What's wrong with all these clueless Apple-bashers?

Dear blogging friends ... could all of you please start using your brains and do a little bit of checking before you start bitching.

Apple is NOT claiming rights to the word "Podcasting", and they are NOT trying to stop anyone from using it. Read the F* letter!

What they are doing, is trying to avoid their brand "iPod" becomes a generic name for an MP3 player. And rightfully so. All famous brands do this, 'bic' does not want pens to be called 'a bic', Kodac has (had) the same issue with camera's and even my ex-employer Samsonite had to take action in order not to lose their right to their brand because people started talking about 'my Samsonite' meaning 'my suitcase'.
And it's logical that companies protect the brands they invested millions of Euro's in!

The only 'suspicious' thing in Apple's letter is that they are also claiming the word "pod" for MP3 players, but my guess is they are just throwing this in to make their (justified) "iPod" claim stronger.

Eurostar goes after the women

Some shameless self-publicity for a campaign we launched last week. The "Lonely Businessmen's Wives Helpshop" probably has the most complicated and impossible to remember name for a campaign. But it's especially neatly integrated around the key message (get of the plane, take Eurostar to London), good fun and the execution is of top quality (if you ask my humble opinion).

Especially check out the "Stimulerende smartlap" (Dutch here, French on the site)

No campaign is perfect, but don't expect me to shoot on our own work, feel free to comment :-). Oh and, before you start bitching about sexism, the full Eurostar team who worked on this is female, so ask your wife/girlfriend's opinion first.

Challenge of the the I - Joseph Jaffe the evangelist

Today Joseph Jaffe was opening keynote at the Challenge of the I conference.

If you ask me, his biggest added value was in opening up the mind of large number still very traditional marketeers in the room. Although his hyperactive speaking style may have been difficult to follow for the untrained ear.

Anything new or spectacular? Not to me (having read his book and listened to his podcast) but for sure eye-opening to many in the room. So thanks Joseph for opening some doors and making it easier to sell innovative marketing projects.

During the break Jo (www.rambla.be) and I had a little chat, his critical view can be found here.

Joseph and I had a little chat after his presentation (about the Curry-thing, more stuff to come he promises), and I promised to call in my question to his podcast response line. So check out the next episode of Across The Sound hear why I think there is a discrepancy between him saying "if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist" and the dynamics of social marketing where relvance and quality of conversations is more important then measurable clicks and database entries.

Jaffe & Curry story closed

Both Joseph Jaffe and Adam Curry have closed the discussion on the hostage taking of Adam's interview. Part two of the interview (very interresting) is out on Across The Sound now. In the end I'm most impressed by how a few simple words on a podcast (one word if you ask me: "hostage") can start an online wildfire that grabs the attention of so many people.

Joseph (yes, the man himself) reacted on my post with some more interresting thoughts.

As he's in Belgium next week, speaking on a conference, and I'm still contemplating (or gathering the courage) whether I'm gonna yell "Bend over, bitch" when het gets on the podium. :-)

New iTunes (uniquement en Français?)

Just installed the new version of iTunes on my two machines (Mac & PC). It's interresting to see how identical this piece of software runs on both platforms. Actually, I can't see the difference.

The interface for managing my iPod has greatly improved, in fact, it has now become integral part of the experiences rather then being hidden somewhere in the settings menu. Good work.
Browsing the new video store (US version) is an interresting experience, the 3D effect makes looking for movies very intuitive. If Telenet could do this for their interactive TV interface, THAT would push content sales for them.

But ... videos are only available in the US. Something strange I noted is that the Belgian iTunes store only exists in French. I guess they're running late with the Flemish version. Not a big point to me, but still ... for a company like Appple, simply saying "migrate to The Netherlands" to more than half of the Belgian population. That's not polite at all.

I know i look older ...

... but I turned 38 today.

Gift ideas:
- New iPod video
- A flat screen TV (to hook up to my mac with)
- Sony Ericsson P990 (finally out)
- A new Mac
- A new driver (golf club)
- Swimming pool (says Charlotte, next to me know, claiming to be "hot")
- A sabatical

But a small comment or some link love from your blog is OK too.

Geriatric1927

Euuh ... this 'charming' gentlemen seems to have gained quite a bit of popularity. When I was young, we used to make jokes about the elderly talking about the war or any other story from the old days. Two learnings:
1. It's more important for entertainment to be genuine then for it to be professional.
2. I guess this is another example of "The Long Tail". In my opinion this is damn boring stuff, but in the long tail of YouTubers, there is a considerable number who actually enjoy this. Great for them, let them have fun!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9in-eYkvU_4]

Underwear goes inside

Love this song (on myspace). Very American, but applicable to any of us in the rich part of this globe. And funny :-)

Podcasts à gogo at Podshow.com

My podcast listening habits are getting organized. Since a few months I'm using podshow.com to organise my podcasts and it's starting to work.

