, of CNET.com/CBS, made an excellent point while moderating a Social Media Week panel in NYC, “For The Daily to really establish itself as a long lasting fixture, its going to have to start breaking news and getting that exclusive Steve Jobs interview that Time would otherwise be getting.” Its uniqueness in this area is most critical to its success and right now, it’s just not there for me.
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Here Flipboard could potentially fall flat much like Twitter. If not carefully managed, a Twitter feed can become a garbage can of ridiculous comments. Flipboard allows the user to pick the inputs from Flavorpill to the NY Times. If a user selects only entertainment outlets, the experience will be limited to that information removing the possibility that the budding protests in the Middle East will make their way through. In this way, Flipboard’s ability to present information is only as good as the human programming it.
On the flip, The Daily is collected and published in one edition and experienced as such by all users. Flipboard is Pandora. If you decide at some point that you no longer like the blues, some energy is required to remix. The Daily is radio. I worked in radio. We DJ’s lie to you all the time about playing requests. Doesn’t happen.
D:
The Daily is a better way to get the day’s news for the target customer, the type of person who walks by his front door and misses that familiar stroll onto the lawn to pick up the morning paper. The Daily is a newspaper dressed up to look like a spaceship but a newspaper nonetheless.
Flipboard is not a very good way to get the day’s news. Why? Flipboard is the single-most pleasurable experience I’ve encountered on a touch-screen device for…browsing, but it is not a very good app for scanning. Flipboard is both an extremely pleasurable and tiresome experience. It’s a “fifteen minute app,” both in fame and in the maximum amount of time I can stand using it.
Business Model
Flipboard: free. The Daily: $.99 per issue of $39.99 per year
A:
Being free, Flipboard is contributing to their future success. Adoption and usage provide data necessary to understand what’s working and what’s not. Once they figure this out, they have the opportunity to stake a claim in what becomes the norm furthering investment and continued growth. I’d personally like to see an algorithm that pushes the most discussed topics in my feed’s front and center.
As a subscription-based service, The Daily is going to have to significantly set itself apart from its free competitors. More than ever, we are curating our own news. At a Social Media Week panel, Adam Ostrow, Editor-in-Chief of Mashable said, “News Corp has been one of the few companies that’s been successful at charging for content through the Wall Street Journal, and while I think its a bit of a different audience obviously, people will pay for information that moves markets.”
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In typical Murdoch fashion, the price is immediate even before the quality of the content has been proved out. This is called ego and the central differentiating feature again between old media and the start-up community. Start-ups focus on the user experience almost with little to no focus on how they will prove out revenue-positive results. Traditional media focuses on how to glean immediate profits before asking consumers if they like the experience. There must be some middle ground here.
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If Murdoch succeeds, he’ll have proven that people willpay for the news, even if that news is so bland that it appears to have been generated by content bots. People will pay for information online and that content doesn’t have to be Wikileaks caliber. This is because many people don’t pay for the information itself, but the experience of consuming the information. (i.e. USA Today) For a very specific, very large and very deep-pocketed user base, the experience of reading a newspaper in some version of the old way is worth paying for.
Flipboard has gone the free route and faces that long road of gaining enough users to sell ads against eyeballs. I would have charged for Flipboard. It’s the exact type of novelty I’d pay for just as I paid for FLUD and Pulse. At its core, Flipboard isn’t a magazine. It’s a feed reader, an aggregator, be they social (Facebook), Flipboard-endorsed (FlipTech) or self-curated content. This is no different from Pulse, FLUD, Feedly, Google Reader, etc. Is Flipboard one of the more unique aggregators? Certainly. Can you make real money at aggregation? Ask Google News or Tumblr. It’s tough. Content creators will give you their feeds for free but the second you try to make money off them? Watch out.
Traditional Media vs. New Media
“I’ll bet on ‘produced’ content any day. Right now, everybody aggregates the news, but few are producing. This is where The Daily stands out. It’s early, everybody is learning, but Murdoch took the right approach…conceived from the users point of view, not trying to squeeze a newspaper onto a 9 inch screen.” Rishi Malhotra, Managing Partner 212MEDIA, a NYC-based media incubator.
A:
Flipboard’s approach is acknowledging consumer’s changing behaviors with the widespread adoption of both the iPad and social networking. The Daily has delivered an electronic newspaper in a medium that begs for innovation. Advantage, Flipboard. It is looking toward the future, not reinventing the past.
