DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

Fascinating

Creativing :: Conan O’Brien’s tweet, Social media pushes the ‘cuddle’ button, and Web 3.0?

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week – Conan O’Brien

11 years between “Toy Story’s” and 7 months between “Twilight’s.” By that measure, the “Jonah Hex” sequel should be out in 3 days.

Virgin Gives Free Tickets to ‘Influencial’ Tweeters – MarketingVOX

If you’re into the numbers side of campaigns, this is a good read. Also a good back and forth on the value of social media as a demand creation tool. Nothing overly conclusive, but the varying points are worth reading. The end line really summarizes it well. No single tactic can do everything. It has to be a group effort.

Kynetx Introduces the Programmable Internet – the Language of the Building Block Web | Stay N’ Alive

Those wondering when “Web 2.0” would run it’s course, this could be the next direction. The trajectory of tech developments continues to be sharable, with rapid development times enabling products to get to market fast. There are several good examples of how this tech can play out.

Social Media Increases “Cuddle” Chemical Production in the Brain [STUDY]

So social media pushes the ‘cuddle’ button. That means it’s either jumped the shark or is so irreversibly embedded in our psyche’s that we’re never going back. Despite all the hype and it’s growth curve, I’d have to vote it’s the latter.

While at first glance this sounds a bit cooky, the three bullet points at the bottom reiterate things we’ve known about communication and writing for a long time. Write with verbs and not adjectives, sex sells, and use simple language for broader appeal. Signs that social media is a not-so-distant relative to traditional media.

Who Will Fall to Facebook Questions? – MarketingVOX

I recently covered Formspring as an example of answer sites that are producing remarkable traffic numbers. Granted, Formspring has a big sensationalistic slant to it. But the underlying growth is real, as this investment by Facebook clearly demonstrates. So bottom line is, despite all the content and site experiences already out there, people still have a lot of questions. Seems like an opportunity for a lot of brands.

Twitter Annotations Are Coming — What Do They Mean For Twitter and the Web?

A discussion on Twitter’s forthcoming Annotations, which get’s pretty technical fast. However, the first couple of paragraphs delve into what the real potential, and potential problems, of annotations is all about. And you can watch the video at the end of the article, if you don’t get shaky camera sickness.

Augmented Reality: Thinking Beyond Branded Hype | MobileBehavior

While this is probably one of the most robust AR mobile apps yet developed, the best part of this article is the expanded thinking on what really makes a great mobile app or AR experience, and what direction that technology is going.

9 Universal Principles of Viral Media Sites

If you’re in the content development space, you’re likely in the meme development space to some degree. This article lists points that, while obvious, are also good reminders. Bottom line is, memes are a fickle business, and need as much surrounding support as possible.

Secrets to Revenue and Innovation in New Product Development | Nielsen Wire

A summary of some remarkable findings relative to product development. Keep upper management out of the early ideation stages. And off-site teams tend to produce better ideas than those on site. Bottom line is, companies need a fresh perspective, and driving innovation from within the status quo is apparently not getting the job done as effectively.

Social Media as Digital Plastic Surgery – Eric Wegerbauer

With social media continuing it’s surge to overtake seemingly every other site category out there, a lot of contrarians are beginning to predict it’s pending doom. Many take the boredom approach, but I don’t buy that. It will reinvent itself, much like gaming. Others speak to the loss of privacy. Like that’s stopped anyone or anything on the Net so far. But Eric’s point is interesting to me. That the use of social media monitoring of customers by brands like healthcare providers and insurance companies will force many people to craft their online persona’s, killing off a lot of the authenticity. A good point, and something that hits directly on social media’s strongest appeal.

Creativing :: Android gains on iPhone, Tablets to outsell netbooks by 2012, and Twitter goes local

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweeter of the Week

This guy at the Twitter account @DavidOnDemand will apparently do anything (legal) that you ask him to do via Twitter. Seems a bit of a stretch realistically, and he’s getting a lot more requests than I’d think anyone would have time to do. Oh yeah, and he works for an ad agency and is doing this to get a free trip to Cannes. I’d guess he’ll have earned the trip. This is a search thread of the latest requests he’s receiving.

