This holiday season, give yourself the gift of securing your own personal .com address. "Now why would I need that?" you ask, "...especially when I have my own Facebook and LinkedIn profiles???". It's a great questions - but think about it...do you want Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr or any one of these singularly focused networks to define who you are, especially when your own personal expression has to conform to their template? Granted, some give you more flexibility than others, but regardless, any one of these profiles by themselves misrepresent us as a whole. It really does make sense for every single one of us to have a destination URL. An easy to find 101 on us. One that jumps to the top of search queries, saving folks from having to gather info from all of your online profiles - assuming they can even find them. About.me and Flavors.me do just that. A recent review gives About.me the more favorable review, but you can be sure that added features are on the way for Flavors. About.me wins the taste test over its profile page competitor Flavors.me http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/11/17/about-me-wins-the-taste-test-ove... Originally a sceptic, despite the fact that I have had my own site up at www.jaredhendler.com for many years now, @agreenberg (http://twitter.com/agreenberg) convinced me that this tactic is not just for us geeks in the 'tech' industry. Overall, this is a simple idea that I'm betting really takes off. So, take control of your own personal brand and give yourself the gift of a personal URL before the land grab for names begin. It will be the gift that keeps on giving.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Is Google falling behind in search as it gets ambushed by Facebook and Microsoft?
They have the best algorithm, many of us have made money on their stock on multiple occasions throughout the years, they truly want to make a difference in the world, and they aren't evil - but is the darling of search about to get it's ass kicked?
Social relevancy isn't everything but it sure counts for a lot these days as we struggle through pages of irrelevant search results. As Microsoft's Bing partners with Facebook to deliver a simple and elegant social search solution it becomes clear that we could all use a little help from our friends. I've even started using Ping on iTunes with suprising results.
Now the #2 and fastest growing search engine (Bing) partners with the #1 in social networking to deliver what may end up being the most powerful combination in search. Facebook already counts for more click-throughs than Google when it comes to media links and you can bet that Microsoft is betting that the same strategy will work for them too. The ability to 'Like' a link as well as share or email search finds directly with your friends on Facebook is a huge plus. Zuckerberg was very accurate when he pointed out this morning during the press conference that search UI has not changed in years and Bing has made great strides in evolving this.
Now, I don't like to see anyone fail, and like everyone else, I am a BIG Google fan. However this is sure to be a big wakeup call for Google to get their Buzz on...and fast.
Microsoft stock is starting to look a whole lot more interesting.
For details on the features that are launching take a look at the links below.
Friday, October 08, 2010
What's the Gap's real story behind their new logo?
In case you have not seen it, Gap's debut of a new logo created much controversy over the past few days, with Gap coming out to say that not only are they open to suggestions but that this is a part of a new crowdsourcing project. I don't buy it. It feels more like an ill-conceived excuse to not stand by their marketing partner and their own convictions in the face of controversy.
By not standing behind their newly created mark, the company shows their weakness in direction. Gap needs to get back to delivering an innovative product and simple American storytelling. Something American Apparel and their CEO Dov Charney (a Canadian to boot!) stole right out from under their noses.
Friday, October 01, 2010
Social media - the new code of conduct is ultimately our savior.
As we look to build our own personal brands, we have quickly realized the danger of full transparency - especially without the likes of some very personalized privacy settings. With many an HR department screening candidates via Twitter and FB, social discrepancy is becoming more the norm than not. You could even argue that this modern day 'skin' replicates the table manners of yore. Just as socially accepted etiquette hid behind a wide brimmed fedora or classically trained table manners, we are now fast-realizing that a code of social conduct is not only re-emerging, but, after a period of balls-to-the-wall, no-holds-barred-t-&-a-in-your-face transparency, is actually welcomed.
As the social web continues to press our comfort levels, lets not be surprised that this code of conduct is what saves our society...helps us save face and at it's very core helps uphold the civility that ultimately holds our civilization together.
As an aside, it's funny how this personally means that we need to watch what we post, but for companies or brands we demand full transparency.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Is Twitter accidentally succeeding where others have failed?
