DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

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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 :: Facebook plugins overview, Personalization gone extreme, and crowdsourcing crime fighting

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Tweet of the Week

Just geeked out about iPads with some SF policemen. Man I love this city.

McDonald’s to Use Facebook’s Upcoming Location Feature – Advertising Age

Facebook offering location based technology was inevitable, and it will be interesting to see how this further shapes the war between Facebook and Twitter. The bomb drop stat in here is Facebook has over 100 million users on it’s mobile app alone, which is what Twitter has in it’s entirety.

Participatory Sensing: SnapScouts App Crowdsources Crime Prevention | MobileBehavior

The idea of crowdsourcing crime fighting might seem a bit nutty, but then again, that’s not far from America’s Most Wanted TV show. I can only imagine the abuse this could generate in the form of practical jokes. At any rate, the app is enough to pull comments from Bruce Sterling, who sees it as a key link to the future.

Apple Worship: Creating a Brand – Design and Architecture on KCRW

There’s a good interview at the front of the podcast with brand marketer Sasha Strauss on how brands extend beyond feature sets and price points.

Advertising Lab: Private Customized Adventures

A company that will privately engineer someone’s day, for better or worse? A bit creepy, but could definitely see this used positively for a buzz-worthy human interest story.

5 Ways Facebook Will Impact E-commerce

What most brand’s want to know about Facebook’s Open Graph is “How will this help me sell more product?”. Here are some good examples of that.

Facebook’s Social Plugins

Facebook’s Open Graph was just announced, and it’s the pervasiveness of the “Like” button that seems to be the topic of most conversation. However, there are a number of plugins that marketers can use on their sites to make a visitor feel more at home. They’re explained, with visuals, on this page.

Confessions of an Executive Producer: i have seen the future

I’m not familiar with the Canon D5, but certainly appreciate how technologies — even the non-Net variety — impact the marketing and advertising business. Jerry Solomon, Managing Partner of Epoch Media, outlined some interesting thoughts on how this, camera and others like it to come, will further shape the production process.

8 Lessons for Creating Social Impact | Fast Company

While focused on physical product design, I was struck by how similar these principle’s are to product/app design on the Web.

Tim Hanlon Reviews New Role at Catalyst S+F, And Agency As Venture Fund

A lot of advertising people are reevaluating their careers, and the industry at large. Tim Hanlon just joined CatalystSF as a partner responsible for venture investments, and shares his thoughts on the changing role of agencies. It’s a particularly interesting POV given his venture capital background, and I think this is a space a lot of agencies would love to be operating in, assuming they can make the numbers work.

Creativing :: Hugo Chavez Tweets, Facebook’s Open Graph explained, and the best iPad app yet

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Tweet of the Week

Technically, “Twitterer” of the week. This week, Hugo Chavez joined the digerati. And his username roughly translates to ‘devil’ in many Latin American countries, although in Venezuela, it also means ‘rabble-rouser’. Either way, a little nutty coming from the 5th largest oil producing nation in the world.

The Color of Words | Codename: “Cuttlefish”

Copywriters and Art Directors, unite. This is both entertaining and useful for checking people’s creative color explorations. Each color is given a name, generally closely tied to the color it brings up. Well worth a few minutes of mousing around.

Facebook Sends Window Decals to Local Businesses

Start looking for this type of thing to be as common on a store window as credit card stickers.

Augmented Reality Billboard Puts Passersby in a Street Fight [VIDEO]

Strong execution using Augmented Reality in a digital billboard.

MobilGlyph: Making Data Tangible – Popwuping

Video demonstrating the use of QR codes as a way to enable data entry in a mobile phone for illiterate people. The final interface is a little like scrolling through the Facebook mobile app to make a call.

Facebook and the New SEO | Stay N’ Alive

If you read one article this week, this is probably a good one to read. An explanation on the power of Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol and it’s potential impact on advertising.

More Absurd Social Media Analysis – The Value Of A Fan

If you didn’t hear about the attempt to value a Facebook Fan at $3.60, it pulled a lot of commentary. Beyond the narrow definition of the value of a Fan that this approach took, it’s just as wrong to think that every company will benefit the same from their fan base. At any rate, this post delves into why whatever the value, the equation they used doesn’t really capture it.