The podshow site is very ambitious, but I only use it to manage the podcasts I (want to) listen to. The concept is simple: you select podcasts that intrest you and put them in your collection. Next, you group them in channels. I have a 'regular' channel which I always listen to, an 'under evaluation' channel where I put shows I may want to listen to when I've listened to everything in my regular channel. The third channel is one with video podcasts. Now, the cool thing is that I download the two audio-podast channels (regular and under evaluation) to my iPod through iTunes on my laptop, and the video channel goes to iTunes on my Mac at home.

It's great to be able to manage your stuff online, so when you change hardware you don't need to start over. And of course it's cross platform, so my iPod is fed trough my (windows) laptop, and the video stuff is stored on my Mac at home. And I can manage it from anywhere.

Podshow also offers all kinds of searching and sharing tools, and even your own blog and stuff. But hey, apart from this blog I'm swamped with free blogs (myspace, windows live spaces, libsyn, skynet.be, and I'm probably still missing some). So no blog on podshow for me. I guess the social networking works great if you're in need for more content, but for now my commute time is full with the podcasts I have (and lot's of business calls).
Last thing, the usability of podshow is not there yet. They fiddled around with a lot of ajax & stuff, but I get lost all the time.

But if you feel 'social', go check out my channels, they're all public:
ibert.podshow.com

Joseph Jaffe discovers how difficult marketing through social networks can be ...

This is an interresting one. Joseph Jaffe -new marketing guru- has run into trouble with Adam Curry. He did an interview with Adam and Ron Bloom (they're the guys behind Podshow.com). He ran the first half of the interview in his podcast Across The Sound and then (quote) "held the second part hostage" untill Adam Curry would "give him some love" (read: "promote Jaffe's show") on the "Daily Source Code" (a much listened to podcast by Curry).

Adam responded in his typical way (half fun, half serious) and claimed back the right to use the second part of the interview untill (go listen to the podcast). I agree with Curry, Joseph's idea about keeping the interview hostage is fucking lame. But the story gets even better. Apparently Joseph sent Adam an apology of some kind, but Adam won't play it "for Joseph's own protection". A lot of negative reactions also towards Jaffe.

Looks like Joseph is running into a similar problem as Agency.com when they launched their failed atempt to leverage viral marketing in a pitch for Subway.

New marketing and social media, it's not all that easy. But if you ask me, it all comes down to common sense, being transparent and honest, and a minimum of emotional intelligence.

Geektester

A speedtester that looks coooooooooool. Test your ADSL or Cable connection NOW.

Have fun ;-)

Early adopters rule

Early adopters are indicative for the future (by definition), That's what I like about this survey that I found through emarketer.com. Check this graph and discover the numerbers for the general public in say 2 years or so.

Interresting trends:
- Half of the online activities are communication-related, three out of eight have to do with video or sound.
- E-mail is nowhere (as discussed in e-mail is dead) and instant messaging rules.
- 14% uses RSS (probably not counting the ones who use RSS without knowing it)
- 13% listens to Podcasts!

Burning Belgian Man

Proud to have a (crazy) fellow citizen at the burning man, working on an even crazier project. Arne Quinze (long term customer of my wife's chocolate shop) is building an increadible construction there together with a team of 'awesome' Limburgers. Go check them out online: www.uchronians.org.

Keep'm going guys, it looks great!

Photography by: Thierry van Dort

P.S.
Regenachtige groetjes uit Oudenaarde.
:-)

Blogger upgrade

The blogger software was updated recently, and today I upgraded to the new 'template'. I had to re-integrate most of the stuff on in the right column, but at least you can do that in an organised way now (rather then fiddling around in the HTML). You can now simply add 'blocks' with HTML or javascript, and also choose from a number of predefined blocks (e.g. archive, profile, etc.).

It was a bit disappointing however that there a no blocks for:
- RSS feeds
- Technorati integration (is that competition for Google?)
- Google adwords (imagine that!)
- Any other cool tools
In fact, they just offer the basics. I hope new features will be added soon.

Good viral marketing

I've always be kinda sceptical about viral marketing. The reason being that it's always been much too dependant on a cool or freaky idea. If it was nog sexy, funny, controversial or voyeuristic, nobody would send it on to friends. And the people that would send it mostly fitted in the target groups "advertising professionals" or "people with an internet connection at work and no boss looking over their shoulder". Not really the kind of targetting everybody was dreaming about when the internet was discovered by advertisers.

But the world is changing (of course). The online crowd is growing so our target group expands in all directions. YouTube and Google Video let us forward links to online movies without congesting the mailservers. And broadband overcapacity lets us play freely with all kinds of interactive viral applications.

