Here they are! The Top 8 albums of 2008!

Here's a clever listicle for you: the top albums from 2008. And because it's 2008, I've made it a top eight list. And to make it even cooler, I'm only going to name the number one album, because really, that's the only one you care about, yes? The rest will just be left up for you to discuss what number they should be. And they’ll only be seven, so you can wonder if the eighth was just left out by accident. I've also included this link to Allmusic, so you can debate over which albums on Allmusic should be on this list, and where they should be on the list, if it were an actual list with numbers.

Still it is a list. However clever, it’s nothing more than everyone else is doing: rating their favorites from this years' music.

And we've had a few bright lights this year. We heard the debut of two bands that will be integral parts of our lives for years to come: Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes. We've seen the reemergence of Brooklyn as the locus of what’s happening in music, despite Rolling Stone's citing Laurel Canyon as the it-spot. Have they ever heard of Vivian Girls or Yeasayer or Crystal Stilts or, etcetera, etcetera? We even had an iconic band come back from the dead to produce their best album and one of the best albums of the year. Not bad.

So the list . . .

#1: Vampire Weekend--S/T
Every article about this band's debut addresses three things before they get to the music. One, Blogger's fueling their rise to popularity. Two, their preppy clothes. Three, people hating on them.

They should get to the music first.

Vampire Weekend has made a classic pop album. Spin it for the first time, you'll be dancing. Spin it 20 years from now, you'll be fondly remembering when you were 20-years younger and dancing to Vampire Weekend for the first time. Each song is a 3-minute collision of prep school ennui, the Gossip Girl-culture of privileged New York, (yes) Peter Gabriel Afro-pop and Masterpiece Theater's string and harpsichord quintet.

The lyrics capture, with wit and poetry, the lives of Midwest-bred students whose bus has crashed into the top-crust of the New York Ivy League. The music captures it too, its form a symbol of trying on various stances to please their peers: the classical figures of their music appreciation course in the first-year Humanities curriculum, the exotica of their classmate's safari in Kenya with Mother and Father, the urgency of punk rock tempered with dinner party politesse.

It's the tension between all these ingredients that makes this album brilliant conceptually. It's the perfect execution that makes it fucking brilliant.

As for the clothes, they’re part of the performance package people. Indie-rock kids dressing like preps. Each dressed in an outfit that doesn't fit the scene, but tries to fit, and somehow ultimately fits. Like the music. Like them.

Because despite their not fitting, we like them. They make us kids dance. It's the music of us kids generation. It’s Cape Cod Kwaasa Kwaasa. It's the best album of the year.

#2-8

Fleet Foxes--S/T
Any list that doesn't have this album in its top three is not a list. “Fleet Foxes” is truly original piece of work from a young, reclusive genius. Is their anything better than that? Channeling every essential piece of Americana--Brian Wilson, Appalachia, hippie-folk, hymnals—and remixing the lot of them, "Fleet Foxes" is a teenage symphony to a hopeful America.

Portishead--Third
Improbably, the dormant Portishead have created an album that rises from the genre they pioneered as it transcends that genre. And now there is no need for anyone to ever explore trip-hop again. It’d be beating the dead. Note, you won't hear the cliche of the genre, the DJ beat slowed to a sad crawl, the spaghetti western guitars, the alien Theremin. You can still feel trip-hop’s weary soul in every tortured guitar and random burst of industrial noise. And Beth Gibbons has never sounded more desperate and longing--if that's possible. Actually, taken as a whole—and that’s the only way this album should be experienced—the music of "Third" is desperation and longing. Me like.

Vivian Girls—S/T

Some albums contain music that is the spawn of a particular scene; they define a place and time and group of people, like the Strokes defined the New York music scene of 2000, or as the Velvet Underground did in 1969, or as the Grateful Dead was the Haight. For today’s Brooklyn-based noise-pop scene, Vivian Girls are the apotheosis. The album comes on strong with the raw gawkiness of the Ramones. The music shows the same’s appreciation for Phil Spector girl groups and a melody that you can’t stop humming. What really makes “Vivian Girls” unique is how they process those elements through shoegaze fuzz till it becomes awkward, loud, pent-up, innocent and sweet--all at the same time. Check out “Where Do you Run To” and you’ll get what I mean.

The Dodos—Visitor

The Dodos debut album contains all the elements that make their live shows electric. Somehow each track feels completely spontaneous and unhinged, like a great show. On killer track “The Ball,” Meric Long’s pure croon and tuneful writing recalls previous indie-anthem. That is, until his finger-picked guitar breaks down of angry, indie-bluegrass over the persistent tribal beat of the drums. It’s unexpected combinations like this that make “Visitor” the best album by a duo since the last White Stripes’ record.

She & Him—Volume One

WTF? The quirky, indie-chick from Elf can write music that sounds like you’ve been listening to it—and loving it—for years? Yeah. She can. And she can tear your heart out with her singing voice. And that and M. Ward is why “Volume One” is the most shockingly best-est album of the year.

The Crystal Stilts—Alight of Night

“Alight of Night” sounds as ominous and cool as Trash & Vaudeville back in the East Village’s goth-punk day. Heck there’s even a bit of dark, surf-guitar on “Crystal Stilts.” Spin the disc and jangled guitars sloppily play in minor keys. Synthesizers lay down fuzzy pads. And then the voice kicks in, disaffected as a ghost. Yes, as everyone says, you can definitely hear the Joy Division. The vocals sound like Ian Curtis washed with reverb and heroin. But that’s where the comparison ends. Joy Division was essentially great dance music. Crystal Stilts is a soundtrack for laying on the couch and watching a decaying film—likely on two benzo’s. And don’t even try to compare The Crystal Stilts to Interpol. Where Interpol picked every note from someone’s back catalog, Crystal Stilts finds theirs in their own hands like they invented the wheel without ever knowing there was this thing called a wheel that was invented like a thousand years ago. It might not be something new, but it’s authentic to them. It’s their wheel and a wheel’s a pretty awesome thing to invent on your own.

