Why Toyota's Scion Campaign Resonates with the Social Web

While watching TV, I just came across the latest Toyota Scion television campaign "United by Individuality" and it strangely tied up several of the last week's conversations for me.

While at SpaceCamp and through over various other email exchanges / phone calls, I've engaged in several discussions about what makes virtual worlds like Gaia so popular... and their business models so effective. The answer is captured very well in Toyota's campaign, which screams, "individuality!"

If the fabric of the social web is about tying personalities and communities together - the essence of the community's individual's is through unique identity. Think about:

- how many ringtones are sold - how people purchase MySpace themes and formats (Wordpress as well) - how many virtual goods / gifts people purchase

These are all purchased to stand out and individualize oneself within the larger (often commoditized) community. And Toyota is doing something similar: selling sturdy but *relatively* inexpensive cars aimed at younger audiences... but making the car customizable enough that drivers can make their models stand out from the 1,000s of other cars (and purchase Toyota equipment in the process).

Widgetbox Relaunches Widgetbox.com: Partners, Advertisers, Games & More

Tonight, Widgetbox officially relaunched its website with an entirely new navigation structure... and it's now blue!

Three important changes have occurred here:

1. We added a Partners tab to the navigation bar that promotes Widgetbox's Custom Gallery tool. Custom Galleries enable websites of all sizes to easily integrate fully-customizable widget galleries on their websites and platforms. Last week, my good friend Vinny Lingham's company, SynthaSite, integrated a full Custom Gallery with over 60,000 available widgets for their users / websites. I inserted a basic gallery on InGameNow in less than five minute's work!

2. We added an Advertisers Tab which speaks to developers and advertisers alike - offering the opportunity to craft targeted widget distribution or advertising campaigns across Widgetbox's network of 56 million unique viewers (verified by Quantcast):

3. We launched a beta 'Game Arcade' portal that features gaming widgets and works alongside two of our great partners: Husky Media (from Heavy) and Mochi Media. The product is very much in beta - but we are interested in collecting user feedback and determining how similar pages can / should be built out.

Extreme Boarder

Jump out of a helicopter for a thrilling ride through the untouched snow. Play and Grab

If you have feedback on any of these - please let me know!

The New York Times iPhone App - I Love It, But Here are 10 Suggestions

Despite getting unfairly ripped with iTunes ratings, The New York Times iPhone Application is by far and away my favorite app. Sure others are cool (MLB.com and virtually anything using the accelerometer), but the NYT app is the most useful. In fact, in just a couple weeks, it's transformed by morning ritual - I roll out of bed, thumb through the newspaper and do it without waking up Anette with the annoying Blackberry clicking noises. So we're all happy.

And while I love the NYT app and appreciate that they've made it free - I do have some suggestions... so if you're reading, how about some of these features for v2?!

1. Let me email articles directly from the app. Hugely annoying that I can't load up the contact book and/or enter an email address!

2. Use those emails to add to the 'Most Emailed' section. With the number of users actively using the app - this is a ton of useful data.

3. Let me rate articles and photos. Use my preferences and ratings to eventually build out a recommendation engine.

4. Load the app faster. The photos in particular load slower than any other app on my iPhone. I'd use it more often, if I could load pages faster.

5. Add a touch-based scroll bar to the article pages. It can take for ever to scroll through lengthy articles one thumb-touch at a time. There has to be a faster way to scroll or at least jump to the bottom of the article.

6. Get some new ads. I'm all for placing ads in the app as long as it's free... but I can only see so many Westin ads and act interested.

7. Make the author names clickable. For great articles, I'd like to read other pieces written by the author. Link the name to his / her other articles. Again - it would increase my consumption.

8. Give me a pivot point off each article page. Currently, the only option to view the next story (blindly I might add!) or pick a new category... add other options such as related articles. At the very least, add the categories that the article sits within!

9. Add a headlines / tag view I love the photos category and enjoy browsing visually. This would be equally interesting if there was a finding experience by headline or tag.

10. Allow favorite searches to be stored. There are searches that I would like to keep either as a category or (at least) within the search category. Let me store them!

Sports Illustrated Moves Fantasy Football onto Facebook; Tries to Catch Up

Like it or not, fantasy football is important. According to the New York Times, 15.5 million people play fantasy football each year - about 86% of which are are male and 63% are under age 40. It's also become a $2 billion industry.

