Word of Mouth and TV? Viacom hopes so.

In it's effort to compete with social media and it's user generated content that everyone is using these days, TV has come up with a clever idea. Live product endorsement.
Everyone from Jimmy Kimmel to Conan O'Brien has tried this on for size lately. And who is behind this live commercial push? Viacom. The same Viacom that's embroiled in a lawsuit with YouTube over copyrighted content online. The same Viacom that's probably watching it's TV commercial budgets plummet on account of the Tivos and DVRs of the world.
While TV used to have live commercials in the days of Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson, they have dropped off in favor of produced spots only to be resurrected in an effort to get people to watch commercials again.
The question here is, with product placement becoming increasingly important for advertisers, will TV's content suffer on account of the commercials being placed directly within the content?

Yahoo, Bebo, Microsoft and Innovation.

With all of the recent news on Microsoft and Yahoo, Yahoo and Bebo, and various other combinations (all of which have yielded no solid partnerships) it's hard to resist the urge to comment. At the risk of throwing stones from my glass house....
The highest good that Yahoo, Microsoft, and anyone else in business that's trying to "catch up" with someone else is going to be just that: catching up. The best case scenario for these guys is to reach a pinnacle that Google has already achieved and try to do it slightly better. Innovation is the key to much of Google's success and I would argue that this also marks the top players in any industry. Case in point: Google employs 10 people who work solely on Artificial Intelligence. Of course, we haven't taken advantage of this technology yet and no one has monetized it but you better believe that when it does, Google is going to be miles ahead while everyone else tries to buy their way in.
If you are busy trying to catch up with the leaders without branching off in new directions, you lose your ability to lead any market. Granted, your business may not have the capitol that Google has to pursue robots or plasma solar panels but small steps towards innovation in any company can yield successes that can catapult your business to the forefront.
Keeping up with the industry is important but don't forget to have "nest egg ideas" for your business. Innovative projects keep your team fresh, exited, and most importantly, prepare you for changing markets.
Lots of companies display the "catching up" mentality when it comes to social media as well. Facebook garnered attention for those who jumped on early but now is no longer the newest, most innovative way to have a presence online. Even a Youtube video with millions of views isn't displaying the same power as it did a year ago. Fortunately, there are ways to reach your online audience emerging every day so while I wouldn't recommend changing your entire buying plan based on new technologies, I would recommend educating yourself on them and giving them a try.

Web 2.0 Plays Matchmaker with Direct, Brand Marketing

In a new study by the Direct Marketing Association, survey respondents say that Web 2.0 is an excellent way to both increase brand awareness and generate sales, which "paves the way for integrating direct and brand marketing," writes MarketingVox.

80 percent or more of respondents use Web 2.0 to raise brand awareness, increase brand preference, generate sales , and generate leads. But what's really interesting:

* 85 percent of respondents use Web 2.0 to engage their customers and rate it as a highly effective mechanism for customer engagement
* 84 percent of our respondents use Web 2.0 to create a community of loyal customers, and they find it very effective for doing so

Still, only:

* 82 percent of respondents allocated a quarter or less of their marketing budget toward Web 2.0
* 70 percent of those who report that they are experts in interactive marketing also allocate about a quarter of their budget to Web 2.0

So why, if it's so effective, are marketers only spending 25% of budgets on it? Maybe it's the relative cost of online to offline? Maybe it's still widely considered a rogue strategy in the eyes of CMOs accountable for budgets? Maybe people like Web 2.0, but just don't know how to spend money on it, what to do exactly, etc.? Lots of questions. Fortunately though, people agree Web 2.0 works, and overall spending on it is steadily increasing.

Teens and Social Media: Research Stats

Over 17.7 million teens (12 to 17 year olds) will be using social networking sites by 2011, according to eMarketer.

As was expected, U.S. teens (10 to 15 year olds) use of social networking sites, in most segments grew from 2006 to 2007.

The percentage of girls, both in the age categories of 10 to 12 years old and 13 to 15 years old, continues to be higher than the boys.

Specifically, according to research from Harris Interactive’s “Trends and Tudes” (April 2008), for boys ages 10 to 12 years old participation in social networking sites totaled 8 percent in 2006, reaching 17 percent participation in 2007. For boys ages 13 to 15 years old in 2006 had social networking participation of 38 percent, which grew to 46 percent in 2007.

Additionally, for girls ages 10 to 12 years old had participation in social networking sites of 11 percent in 2006, reaching 27 percent in 2007. However, for girls age 13 to 15 years old, participation fell from 57 percent in 2006 to 54 percent in 2007.

Decentralize Twitter

The Blogosphere is buzzing with Twitter comments and advice.... and in case you've been knocked out for a week, let me catch you up. The long and short of it: Twitter has been going down every few days from so much use and people are calling out for another 10 Twitters.
Two bloggers that have been quite vocal about the issues here are Dave Winer and Marc Canter - and they are right on target with what needs to happen here, Twitter needs to be decentralized otherwise we are building a house of cards.

Everything in Real Time?

One of my favorite things about Sway is that we always say that things move very quickly here. We reflect on last week like it was last month and yesterday was ages ago. We track our campaigns in real time so we can literally watch our campaigns be delivered to sites, watch our e-mails being opened, videos being watched, etc. There's something slightly voyeuristic about it, and anyone who compulsively checks site traffic or page views knows exactly what I mean here.
As it turns out, the rest of the world wants in on real time. The last thing to go real time was a school that allows parents to track their kids' grades in real time. I'm not sure how this works exactly unless they've hired a teachers assistant to grade every student's answer but it seems that some things shouldn't be tracked the same way as an ad campaign. Poor kids will have to deal with a lower grade for every wrong answer and how will we track recess time?
Imagine tracking other fields in real time. We could get online and check our police force in real time and watch speeding tickets being given....
When it comes to real time tracking for social media, it's an overwhelmingly good thing but it will certainly be interesting to see where else we'll try to use it.