Managing the Gray - Marketing for the New Media Professional

Gary Vaynerchuk is one hell of a nice guy, knows his wine and then dropped this little video that you must watch.

AMEN Gary! Amen!

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Last night as I was drifting off to sleep I saw this commercial from Sprint. At the end of it they give you the CEO’s e-mail address. ( dan [at] sprint [dot] com)

Of course, the first thing I did this morning was send “him” an e-mail to see what would happen.

As I guessed, I got an auto responder with some nice thank you text and link to their campaign website where I could learn more about their phones if I wanted to.

I’ll give whoever came up with this campaign credit for grabbing my attention and being smart enough to set up the auto response. But, what I’m hoping I get to do is give them praise if he actually ever answers the e-mail. I put in an invitation for him to come on Managing the Gray for an interview about this new approach to get a conversation started with consumers. Hopefully it goes better then the invitation I put over a year ago to politicians and none took me up on.

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I love when people take their love for a product to a level of parody of the competition.

That is exactly what my good friend Mitch Joel did in his video showing why he loves his Sony Vaio.

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I just finished watching J.J. Abrams talk at TED and am still smiling about it.

He talks a lot about his grandfather and how close they were. I can relate to this as my Grandfather Chapman and I were extremely close. When he died it was not a good time in my life and I felt like I had lost a best friend. My Dad and I often discuss how much he would have loved everything that I’m doing and the tools that we get to play with these days. If your curious I know I get my photography genes from him. I have fond memories of being in his home made dark room as a kid watching photos come to life.

But, what Abrams was also talking about is the concept of mystery boxes and how they can be found everywhere. Seems he has had a box that he bought years ago at a magic shop and has never opened because he loves the mystery of not knowing what is inside.

This got me thinking that to a lot of people and companies new media must seem like a mystery box full of wonder. They read the articles, hear the ranting and raving, but they still don’t fully understand what is inside. What happens when someone opens that box without a guide or a firmer understanding? Should you open up the box or preserve some of the mystery.

I’m not sure of the answer, but as I ride along on the train this is where my mind goes. Pondering the fact that if I asked every person in this cabin of the train about various technologies we take for granted if they would have heard of them or not. I think too often we assume everyone knows what podcasting, micro-blogging and search engine optimization. But, the truth is to most all of the fun things we find on the new media playground are still nothing more then a mystery box.

Part of my goals for 2008 is to speak to more people who don’t know this space. I guess I’m hoping to open the box for more people. I like the sound of that.

Posted in Links, Video, New Media | Comments(7)

In Washington, DC to give a keynote at the Era of Conversation event and last night after dinner Geoff Livingston whipped out his flip camera and asked us this question. Besides me, you’ll also hear from Valeria Maltoni and Doug Meacham.

Really looking forward to today because of a room full of new people. That always excites me. Plus, “New Media” Jim will be there and I’ve wanted to meet him for quite some time.

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Whoever the agency is that is working with Axe Shower Gel and other products is doing a great job. They first got on my radar when they sent Yes But No But Yes to LA for an influencer junket. Then today I found a link to this new Naughty But Nice Program video which was a riot. Especially since they made pretty good fun of the PR guy in the video.

At the end of the day if you want a video to be popular make it fun and entertaining. My only problem with this video is that it is five minutes long and thus requires quite a level of commitment from the casual web surfer. It could be culled down to a tight 2 minute piece that I think would make it even better.

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I had no idea there were over 5,000 different web applications out there right now. The more I think about it I’m not sure what I thought the number was, but thanks to the gang over at Laughing Squid I discovered this video that shows them all. Whole bunch that I don’t recognize.

Simple Spark made the video and is a site listing every company in the video. I hadn’t heard of them before today either. Guess I have some browsing and playing to do.

Anyone got a favorite out of the 5,000?

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Video content on the web comes in every shape, size and quality and the hardest thing is finding a particular clip or subject matter. Lots of people are playing with different ways to search through the massive amount of content, but no one has gotten it quite right.

Earlier this week I was shown a BETA of VeZoom which looks pretty cool.

