An old number of our trend report about the new media landscape. For more information head over to www.urbanlifestylereport.com and register.

1. IS RG A CONSUMER UPRISING & ”THE SOCIAL MEDIA ELECTION”
LA TR
SU E
EX
E!
EXPLOSION IN THE
SWEDISH BLOGOSPHERE
”WIRETAPPING SWEDEN”
URBAN
DIGITAL BOOKS
UPRISING! future or failure?
What the F**K is
Social Media?
Internet Buzz; what are
people watching, sharing
& discussing?
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE

2. CONTRIBUTORS
TOUGH TIMES OR
GREAT OPPORTUNITIES?
Tomas Nihlén, Editor in Linda Pierre, Editor and Lisa Sculati, Writer. San
Chief and writer. Co-founder responsible for layout & Francisco based freelance Lately both analogue and digital media have been dominated
of Urban Lifestyle. Holds a design. Co-founder and co- writer and radio journalist. by bad news, layoffs and depressing prognoses for the near future.
very strong interest in new owner of Urban Lifestyle. She Enjoys exploring the latest The heavy duty VC firm Sequoia started a crisis meeting with a slide
media and how Internet is is also marketing director for trends in new media, blogging saying “R.I.P Good Times.” Now all “unnecessary” costs for web
changing the fundamentals an e-commerce site in the about Sweden, learning startups have to be cut to decrease the burn rate and demands to
of the whole marketing arena. travel accessories category. Swedish and spending time break even faster are getting more visible. For marketing consultants
He parttcularly keeps an eye Linda enjoys actually using outside. Has worked with this means they need to convince their clients that marketing is
on the evolving Internet video social media in her daily work so called ”old media” or necessary even, or especially, in hard times.
scene. Also loves podcasting instead of just talking about ”traditional media” for more
both as viewer and creator. it. than a decade. In tough times market shares comes with a discount and when
competitors lose their focus and spend all their valuable time staring
at balance sheets you might just have the perfect opportunity to steal
some of their market shares. If you are a consultant you might want
More writers Editor in Chief Tomas Nihlén
tomas@urban-lifestyle.se +46 8 501 64 377 to focus more on selling value rather than your time at an hourly fee.
Lia Dutra, strategic planner at the Brazilian
Editor & Creative Director Linda Pierre Offense is often the best defense and it’s always good to try to
agency Africa Propaganda. linda@urban-lifestyle.se +46 8 501 64 376 increase revenue before focusing on the cost side. But lets not get
Hjörtur Smárason, Anthropologist who went stuck in this crisis, there are a lot of other interesting things to talk
Subscription
practical. Writes, speaks and consults on Internet 5 issues/year, 175 Euro. about. For instance we have chosen to focus a bit extra on what we
marketing. To buy one single report, head over to Filehill.com and other refer to as “The Social Media
Election” and “Consumer Uprising.” The
Andrey Zhukov, Future entrepreneur from Royal Images & illustrations
first expression doesn’t need any further
Institute of Technology who wants to improve our Images and illustrations are all if not taken by any
lives with new technology. of our writers, been approved by the copy holder, explanation but the second one stems from
free of use for commercial purpose or are licenced the blogger uprising we noticed in Sweden
Ben Grossman & Marta Kagan, founders and under Flickr Creative Commons. when the authorities decided to wiretap all
strategists at the marketing agency BiGMarK. Internet traffic in and out of Sweden. The
Web page & blog
www.urbanlifestylereport.com bloggers wouldn’t have it and an instant
Tamora Burk, strategist with a focus on product
development, trading and design at the agency www.urbanlifestylereport.com/newmedia grassroots movement was born on a scale
Maverick-Dean. that we have not seen before in Sweden.

3. in this issue 42.
2008.10
4. BRANDS 59. miscellaneous
In this issue we decided to drill Lisa Kudrow is doing web based therapy for
down deep into what we would Lexus in their latest and greatest jump into
like to call ”The Social Media online video. This projects leans more towards
Election” (the US presidential
election that is). It’s a political
41. PEOPLE ”branded entertainment” a la BMW rather than
shaky mobile videos a la YouTube.
campaign that offers insights on The days of consumers playing nice is over. We also give you some pointers on becoming
the future of marketing. Using If you cross them you might be staring down a Twitter pro, and speaking of pros this issue’s
social media as an essential part the barrel of a consumer uprising. In Sweden profile is Nicholas Gill. You can find his blog
of very integrated campaigns that’s what happend to the authorities when here and his podcast here (and keep an eye
both candidates are kicking some they decided to start wiretapping the people. out for a cameo from Urban Lifestyle there in a
big brand butt this time around. But that’s just one of many examples and you future episode).
No wonder Obama wins the title might as well read and think about it to make
”Marketer of The Year” by AdAge, sure that it never happens to you... Since this
beating Apple and Zappos.
5. topic was so interesting we even decided
to produce a low budget web documentary
about it which even caused some debates in
countries like Spain.
25. MEDIA
YouTube now lets you easilly buy music from
selected video clips. The future of monetization
for online video according to Google. We think it
sounds very interesting. It’s interesting because
it’s about finding ways to do something positive
for you and your brand during recessionary
times. Market shares are cheaper, the
competition loses focus and so on. We also
take a look at exactly what the F**K social COVER IMAGES BY:
media is really all about.
31. 49. aaron.michels & billypalooza

4. 4
A picture
doesn’t always say
more than Text: Linda Pierre
a thousand words
U ser generated content has been around for a while now. It could even
sound like a tired term. But there are big differences in how much
BRANDS control you give the users and how much is controlled by the brand. In some
cases the users might even feel like they are not creating content, but rather
just picking from a set of templates.
Ford Fiesta recently launched a European campaign centered around photos
In each issue we explore what brands are doing to prosper in the instead of words.They did so by wrapping a car with photos from “the people”..
digital age and how the area of branding is evolving thanks to ll photos are are licensed under Creative Commons to avoid legal problems.
Visitors to the site can click on individual images to see the source and
new media. In the section ”Digital Branding in Focus” we take a photographer and also decide which images should stay and which should go.
closer look at a specific brand category. Another feature is the ability to share these photos. But here Ford missed an
important ingredient in social media. Sure you can email the link to the image
on the Ford site to friends, but you can’t post it directly on your Facebook
A picture doesn’t always say more than a thousand words 4 account or make a social bookmark and so on.
The Wine Industry dives into Social Media 5
The point of the campaign isn’t obvious to me and I think they could have
Digital branding in focus: ”The Social Media Election” 8 pushed the envelope further. Perhaps with more features for interactivity
What if the world could vote? 20 like comments or perhaps even using video instead of photos. Well polished
Bettering your Business Blog 22 and nicelly done, but the next time I would like to see something a bit more
innovative!

