October 2010 - AndreaVascellari.com

7 Takeaways on the Future of Interactive Video

Today I received and email from Jeff Pulver in which he was talking about a new groundbreaking music video (Thanks Jeff!). I checked it out and it was actually pretty cool. It’s an interactive video and you can have a look at it over at AndyGrammer.com

Technically it’s a no-brainer, it reminds of a couple of flash projects I worked on a couple of years ago with my team at itive.net. What’s interesting about it is the fact that it’s all done within that vevo player, Today I received an email from Jeff Pulver in which he was talking about a new groundbreaking music video (Thanks Jeff!). I checked it out and it was actually pretty cool. It’s an interactive video and you can have a look at it over at AndyGrammer.com

Here’s a list of a few important takeaways that I thought to share after watching the video:

Although video is a channel that is getting more and more traction online, having ‘just a video’ out there is not enough anymore. A higher degree of interaction and strategic thinking is needed.
High quality engagement experiences are unquestionably one of the key factors that will help in winning the battle for ‘online attention’.
Will these kinds of projects be the only ones that will give you a higher chance to succeed? No. I’m sure we’ll still have low budget and amateur videos that will go viral.
Whether he will use this kind of technology or not, Loren Feldman will keep rocking and 1938media will survive.
I believe that the attention span of people will keep decreasing. This will make the difference between real artists & professionals who are able to capture the audience’s attention and amateurs that will get lost in the countless number of non-sense videos that we have online.
Unfortunately projects like this won’t run on every mobile device any time soon. Until Apple and Adobe figure out a way to go hand in hand in this we’ll have to enjoy these kinds of shows just sitting in front of our laptops & desktops, so communicators and strategists must keep that in mind.
It’s going to be expensive. Until someone will come up with automated solutions which are able to cut down the huge amount of work and editing to get to such results (like for example Animoto did for videos/photos) the budgets for such projects will still be relatively high. In any case if you want to get things right with online video it’s going take a lot of work, experience and strategic planning so it will increase in the future.

What would you add to this list?

Andrea

Apple and Adobe…You guys should talk

Apple and Adobe have figure out a way to go hand in hand in this. Now Apple won’t even ship anymore Macs with a pre-installed Flash player leaving that as an option to the end users that will have to download it directly from Adobe. Same goes with Java, although I believe that could have a minor impact. Anyway, Apple and Adobe should really talk about this. It’s 2010, how long this battle will keep going on? Com’on guys…

Your Take?

Andrea

Need help with your B2B Marketing? B2B Marketing Europe is the answer

Need help with your B2B markting? I’m sure that by attending this event organized by KGS Global [client] all your questions will find an answer. [post released via itive.net]

If you are a VP or Director of Marketing, Marketing Manager, Channel Marketing Executive or if you are a President/CEO/Managing Director interested in find out more on the new frontier of B2B Marketing, this is the event you are looking for: European B2B Marketing Conference, 1st 2nd Dec. in Berlin (Germany).

A unique networking opportunity and an amazing speakers lineup that includes also our friend Chris Brogan. In addition to that during the second day of conference you’ll have the chance of attending a workshop to learn how you can use Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools in your B2B marketing strategies hosted by Nicole Simon (Social Media Strategist – Itive). You’ll learn:

What B2B can learn from successful B2C companies
How to build a relevant, exciting and interactive Facebook page for your company (and why that includes Twitter)
Facilitate interaction between your company and ‘fans’ / ‘friends’ / ‘followers’
Maximize your content online through social media tools
How to be remarkable online
And of course you’ll be able to share your experiences with other attendees!

Follow the official hashtag #b2beu for more information!

Together with Mashable, Read Write Web, media.net and GyroHSR Itive.net is official partner of the event. We are supporting Irina Kremin and her KGS Global team to get the best out of the event. Hope to see you there!

