LOTD: January 31st

• Multi-tasking when it comes to media usage is reaching epic proportions. If you strung it all out end to end you’d have 43 hour days of media consumption. Yikes. (CT)
• Floppy disks are about out of time as information storage devices. More and more PCs are being manufactured without them as USB drives, with their smaller size and higher capacity, become the device of choice. (CT)
• Older Flickr users are pretty upset over the announcement that, come March 15th, you will need a Yahoo account to log into the photo-sharing site. Shakespeare warned us. (CT)

LOTD: January 26th

I’ve been busy exploring ways to auction ad-space on my back side in order to raise money to go see the Bears play in the Super Bowl. Any takers? Hello? Is this thing on? –Chris

• Wikipedia is adding “no follow” tags to the links on its pages, meaning those links aren’t getting the Google Juice they otherwise would.
• I’m inclined to think that companies have the right to edit factually incorrect Wikipedia entries but the fact that Microsoft went and paid outside bloggers to do so makes me think they felt they were doing something wrong. Microsoft has said it tried going through usual channels but kept being shut out, leading to it employing this tactic. Unfortunately, as Arrington says, there is a fundamental flaw with Wikipedia’s system that is starting to become more and more obvious.
• The National Institute of Health has also been found to have edited its own Wikipedia entry, bringing it head to head with those who question its science.
• I honestly can’t believe we’re still talking about LonelyGirl15.
• As PR people I think we should be ashamed of ourselves everytime we read something like this saying that journalists aren’t hooked into RSS.
• MySpace makes itself useful by announcing it will begin distributing Amber Alerts.
• David just about nails the stages of Second Life adoption.
• Marketing in Second Life could lead to big bucks according to at least one person.
• The LA Times is enacting a bunch of ideas aimed at making integrating more deeply the online and offline worlds that exist at the paper.
• When you think, logically, that politics is largely just marketing, it makes sense that it too is becoming a conversation.
• Mack weighs in on on the reemergence of the “social media is dead” meme.
• The Washington Post has added a number of outside blogs to its web offerings in an attempt to give it some cred.
• It’s the people who are already in Second Life who are the most enthusiastic about the world’s future.
• The new media savviness of the Super Bowl-bound Chicago Bears gets examined by Steve Johnson.
• Google might be planning a virtual world of its very own.
• Yahoo has shut down discussion on its news stories because of concerns that too few people were dominating the discussion.

LOTD Jan. 23rd: Music marketing madness edition

There’s been a bunch of news about the future of the retail music industry that all sort of goes together so I wanted to put it into one place:

• Record companies are eyeing moving toward open-format MP3s for digital downloads within the next year or so as opposed to all the DRMed files in incompatible formats that are polluting the system now.
• According to eMarketer, the number of digital music sales nearly doubled in 2006 over 2005 numbers. Those numbers still don’t make up for the drop in physical CD sales, but imagine if the tracks were in the above-mentioned MP3 format.
• Mark Glaser makes a lot of good points, chief among them that the $15 price-point for a physical CD has been around for a while now and is largely artificial at this point.
• Mack is talking about SnoCap’s MyStore, a new venture from Napster founder Shawn Fanning. The service would enable artists to sell their music directly to the audience as MP3s.
• Music videos from Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group artists will have Google AdSense’s video ads attached to them.
• A new service called Ruckus will be offering free music to college students. The bummer is that it’s going to be distributed in Microsoft’s PlaysForSure format, meaning it won’t even play on Microsoft’s own Zune player not to mention iPods.

If he keeps saying it loudly enough it might just come true

I thought about leaving this as an additional comment but decided to post it here instead.

Steve,
If you’re going to go around saying that social media is no mo’ or that the phrase should be dropped from the lexicon, then first talk about what you’re doing within Edelman as a thought leader. That would start with maybe addressing the irony of you saying that at the same time that your agency positions itself as being so savvy because it distributes press releases in both old media and “social media” formats.

–Chris

RSS has made me its…Hey, look at the time

I can’t tell you how many times I remarked to Tom along the lines of “I just have to finish some reading…” when he asks me to do something. That’s why I, for the first time since its launch, laughed at this Blaugh comic.

