Platform A, Election Spending and Old-Media-Think

At last week’s Digital Media Conference held outside Washington, D.C., the lunchtime speaker was Lynda Clarizio, President of AOL’s Platform A. Platform A is a huge advertising network, a group of smaller ad networks lashed together under a single brand name. It’s AOL’s attempt to play big in the online ad game.

Clarizio’s a great speaker, able to command attention even amid the din and eventual post-prandial slump of a conference lunch.

But one thing she said led me to believe part of her operation, for all its new-media-world-killing ambition, is still grounded in the thinking of old media.

Since I wasn’t taking notes, I can’t quote her figures or words specifically. But she said she was disappointed with the recent performance of paid political advertising online. She hoped sales to political campaigns would boost online ad revenues this year.

The trouble with that thought is this:

Political campaigns–particularly Barack Obama’s, but many others as well–have learned to master social media to get their message out. Why buy online ads when a staff of two social media masterminds, a brilliant geek in a Red Sox cap and a battalion of interns can spread a powerful political message immediately, virally and essentially without cost? And far beyond the reach of any ad buy?

Political campaigns have become some of the most adept, persistent innovators in social media, and they have had a powerful effect already in motivating volunteers, generating donations and circulating millions of messages via video, pictures, widgets, blogs, Tweets, podcasts, purloined documents and endless screeds. Much of this is being done by people with no formal affiliation with the campaign–which is, of course, the way social media is supposed to work. [For details on the web 2.0 arms race [[Obama's campaign so far is kicking McCain's staff's slow-moving butt]], I invite you to attend the daily master class on such matters at the website of TechPresident.]

Paid online advertising–no matter how well targeted, contextualized and behaviorally-aware–is a garden hose.

Social media is a tidal wave.

Why bother paying for the former when all you need to do is ride the latter?

Eyeballing the Best “Contextual” Video Ad Ever

While playing around with the video platform MetaCafe today, I came across a particularly shrewd use of contextual video advertising.

Are you a Lasik candidate? Check out this educational video illustrating the procedure, with a flap of cornea being sliced off and laser pulses reshaping the eye–all while the patient is wide awake.

What’s that? Think you might want contacts instead? Click here, my friend!

Deadblog: What I Actually Said at a Web 2.0 Conference

Well, I’m done paneling at the Digital Media Conference. As expected the discussion didn’t go entirely as I planned. Which is good.

This is because for the panel, titled Social Media: What’s Next? , I shared the stage with a group of guys all demonstrably smarter (and considerably more stylish) than I:

• Nick O’Neill, proprietor of The Social Times, the top social media intel blog
• Greg Johnson, CMO of GGL, a booming gaming social networking site
• Michael Chin, SVP of Marketing for KickApps, which sells social media software (and just did a major partnership with widgeteer Clearspring, creating a dominant force in the commercial widget-and-social-apps world)
• Terry Farrell, Senior Product Manager for Microsoft’s Zune, which is using social media in ambitious ways to build the brand and user base of the way-behind-the-iPod MP3 device,

Our moderator was Rohit Bhargava, SVP of Digital Strategy & Marketing for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. He’s used all sorts of social media tactics to promote Personality Not Included, his book about how companies can lose their authenticity–and can get it back.

So here is my attempt at “deadblogging,” to coin a phrase–a recap, after two cocktails and a long day, of a panel in which I participated. [I'm not sure this is a good idea. But hey, it's a 2.0 world! We're all about experimentation and iteration.! Run with it! And, fellow panelists: If I've gotten anything wrong, please let me know.]

The major points I remember:

Nobody’s really sure how social communities can make money, but all of us are convinced they have value. Terry talked about an “exchange of value”–that the Zune community gets value from participants, who in exchange get value from the others. Since his community is designed to support a brand, and not directly bring in money, that exchange is sufficient.

It’s not enough for a network to be social–the real value is the context, which is to say, what the socializing is about and for. Michael talked about how the DIY (do-it-yourself) Network uses its software–instead of people just using a social network to goof around, they actually share an interest and can benefit from the other people’s attention. Greg agreed–his network is by and for gamers, and their shared interest creates the community.

There are too many social networks tugging at limited attention. The panel seemed bearish on the social-to-be-social networks like FaceBook and MySpace, and bullish on those dedicated to a specific purpose. Nick mentioned how a lot of social media tools are used outside of social networks proper.

Even though as someone who does not own or work for a social media company I have no skin in the game, I think I was the most bullish about the magnitude of the transformation social media is bringing to the culture.

It’s true that so many 2.0 gambits and tactics and businesses are inane and shallow–”toys for teens,” as they’re often dismissed. Twitter can be pointless, Digg a fool’s errand, YouTube an arterial bleed of American energy. Mainstream media embarrass themselves regularly by lurching blind into the social space. This not only gives me plenty to blog about. It makes it hard to see the larger patterns.

The Big Fact: Millions of  people worldwide have access to tools that allow them to communicate, organize, think, share, congregate and conspire, in near real time, with whomever they want, without the permission of established media, corporations, government or civic institutions. This transformation is fundamental, accelerating, irresistible and irreversible.

The political implications alone are huge. But so are the commercial and social. Non-adopters put their livelihoods at risk.

Web 2.0 is bigger than Web 1.0, though not as big as Gutenberg. [Or fire, for that matter.]

