Consumers are increasingly skeptical of traditional advertising, more likely to trust peers for product recommendations and completely networked – and as the digital natives move out of the dorms and into the business world, this trend is only going to get stronger. What is the impact of these networked consumers on the marketing landscape?

E-commerce grows up. Social is the new currency.  Established companies adapt to a new reality, and new companies have surfaced in the wake of social media – entirely to capitalize on social network marketing.

This is the first article in a series exploring social network trends in online commerce and how some Seattle companies are navigating the landscape.

It is interesting to note that some of the most successful new technologies don’t actually invent anything new: peer-to-peer advertising is in fact the oldest variety around. It precedes any mass medium. New technologies, however, make peer-to-peer recommendations more efficient, faster and with a broader footprint than the cave-man version.

According to Kathy Savitt, CEO of Seattle based Lockerz, 73 percent of “Generation Z,”–those born after 1992–purchase products based on recommendations from friends. Lockerz is a member-based web community that rewards users for listening to music, watching videos, answering questions and sharing photos. They base their whole business model on peer-to-peer social networking and “word of mouth” marketing strategies. Read more…

The psychsters over at Psychster Inc. have done something that media creators have been clamoring for ever since the collapse of the first internet bubble a decade ago.  They released a study looking at how engaged web users become with video content.  One of the continual challenges for web producers is how to effectively evaluate the cost benefit ratio of developing and distributing rich multimedia content online.  Consumers have more video choices now than they have ever had before, but video producers, directors, editors and writers are being squeezed by the emegence of “content farms” that produce very low cost (and sometimes low quality) video content for web sites.

There is a growing debate among media pundits and economists alike about the inflated valuations of tech companies like Groupon and Facebook.  These voices have raised the specter of a new and potentially bigger tech bubble developing.  Facebook, Google’s YouTube and other Web 2.0 giants have all pioneered business models based on user generated content—not professionally produced content.  Psychster’s recently posted study looks at the effectiveness of online video content in relation to production values.  In short, the study asks the question:  do web users engage with professionally produced video content more than they do with cheaper content?  Why is this important?  Lets back up a little and look at how video on the web has evolved over the last decade. Read more…

By Rachel Crick

Is it possible to find a word or a short phrase that describes what we do as storytellers, without using the word storytelling? A recent discussion yielded the word narrative as a possible substitute, though there were concerns that “narrative” might come across as too academic. Those involved in the conversation who come from cultures outside of the United States expressed how difficult it is to find a word that accurately translates the meaning of the phrase “storytelling” in their native tongue.

Photo by Rachel Crick

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This is the third and final blog post of a three part series about my experiences as a presenter with fellow MCDM student Katherine Turner during the 2011 American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. See the second post Monday, February 28th, 2011, “Easy Like Sunday Morning.”

Crowdsourcing

I had kept word that I was attending the conference from my parents. I also had to block my sisters from my Facebook updates about the trip to Puerto Rico. I had known for months. My plan was to surprise my mother at the mall, grocery store, or where ever she might be.

Everyone’s reaction to my plan – that’s a bad idea. Even the taxi driver on the way to Condado from Fajardo turned back while driving and looked at me square in the eyes and said, “Mijo, la vas a matar.” He was not the only local who concurred that I was going to give my mother a heart attack. So, I called my mother that afternoon. “Guess where I am?” A few seconds of silence goes by followed by “Get the **** out of here! How can that be?” Said a very stunned Señora, or as she will very happily point out to you, Señorita.

Whenever Katherine and I talked about presenting at an oceanography conference it always seemed strange. People would reply, “I thought you were into video or photography.”

Yes, we are into video. No, we aren’t oceanographers. “So, why are you presenting at an oceanography conference?”

My mother grew more confused and perplexed when I explained the reasons why I was in San Juan presenting at an International Oceanography Conference.

Carlos Miguel Sanchez & Julia Rodriguez (Dad and Mom)

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Special to Flip The Media from David Evans Ph.D.
Last week it was announced that Classmates.com, once among the best known brands on the web, has been retired. Type it into a browser and you will be redirected to MemoryLane.com, a new brand.

The site is dead. Long live the site.