And I thought they were my friends

By now, everyone knows how well Obama exploited the social media landscape to put together a grassroots movement that helped him turnout the vote 2.0 style.  But what happens when politicians join the social media revolution and then perform a major fail? Your friends quickly turn on you, or simply add you to hate on your wall. 

Today, what once was dinner table hating, suddenly becomes the public record, and the friends that once helped bring your digital body to life, suddenly rewrite you a whole new persona, public dick. 

So be prepared, if you're going to enter the conversation, and make friends, expect that they can turn on you in any second.  Especially if you, like Rod, decide to use a Senate seat as your personal bargaining chip. 

Gawker

If a tree falls

It's been a while since I visited my own blog, let alone posted an entry to it.  I have no guilt.  Does anyone read these words anyway? And if a tree falls in the forest, is anyone around to hear it? Likely not.  The Internet though is like a dense forest.  So many trees, so many paths, so many words falling down onto blogs, what is actually the likelihood that someone will happen to choose the path to your tree?

That's the way it is when you're promoting something without any marketing dollars.  It's the holy grail of marketing to figure out exactly how to take that little bit that you dropped somewhere in the dense network, and make it the center of attention, without even calling attention to it. 

Some have figured it out.  Most brands which have offered an incredibly valuable service that was discovered and utilized by a particularly influential group.  Facebook had its Harvard students and their Ivy League breathen.  MySpace its San Francisco music scene, Friendster expats.  Google its Stamford computer geeks and designers.  Each brand had no marketing whatsoever, beyond a press release here and there, and some of those about VC financing (advertising in and of itself).  Most you mention, or visit, at least once a day--at least.  They are a part of your life.  They are a part of mine too.

The difference between a utility and my little musings, are the difference between the effectiveness of tools drawing a crowd v. content doing the same.  While some content has succeeded in breaking that barrier, very few have consistently produced content capable of doing that, no matter the content's quality.  Tools face a similar challenge, but if executed properly, if they truly solve a problem, help you make life a little bit better, a little brighter, they are far more likely to succeed. 

If I had a hammer, instead of a pen.

Hussein is my middle name

It seems more and more people have been changing their names on their Facebook profiles. It's not for the reasons you think. They're not on the lam, nor have they gone goth and have taken on
the moniker of DarkAngel33. It's a form of political protest.

Suddenly my friend list is populated with people who have the middle name of Hussein. Coincidentally, the middle name of their favored presidential candidate, Barack Obama, happens to be Hussein. It also is a middle name that is used to portray the candidate as different than us, an arab, a muslim, a terrorist. None of those things are, of course, true and so by adopting the name of Hussein my friends are showing that they are the same as their candidate. We are all Husseins!

The practice of changing one's middle name to Hussein seems to go back to last fall, according to this New York Times article, but the real moment of activation seems to have occurred in February, after a radio pundit, Bill Cunningham, used Obama's middle name numerous times at a campaign rally.

The phenomena has been catching on steam ever since, especially these past two weeks. Checking Twitter conversations on changing one's name to Hussein, it seems as if the meme has reached critical mass. The pace of these conversations has definitely been heating up. The backlash has also begun with some tweets calling for people to stop christening themselves "Hussein." This was likely sparked by the McCain campaign's controversial negative tactics--their labeling Obama as an associate of terrorists--and McCain supporters reactions at rallies, which have been anything but subtle (the phrases such as "kill him" and "terrorist" have even been evoked at rallies).

This just might be the first time that social network profile names were being activated as a political platform. Who would have thunk that were possible? I doubt Zuckerberg.

Note again, people are ingenious. If we build platforms that are flexible, they'll find new ways to use them. The more ways, the more engaged they'll be; the more they'll use the platform. It's a simple construct, and it demands that instead of building fences one should be plowing an open fields where people can play.

Fan Fiction Micro-blog style

Looks like Mad Men has become another version of convertainment, conversation about a slice of entertainment as a piece of the entertainment's narrative. While not quite to the level of LOST, where online speculation about the island's mysteries and ARGs are actual pieces of the story, or LonelyGirl15, where videos directed at LonelyGirl and other fans were directly integrated with the narrative, the Mad Men Twitter-ers are extending the characters of the show through their conversation on Twitter. 

It would be more interesting if these conversations were actually sanctioned by the writers of the show.  More interesting still if you could then interact with the characters as LOST did in one of its summer ARGs (using IM as a way of letting users communicate directly with the characters in the ARG to find clues to a mystery).  Twitter actually makes that possible, and manageable, in a way that no platform has before.  I wonder what will be the first piece of televised fiction that will take advantage of it.

BoylanSeltzer Twitter Account

How Meta

How to do it

Ruby Pseudo has a few words on how to market to teens in the online world.  I especially love the fact that people aren't coming to your brand's website to click on a game where a girl loses her knickers.  I would say that's likely true. 

Ruby Pseudo

Seinfeld Ads have more exposure

According to Silicon Alley Insider's report, the much criticized Seinfeld ads for Microsoft have actually proven to generate more buzz than the "I'm a PC" ads that replaced them.  Of course, page views are not an accurate message of brand impression.  The true effectiveness of these ads, whatever their objective is, remains to be seen. 

Regardless of some brand tracker's determination of effectiveness (suspect at best), it's still my contention that the Seinfeld ads were a better stab at brand advertising than the "I'm a PC" ads and mainly because they weren't really brand advertising.  They were some sort of postmodern critique of brand advertising for a brand that doesn't need it.   

