Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

FT 'Blog'

The FT is conducting a little experiment here with what it is calling the UK Business Blog.  This version doesn't look like any blog I've ever seen but it does offer a way for people to talk to the paper, as demonstrated here.  It seems that the word 'blog' is being used more broadly now.  Less to describe a web publishing system and more to capture an open type of web conversation.  I think that's good.  The technology really isn't that relevant or interesting when it comes to the ever-bubbling, public forum that is the blog-bubble.

The Great PVR Myth

When I first read adland representatives saying that PVRs were a good thing because they increased recall I just put it down to a moment of madness and moved on.  But strangely enough it's a view that seems to have developed some level of credibility - to the point that Trevor Beattie is now finessing it.  In today's Guardian Beattie argues that Sky+ owners stay glued to the screen when they are fast-forwarding adverts and that means that, "Even at speed, the more visually arresting the ad, the greater your chance of attracting an inquisitive viewer."  Is it me - or is that just desperate?

Hollywood Tackles Bittorent Genie

Hollywood's Motion Picture Association of America (representing all seven major studios) has offered an olive branch to Bram Cohen's Bittorrent, the P2P network that allows massive files (ie movies) to be exchanged by individuals at a very low cost.  Reading between the quite murky lines of the deal, it looks like Hollywood's finest have agreed not to take action against Bittorrent as long as it tries to stop people swapping its products or at least removes them from its search engine.  Bittorrent has been downloaded about 50 million times and accounts for a ridiculously large amount of global P2P traffic (30-50%), so it no surprise that the MPAA has acted.  But the deal looks fragile to say the least. "Genie"and "bottle" are two words that come to mind as Bittorrent isn't actually owned or controlled by any one body.  Btw, if anyone can point me in the direction of MPAA chief Dan Glickman in a BitTorrent T-shirt, I'd be grateful.

IF Only

Johnnie Moore and I have a little chat about open source (some prefer collaborative) marketing over at PFSK.  (The bit about voodoo isn't entirely factual).

Individual Take on Web 2.0

Paul Graham thinks Web 2.0 just boils down to the web being what is what originally intended to be before IPO fever took hold and blew it all up.   I like his take because it recognises the difference that this vast technical onslaught makes at an individual human level.  Graham sums it up as 'Don't Maltreat Users' but highlights the subtle nature of this challenge by adding, "Until recently a company giving anything away for free could be pretty high-handed about it.  Sometimes it reached the point of economic sadism: site owners assumed that the more pain they caused the user, the more benefit it must be to them."

Drucker

In a world where so much seems to be changing it's good to be reminded that so much remains the same.  The Economist's tribute to Peter Drucker, includes this quote about business analysis,"“What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?”.  It's might be a new-fangled, Web 2.0 world but there's nothing new under the sun.

Broadband World

Broadband is fundamental to modern marketing but it often gets overlooked.  So it's good to see the latest global stats here.  Key figures are that the global broadband audience is 215m, out of about 1bn web users worldwide.  Unsurprisingly, the US has the highest number of BB'ers at 47m, while South Korea has the greatest density.  The UK is at a global number 7 with 8.9m subscribers.  For more check out the Broadband Wiki which is kept up to date by contributors from around the world.  (Via Om Malik).

Weinberger on Tags II

David Weinberger sums up the more complex end of Web 2.0 better than anyone else.  Here, he writes about what tags mean for the print world in light of the controversy about Google Print.  This sums it up for me, "You may file a field guide to the birds under natural history, while someone else files it under great examples of the illustrative art and I file it under good eating."

Folks-on-Yahoo vs Google-Kong

Business 2.0 has a splendid article here, looking at how Yahoo is learning from its acquisition of Flickr.  One thing it has learnt is that tagging works.  In fact it works so well it might become the weapon that Terry Semel uses in his epic battle with Google-Kong to see who can dislodge Microsoft first.  The idea is that whilst Google's power-code can sift through the web's vastness, a Yahoo-mobilised army of people might do a better job.  "The Flickrizers most ambitious goal is to turn Web searching itself into a social event -- the idea being that you can find what you're looking for faster if you first see pages saved and tagged by people you know and trust. Done well, it could play as the triumph of the humans over Google's cold mechanical approach."

Folks-on-Yahoo vs Google-Kong anyone?

Control Is Overrated

So many of the (professional) conversations that I have boil down to the changing way that control can be viewed in today's marketing environment.  For ages, mass marketing has been about control of the message and command of the media - an intoxicating power-brew for the world's global brandmasters.  So the slightest sniff that those heady days might be coming to an end can be a bit tough to swallow.  However, I think it's time to get it in perspective...