5. 5
Another trend emerging in the wine industry:
The Wine Industry
podcasts to reach out to a target audience. Randy
Hall co-hosts a podcast called Wine Biz Radio out
of California’s Sonoma Valley. Hall comes from a
high tech background, having worked 16 years at
dives into Social Media
a Fortune 100 firm. “I find that the people who I’m
trying to reach are early in their careers in the wine
industry (young firms open to new technology, and
Text: Lisa Sculati furthermore, the generation weaned on the internet),”
Photo: Kyle May says Hall. “It’s about finding that group of like-minded
wine folks who are out to make a difference. I have
high expectations for where the wine industry will
be with respect to the internet and social media
We’ve arrived at the day and age where Hosted by New England based Bin Ends in a couple years time. Right now, the small
Wine, you can take part in a monthly and nimble players in the wine world are
you can now enjoy a wine tasting online. wine tasting on the micro-blogging site all over the web, they get what it’s
You don’t need to plan a trip to Napa Twitter, usually on the third Thursday about, they get that social media
of every month. It’s an international wine is a conversation and not just
Valley, Sonoma Valley, France or Spain to tasting in which consumers may comment, another media channel.”
sample fine wines. In another example of ask questions and have a conversation with
how one industry is expanding its customer the makers of a month’s featured wines. This
allows winemakers to connect with and form a
base and improving consumer relations relationship with wine connoisseurs who are not able
through social media, wine merchants to travel to their region, as they reach a segment of
their target audience that they cannot interact with
have begun to offer online wine tastings. through traditional media or face to face.

6. 6
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Hall says you could call Wine Biz Radio, “From
Sonoma Valley To Your Ears,” something of a
hybrid/crossover show. “It originally started as
a radio call-in talk show on a community radio
station in the town of Sonoma in 2004 by my co- Vaynerchuck says his dad
host Kaz (aka Richard Kasmier of Kaz Winery), basically dragged him into
centered on talking about and talking to folks the family business, a small
in the wine industry. My involvement with the liquor store in New Jersey. “I
show (as co-host) started in early 2007. Prior to hated every minute of it until I
joining the show, I had separately hatched the realized that people collected
idea that I wanted to start a podcast about the wines just like they collect
wine industry, interviewing winemakers and baseball cards. I started
newsmakers, with a California focus. In the reading Wine Spectator and
second half of 2008, we both realized that our The Advocate and before
commitments were such that we weren’t able to long I was the primary buyer
take the time off to run down to the studio when for our store.”
the show was supposed to air. So, we decided to
produce our show outside the radio station, using In addition to his wine
my equipment and taking on podcast production. industry responsibilities,
To maintain audience involvement, we use the Vaynerchuck speaks at many
Talkshoe.com conference call service, which high tech conferences, including Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. “A few years ago I saw
provides you with a fully manageable chat/audio the internet becoming more social and really saw the opportunity to leverage web tools for
interface, so you can host and record shows personal branding. I really feel like anyone who is not using these tools has missed the boat
that have many callers talking or muted, with a completely. All of these are tools that allow you to reach and engage an audience to build
text chat that provides those more timid souls a your brand.”
way to interact with us. We primarily offer our
podcast through our website.” Hall says their On the issue of the wine industry turning to social media, Vaynerchuck says there has been
main audience can be found in the USA but they a big movement, especially among bloggers and other folks that are looking to get their voice
also have international listeners in Australia, out. “I think you’ll see more wineries and winemakers making noise via social media in the
France, Canada, the UK and even China. coming months.”
Across the country from Sonoma Valley, Gary The company behind Wine Library TV, The Wine Library is a large Internet retailer,
Vaynerchuck hosts Wine Library TV, a daily disseminating daily wine offers via Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. “Ultimately it’s
video blog devoted to wine, out of New Jersey. been the building of my personal brand and WLTV through social media that has raised

7. 7
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
the notoriety and customer base of Wine Library.
We are in the midst of a personal branding gold
rush. Anyone in wine or any other industry has
the opportunity to make a name for themselves
by seizing the opportunity presented by all these
social media tools.”
Across the Atlantic, Spanish wine seller Excel
Wines is taking advantage of social media tools
to reach out to a European audience. Anna Axén,
co-founder of Excel Wines, blogs and micro-blogs
about Spanish wines and recently attended the first
European Wine Bloggers Conference.
Axén, originally from Sweden, now living in Bilbao,
Spain, says she is very new to the world of blogging
and social media. Her company’s blog site was
created this past April. “We did it after realizing
that traditional media didn’t do it for us. We wanted “The principal goal of the European Wine Bloggers Conference was to bring as many
some feedback from customers and visitors of our bloggers as possible together to exchange ideas and experiences and to explore means
service and products to be able to improve and in the of working together to give blogging, in particular wine blogging, more exposure and,
end increase our sales. We got in contact with some ultimately, more clout. There were over 40 attendees which was a great turnout. Topics
other wine bloggers in Spain who finally helped us discussed included blog writing, wine ratings and monetization.” For Excel Wines, it
to get started. We are now using Twitter, Facebook, was principally a way of meeting other bloggers and hearing about their experiences.
Open Wine Consortium and we’re reading loads of “We met some very interesting people and got some great ideas about how to improve
other wine blogs around Europe. We use sites such and expand our blog.”
as adegga and snooth to market our wines online.”
Axén believes that social media use is still in its Through social media, fine wine connoisseurs and wine merchants are finding more
infancy in Spain. “But more and more, wineries and opportunities to interact and connect. They’re talking to each other and they’re bonding.
distributors are now realizing the impact of social The merchants become friends. The connoisseurs gain a more intimate knowledge of
media and are starting to blog and tweet, etc.” regional and international wines.

8. 8
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
DIGITAL BRANDING
IN FOCUS:
”The Social Media Election”
Text: Tomas Nihlén
Photo montage: billypalooza
T he US election has sometimes election”. For instance BrandonbySutton Urban
Lifestyle) as “The social media
been referred to (and not just us at
writes
about this term in a recent blog post. Sutton points out that at the time of
the last US election back in 2004 Facebook was only open for college students
and YouTube wasn’t even launched yet! These facts are symbolic of how much
the digital arena has changed since then. Not even terms like “social media”
were coined at that time.
The term web 2.0 was however coined that very same year according to
Wikipedia but was still considered to be something only for tech-people and
definitely not something for “regular” people having nothing to do with the
mainstream crowd. Compare that with the reality of today. Take a look at your
circle of friends and ask yourself, how many of them have managed to avoid
signing up for Facebook or have never heard of YouTube?
It’s a brand new world. With a new set of rules and opportunities. Join us for
a journey into the social media jungle where the US presidential campaigns
are chopping their paths with a machete and showing brands the future of
marketing.

