I really want to try to view this from the corporation side…by “this” I mean of course Net Neutrality. I have spent a lot of time on this in August….but to really understand something you must look at it from all known sides and all known perspectives only then can you truly make an informed decision. It sounds so easy but its really difficult to do . Because when I look at this thing from the corporate side I see full scale vertical monopoly. They don’t just want the TV…the movie theater…the music….they want it all. And that is never good for any of us. I am reminded of the RATM lyric in Down Rodeo….”Fu*k the G ride I want the machines that are makin’ em.” That’s exactly how we all should be looking at this. Don’t fooled by the shiny object on the screen….look past the entertainment. We all need the internet to be free.
So in the interest of truly understanding why this is important give Al 13 minutes to break it down. He pretty much nails it even if you hate AF you gotta respect his argument. Free Net Free Us.
A week or so ago I attended this years Twestival with @redirect. What is a Twestival? This is from their site:
“Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good. Twestival is the largest global grassroots social media fundraising initiative to date, raising over $1.2 million within 14 months for 137 nonprofits. All local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects. Twestival™ Global is a series of offline events hosted on one day for one cause in cities around the world. Twestival™ Local is a series of offline events which aim to support local causes over a designated weekend.”
So there are a series of parties going on around the world on the same date for the same cause. What is it about collective experience that is so sweet? Knowing you are a part of something global seems to resonate a ton these days….especially with web heads. Its was at Good Units which is an underground venue for parties and shows…it was a pretty sweet set up save the fact that it was so far underground that my BB couldn’t quite catch so you notice my own tweet stream end about the time I get there. At any rate the venue was great and the energy of the rooms were good. The band certainly kicked ass….Shinobi Ninja. More on them in a bit. On a global scale the event seemed to do well. Mashable just wrote an in depth post about it…here are some highlights:
$450,000 raised for Concern Worldwide, an international NGO helping fund educational projects around the world.
Contributions to Twestival Global 2010 grew by more than 80% during its second annual fundraising event.
$1.2 million has been raised over the past 14 months on behalf of 137 organizations.
Twestival helped accept a truly worldwide outpouring of support from 45 countries in 12 different currencies.
So kudos to the planners and organizers of this whole thing. I can only imagine how much work went into it. I met some cool people there and saw some old friends as well. If you read through my blog you know that I document almost every event I attend however as I went through my assets for this event I realized I was pretty thin on video. I did however get a bunch of great stills. I realized my night is actually best documented by going through the unedited pics on my camera in sequence. There is some video in in there to set it up though. I did reach out to #nyctwestival for more video assets so I could make a proper one but I haven’t heard back. At any rate the video is a bit raw but that isn’t always a bad thing.
A bit more about Shinobi Ninja….they are a Brooklyn based self proclaimed “super group of the 21st century”. That night they probably were. They were terrific and I highly recommend you check out their shows. High energy high movement. They made the night for sure. They are highly active on twitter and also have an EP out that I picked up which happens to feature a video game as well. Nice work. They are an odd mix of peeps with an eclectic and hard sound. The video above uses a remix of their Brooklyn to Babylon single. @shinobininja hit me if you need/want any of these assets.
“Let’s get conversions!” they cheer from the cliffs and huts of the village. We hear it everyday. How do we increase conversion rates? No matter the vertical or the offer the answer is simple. Provide value….be compelling. I converted myself on an offer this weekend so I thought it relevant to share. And perhaps bring you some value. First, remember that everyone is competing for eyeballs both online and offline….what the internet provides is interaction with the brand….eyeballs plus action so that to me is the goal. Let’s go through the steps of my recent conversion.
Step 1: I received the below email. Delivery time Friday 4:45pm…Subject Line: Happy Valentine’s Day from eMusic…the offer: Here is a gift for you. How curious and tempting right. I am fan of the “Unwrap it now” call to action as well. Visually the creative is decent. I have issue with the header navigation. I know the old “best practice” hand book has a chapter on this but in this case I say let the V Day offer stand alone. Its going out to existing users and its a conceptual event driven offer. Nav in the email is just not necessary in this case. But alas the offer was compelling so I clicked.