Google TV to be Unveiled Next Month

Here comes Google TV. And the web-enabled TV platform is based on Android. Get ready to use your mobile phone as the remote control for your entire TV. And while you can do this with an iPhone and AppleTV today, it is an Apple TV after all. And the power of bringing together numerous mobile phone and TV manufacturers on the same platform will likely pay off well for the Google TV participants.

Google’s nightmare: Facebook ‘Like’ replaces links – CNN.com

Why Facebook’s ‘Like” and Open Graph system are such a threat to Google. It takes the idea of indexing what’s popular on the Web, and puts that information inside Facebook, where Google’s search algorithm can’t ‘see’ it. Not good for Google if that algorithm drives the bulk of your revenues.

Lessons from Yahoo’s iPad App in the Cloud

The most impressive iPad app i’ve seen yet. And from Yahoo, no less. I really like how seamlessly this app brings together a large cross section of news and entertainment. When they go to the TV listings, you can see how you could navigate directly to the show, when available. Then, just add a button to push the video feed to a large TV monitor, and the iPad becomes a must-have device for finding content that you then share with everyone in the room. Compare that to the current way of finding out what’s on TV and then playing it.

Creativing :: Na’vi seen at the mall, Facebook’s threat of dominance, and Twitter’s new capabilities

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Tweet of the Week

Project Virgle was an April Fools joke but Sir Richard is discussing Google/Virgin collaborations with humor.

Facial Recognition Software Turns Shoppers into Na’vi Avatars – MarketingVOX

I really like how they’ve taken an idea that could have easily been applied to an app, and placed it in the middle of one of the busiest malls in LA. I’d guess there are crowds around this checking it out. Then to link that to a database acquisition is icing on the cake.

Create Super Customized Dress Shirts with Blank Label

I’m impressed by how H&M can get take fashion trends from the street to their shelves in 6 weeks. But this might even circumvent that speed to market.

Google Buzz Hits Google Maps; Search Suggest Comes To More Countries

With all the ‘buzz’ about Facebook, Foursquare, Apple and Twitter, I’ve almost forgotten about that little company Google. At any rate, this is a pretty good UX, really only limited by first, a lack of quantity, and then, a way to filter. But the combination of logins in an environment as practical and comprehensive as Google Maps has obvious big potential. Especially for mobile.

Hospital Outfits Staff with 100 iPads

What really impresses me about the iPad is the distinct benefits we’re already seeing coming from it. Game changing for businesses and people alike. Here’s another good story about how the iPad has enabled a 99 year old woman to start reading again with the text enlarging feature (yeah, that was dooable in most browsers, but not really practical). http://mashable.com/2010/04/23/ipad-99-year-old-woman/

How Does One Compete With This Beast? Here’s How: | Stay N’ Alive

A developer (who also happens to be a good writer) gives his take on the impact of Facebook’s latest announcement around global connect, and what the next evolution of the Web might be beyond that.

On Google’s Brand – John Battelle’s Searchblog

John has literally written the book on Google, so always interesting to hear his thoughts. And given he’s been a big proponent of the Google way, his sense that Google is meeting a critical point in their history is clear.

Ajaxian » Blowing up HTML5 video

The Apple – Adobe brawl over Flash is looking like a bantam-weight fight compared to the Facebook – Google square off. But if you’re in content development, it’ll probably factor into some of your decisions over the next few years. What’s interesting to me about this is the text at the top of the page remains searchable HTML text, while the video is able to expand right over that text. Keep in mind that the big problem with Flash for many people is it’s relative invisibility to search engines. That, and this would enable all sorts of expandable banner ideas, possibly without requiring rich media apps and their related ad serving fees.

NYT: Twitter Gets More Features, and Competitors

If you had any doubts about Twitter’s continuing popularity, they’re adding 300,000 new users a day. Remarkable. Their new service, titled “@ anywhere”, will integrate location-based services to Twitter as well as a database of nearby places, for which you can then view a feed to Tweets coming from that specific location. Pretty remarkable stuff for finding out what’s going on wherever you are.

