Some interesting April developments from around the web | Advantage Brands

You guessed it. Fatigue. Advantage zyaada has penned a dozen articles today on the Finance and Economy subjects with a lot of Goldman Sachs and some other Banks popping up. (and the volcanic Ash) do check out the depth and field of vision at ADVANTAGES.US

Also Twitter Chirp kind of boxed forward movement with a lot of developer stuff going around including new developer agreements for using Twitter marks and user data.

Facebook is going the other way on F8, a lot of developer stuff about bringing back the toolbar swing for lulling users and adding a like button to every site you care about. Next you know we would be going Giga Om discussing proprietary standards, integrating internet in LED Televisions and all that gizmodo stuff about a tablet for the competitor.

Coming back to marketing and social media, I am also wary of posting more about Social media usage..most of the stuff is unscientific and definitely counterproductive to using th great examples that cannot arise daily.

There has also been a lot of discussion about Twitter’s 100 million users and Facebook’s 400 million active users. I don’t wabnt to discuss it for my brand. What I know is irrespective my social media effectiveness thru Twitter is in 1000s of clicks/other digital actions of Web 1.0. Facebook’s business effectiveness for my brand is zilch. It is some sort of a hygeine factor now to be on visually appealing Facebook pages. It is much more personal for the user and he does not like to be disturbed, though he can be targeted much more incisively right now on Facebook. Maybe for selling Tag Heuer watches and Bugatti Sports Cars or Armani and Kim Kardarshian fashion accessories..

In the meantime, the web’s other social acquisition account aggregator and advisor Mint has extended its offering to almost all American banks as according to the site an average American uses 11 different banking institutions and unless he can get them all in one place…

The other social revolution on the town square Foursquare recently celebrated Foursquare Day with near million members

Of course last but not the least it’s fashionable in Twitter universe also to hate “Promoted Tweets” and to call/not call them advertising based on whether you are User or Twitter

I would recommend however, that all the developments be not taken in isolation but as a whole picture serious thought be given to being brand leaders in shifting the marketing budget emphasis from print and TV to social media and not “online advertising”

Sorry Steve, We had to lower estimates

Well, next time and in the next few ads iPad might indeed recover, but this is what was dished out while Bigelow earned her two stripes in the LA ceremony

No Malice, but you have to take the good with the bad some time. We’ll wait for you to take this off the air..Go Bezos! And Thanks Pete (mashable) Online this campaign would have been harakiri..Though New York was saved such ads till 8:43 PM when Cablevision was restored the Disney ABC stream.

Mac vs PC – Apple has come a long way

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=%22justin+long%22&iid=8026943″ src=”3/6/6/6/World_Premiere_Of_d856.jpg?adImageId=10827698&imageId=8026943″ width=”187″ height=”138″ /] Even as Justin Long and Mr PC carried on a crusade for years and a lot of marketing teams swore by the Mac..an era passed us by, the banks washed up ashore in guilt and lot of ‘sand’ in the shoes too.

Meanwhile in just 3 years, after the iPod had already redefined the Information era landscape, The Apple Product Design Team has already managed two bigger marketing coups with the iPhone and the iPad. The key to pricing success brought around A QUICK RAMP UP FOR THE iPOD AS WELL and will probably continue this year for the iPad when it starts shipping this month

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=apple+justin+long&iid=823340″ src=”6/3/5/e/LongAwaited_Apple_iPhone_4688.jpg?adImageId=10827587&imageId=823340″ width=”380″ height=”260″ /]

Great Job, Steve! And also Justin! tim to move on to bigger things? like a 27″ iMac with a 4G iPhone and a wireless iPad in the car or on the job ;lol

Also, TBTF is going just right on the Kindle..is it Apple vs Amazon the next generation’s favourite war? Windows 7 comeback is telling though. Wow what a hot shop!

