eROI NYC Interactive Agency

I am super excited to report that on Friday eROI officially partnered with CBS Watch Magazine to redesign their website. The team at CBS Watch is great and we have been working for months to get this through. After a couple of smaller projects under our belt we are ready to dive into redesign.
This is a huge win for eROI as this website is highly visible and is being promoted on CBS TV programming. The design will be killer. Check out the plug on National TV:

I wanted to share this post from www.offmanhattan.com by Arturo Conde. He documents some really sweet graff art in Brooklyn and ties in some cool web tools to take you through the journey. He took a walk through the borough and took pictures of pieces along the way documenting their location with Google Maps and linking them to the image. He also describes the four basic types of graff: The mural, the throw up, the stencil and the poster. Here are some highlights below. The article begins….

Williamsburg has long been a focal point for established and emerging graffiti artists competing for niche spaces in which to exhibit their artwork. At present, local residents appreciate a wide selection of street art that peers out from walls, billboards and abandoned commercial and industrial lots.

Once deemed as a subversive act by many detractors, graffiti has evolved into a popular art form that’s gained wide recognition in international galleries and influenced marketing campaigns, graphic designers, and the fashion industry. And while London has replaced New York at the forefront of street art, Williamsburg has remained a fertile ground for experimental graffiti…full article here

I made the trip to Portland last night to work out of the home office for a few days and go to the Holiday Party. After a six hour flight (yikes) I finally landed in PDX. It is so great to be with the team. Some say you never realize how much you miss people until you see them but in this case that’s wrong. I miss the eROI team everyday in NYC. Its great to be back sharing the ups and downs of rocking the internet on a daily basis. One of the coolest things about being back besides seeing the team is the office. The eROI kids are lucky to work in such a sweet environment. I will put together an eROI Cribs episode after I get some good footage this week. Great to be back eROI team. What a great way to round out the year.

Highlights from my week…

A huge milestone for Internet video today…

 Silicon Alley Insider reports: 

• Google reached a record 100.5 million unique video viewers in October, up from 83.7 million in April (six months ago). YouTube drew 99.5 million of those viewers.
• Google viewers watched 53.5 videos each in October, up from 49.7 in April.
• Hulu reached 24.0 million unique viewers in October. They were so tiny they didn’t crack comScore’s top 10 in April, or even in July, the last time comScore released video stats (that we can find).
• The average online video duration was 3.0 minutes in October. Hulu’s was 11.6 minutes, the highest in comScore’s top ten.

We all know the dirty little You Tube monitization secret, but time after time it proves that Americans and perhaps the internet at large loves short stupid video snipits. I wonder how many hits You Tube would receive if the people watching had to pay for it. My guess is very few. So in honor of You Tube’s 100 million milestone here is my favorite You Tube video of all time. These kids = ridiculous

As if we needed the numbers to back this, Forrester Research put out a study saying that only 16% of people surveyed say they trust corporate blogs. Umm..duh right.

Alright, alright I guess its the study makes it valid now, but tell me the last time you read a blog by any big corporation that filled you with warm fuzzies and reminded you of the power and transparency of a blog. Mark Walsh [Online Media Daily] comments…”When it comes to gaining consumer confidence, company blogs are the used car salesmen of the media world.”  He goes on to comment that:

…companies should shift the focus back to consumers. That means using a blog to address customers’ problems, foster an online community, involve employees outside of corporate communications, and provide an authentic voice to discuss internal company tidbits and to respond to critics.

Point Walsh. As I thought about this I wanted to put it to the personal test. I decided to hypothesize and provide some examples of corporations that I thought, or should I say hoped had a blog that was “blogsponsible”. This is of course the name my new 0-5 point scoring system for the test. 0 being the lest “blogsponsible” 5 being the most. Here are my criteria…they got 1 point for the following:

Authenticity, Fostering Community, Addressing their customer’s needs, Recent and Up to date, and Easy to find on the web.

I decided to pick the blogs mentioned in the article and some others that I was curious about. Email me if you have some other ideas. Here are the results.

Walmart  = 1 

They get one point for being up to date, but for the most part its just a huge commercial for their products.

Johnson and Johnson  = 3 

They got a bad wrap in Walsh’s article, but I liked their blog. It seemed authentic and the entries were interesting. They addresses consumer concern with out sounding big brothery. Nice work JJ.

Apple = 0

It still amazes me that Apple doesn’t have a blog. Their secrecy and closed doors are weird.

 Google = 4

Of course I had to rate their blog. I am admittedly biased here as I read their blog at least once a month to see what the latest is, but its authentic, fun, provides info on products, intersting, and relevant

 Wells Fargo = 5

Go Wells! Wow I was very surprised by this big corp. They have a family of blogs that are actually pretty good. The design of the student loan blog is sick. They even have a blog for their second life island. But its not over done at all. They are all targeted and up to date and all have good content.

Exxon Mobile = 0

If they have a blog I couldnt find it. I gave it 10 mintues. Please let me know if you find one. There was a twitter impersonater though..Check it

Ok…this is obviously a cursory list and was more of an exercise than anything else. It was sweet to research though as I am not one to take time to read Corporate blogs. I certianly was surprised by what I found. Let me know of some other corproate blog’s that affirm or refute that Corporate Blogs Suck!

PS – I do realize the contridiction of this as technically this is a Corporate blog right? What’s my “blogsponsible” rating?

As the internet and its use grows so to does the amount of oppression associated with it. The power of the internet is so global and so immediate that it threatens those who don’t want their secrets out. Amy Goodman reported today that online journalists are jailed more than any other type. Keep up the good fight my fellow bloggers and writers even when those try to silence you.

Here is the brief report from www.democracynow.org:

Online Journalists Top Media Jailings

In media news, a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists says more internet journalists are jailed today than journalists in any other medium. 45 percent of all jailed media workers, around fifty-six people, work in online media. Print journalists were next, with fifty-three currently jailed. 

I saw them doing some maintenance on a billboard near the office. Something about seeing a city worker troubleshooting Windows on 7th Avenue is interesting. I’d imagine that all those huge billboards in Times Square are running some OS. 

I am so excited to announce the launch of www.eroinyc.com! I hope to document eROI’s journey in New York and provide my insights on campaigns, emails, art, websites, NY life and whatever else comes along in this great city. Thanks to all who helped with the relaunch!

I’ve worked on tons of websites and campaigns but hardly ever on client side. It was an interesting point of view and further proved how sweet the team is. Thanks to Tom and Julie for all their hard work!

And now….The Rebirth of Slick: