Archive for February, 2008

The Power of Free

Published February 26, 2008 Media shift Leave a Comment
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Chris Anderson is and will be talking a lot about the power of “Free.” Open source software has been doing this for a long time and there are more and more examples of how this tactic will drive sales. Radiohead recently gave away their latest album (highly recommend if you don’t have it…) and then put it up for sale. Free certainly helped sales (you could pay what you wanted to for the download) when the album went to #1 in January 2008 after being in market for almost 2 months.

The latest example of this comes from Suze Orman and Oprah. Chris Anderson’s blog discusses it here. Most interesting is this chart:

Suze Orman books sales

Know that virtually every industry that sells goods or entertainment are watching this. Hoping that over protective brands (Major League Baseball, TV Production Studios, etc) reconsider their position.

Let Levi Ride – Fans Take Action

Published February 26, 2008 Conversational Marketing , Media shift Leave a Comment
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Let Levi Ride Professional bike season has begun and my obsession with this crazy sport takes hold again. The big news so far this season is Team Astana’s exclusion from the Tour de France. For those not so obsessed with the sport, this means that the 2007 Champion and 3rd place finisher Levi Leipeimer cannot compete.  Levi just won the Amgen Tour of California this past weekend.

Big stuff.  Trust me.

So 40,000+ passionate fans (myself included) have signed a petition protesting the unfair and capricious decision.

Look how they are recruiting new members -

ADD THIS - Let Levi Ride

The bike racing community is a global community. Primarily European, there are pockets of bike geeks like me all over the world. This is the new face of consumer activation. The initiatives/brands/politicians/etc that can optimize their message for social networks/conversational tools will run circles around straight forward PR efforts.

Do me a favor – sign the petition. The Sport could use a little lift.

Office Move Complete

Published February 25, 2008 Federated Media 3 Comments

The new FM NYC Presence

Now we just need 3 more good sales people to help us fill it. If you’re interested, give a shout.

Portals losing share to more focused sites

Published February 25, 2008 Media shift Leave a Comment
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Interesting study (registration required) by Avenue A/Razorfish tracking ad spending from Avenue A’s $735 million in billings. The study is coming out today but Media Post had a sneak peak and files this report.

What caught my eye:

Overall, vertical sites accounted for 39% of spending; search, 31%; portals, 19%; and ad networks, 11%.

Underscoring the continuing shift away from portals to more targeted properties, the agency last year more than doubled the number of sites it bought ads on, from 863 to 1,832.

Office move.

Published February 22, 2008 Federated Media Leave a Comment

I sit down and make this quick post before unplugging our wireless router at Federated Media NYC Office and packing it for our move to a new office.

The new digs are much bigger (important as we’re growing rapidly with 4 more people starting in the next month or so) and nicer. I wrote about our current office situation a while back and I must say I’m very excited to move. That said, the office dynamic at our current space is one I hope we can keep and possibly improve. So goodbye FM office #1. You may not be missed but you will be remembered fondly.

Office #1.1Office #1.2Office #1.3

Mac Air Has Some Competition

Published February 20, 2008 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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(Thanks to Jaffe Juice)

Come on Yahoo (I mean Jerry) enough is enough

Published February 20, 2008 Media shift Leave a Comment
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I get it. You don’t want to be acquired by Microsoft. But giving employees a really generous retention/severance package as a poison pill? The people who don’t leave are now rooting for Yahoo to sell. The rest see this as just another irrational management decision honoring history and legacy more than good business sense and innovation.

And this coming from a guy who had a soft spot for an independent Yahoo!… Isn’t it funny how quickly Goliath can become David?

Media Shift can make Victims of Brands You Love

Published February 20, 2008 Media shift Leave a Comment
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NY Times had a piece this weekend about the decline of PBS. I was really angered by the piece. I literally grew up with PBS. I worked at a PBS station while in graduate school.

When was the last time I watched PBS? Paul Kedrovsky suggests PBS is a victim of the high cost of video content and that the lowering costs might provide a way out of the tailspin. I’m hoping so but I’m afraid I’ve voted with my remote which has caused me to miss more than a few of those quarterly fund drives….

Conversational Media in Action

Published February 20, 2008 Conversational Marketing Leave a Comment
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I’ve been enjoying Silicon Alley Insider a great deal. It has rapidly made it onto my start the day/end the day list of sites. I had the pleasure of having lunch with much of the team a few weeks ago and I’m very excited by the focus and passion they are putting into their site. What I like even more is the passion and devotion the readers are giving back.

Take a look at the comments to Hank Williams’ guest post Market Research is for Suckers. Williams’ post was inspired by thoughts he had while being interviewed by Courtney Nichols for NextNYers where Nichols asks about market research. Just 10 years ago, Williams’ post would have been a well written but one dimensional column in a magazine (if it were published at all.) Now Nichols can jump into the conversation and provide another perspective.

Check it out.

iphone Drives More Browsing – So Says Google and I Agree

Published February 15, 2008 Tech News Leave a Comment
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Google is saying that that they see 50X more web searches from iphones than any other device.  I buy it.  I’ve been a pretty active mobile browser for some time (had a blackberry 8700 and a Treo in the past) but the iphone user interface and Google’s really good iphone optimized design make me use the device more.
Oh, and while I’ve got my Apple Fanboy hat on, let me say that the Facebook for iphone interface rocks too.

Just make it  3G….

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