C:
Flipboard represents a revolutionary way to consume news. The simplicity of the thinking is this: extend the aggregation of news outside professional editors and customize that curation by user. The end links could be the same. For example, my friend may post a link to WSJ which would be curated through Flipboard. Same as reading the WSJ? No. In this case, the WSJ was hand-selected by my friend for some reason, elevating its status like a highlighter elevates text. No one wants to think his or her job is not specialized. Flipboard makes us all editors which empowers us all. The Daily continues with the control traditional media clings to. Control the message. Control the power. Too bad the power already ceded to the community a long time ago. Democracy isn’t just for Egypt any more kids. The news is now ours to create. Move over Wolf Blitzer…
D:
From its old school subscription model to its print style ads to its broad sheet page layout, The Daily is 100% about making its users feel comfortable performing an activity that doesn’t really exist in the modern world: Reading – not scanning – yesterday’s news. This is precisely why Big Media wins in this case. They get their customer’s true needs and wants and are positioning themselves for a specific group of people with a high willingness to pay. That group just might be those 76MM Baby Boomers approaching retirement and ready to unwrap their next iPad.
The startup loses. Flipboard will basically appeal to the exact type of person who understands that it would be ridiculous to pay for yesterday’s news because they read yesterday’s news yesterday in real-time, as it happened. This is the same type of person who has enough feeds to demand a feed reader and needs that reader to be built for scanning and not browsing.
Filed under: Feature, TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Alexandra Petsavas, Apple, Facebook, iTunes, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Last.fm, Mark Zuckerberg, Micki Krimmel, Myspace, Pandora, Ping, Steve Jobs, Telephone, The Acorn, Twitter
Is Ping the MySpace Music Slayer?
Since Apple’s Wednesday announcement of the social network for music, Ping, the service has been called a MySpace killer. At the core of the Apple fan boy or girl, is an ethos that Apple can and will continuously do it better than the next guy. This ethos has been built on the back of the company’s ability to blow away the smartphone marketplace with one swift punch to the balls called the iPhone. As I sit with my iPhone parked next to me and my MacBook Pro at my fingertips, I certainly classify as an Apple fan girl. In Ping’s case, the assumption that Apple always draws shotgun would be a mistake. In its current configuration, Ping is not and will not be a MySpace killer. Until some major problems are fixed, it will continue to live in the shadow cast by powerhouses like Pandora and MySpace.
If the principle challenge with the MySpace platform is hyper-personalization turning the site into the bedroom of an over-eager teenage girl, the problem with Ping is the insistence on an overly simple user interface. I may not need the many bells and whistles thrown at me on MySpace daily but I do need more features than Ping is offering.
Here are a few reasons why Ping won’t crush my MySpace usage anytime soon:
1) What Do I Care About Most?
Photo Credit: Micki Krimmel
It’s the Music Stupid.
Ping seems to think the answer to this question is the sharing of music. In actuality, I care most about the music itself. I sit writing this while listening to Arcade Fire’s new album on MySpace. Currently, this band doesn’t even exist on Ping. While I sit listening to The Suburbs in full, the band gets a “No Results” on Ping. Yes, yes. I know the service is still too new to accommodate the likes of indie rock but perhaps more should have been done to draw bands into the service before it was launched to the public. Mashable posted an interesting article on the challenges bands face in entering the Ping world vs. the ease at which bands enter their MySpace communities and post at will. The Ping user needs more of their favorite bands and the bands need an easier way to access the new platform.
Above the selection of bands, what I really want on a music page is…in short, music. I want to listen to full-length songs like I can on MySpace music. I can’t even find any music to listen to on Lady GaGa’s Ping page until I click over to the iTunes store. As we all know in the online world, and for those who don’t know, shortening the click-thru stream is necessary for lazy audiences everywhere to engage with your platform. Don’t make it more difficult for me to get to what I really want: the music. And once I’m finally there, I get a 30 second nugget rather than what I really want: the full song. Let’s see a side-by-side Ping to MySpace comparison:
Ping
MySpace
2) Follow?
Sir Steve Jobs attracted me to the platform with his promise that 160MM global iTunes users would be there waiting for me. I fire up the upgrade, click on the attractive Ping logo with the chat bubbles and find Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, and Rick Rubin staring back at me. Now, I love the GaGa as much as the next girl, but what about my actual friends? Where are they?