I put in some searches for words that I knew there was content out there for (some of which I had made) and I was curious if it would actually find it and surprisingly it did quite well at pulling back results. I like that I can set up alerts and such to find tags of information I’m interested in. I didn’t see an RSS feed for this, but it might be there. It should be there!

Maybe I like it because they kept the vowels and didn’t do anything silly with that. I’ll be happy when that trend is over.

I’m going to play around with this some more, but wanted to let you know about it since the best way to test is to have more people check it out and play with it.

Posted in Video, Cool Tools | Comments(1)

Are you already reading Web Strategy by Jeremiah? If the answer is no, then get over there right now and subscribe to his feed. I came late to the party on this blog and feel that it is one of the best out there for people playing on the new media playground. I don’t know him personally but really hope our paths cross soon as I’d love to pick his brain.

Anyway, today he has a post talking about some of the top viral videos. He even went so far as to embed them in the post so I got entertained as well as informed. Although it was interesting that I had only seen three of the ten posted. Makes me wonder who was watching them and where I was that I totally missed them. *grin*

But, the point that he made that I wanted to back up and second is that no one should ever set out to “make a viral video” as that is doomed for failure or more importantly shouldn’t be the outset. Creating quality content that connects with a viewer as well as causes them to share that content is what I wish more people would focus on.

Sure, we can all hope that a video will go viral. Who wouldn’t want that type of success? We’d all want it and so would our clients. But, it shouldn’t ever be the measure of success in my mind. Focus on the content, the story, the message you are trying to get out. If people connect with it then it’ll spread and remember it that is important as well.

An example for me is that I had never heard about Agent Provocateur lingerie until I saw a post months ago on Shake Well Before Use (another blog that I highly recommend although it is quite different as you’ll see). I hadn’t thought much about it till today when Jeremiah shared a video from them with Kylie Minogue in it that for obvious reasons went viral. The minute I watched the video I remembered the blog post and thought, “Hmm…I’ve got to check out this company” and proceeded to go to their website. That is SO much more powerful then someone just saying “oh cute video” and sharing it. Does, the video make a connection with the viewer? Does it have the ability to turn them into potential customers that are now aware of your brand?

Think about it and let me know your thoughts.

Posted in Ads, Video, New Media | Comments(3)

Ron Ploof is a long time listener and just sent me in his homework of trying something new by his first video ever submitted to YouTube. It’s a great little piece about New Media. I KNOW this is going to be in future presentations.

Thanks for being a friend Ron and for sharing this.

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Machinima is the art of filming inside of video game engines. I’ve watched everything from short films to music videos done using it.

As computer processors get faster and the tools get easier to use I believe we are going to see more of this. With built in tool inside of Second Life I’ve seen even more of it lately. Crayon even has a little trailer for our island that we had someone put together for us.

Today I saw this new piece of machinima released from the team behind the Silverscreen island as a wrap up for the press event that they held for the movie 300. Full disclosure that crayon was involved a bit behind the scenes on this event, but had nothing to do with this video. I found it this morning while going through Bloglines.

What I like about this is that it’s not just straight up footage from the event. It is very nicely mixed up with a comic book theme and intercut with some footage from the movie. Overall it provides a very nice presentation that gives you a feel for the event but also drives home that it was more then just a press event. The shots at the end showcasing the island are more powerful then some of the other shots. I think I would have mixed those in or moved them up front so that people don’t miss them.

I look forward to seeing more companies and individuals mixing the mediums to take machinima to the next level.

Posted in Video, second life, Virtual Fun | Comments(1)

I never thought I’d push a video down the Managing the Gray feed, but when you watch you’ll understand. If you like the video I do them every couple of days and you can get them via the One Guy’s Thoughts feed.

Links mentioned in the video:

• Beach Walks Episode #427
• Chris Brogan
• Boundary Waters Trip

Posted in Video, Podcast | Comments(1)

I know I’m WAY late to the game on this. I’ve seen it on several blogs, but finally got around to watching it today after seeing it on Mitch Joel’s blog. Amazingly dead on video.

