adage
A sure sign Facebook’s already in trouble – meteoric rise and meteoric fall coming
Facebook Suicide is on the rise (people leaving Facebook and not coming back)
According to SAI sources, the following exchange is between a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg and a friend shortly after Mark launched The Facebook in his dorm room:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don’t know why.
Zuck: They “trust me”
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5537408/the-devolution-of-facebook-privacy
Google Suggest — top searches starting with “how do i… “
Ecosystem of Apps for Facebook is already overtaken by iPad Apps as evidenced by search volume around the 3 terms.
NYTimes: chart of Facebook Privacy Options – too complex for most people to figure out and use appropriately.
Charlie O’Donnell: “By the time of this post is done, Diaspora, the web decentralization play from four NYU/Courant students in New York, will undoubtedly have $100,000 raised on Kickstarter. Over and above that, it seems like they’re on a clear path towards a million dollars. Think I’m poking the bear? I’m dead serious. You watch. A week from now, they get to seven digits. Why? Because the ire over Facebook’s privacy issues, platform aggression, etc. is real. If you’re concerned about Facebook, these guys are your heroes.”
AdAge Poll from May 19, 2010.
My Previous article: Facebook is going down in unique users, visits, and time spent
Nielsen IAG Top Ten Most-Recalled In-Program Placements: Dramas/Comedies
Sex sells … well, sex .. but not much else. Victoria’s Secret was the most recalled product placement on TV — fortunately they sell products related to what was recalled. Not so sure about the mayo and cell phone.
Source: http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=143808
 |
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| Rank | Brand | In-Program Placement Description | Program Airing Info | Recall Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Victoria’s Secret | Michael interrupts meeting to offer Donna a retail store’s catalog | The Office (NBC, Apr 29) | 214 |
| 2 | Ford | Cole Austin points to his Mustang and says he still owns it | Cold Case (CBS, May 2) | 190 |
| 3 | Skype | Joyce tells Benson and Stabler that she talks to Andrew online | Law and Order: SVU (NBC, Apr 7) | 183 |
| 4 | Yamaha | Susan explains to Mike that she has inherited a piano | Desperate Housewives (ABC, May 2) | 181 |
| 5 | Rolex | Provo tells Fin that Jack stole his watch; member of the cooking staff is wearing it | Law and Order: SVU (NBC, Apr 7) | 178 |
| 6 | MedTec | Name is visible on the ambulance doors | Trauma (NBC, Apr 5) | 176 |
| 7 | Toyota | Mitchell and Cameron park their car at Charlie’s house | Modern Family (ABC, Apr 14) | 161 |
| 8 | Chevrolet | Winston drives with Guerrero, who identifies the car as a Camaro | Human Target (FOX, Apr 7) | 155 |
| 9 | Porsche | Zack asks Nick where he got his car from | Accidentally On Purpose (CBS, Apr 21) | 152 |
| 10 | Chevrolet | Pres. Hasaan rides in a black SUV after turning himself over to terrorists | 24 (FOX, Apr 5) | 147 |
Stop paying Kim Kardashian $10,000 per tweet – She’s NOT Influential if no one re-tweets
Source: AdAge.com
| Yahoo Scientist Questions ROI of Kardashian’s Sponsored TweetsDuncan Watts Explains His Model for Predicting Value of Influencers on Twitter |
Ad Age Digital Conference
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Stop paying Kim Kardashian $10,000 per tweet. That’s the recommendation based on the work of Yahoo’s principal research scientist Duncan Watts, who presented his findings at Advertising Age’s DigitalConference.
“If you recruit enough people who, on average, influence just one other person, you could get a much better return on investment if you aggregated them and altogether paid them a tenth of what Kardashian gets.”
But in looking at influencers, Mr. Watts found that it’s incredibly hard to predict who will be a major factor on Twitter, a conclusion that runs counter to the prevailing wisdom of social epidemics popularized by the book “The Tipping Point.” While he acknowledges there are certain personalities such as Kim Kardashian who can potentially trigger a larger cascade of re-tweets given her large amount of “followers” (“Tipping Point” enthusiasts call her a connector), close studies of social platforms reveal that influence is spread more efficiently and more reliably when done through many-to-many connections, rather than through a few highly connected individuals.
“Most of them will send tweets, and no one else re-tweets,” Mr. Watts said. “A lot of times, not that many people are listening on Twitter.”
