Politics in the age of social media is a tough business.
This week Mitt Romney gave a speech in Detroit's Ford Field stadium. To the television audience, it appeared perfectly normal. An audience of 1,200 people clapped and they filled the screen as cameras panned across them. But when reporters posted pictures showing the 65,000 seats stadium from every angle, Romney's message ended up overshadowed.
"Big speech, tiny crowd" was the message tweeted online.
As NYT said, "poor visuals and errant words can derail a candidate's message in this modern political news culture".
Users can get their pick of different camera angles on the red carpet, access to the control room, see winners interviewed as they leave the podium and get an inside look at the Governor’s Ball.
Before the show, Oscar.com will also be running commentary and insights from across the world of entertainment.
Beyond the official site Oscar.com, there are other interesting resources:
Social checkin service GetGlue allows to earn stickers for watching nominated films, previews of films, etc.
With Yahoo's second screen app IntoNow fans will be able to get information about nominees, pick the winners, connect with friends in real time.
ABC Television's nighttime talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel generates between $1 million and $2 million annually on his YouTube channel, JimmyKimmelLive.
Kimmel's channel, with more than 300,000 subscribers and the 98th-most viewed partner channel of all time, features short clips and recaps from every show.
He is the latest mainstream performer who has found it possible to make significant money without solely relying on traditional broadcasting.
In an age when you are whatever Google says you are, online reputation management business is booming.
U.S. Small and mid size businesses spent about $1.6 billion managing their online reputations in 2011. The figure will grow to more than $5 biliion by 2015, according to media consultant BIA/Kelsey.
Many companies promise to enhance a client's standing on the Internet by promoting or creating positive content, which pushes negative mentions lower in search engine results.
Companies like ReputationChanger.com, Elixir Interactive and Reputation offer to police search results and cleanse your profile.
But here is the problem: mostly these are false claims. In other words, scam. Negative content remains online.
You are charged $3,000 per year and often many times that.
Experts say reputation management is harder than that. Federal law says websites aren't liable for comments and other information posted by users, and that means that you have few options other than creating or promoting positive content on behalf of a client in hopes of burying negative mentions. In addition, Google says it detects aggressive tactics such as loading pages with irrelevant keywords or websites.
Story-sharing, fueled by social media, is the sucessor to brand story-telling.
Marketers need to start rethinking content and how they tell stories.
Their challenge is to make advertising more relevant and impactful through video, social and mobile.
Watching video content and interacting with it on so-called second screens (computers, smarthphones and tablets) is booming.
The emerge of social TV — as demonstrated this month during the broadcast of Super Bowl on NBC and the Grammy Awards on CBS — shows a significant shift in media habits.
Flying drones for filming and commercial purposes are proliferating in the U.S., as you can see in the above's clip.
Drones can cost millions of dollars for the most sophisticated varieties (especially those used to gather intelligence and fire missiles in the battle ground) to as little as $300 for one that can be piloted from an iPhone.
The market for drones is valued at $5.9 billion and is expected to double in the next decade.
The only problem is that the law raises worries about their usage, as the NYT writes.
Most TV ads run 15, 30 or 60 second, but Chipotle restaurant chain issued during the Grammy Awards on Sunday this 2.20 minute animated video. It has gotten more than 4 million views on YouTube.
The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer who rejects the industrialization of his profession. By doing so, Chipotle emphasizes the importance of developing a sustainable food system.
The soundtrack is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson's acoustic version of Coldplay's classic "The Scientist".
For me, this ("Chevy Happy Grad") is the best 2012 Super Bowl commercial.
Funny thing is how it was produced.
A 26-year old Long Island resident and filmmaker, Zarch Borst, produced it and sent it to Chevrolet’s Route 66 Super Bowl ad contest, beating out submissions by independent filmmakers from around the world.
GM asked filmmakers to depict life's journey and how Chevrolet is there along the way. Borst´s ad was chosen from nearly 200 entries that came from across the world.
Zarch Borst won $25,000 and the Big Game slot. He has been producing films since his childhood and founded his own production company, Goat Farm Film, based in New York.
In the 2012 presidential election, mobile payments via smartphones can be the transformational technology.
President Obama and republican Romney will adopt Square for payments.
The Obama campaign is working on a customized Obama Square app that allows people to make mobile donations that are compliant with the Federal Election Commission's rules.
With the Square app, mobile payments can be the game-changer for 2012.
Every company, no matter what size, is compelled to think about its social media strategy. If people are talking about you, you must respond.
Betting that small companies with fewer than 200 employees need social media, Saleforce.com has introduced Desk.com, an online help-desk tool for customer support, which costs nothing for its first user and $49 a month for each person after that.
An interesting document to print and save: the Facebook's filing for its initial stock offering of $5 billion. It is here, on the SEC's Website.
This is my summary:
The vast majority of revenues (85 percent) came from advertising. Also proceeds come from virtual good sales on Zynga (12 percent).
Facebook reported $3.71 billion in revenue in 2011, and $1 billion in profit.
An advertiser could reach an estimated audience of more than 65 million U.S. users in a typical day on Facebook.
Big ad spenders are Netflix, with $3.8 million in 2011, and the Washington Post Company, $4.2 million.
Facebook "is the most ad-dependent old media firm, more dependent on ad revenue than CBS," writes an analyst at Thomson Reuters.
"We compete broadly with Google's social networking offering, including Google+, which it has integrated with certain of its products, including search and Android."
"Like" addition Facebooks users generated 2.7 billion likes and comments a day in the last three months of 2011.
Half of its 845 milion monthly active users log every day.
In Japan and South Korea, Facebook has a penetration rate of less than 15 percent. In China, where Facebook access is restricted, it has 0 percent penetration.
Facebook has built storage and serving technologies, like Haystack. Facebook stores more than 100 petabytes of photos and videos.
In 2012, the company will spend $1.8 billion in servers, network equipment, storage infraestructure and the construction of data centers.
It owns a data center in Prineville, Ore., and in North Carolina. Facebook leases facilities in California and Virginia.
Paychecks: Sheryl Sandberg makes $381,966 a year. Mark Zuckerberg's salary is $703,833, but he owns 28.4 percent of the company.
Venture capitalists: Accel and DST own at least 5 percent of the company. Below 5 percent: Goldman Sachs, T. Rowe Price, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Elevation Partners, Tiger Global, Meritech Capital Partners, Li Ka Shing and Andreessen Horowitz.
Risk factors Facebook cites: changes in user sentiment, adopting privacy policies perceived negatively, adverse media reports, inability to present meaningful information to users, overwhelming users with ads, government regulation, cyberattacks with malware, viruses and computer hacking.
So, let me ask you: In terms of social media success, is your company able to produce this type of videos picturing how the world will be in your industry?