More Data Shows Android Gaining on iPhone

A few weeks ago reports came out about Android sales surpassing iPhone sales in Q1 of this year. Now the logically-ensuing usage stats. Most noticeable is the change in share of consumption. The charts are very simple and readable.

Sorry, Sheryl Sandberg, Stats About Teenagers Don’t Show Email Dying

While email isn’t quite the killer app is used to be, it’s still highly relevant to most people, including teens. When the PEW research came out, there was a lot of buzz about the email stat saying only 11% of teens email daily. But it says more about their choice of communication platforms than anything, as even in 2006, the figure was only 14%.

Forrester Projects Tablets Will Outsell Netbooks By 2012, Desktops By 2013

I don’t doubt this for a minute. In fact, as the article states, it could be a serious underestimate. What this really means? That the online user experience is going to continue to fragment into more and more devices. These trends also show how computing is becoming less and less a work chore tool, and more and more a way of doing just about anything in life. So the heavy lifting of a desktop become unnecessary (along with the added expense).

Espresso Machine Personalizes Service Through Mobile Phone Identification | MobileBehavior

My first reaction was, Why have the dock and not just use BlueTooth? Whatever, the point is well made at the end. That to realize the future potential of mobile, think way outside the current structures of content, search, and communications.

World Cup 2010 Twitter replay | guardian.co.uk

A nice animated info graphic featuring the top keywords Tweeted during given World Cup matches. The graphic style and animation of this is great. I think they need to filter out the more obvious words, tho, to make it more varied and tell a deeper story. Check out the England vs. USA match, when USA got their lucky break goal, and the term LOL pops up.

Twitter Blog: Twitter Places: More Context For Your Tweets

It’s been a little surprising that Twitter hasn’t integrated this long ago, given the rise of location based services. Bottom line is, Tweets can now be sources to a location if the sender OKs it. For a lot of location-oriented companies, there’s a lot of potential here.

Brands Planning for a Mobile Future @ The #Promise | MobileBehavior

The Web has always had more to offer individuals than corporations, and this is an interesting look at how social and mobile developments of the future should extend that trend.

Bars Turn to Texting to Warn of Rowdy Patrons – NYTimes.com

Interesting use of texting to share information among bars, much like they track cheaters in Vegas. Of course, any time you have people sharing info outside the standard law enforcement practices, someone’s going to have issue with it. But I have to credit the police and bar owners for a creative solution to their problem.

Why Twitter’s new ads are ingenious – CNN.com

Pete Cashmore on Twitter’s advertising model. He writes a good overview of how it works, although the service doesn’t seem that innovative to me. He brings up some good points at the end about how this really excludes the small marketer, and just applies to large brands willing to drop the large $ to get their presence on Twitter. And that’s an interesting distinction from Google, who broke new ground in advertising by doing the opposite. Enabling anyone to play, and on a level field. Understandably, Twitter’s trying to figure the whole revenue thing out, but at this point I don’t see their model as nearly as scalable as Google’s was right out of the box.

Creativing :: Mary Meeker’s online advertising predictions, Flash ads on iPhone, and 600 shopping mashups

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site
Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

I say, “Someone I follow on Twitter said…” way too often in normal conversation.

@CMSummit – Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Presentation

Probably the single best predictor of the future of the ad business I’ve seen in one place.

Record A Song On The Subway… Or Anywhere : NPR

Yes, there’s no shortage of tech wonders as of late. And yet, sometimes things really stand out amid a wave of innovation that reminds us just how absurdly advanced things are becoming. This did that for me. I’ve been playing with multi-track recording for years, and to think that technology that you can record a studio album on could be something you carry around on your phone is remarkable. As if we need yet another reminder of really how crazy this mobile revolution is going to be.

