I’ve been invited by The Conversation Marketing Summit to speak at the upcoming New York conference on June 10, 2008 about the topic, “Can Agencies Change.” I am going to be thinking through this topic with my colleagues here at the agency and hopefully will have some insightful commentary to share. Looking forward to speaking alongside colleagues Jon Raj (OMD), Daina (Moxie Interactive), and Jonah Bloom (Ad Age).

If you are interested in attending, here is the website to find out all of the details.

If you want to share in the comments section about the topic, “Can Agencies Change,” please feel free. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Here are some questions as thought starters:

• What are agencies doing correctly?
• What are agencies doing incorrectly?
• Where are the inefficiencies?
• Would you hire an agency?

Every time we say that a piece of video content will become viral, I believe it de-values the video.  The creator of the content cannot decide what will become viral, only consumers can.  Typically what becomes viral are stunts and humorous 2 minute clips and this hurts the adoption rate of longer serious form video into the minds of marketers.

I was scheduled to attend the JackMeyers Future of Media breakfast yesterday but could not attend due to a few work conflicts.  My friend Dina Kaplan (and one of the most front facing COO’s I know) was part of a power-panel that spoke about the Realities of Dealing with a Changing Marketplace.  She mentioned a few things that were written up that I’m going to reblog here:

Kaplan, sees a significant change in the business as “the lines are blurring between professional and independent content producers. Networks used to control what would get on the air; now you might find a Revision 3, Next New Networks or Worldwide Biggies show you like as much as a network show.” She also points to series launched at blip.tv such as zefrank and Amanda Congdon.

The challenge, Kaplan admits, is monetizing this content and “convincing people at the brands and agencies there is more to viral videos than cats flushing toilets. They can reach people in ways not possible before. Consumers are engaged with other consumers in online conversations and web video is an important new trend.” Kaplan believes it will take at least until 2010 before video content developers will have a clear picture of the economic potential, but several of blip.tv’s content producers, she says, are generating revenues and are profitable.

Kaplan believes consumers will increasingly be viewing content across TV, the computer, mobile devices and personal video displays and that content will be available across an array of platforms. “The era of destination sites is over,” she says. “The belief you need to build a site that is all things to all people is over and it will sound silly in a few years.” Even Hulu, the joint venture of News Corp and NBC, she points out, is doing extensive distribution deals to make their content available wherever consumers want it.

Dina and I share the notion of her last paragraph especially:  Kaplan believes consumers will increasingly be viewing content across TV, the computer, mobile devices and personal video displays and that content will be available across an array of platforms.

I’ve been harping this for a long time - content is portable.  Our world is on demand and soon, it’s going to be pretty much custom (more on that in subsequent postings).  If I want to watch Fast Lane Daily on my computer, my television, or my iPhone, let me do so.  Oh wait, Next New Networks is already making that happen.

Going back to a changing marketplace thought, one of the ways to innovate AND survive is to not be too far a head of the curve, but far enough to be a thought leader.  The reason why you don’t want to be too far ahead is because you need to generate revenue to sustain yourself (after all, you’re probably not a charity) and folks who are too far ahead have a hard time generating repeat and sustaining revenue.

If interested in this topic, re-read my hyperdistribution post here.

I take the web’s infrastructure for granted.  I open up Safari or Firefox and I access the web.  I turn on Xbox 360 and connect to Xbox Live to play friends across the world, buy virtual goods, and download trailers.  My iPhone can surf most sites on the web in native format, a favorite is Grub On the Go.  This blog is hosted at MediaTemple and people can reach this site 95% of the time (uptime could be better).  The infrastructure of the Internet with all of it’s plumbing is extremely intricate and changes quite often, but the one thing remains the same:  we need to access the web one way or another.