9. 9
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Photo: Center for American Progress Action Fund
Social media strategies
- summary
It’s really interesting to see that there are still people who think that
social media is something just for a small niched audience with a clear
tech focus and not for “the masses.” The smart people behind the social
media strategies for Obama and McCain would not agree and that’s
why they have been diving deeper and deeper into this area and at the
moment kicking some big brand butt to be honest, pardon the French.
What this shows is that even if the whole population hasn’t discovered
social media yet, there are still enough people who have and these people
can be mighty influential. This group is in fact now big enough to make
social media apart of the regular marketing budget.
It is important though not to think that you can treat social media just Senator Barack Obama
like any other marketing channel and use it to push your content in yet * Twitter +103 000 Followers
another direction. Companies must learn to think conversation instead
of pushing messages. This might sound like a cliché by now but that * Facebook +2.2 million Fans
doesn’t make it any less true.
* MySpace +740 000 Friends
Many bloggers have written about the social media adventures of both
candidates, including Speak Media Blog which published a post that sums * YouTube Subscribers: +104 000
up some of the most interesting numbers from the online campaigns and Channel views: +17 million
the engagement both candidates have managed to create. We updated
the numbers a bit since they constantly grow. The engagement for both * LinkedIn 500+ Contacts
candidates is huge, even if I think Obama plays in a league of his own.

10. 10
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
These numbers makes it obvious that Obama is either ahead because his campaign has been
more successful or because his fans are more tech savvy, and maybe even younger than McCains’
fans. But a possible downside for Obama can be that some of his fans might not hit the polling
booths on November 4th because it seems like he will win anyway. I’m not saying that it has to
be that way, but it’s a potential risk from Obama’s perspective.
Techno/Marketer wonders if the candidates will continue to keep their social media identities
alive after the election or if they will let them become “ghost towns.” We will get back to that in
the next issue of Urban Lifestyle Report - New Media.
Some interesting aspects of the campaigns are for instance when Obama announced his VP
candidate via SMS which reached over 2.9 million people. Unfortunately the news got out through
traditional media first which sort of stole the campaign’s thunder. And speaking of things gone
wrong McCain probably crossed the line when he asked supporters to copy and paste standard
comments promoting McCain on blogs, no matter if the comments were relevant or not. That is
probably why it went sour according to PR Squared, not the thought itself but the way it was
executed. Comments should always be relevant and you should always be transparent and open
Photo: Photo Mojo
about who is behind a particular opinion or comment. Plus in the McCain case they offered
participants “reward points” which might sound sort of like a bribe.
Despite a few mistakes, both sides should be praised from a social media
perspective for daring to try new ways to attract voters. Some mistakes could
have been avoided, but all in all they have played this game well. Even though
some might claim that, as usual, the candidates have spent too much time
Senator John McCain and energy on “trash talking” their opponent. But that seems to be a classic
problem in all US elections.
* Twitter Unofficial Site +3 600 Followers
There’s one last thing I would like to mention about innovative approaches
* Facebook +588 000 Fans before we round off this article. Obama even bought ad space in a TV Game
* MySpace +55 000 Friends called Burnout, a smart move that I don´t think McCain will copy...
* YouTube Subscribers: +26 000 It’s obvious that the strategists behind both social media campaigns have
Channel views: +1.8 million understood that there are not just a whole new set of opportunities due to
social media, but also a whole new set of expectations to meet online. The year
* LinkedIn 500+ Contacts 2008 will also be remembered as the year when the bar for political campaigns
was raised to a whole new level. Now there is no turning back!

11. 1
1
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Internet tools to
follow the election
There are a massive number of tools out there that let you follow the
election and even help you decide which candidate you should vote
for. Several popular blogs have made lists on the most interesting
examples. ReadWriteWeb for instance recently picked 5 tools to
visualize the election. One of these services shows which industries
have donated money to the candidates and another one shows how
money is earmarked for certain uses.
There are many services that are focusing on finding the right political
party for a certain voter such as Glassbooth, Candidate Calculator
and Match-O-Matic.
Politics4All is a social platform that lets candidates, citizens and There are several other tools directed to people outside of the US,
political groups meet up, collaborate and try to achieve change in a like for example the site IfTheWorldCouldVote.com (which you can
positive direction, whatever that might be. Another interesting social read more about in another article by one of the brains behind the
platform is A Global View on the US Election 2008, a site created by site). Yet another site letting other countries participate in a fake
LiveJournal to let reporters outside the US borders ask questions to US election is done by The Economist, according to Nevill Hobson. In
voters and create discussions to get a feeling for how US voters think. the latter the world is divided into one electorate per country and
Only companies with a deal with LiveJournal can use the service to all countries that can manage to collect at least 10 voters are in the
post questions, but anybody can see what people are talking about game. At this moment Obama is crushing the competition on both
on the site. these sites.

12. 12
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
If you are a US citizen, and registered to vote, but you are travelling the country at
the moment there is a site that can help you to avoid losing your chance to make a
difference. Election Protection helps you keep track on all the practical details that
you need to think about while voting on the road.
Then there is of course several Facebook applications to support your favorite
candidate. One of them is Election Monitor which seems to have some bugs but it
still might be worth checking out.
That’s all we had space for in this issue. I hope I left you upcoming voters out there
with some tools to use and for you marketers a big chunk of inspiration to create
some tools for your brand that can help people in their everyday life. If you think we
have missed out on some great tools feel free to add them in the comment section
here. Don’t be shy now and more importantly don’t forget to vote.

13. 13
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Political live
coverage 2008
The tools for quenching your thirst for live election
video have developed by leaps and bounds since the
last US election. Back then the term micro-blog wasn’t
known and it would take another 2 years for Twitter
and Jaiku to be born. But this time around there is a
massive number of ways to keep an eye on the election
in real-time.
One way is to follow election.twitter.com where
political “tweets” are aggregated. How might this
be useful you might ask yourself. Well the answer to
that is that it gives a sense of how the discussions are
going among the influential and tech savvy Twitter
crowd. This target group is interesting to study
because they might have some real influence on the
online discussions about the election. This discussion-
friendly group of people might also influence people
that are being indecisive and looking for input to guide
them in some direction. It also gives great feedback to
what these people think about specific debates and
the topics that are being discussed in them.