Mike said something interesting in response to a question about how people can make money from social media. Paraphrasing here, he said companies ought to go out and hire as many anthropologists as possible to try to figure out what’s going on with this new behavior–and then figure out how to make money.

After the presentation, a woman from Motorola came up and introduced herself, said she enjoyed the panel. She handed me her card. Her title read “Anthropologist.”

For real. Not a winky-funny-hip-corporate-title. Her actual job title.

Yes, Motorola has an anthropologist on the payroll.

I’m telling you, this thing is big.

Live Blog: Yahoo News at Digital Media Conference

Alam Warms, head of Yahoo News

Election ‘08 news: 50 percent of public getting info online, end of 3-network, major media election. Candidates working on SEO, comment moderation, etc.

“Credible aggregation” is key to draw audience. [Yahoo has biggest online news audience? Note to self: Fact-check later]

Question: Blogs have no fact-checking, little credibility. A: Blogs *can* do important work, fact-checking, etc. Blogs exposed CBS/MSM misreport on GWBush military service.

There is a role for editorial decision at Yahoo News: We have pulled down non-credible stories, make editorial judgments. [Note to self fact-check that one too.]

Yahoo plan–multimedia aggregation with multiple, quality partners. We do lots of A/B testing, usability, simplicity of use. We don’t believe in video ghettos, says Warms.

We can include exclusive content where we think there are gaps.

Did a web-exclusive interview with sitting President, in partnership with Politico, in May.

Good Morning Yahoo, sponsored by Dunkin Donuts, every day. An aggregation of morning content.

No audience quetions? What’s up with that?

What I Might Say at a 2.0 Conference

I’m about to speak at the annual Digital Media Conference in Washington. It’s an open panel discussion, dedicated to “The Future of Web 2.0.” Very cool co-panelists.

I have no idea, since this is a freeform panel, what I’ll wind up saying. I may wind up drooling on my good shirt. I may “kill,” as the standup comedians say. You just never know.

The moderator asked for a few notes, capturing some main ideas I’d like to discuss. Since they may never see the light of day–and since I realized they are a fairly succinct summary of at least some of my ideas about social media/2.0–I figured I’d stick them in an entry here.

For what it’s worth:

1. Despite the rep I’ve cultivated for 2.0 skepticism, I make my living by helping clients use 2.0. Go figure.

2. Current big client: PBS–yes, Bird Bird and Antiques Roadshow 2.0. My big success so far: Being part of a process that allowed a blog comment saying  “[Ex-CNN, new "Wide Angle" host] Aaron Brown is a douchebag” to stay up on the site.

2. I think the adoption of social media is going to be more transformational culturally even than the shift from digital to analog media. Even the people who “get it” don’t often “get” this. Social media is going to crush every communicator and media company that doesn’t figure out how to use it.

3. It’s all so unsettled now–the pressure to participate and the moving-target, making-this-up-as-we-go-along times we’re in, etc.– that you’re getting some dramatic acts of poor judgment. If you take pleasure in the public floundering of the powerful, it’s a great time to be alive.

4. Media companies are some of the worst. Odd fact: NYTimes is building its staff of moderators to keep unsavory UGC off the site while at the same time laying off reporters.

5. More true in 2.0 than ever: If the audience thinks it’s advertising, it’s not working

We’ll see what I wind up saying.

The Economist, Hyperwords & the Clickable Universe

Lately I’ve been selecting one story each week that is so worth spending time with I recommend actually printing it out on paper.

I nearly chose Rummaging Through the Internet, from the Economist, but then I caught myself. It’s important to read–but vital that you don’t print it out.

The story takes a look at some emerging technologies that enhance browsing, mostly with 3-D functionality. These are great tools, several of them new to me.

But before the article gets to the 3-D stuff, it introduces something else I wasn’t familiar with, a Firefox (3.0!) add-on called Hyperwords. This utility among many other things turns every word in a story into a hyperlink–without the annoying underline and colored font.

As you browse, select any word and a small menu pops up, offering a bewildering range of actions you can take regarding that word. But the money feature here is the ability to highlight a word–like, say, Hyperwords–then click on Hyperwords/Search/Google first result. . .and up pops a visual of the site represented by the word.

It’s a cool utility, with all of the neat features and bloatware excesses of most.

Still, the reason I mention it is this: The Economist article about all this neat new browsing functionality  has no hyperlinks [shake head here at how mainstream publishers whose businesses are collapsing due to the web don't take even the most rudimentary actions to optimize their content for the web].

So: Install the Hyperwords Firefox plug-in, then read the Economist article.

Select the name of a 3-D browser mentioned in the story you want to check out, click on it as if it’s a hyperlink using Hyperwords, and you’ll go directly to the page. For instance, highlight PicLens, a CoolIris product, and here’s what you get to in one click:

Otherwise, you’d have to go do a Google search on the product name, click on it, lose your place in the Economist article, hate life briefly, etc.

Anyhow, the Economist article is a good one, but it’s worthless online unless you download the Hyperwords tool it writes about in order to easily access the other cool tools it cites. (Do make sure you check out SpaceTime whether you read the Economist article or not).

And ask yourself:

How could a medium as web-stupid as the Economist co-exist in the same digital universe as these advanced technologies it writes about?

And which of them do you think will own the future?

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