Step 2: I was routed to a landing page and was auto played a short Flash Video. The video was good I suppose. Not to intrusive but not that big of a WOW factor. It works though as it is an offer for existing users. The action isnt to forward this. So the video is short and the song is too which is nice. The end state of the video plugged the offer and below the vid there is a link explaining the gift….5 free downloads.
Step 3: I clicked the redem button and was on the home page ready to log in. So now I am here….logged in with free stuff to use. I noticed something I liked on the home page (see below)….I read about the artist…then downloaded her whole album. The experience was so good I searched again and downloaded another album. I pay for 35 songs a month and used almost all of them in this one session.
So I interacted and had a brand positive experience in just three clicks. There are a couple reasons I like this besides the fact that it brought value. For these kinds of sites and services its important to remember that sometimes your users forget they are even a part of the community. I know I do sometimes…I have lost my downloads a few times because it just slips my mind that I have them waiting for me there. While it may seem like it doesn’t matter if I use my downloads or not as E-Music will make their money anyway I contend that it means everything. They need to show that people use their service so they can intern sign more artists and labels to get an even broader audience. So this offer is relevant, compelling, it brings value and encourages interaction. Good job E Music. Still a fan. Here’s a sample of what I found…pretty sweet…the drop at 0:49 seconds in is ridiculous. Enjoy
Things come in waves. I recently encountered a ton of sweet new bands I have never heard before. I have been in a new music drought so I am extra stoked. As a double bonus they all have really creative music videos. Since the golden age of the music video is over…I wanted to share these. Take a break….get inspired. Sweet music + inspired video = hotness.
I recently met up with digital guru Alan Wolk at the famed Portland import Ace Hotel in Midtown. It is always great to mix it up with a fellow digitalite (not a word but you know what I mean). He turned me on to his Ad Age column and I wanted to share some thoughts. Basically his article talks about how niche brands can learn from the mainstream content and steer clear…rather they should invest in content that is unexpected and take some chances. He explains…
“there’s a world of niche brands whose consumers would welcome the sort of outside-the-mainstream content they’re not getting from their social graphs”…
Here is another key point:
“…by non-mainstream, I don’t mean the usual cop-out of showcasing some DJ who’s been crowned the latest king of Teutonic techno. That’s a ridiculously narrow definition of “outside the mainstream” that many ad agencies fall into in an attempt to seem overly hip. They forget that there are all kinds of “cool”: old lady cool, mom cool, geek cool. All these subgroups have their own definition of what constitutes fresh and unique.”
So in honor of such a cool idea I wanted to offer some of my own “off-beat” content that I hope provides support. At the end of the day I am more stoked by the brand/person who takes a chance with content and fails than the brand/person who feeds us the same old shit. Oh another thing…don’t share things that you think others will like….share things that you like…things that you think are cool. Here goes….
Shout out to Davide Carnera from the UK for putting this video together.
Props to my brother for sharing this with me.
This guys is sick. He has some other cool stuff. BLU on Vimeo.
I came across something interesting today and it made me think about the nature of what “going viral” means and how something gets there. Almost every conference or event I have been to this year spends some time with this question. I am almost sick of the term, but alas I am here talking about it. It started for me like it has many times before….I got a link via email. This link was from a web developer in Portland and it shot me to the vid below.
Pretty dope right. A little long but still cool, especially if you are a fellow fan (This album changed everything for us in HS). What was even more interesting to me than the video was when I took a look at the stats. The views for the last three days read like this: 4, 1, 30, 13.9K. Today is only half over and it has 10.6K already. So what happened? That jump is crazy. What percentage growth in views is that? (first to tweet @masagatani or email chris@eroi.com the answer gets a beer on me). The real question to ask is not what happened but how it happened. The first thing I thought was to check digg…here are the results of my search there and the vimeo stats. I love the comment from the guy who made the vid:
So it got some love from digg. 40 or so comments so far. But that’s not enough right? (more…)
