OK, I am echoeing others here, but this one I have to mention – let alone for my own records. You might have seen this video:
Joe Jaffe found it in 2006 already and I remember thinking back then: what kind of nonsense of „user generated content“ brands will have to deal with in the future. And I was thinking about how brands could properly respond to this kind of stuff. But I never thought about what they did now: it has apparently been sold to McDonalds by their agency Arnold. It just doesn’t say anywhere for how much. Now it constantly runs on US television, probably costing lots of media money…
Joe now feels a bit stale. For one, because he found it already such a long time ago, but also because of the tagline in the beginning which says: „user generated content“.
„Why Facebook, why now?“ Robert Scoble answers three questions: Why Facebook, why now? Why Facebooks advertising sucks, and how the friends definition and ties could be improved.
In the advertising part, he argues that the ads should somehow be connected to the people’s profiles. But: he says it should be tied to the friends profile, not my own. And I wonder: if my friends are into things that are of no particular interest to me, what is the added value for me? And subsequently you need to ask yourself: why would an advertiser put ads infron of my eyes that are not relevant to me?
… you can see it on the right hand side. Does anyone know the German (or at least European) SMS number for updating twitter?
I am curious to see if this gets me hooked. I have thought about this for some time, but never saw the point. I still don’t, but now I decided to try it nevertheless. And later I shall also try pownce and jaiku, because that’s the next two services people talk about.
The difference between then and now is that it’s easier than ever before to become a micro celebrity. It still takes talent and hard work, but really anyone can do it. […] Beyond „micro fame“ if you will, the rise of personal brands really reflects something deeper in society that’s changing. In American culture in particular we have always been proud of individualism and expression. Before Web 2.0 we might dress a certain way or do something to stand out. Nowadays, that happens online and it’s being driven in large part by the maturing of the Net Generation – Gen Y.
So Steve talks about the increased opportunities to live out individualism to create microcelebrities.
While Mitch Joel podcasts about „echo chambers“. He argues, that instead of the podosphere, the blogosphere and any other social media being an echochamber, we are merely creating celebrities.
These are two different angles for a similar thing. Steve says, it is all about individualism, supported by the web enabling self expression. Mitch argues we’re quoting&supporting each other to create our own celebrities among each other. Both results in more or less unknown individuals becoming (micro-) celebrities.
Ad agencies are about to trade three-martini lunches, schmooze-fests and fast-talking account executives for programmers, custom software and anthropologists who can navigate MySpace.
One comment was aimed squarely at all those agencies that are desperately trying to acquire people who understand digital and „interactive“ advertising, which invites consumer participation via digital media — for example, voting on products online or sharing text messages as part of a viral marketing campaign.
„Digital anthropologists are going to be the next people you scramble to hire,“ DeCourcy said.
[…] agencies will need people who can use the tools of cultural anthropology to interpret the overwhelming amount of user-generated data, and come up with strategies for using social networks to sell stuff.
But this trend also won’t last much longer says this article. Two more years, and there will be enough young people ready to fill every remaining gap there ever was. So enjoy while it lasts.
They even got some of the typical Simpsons products in these stores, like buzz cola and KrustyO’s. A list of these Simpsons-inspired products is over here.
Wo ich sonst so bin...