14. 14
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
The social aggregator FriendFeed didn’t want to be left out from the election mania and therefore
also created a special page here where you can follow the election. It is about to be replaced
with a more permanent page here.
For an even bigger flow of media in real time about the election try this mashup that gives you
an aggregated flow with tweets, blog posts, video and other types of media from the political
candidates. The service can be embedded as a widget on any website and all comments are
visible on all locations no matter where they were submitted according to TechCrunch.
Popular Internet TV site Hulu is streaming live from the debates on TV. Both
the second and third debates were streamed from its site. The first one in
collaboration with NBC (one of the owners of Hulu) and the last one with
News Corp owned Fox News (another owner of Hulu). A big problem with Hulu
however is that it is only available in the US. You can fool the system that you
are inside the US when you are not, but that is just something that more web
savvy people know about and can in fact pull off.
I was recently contacted by Simon Owens who told me that C-SPAN is also
committed to getting all election related video out there in real-time. You’ll find
the hub for this located here. Owens also told me that you as a user can start
editing and sharing clips while the debates are still playing. During streams the
site also aggregates tweets that include the code #debate08 or #nashdebate
and it also monitors the blogosphere for election related content to display.
Mashable published a great list of places where you can find live video from the
election. The list includes following sites; CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo/ABC, CSPAN,
Current and earlier mentioned Hulu.
As you can see there is no shortage of live video this time around and we
haven’t even covered all the sites with user generated content such as mobile
live video services Qik and Mogulus. Those surely will also have some live
coverage related to this election. If not, you can always start streaming your
own opinions or put your phone up in the air at a speech yourself. There’s no
limit to what you can do to actually make a difference this time around.

15. 15
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
The US election
as a catalyst for
brand innovation
The US election has turned out to be Amazon thinks the winning candidate could or red for McCain. The choices are registered
somewhat of a laboratory, where companies be predicted by letting people buy Obama and and aggregated to the campaign site 7-Election.
can test out new products and services under McCain masks for Halloween. According to com. Even in this “mock-up election” Obama
a limited period of time. In some cases these the results at the moment Obama is ahead in has a lead over McCain with 60 per cent against
innovations are not that profound and more this voting game. It remains to be seen though 40 per cent. 7-Eleven claims to have hit the
on a marketing campaign level. Smart ways if that will be accurate in the actual election. bulls-eye in several former elections according
to improve advertising, evolutionary rather to beyondmadisonavenue, therefore it will be
than revolutionary. But then there are those This is not the only example of a brand using the interesting to see if the chain has found the
brands that bring innovations to the table election to engage people. 7-Eleven is running perfect polling system.
that even could redefine their brand identities a similar campaign in which the company has
and change its essence. Since innovation is a done for several elections now. This time the Another pair of brands taking part in the
relative term we will let you decide what is customers get to choose their “party-cup” election fever are YouTube and PBS. They
innovative or not. when they buy a hot beverage; blue for Obama want regular, young, voters to record their

16. 16
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
experience at the polling booths on election
day. These video clips are then uploaded to
Video your vote and selected clips will be aired
on PBS to try to illustrate what it is like to vote
as a young citizen in the US today. But there
are some pretty strict rules. The clips must be
between 30 seconds and 3 minutes long and on
top of that there are some legal issues to handle
for participants. For instance it’s illegal to film
anything inside the polling booth or outside it,
according to Gizmodo,
Another brand entering the election circus to
try to use this timing to build its brand, and
hopefully try to do something good, is Burger
King. The central slogan is “Have it your way”
and the campaign site directs people to either
their Facebook or MySpace application. These
applications let users answer a number of
political questions that are typically Democrats
vs Republicans. After answering these questions
you can see which of your friends have done the
same and which ones agree or disagree with
you. The results are also displayed as a ticker on
the bottom of the campaign site. To drive traffic
to the site BK used TV advertising according to
Promo Magazine.

17. 17
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
This is not the only area in which The
New York Times is pushing the envelope
during the election. The magazine has also
launched an impressive video player that makes
it easier for users to navigate in long debates and
other election videos. There is a time line on the top
showing in which parts Obama speaks and in which
parts McCain speaks. To make it even easier they have
also placed a text version of the videos to the right with
There are also brands that innovate on another level. Google Labs for links to specific parts of the clips. Take a look for yourself to
instance recently launched a new service to let users search for words see what you think.
in video clips related to the election. This is a way to test out cutting
edge technology that might be implemented on a wider scale in the near Not all that innovative but still an attention grabbing detail in
future. It will be interesting to see if this function will be implemented this election is how Annheuser-Bush (owner of Budweiser etc.)
on all of Google’s video resources like YouTube and Google Video in the is sponsoring political debates together with other brands such
future. No doubt this is a great opportunity to test drive this technology. as HP.
In each election in the US there seems to be a large number
Another interesting example is the The New York Times which has
of technical problems that in the long run might increase the
created their first open API. What’s an API some of you might wonder?
distrust for the election process. To act against this trend Wired
Well it’s one of the cornerstones of “web 2.0” and to be more exact it
decided to publish a mashup map that lets users report on
means creating an external interface to your own service or database
technical problems during the election all around the US. These
that lets other services gain access to certain parts of your data. This
reports or comments might come in the form of text or links
is very useful for instance when creating mashups and so on. The New
to audio, video or images. This is a great way for a brand to
York Times’ API lets other web services collect data about financial
market itself and at the same time do something positive for the
contributions to the political parties in the US election. By opening up
community. You can find the map here.
their data in this manor they are actually experimenting with its identity
as a newspaper. From originally being printed only on paper, The New
York Times first made the transition to also being digital and now this
next natural step towards becoming a modern information source for
both man and machine. I totally agree with ReadWriteWeb when saying
that this is the way of the future.