Microsoft has nothing to say about Microsoft.  Why should they? Over 85% of people in this country are using some form of a "PC."  Everyone knows Microsoft. Any ground they're losing in the market is due to lack of innovation and generally shifts in the category over the past 10 years, that they have been poorly positioned and too lumbering to quickly mount a response. 

Advertising can't help that, but it can do something else: nothing.

The Seinfeld ads for Microsoft are not advertising.  They were a sitcom, a bizarro world "Seinfeld" where Kramer and George have
become Bill Gates, a parody of advertising and a funny one at that.  Unlike the "I'm a PC" ads, which are dreadfully dull, The Seinfeld ads played at entertaining without brand communication.  They weren't trying to change our thoughts about Microsoft.  They weren't even saying anything about Microsoft.  They were saying something about other people trying to manipulate us through advertising.

People are dumb and easily manipulated, but not dumb enough to hear someone say, "I use this product and I'm quirky" and then feel better about using the product.  If anything, when drawn attention to that manipulation, they respond with scorn.  The Seinfeld ads are drawing attention to that fact. 

Why the universal scorn on the blogs? Perhaps the reason everyone online hated the ads was that everyone writing about them online are in some form of media or in the advertising industry.  No one likes to be the butt of a joke. 

Silicon Alley Insider

What's the meme?

What exactly is the purpose of referencing the Rick Roll meme behind Chris Matthews during the Vice Presidential Debate countdown? It makes me wonder.

It also makes me wonder what exactly are the core components of a meme on the Internet? Is citing the lyrics of the Rick Roll song capture the spirit of the meme? Or is the true spirit the misleading link to an absurd video? I'd say the later. 

Rick Astley's songwriting is the equivalent of a baby drooling pablum from its mouth, but they are not really that funny.  Being told to click on an important link, say for a political cause, and that link actually leading one to Rick Astley singing out the dribble lyrics, that's funny; that's worthwhile of becoming passed around.

That's the core of an Internet meme.  These online meme's are more than content; they are interactions. 

So, how do you Rick Roll the Vice Presidential debate? I don't know for sure. 

But on another note, did you read what was in the Washington Post this morning?

"In a surprise turn of events, Sarah Palin's competent performance in last night's debate has seen John McCain's campaign surging in the polls, and taking an eight-percent lead over Obama-Biden.  Joe Biden this morning, deeply disappointed in his failure, withdrew from the race.  'It's the patriotic thing to do,' Senator Biden said, 'We all must make sacrifices to bring change.'"

Obama's reaction and the rest of the story here:  Washington Post

New Journalism?

It would be interesting to see someone take on the model described in this piece by Jeff Jarvis.  It takes the notion of citizen journalism and transforms it into a collective journalism.  It would also be interesting to tie this into social media, the place where breaking news breaks these days. 

It would be a shame, though, to see the article disappear.  The article is the main location of thoughtful, measured analysis.  Without that we're left with conversation, curation and running analytic discourse.  All good things, but not the same as one person's view point, objective or not, presented at length.

Buzz Machine

This about says it all

The History of Viral Videos

This interesting article from Videogum suggests that 2006 was the golden age of Viral Video.  The author sets out a convincing case.  2006 was when YouTube truly exploded as an online activity (and time waster), and the moment before the platform was appropriated by advertisers.  There were a lot of fun and quirky videos that appeared.  It's reasonable why one would argue this as a golden age. 

I'm not sold.

I have a problem with calling any of the videos he cites viral videos.  I also have a problem with viral video as an advertising concept. 

The Shining mash-up or the Numa Numa guy, or any video of some little kid being kicked in the balls by a donkey--aren't these just videos?  They are just on a new platform--a TV with a bunch more tubes?  The fact that they were spread--were viral--is the networked distribution methods that the Internet allows.  It's not that the videos are uniquely infectious or have some novel magic in them that compells us to share them. 

And we've always wanted to share moments in video, film, TV.  Consider "I Love Lucy." That Lucy has such mad schemes.  And that Vitametavegamin skit was pretty darn funny.  I'd love to share it with you . . . Wait a second . . .

That was convenient.  But I could also have sent you a video tape.  Or acted the skit out. Or described it in writing.

You get the point.  Sharing is not novel.  The Internet just makes it a bit quicker to share on a mass scale. 

So, back to the golden age of viral video: I'd say post 2007.  It's OK Go and the Volkswagon dominatrix commercial and LonelyGirl15, not the skateboarding dog.  Because the only way a video could even be a viral video is in its use by advertisers, or shameless micro-celebrity wannabes.  Without the intention of creating a video that will spread, there's no viral, just video.

That doesn't mean that viral video is a good thing or a good use of an advertisers time.  It's the opposite, a poor use of a new media to spread an advertising message and generally a tremendously inefficient one. I learned that from experience.  The real bacterium here are advertisers, and marketers, out there who think they're creating a revolution, when they're actually just putting edgier TV spots on a new platform.  That's kind of sick.

Pass it on.

Videogum [via Gawker]

The Deleveraged Consumer

Ed Cotton has a good point. Planners around the world are likely crafting some inane deck about the "de-leveraging consumer" as you read these words. I also think he's right that brands will still play a role in people's lives as consumer's look to resolve their debt to earnings ratios.

Regardless of how much debt people are willing to take on, they still need to function, and functioning within our culture means incorporating brands into your lifestyle. Brands are at the heart of the performance fo everyay life. They are the meaning in what we do on a daily basis. In brushing our teeth, walking to work, drinking a cup of coffee brands are there. The brands that will continue to hold the most meaning in these moments and retain access to our wallets are those which offer the perception of an experience that is greater than the financial toll to acquire it.

In other words, nothing has truly changed.