Traditionally, the gateway to the web has been Darpa, CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online/AOL, RED, Mindspring, Optimum Cable, RCN, Windstream, and various other access providers.  Some of the folks on this list are defunct but they all provided a way for us to access the richness of the web.  As a consumer, I didn’t care what they did behind the scenes to get me online; all I cared about was the speed I access the Internet at.  I want my webpages to load quickly, my tweets to go from pointA to point b, xbox live to load, and my connection to be reliable.

GigaOM wrote an article tonight entitled, As Broadband Growth Slows, Expect Speed Bursts.  A little excerpt from the article:

The latest company to follow this path is Windstream, a Little Rock, Ark.-based RLEC. The company said recently that it’s offering 12 Mbps ADSL2 service in some parts of its 16-state network. More importantly, it has increased its lowest-speed tier to 3 Megabits per second. Our good friends at DSLReports add that Windstream is offering the 12Mbps/1Mbps tier for $19.99 for the first six months, and $45 per month after that.

For sake of full disclosure, Windstream is a client of The Media Kitchen, the agency in which I work for and one of the digital media accounts I directly oversee.  I didn’t put them into this blog posting because they are a client, but because 12Mbps ADSL2 service is FAST and if they can roll this out, imagine what the larger providers can do.

Speed is a byproduct of a bigger pipe to and from my computer (or access device).  As consumers, we’re demanding bigger pipes because we’re not just reading content online, but we’re also creating content.  As we’re creating and consuming content, the quality of the content has gotten much greater and watching your favorite television show now takes more speed in order to watch it in high quality.

Besides access infrastructure, cloud computing and storage has been a hot topic for the past year and a half.    Amazon Web Services and Google are pioneering this space, but networks like AppNexus and 10Gen are emerging as unique players within a huge and potentially extremely lucrative market.

Web infrastructure is certainly interesting and it’s only just begun.

A lot has happened in the past few days and I’ve been wanting to write about it but haven’t had the time. I’ll cover a few news items here and hopefully offer up some interesting insight.

• Morgan Stanley released its Technology/Internet Trends document a few weeks ago and it was finally picked up by bloggers. I pointed a few things out internally to my agency but the most important trend here is that this report doesn’t really talk about portals/aggregators/technology players, but rather, communication in a social context which happens to be online. The highlights of the report are all about the “social media” landscape and what people are doing within the ecosystem. I think too many people view the Internet as a technology; but as an entrepreneur and someone who has innovated within the space, technology is an enabler to ignite something else… in this context, communication. Think about how much communication happens on a daily basis online…

• Media6Degrees, announced about $2MM in funding. I have a friend who has been telling me about this company for a few months now and finally, they emerge. I believe he has also joined the team and if he’s there, then they are onto something really interesting. What interests me about them is the quote from the VentureBeat writeup: “With Media6, marketers don’t buy space - they reach interested people regardless of where they are. This not only means that publishers and advertisers get higher returns on their investments, but it also translates into a better online experience for consumers.”

• BrandWeek is telling us why marketers like small social networks. In this article, BrandWeek’s Cumming’s talks about why niche social networks may get the lionshare of advertising dollars. The main reason why they think this is because that these smaller networks are focused on particular niches. Yes, this is true, but can’t Facebook, for example, appeal to everyone and have groups for particular niches as it currently does? The issue I have here is that as a consumer, I don’t want to join 5-10 different networks as I have a hard time dealing with just one… What I like about the article is something I’ve been saying for a long time: Subtle branding messages are key and a big part of what emerging sites are offering to brands, said Kelly Twohig, senior vice president and digital activation director at StarCom USA.

• My friends over at StyleObserver sat down with Sex and the City designer Gilles Montezin at his 7 story luxury brownstone. If you’re a fan of SiTC (I openly admit I am) or like fashion, this is certainly a video you would like to watch. Gentlemen, if you want to score points with your wife/girlfriend/friends, send this link around… For those who want to keep up with StyleObserver often, you can Twitter them.

• I think prediction markets are interesting and I’d like to learn more about them. I don’t know where to start. Anyone know?

This post is in response to Inside Facebook’s post entitled, What CPM is your app making?

