Grounded In Reality

I had the opportunity to attend Nielsen Buzzmetrics’ Consumer-Generated Media Summit today in NYC. Pete Blackshaw kicked things off with a great discussion about how much the digital media landscape has evolved over the past year. Key points:

• Word of Mouth remains the most trusted source of influence for consumers who are making purchasing decisions.
• Search continues to have a huge impact on corporate reputation. Influential communities like Wikipedia are “credibility brokers” for companies.
• Consumer-generated video and audio is exploding, largely due to simple editing, publishing, and storage services. Nielsen refers to this as consumer-generated multimedia, or “CGM2.”
• Consumers are increasingly dictating how branded content lives (or dies) online. Nielsen calls this “Consumer Fortified Media.” Fancy term aside, it means that online marketing initiatives aren’t completed until consumers inject their POV via comments and other methods. In other words, consumers “finish the story” by evaluating and amplifying content that marketers produce (e.g. embracing, DIGGing, spoofing, protesting). This reinforces the fact that marketers no longer have complete control of their messages. The Web has created a flat playing field.
• The “wave of consumer emulation” has arrived. More than ever, brands are mirroring how consumers communicate and act. Look no further than the Presidential candidates who are using Web 2.0 to the max: Add the Fred08 widget to your page! Follow John Edwards on Twitter! Get text messages from Hillary! The takeaway: Brands are benefiting by communicating and acting just like consumers. The warning: Consumers spot imitation and exploitation instantly. Authentic messaging remains critical.

The Summit continued with a series of excellent breakout sessions covering healthcare buzz, media & entertainment, advertising & engagement, and defensive branding. There were great insights from attendees, although we’re prohibited from blogging the deets (Nielsen request).

More at Peter Kim’s blog.

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By: Andrew Foote
GCI Group - NY

Check out the latest social networking application called Fidg’t by Santa Monica-based PROTOMOBL. It brings together all your different social networking tags, profiles, friends’ lists and conversations. Similar to Trillion and Pidgin (formerly Gaim) that integrated different chat applications under one roof, Fidg’t makes it easy for users to control and manage their online social life.

The Fidg’t Visualizer is a cool application that needs to be downloaded and works with Macs, PCs and Linux platforms. There is a central magnet where you type your query or tag. There are white bubbles that represent individual users and networks. The magnet is then drawn towards groups and users who are discussing the tag.

The user interface looks protoplasmic and very edgy in an extraterrestrial way. Apart from its cool looks and fun features, most exciting to me is the fact that it could act as the ‘little black book’ for the media community. You now have access to a central nerve control station of people coming together, talking and sharing ideas. Sounds pretty cool to me!

 Check the video of the Fidgt presentation at Innovate! Europe 2007 fromYouTube… 

I’ve been exploring Twitter, and I came across an interesting application: twittering a TV premiere. During the premiere of FOX’s “Drive” last night, the executive producer and director, Grey Yaitanes, twittered his personal commentary.

There might be something to this for companies to use. If you have an interesting, high-profile person twittering the “inside scoop” on an event or product, people might just tune in.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about social shopping.  What is it?  It’s basically the marriage of shopping and social networking, and it’s getting a big lift from mobile, IM and other emerging digital media technologies.

For teens, in particular, shopping has always been a social activity, and now they have plenty of channels to connect online.  Online communities are popping up right and left that let teens recommend and discover products, build and share shopping lists, create profiles, post photos, tag great finds and more.  Here are some of my favorites:

Kaboodle - You can collect information from anywhere on the Web, put it into a Kaboodle list that you can share with others, and discover other interesting lists from like-minded “Kaboodlers.”  You can also invite friends to help you research, plan and decide what to buy.  I’ve been looking for a new bag, and I like the Lilu Deerie Me Tote recommended by acceptnosubstitute87.  Kaboodle also has a cool poll feature called “Help Me Choose.”

ThisNext - I really like the layout and functionality of ThisNext, which spans a broader audience than just teens.  It’s described as a shopcasting network where you can recommend, share and discover great products.  Users create “shopcast lists” of products that are tagged and searchable on the site.  Shopcasts can be about activities (like travel or cooking) or things (like fashion or food) or lifestyle.  This month’s focus is, “It’s so easy being green.”  I found a great shopcast on “Green Goodies for the Design Set,” including an Edible Indoor Miniature Garden and Recycled Wrapper Wastebasket.

Stylehive - The Stylehive is a global, social bookmarking community focused entirely on products and shopping.  The site follows the latest trends, designers and fashions, and describes itself as a “community that is reshaping the world of retail, design and fashion by changing how we shop.”  More than other social shopping sites, many users are looking to make a name for themselves and gain influence in the fashion world.

Other sites to check out:

• Crowdstorm
• Hawkee
• StyleFeeder
• ShopWiki
• Etsy - for all things handmade
• FiveLimes - for sustainable, local, healthy shopping
• DealBundle
• MyPickList
• GoPowWow
• DesiresIn
• Wists

Personally, I see the value in online social shopping.  I love new stuff, but I really don’t like shopping in the traditional sense.  Malls make me crazy.  I’d rather have someone I trust show me the coolest new thing and where I can get it - quickly and easy.

There’s also a lot of opportunity for marketers in these communities, but at this point, only a handful have jumped on board.  A few companies are advertising on these sites, and some online retailers have formed affiliate relationships, paying a percentage for sales generated.  It would be cool to see a company more intimately involved in the community, either through starting a group, offering their own shopping/product experts or otherwise enhancing the user experience.  Companies should also start identifying the influencers in these communities and engaging them in product design and marketing efforts.

It’ll be interesting to follow these sites this holiday shopping season.

Google Earth is great for its push-pins and multimedia geo-tagging but not the most accessible application, as it is still a necessary download and install.

Now, Google Maps’ new “MyMaps” feature is going to help storytelling get more visual and interactive. Check out this customized map chronicling and pinpointing my journey from Singapore to Austin.

Feeling inspired? Add a YouTube video, an image or other Web content with the help of an HTML editor. If you can operate a MySpace profile, you can customize MyMaps.

From the Reuters coverage:

MyMaps is initially available in the United States and the national versions of Google in nine other countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and Spain.

The interface is intuitive and maps can be set to Public or Private. However, because I couldn’t figure out how to reorder the push-pins and lines, the flight lines in my journey map is non-sequential.

The possibilities are exciting: Students and teachers can use it to present a class project, field trip or teach a class; Dell (a GCI client) can map the making of a laptop; a fair trade store can trace the origins of organic coffee; civil rights leaders can map the journey of MLK; memories of vacations or road trips can be uploaded; parents can narrate their life stories to children, etc.