Last week as the nation's banking system was crumbling, the NY Times reported on the scene of a Hermes sample sale. The line was out the door, despite the fact that sale in Hermes parlance means "that's a helluva lot of money for patterned silk." Many on that sample sale line were even potential victims of the downtown: financial workers.

If a brand that has built its reputation on over-priced ties, scarves and bags can still stand rigid and upright against the winds of panic, then clearly people are still swayed by brands in this time of financial crisis. Even when the market is down, people relish the experience walking down the street with the branded object more than they lament about their credit debt. It is still far better to look good than to feel good about your bank account, even in an age of deleveraging.

Influx Insights

A new (stupid) format for music

I don't know who's running the product development team at SanDisk, but they don't get new behaviors in music consumption.  Last week, SanDisk and the major labels announced that they will be manufacturing MicroSD albums, and retailing them for upwards of $10.

Dumb.  Who would want to buy a pre-loaded MicroSD card with MP3 audio quality when they can download the same tunes DRM-free and load them onto their dedicated music device or mobile phone?

Today, the only reason to purchase music in a physical format is for improved audio quality, special bonus content, and a fondness for album packaging.  This is why we're seeing a resurrgence in vinyl sales.  The other options are simply more flexible and easier to acquire.  This is why digital music retailers are winning the music shopping market.  It's also why "cloud music" services and social networks are becoming so popular. 

It's also why this gambit is going to fail.

At some point, the music industry and its retail partners are going to have to face up to the fact that physical format is a niche product at best and finally restructure their business models away from a reliance on selling plastic to selling popular culture.

Google judges Your Friends

Here they go again.  Google has a new algorithm that presents the possibility of measuring influence of a social network, or individual network node, much like Google's search algorithm measures the importance of a particular web URL in relationship to a set of keywords.  Properly deployed this algorithm could present a new targeting opportunity for advertisers: true influencer targeting.  It also presents a new revenue stream for Google that's in sync with the foundation of social networking sites: the friend network. 

Sounds like another win for Google to me. 

RIP Muxtape

Muxtape's Lament

Dexter Advertorials

Another brilliant campaign from the people who market Showtime's original show, Dexter.

Rarely do I find myself leafing through an advertorial. When I received my copy of US Weekly with a mini-Dexter themed US Weekly on the back cover and pages, I found myself doing just that. What makes this ad special is that it's both playing with its medium (using a magazine as a magazine), parodying the placement (by parodying the magazine), and providing content that supplements my understanding of the show. How delightfully meta. And of course, it's right on brand for a show about a self-aggrandizing Narcissistic sociopath. Aren't most people featured on the covers of these magazines exactly that?

Trendhunter

Maghound. For the commitment phobe in you.

Maghound, a service that allows you to change the magazines you subscribe to on a monthly basis, is a pretty novel idea.  But I'd still love to see a magazine refine its supply chain so that I could choose what sections of a magazine I want.  Readers would love the choice in the format.  Advertisers would love the ability to target.  One day I suppose . . .

Lifehacker

I'm a PC and so can you.

Go Android. Or go Nokia. Or home.

I hate the iPhone.  It gets poor 3G reception, or none.  You can't type on it without misspelling words that are far easier to misspell than misspell--like cat.  It's on AT&T.  Yes, it has a great UI.  It is an amazing example of how incredibly strong Apple is as a brand.  When Greg Packer shows up at your opening, you know you've made it.  But neither of those things make the phone worthwhile as a smartphone. 

That's why I'm excited about Google's Android phone.  I think others are frustrated by the iPhone.  People are no longer believing the hype.  Greg Packer hasn't even activated his service.  So, this prediction is likely not far off.  If anything I think they'll exceed it.

Mobile Content

Oh, and Nokia has some new eSeries phones coming out, which actually do what you'd expect a Smartphone to do. 

Suck it Apple.

Engadget

Uniqlo Robot. Brilliant as usual.

A robot intern with a blog and a Facebook profile, and Twitter soon to come (that'll be curious).  Anything robots is good by me. 

Wakamaru! [via PSFK]

Guccione Jr. on the Future of Print

With the exception of Google losing share, I agree with Guccione. 

Newspapers need a new business model, and his suggestion of what that model would be isn't a bad one.  Print isn't going away.  Magazines need to address their supply chain issues, be more flexible in terms of their content--customization anyone?--and figure out how to leverage its brands online in a way that actually makes money. 

But the magazine as a concept is different enough from the Internet to exist side by side.  The magazine's that will survive the shift in how we get news, criticism and information are those which take advantage of that difference.  We call it solid, insightful journalism.  It's something the Internet isn't capable of doing despite all its immediacy, conversation, and connection.

Yes, there is an irony that I'm posting a link to a blog on my own blog and then feeding that to FriendFeed.  Thanks for noticing.

Huffington Post   

No Seinfeld for You

Now that's a shock.  MS has dropped Jerry Seinfeld as its spokesperson.  So soon?

A lot has been written on this campaign.  Most of it was not positive.  I've been back and forth on the campaign myself.  As a web TV series, "Seinfeld and Gates," I see it as brilliant marketing that aligns MS with being humdrum and pompous and fun all at the same time--radical move.  As a series of advertisements, they lacked any sort of connection to Microsoft's products, perhaps exposing the gaping hole in the current MS offering--not innovative, not interesting.  Worse, when edited into :30's they lost the quirky pacing that made the online videos fun.  

Whatever you're feelings about the ads, a big PR blitz over a spokesperson and campaign followed quickly by a poorly spun statement about a shift of direction is bad advertising for the brand and the agency. 

Unless it's really brilliant.  So brilliant that no one gets just how brilliant it is--yet.

Valleywag

Who has time to watch porn? I'm too busy updating my Facebook status.

