November 2011
34 posts
Is there such thing as an ‘ad nerd’? →
I’m hoping to meet Farrah one day. This is one epic post and a scathing take on agencies.
“I’ve encountered people in ad agencies who aren’t even nerdy about advertising. They don’t really love advertising, they don’t know it well, they don’t study it. They pay attention to who wins awards, especially when it’s them or their friends. They pay attention to which accounts are in...
What is Digital Strategy and Why Agencies Need It?... →
The best digital campaigns have been built around the innovative connections between buyers and sellers that are characteristic of the new models of exchange. Pepsi Refresh project connected the brand with the community. New Balance teamed up with the long-distance runner (and a certified weirdo) Anton Krupicka, Uniqlo created Lucky Counter which combines group dynamics with people’s...
a (small) thing of weight and mass: Analyst: Pay... →
In other words: Pay TV executives’ argument that there is little evidence of cord-cutting is “an oversimplification,” the analyst said. “Today’s problem: economically-driven cord-avoiders.”
After all, the economy has at least in part been responsible for fewer new homes subscribing to pay TV.
…
GE going big with Bay Area software initiative... →
In addition to everything else it does on a large scale, GE is getting into the software business and has chosen the Bay Area as the springboard. — General Electric is set today to announce the opening of a $1 billion Global Software Center in San Ramon …
Make Customers are Smart as You Are.
For every effort a firm makes in educating itself about the customer, it should expend an equal effort in educating the customer. It’s a tough job being a consumer these days. Any help will be rewarded by loyalty. If you don’t educate your customer, someone else will—most likely someone not even a competitor. Almost any technology that is used to market to customers, such as...
Data Hostage.
A new technique of cybercrime is the taking hostage of data. “I think it’s going to become a more common tactic for attackers,” says Karen Schuler, Senior Managing Director of Kroll.
Here is more.
Via Marginal Revolution.
Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports announced today that they approve of the iPhone 4S, after famously refusing to recommend the iPhone 4 because of that antenna issue that turned out to affect almost none of the millions of people who bought it.
I’m looking at their full test results (I’ve been a CR website subscriber for six years), and I’m really not confident in the metrics and priorities that they seem to be...
2 tags
Subtraction.com: Introducing Mixel →
That’s where we think the power of social software can be a difference maker. Like multitouch tablets, social software is capable of many amazing transformations, including the idea that activities that were previously reserved only for experts can be democratized and made doable by anyone. The list of such transformations is long: journalism, filmmaking, fundraising, photography, even design and...
1 tag
Markets in everything separating equilibrium... →
Consider the innovative employment policy of the Internet shoe seller Zappos. At the end of a four-week training course, Zappos offers new employees a one-time offer of $3,000 to quit. In part, the company uses the offer as a screening device. If you’re the type who prefers a quick three grand to the opportunity to work at a great company, then Zappos isn’t the place for you.
1 tag
Be a good person; Do what you love →
work on things that make you forget what time it is.
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"A Charlie Brown Christmas" Makes the iPad Feel... →
interesting.
1 tag
Amazon.com - Wish List →
Not the worst marketing idea from Amazon.
How to participate in the Sweepstakes and add items from other websites to your Wish List:
1. Install the “Add to Wish List” add-on.
2. Find something you want (from another website).
3. Click the Wish List browser button and then “Add to Wish List.”
The Wish List Add-on is free.
Email as RSS
My Gmail is just a shitty form of RSS. Every morning I get 30 or so emails from companies that publish once-a-day-emails. Essentially, I have a RSS feed of Groupon, Livingsocial, Urbandaddy, Thrillist, etc., sending every post to my email box as a message. But they’re not organized by sender. And I can’t “mark all as read.” I have to delete every one.
If Google Reader was...
2 tags
AMEX OPEN Forum taps New York City's startup... →
I feel like digital strategists can do a better job connecting startups and large companies. Playing match maker rather than making new ideas seems a hell of a lot easier.
3 tags
Social Experience Design: one method, two tools,... →
Examples of Myspace, Friendfeed, Twitter, and Second Life. Seriously.
5 tags
Naked Truth about ROI - BuzzAgent →
Study on how to measure ROI by Buzz Agent.
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Digiday - What If Brands Never Learn to Love Web... →
“Maybe brand building on the Web won’t happen as much through standardized banners — yes, make them bigger and prettier, by all means — but through creating ad formats that are more native to the Web. After all, it’s no mistake that search, although only a fraction of the pages viewed on the Web, is still nearly half the spending online. Search is a native format, created...
4 tags
How Khan Academy is using Machine Learning to... →
“Conversations with the team led me to conceive of applying machine learning to predict the likelihood of getting the next problem correct, and use that as the basis for a new proficiency model. Basically, if we think you’re more than t% likely to get the next problem correct, for some threshold t, we’ll say you’re proficient.”
Khan Academy finding a better solution...
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i'm jon crowley, i’m convinced that advertising... →
“i’m convinced that advertising will get better, and more effective, the second we decide to start treating it like art again.”
Via Jon Crowley.
I feel this way about the Nike Basketball Lockout ads:
http://bit.ly/twDX6V
http://bit.ly/vpnTxL
The Cult of “Great Product” →
startups
2 tags
Don't Give Your Users Shit Work →
“More often than not, letting your app handle the shit work is going to be better than letting your users handle it.”
Smart thinking on why Google+ groups are shitty compared to Facebook’s.
1 tag
Bootstrapping Design : Learn easy design... →
Proof that anyone can make a sweet design with keynote and the right context.
Grand Unified Theory
“What we need… is not a wholly comprehensive theory of advertising, but a slightly advanced theory of advertisements. A framework for thinking how different sorts of advertisement might work, for different circumstances, at different stages of time.”
Stephen King, Practical progress from a theory of advertisements, 1975
Creating a grand theory of how digital works is impossible. But for...
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Everlane →
Really interesting value proposition. New products. Every month. Under $100. Future of retail is at hand, and, for once, I can’t see Amazon comparing.
3 tags
Hyperink — eBooks You'll Love →
Called the skillshare for books. And nice web design too.
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Welcome to The Verge | The Verge →
Sweet tech news startup called the Verge. Code and Theory and Area 17 did to build and design.
“it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.”
3 tags
"Startup Names" by Paul Graham, 14 Mar 2006 →
Naming startups, by the great Paul Graham.
