The Kmiec Ramblings
Opinions And Ramblings By Adam Kmiec On All Things Media

Monthly Archives: May 2009

We’re Being Shackled

Written on May 6, 2009 by in Marketing & Advertising
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Everything we do on the web is measurable.  Every click on a site, search on Google, and video watched on YouTube is measurable.  That concept is the bedrock of why investing in interactive makes so much sense.  With data comes insights.  With insights comes the ability to optimize.  When we optimize we become more successful.  Makes sense, right?  I’m sure many of you have even had similar conversations with clients and colleagues.

So, how is it, in this era of “transparency” that two of the biggest players (Facebook and Twitter) in the social space refuse to give us access to analytics?  Have you ever wondered how many times your twitter profile was visited?  Who was checking it out and from where?  If you’re a brand that information is invaluable.  Tumblr, does offer the ability to do some of this, because you can integrate Google Analytics into your Tumblr profile.  It’s such a powerful feature.  Now I can look at the AGGREGATED traffic and engagement taking place on this site and on Tumblr.  With real estate being king and the unique visitor metric meaning less, we need the ability to measure the collective footprint a brand has on the web.

If we’re really moving into the era of the social web how is it we can’t measure a good majority of it?  Great, you’ve got 15,000 Facebook Fans.  But, does Facebook give you the tools to measure who those people are?  For example, age, location, and gender?  Nope. What about how often they visit the page?  Nope.  At a narcisistic level, wouldn’t you like to know who and how many people are looking at your Facebook profile?  LinkedIn lets you do this if you have a “pro” account.  Seems simple, so why isn’t Facebook offering it?  I’d pay for that feature.

Maybe the reason we’re being shackled is because the data that we view as a critical component to being successful is the holy grail for monetization.  How much would you pay to have access to data about your twitter profile page?  Maybe not much if you’re an individual, but what if you’re a brand or managing a brand’s page?  Wouldn’t you you like to know more than simply how many followers you have?  Of course you would and you’d pay handsomely for it because it justifies the existence of the presence on twitter.

Make no mistake about it, we’re being shackled and it’s about time we were unshackled.

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Rethink The Funnel – Why Real Estate Is King

Written on May 5, 2009 by in Marketing & Advertising
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By now those who know me are tiring of my constant cry, “Real Estate Is King.” I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen for the past year and a half that your brands need to be owning property all over the monopoly board. Just owning Boardwalk isn’t going to cut it.

What does that mean? Since the dawn of the internet we’ve all been following the same funnel based model for success:

  1. Run a bunch of advertising
  2. Have the call to action for the advertising be to the brand’s site
  3. Get people on to the site
  4. Convert the people

In applying this model we were trying to drive traffic to 1 destination. In doing so, the focus was always on Unique Visitors. The baseline and focal point for success rested on increasing the number of unique visitors. If you were estimating a conversion benchmark of 10%, having more unique visitors increased the total number of conversions. Makes sense.

But, in leveraging that model, we didn’t take into account all the other interactions taking place throughout the web. Often these interactions were smaller…micro if you will. Despite being small, they definitely mattered; and they still do.

As companies look to engage consumers where they are (Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, etc.) something interesting is going to happen. Unique Visitors to the site are going to decrease. They’re going to matter less because the funnel isn’t linear.

Best Buy and Amazon recently announced that they are going to make their inventory available to any and all developers who want to create apps, widgets, or the like so that sales of the product could happen on this site. The idea is that they don’t care where the sale takes place, so long as it takes place.  The path to purchase isn’t linear. Think about it. You could be on Facebook with the Amazon App installed, see a deal on that book you added to your wish list, and then buy it right there…with NO need to visit Amazon.com. Now, that’s value.

But, what are we going to do about those decreased traffic numbers? The implications are huge. Online publishers set their value based on their audience size. Is your site less valuable because it now gets less traffic? Again, maybe the real point is we need to look beyond unique visitors when determining what success looks like.

Make no mistake about it, real estate is king. If your focused on hoping people land on Boardwalk you’re going to lose this game. Start buying up property now.

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SETI@home – The First Real Global Social Network

Written on May 3, 2009 by in Misc.
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We’re still all a flutter with the concept of “social networks.”  Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr generally get the most attention.  They’re well known and are the household names that even your mom knows.  Last night I watched an episode of Numb3rs that referenced the famous Seti@Home project.  For those that don’t remember SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  It’s a volunteer based social computing project that launched in May 1999.

