DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

social

Creativing :: The creepy addiction of Chatroulette, Foursquare’s real impact, and trouble ahead for online advertising

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

Tweet of the Week

I’ve been sitting in LA traffic so much today I wrote a pilot. I need a Final Draft app.

The Surreal World of Chatroulette – NYTimes.com

If you haven’t seen this site, check it out. Like the NY Times writer, I think it’s faddish, but also feel it’s part of a segue to more anonymous online content experiences.

5 Ways Foursquare is Changing the World

Of these, the Mayorships and the game element (badges) are the real differentiators for Foursquare. The other features mentioned will increase in value as the Foursquare community grows.

How the Global Fortune 100 are using social media: some statistics | FreshNetworks

Some curious stats out of this analysis. Between Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogs, companies are using blogs the least. That’s interesting, because blogs offer the most content ownership of all four, which a lot of brands seem pretty concerned about.

I’m also surprised that 68% of Global Fortune 100 firms are actively using a YouTube channel by adding 10 new videos each month. That’s a good rate of content development.

NYT: Apple Purges Blue Apps from Online Store

Another in what’s a growing list of situations where Apple’s closed-loop approach to business stands opposite Google’s open, “let the people decide” approach. While I’m an enormous fan of the products Apple’s built, their mindset displayed in the quotes in this article sound more like Microsoft policy of the past 20 years, and less like the openness that has been so key to the Web’s growth and evolution.

Creativity Feeds The Data Beast (And Digital Killed The TV Star) – Media Post

Cory poses a great question here. What if the ad industry loses the power of 3rd party cookies in the pending 2011 legislation? For an industry that has positioned itself as the leading marketing vehicle based around insights and information that those cookies generate, that’s going to be a tough sell. And from what I’ve read, the 2011 ruling is a given to pass. The easiest sell in Washington. So emphasis has to be somewhere other than the bread crumb trail from ad to shopping cart.

MediaPost Publications Rothenberg: ‘Forces Out To Destroy Interactive Advertising’

This is a must-read for anyone in the digital space. If this legislation goes through, it’s going to be like a bomb dropped on the line marketing industry. What’s everyone talk about regarding online advertising? How trackable it is. So imagine taking away the biggest selling point for an entire industry. And my guess is that this legislation will pass. Doug Weaver had a great commentary on this at the last iMedia Summit. With what wil almost surely be a down economy, politicians will be looking for easy victories. And consumer privacy will be just the tool.

The Best Web Browser on the Planet – Slate Magazine

if you haven’t tried Google’s new browser Chrome, this is a good overview of why it’s preferable to other browsers, but also what it lacks. My favorite example of the Google mindset is how they’ve built into Chrome a time saving device that produces search results right in the address entry field. Thus eliminating the need for a visit to their own site. What other company on the planet would ever make that decision?

Faster, Faster! Google’s brilliant new plan to provide super-speedy Internet access. – Slate

Speeds 100 to 200 times faster than our current broadband connections. Sign me up. The reason for our current broadband speeds? The lack of competition in the service provider industry. Imagine how nice it would be if your business only had one other competitor.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, the iPhone sandwich, and Facebook vs. Google

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

Tweet of the Week

PEW SURVEY: By 2012, every object in America will have its own Facebook page and an unnecessary laser pointer.

YouTube – iSandwich 4G

Found this pretty funny. Not sure I’d want to taste it, but it’s a visual treat. Wait until the end for the CG gag.

MediaShift . Best Online Resources for Following 2010 Winter Olympics | PBS

This list is an interesting scan simply because of the range of content around the Olympics. No really unexpected, but a good overview at the numerous angles from which online content can approach a subject.

30 APIs Used in 7 Days: Bing, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Netflix, Salesforce.com, Twitter, YouTube

Despite mashups having been around for a while, I feel there’s enormous untapped potential. Especially as social networking and mobile are going to generate treasure troves of data previously unavailable in any form. This list is heavily concentrated on data and web tending apps, which is no doubt a big topic right now.

Foursquare Responds To Please Rob Me: Please Shut Up

Contrasting the closed, symmetric network of Foursquare with the open, asymmetric network of Twitter.

Ajaxian » I Can’t Believe It’s Not Flash

A Flash trashing, followed by a lot of rebuking in the comments.