More supporting details here: http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/celeb-twitter-followers-have-low-authority-13297
Celeb Twitter Followers Have Low Authority
While celebrities have high numbers of Twitter followers, those followers usually have minimal reach and influence, according to social media consulting firm Sysomos.
Celebrity Followers Offer More Quantity than Quality
Celebrities seem to have large amounts of followers with low Twitter authority levels (see “About the Data” for more information on how authority levels are determined). Of five celebrities examined, the average follower of President Barack Obama had the highest authority rating on a scale of 0 to 10, 2.4. The most common authority score among Obama’s roughly 4.2 million followers is 1, held by 20%.
Interestingly, the celebrity whose fans had the second-highest authority score of 2.1, pop singer Lady Gaga, had the second-lowest following of about 4.5 million. The most common authority score of followers of all celebrities except Obama was 0.
Actor Ashton Kutcher had the highest number of followers (about 5.1 million), and the third-highest average authority score (1.8). Pop singer Britney Spears had the lowest average follower authority score (1.3) and second-highest number of followers (about 4.8 million).
Celebrities seem to have large amounts of followers with low Twitter authority levels. This could be because they attract everyone from all walks of life. Some people may only be on Twitter to see what their favorite stars have to tweet about. In addition, most celebrity followers tracked by Sysomos had few followers themselves, pushing down their authority scores.
Social Media Heavyweight Followers Have Most Authority
Social media heavyweights, private citizens who have made a name for themselves on Twitter, had the fewest followers but the highest average authority scores for their followers. Following the pattern seen with celebrity tweeters, the social media heavyweight with the fewest followers, Jason Falls (27,195), had the highest average follower authority score (4.8).
Conversely, the two social media heavyweights with the most followers, Chris Brogan (139,693) and Jeremiah Owyang (64,775), tied for the lowest average follower authority score of 4. The most common authority score for all social media heavyweight followers was either 4 or 5.
Online Media Beats Traditional Media
On the whole, the five news/media sources tracked by Sysomos show more variety among their scores than the celebrities or social media heavyweights. However, online media sources attracted fewer followers with higher average authority scores than traditional media sources.
Online media source Read Write Web, with about 1 million followers, had an average follower authority score of 3, which was also its most common follower authority score (19%). This tied online media source Mashable in average authority score, most common authority score and percentage of followers with the most common authority score. Mashable has more followers with about 2 million.
Online media source Tech Crunch ties traditional media source Time.com with an average follower authority of 2.4 and most common follower authority score of 2, at virtually the same percentage. However, Time.com has significantly more total followers (2.1 million) than Tech Crunch (1.4 million).
Traditional media source New York Times has the highest total number of followers (about 2.5 million) and lowest average authority score (2.2). It also has by far the lowest most common authority score of 0 (22%). Not surprisingly, sources that specialize in social media attract users that are more active on Twitter.
Facebook Fans More Valuable Customers
While there is variation in the value of different types of Twitter followers, on the whole Facebook fans of a brand provide more value as customers than non-fans, according to a new study from digital consulting firm Syncapse Corp.
The average value a Facebook fan provides a brand is $136.38, but it can swing to $270.77 in the best case or go down to $0 in the worst. This value is based on Syncapse analysis of five factors per fan: product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, brand affinity and earned media value.
On average, a Facebook fan participates with a brand 10 times a year and will make one recommendation. Value can differ significantly by individual brand. For example, in the case of Coca- Cola, the best case for fan value reaches $316.78 but is $137.84 for an average fan. In the worse case scenario, a fan is worth $0.
About the Data: Using its social media monitoring and analytics platform, Sysomos looked at the authority rankings of five celebrities, five social media heavyweights and five media organizations. Rankings were based on the kind of Twitter users following these celebrities, social media heavyweights and media organizations. Each Twitter user is assigned an authority ranking between 0 to 10 – with 10 signifying someone with very high reach and influence. This authority ranking is based on the number of followers, following, updates, retweets and several similar measures used by Sysomos.
AdAge: AOL to Sell or Shut Down Bebo in 2010
Move Comes Just Two Years After Portal Spent $850 Million to Acquire Social Network
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — AOL will shut down social-networking service Bebo if it can’t find a buyer, the company said in a memo to staff on Tuesday.
FULL ARTICLE
AdAge: Web-Tracking Research Emerging From Surveys’ Shadow
As Social-Media Continues to Grow, Marketers Place More Emphasis on Listening to Consumers
BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — Replacing “asking” with “listening” has been a hot topic at market-research conferences for the past couple of years. But now some researchers are finally doing more than talking — they’re taking steps toward replacing surveys with web tracking.