18. 18
Politics and
comedy online
Illustration: ”Batmobama and Robiden”
by Paul Richmond
Some people would probably claim that politics and comedy don’t
mix well. That they at all costs should be kept separated. And then
there are people who think the absolute opposite, that they have
lived a life of symbioses since the dark ages and that political satire is
an essential part of any well functioning democracy. No matter what
you do think about this issue the two forces are meeting up online
right now for a cavalcade of election comedy of varying quality.
There is a flood of sites and video clips that make fun of the presidential
candidates or the “election circus.” There is not enough space in this
report to fit them all into one article but we have selected a few
interesting examples.
The most talked about example online might be the fight between
the characters Obama Girl and McCain Girl. It started with a video
with Obama Girl called “I got a crush... on Obama” (video). Then
McCain Girl answered with “INCREDIBLE McCAIN GIRL - HULK
SPOOF” (video) and later they met in a challenge (video) and also on
Geraldo (video) but this time under friendlier circumstances. Now
there are a ton of videos from these characters on YouTube, just
search for “obama girl” or “mccain girl” and you will find them.
This well produced video makes fun of both candidates and has been
viewed more than 1.4 million times. The group behind the video,
Jibjab, has produced a large number of political videos like this one
and this one.

19. 19
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
The blog Phreak 2.0 compares Obama and McCain If Florida would be hard to reach for Obama, these “hip hop kids” are not. At least
with Batman and The Penguine illustrated with a great not according to this music video.
picture by Paul Richmond, take a look here to see what
it looks like or to the left. But there is also unintentional comedy like what people at a McCain event seemed to
think was going on on-stage according to Time.com. They were amused by McCain’s
A popular video clip where John Cleese talks (and facial expressions, eye movements and his repeated references to “Joe the Plumber.”
laughs) about Sarah Palin has been spread around the This term has flooded the Internet lately and become sort of a gimmick on Twitter,
Internet lately. Cleese states that he used to think that which you can sense here. To wrap it up, as I said before this election most definitely
his colleague Michael Palin was “the funniest Palin in has proved that interacting with your audience is a good thing. By providing tools
the world” but now he has realized that it in fact is and material that can be shared easy, commented on. That makes it possible for
Sarah Palin who holdes first prize. people to engage in a winning concept and get your word out there and to stand out
in the crowd of messages. Social media is one way to open up and let your customers
At least one site seams to agree and that is Palin As in on your brand. Don’t be scared just do it!
President. Take a look around and live in Sarah Palins
world, should she become president. Take a while to
make up your own mind.
Another example of political comedy is when YouTube
users create short clips and mashups of reality, like this
clip where a YouTuber shows us “How many times did
Sarah Palin wink?” and another user shows us “The
Obama Llama Song”. Just search for “election” and
“humor” and you will find tons of clips.
A bit more controversial site might be “The Great
Schlep” which is a site targeting young Jewish American
voters to make them go to Florida and make sure that
their grandparents vote for Obama. In the introduction
video Sarah Silverman jokes about prejudice against
African-Americans and Jewish grandparents. You can
read more about the site here.

20. 20
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
What if the world
could vote? Text: Hjörtur Smárason, Marketing Safari
It’s only a few days until the US presidential election.
Everyone is talking about the election and everyone
has an opinion on who should be the next person to
take on the most powerful job in the world. But who
decides who it should be? The US people? The US
supreme court? Or the registered voters in the US?
Would it be any different if the whole world could vote?
Three guys in Iceland decided to ask the world. So
they set up the website http://IfTheWorldCouldVote.
com where people from anywhere in the world can cast
their vote on either John McCain or Barack Obama. So
far 333.000 people from 198 countries world wide have
voted. And the trend is clear. The world is unanimous.
Over 87% of the world would like to see Barack Obama as
the next president of the United States. Only one country
would vote for John McCain – The Former Yugoslavian
Republic of Macedonia. Sadly for John McCain, it’s not
because he’s so popular there. It’s because Obama
is very unpopular there after he announced support
for Greece in the Macedonian name dispute when It should give a clue about who the world would like to see as the next president of
speaking to a group of the Greek minority in Chicago. the United States and maybe get people in the United States to realize how much this
matters to the whole world” says Hjörtur Smárason, co-founder of IfTheWorldCouldVote.
com.
“Our mission is to get as many voters from as many
countries as possible. Whether or not we reach our goal According to the site, Obama would get 81,8% in the USA. Is that because he’s so popular
of more voters than in the last US election, we really among those who can’t vote? Or is the “online population” more pro-Obama than the
want to get a reasonable amount of voters from each “offline population?” Or will we see a landslide victory for Barack Obama on November
country so that a comparison can be made. 4th? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

21. 21
Wikipedia vs Energizer
which one wins in a tag war? Text: Tomas Nihlén
Text: Andrey Zhukov
It’s official, Britney Spears is on Twitter! There is a Twitter user called “TheRealBritney”
What pops into your mind when you hear a brand like “Facebook?” Personally that drew a lot of attention on Twitter when it was officially launched as Britney Spears’
I saw words like “poke” and “tagged images of my university professors entrance to the Twitter world. Does this mean that micro-blogging has become
doing the air guitar move on the dance floor” in my mind. Try Brandtags mainstream already? Probably not just yet... When the news first broke a lot of people
for yourself and learn which mystical word associations a superbrand has to were very impressed to see such a new
you. approach from an established artist trying
to reconnect to her fans. But it didn’t
An even more exciting thing would be to see two random brands enter the take long until it became obvious that it
ring. No rules and the winner is at your mercy. It’s not a dream, you can find wasn’t Britney hammering away at the
it in The battle mode. keyboard but her PR-team. Furthermore
the updates were mostly just dumping
The cherry top of the branding cake belongs to Google and Adidas with 424 links and promoting events not so much
and 421 wins out of 507 battles. Swedish Absolut Vodka and Skype are in interacting which is a big part of what
the first hundred. Odd couple SAP and Howard Stern are apparently equally micro blogging is all about. Frankly speaking this was not the most innovative way to
boring, living in the use Twitter and Gary Vaynerchuck expressed his criticism in this video. 1938 Media also
cellars of people’s joined the debate but claimed that Vaynerchuck was naïve to think that a star like Britney
minds. would eve use Twitter personally. But I must say that I agree with Gary Vaynerchuck
on this isssue, it would be much more efficient if Britney would be personally engaged
There’s also the in social media. In fact Vaynerchuck posted a new video calling out Obama, with the
OS Browse mode, message that if Britney gets heat for fake twittering then so should Obama.
which shows tags
only from people Britney’s PR-team also launched a YouTube channel and a Britney centric social
on PCs or Macs. networking service called CircusVip to bring together all fans on the same platform. It
Turns out way more will be interesting to see what kind of engagement this will create around Britney. The
people who use team made a decision not to build a new social networking service but rather use a
PCs think Apple’s white label service called Ning. The positive part of using an existing platform is that
pretentious than it is much cheaper but the downside is that it doesn’t have the same flexibility. Finally
people who use I would say that it is an interesting project from Team Britney but they made some
Macs. Go figure! unnecessary mistakes when they launched the Twitter account, mistakes that show a
lack of knowledge into how social media works.

