Publicis Forms New Interactive Consulting Group

As pulled from the AdWeek Interactive Daily:

"Publicis Groupe is starting a new media consulting unit, Denuo, that will focus on new media opportunities, according to the holding company.

The unit, which takes its name from the Latin word for "afresh" or "anew," will have offices in Chicago and New York, and will be led by Rishad Tobaccawala, chief innovation officer for Publicis Groupe Media. The unit will report to Publicis Groupe Media chairman Jack Klues. "

I suppose that it is better late than never, though I am kinda sick of people still calling what we do (and have done for many years now) "new." The fact is, all this stuff is still bound by the same principles that drive success in any media. The Web is a delivery mechanism or vehicle that everyone should, at this point, should be familiar with and should be integrated into every form of promotion.

Posted by Reid

11:05 AM 0 comments

Gizmo - A free phone for your computer

Gizmo - A free phone for your computer

Touting themselves as “a Skype killer.” Does look interesting. (A San Diego company).

Posted by Reid

10:54 AM 0 comments

VERIZON WIRELESS CMO ADMONISHES AGENCIES

This is a story that really tells it all in terms of traditionalists not embracing the multi-faceted media plan. I feel like, in many cases, ad agencies want to maintain a lock on the relationship yet lack the internal resources to develop an integrated plan. Therefore, the client suffers (and, in this case, complains) because the traditional agency may not want to partner with an outside interactive agency to fulfill the need and "steal" some of their paycheck:

VERIZON WIRELESS CMO ADMONISHES AGENCIES

An open request to traditional-media ad agencies: We can all get along in the interest of maintaining and growing the client through creative integrated campaigns and measurable ROI. We know the way; talk to us.

Posted by Reid

6:01 PM 0 comments

Bad Online Experience Threatens Brick and Mortar Store

From The Center for Media Research's newsletter today:
According to a recent national study conducted by Allurent, an overwhelming 82% of respondents said they would be less likely to return to a site where they had a frustrating shopping experience, and nearly a third said that a frustrating experience when shopping online would make them less likely to buy at that retailer's physical store. 55% of the consumers surveyed said that a frustrating shopping experience online negatively impacts their overall opinion of that retailer.

Posted by Reid

9:14 AM 0 comments

On-Demand: Follow Me

OK, follow me closely on this one . . .

I get the CANARIE newsletter every one in a while. It's choc full o' good tech talk and spans the gamut from optical networks, to the creative commons, to AJAX. The red thread for the list seems to be technologies, systems, beliefs and knowledge in the hands of end-users. You can read more about CANARIE and their reasons for being here. In short they're a Canadian research and education network. Et viola.

So I was reading one of their postings the other day and CANARIE's Senior Director, Advanced Networks, Bill St. Arnaud, posted a comment about Web 2.0 darlings, citing among the best of the web 2.0 as flickr and a lesser-known company called Jaded Pixel. Jaded Pixel is producing a product called Shopify. At Shopify I followed a link to Liquid, which is a technology agnostic template engine for OOP web-dev. Liquid has a Wiki that's powered by Trac, which is a combo wiki/bug-tracking system that runs Subversion as the version control system.

And then it occurs to me that this is essentially what's so great about Web 2.0. Web 1.0 wanted to be everything to everyone. If you were a successful Web 1.0 company it meant that you were able to muscle your way to the top of a vertical and branch out. Amazon.com, for example, which dominated books online and then started dominating everything else in the retail world online. Web 2.0 is considerably more willing to borrow the best from other sources. Why build your own commerce engine, when Shopify has done it for you? Why build your own photo management system, when Flickr has everything you could want in one already? Web 2.0 says, find your niche, serve it well and let don't worry about your Intellectual Property. Focus no the user and let the network be your supply chain. After all why be everything to everyone? The Internet already is everything to everyone.

Posted by Kelly Abbott

9:12 AM 0 comments

Blogger Web Comments for Firefox

More about blogosphere buzz. Here's this little tool from Google that lets you see what other bloggers are saying about the page you're looking at. On oft-blogged pages and popular sites in the blogosphere, the effect is akin to digital graffiti, where recency reigns. Not hugely useful at the end of the day, but a neat little web 2.0 tool nonetheless. Enjoy!

Posted by Kelly Abbott

6:36 PM 0 comments

How to Monitor the Blogosphere

Reid slapped this article on my desk a few weeks ago. I was hoping to visit and spend some time with the sites mentioned in this article. But, alas, there are just too many good sources for calibrating buzz on the Internet.

Here are the links. More sure to follow.

Google Blog Search
Google Alerts
Technorati
TalkDigger
Topix.Net
PubSub
OpinMind
BlogPulse
Feedster

Then there are research firms specializing in more thorough analysis, one supposes. Here they are:

IBM's Public Image Monitoring (which does not exist apparently)
Biz360
Cymfony
BuzzMetrics

Posted by Kelly Abbott

6:26 PM 0 comments

WebSideStory Announces Visual Sciences Merger

WebSideStory Announces Visual Sciences Merger
While they may say the contrary, it appears that their intent is to more closely align business analytics with Web analytics. This further solidifies our position of a company's Web strategy being tightly aligned with the the company's business strategy (not just the marketing strategy).

Posted by Reid

2:37 PM 0 comments