Facebook Looks to Extend Its Presence – NYTimes.com

Interesting to note that Facebook using Connect to spread their presence across other websites is very similar to a tactic Google used a decade ago, when they syndicated their search box to other sites around the web, and then followed by doing the same with their advertising system. Facebook is also changing their “Share” button to “Like”, although the real story is they’ll be tracking the things you “like” and you’ll be able to see things across the web that were “liked” but your friends. As we already know that seeing what your friends like is a big draw, this is a great idea. Here’s Facebook’s own page explaining this in a very simple graphic: http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/connect.php

How Facebook won the web – CNN.com

Mashable’s Pete Cashmore weighs on on why Facebook is a serious threat to both Google and Twitter, with the implication that the best solution for those two would be for Google to buy Twitter.

Creativing :: Twitter trend #songprequels, It’s Foursquare day, and how marketers are using Twitter’s new ad platform

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Tweet of the Week

It’s Tweets of the week this week, picking up a trending hashtag #songprequels. Some funny stuff.

YouTube – Alice for the iPad

If you have any doubts about iPad or any other slate’s ability to transform the publishing, and specifically the book industry, this 45 second video for the iPad ebook version of “Alice in Wonderland” is a must see. While it may seem like it plays the same trick over and over, keep in mind this is the first attempt and within the first couple of weeks of the iPad’s release.

It’s 4SQ Day, But Foursquare Has (Almost) Nothing To Do With It

It’s 4/16 today. 4 squared. Get it? So in cities around the country, Foursquare users are getting together to celebrate post-tax day. About 150 businesses are giving Foursquare users special deals. There’s even a badge for it. McDonalds is getting involved.

What’s remarkable is that Foursquare the company had nothing to do with it, other than just making the badge. Probably took them an hour.

Most companies would die for this level of momentum.

Foursquare Cracks Down on Cheaters

As Foursquare starts to go more legit with companies actually paying to play along, this type of enforcement was just a matter of time.

History Channel Launches Foursquare Campaign and a New Badge

At the moment, I’m interested in anything happening on Foursquare. You can’t get much farther out on the edge than a location-based social gaming platform. Pairing the History Channel and the latest technology is interesting in it’s own way, but I do like the functional, or at least educational, aspect of this. It definitely adds a needed dimension to ‘checking in’, which is getting a little old and I think has people starting to ask “OK, What’s next?”.

Twitter Promoted Tweets Are Live

Just in case you haven’t seen a screen grab of Twitter’s new ad platform, Promoted Tweets, here you go. Note the tie-in between the hashtag and the content of the Promoted Tweet. Curious how many brands will be able to find that much context in the stream of Twitter conversations.

How Virgin America Uses Promoted Tweets

A good overview of how Virgin America is using the new Twitter Promoted Tweets ad platform. And VA appears to be doing a great job with this opportunity to participate in the launch of an ad platform. My question is, How mass-scalable is this (I can’t imagine Twitter is thinking this won’t be a mass advertising model). My questions are more around the average advertiser’s ability to use this ad model as judiciously as VA is. I don’t see most advertisers being anywhere near as creative, and certainly not as restrained. So I still have a lot of questions about how this opens up to a much larger base of advertisers who aren’t so much concerned with reputation as they are with reach. Of course, I’m sure Twitter gave that a thought or two before launching, so I’m curiously watching.

The Twitter Platform’s Inflection Point

Where’s Twitter headed? Or where’s the business or creative opportunity around Twitter? As Fred Wilson says, It won’t be in the same sandbox everyone’s already been playing in.

Advertising – Marketers Placing More Products Into Plots – NYTimes.com

Very interesting idea here of customizing products for a given TV show. Sure, there’s a certain cringe factor, but it’s a great way to get on a TV show in a more organic way and also tap the world’s insatiable desire for anything celebrity.

GetJar Facebook App Downloads Exceed 50M

Talk about nudging your way into a niche. This is a smartphone app that’s been downloaded 50 million times, and it’s nothing more than a link directly to Facebook’s mobile site (not the Facebook app). Also, jargon alert: MSS = Mobile Site Shortcut. I didn’t realize we needed an acronym for that, but WTF.