This is what happens when 99% of the inefficiencies are cut out of a system (advertising industry)
Update: Including Q3 09 numbers
Source: http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=140125
While no holding company’s results are pretty these days, Interpublic Group of Cos. last week posted particularly poor numbers, swinging to a net loss of over $35 million for the first nine months of 2009 from almost $60 million in profit during the same period in 2008. IPG’s third-quarter revenue fell 18% compared to declines of 14.4% at rival Omnicom Group, 8.7% at WPP (factoring out the effect of acquisitions and currency shifts) and 5.3% at Publicis Groupe. WPP’s reported revenue, including revenue from its big Taylor Nelson Sofres acquisition, rose 16.7%. In the same quarter, net income attributable to IPG tumbled 47.3%, more than double the drop of Omnicom (down 22.5%).
Google changed the game by changing the business model from paying for impressions to paying only when the advertiser gets the click. This helped to cut out the 99% of waste and inefficiency which existed in the industry.
|
WPP Profit Dropped 47% in Second Quarter More Than Half of Company’s Revenue Came From Nontraditional Advertising |
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Using words such as “severe” and “surprise” to describe the recession’s impact on its business, WPP, the world’s largest advertising conglomerate, today said its profit was down 47% for the second quarter. And WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell said it will be a while before marketing executives begin to spend and take chances the way they did just a few years back.
FULL ARTICLE – Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=138673
______________________________________________________________________
In a first half earnings statement released this morning, WPP Group announced that digital and direct marketing-related services now comprise 25% of its body.
WPP Group owns labels like 24/7 Real Media, Mediaedge:cia, MediaCom, Mindshare, GroupM and Outrider.
Digital and direct garnered $1.7 billion in revenues in the first half of ‘09, with a projected annual run rate of nearly $3.5 billion total. But it is digital media and advertising that appear to be dominating the segment.
Overall, first half revenues fell 2.9% to $6.4 billion in the first half on a reported basis, MediaPost reports. Like-for-like, however, total revenues slid 8.3% against the first half of 2008.
According to WPP, traditional advertising and “media investment management” have been the hardest-hit amidst the economic downturn.
“On a constant currency basis, advertising and media investment management revenues fell by 7.5%, with like-for-like revenues down 7.8%,” it stated.
Branding and identity, healthcare and specialist communications — which includes direct, internet and interactive — were least affected.
The media conglomerate committed to prioritizing the growth of digital communications, customer insights and strong geographic markets.
Related topics: Online Advertisers, Data Updates,
Source: http://www.marketingcharts.com/updates/digitaldirect-marketing-now-25-of-wpp-group-10211/?utm_campaign=rssfeed&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink
Samsung 52 inch HDTV $9.99 at BestBuy – purchase receipt below (6:21a eastern time August 12, 2009)
Buy Link at the bottom of the post
Click for product page: Samsung – 52″ Class / 1080p / 120Hz / LCD HDTV LN52A650 SKU: 8749287
Order is still good as of 12:23 pm EST August 12, 2009.
BestBuy knows digital and social media. CMO Barry Judge tells it like it is.
Related:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8311580&page=1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081202660.html
http://adage.com/article?article_id=138469
http://www.nbcwashington.com/around-town/shopping/Best-Buy-Bummer-999-HDTVs-an-Error-53043522.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=6697
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/13/bestbuy.mistake/index.html
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/081209_best_buy_offers_999_hdtv_by_mistake
http://www.kktv.com/home/headlines/53067682.html
http://www.wftv.com/countybycounty/20371068/detail.html
http://www.shoppingblog.com/blog/8120912
http://www.cepro.com/article/best_buy_accidentally_lists_1700_hdtv_for_10/
The JKWeddingDance video was real; the viral effect was MANUFACTURED – Post 1 of 2
originally investigated and reported on Friday July 31, 2009 by Augustine Fou, with Tugce Esener @tesener
Several friends and colleagues had the same reaction when they found out about this video — that it was at such a high view count already and we were late to the party of finding out. Then we did some more digging — digital forensics :-) And this is a case where a viral hit was indeed successfully manufactured. There’s something to be learned from all this – how to successfully manufacture a viral video sensation and make viral profits.