The Future of Flash, on FarukAt.eş

Faruk’s been writing about Flash, and it’s pending demise. But here he reconsiders the value of Flash, with a possibility of it becoming a big potential mobile play. Flash does offer development speed, but there’s always been that nagging stability thing. And I don’t think consumers will tolerate phones crashing to any degree that they’ve dealt with it on computers.

Pre-Roll Video Ads Still Hated, Here to Stay – Advertising Age

A nice overview from someone who both dislikes the pre-roll but also derives revenue from it. I agree with his assessment that branded sponsorships are going to be the real value for content developers — essentially creating a brand experience with less up front risk for the sponsor.

Farmville About To Cruise Past 80 Million Users

Some interesting findings in the numbers. When looking at active users, the shorter the time of reference (daily, weekly, monthly), the lower the growth rate. That should indicate a lot of people are trying it out out of curiosity, but not hanging with it for long. Consider that active daily users is 31m, only up from 27m a year ago. So it would seem they’re drafting Facebook’s continuing rocket trajectory of new users. Granted, 31m is still a lot of people. But I think it’s indicative of how these social games will play out. Friends pulling friends in, everyone dabbling for a bit, and then on to the next new thing.

Is Facebook Becoming More Important Than Google?

There’s been a lot of recent talk about Facebook’s growing search influence. And no doubt that searching Facebook is going to increase in both frequency and intent. But as this article points out, a lot of the behavior isn’t understood at the moment, so it’s difficult to say what’s correlation and what’s causation.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Pissed off at Google, and Foursquare goes for the gold

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

Tweet of the Week

if ($caffeinated) { echo ‘good morning!’; }

P&G Launches eStore to Test Marketing Concepts – MarketingVOX

I’m curious to see what this ‘lab’ looks like from a features and development angle. It’s clearly designed for nimbleness, which will only be a growing trend as everything seems to be moving toward immediacy. From product development to brand experience to social marketing.

Fuck you, Google « Fugitivus

I’ve felt for a while that the tech industry is veering perilously close to blowing the top off the whole privacy issue. From location-based services to misunderstood social network sharing to cookie tracking, there are a lot of hot buttons, and people are starting to push them.

Twitter Is Still Growing Rapidly [STATS]

A week or two ago it was widely reported that Twitter was dropping off in popularity. However, they were gauging unique visitors to the site, and with so many people using 3rd party apps, like TweetDeck, that could have a large impact. The other key stat is obviously overall Tweets sent, and that’s where apparently Twitter is looking just fine.

Foursquare Inks Deals With Major Media and Entertainment Brands

Mobile is certainly heating up, and Foursquare is on the front burner. While Foursquare currently operates under the guise of fun and games, location-based services on mobile will likely soon be the way most people figure out what they’re going to do for entertainment on a given evening.

Wi-Fi Turns Arizona Bus Ride Into a Rolling Study Hall – NYTimes.com

Another good story on technology improving lives in a very simple way.

Google Liquid Galaxy live demo at TED [VIDEO]

Google connects 8 large LCD screens in a wraparound view to it’s Earth and Street View apps for an amazing voyage around what feels like a pretty small world. The trip from LA to SF beats any bullet train proposal I’ve seen.

Skittles | Experience the Rainbow

Very fun experience. The surreal carnival feel fits great with a product as quirky as Skittles. The long extended page reminds me of suck.com back in the day. It’s an unconventional format which defies most usability issues, but who’s really coming to Skittles.com for functionality anyway?

E-commerce and Facebook: Friends or foes? – BusinessWeek

Some of the good and bad of doing ecommerce on Facebook

Motorola Maintains Mobile Subscriber Market Share Lead – MarketingVOX

Amid the iPhone craze, it’s important to keep in mind that overall, there’s still a small percentage of users who have one. Thus if you want to go mass on mobile, you’ll have to go more lowest common denominator.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Museum’s engage in trash talk, and the 10 greatest YouTube mashups

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

Tweet of the Week

Today’s my last day at Sun. I’ll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more

Ahead Of Super Bowl, Museum Heads Trash-Talk : NPR

If you want to breath some fresh air into the brand personality of your museum, you probably couldn’t do much better than this. There’s both a transcript and the audio version. How often do you get to hear museum directors talking smack to each other (in jest, of course).