Bros Icing Bros

Latest in the ‘creative meme’ department. This would seem to have all the earmarks of a brand-driven meme; especially the seemingly way-too polished website. Then again, the whole thing is an insult to the brand. Interesting, but I’m not ready to carry around my “Ice Block” just yet.

BP buys Google, Yahoo search words to keep people away from real news on Gulf oil spill disaster

Just pathetic. This isn’t the era of transparency because someone thought it was a good idea. It’s because the free flow of information is such that it’s more and more difficult for companies like BP to lie.

Live, From Deep in the Gulf – NYTimes.com

While I haven’t found much to credit BP for in this mess, this is one instance. It really plays to a much deeper approach to handling this problem. Instead of trying to spin everything, acknowledge the problem, and give people access to information so they don’t feel like they’re being played. Of course, they haven’t done that across the board, and thus this feels more like an aberration for the brand versus a genuine effort to level with the public.

IfItWasMyHome.com – Visualizing the BP Oil Disaster

This smart data/map mashup places a region equal to the BP oil spill on a map in the area your most familiar with: Your home area. What I find really smart about this is that the title “If it was my home” adds emotional relevance that just the technology mashup alone wouldn’t do.

Adobe to Bring Flash-Based Ads to iPhone

I wouldn’t think Apple would oppose this, because unlike their previous blocking of using Flash to author iPhone apps, the authoring of banner ads isn’t where the money is; it’s in selling the ad units. That’s a very different scenario from apps, where it’s all about the sale of the app, and so Apple would have a much more vested interest in controlling that process. Whatever the case, though, it’s odd to see a company like Adobe — which via Flash played such a large role in bringing a richer experience to online advertising — being relegated to this sort of workaround to keep their technology relevant. Another reminder of how fast things change in this biz.

Best Buy’s Movie Mode Enables Second Screen Interaction | MobileBehavior

As we’ve seen, the future may not be so much about the merger of the proverbial three screens as it is the integration of them. This is a mobile app that gives you a peak into what characters are saying during the end credits of a movie. Seemingly a small sliver of the real potential here.

Seth’s Blog: Paperback Kindle

It’s interesting to see how Seth’s recommendation to the Kindle team for warding off Apple is all about user share. That’s something every mobile manufacturer and carrier should be taking notes on, as well. But the crux of the story is in the last line, when he tells of seeing a kid in diapers operating an iPod Touch. One of these days people will stop underestimating the importance of good user interface design.

600 Shopping Mashups

One of the things I recommend is reading about marketing-oriented technology, even if you don’t understand much of what they’re saying. So while the site is Programmable Web, don’t let that scare you. What’s readily noticeable is that the vast majority of these are shopping comparison tools. And while they may be full-screen tools right now, most are probably a fairly simple conversion away from being a mobile app. The list is definitely worth a quick scan.

Creativing :: Great Steve Jobs video on Apple and Flash, Second Life’s second life, and 3-D printing comes home

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site
Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

Ray Kurzweil needs to get the singularity happening STAT, while we still have time to make Betty White immortal.

D8 Video: Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Adobe Flash | D8 Conference

I’ve posted a lot on Apple and Flash lately, but this is the read all to end all. Steve Jobs do a great job explaining why he doesn’t like Flash. Beyond that, he explains it in a way that anyone in the business of “using technology to market to people” should understand.

FRONTLINE: digital nation: virtual worlds: second lives: inside a virtual meeting | PBS

Watch this just for the scene about how IBM is using Second Life for virtual meetings. And before you dismiss what sounds like a goofball idea, listen to the research reports around how virtual meetings can impact future business dealings, virtual and in person.

IMVU’s Virtual Cash Cow: Doubling Revenues, Focused On Gaming (Video)

This on the heels of the post above. Second Life has found a … second life, and now there’s news of another virtual world that’s not only pulling registrants, but making profits. Maybe I’ll see if my Second Life account is still active.

