TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington w/ Charie Rose

A little dated but good info on Microsoft vs Google. Mobile Phones and TechCrunch’s new product called the CrunchPad and more. Watch here.

SpongeBob Technology

I’m not sure if the folks at bubblemotion saw this SpongeBob video (start watching at the :31 second mark) before they came up with their cool concept to make a text message an audio sound bite but when I went to their website it was the SpongeBob video I first though of.

You can click the logo above to see their own little viral video on why this is a powerful product.  With the ability to have people recieve the audio text message and then forward them to friends and family I think this is a great tool for not-for-profits, political candidates or groups trying to lobbying on an issue.

Check out bubblemotion and I’m interested to hear what you think.

Grassroots Adds Punch to your Facebook Group

You can now use Facebook to stay in touch with those elected officials that you don’t think listen to you. They actually do keep very accurate records of how people are weighing in on a particular issue. So funnel your Facebook group members to have their voice heard through this tool.

Now you can use Facebook to make that real easy. H/T to TechCrunch for highlighting this new Facebook tool.

Click the Grassroots logo above to add this to your Facebook group.

From the Grasroots website that explains the purpose and benefits:

• Let Facebook page visitors immediately send letters to Federal or state officials without having to download anything or install any application.
• Automatically match them to federal and state legislative officials, based on the addresses they enter
• Add a prominent “Take Action” tab to your organization’s Facebook pages
• Allow visitors to instantly send messages to elected officials or other custom targets
• Use a unique URL for the “Take Action” tab, linkable in status updates and emails
• Enable Tell-A-Facebook Friend functionality after actions taken and on general spread-the-word pages

I think the strongest feature is this one……..

• Capture registrations in an external database for later emails, fundraising, etc.

 

 

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Dollars Follow the People

I noticed a couple of unrealated news articles about things happening online and thought I would share them with you. One deals with online advertising going up and the other with what’s happening with the Latino community online.

Since the tech bust in 2001 companies have struggled with brick and mortar issues, how much to invest online, offline, how to budget for their marketing,  and how to measure online impact.

The funny thing is I consistantly saw from 2003 to 2008  was study after study showing how online advertising supported offiline marketing efforts but never saw the uptick in online advertising.

Maybe 2009 will start to alter that trend. This article shows an uptick of 10% for 2009. So what are the challenges for online advertising. In one word: branding.  The internet pitch for so long has been click throughs and the holy grail– direct response meterics.  With the major component of most advertising being brand awareness internet advertising was held to a standard that didn’t deliver.  Maybe part of that “not delivering” lies in the creative. This article says the trouble lies with online advertsing lacking creativity and this article is a little more harsh when it says internet advertising is “cheesy”. I have to agree with him. If you are looking to do online advertising in 2009 please find creative people to do something other than “Shoot the Ducks” or “Punch Obama” for a free iPhone.

One thing is for sure. Money follows the people and the latest numbers show 51% of the U.S. Hispanic population is now online. Just another reason to roll out more advertising dollars to target that demographic. Online advertising is going to rise but the pitch needs to be retooled and the creative needs to get better.

Injecting Tech Into D.C.: A Beginning

I first met Daivd Kralik in February of 2007  when I ventured out to D.C. for a political conference.  He is doing fantastic things out in Silicon Valley and soaking up info that the best tech minds can offer and in turn seeing how those ideas could be integrated into the clumsy, ineffective, and impersonal thing we call the federal government.

David recently got an invite to talk at Google’s Mountain View, CA headquarters about these issues. Take time to hear what David has developed after being outside the beltway for over a year.

The Internet Challenge

I was on the phone Friday with an old political consultant friend of mine and we were sharing our disbelief at the state of politics here in Illinois when our talk turned to what works online and what doesn’t.

The Internet seems to be a challenge for most because of this persistent conception that the fund raising letter I send by mail translates into an e-mail to my internet community.

In the back of many peoples head they think “My TV commercials are all I need for the video on my website and not alot of people have I-Pods so do we really need to podcast? Can’t we just put the radio commercials on there?”

Somewhere along the way the communication adage, “Respect the medium” was lost when applied to the internet. The “fake it to you make it” phase is over guys. Taking the offline world straight to the final edit phase of your online strategy is not the way you engage people in conversation online.