That Generation Y--they just aren't like us.  They're optimistic.  They
think they're going to be famous.  They love social networking online. 
They don't really like to satiate their earthly desires to
pornography. 

At least that's the theory put forth by Bill
Tancer.  Tancer, in his analysis of Internet searches, found that the
percentage of online searches attributable to pornography is
decreasing.  He attributes this to the growth of young adult's
engagement with online social networks.   If people spend more time on
MySpace then they don't have time to search for naked pictures of Sarah Palin (an activity more popular than searching for her governmental policies).

At the core of this argument is the concept of human isolation.  Both social networking and pornography are means by which people, in the privacy--and lonliness--of their bedroom, alleviate their feelings of isolation by connecting with virtual bodies, in one case your high school girlfriend's Facebook profile, in the other a naked chick who looks like your high school girlfriend doing unspeakable acts with a sow.

I wouldn't dispute that people are feeling more isolated than ever.  In fact, a recent study revealed that over a 1/4 of Americans say they have no confidant.  I wouldn't dispute that social networking is all about relieving our feelings of isolation.  We post bills on the walls of the digital playground to shout, "I am here" and hope that someone hears. 

I do find it hard to believe that feelings of isolation are the primary driver of engagement with pornography.  Pornography is not a palliative for lonliness.  It's actually one act where we don't want to connect with others online (unless of course it involves scoring with an actual body).

Instead, pornography is a tool for disciplining the body.  People view porn to gain control over desires that are uncontrollable: our arousal, those persistent thoughts about sexing it up, when we satiate those desires with another body.  Porn is just a double-click away.  Watching it, we regain control of that annoying distraction we call sexuality. 

There are a number of critics who disagree with Tancer's methodology.  We still watch digital porn--maybe more than ever.  We just search for it in a different way. 

As pornography has always been ahead of the curve in terms of technology adoption, perhaps we should be learning from these behaviors. 

While watching porn, of course.

Fleshbot
Silicon Alley Insider

Stupid Advertising Tricks Volume 321

"Oh. My. God."Vicky, this ad doesn't make me smile or want to know more.  It makes me sick.  And if it somehow persuades a single someone to use VO5 Hot Oil over another product, I have even less faith in the human race. 

What is the insight here? Women masturbate in the shower after washing their hair? Or that men service women better if they have long, shiny hair? Or that the creative team is not among those who watch less porn because they're on Facebook (more on that lame analysis).

Creative that cuts through the clutter is not necessarily good creative. Good creative expresses how the product changes people's experience of the world through its use.  If you can do that with the funny, or the provocative, more power to you.  This doesn't do either.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Did I say, stupid?

AdRants

Facebook Redesign and Ad Opportunities

Have to agree with the geeks.  There are some of you out there are expressing frustration with the new Facebook design; I'd ask why.  Advertisers should be very happy about the changes.  The prominence of shared items in the feed is especially interesting and the ease of commenting and visibility of comments can help create valuable discussions around promotions, brands and products--at least in some cases. 

It all depends on what people are sharing.  Sharing a TV commercial because it's humorous probably won't have as much value, as sharing something to help you make a purchase decision.  I might love the "Talking Stain" commercial and post it to my profile, but does that really mean that more people are going to go out and buy Tide (it is Tide, right)? Sorry, probably not.  However, if I share that Nokia e71 I think about buying and ask, "anyone have this phone what do you think about it," it could actually lead to sales of the e71 as various people tell me it's the sliced bread.  Find the way to get people to share the later, and you've found the key to social advertising.

Would you like a subscription music service with that?

Seems like everyone wants to be in the content business--even stores that sell dishwashers.  Next: McDonald's. 

I think Coolfer is right.  The subscription service market is not tapped out by any means.  Hardly anyone understands it's value, and perhaps Best Buy's (generally) well-informed sales staff can reposition this service, and change the perception that you're just "renting" music.  Plus Best Buy has sold other content platform
partnerships most in the TV space, Direct TV, FiOS, etc.  One must imagine that these partnerships have been lucrative.  Why else would they buy one in the music space?

There is a difference: the customer's education level on the type of service.  I
know what a cable service does.  I don't know what a subscription music
service is. Can a guy in a blue shirt explain the benefits, and not just to the music lover but to the average joe.

Also, will people even be receptive to Napster education as they're buying the device? With tech products and services, pre-store research is an important part of the decision process.  It's highly likely that the person who is in the store buying a compatible device hasn't done research into how they're going to get media.  It's highly unlikely that they'll trust the Best Buy guy knows, well, best.

Promotional efforts--month free--and other methods of sign-up--after purchase--could help overcome that obstacle but really, the solution lies in pre-store marketing efforts.  Can Best Buy execute the necessary campaign? Napster couldn't.  No one has really.   
Coolfer

Retracting Previous MS Ad Campaign Coment

All right.  I was wrong.  The Microsoft brand campaign is actually brilliant. My initial impression of course was why is Microsoft trying to be all cool and quirky.  Now I understand.  This campaign isn't repositioning the brand as cool--whatever that is.  It's also not throwing some product functionality in our faces to prove that Microsoft is innovative.

Microsoft is neither cool nor innovative, and this campaign is solely developed to remind us what Microsoft is: the boring guy in the poorly-tailored khaki pants who just kind of goes through life living it.  Nothing is wrong with being that guy.  Being the brand of bland is differentiated and compelling.  But most importantly it's not trying to make something that's totally not cool, cool. 

That's cool. 


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Radio Sucks

This list is the problem with music. Thankfully, with the radio hegemony breaking up, as Sam Cooke might sing, "A Change is Gonna Come."  Soon.

Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs

Death and Technology.

Wherever there's a new mimetic technology, there's someone deploying it to capture a dead man's soul.