Augmented reality mirror picks makeup for the ladies (video) — Engadget

The first line says it all on this. “Ladies and rockers alike”. You could also add kids, Halloween celebrants, Mardi Gras, etc etc. While practical, this could have a lot of pure entertainment potential.

Facebook Could Eat the Web – The Steve Rubel Lifestream

With everyone talking about Google and Apple, Facebook continues to advance in ways that make a much deeper connection between our personal and commercial relationships. For a lot of people, Facebook is quickly becoming the most convenient place to do almost anything online. And that’s always been the best way to increase sales. The thing they’ll need to be concerned about? Losing consumer’s trust, in the form of scams. As we’ve already seen, it’s much easier to social-hack someone when you have them on a trusted platform where they’re sharing a lot of personal information.

AppSlappy 32: “The iPad Episode” « AppSlappy

These guys do a good job countering most of the iPad objections I’ve come across. I do think there’s still a big issue in it not having Flash, as so much rich online content is Flash based, and this device is about absorbing media more than anything.

Facebook Trends: Goodbye Doppelganger, Hello Urban Dictionary Week

Maybe we need a new category here, Facebook Trend of the Week.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Flash — FarukAt.eş

A compelling argument for the end of Flash, more from a business sense than whether or not Flash is a better experience. I have to agree where he talks about development times and universal access … two major factors for any marketing project. And IMO, it’s the marketers that made Flash, with their expansive microsites and ubiquitous Flash ads. But the key factor for Flash has always been ubiquity and impact. If those are gone, the marketers will be too.

Leaked “Lost” episode spurs surprising fan reaction – Yahoo! News

When the season premier was leaked to YouTube, the reaction was often ‘don’t ruin it for me’. While this will give the networks a sigh of relief, it’s also important to realize that Lost is one of only a couple of shows that could garner this type of reaction.

Top 10 YouTube Mashups of All Time

Because of its simple user experience, popularity, and open API structure, YouTube has always been a good way to showcase mashup capabilities. What’s interesting here is the scope of the mashups. From simplifying an already simple UX, to tracking videos like you might a stock on the NYSE.

Twitter / eMarketer: Stat of the day: 68% of on …

It’s been reported that email marketing is falling by the wayside for many heavy social media users. This stat certainly supports that idea.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Fake Steve Jobs on the iPad, and Seth Godin taking his own medicine

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

Tweet of the Week

I like to imagine Jonathan Ive and James Dyson — tank-topped, schnapps-drunk, and enthusiastically slap-fighting over who’s fancier.

Official Google Blog: Search is getting more social

Sometimes a video is worth 1,000 blog posts. This one does a great job explaining the immediate appeal and potential power of their social search. In personal tests, I didn’t find it all that, but then neither was YouTube on day one. But the potential is screaming obvious. And I found it a glaring reminder of how far ahead of everyone Google is in search. Tried Facebook search lately? It feels like you’re dealing with a big, dumb, AI terminal. As my network and the topics it covers expands, this could be a remarkably powerful focal point for searches across anything from a restaurant to a good doctor. Google’s biggest obstacle here is Facebook blocking their content from Google search. If I were to pick a winner at this point, I’d say Google because this is far more advanced search-wise, and I like the idea of the net they’re casting going well outside one site (although Facebook Connect could be just as effective).

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : Tablet Part Two: The true significance of the Tablet

The blend of humor and insight at Fake Steve Jobs never fails to inform and entertain. It’s been said before that the iPad is the newspaper industries last hope for survival. And this post delves into how Jobs wants to redefine the multimedia experience. I also like his unrestrained assault on the Kindle. I’ve always been a big fan, but this week has really exposed it’s vulnerability, imo.

The iPad’s Threat to Advertising – IABlog

Think iPad will save the publishing and ad industries? Here’s a good contrarian viewpoint.

Unhappy Hipsters

The captions Dwell Magazine never published. Funny parody.

Has Twitter peaked? – CNN.com

If I owned Twitter, I’d be far more interested in the overall usage stats than just uniques. I understand the importance of uniques for overall growth, but reading most of the complaints, it’s not that the service offers no value, but rather it’s the perceived lack of filtering. People will eventually figure out lists, and other ways of filtering the data. And Twitter’s open source approach should continue to ensure that a very large community of developers and entrepreneurs will continue to find new ways of expanding Twitter’s utility. That said, you never want to see your unique’s dropping 😐

CQ: The Test Of Your Potential For Cross-Cultural Success – Forbes.com

On the surface, this may seem like one more way to have to compare yourself to others. But I definitely think multi-culturalism is pretty lost on much of the US. Even in the advertising world — where we tend to think of ourselves as pretty open and aware — we’ve seen enormous blowups from ads where no one bothered to consider that anyone outside of their own cultural boundary could have access to the communications. This is worth a read.

