More is more?

I always thought that less is more but I’ve noticed these days, that more IS more. Fifty years ago houses were modest and backyards were big. Now we have fewer children but houses are getting bigger. Meals are now a lot bigger, drink sizes are larger and the coffee is stronger. Food is now more processed, contains more cholesterol and more salt – are we really healthier with more in our diet?

We want more from the products we buy too – smallest mobile phone, thinnest laptop, highest definition TV. Our insatiable appetite for more has pushed us to want more in business too. We all seem to work longer days, with no lunch break and take shorter holidays. Why do we want more freedom and more time to ourselves yet fill our spare time with more tasks and more routine?

We are constantly seeking more information, more analysis and more content so the internet has become the primary source of information for many people. We use the net to run our businesses, manage our finances, to communicate and as a source of knowledge. We are so reliant on the web that accessing it has become a new area of innovation. No longer are we content to only view the net via our computers and mobile phones, we are now surfing the net through gaming consoles like Wii and online streaming internet TV channels. We want easy access to more information, more media and more entertainment and web providers and technology companies have taken up the challenge.

Along with providing easy access to content through the internet, companies are now earning a lot of money in the process. Google is the main player in this field and is the most visited website on the internet. Google has expanded its empire from just a mere search engine to online maps, social networking, video sharing and applications. Google are now set to break even more boundaries with their latest release; “Goggles” – software that allows people to search the web using images taken with their mobile phone camera. This allows for even quicker access to information and revolutionises the way we obtain it. Goggles will have a huge knock-on effect for businesses as people can simply take a photo on a mobile phone and use that image to search for a café, bottle of wine or music CD and the results will be immediately served to them. The creation of this new Goggles arm will also add to Google’s massive profits and further cements their dominance in this field.

With breakthroughs like Goggles, it’s hard to conceive of where we might end up in two years time, let alone twenty years time. One thing that is certain is that our perpetual need for more - faster, thinner, more memory, more taste and more convenience will encourage us to continually innovate and improve the way we live our lives.

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The Complex Web of Social Media...

So what is social media? Is it the blogs that have taken over the cyber world as people decide that they need to voice their opinion? Is it Facebook? The never ending tweets of bored celebrities? Or is it more?

Take a look below to see the new world that we now know as social media. Sure, there are there are all the common programs that you would expect, but my discovery of foreign words such as "life streams" and "crowd sourcing" suggested that this web is far more complex than I gave it credit for. click here to link to the diagram and accompanying article.

Facts still matter: The Death and Life of Television

This is a story about a story. A story that has been repeated so many times, in so many places, with so much zeal, that it has taken on a life of its own -- despite the fact that it is false.

The theme of the story is that television is dying.

It is a story built on shabby journalism, ad industry buffoonery, and the willful suspension of skepticism on a scale unprecedented during my time in the advertising business.

Read more here.

What to Measure? Only 16% of the Web Is Clicking Display Ads

The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks, according to the most recent "Natural Born Clickers" study from ComScore and media agency Starcom. As the pool of people who click on banner ads rapidly decreases, it begs the question: Is the long-used click-through rate now officially useless?

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An abundance of ideas beats the song and dance man

Sadly our world is becoming increasingly ruled by the performance not the words in a speech or presentation. If you think about the greatest speeches in history you are likely to land on either Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 or possibly Winston Churchill’s ‘We Shall Fight Them on the Beaches’ speech in the House of Commons in June 1940.

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When reassuringly bland delivers ROI

Located a short drive from Manhattan, clad in brick, limestone, granite and cast stone, it is the new landmark of sporting greatness in the US. Citibank is rumoured to be spending $400m dollars on buying the naming rights to the new Mets Stadium, an interesting move when you consider they have recently received $350 billion in US Federal aid.

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Marketers get the MASH?

The world continues to embrace web 2.0 tools at an extraordinary pace, but marketers are often left

scratching their heads as to how to make web 2.0 work in their own day to day marketing efforts.

One of the hottest web 2.0 trends that has great promise for the response driven marketer is the

web Mash Up.