LOTD: January 22nd

…We are the Bears’ Shuffling Crew…shuffin’ on down, doin’ it for you…

Sorry, I was listening to some music. Let’s move on. –Chris

• With cheap software and a lot of enthusiasm, a group of folks have created their own daily video show on stock picks and financial markets, moving in on territory previously held only by experts and the like. (CT)
• Shocking! RSS still hasn’t moved into mainstream adoption. (CT)
• IBM is creating its own social networking for business solution that it’s positioning as a direct challenge to Microsoft. (CT)
• Rick Klau has a pretty intriguing idea on how Microsoft could capture some market share from Apple that makes a lot of sense. (CT)
• The news of the day is being decided by the readers and not necessarily the editors. (CT)
• Real estate agents are blogging, and those blogs are getting noticed by people running searches and looking for real estate information in their area. (CT)
• Finally, some quality breakout and definition when it comes to social networking, with a pretty big appeal. Check out OurChart, social networking for “lesbians and their friends,” as the company’s December 18 press release announces. It was founded by Ilene Chaiken, who many of you might recognize from her work with Showtime’s “The L Word,” along with Hilary Rosen and Beth Callaghan, formerly of PlanetOut.(TB)

LOTD: January 19th

• This behind the scenes peek at Joost has me positively salivating at getting in and playing around with it myself. (CT)
• It’s an honest-to-goodness mystery JD Lasica has on his hands. His video interview with the founder of Tower Records, which was under the time limit and which featured Creative Commons music, has been yanked by YouTube. (CT)
• Blogs are good for marketing. (CT)
• This is kind of funny. You know how sometimes your boss comes in with some sort of “we need to do this” idea related to shiny new technology? That might be because they saw it in a movie and figured the technology must be incredibly easy to use. [Via] (CT)

LOTD: January 18th

Yeah, let’s all be surprised that a bunch of Chicago suburbs are reconsidering their smoking bans now that the Bears are in the playoffs. I don’t smoke but even I needed a cigarette about five minutes into the fourth quarter of last week’s game. Anyway…

• Josh brings up an interesting point about the whole “newspaper blogs gaining readers” issue. The tools that drive these blogs, WordPress, Blogger or even TypePad, are low cost with, now, high return. (CT)
• Linden Labs is making some adjustments to Second Life that they hope will make it more friendly for retailers, provide a more natural search experience and more. (CT)
• MovableTweak has a great item up about how a new MT version coming out and how Six Apart needs to get it in high gear if MT is going to be able to keep the hold it has on the blogging space. I have more comments for a later time. (TB)

LOTD: January 17th

• How much does it say about Apple’s current state of affairs that an article wondering whether the iPhone is a desperation play by the company even gets written? Apple is usually immune from such non-cheerleader coverae but I think this will become more common.
• Check out some handy tips on how to improve your sites placements within Google results.
• Blogs are becoming pretty popular with mainstream publications, with page views rising sharply in recent months.
• News Corp. has found another way to try and kill MySpace, this time by offering parents software to monitor their child’s account.
• I have to agree with Shel that the Technorati/PRNewswire “deal” appears to be a non-story. Shel’s digging into what exactly gets returned via those T’rati links leads me to believe that the deal involves negative stories being omitted from the search for a release, something that’s just going to limit usage.
• Marketing emails often don’t contain links, which kind of defeats the purpose. Even more troubling in my opinion is the number of pitch emails I get that don’t contain links. I like to link out to stuff since, more than anything, it bestows a kind of legitimacy to what I write. If I get a press release that’s just been pasted into an email I more or less ignore it since it gives my readers nowhere to turn for more info.
• YouTube’s marketing head talks about the transition into an ad-serving site that the site has been going through as it looks to monetize all the user content and pay for server space. (Thanks to Paul for the link)
• Ze Frank has signed a talent deal with Hollywood. A million bloggers cry out at once and are suddenly silenced.
• The OJR provides a nice and easy to email to your less tech-savvy colleagues list of some of the more common online terminology.

Chicago Coffee Morning #4

Clay just posted a reminder that this Friday is another Chicago Coffee Morning. We meet and discuss, well, anything and everything. While the group tends to consist mostly of bloggers and marketers everyone is welcome to come for some good morning and some good conversation.