Related: How to manufacture a viral video sensation and make viral profits – Post 2 of 2
Chris Brown is successfully tapping into the viral halo of a funny video that coincidentally used his song.
ReadWriteWeb article on how rights owners (Sony, Chris Brown) can make viral profits on other people using their work instead of suing them - http://bit.ly/KA3HI
The video was real. But promotional activities (possibly/likely paid) created the initial viral effect (led to the tipping point of the viral effect) which then got carried a further by people thinking they were simply late to the party, including myself (e.g. 440k bit.ly clicks and 3k detectable retweets out of the 13M views). The numbers don’t jive.
The viral halo has added 1 million more views to the video from August 1 – August 2. (13.1 M to 14.5 M)
Ten ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN proof points to follow, each with screen shot to illustrate.
1a. anyone notice that the “Forever” soundtrack is remarkably consistent throughout the video as if it were dubbed or added in after the original footage was shot. The sound is too consistent in volume and loudness to have come from a built-in, on-camera microphone. At the very end of the video, once it cuts back to the couple at the altar the sound quality goes back to the echo-y, tinny sound of an on-camera mic.
1b. The “TheKHeinz” user on YouTube was registered on July 19, 2009, the day the video was posted. We usually look for clues like this to detect “plants” by PR agencies. This is an issue of trust — a user “CmdrTaco” on Slashdot has been around the forums for years, made hundreds of posts, and was rated by the community very highly. PR agencies trying to seed stories have to create new user accounts during the PR campaign (recent registration date) and have made no other posts or uploads before (no history).
2. The social intensity detected in all of the top social venues like Technorai, Delicious, Reddit, Digg, etc. indicate there was not enough organic sharing to support a view count of 13 million views in 11 days (updated: 14.6 million today August 2, 2009).
a) Bit.ly shows only 447k clicks on the shortened URL
“At Fortune’s Brainstorm:Tech conference Ashton Kutcher effectively took credit for boosting the views from – in his words – 12,500 views before he tweeted the link – to some 1.2 million views 12 hours later…”
Well, unfortunately he used a bit.ly link which provides public analytics on how many people clicked. Most tweets result in immediate traffic, which then tails off immediately after the tweet falls off the first page. In his case, look at the following bit.ly stats URL and click “past month” to see the peak clicks on July 23. All he can actually claim is that his tweet drove a peak of about 100,000 clicks on that day not 1.2 million 
http://bit.ly/info/Z7vMw
too bad Ashton. next time you make a BMOC claim, be sure to use a non trackable method, so analytics won’t “out” you so easily.
after only 3.5 days of retweets the twitter intensity died off to next-to-nothing; if this were a truly viral video, carried forth by real people (and not by paid PR support and paid media) the retweet intensity would remain high. As of August 21, there are over 21M views on the video and the 505k retweets does not show actual organic support for that number.
b) Twitturly shows only 3 thousand retweets on the YouTube URL itself
c) Delicious shows only 447 bookmarks of the video itself
d) Reddit only shows 673 thumbs up for the video itself
e) Technorati shows only 277 blog mentions of the video itself — this could be undercounting if blogs used URL shorteners. But if you look at the blog intensity results (below) sorted by blogs with most authority the blogs have very little authority (i.e. influence or size of audience).
– these are real indications of interest by real people. The social intensity of the passalong for this video does not substantiate the huge number of views in 11 days.
What we are seeing now is the additional viral halo, as the momentum is sustained by large media outlets reporting on the story — even Google Blog blogged about it (boasting about the success of YouTube advertising in driving revenues). Of course TechCrunch is right that viral videos can be monetized: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/30/youtube-viral-wedding-videos-are-great-for-advertising/ )
3. Twitter shows nothing in the top “trending topics” related to this video – indicating few people are actually tweeting about it — if this video is SO viral (13M views in 11 days) then it has GOT to show up on a scan of social intensity. (see screen capture below)
July 31 (Friday) August 2 (Sunday)
4. The original video was posted July 19, 2009. The people from the video appeared on NBC’s Today Show and danced around Rockerfeller Center on July 25th (6 calendar days after posting). Today Show staff may be great at spotting news, but to get all the wedding party from the wedding to re-enact the dance on the Today Show in 6 calendar days — too good to be true? Hmm…
5. Out of all the wedding videos on YouTube, how did Chris Brown detect this particular one that used his song. @glenngabe noted that there are song detection mechanisms - ContentID - which detect the pattern of the copyrighted song and report that to the rights owners. We know there are hundreds, if not thousaands, or really funny wedding home videos — America’s Funniest Videos has been running for years and years on TV showing funny wedding blooper videos that people submitted to them.