Some Live streaming Options off the hook | Advantage Social

It’s here. Our primary reason for inventing Bell’s grand device, or this hellish broadband competition where everyone’s changing providers every three months just a 100 years later (more) The eponymous podcast has gone live.

A lot of the work of the world gets done using Cisco and Nortel’s Video Conferencing Systems and all that infrastructure. For the consumer, they all are beyond the wallet..A lot more of the brands are getting a whiff of it with digital media revenues picking up speed in the last few months. This boom is riding what essentially started with downloading songs, and the iTunes store was one of the first in the legally validated ones with a great repertoire of mostly audio, not even 7-8 years back.

In these last two-three years however, these developments have just raised the bar to where people expect more uninterrupted direct telecasts / webcasts on the web for work, for play and with twitter and Facebook among others, just plain instant fun. The business model is definitely unproven. It is the fancy or a vector of the amount of fancy taken by each new user, that has pushed money behind most of these ventures almost instantly. The latest one is ustream.tv. After a $11.1 milion financing in April 2008 from Asia Centric Doll Capital Management(DCM). Please get all the linked links at Mashable and FT, for all the stories that led to this one.

DCM has backed Intuit’s Paycycle, Cisco’s Arroyo and quite a few NASDAQ listed network companies.  After the early round Ustream.TV got a $75 million dollop from a group led by Softbank( these guys manage to get a group every time) Ustream gets 50 million unique views a month and 10 m users but depends on advertising for revenue. Kerrplunk!

There are others in the video live streaming business with flawless reproduction. The infamous You Tube is getting on the job with the latest hot button game from India. The $2 billion IPL franchise has given exclusive rights to You Tube to get its matches telecast live to millions across the globe. the #1 in Sports, NFL has been pretty up to it with Videos on the web as well. Through the available audio streaming for live games, it has done well commercially with the products. The time delayed Video snips and the entire repertoire available online has been able to let them make a boast about their online business and the NFL Network. The game videos are a big success on the Itunes store afterwards, but lastng arrangements have not been made. The live score trackers would be an amazing model to recreate for IPL and others in the Soccer world that want to compete for the game

I love my 12seconds.tv  I find a lot of young urban followers getting on it in my tweetdeck beta since last year. Livestream.tv was a screaming success with MSA and Zhu Min natting in Davos about our new Economy with Larry Summers and Dominique Strauss Kahn from the IMF. in.com is among some others who got tired of even thinking of making a commercial case and have put all the Viacom business channels on the web free in live streaming.

I am still a little sensitive about Online advertising though. Except on a few select sites like Hula.com and NFL, it is mostly of a denigrating quality and does not seem like a lasting basis for revenue. Catch the latest video viewership numbers? These could simply be live streaming numbers in a couple of years?

Online video viewing is more ubiquitous than ever. According to comScore, in the month of December 178 million people watched 33.2 billion videos, with the average viewer watching 187 videos per month in the U.S.

MASHABLE

Apple, labels work on plan to boost album sales: report| Deals| Reuters

zyakaira notes: Apple continues to ride on its current successes and hopefully would be able to get itself out of the DRM snare for customers as also improve its payments portal to accept international payments as Music Labels would earn the most out of that with an ipod than any other platform.

Apple Inc and four record labels are working on a plan to increase digital sales of albums, while the computer maker is also separately developing a tablet-sized device, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.Apple is working with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Vivendis Universal Music Group on the project, “Cocktail,” with the sides hoping for a launch in September, the paper reported, citing unnamed sources.

The project with the record companies aims to offer interactive features with music downloads, the paper said.Apple also hopes to offer the tablet-sized computer in time for Christmas shopping, the FT reported.The computer will connect to the Internet like Apples iPod Touch and its screen may be up to 10 inches diagonally, the paper reported.The paper said book publishers have also been in talks with the computer maker about offering their services on the new device, which could compete with Amazon’s Kindle.Apple and the music companies were not immediately available for comment.