Some thoughts, without my usual degree of research and annotation…as a social psychologist who learned a lot about how social media should and should not work during my two fascinating years there.

I remember sitting next to participants in usability interviews as they found their city, school, and friends’ names. Their emotion was real when they said, “Wow they’re in here?” referring to either a person or school that had once meant a lot to them. That emotion is critical to the success of an online venture. It’s similar to what game developers have to see in their playtests; what they call “fiero” the Italian word for fist-pumping triumph. For Classmates, it was the flush of time travel, the rush of memories activated. Without that emotion, no social media or gaming venture can succeed. Read more…

This is the second blog post of a three part series about my experiences as a presenter with fellow MCDM student Katherine Turner during the 2011 American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  See the first post from Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011 “Hurry Up and Wait.”

Episode II, A New Hope

After waiting in line for nearly 40 minutes and salivating for a traditional  bocadillo I had to settle for avena or oatmeal. I was not able to upload the video for the conference to YouTube or Vimeo as the uploading time kept getting longer and longer. The panaderia was a ghost town as the morning rush had come and gone. Things were looking bleak.

Finally, I was able to send the video via a drop box service to the film festival producer — and the crisis was averted!

The day of the film festival we made our way back from Culebra to the mainland via an hour and a half ferry ride at the break of dawn. The whole point of coming to Puerto Rico early was to have plenty of time to fine-tune our ASLO Conference presentations.

Oh, hindsight. Why you are always two days late and a dollar short?

Sunday morning from Fajardo to El Condado was just 35 minutes and the same route in the afternoon is an hour and a half. Since check-in time was not until later in the afternoon we had to take refuge at the only familiar place we knew our kind was always welcomed. A place that inspires and nurture the human spirit – one person, one coffee cup and one neighborhood at a time. That’s right – Starbucks.

The line at the Starbucks in El Condado seemed to be one self-generating infinite loop. The irony of the situation was not lost on us. We come all the way to Puerto Rico and were now seeking settling in comfortably at a Starbucks. (In case you are wondering the only difference on the menu is Café Con Leche is listed under local favorites.) Here the tourists outnumber the locals 3 to 1.

The baristas were somewhat bilingual but not to fear I speke the Spanish.  Thirty minutes later it’s my turn and I blank on how to say quad espresso. We edge our way to a table, plug in our laptops to one of four electrical outlets in the store and boot up to get online. But …

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The 2011 Sundance Film festival wrapped last week and by all accounts the word among industry, insiders and critics alike on Park City’s picturesque Main Street was that the new crop of indy-docs and international features outshone the narratives and documentary premiers hands down.
Two documentaries received a lot of pre-festival buzz came from Sundance alumns –Pamela Yates’ Granito and Steve James’ The Interruptors — were the must-see documentaries in the festival and sold-out before the festival began. Granito is the personalized follow-up to Yates’ 1984 expose When the Mountains Tremble on the Guatemalan government’s genocide against the region’s indigenous people. James’ The Interruptors is an unflinching look at a group of ex-gang members turned community activists in the Chicago area who are trying to break the cycle of violence in their neighborhoods.

For those of us festival folks who couldn’t get a seat at these films, we did have one other opportunity to hear from the directors and ask them questions. Yates and James were on a Sundance’s Filmmaker Lodge panel “The Aha! Moment: Making Change Sticky .  The panel discussion centered on new media outreach strategies and how to break new ground in extending social change outreach for documentaries. They were joined by documentary filmmaker and physician Dr. Maren Grainger-Monson and producer Ted Richane from social change outreach partners Cause and Effect.

All of the projects highlighted by the panel took a long view in measuring the social impact of documentary filmmaking. The panelists agreed that it was no longer possible to effect change by just having a documentary shown in front of an audience (if this was ever really a path to serious impact to begin with). Yates introduced her project by issuing a challenge to documentary film makers: “I want to send out a challenge to everyone here: It is not acceptable, if you are going to make a film about social issues or human rights, not to think about outreach and audience engagement at the outset of making your film … you are going to shortchange yourself as an artist if you don’t get involved from the very beginning and see it all the way through to the finish.” Read more…