Apple promised a Facebook Connect feature allowing me to easily search for my Facebook friends. Not so much… If you haven’t seen the most recent press, Apple played a bit aggressively with Facebook and was denied access to the API. On Kara Swisher’s blog, All Things D, she spoke to Steve Jobs moments after the Apple announcements and was told by Jobs that Facebook wanted “onerous terms that we could not agree to.” In essence, when Facebook’s API is called upon with over 100 million requests a day, Facebook requires a monetary agreement to handle the overload on their systems. Apple and Facebook could not come to an agreement on this and hence no Facebook for Ping.
Until this is resolved, I can only find my friends by entering in their email address one by one until I find someone. Suffice to say, this is the real “onerous” process and simply unmanageable by anyone who has a job. Yesterday, my friend from Berlin tracked me down so I officially have one real Ping friend. This is only one hiccup with the service but the most sizeable one. Until this one issue is resolved, Ping will have problems truly being a “social network for music” without connecting its 160MM worldwide users together.
3) What type of Music Defines You?
On the initial fire of the Ping community, you’re asked to pick a collection of music which will be used on your profile to define you to your friends. I don’t take this process lightly at all. Being someone who previously worked in the music industry, I take my collection and particular music taste very seriously. The user has the choice between a manual selection of music or an automatically pre-selected one chosen by an Apple algorithm. Being that this was an Apple interface, my expectation was that Apple would choose my taste better than I could possibly define my own. Yup, not the case.
Instead of looking at my music library, which would be the obvious choice, Ping seems to favor my purchased iTunes items, surfacing selections which may not be something I’d like to define my musical taste by. Selfish selection by Apple really. Imagine you buy Justin Bieber for your 12-year-old niece and all of a sudden it surfaces as your favorite music. Bieber fail. Manual entry is certainly a requirement.
**Please note: This would never happen on this MacBook of course. I wouldn’t allow this sort of download on my machine. Just sayin…
4) Sharing Begins & Ends in iTunes
Hey Apple, just want to let you know about these fantastic social networks known as Facebook and Twitter. You may have heard about them? Only about 500 MM users use the first one. Just thought I’d let you know, as you seem to care not for the likes of those little guys. You may have 160 MM worldwide users but before you get on that soapbox, Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook dominion holds down 500 MM globally. When I go to “like” something in Ping, I share that like with the Ping community alone. There are currently no sharing features with Facebook, Twitter or MySpace and with that list being the three primary social networks, seems Ping is lacking a little in the “social” department. Apple seems to be acting like a possessive boyfriend with this product rather than truly building a social experience for music.
5) News Feed Overload
After seeing a recommendation from Alexandra Petsavas, my favorite music supervisor who brilliantly filled an entire episode of The O.C. with Beck B sides, I decided to download a few tracks from the Canadian band, The Acorn. Now, my entire feed is filled with my love for The Acorn even though I downloaded a few tracks off of one album. I wish there could be more control in terms of what is surfaced and what isn’t. I don’t need every song purchase listed in my feed especially around the holidays when I decide that The Time Life Christmas CD’s are a must-have.
So is Ping the MySpace Killer? If you enjoy sitting in enclosed spaces talking to yourself about your favorite music, then yes, Ping wins.
Alright, I’m off. MySpace just threw me an “Are You Still Listening?” curve ball and I need to change this song.
“We’re sorry, the number you have reached is not in service at this time. Please check the number or try your call again.” Telephone Lady GaGa
Filed under: Feature | Tags: Facebook, I'm on TV, Kids and Teens, Marketing, New Year, New Year's Eve, Time Square, Toshiba, Twitter
PICTURE YOURSELF IN TIMES SQUARE: I’M ON TV
Sunday, December 13th, 2009. 1:00PM. Times Square. If you happened to be walking through the tourist-infested crowds in Times Square yesterday, you might have caught a red hoodie-wearing Marauder smiling back at you. My inner monologue would be, “I don’t know why you’re braving Times Square at the holidays in the rain either.”
As part of Toshiba’s countdown to New Year’s Eve, the company is launching a marketing campaign dubbed “I’m on TV.” Eighteen videos will be selected a day to air up to three times on Toshiba’s LED screen in Times Square. Participants are asked for their vision for the next decade to be recorded in 8 seconds of silent video. In addition, several videos will be selected to air on New Year’s Eve in the countdown festivities from 6PM to midnight.
