This week I was interviewed by Owen of the E-Marketing Insights Podcast. Listen in for a little background history of Doing Words, as well as my perspective on what happened in the early days internet content publishing, how the Web 1.0 bubble grew and burst, why social media has changed the content publishing industry irrevocably, the continuing democratisation of content, and which brands I believe are best-equipped to succeed in future content markets.
Surgeon-General’s Warning: I hadn’t taken my brevity medication before the interview so you may find I rattle on for quite some time.
You know what’s great about this podcast episode? It’s only episode four of a brand-new podcast. It was recorded on a portable digital recorder, in my car, and the total post-production probably took Owen only an hour, from importing, editing and through to hosting on Soundcloud.
Despite the market-dominating power of iTunes and News Corporation and Facebook, more unique new content is being published every year by the people who would have been considered “the audience” twenty years ago.
Check out Owen’s E-Marketing Insights podcast, it’s early days yet but shows great promise, and that’s the best kind of content there is.
Advising a client this week on their marketing plans for a presence, it struck me they have a lot to learn about the medium they’re using, even though they already have their Facebook and Twitter presence up and running.
They’re showing how little they understand when they say they want to add a follow button to the order confirmation page in their shopping cart. Look, knock yourself out, it can’t hurt, but i would expect a 0.0001% clickthru rate on that. It’s not like many of us start following companies we buy from at most once a year, especially when it’s just a retailer of products made by other companies.
Offering useful advice, however, in a friendly, conversational tone — that might well get you some followers. Can you find a way to advise customers on using the product or service they’re considering buying? Can you offer advice on the decisions made before purchase or even on the industry as a whole?
Besides, in 12mths time average Australian Twitter users will probably have 500+ people they follow on average, so for brands, being followed by a customer won’t mean that customer’s seen your message. Lifestream marketing messages are ephemeral things. There’s no way for the marketer to determine an equivalent to impressions/month. It’s like radio or TV — broadcast. Without panel research or clickthru data to show it’s been acted on, we have no idea whether it’s been seen.
Think of Facebook, Twitter and anything that displays a stream of updates as a form of broadcast media, but an unusually fractured kind. On TV, every audience member’s viewing habits are different; on lifestream media, it’s not just their viewing habits but the programming that is different, according to the number and nature of things they follow.
People ask me how I keep up to date with all the tweets I get from the 1,000+ people and brands I follow. I tell them I don’t — but that’s not the point — by following 1,000+ people I ensure that there’s always something interesting to read whenever I have time for Twitter.
(This post was my first from an iPad. Another device further dividing attention into smaller chunks. I’ll tidy it up later, promise!)
I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve liked an advertisement so much I’ve embedded it in a blog post. And since I practically lost my thumb in that regrettable Masterchef-worship incident, that leaves only 9.5 things I can count on two hands.
So take it from me: this ad from Melbourne public transport agency Metlink, artist Justin Heazlewood and agency Currie Communications is very good if you get all the local in-jokes and still very good even if you don’t. It works on many levels — as a spoof of his own previously-released music video, as a piss-take at pretentious iPhone owners, as a critique of idle young arts students, and really, at the idea that iPhone software for finding a train timetable could be anything world-changing. Much courage from Metlink and the agency and much creativity from Heazlewood!
I wasn’t going to write about the tragic incident between Israeli forces and the Gaza relief flotilla — this is usually a blog about my work and the issues facing my profession. And so much of it seemed inevitable from the moment the flotilla was first organised — a motley collection of dodgy vessels carrying people representing a broad spectrum of issues would limp towards the Gaza coast, it would be intercepted by the Israeli military, who would arrest those on board with maximum gusto, jail or deport those on-board, confiscate everything and then claim it’s own investigation would prove that it had done nothing wrong. Initial condemnation of Israel’s action in the West would be limited to strong words, the pro-Israel community would try to explain that the State of Israel was indeed threatened by a few liberals and journalists and a rusty Turkish cruise liner, and then to finish up, we’d see a reaction to that suggesting that the event might not be as black-and-white as “Israel = bad, flotilla = good.”