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Google Launches Fast Flip Content App

This may very well be the new way to find news, articles and relevant content. Google Fast Flip is like flicking through a magazine, just online with endless volumes of content to flick through. Find what you like, follow that topic and you’ll get more of the same or just browse away and create your own custom magazine. The big thing about Google Fast Flip is that you can flick through lots of websites with out ever having to visit them!

Earning brownie points with the consumer

"Marketers have to be living in a deluded state. Do we really believe the consumer doesn’t know what we are doing? Do we really think we can pull the wool over their eyes? Our problem is that often we believe we have a god given right to sell to the consumer. There lurks an arrogant expectation that the consumer is always listening..."

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The ugly truth about marketing rules

"We live in the most over governed country in the world. A full three layers of government, with public servants paid to endlessly navel gaze about how to standardise business and society. They are intent on improving our lives with a confusing set of labyrinthine rules and processes that drive us all wild with frustration..."

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CTR's for Various Industries...

A nice little goldmine - Clickthrough rate benchmarks for various industries.

Take a gander.

Social Media is here to stay..........

ok. check this out. Wicked video!

all about social media, some seriously mind blowing facts in a short video including things like:

• Social media has overtaken porn at the #1 activity on the Web.
• Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users, TV took 13 years, Internet took 4 years, yet Facebook took less that 9 months to add 100 million users.
• If Facebook were a country, it'd be the world's 4th largest following the U.S., India and China.

Crazy....
check it out here.
It was posted on the 18/8/09 so you may have to scroll pages to find it.

over and out. gerri.

The ladies’ recession: champagne, lycra and tradies prosper

Great article I found.

In a nutshell, it sums up why a recession has significant advantages for all the women out there.

1) Online dating is on the rise. As the recession hits, men are looking for that special lady to share the winter with

2)Men are trading in their cars for bicycles to save on petrol costs. Yes that means men will be fitter and more muscley (yet also dressed in lycra!??hm.)

3) Champagne and chocolate sales rise in a recession so be prepared to be showered with gifts.

4) Finally, as mining production slows, men are turning to the Defence Force. Yes that's right, that more men in uniform!

check out the article.

Why 58% of consumers aren't reading your emails

There was a time that email was a fresh, new medium for businesses to use to reach out to their audiences. Then, like other traditional media that came before, it became inundated with those who abused it (causing a whole new definition for ‘spam’ to enter our vocabularies).

While still a viable and inexpensive means of marketing communication, email needs to be approached with care and precision. Marketers need to have strategies and solutions to make their emails more targeted and relevant in these days of overstuffed inboxes.

Watch the Emali Relevance and Inbox Clutter webinar below that will show you:

• MarketingSherpa’s research about today’s marketing email dynamic
• How gourmet popcorn distributer, Dale and Thomas, used triggered emails and analytics data to send relevant and timely messages
• 3 best practices to provide more relevant emails

Viral - Changing peoples' perceptions

A viral campaign aimed at getting people to vote yes to daylight saving. Not because of daylight saving alone but to encourage people to be more open minded when it comes to conservative legislation – like extending shopping hours, and opening Perth up to more cultural experiences. Figures show that every week WA loses thousands of educated young people to the eastern states with the lure of better jobs and more vibrant cities. Conversely the state gains thousands of uneducated, lowly paid young people to fill gaps like labouring and mining jobs. The result is cultural resistance.

Giving Up Control To Prepare For Search In A Social World

An interesting article reminding marketers to keep "people" at the forefront of their SEM strategies as opposed to "keywords". Putting people in the middle of the strategy requires not only building relationships, but also considering their intent.

Will it become the norm?

I hear that Murdoch is thinking of charging for his new sites. So rather than getting free access you would have to subscribe. This is already happening in the US. I wonder if by 2010, this will become the norm for all media?

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year On

"Social media is like teen sex. Everybody wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it's finally done there is surprise it's not better."

One of my favourite quotes of the moment, and a great introduction to this presentation by BrandInFiltration. "One year on" is filled with great insight around the impact and value of social media. A great way to convince businesses why they should be jumping in!

View more documents from Marta Kagan.