Voice of BP Twitter Parody Beats Industry With a Stick – Advertising Age

This guy’s doing a great job of lampooning BP PR on Twitter. And he notes the online marketing media are asking the question: “How should BP respond to him.” Really, BP shouldn’t be wasting any of their time responding to this. That’s taking their eye off the ball. They need to focus on the problem and let the surrounding noise take care of itself. Companies need to worry less on how they’re going to spin all their problems, and focus on solving those problems.

The HTML5 Video tag, built for SEO | VideoRetailer.org

So HTML5 already is (ostensibly) less buggy, requires less bandwidth, has a higher image quality, loads faster, and is easier to develop in, and now it’s also considered more SEO friendly. That’s a pretty big dagger in the heart of Flash.

Homicide Report Map – Los Angeles Times

This type of thing has been done before, but of course, being an Angeleno, this is more relevant. It’s great to see publishers delivering information in ways that acknowledges their readership’s intelligence and curiosity.

VW Punches Up Kimmel’s Intro

This is a really well done product integration. Picking up a simple theme from their recent Super Bowl spot and applying it to an intro for Jimmy Kimmel. Well done.

Quit Facebook Day Fails To Spark Mass Exodus

No surprise here. If anything, it shows how quickly hot button issues can both rise up and fade. Especially with other events in the news. When our coastal beaches are turning into oil slicks, it makes privacy settings on an opt-in social network lose some of it’s urgency.

3-D printers are poised to enter home electronics market – latimes.com

Think about printing, only out of the printer comes a physical, 3-D object. The home versions of these compositors start at around $750, which makes them remarkably accessible. These low-end machine’s kick out simple plastic objects. But Jay Leno has an industrial version ($27,000) that kicks out actual car parts. There’s an interesting site called Shapeways that features a lot of art for sale. It’s interesting that this technology could be a boon for sculptors and other types of 3-D artists who’ve never really been able to mass market their products before. And interesting that technology could enable them the same way digital recording and distribution impacted the music industry starting about 15-20 years ago.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Craigslist TV?, and Foursquare links to print ads

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

RT @hodgman “Just out here retweeting.”

Craigslist TV: Just as Awkwardly Entertaining as You Would Imagine [VIDEO]

Craigslist never ceases to amaze me. For one, it’s ongoing popularity, despite a horrible user interface. But even moreso, the way it frequently extends directly into popular culture. The personals are read for entertainment, artists do visualizations of the “Missed Connections” sections, and now this. There’s a fairly personal nature to much of Craigslist content, from personal ads to what people are selling out of their garages, that helps people identify with the content.

Facebook to Simplify Privacy Controls – NYTimes.com

Facebook responds to the privacy blowup. Given the speed of change Facebook’s been going through, and the Apple-esque disregard for outside opinion (some that’s both asset and liability for both), this whole scenario isn’t surprising.

More than anything, this really points to the role user experience plays in app and site development. Ignore it at your own risk.

Earthjustice Uses Foursquare to Make Print Ads Actionable | MobileBehavior

With Foursquare all over the news, the big question is, What are the different ways brands will be using technologies like this in their campaigns? This example links print work to mobile, with mass transit posters prompting riders to ‘checkin’ on a give subject to support an environmental cause. One great feature is that they’ve taken a print piece and given it a highly-trackable action.

Mobile creation – the Japanese way – Popwuping

The Japanese have long been ahead of us in mobile usage, and this is a good topline of their user behavior and why it’s different from the computer-based Internet.

YouTube Launches Platform for Crowdsourcing Suggestions

I’m seeing a lot of activity around the crowdsourcing/answers site format lately. Here, YouTube demonstrates again their value to Google in the way that Google can so quickly integrate many of their broad span of features into the largest video site in the world. In this case, I’m not sure video adds that much to answers, although given the power of video, it’s certainly worth Google trying. Bottom line is, there’s a lot of potential in answer sites, and that’s what Google’s trying to tap.