[Communications Report] for October 19th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Complimentary eMarketer Report: Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media – Authored by Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO, this report looks at the current state of online social media measurement and ROI metrics, and how these critical indicators of success will evolve in 2010 and beyond. It explains why measurement is so rare—and shows how leaders in the field are gaining a competitive advantage.
Digital Embassies: A Blueprint For Community Engagement – “Call this a blueprint if you will for how you and your organization can think about building and managing multiple embassies in a hyper-connected world” It’s definitely worth reading.
Social media measurement: defining the metrics to quantify ROI – We might not see an increase in market share for a business due to an overwhelming social media presence, but on a long term, social media provides an opportunity or a platform where you can stand and deliver clear but concise messages about the brand.
The Facebook News Feed: How it Works,10 Biggest Secrets – How does the social media giant decide who and what to put in your feed.
50 Cool Twitter Tools for Tweet Tracking – I’m sure you’ll find some new/useful tools on this list…well at least I did! -via @LisanneVos
Twimbow – Colored Thoughts – I tested it our for a while, it’s an interesting experiment of tweets & colors. Give it a try! [Beta]
Why Are Social Behaviors Plateauing? | Forrester Blogs – for the first time, we’re seeing a change in the growth trend. The latest 2010 Global Social Technographics report demonstrates that many social behaviors have reached a plateau. Why, and what does this mean to marketers?
The Latest Global Social Media Trends May Surprise You | Forrester Blogs – The story behind the data is pretty clear. The initial wave of consumers using social technologies in the US has halted. Companies will now need to devise strategies to extend social applications past the early adopters. This means that you need to understand how your consumers use social media. Do you know the Social Technographics Profiles of your customers? Is your company preparing for this next phase of social media strategy?
Media Influencers Survey Findings – The Media Influencers Survey presents key findings on the Singapore media and communications industry trends. #interesting
Storify.com – Create stories using social media – Turn what people post on social media into compelling stories. You collect the best photos, video, tweets and more to publish them as simple, beautiful stories that can be embedded anywhere.
SoTech infographic V1.0 | SoTech Now – How social technologies are impacting business.

Get a copy of #aoc3 and Support Charity Water – Blog Action Day 2010

Age Of Conversation 3

Did you know that just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years? An average water project costs $5,000 and can serve 250 people with clean, safe water. This means that purchasing a copy of the ‘Age of Conversation 3’, the book that I co-authored with an amazing group of marketing pros, really can make a difference to someone’s life!

Today is Blog Action Day for Water and it’s also a call to action to make this book get onto the Top Sellers’ List at Amazon! Get a copy (or more) today:

It’s available in:

All proceeds go to charity water. Make a difference…

Andrea

Facebook Warning For Koobface Virus – How to Restore your Facebook Account

UPDATE: Follow the steps below. I described in detail what I went through to restore my Facebook account.

Facebook suddenly signed me out from my account and as soon as I tried to login again it showed me this:

Dear Facebook,

No files on my computer contain viruses (I even run a firewall!). In addition to that I didn’t accidentally download an infected file, no friends passed any file and I didn’t click on any malicious link.

So what’s the point of such message? And on which basis can you state that my Mac may contain a virus? Do you have access to my computer? Do you monitor me? Seriously this makes no sense…

Do I have to run anti-virus software to remove these harmful programs and keep my information secure? …I mean…How about having you keeping Facebook clean from such threats and protect my data in first place?

I haven’t downloaded any weird file or malicious content so this leads me to think that Facebook is taking preventing measures against potential risks whether we did or didn’t do something that could compromise the security of the system. But I could be wrong, mah…I don’t know what to think…you?!?

This is the URL I see when I try to login to Facebook. I didn’t login yet or clicked on the continue button

Any idea?

and this is an email that I just received, but I didn’t click on the link yet (never know) especially because I haven’t received any message from a friend inviting me to watch a video…this is weird… Anyone else got the same message?

Dear Andrea Vascellari,

We have detected that your Facebook account is infected with a form of malware, or virus, called Koobface. You downloaded the virus after receiving a message from a friend, which invited you to view a video.

To restore your account, please log in to Facebook and follow the instructions you see there. You can also learn more in our Help Centre at:

http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=koobface

Thanks,

Facebook Security Team

Anyone else is having the same problem?

Andrea

UPDATE: Ok so I clicked on the ‘continue’ button that you see in my frist screenshot above. Here’s the entire process I had to go through to restore my Facebook account:

First thing this is weird because I’m on a Mac and the virus affects PC only. Anyway, these are the screenshots, step by step:

1) click on the continue button after you scanned your computer (you have to certify that too by clicking on the check-box)

2) This window (below) will show up. Choose a method among the listed ones.

2.1) I never set an answer for such a question, neither facebook ever asked me to do it , so I had to choose the second verification method (identify photos of friends. See next point 2.2)

2.2) This is the method I used. Click on start.

