2007 October | Web Jungle

Archive for October 2007

Another fan created iPod ad

October 30, 2007 | Author Roland Hachmann

Do you remember the iPod ad the school teacher George Masters produced a few years ago? Well, there is a new fan-created ad, this time by an 19-year old from the midlands in the UK. And while Apple never even made a single statement about the ad Mr. Masters produced in 2004, they now asked their agency TBWA/Chiat/Day to fly the boy to LA and professionally produce the ad.

At the time of writing this, the ad had been viewed more than 440.000 times, 388 comments, and 569 favourites.

This success is probably also due to the case that big shots like the NY Times, Wired, Gizmodo, and MacRumous picked up on the story… And the fact that “User Generated Content” has become a rather familiar concept since 2004 – apparently even for “divas” like Apple.

(But if you ask me: it’s a horrible ad, especially the music!)

Posted in Ad News, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, Pop Culture, Television, User Generated Content, Videos, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0 | Tags: Advertising, Apple, Gadgets, iPod, Marketing, Media, Music, Online Advertising, UK, Video, Videos, Web 2.0, YouTube | No Comments »

Reading “join the conversation”

October 29, 2007 | Author Roland Hachmann

As I twittered already: I received Joseph Jaffes new book “join the conversation” today. Much faster than I thought it would take amazon to deliver it. I have already started reading it and sofar it’s good!

Joe utilized all the means of new marketing (conversational marketing!) to produce and promote the book: Bloggers were helping to design the cover, within a wiki everybody could help write chapter 10 (there seems to be a system – chapter 10 was also the “odd one out” in his last book the chapter being downloadable as an audio file from his website).

There is also a blog for the book, jointheconversation.us. And in true conversational effort, everyone can be an author in this blog (let’s hope that doesn’t become too messy).

Last week Joe managed an amazing coup of “bumrushing” the amazon charts by asking all his blog readers, podcast listeners and facebook friends to join the “bumrush the charts” event on facebook.

This basically meant for everyone to buy the book on one single day, so that the collective effort would push the book up the charts at amazon.com. (This is also why I bought the book last Sunday – I was going to get it anyway, so why not take part in that exercise.)

The last result I could see: #2 in business books (behind Alan Greenspan) and #26 overall. Pretty impressive! It dropped down again to lower ranks in the meantime, as one would have expected with a fairly new title, but let’s see where it will get to over time.

Posted in Ad News, Branding, Communities, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, User Generated Content, Videos, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0 | Tags: Amazon, Books, Business, Conversation, Facebook, Jaffe, Marketing, New Marketing, Podcast, Twitter, Wiki | No Comments »

Twitter proving highly valuable during the californian fires

October 29, 2007 | Author Roland Hachmann

FastCompany writes about the way twitter proved to be very useful during the californian fire disaster:

the service is allowing thousands of Southern California residents to stay safe by receiving up-to-the-minute geographical information about the spreading fires. Twitter’s short, instant updates are perfect for bare-bones, factual updates, and and it’s not the only Web service helping out panicked Californians. Several Google Maps mashups have emerged with dynamic blaze information and evacuation details, and a number of blogs are tracking the destruction chronologically to allow people to predict if their homes will stay safe.

People could track the relevant tweet-threads by following keywords such as #sandiegofire. Some relied much more on this source of information (i.e. tweets via mobile decive) than their landline based internet connection, which could have broken down at any time.

This is obviously a tragic example of how twitter can be useful. But nevertheless it shows that there is a lot of potential in this one-to-many sms/microblogging tool.

(via and the email of a colleague)

Posted in Communities, Digital Culture, Social Media, Trends, User Generated Content | Tags: Google, Information, Mobile, Technology, Tracking, Twitter, USA | No Comments »

Links & News, 28.10.07

October 28, 2007 | Author Roland Hachmann

Steve Rubel on the interesting concept of being a “geek marketer“, i.e. being the interface between technology nerds and marketing folks.
Mitch Joel shares a few interesting facts about facebook – probably one of the stickiest sites on the web.
As I was just researching into social bookmarking sites, I found this rather comprehensive list on mashable.com.
And, in conjunction with the previous point: on the importance of blowing your own trumpet.