As someone who is in charge of quite a bit of digital advertising budget from 12 brands ranging from consumer electronics to financial services and many things in between, I find advertising in/around Facebook applications very challenging and questionable.  As marketers get smarter about their media selection and care about joining the conversation with their audience, extremely integrated opportunities have emerged within the digital space.

For quite a few marketers, their audiences are on social networks such as Facebook.  As many Facebook users are installing applications and such, the marketers are trying to buy their way into the consumers attention span.

Just as we have advertising networks such as Advertising.com, we’re starting to see the same type of networks emerge within the widget/application space.  If history repeats itself (which it very likely will), we will see these widget/application networks create standardized ad units (IAB standard if not already) and go on a scaling spree… how muc inventory can they sign up to maximize their reach across the web.  The top 2-3 will be acquired to bundle into a Platform-A type approach by most media companies, and the world will not be any better off than it was prior…. why?  Because these type of ads are non-integrated.  Most of these ads run alongside these applications and don’t have high interaction rates.

Do these ads running in these Facebook applications add any value?  Can they be amplifyed offline?  What is the real value of them?  I think we’re seeing the value from the Inside Facebook posting… <$1.00 eCPMs.

One of the best cartoons about social networks. Thank you David Berkowitz for the tip!

Watch the video below: 

Email overload is never fun and I’ve have my fair share of it along with some other friends.  Aside from email, work can be strenuous as well, as it is currently due to many projects I’ve got on my plate.  Due to all of this work and email, how many times has this ruined plans or upcoming vacations?

Take a peek at this article by Timothy Ferriss, entitled, The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen.

As an entrepreneur, I’ve certainly had a hard time letting go.  I do have a telephone rule in place that I setup two years ago, but for the most part, I’m guilty.  I do like what Timothy is mentioning though and would agree with some of it.

My telephone rule is the following:

My mobile phone (main number other than my office work phone) is on silent for the entire day/night.  I check it periodically (once in the morning and twice in the afternoon) for messages.  If I didn’t do this, I’d be on the phone the entire day.  This has been working great for me the past two years and if someone needs to get in touch with me immediately, they know how to be resourceful and find me.

• Missed Twitter Questions from Jonathan Schwartz Interview at Web 2.0 Expo - O’Reilly Radar
  Some great questions and answers, especially about competition.
  (tags: entreprenreuership google sun microsoft interview twitter web2.0)

For the past few years, I’ve watched a few agencies and holding companies invest in emerging companies primarily within the digital media space. One area that I’m responsible for at work is to be an expert in the digital media space and if an opportunity arises for corporate developmental opportunities, I can bring the right stakeholders at work and our holding company and talk about investments/acquisitions/etc. I was reading a blog post recently about agencies trying to be more like VCs and I wanted to respond.

I’m still wrestling with the notion of advertising agencies investing in startups. There are a few reasons why I’m having trouble with this:

1. Agencies should be media neutral, so investing in companies creates potential conflicts/liabilities
2. Most agencies have no idea about corporate development within the startup world
3. What money would the agency use to invest in the company? Would the money come from it’s clients or on off the balance sheet? How would the financial part work?
4. The Venture Capital model is fairly hit driven, 1-2 portfolio company exits make up for the miss-rate of the entire portfolio. Will agencies be making enough investments to make up for the potential misses? Hit driven model.
5. Do agencies add any value to startups other than ad dollars (that’s very positive) and potential introduction to their clients?

Just a few thought starters, what are yours..?

• Fake Steve Jobs lights up Web 2.0 Expo | Geek Gestalt - A blog by Daniel Terdiman - CNET News.com
  “It’s like Webkinz for adults,” Fake Steve said of Facebook. “It’s the biggest waste of time ever invented.”
  (tags: fake steve apple forbes web2.0)
• Is Keyword Search About To Hit Its Breaking Point?
  Great article on the future of search
  (tags: search interent information interesting reasoning semantic web)