Seth’s Blog: Why write a book?

Seth Godin certainly takes his own medicine. This is the announcement on his blog for his latest book. Not crazy hype. Not even a small cover shot of the book. Just an intriguing headline — which surely stopped a good percentage of those who’ve ever thought about writing a book — followed by his usual thoughtful way of viewing things below the surface that stops most people. And all very consistent with his brand.

Vanishing Point motion artwork | The Glue Pot

Motion artwork video from visual artist Takuya Hosogane. There isn’t much info here or on his site about the methodology, so I’m assuming it’s all directly his design work, and not generated algorithmically through the sounds.

Charlie Simpson, 7-Year-Old, Raises $160,000 For Haiti

Shows that you don’t have to be a major corporation to generate buzz in social media. You just need a great story.

Creativing :: Remarkable iPhone story from Haiti, Put yourself in a music video, and the future of mobile and social networks

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

Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survive | Wired.com

Remarkable story about a documentary filmmaker caught in the Haiti earthquake and survived, in part due to a first aid app on his iPhone. Of course, this is as much about being prepared (he had previously downloaded the iPhone app, after all) and being resourceful (using your SLR camera as a flashlight), but it does show how technology makes it easier to have the right information and tools when you need them.

New NBC Logo Combines Fail Whale and Peacock [PIC]

Funny (unless you’re Conan) mashup of the Twitter fail whale and the NBC logo. Certainly fits based on what I’ve been reading about NBC lately

oneframeoffame

An interesting idea that reminds me of the $1,000,000 home page idea, in which they broke down a home page screen into something like 10000 small squares, and charged $100 to advertise in each square. This is a sort of user generated version of that, but instead of getting your logo on the page, you get your image, and maybe 1 second of fame, in the video. It looks like a Dutch group is behind this, and they have some other interesting projects on their site.

Create Your Own iPhone or Android App in Minutes With iSites

Count on me to be trying this out asap. Create your own iPhone app, for as little as $25. With nothing more than an RSS feed required. Sure, this will invite a wave of drivel, but in that pile will also be a couple of apps that might really stick. And that’s the multiple that emerging tech lives on.

Five Mobile Trends for 2010 – Advertising Age

Mobile’s making more sense by the day. iPhone apps keep getting cheaper, i.e., more abundant. Android takes off. Talk of a Facebook mobile phone. So prepare for change in this space. This is a good projection of what to expect from the mobile industry in 2010. If not the peak trends, these will all be areas to watch.

Bing to Become the iPhone’s Default Search Engine?

While this news doesn’t really shake any iPhone user’s tree very hard, it does underscore a new stage in the tech world battle of the super brands. The battle raging between Apple and Google. Two of my favorite companies. And in many ways, two of the most divergent businesses out there, philosophically. The end of the article speculates on Apple developing their own search engine … something I’ve not heard of before. The last line of the article is the best, though: “Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy . . . Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.”

CONFIRMED: New York Times to Start Charging for Website in 2011

Mashable has some good extended thinking on the issue. I generally agree that the value of gained subs will likely not outweigh the loss in readership. At least not for the long term. And while their announcement doesn’t seem like much, that’s clearly their strategy. Give their user base plenty of time to adjust — they can always retract — while they work out the details of something they feel is pretty inevitable.

With the NY Times subscription story hot, their announcement to drop the subscriber model in 2007 is a particularly relevant read. They state $10m in revenues from about 227k subs. I don’t know their revenues, but the NY Times company and it’s 24 papers made $2.9b in 2008. Whatever the NY Times portion was, it would seem to make $10 look pretty thin.

Opticana – the 500$ Campaign

This is a fun video on a campaign tactic from Israel that’s been employed here in the states for a while. I’m sure almost all alternate spellings of our top 10 web sites have been purchased years ago (many of them by the brands themselves). Still, this is a great reminder that the ever changing digital marketing landscape always contains unique surprises and workarounds for those coming at the problem from a slightly different direction.