Make no mistake, the current new Twitter rollout is a big change. Big enough to succeed in ways that Orkut, Buzz and Google Wave could not. (I won't review the feature set here as there are plenty of those available. Take a look at the links at the end of this post). While Twitter itself shies away from the fact that they may becoming more of a social engine, communication features tell a different story. Now the big difference here is the fact that unlike a 'traditional' social network or collaboration tool, you can of course follow anyone you please, unless of course their tweets are private, which is not the default.
While Twitter looks at themselves as a broader newscasting and informational tool that enables us to follow our peers, more and more of us are using the service to collaborate via sharing. The new tools enhance our ability to communicate with and find one another, and as a result will help to directly escalate the development of our ideas within this collaborative environment. Once the rollout is complete it will be interesting to see which direction this goes. My bet is that Twitter accidentally succeeds where others have failed.
For those of you who do not have access to the new Twitter, watch the video here.
For functionality and feature set reviews, the most recent articles from a few different sources:
Fast Company: How the New Twitter Gives Your Favorite App a Run for Its MoneyDaily Beast: Twitter Unveils New Design
Monday, August 23, 2010
Browser Extensions...an untold secret?
Having recently installed a few new extensions for Mac's newest Safari browser, I was surprised at how few people knew about these features (after mentioning this to a few friends).
Browser extensions are like mini applications that run within each browser session and allow you to perform a series of tasks that you would ordinarily not be able to do without the extension. A few great examples are:
AutoPagerize: Loads long articles that would normally display over multiple pages all on one pages without having to 'click' on 'next' for each new page.
FastestTube: Allows you to download YouTube videos directly from YouTube.
Coda Notes: Annotate, change any webpage in real-time right from within the browser and then send the image of the page along with the annotations to anyone via email. Great for developers, designers or editors.
Franker: Translate any page or selected text on a page into any language on the fly right on the page.
AdBlock: Block any and ALL advertising on any page. Another reason for my clients to better understand how to deliver contextual value vs advertising to their consumers.
These are just a few of the amazingly powerful things that your browser can help you with.
Safari extensions can be found here.
Firefox extensions here.
Happy browsing...
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Will Facebook Places be the death of Foursquare and Gowalla?
...it's too early to tell Facebook's overall intentions but it's actually pretty amazing that it took Facebook so long to get into this game. Now that they have - chances are that they will make everyone else irrelevant. Why?...simply because of their numbers. While competing services such as Gowalla and Foursquare require you to invite and connect with your friends, the fact is you still have to take the time out to do so and your friends have to cooperate by joining. Notwithstanding the fact that Foursquare offers Facebook Connect integration, it's not as easy as it seems as friends continuously ask me "Why are you spamming me with that Foursquare site invite?" Facebook Places will not have this problem.
While Foursquare and Gowalla offer services that enable users to enter tips for any given location (great for restaurants), along with popular game-like status features such as mayorship badges for frequent visitors, you can be sure that Facebook Places will add these features before long.
Given that Places is not up and functional as promised at launch yesterday and is still spitting out the error message "This feature will be available in your region soon", many of us have not had a chance to fully demo the functionality, but regardless, this will make Facebook more valuable than ever as it finally makes the jump towards connecting those close to us while out and about in the real world. I'll argue that this will in-fact become Facebook's most popular feature before too long.
How else might Facebook blow out this idea, especially with advertisers, remains to be seen - but history tells us that they will lay low until adoption is as ubiquitous as posting photos and then we can expect localized offers and messages from retailers, restaurants, hotels and airlines as we travel about and check into our favorite places, as we serendipitously hope to bump into friends or meet and make more friends of friends.
Either way, this is what Facebook was made for...and yes, this is pretty much the end of competing services outside of servicing niche markets.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Facebook and our new love for 'Like'...
Some say that Facebook is poised to take over the web. That all content will eventually come to us via the recommendation engine that Facebook is building. 'Like' has already become a part of our lexicon. To 'Like' is as if we have combined credibility and love in the same word. The practical and emotional all wrapped up into one. To 'Like' is a chameleon that allows for an impersonal, professional recommendation as much as it can embody the intimate when referred by a family member.
To navigate to a Facebook page in the near future may not be to check on friends, but may simply be to control your social preferences across all destinations sites from a centralized hub. A socialized control room that will map your interactions in preparation for when you cross paths with friends while reading the NYTimes, when browsing Dailymotion, scanning Digg or what about parking recommendations when driving your car.