The photograph is the perfect example of this phenomena. Funerary photography started in photography's early days. The premise? Shoot portraits of your dead relative to preserve their souls. This practice has recently seen a resurgence. Today it's camera phones, which in Japan are being used to send images of funerals instantly to those who simply can't be there to see the soul in rapturous escape. Now it appears, people are tweeting funerals, live micro-blogging the event to life cache that very moment.

When you're talking mimetic technologies--and Twitter, a narrative representation of your presence, falls in that category--you're talking magic. They have the power to capture souls.

Twitter [via Gawker, of course]

Google Snags 1% of the Browser Market

How is it possible that a company can snatch 1% of the browser market without any advertising?

Silicon Alley Insider

Operation Capture Monkey

The Greatest Political Brand Ever

When we talk about successful brands these days we often toss around a buzz-word co-creation. We could learn a lot about what this means--and why the term is wrong--by looking at one of the most important--if not the most important--brand out there: Obama.

Don't confuse Obama with the man Barack Obama. Barack Obama is a human being. Obama is a brand that lives in the interaction between Barack Obama and his constituency--in the interaction.

Obama is not a thing brought into being, a creation, a monument; Obama is a point of contact. Like all brands, the Obama brand is formed by the collective mind of those who come in contact with the concept of an Obama, a concept initially created by Barack Obama, and it that brand is constantly being reformed by each new set of interactions. In other words, Obama is a performance that's taking place in this moment and in every moment, and then disappears, and then reappears in a new way.

To see this look at the art created by Obama's constituents. The mutability of the brand is astounding. Emo Obama! Jazz Obama! Add these to the myriad other recontextualizations of Obama (Che Guevera Obama is my personal favorite).

This is what makes Obama the greatest political brand ever, and I'd argue, one of the greatest brands ever: its ability to be performed in almost any way. Marketers could learn something from this.

Emo for Obama

Artist?

Is Perez Hilton an artist or a journalist?

No. I'm serious. It's a valid question.

I would vote performance artist. Or the Duchamp of the gossip era.

New Yorker

A Good Mother and a Vice President. Who cares?

I don't agree with Sarah Palin. I don't even agree with the fact that she calls her husband the "First Dude." That's perhaps stupider--and more indefensible--than forbidding abortion in cases of rape or incest. But the fact that the question of motherhood versus power and success has become a central narrative in the Presidential Campaign is something with which I must disagree more.

Can a woman be a good mother and Vice President? This question reflects a larger cultural trope. Women are defined in our society as the ruler of the home and family. Men as absent laborers who "bring home the bacon." Hence, the question raised--and never to men. No one asked George W. Bush when his daughters were drunk off their ass flashing their panties in party photos, "can you be a good Father and the Worst President of All Time?" No one asked Bill Clinton if he could be a good Father and the philandering leader of the free world.

They should have. We should have change that. Advertising is a good place to start.

Advertising perpetuates this problem, especially advertising for Consumer Packaged Goods. There are economic realities behind this; the vast majority of grocery shopping is performed by women. This is clearly a reality marketers need to address but it also doesn't mean they need to create images that tether women to this reality. The more we see images of women orgasmic over a new dust cleaner, the more we believe in these stale gender roles. The insight is not women are time-stretched because they need to do more. It's that women no longer want to be the CEO of the home. They want to be, well, whomever they want to be. That includes President or Vice-President.

It's time marketers leveraged their brands to help achieve equal rights for women. Help us form a new question, "why can't the "First Dude" be the "First Dude" of the home?"

Oh, by the way, Sarah Palin sucks.

Psychology Today

Sarah meet Twitter. Twitter, Sarah.

A novel use for Twitter: spreading sarcastic rumors about McCain's VP choice, Sarah Palin. Twitter is rapidly becoming one of the most experimental digital experiences: a source of personal broadcasting, a communication platform, a friend locate-er, a journalistic source, a marketing vehicle, a customer service desk, a message board, a podium for political debate, a stage for performance art and now a forum for political satire, all because of how simple, and how unregulated, the user experience is. With it's single existential question, Twitter can be anything to anyone.

This has been said before in many different forums but it bears repeating.

Palin Facts via Mashable

Method Acting

File that one under X-tremely good marketing.

US Weekly, you can use that as your sub-head.

Duchovny Enters Sex Rehab

Next: Your Church

Good works brands! You've successfully stormed the convention using guerrilla tactics! This is wonderful news. Surely, a boost in sales will arise. I love money.

Placing your brand at the Democratic Convention is the perfect marketing strategy--an essential part of any media plan. You'll create new brand ambassadors--no pun intended--who will certainly storm the streets shouting, "Obama is the change we need! Buy Qwest fiber optic Internet! But don't pour Coca-Cola on it! That's for the drinking!"

Take note brands who missed out. In four years, you too can slap your logo on the backs of the candidate. Or get even more creative, and run your bio-diesel car on bullshit campaign rhetoric. While in Denver, I think I even saw that cancer survivor who wrote Hillary on her bald head, sporting the AT&T logo like some Maori tattoo.

At least I think it was. I was to busy feeling sad that she was being used again as some sort of brand symbol.

I got over it quickly. After all, she's a brand ambassador. It gives her short life meaning. Kind of like religion, except in the end she'll have a 4G iPhone. Jesus phone saves!

Many among you might wonder why I'm so excited for the agencies who came up with this genius. Isn't corporate influence in government something that most people disdain? Duh. So, why not remind people of it ad infinitum? Soon it will become so commonplace to see the symbolic union of politics and corporation, we'll all accept it as just the way things are--and should be. This is America.

And if that doesn't work, there's always the Vatican. I hear the Pope loves money too.

NY Times

Kid Rock covers "Something So Right"

Anyone who loves PBR and rock-rappin' midgets is all right by me. So, as I usually do, I've got to agree with Kid Rock: there is definitely something to be said for artists withholding music from iTunes.

