3D, TV Apps, Web TV & the Jetsons
“We need to do something with 3D TV,” your clients will soon say. If you work in advertising, get ready for questions about 3D TV, TV Apps, and the next generation of Web TV devices.
The future of television is happening right now. The Jetsons TV has arrived.
Widespread adoption of new technologies is probably being slowed by the recession. In boom times, you’d see consumers with more disposable income for fun technology upgrades.
So, if you’re in marketing and advertising, this is the time to get ahead of the curve. If you wait until the client asks you about how to leverage 3D television or TV Apps from Yahoo, or Boxee, you’re going to be reacting.
You want to be educated about new technology and helping the client to make the right decision for their brand. In some cases, you may need to steer the client away from some hot new technology and into something that makes more sense for their marketing strategy.
Believe me, friends, I plan to find a way to use this television-based technology in something profitable for my clients. But it has to be the right client with the right message.
Just ‘cuz it’s snazzy and fun, doesn’t mean it will convert. We’re not here to entertain. We’re here to connect message with target audience, and motivate them to take action.
If that message works in 3D, so be it. If it’s a TV app, great. If it flows through the Boxee, terrific. If not, well, then leave the futuristic stuff to the Jetsons, and get on with delivering results to your client.
In the meantime, get one for home and watch Jetsons reruns. And let me know why we don’t have flying cars yet.
Links, Not Necessarily Endorsements:
- 3DTV Arrives at Best Buy
- Samsung confident of attaining 3D TV sales target of two million in 2010
- 3D TV Sales Research + the Future
- I Just Saw The Masters In 3D And It Was Awesome
Superman, Journalism, & Next Generation Media
Check out this panel from an old comic book. It’s a great reminder of the how society’s view of the media has changed over the years…and how that has helped fuel online news growth.
Superman debuted in 1938. The creators clearly wanted him to be a paragon of American virtue. He was, of course, the ultimate illegal alien. But like many foreigners of the time, Superman wrapped himself in the flag and declared himself a proud American.
Since they were creating an icon, the comic book creators made Superman’s alter ego a newspaper reporter. At the time it made sense, since newspapers were symbols of truth. Papers required balanced, honest reporting from ethical journalists.
There was a time in recent history when Walter Cronkite — the CBS News television anchor — was named “the most trusted figure” in the American public.
Flash forward to today, and Jon Stewart of the Daily Show was named the most trusted newsman. What does that say about the state of news in America?
If Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegal were creating Superman today, it’s unlikely that they’d make Clark Kent a reporter or any part of the mainstream media. The news has become so editorialized…and polarizing…it’s hard to imagine people looking at the profession as trustworthy or ethical. These days, journalists are considered among the least trustworthy of all professionals.
There are honest and trustworthy news professionals. Yet, it’s the public perception of the media that matters in this case. It’s perception and how customers interpret the product.
Let’s cut to the heart of the issue. Namely, journalists have an image problem. It’s a marketing and branding challenge. This is particularly ironic, since they (theoretically) control the media.
This poorly regarded public perception of the media may have even helped fuel the demise of print.
- Print folks were dreadfully late to the Internet. As the Web was developing, many news organizations tried to pretend it didn’t exist. Few created decent brand footprints online, which allowed upstarts like the Huffington Post to grab a foothold on news reporting.
- Traditional media failed to recognize the power of citizen journalism. Instant broadcast platforms made it possible for anyone with a keyboard, a digital camera, or a mini camcorder to play reporter. They failed to leverage the cheap, easy news right in their own backyards.
- Many stories are simply a headline and two paragraphs, which satisfies the basic need to know what’s happening. Depth and breadth of reporting comes later. Newspapers made a terrible mistake when they moved to bite-size news stories in print. Suddenly, the print newspaper was reporting the same stuff that was online the day before. For free. And that depth and breadth stuff? That was cut out of the paper.
- Newspapers drifted away from being impartial journals that worked to get both sides of the story, no matter how difficult. They replaced it with lazy advocacy journalism that was barely better than the basic blog.
People aren’t stupid. They know when something doesn’t smell right. If the paper was going to offer opinions and recycled stories, it was destined to lose value in the eyes of the community. Why pay for lazy reporting and opinions…when you can get it online for free?
In marketing terms, newspapers lost their unique selling proposition. They lost their mojo.
What was left was the tattered remains of the mainstream media. But don’t get me wrong, it has been a long, long time since journalists were considered trustworthy. This is not a recent problem.
Newspapers today are a mere shadow of their former glory. Many of them now just reprint news stories from the Associated Press or Reuters or some third-rate wire service. A few hang on, but it’s just a matter of time before they simply fizzle out.
That’s the bad news. There is, however, a glimmer of hope.