5 Ways To Turn Your Traffic Into Valuable User Data

Clearly your site visitors are a valuable source of insights and information about what interests them and others like them. The question is, How do you gather that information? This is a list of 5 tools that can help you ask them questions, process the information, and even compare it to competitor sites for relative value.

Google Rolls Out More Tweet-Based Ads

Using a Twitter feed to create the content for a Google AdSense ad is a great idea not only because it’s new and innovative, which generally tends to do well for online marketing, but because it does two things at once. It provides the advertiser with an extremely simple content management system for piping fresh messaging into their ad, and it also prominently promotes their Twitter account, which is a strong conversion action for many marketers.

Flash Enthusiast Sends a Hidden Message To Steve Jobs

This is quite clever. A creative at McCann built his website in Flash, and for the image that loads incase you don’t have the Flash plugin, he’s inserted a photo of Steve Jobs giving you the finger. He’s offering the image to anyone who will install it, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find this image popping up across the Web.

Yahoo Announces Deep Integration Partnership With Social Gaming Start-Up Zynga | AllThingsD

Social gaming is red hot. And it seems such a natural for brands to get involved. An existing, highly-active audience. Relatively low production costs. And of course, it all ties in to their social media networks for sharing.

Here’s What Google TV Looks Like (PHOTOS)

I’ve posted several things recently on Google TV, which is probably the most interesting happening around TV technology. Here are some early screen snaps from the experience. This is classic Google. Throw something out there early, it looks kind of ugly, but the upside potential is clear and massive.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Facebook’s privacy blowup, and Google’s version of TVs future

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

From writer Kathy Hepinstall: “what happens in the gulf of mexico does not stay in the gulf of mexico.”

Here’s What Google TV Looks Like (PHOTOS)

I’ve posted several things recently on Google TV, which is probably the most interesting happening around TV technology. Here are some early screen snaps from the experience. This is classic Google. Throw something out there early, it looks kind of ugly, but the upside potential is clear and massive.

Can One Man Communicate Solely Through Social Media for a Month?

A remarkable story for anyone interested in cause-related marketing through social media. It really underlines the fact that successful social media campaigns are about big ideas. The ‘social media’ tools are just the distribution channels.

ESPN to Launch Social Games for Sports Fans

If you consider the popularity of sports, sports-related gaming, and social viewing (which is really best for live events, like sports), this seems like enormous territory. Actually surprised I haven’t heard about this before.

NBC Turns Television into a Social Media Game

Several interesting things about this. 1. Foursquare is featured along with the heavyweights of social media (and note there’s not a single Google property), 2. The Facebook rules and regulations say you can’t pay people to “Like” something, but they’re offering rewards for liking things, and those rewards have value. Maybe they’ve found a loophole with “Rewards”, but it seems like a thin line. 3. The article speaks of “Liking” doing a makeover on the Nielsen ratings system. That’s a big indicator of the power of the “Like” button.

Facebook Knows That Your Relationship Will End In A Week

A lot of people wonder what the value is of all the behavioral data Facebook can track. This example of Facebook’s supposed ability to project the end or beginning of a relationship is all they should need. Imagine just from this info, the number of related businesses that could want to target messages to either party, going into or coming out of a relationship. Then extend that across all behaviors in your life, and there quite a lot of potential for marketers. All of this potential isn’t available to companies yet, but if Facebook’s recent trends about selling your info play out, then it likely will be.

Mayors of Starbucks Now Get Discounts Nationwide with Foursquare

More interesting events on the mobile front. While Foursquare only has about 1 million users, they’re certainly the type of people Starbucks wants. Early adopters, socially active, and willing to broadcast much of their brand loyalties throughout social media.

Booyah Hits 2 Million, Stealing Foursquare’s Thunder

Booyah’s MyTown. The biggest mobile game you’ve never heard of. Already about 2x as many users as Foursquare. It’s interesting to contrast/compare with Foursquare, which is sort of a game, but not really taking the social gaming concept head-on, which MyTown is definitely doing.