Andrew Günsberg’s post, “Reading Then Thinking Speaking Then Listening” is a great example of the latter. He discloses his conflict of interest up front and encourages his readers to think twice, that it might not be all black-and-white and good-versus-evil. He encourages them to read a book about the background to the occupation of Gaza and talks about how the Israeli population isn’t always in favour of the way its government and its military behaves.
It’s all good, reasonable stuff, but it misses a crucial question: what was the only action committed by the Israeli forces during this incident for which there’s no justification? Firing shock grenades and tasers at the occupants of a foreign-registered vessel while in international waters? Use of high-velocity paintball rounds and live ammunition at close quarters against non-combatants? Taking foreign nationals from outside Israel’s borders and detaining them indefinitely or deporting without access to legal representation or appeal?
No. The only indefensible act of the state of Israel in this matter was the effective and almost total censorship of all communication arising from the incident so that the only significant record of events will be that provided by Israeli military video crews.
Flotilla activists interviewed by a journalist immediately prior to the attack (AP Photo/IHH)
According to eyewitness accounts, journalists were the first target of the Israeli action, including blocking cellphone and satellite communications from well prior to the incident to well after it had concluded, to prevent video, audio and text evidence being broadcast from the scene. Two Australian ABC reporters were immediately detained, with one, photographer Kate Geraghty reportedly tasered as she tried to upload images via satellite.
These Australian journalists aren’t Hamas apologists, anti-Israeli propagandists or easily-duped greenhorn reporters. They are both seasoned, professionally unbiased reporters working for an international broadcaster with an unblemished and rigidly enforced code of non-bias and independence. Israeli forces had been informed they were on the vessel, they identified themselves to the commandos storming the vessel, but they were nevertheless assaulted and had their equipment not just confiscated but methodically destroyed, even to the point of tearing up the notebook journalist Paul McGeough had been writing his reports into once satellite and cellphone communication had been blocked.
So far, Israel’s government has refused widespread calls for an inquiry into the incident from many UN nations including Australia, so maybe an inquiry will never happen. But if there ever is an inquiry by the Israeli military or anyone else, the only significant body of evidence will be eyewitness accounts and the video footage recorded by the Israeli military’s own video teams. You can easily discount the evidence of the flotilla’s eyewitnesses as being the rantings of terrorist sympathisers, as Israeli military inquiries habitually do. Which leaves the only version of events those recorded by the Israeli military itself.
Sorry, but I’ve got a degree in journalism and media studies, and I know how easy it is to influence opinion by selective editing, or just by pointing the camera one way and not another. The only hope we ever had of knowing the truth of the flotilla incident would be to compare and contrast the Israeli military’s own footage with that supplied by the independent professional media accompanying the flotilla. Now that there’s only one source of video footage, there’s no hope of knowing what really happened.
I’m as prepared as the next realist to remain open to the idea that Israeli forces may have done their best to minimise casualties and separate combatants from non-combatants on-board the flotilla vessels. That injuries and deaths on board happened accidentally and without intent in the heat of the moment. That some of the flotilla’s occupants were aggressors and initiated some of the violence that occurred. Perhaps even that Israel would have delivered the cargo of aid intact and in a timely fashion as they’d offered to do if the flotilla diverted to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
But — and it’s a huge but — there’s only one motivation I know of for blocking independent news coverage of the incident, and that is to hide the truth of what really occurred from the world community, from the international Jewish community and the citizens of Israel.
If you feel like being realist about this incident, by all means reserve judgement until ‘we know more about what happened’ but ask yourself who’s made sure you’ll never really know for sure, and what their motivation could possibly be.
Paul McGeough on the rise of Hamas, while remaining independent, unbiased and unassaulted. (ABC Fora)
alan jones (@bigyahu)
27/05/10 4:47 PM
Hey, sorry for the extra step but click the link and I’ll know you aren’t a bot. Please follow this link to validate your profile. http://truetwit.com/vy30301516 Thanks
alan jones (@bigyahu)
27/05/10 11:05 PM
Euw. That tweet felt just like an ad. #fail. Try not to do that again, yeah?
MobileMojo (@phonesandplans)
27/05/10 11:15 PM
Thanks for the tip . I’m new around here, still on the steeper side of the learning curve.
alan jones (@bigyahu)
27/05/10 11:20 PM
Great, that’s better already. On Twitter, be you, not your brand. Do the right thing by your brand, but be a person. Cheers!