There are all these conversations taking place in space.  Some are simply noise, but some could be evidence of life beyond this planet.  Someone needs to make sense of the noise.  It takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to sift through and make sense of the information.  For years special large super computers were used to analyze very narrow band radio frequency from outer space. Relying on just the limited number of super computers was a slow time consuming approach.  The Seti@home project was designed to eliminate that problem.

By  downloading the Seti@home software any computer anywhere in the world could help make sense of the noise coming from space.  In essence the Seti@home project combines the power of all the computers participating in the program to decode the data from space faster.  The more people who download and participate, the faster we’ll discover life beyond Earth.  Talk about joining something for a higher order of reason. 

I remember when Seti came on the scene.  I was working at Fallon and learned about it from a colleague.  He explained to me that every person who signed up for the program was helping to find Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  He demoed the software for me and I was hooked.  I downloaded the software and started trying to convince all my friends and family to do the same.

To date the Seti@home project has over 5 million members in more than 200 countries.  This is amazing considering the original goal for the program was between 50,000 and 100,000 members.  In total this community has contributed over 19 billion hours of computer processing time.  Unfortunately, the project hasn’t uncovered any Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, but it has identified several candidate targets (sky positions).  In 2004, the astronomer Seth Shostak indicated a conclusive signal from Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence would happen some time between 2020 and 2025.  That’s an amazing amount of progress for a program that’s only 10 years old.

Brining this back to social networking, the buzz topic du jour.  The Seti initiative has all the underpinnings of what a defines a great social network:

  1. Limited barriers to join
  2. Gender and age agnostic
  3. A real reason for joining – a greater good
  4. Sense of being and purpose
  5. Like-minded individuals
  6. Connected to a common goal
  7. Constant feedback
  8. Measurable results
  9. Authenticity…
  10. …and yes even Transparency
  11. The ability to opt out easily

This isn’t to say that Seti@home is perfect. In truth, it’s a social network that’s showing its age. In today’s new and ever evolving landscape where we’re all hyper-connected to the internet it seems like they’ve passed on serious opportunity. For example, how hard would it be to have an iPhone app that leverages the 3G network to compute the information a Facebook/iGoogle widget that basically is the software? Given all the people we’re connected with and the ease/efficiency to grow networks today, why haven’t they invested in leveraging those connections?

As the web evolved the program remained virtually stagnant…trapped in 1999. If ever there were an initiative that could really harness the power of today’s social web this is it. Seti I want to help. Let’s talk.

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Top 10 Favorite Albums

Written on May 2, 2009 by in Misc.
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More than a year ago I compiled my top 10 favorite movies. Earlier today I saw a Facebook status update from a colleague that indicated his favorite album of all time was U2′s Joshua Tree. As you might imagine this got me thinking about my favorite albums. To be clear my top 10 albums does not equal the top 10 albums of all time. It simply means these are the albums I’d bring with me to a deserted island. Also, live albums are ok, but not best of, hits, or compilations.

Cool? Ok, without further adieu here’s the list.

10. Dr. Dre – 2001: 22 tracks of pure bliss. Many will argue that The Chronic was a better and more “important” album. But, I disagree. It was this album that re-established Dr. Dre as the most influential rapper on the planet. His decision to collaborate with people like Snoop, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Xzibit made this album as solid as it is. Even with all the silly outros and intros there’s enough meat to this album to make it one of the best rap albums ever.

9. The Killers – Sam’s Town: When The Killers came on to the scene their sound was so refreshing. I loved their debut album Hot Fuss, but it lacked some polish. That’s what made Sam’s Town shine. I first heard Sam’s Town while on vacation on Mexico. I was on a bus ride from Cancun to Chichen Itza and my iPod was blaring. I literally listened to the album start to finish 3 times and it remains one of my most played albums.

8. Pink Floyd – The Wall: Right off the bat I’m going to cheat and take a double album. While I love Dark Side of the Moon and Animals, the reality is you have to listen to those albums in their entirety and from start to finish. The Wall is just the opposite. Sure you can listen to it in order for the full story. But, you can also pick from a number of individual songs like Mother and Hey You. To me, this is Pink Floyd at their absolute finest.

7. Guns N’ Roses – Appetite For Destruction: Track 1, side 1, Welcome To The Jungle. As indicated in the movie High Fidelity, it could be one of the best songs to kick off an album. While songs like Paradise City and Sweet Child o’ Mine get the most attention, my personal favorite is Mr. Brownstone.

6. Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head: You know, I hate liking Coldplay. I really do. But, this second album from them was fantastic. Politik, The Scientist, Clocks, Green Eyes, etc. just rock. Smooth lyrics and not over processed. While U2 continues to take steps back (their latest album No Line On The Horizon was horrible) Coldplay continues to take major steps forward.

5. Peter Frampton – Frampton Comes Alive: There is simply no other live album that’s better. I’d pick it just to hear Frampton’s 14 minute + rendition of Do You Feel Like I Do. This albums sets the standard for which all other live albums are measured.

4. Led Zeppelin – IV: It’s possible I never really discovered “real” music till I listened to this TAPE for the first time. This could be one album where one song makes the entire album a must have. Everyone knows Stairway to Heaven. Doesn’t matter if you’re young, old, into hip hop, or don’t like Zeppelin; Stairway to Heaven is known and respected. Besides, as Mike Damone said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, “when it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.” Amen.

3. Simon and Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water: Their last album was definitely their best. The album really packs a punch despite being realtively short. The 11 songs amount to only 45 minutes of music. But jammed in those 45 minutes are the title track, Cecilia, The Boxer, and of course The Only Living Boy in New York.

2. Michael Jackson – Thriller: This Michael at his very best. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a few misses on this album, BUT, how can you argue with Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin, The Girl Is Mine, Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean, and Human Nature. This is literally one of the best 10 albums of all time for not only how progressive it was at the time, but for how timeless it remains.

1. The Beatles – Abbey Road: I’m a diehard Beatles fan. Sgt. Pepper, The White Album, and Revolver could have made this list, but they all have faults. Only Abbey Road is flawless. From the opening track, Come Together, to the last one (Her Majesty) they nailed it. It also happens to have one of the best love songs of all time, “Something”, which Lennon and McCartney didn’t even write.

I had a lot of fun putting this together.  One of the great things about movies and music is we ALL have an opinion. I’d love to hear what your favorite albums are.

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Spring Is Here

Written on May 2, 2009 by in Cora, Photo
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Sure, technically March 21st was the first day of Spring.  But, the weather really hasn’t been consistently Spring-like till this past week.  We made some time to get a bunch of yardwork done.  While there was a break in the action, I snapped this picture of Cora enjoying a snack.

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It’s Not About Where You Are – It’s About Who You’re With

Written on May 1, 2009 by in Marketing & Advertising
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A few weeks ago I wrote a post titled “It’s Not Who You Are – It’s Where You Are.”

Several things have happened over the past few weeks that have me thinking about how to extend that concept.

  1. Had several great exchanges via twitter with Norbert Mayer-Wittmann about communities.
  2. Read some interesting posts by Stephen Baker about the concept of “friends” and “friendship.” It’s something I’ve been pondering for a while as well. Specifically the definition of a friend on Facebook.
  3. Unlinked my twitter feed from my Facebook account. This meant people I was friends with were no longer seeing what I was doing and saying on twitter. Since I did that, I’ve received a lot of thank you messages from my Facebook friends. I also haven’t updated my Facebook status since I unliked the two.
  4. Started experimenting with Tumblr.
  5. Read this great post from Stephen Baker and Ben Elowitz regarding how to make Business Exchange better.
  6. Took another trip to MySpace and quickly left.
  7. Created my Google profile which links all my profiles together.

Basically I’ve been doing a lot of reading, conversing, and learning about communication, communities, and integration.

Conceptually, I’ve always believed that it’s not about twitter vs. Facebook vs. MySpace vs. something else. I’ve generally prescribed to the fact each network has it’s own reason for being.

Earlier today, I felt like I made a breakthrough in my thinking. It’s not about where you are, it’s about who you’re with. The reason I don’t use MySpace (beyond it’s horrible interface) is that none of my “friends” are there. The reason I’m struggling with Tumblr (despite the fact I love its interface) is that none of my “friends” are there.  Where your “friends” are leads to the joining and retaining of you in a community.

I remember as a teenager going to a really crappy movie just to hang out with my girlfriend at the time. I tolerated a bad movie, at a less than desirable theater, that was 45 miles from home, and had bad popcorn. Why? Because I enjoyed the company. We make similar decisions every day.

Where our friends are can impact where we work, where we eat lunch, the gym we belong to, and yes the social communities we join. But, here’s the thing – your work friends aren’t the same as your old high school friends. Communicating with all your friends the same way is a recipe for failure. Consider who your friends are and where they are – when you do that you just might rethink how to communicate with them.

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