People do indeed want to be able to get there content anywhere; however, artists also have a right to create the content as they see fit. Think about it. By the logic of giving people the art they want however they want it, wherever they wanted, shouldn't the Mona Lisa also hang in the Flickr? It's no longer the Mona Lisa, it's a picture of it. Worse, what if were just her smile on Flickr? That's not the Mona Lisa, it's only a part. And that's what putting music up on iTunes allows for, people downloading a poor representation of a part of an album, legally.

I'm not saying any of Kid's oeuvre lives up to DaVinci standards. Clearly, it exceeds it. Red, white and Pabst Blue Ribbon--come on--brilliant. At the same time, let's remember that artists still have the right to create something as they want, and control how it's viewed or listened to or experienced. Isn't that one of the things that makes art art?

Techdirt

Anarchists hate Facebook

Well, it appears that the young anarchists who want you to destroy your TV also want you to destroy your Facebook page. I find it interesting how these cultural rejectors are not only rebelling against corporate controlled media, but also corporate mediated social interactions.

Anarchists always get the underlying meaning of this society's media, that is control. Their fight is against the authentic's regulatation by a state apparatus. That today also means Facebook.

TV once was the dominant destroyer of the authentic, by representing a particular lifestyle through the one-two punch of dominant narrative and advertising's manufactured desire. Today it's Facebook and the like destroying the authentic relationship of people by creating a false representation of the self, one that is regulated by the framework of its profiles and interactions rather than experiences.

Most people, of course, are not aware how this is taking place. Or maybe if they are, they don't feel the issues of virtual social networks are weighty enough to merit the destruction (myself included). The values of these networks simply outweigh the issue. Still it's good to see someone is criticizing them in sloppy Dunkin Donuts graffiti. What could be more anti-Facebook than that.

Anti-Advertising Agency

Convertainment

Another example of entertainment that takes the form of conversations between fans and the characters. A few folks are playing out the lives of the characters on Mad Men 24/7 through Twitter. After a brief dispute between AMC and the fans, it appears AMC have relented to let them continue to use the names of Don Draper, Peggy Olsen, Joan Holloway, among others from the hit cable series. Is this entertainment? Or entertaining? Definitely the former, the later is a matter of taste (I'd say more a curiosity) but it is interesting to see people adapting new media to storytelling. The networks should take note.


Don Draper on Twitter

Fans? Not so much.

When extreme fandom becomes performance art, is it still influential? Seems to me not so much.

Product Innovation Nightmares

Tooth Tunes is certainly one of the most bizarre product innovations I have seen in a long time. It is also one of the most bizarre advertisements I've seen with its oddly looped version of Kiss' "Rock n' Roll All Night," the reference to the Apple 1984 ads, the strange scientific diagrams meant to prove to us that "yes, this really works" and the dancing--oh the dancing.

Mostly, though, its an example of what happens when a planner hangs their hat on a single perceptual insight.

That insight: "to kids, brushing is thought of as a boring routine that feels like a punishment." I buy that as a point of truth. Kids do feel that way about brushing. Still I don't buy it as a provocative insight that can lead to a solution. And it didn't. It lead to a worthless product that plays two minutes of looped music, every morning, noon and night, for 6 months.

Sounds like more punishment to me.

True or False, the insight doesn't work because it's the wrong way to look at the issue of good brushing among children. Who cares what kids feel about doing it? What we should care about are the complex dynamics behind the outlying behavior: the cultural symbols and rituals that regulate individual performance towards obsession, in this case obsession with teeth. And that means asking: what's different about kids who brush v. those who don't; what's the root of the good behavior for those few who have had solid lifelong brushing habits; what do clean teeth symbolize for kids; when and why did humans start brushing their teeth? All of the above and then some.

Don't and you get . . . click play at your own risk.

Stephen Colbert explores branding

He's done it again. No one makes a comment more on the absolute ridiculousness of current advertising philosophies. Colbert's parody of sponsorship has long been a staple of his show, mostly with Doritos. In this video, Colbert again takes on the topic with Lucas Conley.

Conley's point is well taken. Companies need to stop focusing on applying lacquer to their products and stretching their brands into the "lifestyle" space; they need to start focusing on making better products.

Agencies hold some of the responsibility. It's no surprise though when you consider that the industry's genesis was the 19th century medicine show, a show who's sole purpose was to get people to buy worthless alcohol-elixirs by putting on a good roadshow. Little has changed over a hundred years later. The roadshow may have gotten more complex but it's philosophy still remains dominant in advertising.

What agencies need to do is evolve. They must find a way to foster innovation and provide something of value to those who engage with their advertisements. This does require a fundamental shift in how agencies do business, how they generate revenue, how they organize themselves, whom they hire, and fundamentally how they think. It's a big effort and truthfully, it's not a near-term necessity. Advertising is not in a change or die mode. But isn't changing the world important enough?

That's the opportunity. It's a good one.

Microsoft. Not cool.

Microsoft, why do you think you need to be "cool?" Worse, why do you think being cool means having Jerry Seinfeld be your spokesperson? Or even that having a celebrity spokesperson is cool? What is cool anyway? Beatniks? Or the word you say when you reach an agreement?

"How about tomorrow at seven for that important meeting? Cool?"

"Cool."

It's definitely not Justin Long. Sorry, Mac dude.

True cool is not claimable. Cool is an innate behavior. It's defiant anger through a detached stare. Calling yourself cool? Uncool. Being called cool? Uncool. Trying to act cool? Not so cool. Dropping out of college to code MS-DOS? Well, if you have to ask what jazz is . . .

So stop playing cool, Microsoft and start making products that break the rules. Then don't tell us about it. That wouldn't be cool.