Posted in Ad News, Communities, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Tags: Facebook, Marketing, research, Sites, Social, Statistics, Technology, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

A vision of students today

October 27, 2007 | Author Roland Hachmann

Michael Wesch of Kansas University has published his third video on the effects of modern society&technology on (young) people

To quote Mitch Joel, who nailed it down nicely:

I know that most people will see this as a wake-up call for their industry, but I find it especially relevant to the Digital Marketing industry. Young people are learning about Marketing in the types of environments depicted in A Vision of Students Today. We need to empower and power them better. From the looks of things, they are already using the tools needed to succeed, but are stuck in “industrial complex” like systems. They are mass collaborating, they are engaged in online social networks, they are spending more time with communications like email. Overall they are primed to be excellent professionals in the Digital Marketing space.

The other two videos have been around for a little longer already, you might have seen them:

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

Information R/evolution:

Posted in Communities, Digital Culture, Pop Culture, Social Media, Trends, Videos | Tags: Digital, Information, Marketing, Online, Social, Social Network, Social Networks, Society, Students, Technology, Trends, Video, Videos, Vision, Web 2.0, YouTube | No Comments »

Links & News, 26.10.07

October 26, 2007 | Author Roland Hachmann

Google apparently wants to introduce Adsense to Facebook applications.
Chris Brogan with a few points to ask yourself about your Social Media Strategy.
There probably won’t be enough marketing dollars to support all the new startups that sit somewhere on the long tail of media, says this article.
Axe experiments with an interesting way of advertising on Facebook: it bought the possibility to sell branded gifts on Facebook, limited edition, of course. Only 250.000 are available.
Richard Gatarski has some interesting thoughts and comments about what to consider as an advertiser when posting videos of TV ads on sites.

Posted in Ad News, Communities, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media, Videos, Web 2.0 | Tags: Ads, Adsense, Advertising Links, Axe, Facebook, Google, Long Tail, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social, TV, Videos, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Web 2.0 user statistics from Germany

October 24, 2007 | Author Roland Hachmann

Some interesting facts for my German readers: There is a new research published by TNS Infratest about about the users of web 2.0 offers. According to this research the senders or creators of content are still amongst the younger audience, while the recipients and content consumers are amongst all age groups:

WÃ¤hrend etwa ein Drittel (33 Prozent) der Verfasser von BeitrÃ¤gen [von Wikipedia] unter 20 Jahren sind, liegt der Anteil der Leser, die 30 Jahre und Ã¤lter sind, bei 65 Prozent.

Also with blogs we need to differentiate:

Hier sind 41 Prozent der Personen mit einem eigenen Blog unter 20 Jahre alt. Die Blog-Leser hingegen sind deutlich Ã¤lter, bereits 35 Prozent sind Ã¼ber 40 Jahre alt, nur 20 Prozent sind unter 20 Jahren. â€žDas heiÃŸt, Blogs werden zwar auch von Gleichaltrigen gelesen aber gleichzeitig scheinen sie auch fÃ¼r Personen interessant zu sein, die nicht direkt in der Altersgruppe des Blog-Besitzers zu finden sind. Dennoch sind aber auch Erwachsene unter den Blog-Schreibern: Immerhin ein Viertel aller Blog-Besitzer sind Ã¼ber 40 Jahrenâ€œ

Notable is also the difference of topics chosen by men and women:

Am hÃ¤ufigsten werden Weblogs als persÃ¶nliches Tagebuch genutzt (61 Prozent), aber auch konkrete Inhalte wie Reise & Urlaub (30 Prozent) und Wissen & Lernen (24 Prozent) werden von den Bloggern thematisiert. Frauen nutzen ihren Blog hÃ¤ufiger als persÃ¶nliches Tagebuch (76 Prozent der Blog-Besitzerinnen). MÃ¤nner behandeln eher konkrete Themen, wie Computer & Software und Nachrichten & Politik. Die Themengebiete Wissen & Lernen und Reise & Urlaub sind bei beiden Geschlechtern in gleichem MaÃŸe beliebt (jeweils ca. 30 Prozent der Blog-Besitzer).

Here you can find a PDF with some (very few) Charts.

Posted in Communities, Digital Culture, Social Media, User Generated Content, Web 2.0 | Tags: Advertising Links, Blogs, Marketing, Online Advertising, research, Social, Statistics, Web 2.0, Wikipedia | No Comments »