What I didn’t realize as I was having this phone conversation with my limited experience of internet and the political realm was how it it extended to some of the largest companies in the country.

I guess they had some big ta due in the South of France last week and the CEO of Mircosoft Steve Ballmer gave the keynote where he said…..

“Five years ago, I’d have said we are mostly trying to do the offline world online.” Complete article here.

Well Mr. Balmer, there are alot that still are. I had another conversation last week with a small business owner and I told him they needed to get a blog on there website and his immediate comment was.

“Well, it would be a good place to put an occisional press release.”

The business world is just now starting to grasp the Web 2.0 implications for customer relations and retention. If leadership starts at the top then we have a slow process ahead of us. As evidenced by this article: CEO’s are social Media Slackers.

Change is hard. And doing the internet right is hard but not as hard as some think. One last article to read that covers the subject of hard work and Web 2.0.  Read on here.

Mainstream Journalist Talk Web 2.0

I found this video interesting as it a talk given byDan Patterson of  ABC Radio who has both feet in New Media/Web 2.0 and the world of journalism. As a Web 2.0 junkie and a consultant to people in the political world I can symthaize with him. He has some good points and also re-empahsises that content is the ket to success online.

Watch the video here.

Teens: Texting and Twittering Less Than Adults?

Not sure what to make of this study. I’m conflicted. Seems like Nielsen has a lot riding on traditional media use. Maybe my political background is jading my perception on this. I think they jump the shark when they say that:

* While teens multi-task in their media usage, this behavior may actually be lower than among adults.

Complete study here as a .pdf.

I have a teenage girl. She sits in front of the TV with a laptop watching a You Tube video and one earbud in from her I-Pod.  If she wasn’t homeschooled she would probably have a cell phone and be texting a friend about the You Tube video.

This will probably be the first of a couple of posts on this. I am sending this around to a couple of New Media types and going to get their feedback. Stay tuned.

Congress Gunning for Online Advertisers

From All  Things Digital:

Here comes the battle the online ad business has been dreading: Congress is drawing up a bill that would require users to sign up to let advertisers track their online behavior–and, if you believe online publishers, more or less destroy the online ad business.

Simulmedia founder and CEO Dave Morgan told an industry conference today that Rep. Rick Boucher, the Virginia Democrat who has become the loudest voice in Congress in the advertising/privacy fight, is prepping a bill that will force publishers to let Web surfers “opt in” before they’re served with any third-party tracking cookies.

Not a huge surprise: Boucher laid out the case for the bill last week at a Congressional hearing. It’s unclear just exactly what that would mean for the business……More analysis here.

Put me in the camp of Buyer Beware and more freedom on the internet not more government regulation.

Innovation

“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.” –Peter F. Drucker

In these times of economic uncertainty one sometimes wonders if the things we see coming from Washington is really being accepted by the public at large.

Innovation is an interested topic to reveal attitudes that would not normally come out if the questions were asked in another fashion. I think my philosophy teacher in college called this an deductive reasoning.

So the Consumer Electronics Association has done a poll of the American public’s attitude on Innovation. Not necessarily something I wake up in the morning and say “I wonder what people think about Innovation.” I saw the press release pop up in a Google Alert and as I looked deeper I really like what this poll has revealed.

From the CES website:

• Only one in five Americans (21 percent) believe the U.S. is creating the best environment for innovation. Nearly half chose Japan or China.

• More than one in three Americans (36 percent) believe that the U.S. will lose its innovative advantage and take a backseat to China.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans do not believe that the U.S. educational system is best equipped to develop innovative leaders.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans said that the U.S. national debt, currently at $11 trillion, will affect our nation’s long-term ability to remain an economic leader. The debt is projected to reach $20 trillion by 2015.

Read the complete release here.

CEA has also announced a new national grassroots “Innovation Movement” to focus U.S. policies on advancing innovation with the goal of ensuring continued U.S. global economic leadership.

Read more about that here.

So back to my main point. This Innovation survey reveals people are not happy about the bailouts, see current policy as a drag on our future ability to be successful as a country, and in a small part in the back of these people  minds you see that they understand this impacts them and their family and their kids ability to have better control over their future.