Some of the new apps can recognize all the shows you may be watching on the major networks, based on what's called their audio fingerprint. These apps then display options that can include related photos, live chats, tweets or user polls. Other apps require you to manually select a show before you can see such choices.
Social watching... there you go, another exciting concept around.
Carol Roth is a business strategist and former investment banker who has helped clients raise more than $1 billion in capital. She invites anyone to participate in The New York Times Makes Your Pitch contest.
What is interesting is to use video to draft the pitch.
"Send us your pitch on video. Tell us about your product or service, your marketing plans, your customer base. Tell us what makes your business different — why it is one to watch? Do you need capital? If so, how much and what for? Most important, how are you going to make money?", she says.
This is an interesting social promotion. (Full disclosure, involves one of the Spanish brands, Marques de Riscal, we are working for.)
Matt Harding, a.k.a. "Dancing Matt", an Internet celebrity known for his viral videos, visited 16 of the world's best hotels, as a part of Hotels.com's Suite Escapes promotion of Facebook. Fans of Hotels.com are given the chance to win one of 16 holidays for themselves and three Facebook friends.
Where the Hell is Matt 2008 video (below) got 42 million views.
My son, 18, sends me this viral video. It's from a Macklemore, a hip hop artist based in Seattle.
He is a socially conscious rapper, with many of his songs addressing issues surrounding consumerism (like this one), race and drug addiction.
In a way this video is the anti-product placement advertising. Having a celebrity saying about Nike "Hey, don't buy into this bullshit" is at least unusual.
We all are packing a lot of sensitive information on our smartphone... so better to take action!
As an iPhone user, I've downloaded Find My iPhone, a free app that allows me to visit a Web site a see my lost, stolen or misplaced phone on a map. You can then sound an alarm, send a message that will pop up on its screen, lock the phone or erase all your data.
For Android user, there is an app called Lookout, that offers the find-my-phone feature. The paid version allow you to wipe the data from your phone remotely.
President Obama's advisers have created a 17-minute Hollywood-style documentary, called “The Road We’ve Traveled.” It is intended to be shared and spread online through social networks and e-mail, as well as a pledge support and streamline online donations.
It appears on a new YouTube platform engineered to be a fund-raising tool. This technology allows viewers to post campaign content to their Facebook pages, volunteer and donate, all without leaving that YouTube page. Also, the new software use geolocation technology to suggest targeted videos and Facebook's friends registered in that area.
The documentary has been narrated by Tom Hanks and directed by Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director whose film credits include "Waiting for Superman" and "An Inconvenient Truth." It features interviews with Obama administration officials.
Is it all a new marketing strategy?
Well, I guess, once again, we are seing online video is vital to persuade voters. It is the best way to disseminate messages into online communities where friends and family members share, discuss and debate. And when people share videos, it adds a degree of credibility because a friend is endorsing it; people will take it more seriously.
In fact, Teddy Goff, the Obama campaign's digital director, has stated: "Video is in some ways the primary way our digital operation communicates with supporters. And increasignly it will be the primary way we communicate with undecided voters."
Mitt Romney's campaign is using similar technology with its Web videos. Visitors can donate, volunteer and share content, all in one-stop-shopping page, in Mr. Romney’s YouTube page. (Amazon and Fresh Direct use this technology to avoid resubmiting payments, since credit card information is saved on file).
The 2012 Kony movie has been watched more than 70 million times and it has been shared all over Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #StopKony, #kony2012 and others.
How the Kony video went viral so quicky?
The three young filmmakers involved in Invisible Children non profit organization have been using film and activisim for years.
This organization has already produced and socially distributed 11 films over the years, and has a strong base of followers to begin with on Facebook, Twitter and its YouTube channel.
Key points in this social media campaign:
Strong networks of young people, passionate, active on social media, structurally disconnected from one another.
Video narratives to engage people emotionally.
Action messages that can be encapsulated into a tweet.
Sample: Premiere KONY 2012 understanding that where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live. ow.ly/9sQkd
Getting people to enlist celebrieties on Twitter, including Oprah Winfrey and others with large followings, to help get out the word about the film.
@Oprah: Thanks tweeps for sending me info about ending #LRAviolence . I am aware. Have supported with $'s and voice and will not stop.#KONY2012
@RyanSeacrest Was going to sleep last night and saw ur tweets about #StopKony...watched in bed, was blown away. If u haven't seen yet on.fb.me/zClYoj
Easy messages like joining the hunt. Easy goals like raising awareness about Kony (in the hope it might keep pressure on Ugandan government official and U.S. advisers who are trying to hunt him.)
Let's say that you are participating in a worldwide manhunt just clicking on share, wearing a bracelet or pledging a donnation. It's cool. It does not requiere a big effort.