And then of course you have the privacy concerns along with it's pundits. If you are worried about your privacy now and the complexity of managing those settings - it may be getting a whole lot more complicated. While I am definitely concerned about my own personal privacy, the world is changing as new generations welcome a more open exchange.
As this evolves, Facebook itself may no longer become the place to see and be seen - but by then it won't really matter. By then Facebook will be 'the brain' that drives our collective consciousness online. I Like!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The debate over mobile Apps and why they make no sense...
So let me get this straight. Mobile Apps developed simply because mobile screens where too small to accommodate all the functionality of a webpage and needed their own UI. So, instead of simply creating intelligent web services that better recognized mobile devices in order to serve up the best experience necessary we have become slaves to apps that are simply facades of webpages with the same data calls.
In other words Apps are simply mobile bookmarks with a customized UI. But, unlike my bookmarks I cannot organize them as well as I can within a browser and to add insult to injury we have to pay for them too! Imagine that..paying for bookmarks! There is a good reason that we have to pay. We have to pay because someone has to pay for all of the added developers and QA teams that are now needed to produce Apps that support multiple mobile platforms instead of simply executing for a mobile browser. And there are millions of them too. Like shiny little bits of candy ready to rot our minds. Insanity all around!
Now many mobile Apps are stand-alone services and I do exaggerate to make a point. Games are fun too. Love my Doodle Jump. I even wrote this on the mobile Evernote app (what a hypocrite I am!). But we need to stop and think about how this new world of Apps is creating millions of fragmented silos akin to when we lived within the walls of AOL or MSN. They shut out the next generation from the possibilities of a broader experience. Oh, and I almost forgot, the good news is that some of these Apps will now be free because Apple is going to sell advertising against them. Ads on my bookmarks....fantastic! Who thought of that one? Give them a raise!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Is Personal Brand Management destroying Social Media?
"Don't even think about posting those photos online without retouching them!", my mother tells me after a recent visit. Not that my mother needs any retouching, but a huge insight from someone who is about as far removed from technology as someone can get. Social Medial connects with us for it's unabashed honesty. It's openness. We bow down to it for its ability to break down walls. It allows us to connect to those we would ordinarily not have access to with a level of intimacy that reminds us of our own dysfunctional family. But we have learned, in part from advertisers and in part from our innate need to protect our persona - and we have begun the slippery slope to brand ourselves. Privacy settings are less about 'who gets to see what' as they are about becoming the tools of how we craft our own personal brands. The question is whether this defeats the purpose of what social media's success was in the first place. To lead the way with transparency, with authenticity. To break down those walls. It appears we are building them up again, as we become a reflection of the stylized marketing messages we sought to educate. In order for social media to survive, we need to remember what connects us. Yes, we buy shiny new products, but we also long for the creative quirks, the social ineptitude and the expressive vision of the eccentricities in all of us. And lastly, 'we' are not for sale! Brand-Yourself.com Launches Platform to Manage Your Personal Brand Online
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Watch as Location Based Services free us from our screens!
With information overkill, hyper localization via mobile GPS may be the way to filter down what is most relevant to us on a real-time basis. Twitter is certainly planning on that from a news standpoint and will surely beat major media at their own game with localized news feeds. Google Buzz has added the service and I am certain that Facebook is sure to follow (potentially in partnership with FourSquare?).
Specialized applications like Meetmoi for dating or MeetGatsby (via Foursquare) for introducing like minded individuals spontaneously who are close by are starting to get traction. I have been using MeetGatsby myself over the last few days and have been fascinated by the potential of meeting random people with interests close to mine as I am out and about during the course of the day. Time will tell as to the value or distraction that this will bring. It will be crucial for companies like these to form partnerships in addition to fostering an open development community in order to build out unique offerings before they are made irrelevant by the big boys (Google, FB and Twitter) when this kicks in full force.
The only thing holding many of us back is the concern over privacy (once again!). I believe we will all 'get over it' as we realize the potential of push applications that capitalize on real-time technology to do the hard work for us behind the scenes. My excitement over this is driven by the hope that this will allow us to spend more time participating in the real world, as opposed to being glued to our screens in search of connections...