From the ashes of this pyre, it’s likely that some ember will spark a new journalistic flame. It’s possible that the old guard reporters will team with next generation journalists to build a new style of news reporting. Perhaps they will redefine what content, news, and balanced reporting is in today’s modern society.
It could be something that reports news of global significance, offering a view of the world beyond our neighborhood. At the same time, this new media can help us stay in touch with the local issues that affect us directly.
With newspapers dying, someone is going to have to pay for genuine news content. Perhaps one day, we’ll actually find a way to fund good journalism. You know, pay for stuff that has value. Remember when we used to do that?
And, if we’re all lucky, the next generation of inventive minds will create another archetype Superman character who represents rock-solid ethics and legendary strength.
If we give them the next generation of journalism, young idealists may again view journalists as a benefit to society. Guardians of truth who get both sides of the story, and allow us to formulate our own opinions. A friend to the community they serve.
And symbol of truth, justice, and the American way.
Facebook Fan Pages Free and Fun
Facebook Fan Page Graph
The continued rise of Facebook means that all marketers — even those who have traditionally ignored social media tactics — are trying to figure out how to tap into this techno-social phenomenon.
One of the easier (and more affordable) ways to test the social waters is to set up a Facebook Fan Page. Plus, it’s free to get started.
I recently set up a fan page for my books (I’ve published three) and my CD-ROMs (again, three published). My books and CDs are resources that provide anatomy reference for comic book artists. Yeah, it’s a unique niche, I admit.
Setting up the “Photo Reference for Comic Artists Fan Page” was free and easy. If you were able to sign up for Facebook and set up a profile, you can figure out how to set up a fan page. For content, I uploaded sample photos from each of the books. It’s basically the same stuff that I have posted over in Flickr galleries and on my personal website.
Photo Reference for Comic Artists
So once you do that, you need to let people know about your page. Right now, I am promoting on the cheap. Basically, I shared the link with everyone in my Facebook Friends list who would be remotely interested in the page.
To my surprise, I got a dozen people on the first day, and then it quickly picked up from there. In less than two weeks, I had hit 200 fans. Not bad for word of mouth (WOM) promotion.
At that point, I had an audience. So I started uploading extra photos, like behind the scene shots that nobody has ever seen. As I posted pictures, people started giving it that thumbs-up “like,” which is a virtual endorsement. That resulted in more people signing up to be fans of the page. In the social marketing space, it’s all about relationships, so virtual approval is hugely important.
As a marketing channel, Facebook Fan Page is an free and easy way to begin spreading your brand message. Facebook even offers some rudimentary statistics and demographic information. It’s not very useful at this point, since my trends are just creating an initial baseline of information. At 10,000 fans you get access to more detailed analytics, but it’s unlikely that such a deep vertical like my books has that much of a broad-based appeal. But you never know.
Next month, I’ll try Facebook’s built-in advertising network to drive more awareness of the fan page. But for now, I am content recruiting fans organically, as they discover my page through their actual social network.
The next few weeks will be focused on posting new information and photos to get people engaged with the fan page. I’ll try running contest, just to see if people will participate. It will be at least six months before I get information about book sales, so I won’t know if this actually helps my long-term goal of selling books.
Stay tuned. More to come. Oh, and don’t forget to become a fan!
LINKS – NOT NECESSARILY ENDORSEMENTS:
- Do You Need a Facebook Fan Page for Your Business?
- Facebook: Fan Page vs Group
- The Beginners Guide To Creating A Killer Facebook Fan Page
Blog Traffic Tip #3 – Link to Yourself
This Blog Traffic Tip would seem to be amazingly obvious, but so few people do it well.
When you write your blog, stop and look at the words and concepts. If you’ve been blogging consistently, you’ll see some trends in your topics. Well…link to those previous blog posts!
If you’re watching your blog stats (and you should!), then you’ll see something amazing happen. You will see new traffic going to old blog posts. In some cases, people will even revive conversations and comment threads. People who are subscribed to a thread will come back and see what’s being said, driving even more traffic to your site.
Here on W+P=W, I blog a lot about TV apps, marketing, ebooks, Kindles, iPads, and comics. Each time I create a new post, I do a quick search for topics, and rediscover old (brilliantly written) blog posts.
Help your audience discover old blog posts by linking to them from new posts. You’ll drive additional traffic and show that your blog has depth beyond the first page.
And since we’re more or less talking internal links, I’ll share a few of my favorite blog posts. And I will check my stats to see if you clicked through to check them out.
- Apple’s 10 Billion…eBooks?
- TV Apps Kickoff – 3 Things You Need to Know
- iPad – Content, Marketing & Comics
- 5 Reasons You’ll Be Using an EReader in 2 Years
- 5 Tipping Points for eReader Technology
- Kindles + Kids = 37 Billion Reasons
- 7 Tips for Better Flickr Traffic
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