22. 22
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Bettering Your Business Blog
Text: Lisa Sculati
How confident are you that your business blog
is reaching your target audience? What kind of
interaction do you have with the readers of your
business blog? Do you feel your blog conveys an
authentic message? How do you feel your blog’s
message is being received?
David Meerman Scott, author of the book ”The New Rules of In his 2007 book, Scott writes “There’s no doubt that my blog is the most important marketing and
Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasts, PR tool I have as a marketing and PR speaker, writer, and consultant.”
viral marketing and online media to reach your buyers directly,”
recently outlined what he considers to be the 5 biggest mistakes Another high profile blogger, Mack Collier, addressed The Small Business Marketing Unleashed
corporate bloggers are making. On his blog, Web Ink Now, Scott conference a few months ago in Houston, Texas on the topic of “Blogging for Business.” On Search
tells us to avoid the following pitfalls: Engine Guide.com Collier tells his readers “When a business starts blogging, many aren’t sure what
they should be blogging about. So they begin writing about what they know best, themselves.
“1) Start a blog without first following other similar blogs (and Unfortunately, the last thing a business blog should be, is a tool to promote that business. Instead,
commenting on them) companies should use their blog to provide value for their readers, and to give them information
2) Write excessively about (your) company’s products and that they can find use in.”
services
3) Focus on one-way propaganda and don’t involve other blogs You’ll find lots of advice on the web on how to improve your business blogging efforts, but what
and bloggers if you need more inspiration? Blogging conferences are becoming magnets for entrepreneurs
4) Accept all the defaults in the blogging software package and corporate marketing and PR professionals. A quick scan of the web reveals a plethora of
5) Fail to realize the importance of the “About” page” opportunities to attend one of these events. If you can make it to Amsterdam in late October,

23. 23
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
you can take part in the Blog 08 conference. Dublin, Ireland
just hosted The Blogging and Social Media Conference on
October 4th. Blog Well will take place in San Jose, California
on October 28th. Las Vegas hosted Blog World Expo in
September. Blog World is dubbed “ the largest blogging
conference in the world.”
This week I had the opportunity to gain insight on quality
business blogging from one of the panelists at Blog World,
Patrick O’Keefe, owner of iFroggy Network and author of
Managing Online Forums.
Question:
What, from your experience and observations, are the
biggest mistakes many business bloggers are making?
Answer:
“I don’t know if I would call them the biggest mistakes or
not, but here are some of the ones that I see:
1. Not posting regularly or on some sort of schedule. 2. Not interacting with commenters and readers. Generally, it’s not a good thing to see a blog where
Depending on your blog and subject, you don’t need to blog the author or authors never interact with commenters. But, this is especially true of a company run blog.
every day. But, what you do need to do is blog regularly and Bloggers are seen as representatives of the company and if people are leaving comments and asking
on some semblance of a schedule. There are very successful questions that are not being answered, it makes them feel ignored and makes them feel as though the
blogs that blog once every 3-4 days. But, the blog’s readers blogger or company is just interested in talking to them, not with them.
know that there will be a new entry every 3-4 days. Blogging
is a commitment and must be treated as such. It’s hard to 3. Finally, this is happening less and less, but it’s important to identify who exactly is writing the post, what
cultivate an audience when you aren’t regularly updating they do, who they work for and, if appropriate, any potential conflicts of interest that they have. Blog posts
your blog. aren’t written by Company XYZ, they are written by John Smith, Director of Something or Another.”

24. 24
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Question:
How were you involved in Blog World Expo and who was the
audience? Experienced bloggers, new bloggers, a mix? Audience
feedback?
Answer:
“I was on two panels. One was called “How to Deal with Trolls,
Spammers, Sock Puppets.” The other was “Avoiding Disaster: How
Not to Use Social Media,” highlighting various social media tactics
and strategies that can harm your brand.”
“The audience was really a mix of people, everyone from individuals
who didn’t know much about blogging to people who lead in the
space and are widely respected. It was a great event. The audience
feedback that I have heard has been solid.”
Question:
What do you to say to people who are skeptical of using the
blogosphere and blogging platform as a marketing/customer
relations/public relations tool?
Answer:
“I can understand why some might consider it to be somewhat Final thoughts for business bloggers, Patrick?
scary, but at the same time, that shouldn’t stop you. Take your time “I would say that there is a lot to be gained. When you think about it,
to learn the medium and learn from the people who are using it participating in the blogosphere and in social media can equal a very low
successfully. Proceed carefully, treat everyone and everything with monetary investment for a very high potential of reward. Obviously, it is
respect and you should be able to find your way and be able to incredibly valuable to have a good relationship with your customers and
carve out a positive presence online.” your fans and the internet makes it exceedingly easy to do so.”

25. 25
3-D CINEMA ON
ITS WAY BACK?
Text: Tomas Nihlén
Photo: John Kratz
T he movie business has to, just like its sisters and brothers in media the
music- and book industry, think in new terms in digital times like these. A
lot of people choose to stay at home to watch the movie instead of opening their
wallets for the movie theaters. At the same time we notice that consumers don’t
watch less movies, instead they are putting their money into home theaters.
The sound quality keeps on improving and screens are growing. Together with
media
downloading movies, rental services online such as LoveFilm and Netflix offer
tough competition to the cinemas. When competition increases and the small
advantage the cinemas had against home studios decreases it’s time to press
pause and to think. So what can cinemas do to entice people and to be willing
to spend money to see movies on movie screens instead of at home?
In this section we explore how the new media landscape is evolving and what it
means to marketers. Focus lies on the new tools and channels that can be used to One way of approaching this challange is to refine the experience. Many of us
understand and reach the consumers. tried out a pair of 3D-glasses one or two times when going to the movies back in
the 80s. Apparantly it is time for another go, at least if we believe what we saw
3-d cinemas on its way back? 25 on this episode of the video podcast Cranky Geeks. Unfortunately you still have
to wear one of those glasses, even though I guess they have improved some
Good times R.I.P 27 since last time. Sure holograms are cool but if they can’t offer this technology on
How to succeed against all odds 29 sufficient amounts of good movies I’m having a hard time to see this concept fly.
Digital books - future or failure? 31 It often is the lack of content that puts an end to these types of experiments. A
lot of energy and money are being put into the the technique while the content
What the F**K is social media? 33 is forgotten. If there aren’t enough good movies in 3D this attempt will most
Google vs. iPhone 37 likely turn into a fiasco. But if they succeed with both those parts; the technology
Live video - a part of our everyday lives? 39 and the content this can actually be a very good and interesting concept.