Sort of sums it up and says it all.

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One of these days Jeff Pulver and I will meet face-to-face, but until then I’ll just have to settle exchanging e-mails, twitters and watching his videos such as this one he took after waiting in line several minutes to make a purchase at an Apple Store.

I wonder if anyone had a “talking to” after this. They sure should have.

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I’m good friends with the hosts of Manic Mommies and they recently made a video for the Dove “real women” contest. They just let me know that they made it into the Top 10. When I first saw the commercial I loved it! Way to go ladies!

There are some other great entrants and I hope Dove takes them all and uses them somewhere because THIS is what it’s all about. Getting the people who love and use your product to talk about it and promote it.

Update: I just finished watching ALL of the videos and saw another familiar face that I know! Congrats to PodChick for also making the Top 10!! WooHoo! I know some damn cool women!

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If any of you were doubters that this year is going to be bigger for video then last then scope out this news that local darling Brightcove just landed $59.5 million in financing.

Any questions?

Posted in Video, Rambles | Comments(1)

This new year just got a whole lot more interesting when I got a BETA invite from The Venice Project.

I’m already very impressed and I can see huge potential from this. I’m very curious where they are thinking of taking it from here because I can already see some very good marketing angles, ties into lots of other technology and an almost take over of my desktop if they were to add some features.

This is certainly going to be a shift in the way I consume content. The fact that this is so young and already so powerful excites all the senses.

Stay tuned. I am!

Posted in Video, Cool Tools | Comments(3)

I don’t know who is behind these ads, but they have me laughing enough to blog about them.

If you go to CrownTown.TV you’ll see a whole site dedicated around the Budweiser Select logo. The concept is that each of the points on the crown is actually a character. These are definitely targetting their demographic of upscale urbanites.

Below is the “hot tub” episode that caught my attention on YouTube a few moments ago. I found these very well done with a good level of creativity and just enough crudeness to be funny without “crossing the line.” I wonder if they’ll be making toned downed versions for television or better yet THIS could be a fun video podcast.

If they were smart they’d be doing some social media outreach TO podcaster and bloggers that would be more then willing to talk and promote this. I bet they haven’t done so and are hoping it’ll go viral. Who knows….
A bit of a warning that these are PG-13 in nature.

Posted in Video | Comments(3)

I hate predictions. I really do.

But based on conversations I’ve had with different people and then reading the news this morning about Abbey Corps I’m convinced that we are going to see a huge influx of new video content in the coming year.

This isn’t about podcasting, it’s about content that people will consume, be entertained by, shocked by and share with their friends. The good old “have you seen ________” will continue and people will stop caring if it was on television, the web, phone, iPod or virtual world. The point will be that they SAW it.

What I’m interested in seeing is how all these networks (both traditional and new) handle it. How they make themselves stand out from the others. What is going to make someone go to their computer to watch something as opposed to flopping down on the couch and watching? What about when the lines between where the content is actually coming from completly blur? What then?

I’d say that the rules have changed, but right now there are no rules. If you think there are some then you need to really stop and think about it, because there really isn’t and th ones you might think are in place are made of silly putty and thus we can all change them whenever we want.

I’m excited.

Posted in Video, New Media | Comments(4)

I think this is yet another example of the power individuals have. Not that long ago we’d be lucky if anyone outside of the local papers would have seen this. But, thanks to the web the world can see it by uploading a file to one site. THAT is power!

And I will say right up front that I am not well enough versed in the coffee trade to know how I personally feel about this issue. I don’t know enough of the facts to form an opinion. I’m just captivated by the level of professionalism and directness without attacking in this video.

Now what would be truly amazing is if someone from Starbucks actually posts a video response to this directly through YouTube. Good or bad, change of policy or continuation of the current it would be the way I personally would recommend they react to it. Use the medium that it was given to them in.

Tip of the coffee mug to BusinessWeek’s Blogspotting for the tip. They mentioned a video of an official defending the actions but I can’t find it either so who knows.

Interesting times we live in.

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