MSNBC

More photographic inventions

When demonstrated last year, Photosynth looked to be the first community based photography tool. Constructing 3-D images from multiple geo-tagged photographs, it could leverage the millions upon millions of photos shared online to create a new photo, a panorama on steroids.

And it's now live.

Should be interesting to see if it truly lives up to the promise of the demo. If it does, photography could move from being a representation of your perspective to ours.

Photosynth goes live

Photography is Magic

We've all smiled before the camera to represent our perpetual enjoyment of everything to the archive.We've heard the story about "privative" societies that believe photography can capture the soul. Some have likely seen the pictures of 19th century funerary photography, people posing (quite literally) with dead people as a means to preserve their spirits. Now, with the proliferation of affordable digital photo-retouching technology, we're seeing photography become even more magic.
Where photography once had the power to create and possess the spirit of a moment, it now becomes a force that can also manifest spirits--for example, your Uncle Dick at your wedding, despite him being preoccupied with that 8-week wine-tasting course on your most special of days.

Our lives will never be the same. At least, how we remember our lives.

New York Times

This is England

This movie feels very much like America today. And it frightens me. Truly it is amazing how a group of people can transform from an empowering community to a fascist order, especially in times of economic disenfranchisement.

This is England

Pandora's Box

No one would argue that artists should work for free. And no one would argue that Pandora is a worthless music service for fans and artists. It can turn fans on to new music. It can help struggling artist's attract a larger fan base. However, one could argue that Pandora doesn't serve the music industry. It can't really make more money from their most profitable acts without those acts getting bigger royalty checks.

Getting paid for their work through online royalties, as the article points out, is primarily the concern of those artist's who actually support themselves completely doing their art. It's unlikely that indie band you've never heard of values the pennies they get from performing royalties v. the efficient promotional vehicle. Metallica on the other hand just might want those dollars.

Of course, the fans don't want to pay for their music. And the services, like Pandora, don't have a business model to make the industry money, pay the big artist's what they deserve and give exposure to the niche artists. It's possible there is no model that will ever address all of these desires. The industry, the artists, and the fans have very different needs and all of them deserve to be filled.

Washington Post

Walking Tours. Marching through a brand's history.

I've only lived in Portland, OR a short time, and this weekend our home was christened with our first visitor.

As anytime a friend and tourist comes to your city, you suddenly find yourself doing the tourist-y things. When I lived in New York City these tourist-y things might have included standing on line at the Statue of Liberty or your ears popping as you ascend to the observation deck on top of the Empire State Building. In Portland, I was at a loss. What was the equivalent? A walking tour exposing the subterranean history of Portland.

I had never really thought much about what all these tourist activities mean. Not why people wanted to participate. We do have this burning need to have a photograph in front of whatever represents the locus of our travels as a monument to our own adventurousness. What I began to think about is why are the people of a town compelled to give such a tour. Clearly it wasn't for money.

Our guide was what one would expect, a long-time local, a man fascinated with history, someone rather overweight with a microphone around his sweaty head. As most well-trained guides, he had his stories well-rehearsed. He was quite the raconteur. He engaged the audience with questions. He got excited by architecture. He even pulled a magnet out of his pocket to prove that, yes, these buildings were cast irons. He was giving the tour because he loved his city and he wanted to share it with us.

He also wanted to brand it for us. His stories were the vehicle. They constructed the city's brand in each word and street corner finger-point now stare at that building/monument/field.

Portland, a town where you'll find a number of cars with bumper stickers shouting "Keep Portland Weird," certainly likes to present itself as progressive, edgy, a bit fringe, arts-y, maverick, indie. The stories our guide chose helped to frame this impression for the "tourists" and implant these tales in their bodily experience, unpeeling the streets and buildings to reveal the seedy history as we all marched along. His stories were about racism turning into recognition of racism, sex scandal, shanghai-ing (the tour itself was billed as such), mayors who expose themselves in front of statues and get re-elected, prostitution and graft, crime--all stories that construct the history of a progressive, edgy, fringe-y, arts-y, maverick, indie city.

Not a bad brand to have in this post-cool, post-Bush world, at least for a certain market segment.

Portland Walking Tours

Bigfoot not real. Just pile of guts.

I was excited. Bigfoot: found. The famous performance artist, formerly known as Sasquatch, had been found dead in the woods (of course). Finally, his existence proven.

Instead it turns out Bigfoot, or the not Bigfoot, was just a pile of fur with some guts thrown on it for effect. Why would anyone do this? Perhaps that's a mystery greater than Bigfoot's presence itself.

Clearly there's a drive in our culture for people to believe in something beyond our control. One only needs to look at the plethora of reality shows on the paranormal--most of which, by the way, are terrible examples of the genre. Or the celebrity fascination with Kabbalah and Scientology. Or simply the pervasiveness of religiosity in our country: the rise of Mormonism with its magic underpants, the continued belief in the Revelation, all the hippie, new age, pseudo-spiritual bullshit. Bigfoot, like Nessie, the Yeti and others, falls into this realm of believing in something beyond our control and our understanding.

These beliefs themselves are understandable. It's likely even a piece of being human. Believing in something out of our control has existed for thousands and thousands of years. To this day it still exists, even in the supposed objective realm of science. Quantum theory for example, reflects this with its positing of the impossibility of objective empiricism. No doubt it is a piece of who we are.

The drive to feed those desires with fakir behavior is not easily understandable. Perhaps there is a drive among some to control the uncontrollable through the creation the myth of the uncontrollable. To them, Bigfoot is just a pile of guts and they're the only ones in on the secret. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.

I wonder what the real Bigfoot would say. He would probably just hit them with a log and knock some sense into them; knock them back to reality: bigfoot doesn't exist.

Or does he?

I have faith in you Bigfoot.

NY Times