MobileMojo (@phonesandplans)
27/05/10 11:34 PM
True. But you’ve got to admit its easier to hide behind the anonymity of a brand.
alan jones (@bigyahu)
27/05/10 11:46 PM
Might seem so but no. Twitter users more forgiving of people than brands. They love beating up on brands.
alan jones (@bigyahu)
27/05/10 11:49 PM
Twitter often medium for community revenge on brands and marketers. On Twitter the power rlnship btween brand and audience flips.
Why add polish when in today’s society, being so geeky is so credible? I love this intro video for Diaspora. Now it needs to be mashed-up into a music video for some yet-to-break indie band. Call it “OK Go Make A Social Network”.
The thought for today: when branding, be true to who you are. Customers have a seventh sense for these things.
The democratisation of media technology means if you have something to say in words, you can tweet it, blog it, print it and get 1,000 copies done in perfect-bound full-colour before close-of-business tomorrow. If you ache to express yourself with images you can grab a digital still camera, video camera or mobile phone, edit it there and go straight to the web or to DVD. And if you want to create music all you need is a laptop, a midi interface or a microphone, a copy of Garageband and publish your music straight to the web.
But there are still two limits to self-expression:
Ideas; and
Time.
You need at least one idea and you need lots (loads, masses, heaps) of time.
In fact, I can define a new genre of art that is defined primarily by the time taken to produce it. Vimeo is full of examples where the idea itself wasn’t so inventive but the artist has distinguished themselves and found an audience by devoting an enormous amount of time to the expression of the idea.
Here’s an example where the idea’s not a big deal (anybody who’s bounced a ball for a while has heard rhythms in the bounce) but the art is in the expression and the time taken to express it in video. It’s very well done.
It’s been said by people much smarter than me that the most precious commodity of our age is time. I’d humbly suggest that without an idea, time will achieve nothing, yet without time, an idea will remain unrealised.
Just a small post but here it is: 1,233,522 seconds? 1,233,522 seconds? WTF? Quick, in your head, how many hours is 1,233,522 seconds? Anybody? I didn’t think so.
I’ve seen iCal do some stupid things before but this about takes the cake. What’s worse is I don’t know what I did to deserve this or what I need to do to get my hourly reminders back. For Pete’s sake.
Hey, Apple? When you’ve finished buffing your floor-to-ceiling mirrors to a flawless shine so you can bathe in the glory of the iPad, do you think you could possibly spare a couple of developers to knock some of the rough edges off iCal’s unholy seething mass?
I’ve been working on a video project for a few months. First I worked on the strategy that led to brand development, which led to the scriptwriting and direction. The product will be launched in a couple of weeks and then I can show you the video.
But first, how to explain a product that doesn’t exist, in a video? You can’t show people the product.
Well, the product is used to help people collaborate on ideas. People in groups are easy to shoot, but how do you convey the development of ideas without a big special effects budget?
The solution: a visual metaphor. We came up with groups of people building ideas out of Lego-style bricks.
Then the brainstorming got a little out of hand and we agreed we’d try and build the brand-name using the bricks and feature them in the climax of the launch video.
Oh boy. For a week I struggled with designing the brand name in letters large enough to be legible in a wide shot writ small on a YouTube-sized video, while using a brand of bricks that really didn’t stick together in shapes much bigger than 30-40 blocks. Forget good typography, this was survival-of-the-fittest-letter-shape.
In the end it took a lot of silicone adhesive to keep some of the more unstable letters (like ‘R’ and ‘S’) together. We got the shot done, but for a few days afterwards I was left seeing my surroundings re-imagined as Lego bricks. ‘If I had to build that car/building/person out of bricks, how would I do it?’ was all I could think of.
Here’s a much more impressive video project using pixelated shapes. I wish I’d had half the special effects budget and a tenth of the creativity of this team!
Someecards.com is a provider of ‘ecards’ — the things Hallmark and Facebook make a fortune out of these days. Unlike the boring twats at Hallmark and Facebook, the ecards on Someecards have a particular dry satirical tone I love. It extends to their killer tagline, which neatly summarises what Someecards does and how important their product really is — “When you care enough to hit send”.
. I’m new around here, still on the steeper side of the learning curve.