So what's happening now ...
"Viral" has simply become another way of distributing advertising. It can be video, which offers new challanges to TV-spot creators: no rules, no limitations. Or it can be an interactive application, a challange for interactive marketeers. But in any case, the consumer is the judge. If it's uninterresting, not compelling and not targeted at a target group with which I feel connected, it won't work.
Surprise, surprise: bringing a relevant message in an compelling way to the correct target group is what communcation has always been about.

In fact, good viral marketing comes down to simply good advertising. So we can stop making up lists of reasons WHETHER to use viral marketing, but work on a vision about WHEN to use this channel. This is my first attempt:

1. Objective: It works for branding, more then for selling or activating.

2. Target group: If your target group consists of (a) clearly defined community(ies), which you can reach in some way.

3. Timing: Being in a hurry doesn't work, there is no guarantee when the virus wil spread.

Feel free to add your ideas ...

To close this post, here is a great example of something that works:
Wanna work in advertising
Why?:
1. It makes me feel this brand has something to offer me.
2. Me = an advertising professional = part of a community that communicates a lot amoung each other.

Meet the interface of the future ...

Whaaaw ... Maybe it's just a simply good presentation, but boy I'm impressed by this interface. Really, if there's a next generation interfaces this must be it.

During the latest TED on August 1st Jeff Han (research scientist for NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the inventor of an "interface-free" touch-driven computer screen.) presented a touch screen application with which you can use multiple touchpoints. Simply said ... us ALL your fingers on a touchscreen.

Coke & Mentos

Not exactly very recent, but lot's of fun (in case you missed it):
http://media.revver.com/broadcast/27335/video.mov/13970

At least they did it ...

Our New York collegues sure stirred up some online emotions. In case you were hiding under a beach towel on the french riviera without a WiFi connection ... this is what happened.

Agency.com NY is in a pitch for "Subway". To give the best possible answer, they made a video of how they prepared everything. Next they put the video on YouTube to go viral. Did it work? Well they are over 41 000 views. The reactions in the online world however have been mixed (well ... mostly negative in fact). Go check out www.whenwerollwerollbig.com and read about it.

My idea? Looking back I would have made the video much more fun, a parody, not taking ourselves so seriously. It's professionally produced and has all the right content, but it's a bit 'fake'. Especially when looking with European eyes at this American-MadisionAve-Poeha ... On the other hand, they did it. It's easy to criticise and do nothing.

...

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8eV6OuC8Oo]

P.S.
We've had loads of fun in the office shouting "When we roll" -answer- "We roll big!". Hey, life's too short not to have fun, right?

Out of office - filling the library

Hey, I'm back from holiday full of fresh energy!

I take pride in making my out-of-office something more then just the usual blabla. So this time I listed the books I intended to read during my summer break:

> I’m on holiday right now and will be back on August 1st.
>
> I plan to use this relaxing holiday to catch up on some relevant
> literature which has been dusting away in my library. If you’re still
> looking for inspiration for your holiday:
>
> - The Attention Economy
> - Blink, The power of thinking without thinking
> - The world is flat, A brief history of the twenty-first century
> - The wisdom of crowds

As usual I' didn't read all of it of course. But I did get quite some positive (and funny) reactions.

Here's what I learned from the reading:

1. The Attention Economy
An 'old' book, but 'attention' has had my attention for some time so I thought it was high time to read this book. In some parts the examples (e.g. about the Internet) are outdated, but the basics remain solid and fascinating. In fact, looking at it a few years after the first publish date ... the writers even underestimated the impact of the 'attention deficit'. It's influencing our daily lives and jobs even more then what they suggested.

2. Blink
Another must-read. Malcolm Gladwell uses the same style and technique as in the famous "The Tipping Point" to explain that we often make (good) decisions in a split second. These are based on the experience we gather over time and that is stored somewhere in our brain.
The implications for marketing & adverting according to me? In short, two things:
> Succesfull businesses communicate with people, they don't try to pump an offering in their minds. If it's not genuine, it'll be rejected in the end.
> Marketing/communications is a long term business. Brands are not invented, they are carefully build on sound (genuine) fundamentals and it takes time.

3. The Wisdom of Crowds
Still working on it :-)

4. The World is flat
I need another week of holiday ...

Two more books have been added to the living room table in the mean time:

- The Cluetrain Manifesto
Another one of those oldies (2000) I wanted to read to be sure I'm not missing anything.
- The Long Tail
As already announced, it's finally there. I hope to learn a lot more and who knows, write my own little annex to it ...

Happy readings!

Hi, I'm a podcast.

LOL

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNUNAdXFNU0]