3) Be very carful when selecting the name of your friends because facebook doesn’t show you just photos from your albums, it will show you random photos of your friends from the entire ‘facebook universe’ and sometimes it will show you really tricky ones like this one that I’m sharing below (I started to laugh here…How could I possibly see who’s in that crowd?! There are at least 9-10 persons in that area selected by facebook. Ok This is probably due to the fact that someone else tagged the photo that way..but still…). Other thing you have to pay attention to is the fact that you can skip maximum 2 photos if you can’t understand who the person is (another reason to make sure you actually know the people you are connected with…Connecting with people just to have a bigger number in your network doesn’t help much in situations like this).

4) Once you are done identifying your friends click on the ‘confirm’ button.

5) Again this is just crazy…especially because I never saw such window opening up, I didn’t downloaded any file and I never faced all the rest that facebook is mentioning. Anyway…click on the ‘Go to virus scan’ button (nothing really happened to me here, it just redirected me to the next page/window, see next point below).

6) Create a new password

7) No this is not an advertisement of McAfee anti-virus (but I seriously thought about it…hem hem…). Click on the ‘Go home’ button and you will be redirected back to your profile, everything in it should be restored and back to normal.

8) What a crazy ride huh?!

Andrea

itive.net Foursquare Mayor gets a free coffee

via itive.net

If you followed Itive for a while you probably already know that we always try to find new ways to extend the online interaction that we usually have with our community to offline world. This is why from now on we decided to also give a reward to the people that engage the most with us on foursquare by offering a free cup of coffee to who ousts the current mayor of our headquarters.

Why a cup of coffee? Coffee is always a good way to connect, network and find common interests. Let’s get to know each other better, we’d love to meet you!

At the moment we are testing this just at our European headquarters, but if it gets good traction we are planning to extend it also to our HQ in New York. Stay tuned!

LeWeb – It’s All About Platforms

Allow me to say that LeWeb is one of ‘juiciest’ events we have in Europe. This year’s edition of LeWeb is going to be all about platforms. The event will take place in Paris Dec. 8th and 9th 2010 and Loic & Geraldine will tell you more about it as soon as you click play on the video below.

Am I going to be there? Yes, I’ve been invited as an official blogger.

What will I do as an official blogger? I’ll take things to the next level. I won’t release a countless number of posts like I did in previous years. I’ll work on only one, high quality video. A masterpiece that will bring you all the top Marketing and PR content from LeWeb.

Why? The reason is simple: you have no time to check tons of videos/posts. So I’ll do all the hard work to summarize the best communications content ‘in pills’ and bring it to you in one great package.

I already tested this new format at the NEXT conference in Berlin and received great feedback from you all so I hope you’ll find this new upcoming video from LeWeb valuable, as well.

Andrea

[Communications Report] for October 1st 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Your LinkedIn Profile on Facebook – How-to guide.
How General Motors used social media to avert a crisis – Social media is speeding everything up, creating challenges and opportunities for marketers. This is especially true (sometimes painfully so) when a public relations issue comes up. Though social media can make an issue spread faster, smart marketers also see the opportunity to use that speed to quickly correct the issue.
What digital skills should a PR PRO have? « A view from Silicon Valley – The main point of debate for most agencies is whether they should embed digital skills across the agency or simply create a group of digital gurus. This is a real challenge and hard to get right…
Facebook, Twitter okay on the job, B.C. government tells employees – British Columbia is creating new guidelines for how public servants use social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and is encouraging their use in everything from forest-fire updates to citizen input on policy decisions.
£2.5bn a year wasted on marketing emails dismissed as spam – 64% of respondents said that if the emails were more relevant to them they would be more likely to read them. The research found 73% of consumers believe businesses send marketing emails regardless of their relevance to the recipient. – via Cynthia Wee @Its_A_Cyn
Blending Paid, Owned and Earned Media for Branding – eMarketer – Some of today’s greatest success stories in branding blend ingredients from the three kinds of marketing media: paid, owned and earned. Paid media is advertising inserted next to another’s content; owned media is brand-created content; and earned media is getting someone else to provide content about a brand.
10 Examples of Amazing Viral Marketing Videos – These 10 videos provide great examples of what it takes to make a video that can capture the attention of millions and market your product in the process.
Twitter.com Keyboard Shortcuts – Handy.
Social Media Working Better for Retention Than Acquisition – Social media marketing has been around for several years, and as marketers begin to converge on best practices and use the channel in more uniform ways, it is emerging that their top goals are brand awareness and cultivating customer loyalty. Conversely, customer acquisition through social media is less important.
No analytics for Google Instant – It would have been easy for Google Analytics to reveal how much traffic Google Instant is driving, but Google seems to be keeping this information under wraps.