The social marketer in me would have loved to see them post the videos immediately to Twitter or Facebook to make the campaign a bit more viral. As exciting as it is to know that your silly face was on a screen in Time Square, it would have been that much more exciting if those videos could travel the internet to all corners of the world. Toshiba, that is my vision for you.
So go, wax poetic about the New Year. I’ll see you in Times Square.
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Filed under: Feature, ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Adam Sandler, app, Butterball, Chef's Timer, Communities, Epic Change, Facebook, Flickr, Football, Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee, iHost, iPhone, iVillage, Martha Stewart, NFL, Online Communities, Social media, Social network, Socialvibe, Tanzania, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Song, Turkey, Tweetsgiving, Twitter, Wine Library TV, YouTube
THANKSGIVING JUST GOT A BIT MORE SOCIAL
Making the Tasty Treats
The first year my mother tried to make a turkey, she apparently over-stuffed the bird and a turkey powder keg blew a hole through the oven door exploding precious white meat all over the wall of our kitchen. Being that I had heard this story on numerous occasions, my first attempt at bird making was very well planned.
Here are a few sites to help get you started using language even the most beginner chef can understand. As an added bonus, after several years of trial-and-error, the Marauder kitchen recommends sage butter (and lots of it) underneath the skin. Also, when attempting to brine, soaking a bird in the crisper overnight is probably not the best idea…
How-Tos:
Videos to impress the giblets out of your friends:
Amazing recipes itemized by course:
Wine Pairing
Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV offers 12 wine selections to pair with the bird, a somewhat more difficult wine-pairing item.
Giving Thanks
Tweetsgiving
Last year, Epic Change launched Tweetsgiving raising $11,000 for charity in 48 hours. Those donations were used to build a classroom in Tanzania. How’s that for giving thanks? This year, the bar has been raised to $100,000. While many are returning for their third plate of stuffing, Tweetsgiving will be raising awareness across social networks from YouTube to Twitter asking users what they are thankful for. Follow @tweetsgiving on Twitter and tweet about what you’re thankful for from now until the 27th using the hashtag “#tweetsgiving” at the end of your tweet.
Socialvibe
Socialvibe donates to charity by marketing brands such as Kraft, Timberland, and Powerbar. Every time a brand is successfully marketed, charity benefits. At first, I thought this sounded a little sleazy. But really, marketers scream for your attention on a daily basis. At least in this case, charities benefit somewhere along the line.
Download the Thanksgiving Feast App to play. Every time you add a meal to the table, a real meal is provided through the UN World Food Programme.
Setting the Mood: Best Thanksgiving Song
Sure, this song is old but no has yet to top Adam Sandler on the joys of Thanksgiving.
Talking Tryptophan
Yet again this year, you can get your thanks on via many of your favorite social networks.
Get real-time cooking advice from the Butterball team either on their Twitter feed or Facebook page.
What to do when mom locks herself in the bathroom because your 35-year old brother insists on making fart noises at the table? Butterball may not have the answer for that one…
Get your spirit on with 23,000 of your other friends on the Thanksgiving fan page.
Mobile App Fun
iHost: Thanksgiving
Developed by a Rhode Islander (big-ups to my home state), iHost helps you get organized from menu, shopping list to budget. Their most recent update supposedly added recipes from local Newport, RI chefs. A little Rhode Island flavor has come to southern California. Very nice.
Chef’s Timer
If you’ve cooked with your iPhone in tow, as I always do, you know the device only has one timer. In most situations, that works just fine. But, what about situations where you have three side dishes and a turkey crammed into your tiny NYC oven while your friends stare at your assortment of tiny snacks in disdain? Yup…there’s an app for that.
Thanksgiving = Football
For those of you who know me, you understand why this comes last in the list. I know next to nothing about football. I do know that the grunting emanating from living rooms countrywide leads me to believe that you all care. This year, the NFL is offering a central portal for all 3 Thanksgiving games.
From Marauder’s home to yours, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
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- The TwitterKids of Tanzania (epicchangeblog.org)
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- How To Cook A Turkey: 7 Tips From Butterball University (huffingtonpost.com)
- Turkey tips from experts at Butterball University (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Brine Your Thanksgiving Turkey for Juicier Results [Food] (lifehacker.com)
- Recipes for a Vegan Thanksgiving (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
- How To Carve a Turkey (howcast.com)
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