So when Sports Illustrated (SI.com) moved their fantasy football to Facebook, two things became apparent:

1) Sports Illustrated isn't the leader in fantasy football and is trying to aggressively catch up 2) Facebook has become completely mainstream and, for the big brands, an avenue for user acquisition (important to note that fantasy football is comprised heavily of adult males as well - so SI is using Facebook to acquire users outside of high school / college)

Sports Illustrated, according to TheBigLead and Comscore, was the ninth most visited sports network on the web... and in fantasy football, Yahoo, ESPN and CBS are the clear leaders. Here are the stats from the last month:

1. Yahoo Sports: 22,752,000 uniques 2. ESPN: 20,601,000 uniques 3. Fox Sports: 15,105,000 uniques 4. MLB.com: 11,917,000 uniques 5. AOL Sports: 10,632,000 uniques 6. WWE: 6,759,000 uniques 7. NBA: 5,740,000 uniques 8. NFL Internet Group: 5,624,000 uniques 9. Sports Illustrated Sites: 4,492,000 uniques 10. NASCAR.com: 3,528,000

Fantasy sports are critical for the major sports networks because they are remarkably sticky, have high switching costs and attract clusters of users. So for Sports Illustrated to run their fantasy offering offsite is very surprising a clear sign (to me) that they are conceded the fantasy game - hoping to win a new market via Facebook's huge audience. It's an interesting effort and perhaps not overly risky considering their position in the market... But unlike CBS's smash hit with the Final Four / Facebook integration, this doesn't seem to have a clear proposition to get users back to SI.com.

Meanwhile, this seems like a big win for Facebook - just as the CBS / March Madness relationship was.

Notice the Facebook promotion atop the story headline

The Application's front door

A New Wave of Skinned & Tethered Rich Media Ad Units

While at SpaceCamp over the last couple days (in gorgeous Santa Monica), there was a lot of discussion around engaging advertising formats and units. Most of the conversation was around advertising on social media and UGC - which clearly adds a variety of additional complexities. When it comes to advertising formats, two verticals tend to be most aggressively leading the charge: video games and celebrity 'news'. I spend a lot of time actively looking for online ads and understanding what network is trafficking them.... but most consumers have trained themselves to visually block out traditional units (728x60, 160x600, etc). I know from my experience, for instance, that the 728x60 atop this blog doesn't perform anywhere close to the square unit within each post.

Go to IGN.com and PageSix (from the NY Post) to see aggressive, cutting edge advertising (and they've been doing this for a while). They are doing two interesting things:

1. Selling 'tethered' units to the same advertiser. So an advertiser gets two traditional units that site beside one another. The benefit of this is that the units can speak to one another and represent a significant portion of the page - consequently, they get a greater rate than each unit would sell for separately. Typically these units are rich media.

2. Selling 'skins' where the page template is themed and effectively becomes a major advertising unit. Perez Hilton was actually one of the early adopters of this format.

This clearly only works when you either sell your real estate directly or through an agency - but the result is advertising that

- clearly cannot be overlooked - delivers greater value for the advertiser and consequently greater eCPMs for the publisher - and because the units are so rich and stimulating, a relevant and engaging user experience for the reader

Would you rather see these sorts of ads or, frankly, the types of units that appear on this page? The reason this works best (for now) in Video Games and Gossip is that those two audiences are visually stimulated and more welcoming of aggressive promotion. I suspect this will expand quickly - look for sports, video and technology to follow.

IGN - an example of 'tethered' Best Buy flash units:

Page Six skinning their page to promote the new Pamela Advertising show

Page Six's 'tethered' unit for the new VH1 P Diddy show

Sergey Brin: iPhone Users Conduct 30x More Mobile Searches (and other fascinating stats)

On Sunday July 13, Apple announced that 10,000,000 apps had been downloaded via the App Store. A little over a week later - on July 21st, 25 million apps have been downloaded. Now there are 1,0001 apps in the directory - but there doesn't seem to be major acceleration in the volume of new content being released. For instance, there were nearly 500 apps for iPhone's debut... so the directory has doubled since the iPhone's launch.

I expect that there will continue to be a lull in new apps as developers and development teams are hard at work pushing out new products (which is a relatively lengthy experience). I also suspect that Apple will streamline the process of approval and developer registration... I registered for an account five days ago and haven't received a single confirmation / follow up.

So why is this important?

First, the iPhone offers an opportunity for businesses to acquire users en mass and/or define business models. For instance, Pandora had 350,000 app downloads in the iPhone's first week - and that's 350,000 users since you must register to use the service. In Pandora's 18 month life-cycle, they've apparently hda 12,000 monthly subscribers through their other mobile offerings / platforms... but with Apple, Pandora has an opportunity to monetize the free app and their huge user-base with innovative advertising.

Second, mobile search is being redefined by the iPhone. Via VentureBeat (quickly becoming my go-to-morning read): "Google’s Sergey Brin says iPhone is pushing trend toward mobile search – During Google’s recent Q2 earnings conference call, Brin estimated that “on a rough order of magnitude” iPhone users do 30 times as many mobile web searches as users of other devices."

The major question I have is how will Apple get involved directly in the mobile monetization chain. They have undisputedly defined and accelerated the mobile market... but they are currently missing a huge portion of the business by only being the dock and charging the directory fee. Every additional iPhone search is opportunity for Google, AdMob and the Pandoras of the world... and not for Apple.