26. 26
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
”I clicked
to buy and
I liked it” Text: Linda Pierre
Now you no longer have to wonder what the name of that song in that particular video
clip on YouTube is and how you can get it. YouTube recently launched a new function
allowing viewers of videos with music in it be able to get the information and also buy
the song almost directly from YouTube. Just a click away you get access to Amazon
or iTunes to purchase the song you just heard. For now this applies mainly to music
videos from a few record labels but there’s also a possibility you’ll see it under videos
done by the public. This new function doesn’t only aim towards music but digital files
in general that can be bought via Amazon or iTunes store. Electronic Arts has together
with Amazon made it possible for viewers of the online video game Sphore-videos on
YouTube to easy access to buy the game from its store.
Google says this is just the beginning and that they have plans to create collaborations
with business within other industries gradually, like for instance the movie- and TV-
industry. Maybe this is the recipe that finally gives YouTube a share of the advertising
cookie?
Facebook Social Ads Feed on Privacy Illiteracy
An Online Media Daily publication tells us as story The Ads in effect turn you, the Facebook user, into a controls for users. Unfortunately most just don’t even
about how privacy illiterate most people are. Most product spokesperson. Ostensibly this happens with know they are there, which benefits the advertisers.
don’t even know that they should care. Author Nina your permission, but most people really have no idea I have my privacy settings now to block anyone from
Lentini discusses Facebook’s Social Ads: what they have agreed to. using my name and face in their ads. This is why privacy
literacy is so important. It’s really on the users to make
“Natural or not, finding oneself in an ad unexpectedly is You may have discovered that making myself a “fan” of sure they know what is going on, because it benefits
a worrisome prospect. I enjoy Facebook and the fun my a company or brand gave them the right to use your companies like Facebook to not really tell you.
friends and I have therein. And I have been careful not face and name in their ads on Facebook, unless you
to join a group that might come back to bite me. Still, I expressly blocked them from doing so. Text: Andrey Zhukov
shouldn’t have to worry about my face–or rather the faces
of my daughters–ending up in an ad.” In Facebook’s defence, it has some pretty solid privacy

27. 27
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
GOOD TIMES
R.I.P
Text: Tomas Nihlén
Photo: Sequoia Capital
After a few years of good times we are now entering a global
recession, that has probably not escaped anybody connected to
the Internet or following mainstream media. The beginning of
uncertain times have spread a wind of worrying thoughts among
both marketers and web entrepreneurs, how will this affect the
staff issues, revenue and margins? There are no certain answers
and it’s hard to foresee what will happen the next couple of years.
It wouldn’t be surprising if this would make it, relatively speaking,
easier to sell low cost products and services than things that fall
into the “everyday luxury” category like Spa treatments, movie
tickets, and other non-essential products/services. But then again
maybe people need to escape the everyday reality and therefore
will keep some of those luxuries, who knows?
One thing though that is pretty certain is that people will not
spend less time online for information, entertainment and bargain
hunting. This trend will most certainly keep increasing and this
means that we are spending more and more time online instead of
hanging out with traditional media.

28. 28
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Photo: Sad guys on trading floors
Time Magazine added to the fire by publishing a front cover with an image of a bread
line and the caption “The New Hard Times”, according to The Big Picture. For a more
accurate and modern take on this go to the new photo blog Sad Guys On Trading
Floors. This is the new LOLcat phenomenon according to Mashable. For entrepreneurs
it’s all about decreasing the “burn rate” and make their money last as long as possible
according to people like Brian Solis and Jason Calacanis. The blog Inquisitr puts it in this
well nuanced way: “The Sky is Falling. Start panicking.”
The layoffs continued and on the 10 th of October it was Internet entrepreneur Loic
Le Meur’s time to start cutting staff from his Seesmic, which is a platform for video
conversations. The news first came as a shock to bloggers such as Robert Scoble who
wrote a blog post saying it was very surprising considering that Seesmic has been great
at attracting capital. The discussion continued in the comment section and also on
Entrepreneurs that work with the Internet as their basis for business will
Seesmic including this video from Le Meur.
however feel stronger demands for viable business models right from the
start. At least if they are planning on collecting venture capital. It will not be as
easy anymore to build services first and then start thinking about how to make
money out of them. Over the last couple of years quite a few entrepreneurs
have reasoned like what Jim Morrison says to Wayne in the movie Waynes
World 2 - ”If you book them, they will come.”, “If you build your site everything
Photo: Jeff Kubina
will sort itself out.” For VC hunters at least that time is over.
The most powerful VC company in the US, Sequoia Capital, set the tone
when they called for a crisis meeting with their portfolio companies and the
first slide read ”Rest In Piece Good Times”. One of the entrepreneurs told
Boom Town that it was a very unpleasant insight and the last time Sequoia had
a meeting like this it was when the bubble burst back in 2000. After this recent
meeting Twitter started to flood over with tweets about layoffs from different Video conversation platforms and micro-blogs were not around during the last recession
web 2.0 companies. Not as a direct consequence of this specific meeting, but so it is interesting to see how fast information is spreading. It’s worth thinking about if
a general understanding that the industry is going through a steel bath and that this is increasing the speed with which the recession is spreading. And if that’s the case
this meeting was just another manifestation of it. then will it work the other way around and turn the recession around when it’s time?

29. 26
29
To succeed
against all odds
Text: Tomas Nihlén
Photo: freshwater2006 Like we mentioned in the previous article some categories of
products/services might gain from a tougher economy. It could
be simple and cheap products like Campbell Soup (video) which
stock price actually jumped to a new level when the other stock
prices started their decline on the US markets. Another product
type besides soups that could see an increase in demand is
products that helps consumers shed some light on the otherwise
non-transparent financial world, watch this video for instance.

