A Series of Links for those in the Digital Ad/Brand Business
Very Cool links for those in the Advertiser/Branding/Digital industry.
IBM’s Watson AI Jeopardy practice match
One Club: Best of Digital Decade
Nice Profile of R/GA
Meet Firstborn (great reel)
Spanair – Unexpected luggage (don’t worry about the Spansih only – it will make sense)
Conversation mode in Google Translate
Vivian Maier, street photographer and nanny
Case Study #241: The Sistine Chapel
Gol Airlines – Mobile Check in
Repost: Creatives grow better in the South West
Heineken The Entrance
Netflix spends 20 times more on postage than bandwidth
“Arica” A Special BFBC2 Musical Tribute
Carlsberg – Probably the best ad in the world
Why Do the Abbotts Wait, While the Zimmermans Rush to Buy?
PARANOID 4
Lunchtime Clock
The Scrollwheel
What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
On a bet, party people fill KLM flight to Miami using Twitter
Will Agencies Become Publishers?
Things That Should Have Happened By 2011
Intel: The Chase Film
Email Evolution: Web-based Email Shows Signs of Decline in the U.S. While Mobile Email Usage on the Rise
BMW Activate the Future (Docs)
Kids Looking at Old Tech
Princeton study shows that easy fonts make things harder to remember
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/17/princeton-study-shows-that-easy-fonts-make-things-harder-to-reme/
Graphic: How big, exactly, is Starbucks’ new ‘Trenta’ size?
Samu Social escape the street
The State of Wikipedia
How Adam Got @Adam and Became Cool Online
Kids Lend a Digital Hand
LivingSocial Hits A Million Amazon Gift Cards Sold, $20 Million In Card Value
Google to Launch Groupon Competitor
Only 66% Use Twitter Profile Location Field as Intended, Says PARC Research Study
In Race to Market, It Pays to Be Latecomer
Bus Shelter Ad Keeps Commuters Warm While They Wait [Pic]
Internet archaeology: Dig into Wikipedia’s deep past
Making Of. Aston Martin Rapide.
YouTube Brings Pre-Roll Ads to Android Mobile App
Facebook Post Insights Go Real Time
Cayetano Ferrer
Wrapping that will tell you when food’s going off
The Best Times to Buy Anything in 2011
World’s First Terrestrial 3D TV Service Starts in Italy
Ray-Ban subway running
Sergey Brin: We’ve Touched 1 Percent Of What Social Search Can Be
Start Your Own Car Rental Biz
For Magazines, a Bitter Pill in iPad
A TV-Internet Marriage Awaits Blessings of All Parties
Universal and Sony Music plan ‘instant pop’ to beat piracy
This Clever DIY Briefcase Only Opens When You’re at the Right GPS Coordinates
Lipton Brisk Machete
The Washington Post Enters The Facebook Advertising Business
Control the Humanoid Robot by Kinect
All iPhones Will Have Personal Hotspot Ability With iOS 4.3
Qwest field beers
10 devious new ways that computer hackers can control your machines (or fix them)
New York Times Said to Charge Less Than $20 a Month for Access to Website
Eighth grader knocks Angry Birds out of the top free spot on the App Store
If an Advertising Agency Took Over a Child’s Birthday Celebration
Fruit fly nervous system provides new solution to fundamental computer network problem
‘Gamification’: A Growing Business to Invigorate Stale Websites
Advertisers Want To Buy Audiences, So Adobe Buys Demdex
Banks tucking targeted ads onto online debit statements
New Glass Tops Steel in Strength and Toughness
Pay for Your Starbucks Addiction by Waving Your Cellphone
Creative Eco-Reminder Stickers by Hu2
Third-Party Facebook Apps Could Have Access to Address and Phone Number
Milk packaging concept by Kian
The sun rises two days early in Greenland
Pew Study Says Internet Users More Social, Civically Engaged
Google Issues DoubleClick AdEx Report Card, Promises Big Lift To Publishers
Let Your Hotpot Friends Help You Search on Google Maps
New Type Of Entanglement Allows ‘Teleportation in Time,’ Say Physicists
Google Voice Is About To Take Off: Number Porting Coming Soon For $20
Wigli Stool Has Your Back
Social Media Breeds Edvertorial
Stop Being Lazy And Come Play Nike+ Tag With Your Friends
The Trashmaster, a full-length film made entirely in GTA IV
The Amazing Carbon Fiber Loom Toyota Didn’t Want You To See
Restaurants Reach Out to Customers With Social Media
Jesus of Wikipedia
Scientist Plans to Clone Woolly Mammoth
Phone manual includes instructions for faking a call
Bonnier, Crispin Team Up to Develop Better Tablet Ads
House of Cards Table
Is Your Brain Like an iPhone?
Flying Arrow Camera
itay ohaly: elevated bench
In The Race To 10 Billion Downloads, Apple Uncovers The Top All-Time Apps
New BBC Series Show How Amazing Humans Can Be
If Movie Characters Had The Internet
For the Love of Elephants
Cheers
The Complex Term of “Viral”
Viral is one of those words that gets thrown around a little too often. Have you ever met a person who uses a word out of context but is completely oblivious to that fact. That sense of annoyance recently crept back up on me. Be careful of anyone who claims they make viral videos or worse yet, will make you a viral video.
There are a few things you need to know to manage your own expectations when dabbling in video production for a digital release.
The first is that if you are making a video for a brand you are instantly faced with barriers that aren’t present for a common content producers. People are inherently turned off by ads so digital advertiser have to craft their branded content to be mass entertaining (Old Spice) or use entertaining content as a vehicle to discretely display your product (JC Penney).
The barrier of adding a brand into content plays with the expectations of those paying for that content. Someone telling you they can create a viral video could be trying to tell you they will sell you a winning lottery ticket if you aren’t clear on expectations. Watch the Ad Age Viral Video Chart and notice to number of views. Compare that with the most watched videos of the week on YouTube. In the brand world viral operates at a lower level in terms of views. I am not saying ad content can’t be considered truly viral. Simply that the majority of ad content is mis represented as truly viral and should be only be considered viral within the ad world.
The fault falls on no one here, but the word viral has been diluted to describe the top performing brand content on the web. Ads also get to their Ad Age status with a hefty spend in online ad buys for mast heads and Facebook ads.
So be warned, an ad’s viral measure is not the same as common content. Common content is where the viral views show their true power. A recent catastrophe like the Japan Tsunami, a celebrity breakdown or posting your 5 year old singing ‘born this way’ the day after it’s release all fall into a category of content that is not restricted by an agenda and give the term viral its original meaning.
Cheers
Justin Bieber Took Over The Chart
If you look at the history of this blog and the updates on who has the most popular video you will notice some very common trends.
It was not that long ago when Lady Gaga completely dominated the All Times Chart rocketing herself to the top with `Bad`.
After years of struggling with how music videos should appear on the Internet Vevo is clearly the answer. What any video outside of the music video category would hope to acquire in a life time in term of views Justin Bieber did in a few months. His song `Baby` is now over 300 million views. Pretty good when you compare it to singing on a Stratford street corner.
What is now set in stone is that there are two major All Time Charts.
Music, which large artists like Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Eminem (note his `not afraid` single is almost in the Top 10 of All Time and it was just released) and then there is everything else.
The YouTube All Times Charts has been left to the creative, corky and cute videos it once had pre music video dominance – like Charlie bit my finger again.
Cheers!