The Future Of Social Networks

This is a nice read, partly because it’s very graphically easy to absorb. My favorite part is at the very end, where the writer reminds us that social media is an ongoing process, and that even large brands like Wal-Mart can fail numerous times before succeeding. Another interesting note on that is that Wal-Mart isn’t exactly a beloved American brand, but that didn’t stop them from using social media.

The Pros and Cons of Hiring Contract Workers

An article on outsourcing that I was interviewed for, with some good reference sites if you’re interested in outsourcing. I think this is unquestionably going to be a growing trend for agencies, both large and small. Every day, new developments in communications, from file sharing to video communications, are minimizing the border between remote and in-person.

Creativing :: Holiday shopping madness video, social media gains advocates, and iPhone news

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

Chaos inside Walmart during Black Friday 2009 [VIDEO]

Absurd chaos going on here. You’d think a gun was fired. People in some parts of the world must see this and think this entire country is insane.

Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman Mashup Creates Controversey

The video this references to has been pulled. What I like here is that the mashup was done by CBS. That means that CBS was mashing up artwork they didn’t have the rights to? And the networks are trying to put a stop to YouTube? At least for a brief moment it seems they stopped acting like legal bots and started acting like real human beings.

AT&T CEO Wants iPhone Users to Limit Usage

This is little short of mind-boggling. Just as the mobile industry a really taking off, AT&T’s De la Vega steps in and tries to threaten everyone with tiered pricing. He should read his history. The Web tried this very unsuccessfully in it’s early days. Consumers heavily restricted their use out of concern for unexpected high monthly charges. More than anything, I’m surprised that he can’t see how anyone in the mobile space should benefit from increased usage. That data they point to is interesting though: Their 3% smart phone users consume 40% of the data. I just don’t like their solution of punishing their best customers. What other industry does that (besides the music industry)?

Chrome Extensions for Mac Coming Soon

I just installed Chrome on my MacBook Pro, and am very impressed with the speed over Firefox. Extremely noticeable. But I do miss the ability to have plugins — something I used a lot on Firefrox. So this is good news to me. If you haven’t tried Chrome for Mac, though, i’d definitely give it a spin

Twitter Bombs and the Real Time Tweets on Google Results Page

I, like many others, have noticed a lot more Google Alerts search traffic. And much of it is from Twitter activity. This report could certainly explain why that’s happening. It could also be pushing up posters who happen to use a common Google search term. I can’t imagine this will last long. Way to easy for brands to drop the Twitter bomb. And you know they will. In fact, I’m sure the marketer behind the shaking belly ads is at work on that right now.

It’s Official: Auto Ads are Shifting Online

Some pretty convincing data on the increasing use of social media by the auto industry. What I find most interesting is that it’s the dealers, at the local level, that are really taking advantage of this. Here’s a great stat from a Nielsen report: “Auto dealerships dropped their overall ad budgets 27%, but increased internet ad spends 45% in the first three quarters of 2009, compared to the same time period in 2008.”

Social Media Influencing 28% of Shoppers

An early indicator of the influence of social media on consumer shopping behavior. And while I agree this is real, I’m surprised that the gap between those who say they check product reviews and those who say they are affected by social media activity is as narrow as it is. Really, I thought the majority of people would be regularly checking product reviews on sites like Amazon. Interesting that only 13% of people claim to make use of that information to inform their purchasing decision. Maybe it’s the lower price point merchandise they’re not so concerned with.

Seth’s Blog: The reason social media is so difficult for most organizations

Social media is a process, not an event. This is a big distinction, and actually something I addressed earlier this week at the iMedia Summit. So I couldn’t agree more. And company’s that want to treat social media and branding like an event, or a product, are in for an unpleasant surprise.

Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies of 2009

What I like in this article is how they emphasize the mediums that establish credibility. This is a principle concept that’s coming up a lot in branding. And whether they refer to it as credibility, authenticity, or being genuine, it’s the same principle. You can’t just shout messages at people the way you once could. They mention these trends were big in 2009, and should be for 2010 as well. I’d say they can extend it out a lot longer than that for many of these mediums.

iPhone App Lets You IMDb on the Go

A good review of the iPhone app on Mashable. This is probably one of the most logical apps you could want, as especially among young people, a lot of movie-going decisions are out-of-home.