6. ALL TEN of the top viral videos on AdAge’s Viral Video Chart took around 3 – 6 months to achieve full viral effect — not 6 days. See all 10 videos’ stats, as reported by YouTube at the following link. This video has not shown up at all on the list of Adage viral videos.
AdAge Top Viral Videos all take 3 – 6 months to reach full viral effect
7. From @RedW0rm – YouTube Declares Wedding Video a Financial Success – http://bit.ly/9ZUtu
8. also check the velocity of this http://twitter.com/#search?q=jkwedding or this http://twitter.com/#search?q=jkweddingdance notice the tweets are not seconds apart but hours apart. Something that achieved 13M views in the 11 days since posting would show far higher velocity or twitter intensity.
9. For a top-trending topic on twitter, there is usually correspondingly high search volume that is detectable. At first glance, terms related to this viral video like “jkwedding” or “jk wedding dance” all seem to spike. But if you put it against even “Corazon Aquino” (one of the top trending topics NOW on Twitter) those JK wedding search volumes are dwarfed. (see chart below).
10. Google only reports 366 links to the video and most of them are not even important websites (see Alexa blue bar)
11. The video itself has no honors and no stats (yet); YouTube stats are conveniently turned off. Other videos have their stats graphs publicly available.
12. see the fine print in the YouTube description — For more information or to make a donation towards violence prevention please visit our website: http://www.jkweddingdance.com/ – why would a normal wedding video ask people to make a donation towards violence prevention? (see screen capture below), the WHOIS record shows the domain jkweddingdance.com was created 29-Jul-09 — today is 31-Jul-09
Updated: This was circumstantial evidence. A source confirmed that Jill is studying patterns of violence propagation for her PhD. Their choice of charity was their own choice. And the site was set up to help that cause.
Conclusion? The video itself is real, made by those nice people in the wedding. They may not even realize why or how their wedding video went viral (and the tens of thousands of other wedding videos on YouTube did not). On the Today Show, “The couple told Lauer they were surprised at the video’s popularity” (also see NY Daily News article – http://bit.ly/OA3iG )
Related articles:
ReadWriteWeb – Build Profit Not DMCA Suits
WSJ – YouTube Declares Wedding Video a Financial Success
PSFK – Co-opting Viral Hits to Sell More Music
TechCrunch – YouTube: Viral Wedding Videos Are Great For Advertising
Huffington Post – Viral Wedding on YouTube Drives Buyers to Chris Brown Music
Despite massive increases in advertising, the biggest beer brands see massive drops in sales
Beer is yet another commodity and category that is being decimated by better quality alternatives. The means of production and distribution are no longer controlled by a very small number of big companies. Consumers find attractive alternatives in micro-brew beers or local beers. They have the means to access them (online) and have the product shipped directly to their homes. So no matter how much advertising the big companies do, if their product is just not that great, they will continue to lose customers to alternatives. The “lime” version of Bud Light was said to cannibalize sales of regular Bud Light. And rightly so, consumers are looking for a better product.
Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=138141
Fourth of July Holiday: Bargain Brands Gain, but Big Spenders Bud, Miller Lite and Corona Tap Out
By Jeremy Mullman
Published: July 27, 2009
Despite a flurry of new and improved ad pushes for the country’s leading brews, the days leading up to Independence Day, usually the biggest-selling period of the year for the category, led to gruesome sales declines vs. the same period last year. Sales for Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light and Budweiser plunged 7% and 14%, respectively, in grocery, convenience and drug stores during the two-week period ending July 5, according to scanner data from Information Resources Inc. Miller Lite suffered a 9% drop. The big importers were hurt badly too: Corona marketer Crown Imports watched sales decline 6% to 8%, while Heineken and Diageo each saw double-digit drops.
The Ads Won Awards for Crispin; But Did Nothing for Client BurgerKing – Whoa! Big Surprise
|
What Crispin’s Lauded BK Work Doesn’t Do: Gain Ground On McD’s
Since Hiring the Agency, King Earned Ad Plaudits but Hasn’t Closed the Gap |
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) — For all of Burger King’s marketing triumphs with its ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, it has lost — and continues to lose — ground to its largest and most significant rival, McDonald’s.
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