Mainstream support. ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS... all the networks run stories. The White House press secretary said President Obama extended congratulations to the people who mobilized to promote a viral Web video about the atrocities of Joseph Kony.
It is worth noting that this hightly successful campaign has generated a social media backlash and serious questions about whether Invisible Children oversimplified its message to get people engaged and get easy money, and even questioning that last year only 32 percent of the $8 million of the organization went to charity services). Naturally, Invisible Children struck back, defending its practices in a statement.
(I downloaded the so called Kony2012 digital kit and I'm posting above some of their graphics).
Over 65 million people have watched the Invisible Children's online 30-minute documentary titled "KONY 2012", created by a San Diego-based not-for-profit organization seeking to end the conflict in Uganda and arrest war criminal Joseph Kony.
To spread knowledge of Kony, Invisible Children targeted 20 culture makers and 12 policymakers, who spoke and tweeted about the film. Rihanna, Oprah, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift posted comments in their Twitter accounts. Angelina Jolie and George Clooney also supported the campaign.
Since its launch Monday afternoon, the film has generated hundreds of thousand of dollars in donations. YouTube said the popularity was driven by viewers in the U.S. and those younger than 25. Many parents discovered the video only after their children showed it to them.
The co-founder of Invisible Children and American filmmaker who produced the movie, Jason Rusell, 33, frames the story through a conversation with his young son, Gavin. He tells his son he is working to stop "bad guy" Joseph Kony, who gives young boys like Jacob guns and makes them shoot other people. What he could not tell Gavin was that Kony kidnaps and abducts children, turning the girls into sex slaves and turning the boys into his LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) child soldiers. So far, over 30,000 children have been captured by Kony and his army. The LRA leader has stated that he is "not fighting for any cause, but only to maintain his power."
However, accuracy of the facts and how Invisible Children organization spends its money behind the scenes (70% of it is on salaries, travel, filmmaking and marketing) have raised criticism.
Mr. Russell acknowledges that he has not made the most nuanced or academic of films. "No one wants a boring documentary on Africa." "We view ourself as the Pixar of human rights stories," he said. As a filmmaker, he added that he had already received plaudits from producers in Hollywood. They want this to be up for an Oscar."
An expert at Unicef explained that "It's not just one organization in the United States who has discovered this issue. Still, Invisible Children is essentially distilling a very complicated 26-year war into something that's consumable and understandable by mass media.".
Along with sharing the movie online, Invisible Children's call to action is to do three things; 1) sign its pledge, 2) get the Kony 2012 bracelet and action kit ($30), and 3) sign up to donate. Before the film, in 2011, Invisible Children got $9 million.
Akamai, Limelight, Level 3 and a number of companies help Web sites fight against DDoS attacks and unexpected traffic. But their services are prohibitely expensive, starting at $15,000 a month.
CloudFlare, a San Francisco start-up, offers a similar service on the cheap. It distributes a site's traffic across its many data centers and can quickly recognize and filter out a DDoS attack before it hits a company's network.
It offers basic services for free and charges more for premium services like additional security or site management.
Most customers pay $20 a month, though its largest enterprise customers pay as much as $2,000 a month.
This camera called Lytro, invented by a Silicon Valley startup, lets you focus and re-focus your pictures on a computer after you take them, creating multiple focal points.
Basically, photos are adjusted by clicking on the area to be brought into focus.
This is possible because Lytro's image sensor captures more data than any standard camera, including which direction the light came from.
Walt Mossberg WSJ's columnist shows in the video above the process.
The Lytro can be bought at lytro.com, starting at $399.
Users get a free online account to create galleries, share links with friends and post photos to Facebook, Twitter and Lytro's public page, which is like a version of Flickr.
Now just imagine this technology on a smartphone... Nokia/Windows, Blackberry... anyone listening?
Republican candidates are using microtargeting technology that allows campaigns to tailor messages to specific voters. It means to serve specific ads at potential supporters based on where they live, the Web sites they visit and their voting records.
For example, first video is aimed at committed party members to encourage a large turnout. The second one, focused more on Mr. Rommey as a family man, is geared toward voters who have not yet aligned themselves with a candidate.
In these campaigns, advertisers pay $5 to $9 per thousand displays of an ad.
Specialized firms in microtargeting like Targeted Victory, Aristotle and CampaignGrid collect some of their data from direct marketing companies like Acxiom and Experian.
Adaptive Web pages dynamically insert information, then look at consumer interest and deliver a personalized experience.
BloomReach, a company based in Mountain View, California and staffed by former executives from Google, Cisco and Facebook, claims it has such a method.
This start-up company works on a pay-for-performance model, based on things like improved customer traffic and conversions to an online sale.
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