InGameNow Opens API for Sports Scores & Interaction. What Can You Do With It?

InGameNow formally launched a few weeks ago - giving sports fans the ability to receive real-time scores and analysis via the web, the cell phone and instant messenger.

Today, InGameNow took a major step forward by opening a private API. We are looking for developers who are interested in using our APIs to develop something interesting with our sports community and content... and there are numerous opportunities to engage users and enable real-time interaction / information-sharing for sports fans.

So whether you are interested in taking sports mobile, creating sport / team specific communities, or something completely unique... InGameNow wants to hear from you. You can contact me directly.

InGameNow: Twitter for Sports

RedLasso Waves the White Flag; Bloggers Learn the Consequence of Relying on 3rd Party Content

On March 1st, I wrote that "RedLasso Video Is Taking Off… Out of Nowhere". Since then, RedLasso has become a key tool for most sports and celebrity bloggers who are able to rapidly create videos from network and cable television. The sports world in particular has used RedLasso to grab game highlights and ESPN clips. Today, in a move that really isn't *too* surprising, RedLasso is "suspending" their product's service: "We are left with no alternative but to suspend access to our video search and clipping Beta site FOR THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE." Notably, the emphasis on "FOR THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE" was not mine.

The email suggests that service suspension is around video search and clipping - meaning that no further videos can be made.

... But, the suspension is far more wide spread as it appears that no RedLasso videos are working across the web... effectively suspending the entire RedLasso service and product.

Blogs everywhere are gasping right now as much of their content has been rendered 'dead' and it's an important lesson in the consequences of not owning your own content and/or relying on third parties.

from: Gil Edwards date: Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 11:07 AM subject: An Important Message from Redlasso.com

To Our Loyal Friends and Users:

We would like to thank you for your continued support of Redlasso. You have been essential to making Redlasso a household name online. Unfortunately, due to the legal actions taken against Redlasso by two networks, we are left with no alternative but to suspend access to our video search and clipping Beta site FOR THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE. The networks have provided a big blow to the blogger community’s right to exercise the first amendment and comment on newsworthy events. It is anti-Web.

During this service suspension, we will continue our conversations with content providers, with the goal of establishing formal partnerships that will quickly help us restore access to the Beta site. When we return, we will let you know immediately.

For our business and Radio To Web clients, Redlasso will continue to operate and provide those services to you without interruption.

Again, thank you. The team at Redlasso.com

I'm Reinstalling Disqus - Two Months After Turning Disqus Off

Two months ago, I wrote this blog's most read article: After 5 Days on Disqus, I’m Turning Back to WordPress Comments. The quick, controversial summary is that I installed Disqus and, after concerns of not being able to fully leverage that content for SEO and on my own site, I reverted back to the standard Wordpress comment system. Apparently I wasn't the only blogger struggling with whether this issue - the comment debate was rich and included prominent bloggers, Fred Wilson (a Disqus investor) and even Daniel Ha (Disqus' CEO). I concluded that post with the following:

I think Disqus is close. And I expect that I’ll give it another test-drive shortly. But it’s going to take some additional benefits as a blogger (I clearly see the benefits as a reader); and as I think about services I’m willing to pay, perhaps that’s the solution for Disqus: offer premium accounts. I’d be willing to buy that.

Well, I've concluded that it's time to "give it another test-drive" and here is why: 1A. I have become a more engaged, excited FriendFeed user. This is important because, while I still struggle with the SEO fact, it could be argued that a moderate-to-highly trafficked blog will see greater traffic gains through Disqus' FriendFeed integration than through the incremental SEO benefits of the comments. Outside of selfish traffic reasons, following my readers through FriendFeed (via Disqus) is a great, interesting benefit... which leads to:

1B. I've become more interested in discussion and interaction than in absolute pageviews. Obviously, traffic and discussion are correlated, but I'm hoping that both grow with Disqus (and at the very least, that discussion grows).

2. I believe that Disqus will solve the SEO piece ... And hopefully not in a super-technical, API-only way...!). I also assume that Disqus is actively working to fix this.

3. On the same note, I am not sure that WordPress is actively working on a Disqus-like product ... And at this point, that is likely the only solution that I would give preference to.

4. I really respect the way that Disqus reached out directly to me via the blog and email and offered assistance. I am always willing to give my support to products and people who I feel connected with - and Disqus has been great

5. Frankly, I am jealous of other sites that have implemented Disqus. I know many of my readers and commenters have Disqus accounts and I am hoping that they will be more motivated to interact when Disqus is live. I love Fred Wilson's blog and make it a daily read over my morning coffee... but the community he has built and the commenting that exists there is some of the web's richest content.

And with that - Disqus is live... hopefully to stay! I have more work to do on the blog (when not swimming Alcatraz) this weekend, primarily migrating to the newest WordPress version so that I can use the iPhone App.