30. 30
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
R obb Hecht, digital strategist at
IMC Strategy Labs, describes
the current state like this in a
post on DMNews:
true both for entrepreneurs and brands.
But what about marketing consultants?
Well that depends on two things; first it
depends on the total marketing budget
and then how much of that is allocated
new opportunities since unemployed people
have more time for media consumption and
an increasing slice of that pie is digital.
Consumers might not have the same
resources to shop, but they will have more
”It’s during a recession that a brand should to the types of media that you are active time on their hands to consume both media
position itself as the leader in its category. in. MarketingProfs recently conducted and other products and services.
It is the best and least expensive time to a study among marketers (in this case
gain market share” on the buyer side) and 65 per cent of the Another opportunity arrives when the
respondents believed this recession would competition loses focus if you can maintain
You could also claim that tough times drive it and start building market share. Here’s
innovation and push companies to make have a negative impact on their marketing
budget. Most of the participants thought your chance to use this timing to get closer
their businesses more efficient. One could to your consumers. In doing that social
almost look at it from a more philosophical this recession will last at least until 2010.
25 per cent of them expect layoffs and 43 media plays a huge and important role. It
standpoint and reason that it’s the struggle provide a cost efficient and unique way to
that makes us do things in new and smarter percent are anticipating a negative effect
on salaries. connect to your target groups. If you can
ways. O’Reilly Radar puts it like this: use and participate in this arena wisely,
”First, this recession will be good for So are we staring down a dark hole or is you can increase loyalty and attract new
innovation because recessions generally there any silver lining on the horizon from customers.
are. During boom times, companies direct a marketer’s perspective? That depends
development and occupy great talent with on what kind of marketer you are. When it
at best evolutionary improvements over comes to Internet marketing it seems like Opportunities in tough times:
the state of the art. Companies are great this will continue to gain market share. So
chasers of new things, but aren’t great at for Internet marketers the recession could − A bigger share of marketing budgets go to the
making new things. A recession means be a possibility to keep taking shares from digital arena
technologists cease to be paid vast amounts traditional advertising. If you are a buyer
of marketing services this might be an − Tougher times = more people in front of
to duplicate the work of others. The Great computers and TV sets
Tech Bust of Ought Two gave us 37Signals, opportunity to overlook some agreements
Flickr, and del.icio.us and there’s a strong and lower some supplier costs. But it’s − Cheaper to buy market share
argument to be made that many companies important not to to forget that it’s even more
spent the next six years chasing what they important now to differentiate and create − Competitors might lose focus
created.” customer loyalty. Don’t let the quality in
− Social media = new opportunities to create
what you do suffer.
Also Stowe Boyd agrees with this statement loyalty and attract new customers
and other blogs like Mashable too. This is A cynic might say that it also opens up some

31. 31
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
Digital books
future or failure?
Text: Linda Pierre
Photo: Amazon Kindle2
Sony also recently launched an
updated version of their ebook
T
reader. It comes with touch screen and
perhaps a slightly fancier design than
he Internet has become the place where we meet to discuss different Kindle. So who is the biggest player on
topics, hang out and get updated on what´s going on in the areas we the market? Sony or Amazon? Well
are interested. It can happen anytime and you are not tied down to a specific the answer is actually neither of them,
geographical location, just as long as you can find a computer with an Internet it’s Apple with their iPhone. Sure the
connection. But the thing is that you don’t actually have to use a computer for that screen is much smaller and the battery
anymore, that’s pretty obvious with mobile devices like 3G phones and now also life is not that great. But on the other
netbooks and function specific devices like ebooks they all have screens capable hand it’s small and if you own one odds are you
of displaying texts from digital boks. So what is the future of digital reading? Will always carry it around with you. Plus it means that you
these devices blow paper books back into the stone age? don’t have to spend money on yet another device.
Amazon Kindle was just launched in a new and updated version a few weeks ago. Up until recently the only way to cram ebooks into your iPhone was to
With Kindle you can not only read books, reports or other documents, you can buy an application for it through iTunes, but now there is a free alternative.
also search for information on the Internet thanks to built in mobile broadband. Stanza is a free application that let’s you do just that, and with that I mean
The reason why Amazon put the Internet connection right into the Kindle is of cram as many ebooks into your iPhone as you have room for. And that is
course so that if you get the urge to buy a new book you can! It only takes a few exactly what hundreds of thousands of people have done; in only a few
minutes and you can do it anywhere you have mobile coverage. Perhaps not as months 395 000 copies of this application have been downloaded and 5 000
appealing as a good old paperback in which you curl up on a sofa with a glass of more copies are downloaded each day. The best thing is that even the books
red wine. But it sure does the trick if you’re travelling and don’t have space for all you can download with the application are free since they are in the public
the books you need or want to read while away. Another plus is the fact that if domain (no copyright). If we compare iPhone with its Stanza application to
you don’t like what you are reading, just push a button and download something Kindle, the latter with a goal to sell 380 000 units in 2008 iPhone is hitting a
else. home run in the field of ebooks.

32. 32
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
So how many people actually read ebooks? How big
is the market and what is the growth rate? Will they
ever replace paper books completely? These and many
more interesting questions are addressed in a recent
study called eBooks – The End User Perspective. So
far it’s mainly in research and the rest of the academic
world that ebooks have had great success. Not that
surprising considering that area is very information
centric and these type of devices are great for holding
large amounts of information and at the same time offer
the possibility to search for information online. Those
two features combined make for a reader experience
that can take you from one place to another just by
pushing a button, which means you can dig deeper in
those areas that you are especially interested in.
According to this study people that use ebook readers
do so mostly in their work or studies. So it’s not a
replacement for novels in paperback but rather non
fiction books and reports. These ebooks are not read
from page one all the way through to the end, but
rather in sections looking for answers. But we have just
seen the beginning of this and perhaps the next step is
to replace books in school for ebook readers? One being the form factor, they just don’t look that nice today, it’s not a product that will impress the cool kids
at school. The question remains; will this ever become “the killer app” for the mainstream consumers? Will
There is no denying the fact that there are certain pros these consumers want to first pay for a clunky piece of electronic and then pay for the books as well? Perhaps if
to digital information, like accessibility, direct feedback they can create a “must have” sensation rather than a “would be ok to have.” Especially considering the financial
and also the environmental aspect of not having to chop state of the world right now.
down as many trees and transporting them on trucks all
over the world. The book industry is facing some of the same challenges as the music and movie industry. More and more
people are buying their books online, which is driving many “analog” bookstores out of business. There is a
But for ebook readers to become sexy enough to be constant discussion about copyright and the fact that young people are downloading music and movies online,
“the next iPod” for young consumers there are still a but it’s still a fact that they are doing it. And now there are ways to do the same with books. So the book
few challenges. industry needs some innovative products and business models to succeed in the future and ebooks might just
be a part of that formula for success. No matter what happens, digital is always in style!

33. 33
BRANDS MEDIA PEOPLE
What the F**K
is Social
Media?
Text: Beng Grossman
& Marta Kagan
Photo: Ian Livesey