Altogether a good thing.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Digital advance for education with Textbooks rewritten...literally!
Having lectured at universities over the years I was always amazed at how pedantic and backward the content of most textbooks were vs. the actualities of our fast-paced communications industry. How many times I longed to change the curriculum to better reflect reality. Often hard to do with scholarly auditors watching from the back of class as you hand out poorly copied xerox's of more recent industry material from a school copy machine that groaned like an old man walking up his last flight of stairs. Now it seems Macmillan (one of the largest textbook publishers) is jumping at the opportunity to allow educators the chance to customize and change the text and construct of a curriculum to best suit their style, the industry or overall approach of the institution. The opportunity for better, more updated information is obvious, but marry this with digital textbooks at the fraction of the cost and we may have an even better use for those Kindles and iPads.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Rise of the Graphic Novel.
Comics, long frowned upon by the literary set may start to take a front seat in storytelling via the graphic novel which has been growing in popularity over the last decade. Already a leading inspiration for development within the film industry, a few traditional authors have elected to have their novels illustrated within as graphic novels in order to better reach new audiences. Savvy educational textbook publishers are also starting to get in on the act (kids are inspired by the storyboard-like visualization vs. the dry nature of educational textbooks) - a smart move. Brands would be well suited to capitalize on this trend, especially those that are already a part of pop culture. While a digital recreation of the graphic novel has yet to be successfully recreated online, an execution cannot be far off. The art-form can inspire wonder akin to an animated feature without the expense - especially if live clips and sounds are incorporated digitally. More affordable than live action footage or expensive photography - the value delivered would be tremendous. This is an art-form that is long overdue to be catapulted into the mainstream, and one that is ready for mass forms of digitization. From the New York Times: A World of Words Reinvented in Pictures
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
The significance of Social Media Week...
Why, in my opinion is this singularly one of the most important gatherings within the marketing and communications industry today? Because it is organic. Organic in the way that our industry has and will continue to evolve along with all of the buzzwords we have become accustomed to. It's authentic, fueled by recommendations and built on WOM. It's also random. Random in the sense that it is iterative and events are added and build momentum as the gatherings take shape over the course of one hell of a dynamic week. Most of the events are hosted by industry leadership within their offices and are on a first to sign up basis. In other words no Javitz Center here folks. Speaking to one of it's founders I griped that most venues were 'sold out' only 1 day prior to signup and that they needed bigger venues. "Shoot me first..." was the response I received...and I think I finally got it. So don't think conference...think globally coordinated and loosely orchestrated croudsourcing (I'll probably get shot for that one too!). Social Media Week is run not dissimilar from a franchise in the sense that all host cities get support and guidance from the central team, but run and coordinate their own venues in a way that best suits the local marketplace. The press conference on Monday for kickoff streamed live coverage from 5 of the 6 international cities at the same time! One of the cities (don't ask me which...was still sleeping). One of the many challenges of pulling something like this off. In other words the conference is reflective of our industry in all of it's forms. The focus is of course on social, but the events reflect the fact that the dynamic nature of the communications industry extends into the social strategies that inform our ideas, the technologies that carry our dialogue, while emerging measurement tools are finally beginning to take shape in order to inform our iterative approaches to improvement at a pace akin to Moore's Law. All of course leading to our client's success along with measurable ROI. All of this along with the fact that the events connect us globally, the fact that growth is organic and challenges the founders to keep up with the pace of their own creation. Talk about being reflective of the industry.! I for one am also sick and tired of paying bloated entry fees for industry events year after year only to get the same choices served up in the same locations - by the same people along with vendor lists that are limited to the size of a venue. None of these constraints apply here. Brilliant! With the exception of a few very affordable events, most on the bill are sponsored by brands leading the conversations within their respective industries. A win win for all. So run, don' walk to what is left of Social Media Week this week. Events worldwide in a city close to you.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Yahoo's rebirth may be on your TV.