The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand « The Jason Calacanis Weblog

A very well written lambasting of Facebook from a number of angles. Of course, right after this, Facebook inked a long-term deal with Zynga, the Facebook whipping boy in this article. Beyond the vitriol, Jason makes a far-reaching point about the very essence of the Web’s progress being about openness and existing outside any single company’s motives, that single company being Facebook.

Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won’t Help Facebook’s Privacy Problems

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t seem very concerned about privacy. At least not yours. However, it’s interesting to see people digging up all sorts of things from his past, like these 5 yr old IMs where he literally calls people ‘dumb fucks’ for trusting him with their information on Facebook. If he’s not responding to reporters questions about this, does it mean they’ve uncovered something he’s not comfortable with? i.e., Information he thinks should be private? Privacy advocates could start targeting him in much the same way they exposed Justice Scalia’s personal information after he opposed privacy laws.

Facebook Enters into Five-Year ‘Strategic Relationship’ with Zynga – IndustryGamers

At times, Facebook seems like a company moving so fast they’re going to meltdown, but then they pull moves like this and show how far ahead they’re thinking relative to the other majors, including Google and Apple. Social gaming isn’t even close to being tapped out, IMO. That’s why I’m impressed by Facebook putting together such an unprecedented (for them) long-term deal with a social gaming company.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, White Castle’s burger-scented candles, and Google’s Android outselling iPhone

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

A tweet from Ashton Kutcher where the TV start apologizes for you having to watch a commercial prior to viewing an online video. Research seems to reassure the ad industry that people accept interruptions for free content, but they obviously don’t have to like them, and that reflects on the receptivity of the message.

White Castle candles that smell like burgers have customers drooling

Shows you there aren’t a lot of limits on creative thinking these days. Whatever your thoughts about a burger-scented candle (not for me), they thought they had a two-month supply and sold out in 48 hours.

NYT: Post-9/11 Slogan a Potent Message From an Ad Man

The term “slogan” usually drudges up images of Bewitched, and Darren’s one-lined wonders that solved all the clients problems. But in an increasingly fragmented media world, a simple phrase may be just the thing to get across a key thought. This is a good story on a headline that looks to be doing that against terrorism in NYC.

Google’s Android army outselling iPhone, research firm says | Los Angeles Times

I figured this would happen at some point, but not this fast. This happened in Q1 of 2010. It shows the power of both getting your platform out to as many manufacturers as will carry it, as well as multiple carriers.

Advertising Lab: All Your TVs Are Belong To Hollywood

This FCC approval sounds pretty crazy. With new set top boxes enabling on-demand services, content owners will be able to remotely turn off features of your TV to prevent people from copying the content their streaming.

Bing Adds Facebook, Twitter Sharing To Shopping

This makes a lot of sense, especially when you see the screen grabs. Most shopping research still takes place in ‘search’ mode, but consulting your social circle is growing in influence. Bringing these two together right now is big. And it’s interesting that Bing beat Google to the punch.

YouTube – SearchStories’s Channel

Digital storytelling is taking on all sorts of forms, much of it using a mashup-format where people take existing elements and simply combine them in interesting ways. That’s the deal here. It’s worth a look, but probably not an hour of your day.

Will the next generation ever use a keyboard?: The Social Path

Just based on my experience with the iPhone makes the idea of physical keyboards going away entirely plausible. I’m sure at one point people accustomed to typewriters didn’t like typing on computer keypads.

Facebook Status Updates Show Which Countries Are Happiest

Both funny and insightful, Facebook has applied sentiment ratings to entire countries. The results may not surprise all that much, but as new types of info like this become more immediately available to marketers, it will inevitably start to shape their communications.

Google Goggles v1.1 Translates Menus, Books & More

An short, impressive demo of how Google’s mobile app Goggles can translate text on an image. I can see how this would be a great feature for travelers. The big story here, though, is that it’s not available on the iPhone. At least not yet. (Maybe their waiting on Apple to approve the app.)