What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:
The PhoneBook – The future of interactive storytelling?
Perhaps iPhoneBook would be more accurate. A simple children’s story book concept for integrating the interactivity of an iPhone with a physical book. The big idea here is that one book could launch an endless stream of stories. I’d think every children’s book writer in the world has to be licking their chops at the potential around this.
Read news fast with Google Fast Flip
A common complaint about reading on the Web is that it isn’t the casual, perusal of flipping through a magazine or newspaper. This may not go quite that far, but the experience does have a more relaxed feel to it. Probably in part because it takes a web page and shrinks down all the little annoying data, so all you focus on are the big articles.
Advertising in Reverse
I completely agree with the foundational premise of this approach, that online shopping is a bad experience. Maybe not as bad as driving all over town, but still. Largely inefficient results for anything other than technology products and books. The idea here is a consumer RFP process, where people submit what they’re looking for, and a specified number of companies respond with products that meet your parameters. Clearly a system like this would have to be monitored for scammers and spammers. But I’ve heard discussed the idea of an ad network in which people are shown ads based on predetermined product categories they’ve stated interest in. This takes that to a more actionable stage.
Online gangs cashing in on swine flu
Fascinating, if not alarming. Sometimes technology actually changes society, and sometimes it just gives the same behaviors a new playing field.
VoiceQuilt Personalized Keepsake – Gifts With Voice Messages And Recorded Voice Memories
The production and presentation on this is pretty cheesy, but underneath all that dairy is a smart idea. A way of bridging people who are naturally savvy internet users (many people under 30) with someone in their life who probably isn’t (their grandparents). I know personally that, given the choice between doing a task online or offline, I’ll usually do it online. It’s simply an easier place for me to navigate at this point. And I think that’s the point here. People wanting to stay in touch with their grandparents could do something like this just because they CAN do it on the internet.
Taking Its Cue From Apple, TV Explores On-Screen Applications
Cable TV companies are looking at ways to integrate the Apple apps type environment into their set top boxes to enable apps downloaded and used on TV. This story underscores two issues. 1. There’s a lot of infighting in the cable industry, and it will likely take a lot of cooperation between TV companies, cable operators and online platforms to make this work. That’s a tall order. Furthermore, Apple has been doing this on a phone – a single owner device that people carry with them everywhere. Not the TV in the family living room. 2. There isn’t anyone in the cable industry with the vision or passion of Steve Jobs to pull this off.
Twitter and Facebook Launch on the Xbox 360
Interestingly, this came out the day after the above article. Everyone’s racing to own the living room. Xbox has already been enabling various social viewing and gaming experiences, including the new Netflix social viewing capabilities. But it’s only been social within the Xbox Live subscriber base. This blows it out considerably.
Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think
I saw the data presented here posted somewhere, but the video component adds a nice bit o’ drama. Some remarkable stats. e.g., 35% of the books sold on Amazon are for Kindle.
If you want a conversation, say something interesting
We’ve all met people who talk and talk and talk and never say anything remotely interesting. This is a great warning to companies engaged in social media not to become that person.
What is Google Chrome OS?
Google apparently learned quite a bit from their arduous Wave launch video. This one is fun, refreshing, and actually makes me want to go out and buy a Netbook.
What Twitter’s New Geolocation Makes Possible
A list of some great examples of how this could be applied. Anyone in marketing should read this.