In the struggle to differentiate itself, Yahoo tried to re-invent itself as a media company starting as a content search engine for years. This become much harder when Google bought YouTube, but Yahoo suddenly has an early foothold in an unexpected area...on our TV's. 2010 is the year that TV's will finally start to catch up to our PC's with online connectivity, on-demand programming, social interactivity and e-commerce widgets. Many players are already in the space such as Roku, Vudu, Apple and the like, but Yahoo was early. Establishing a widget platform that seems to be included in most new set tops.
TV Manufacturers are also launching application platforms of their own as a way to add third party content and basic interactivity to broadband-connected sets. Samsung, Vizio, Panasonic and Toshiba are just a few of the brands setting up their own solutions for select flat screen televisions, despite the fact that some had already signed integration deals with Yahoo's Connected TV division, creator of the Yahoo Widgets platform. Digital video company DivX has introduced its own TV app platform, leveraging relationships with content producers such as Break, blip.tv, Revision3 and Rhapsody to offer a plug-and-play solution to CE companies. LG Electronics was named as the first manufacturer to license DivX TV for upcoming Blu-ray Disc players and home theater systems. As you can see, the range of standards boggles the mind, with Yahoo being the only common thread baked within many of these hardware platforms.* Yahoo also struck a deal with Brightcove to expand its content offerings for the Yahoo Widget platform. Media publishers using Brightcove's online video platform can now distribute their videos through Yahoo's Widget Engine. The Yahoo Widget Development Kit has also finally been fully released to the public, enabling individual developers and larger content providers alike to develop apps for the TV Widget platform. Yahoo has partnerships in place with LG, Sony, Samsung and Vizio, the 4 top U.S. TV brands, to bring TV Widgets to their internet-connected televisions.* All of this leads me to believe that Yahoo may be poised for a re-invention in the exact space that they have had a hard time committing to online. If they play their cards right, while Google may be the platform of choice on our PC's Yahoo could be the platform of choice on our TV's. *Many thanks to Wayne Karrfalt from Cynopsis: Digital for much of the industry intel that helped provide affirmation to my position.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Is this the death of the networks and CableTV as we know it?
As CES winds up in Vegas this week, it will become clear that the 'final 10 feet' between the PC and the TV will finally be bridged. This will all be made possible via the simple inclusion of direct ethernet or wifi connectivity along with software allowing for our new TV's to play compatible digital video such as flash, along with being able to 'speak' browser. No idea why it took manufacturers so long to do this but better late than never. So what will this mean for the consumer, content creators, the networks, cable companies and the marketing services industry? You can almost guarantee that it will create more upheaval than we can possibly imagine. For the consumer, long gone will the days be where they will need to navigate to a specific network to watch a show. As with PC's, consumers will search via a browser like interface directly on their TV's and the content will be served directly to them. The consumer will not care or be concerned about which networks serve the content. This will pretty much be the death of networks that do not own IP in the form of content or do not strike exclusive distribution deals directly with content creators. In order to save themselves the cable networks will need to consolidate or merge with the larger media industry or risk becoming dumb pipes that only serve as your ISP. From the Daily Beast: Sharon Waxman writes: Hollywood is on the “cusp of a new chapter,” in which a smaller group of major entertainment companies, fortified by bigger libraries and deeper distribution channels, will hold a larger concentration of power. With Comcast set to acquire NBC-Universal and Time Warner and News Corp. fighting over MGM, power is being consolidated. Comcast, for example, will have the largest cable subscriber base in the country, plus control of a movie studio, a broadcast TV network, and several cable networks. The combined power of content and distribution, creates a new kind of player. Either way, all content will be digitally served in an on-demand model and the opportunity for content creators and marketers to distribute directly to consumers via their TV is now a very real option. On a personal note, I finally cut the cord with Time Warner in Manhattan simply based on the fact that I no longer watch appointment based TV. Between Netflix, Hulu and a few shows purchased via Apples iTunes I am pretty much covered - never having to watch another commercial again, while spending less than half of what I did with cable. Apple is also talking about a subscription based service. Others will do the same. Net/Net...I would not want to be a network or cable company right now, but I would want to be a content creator or marketer. Those of you that have followed this blog for a while will know that I have written about this before - in July of 2007: http://jaredhendler.posterous.com/iptv-is-finally-here). So why repeat myself?.....become this is finally becoming a reality. A few more articles relevant to this post that may be of interest are below.
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