The Republic Project Gives Artists the Reins

The launch of The Republic Project this morning delivers yet another blow to traditional music labels and their longstanding monopolization of the music industry.  Serving as an online platform for artists to directly communicate and share their music with fans, it essentially allows musicians to bypass these record labels and act as their own distributors.  News like this is always pleasing to me, primarily because I am in a band myself and the majority of our content is online but also because I love seeing bad things happen to the big guys.

One of the most interesting aspects of The Republic Project’s service is the emphasis they’ve decided to put on video.  They have joined forces with digital camcorder producer Flip and plan on providing every participating band or artist with MiniHD camcorders in order to capture behind the scenes footage.  It’s not enough to just hear your favorite band’s music anymore, we want to see them and interact with them through video.  We live in a society where visual appeal is of the utmost importance and their attention to this detail may prove to be what separates them from other future start-ups.

I don’t necessarily know if The Republic Project will be a success but I do think it’s a major step in the right direction.  The future of music undoubtedly lies in the use of online distribution and branding through socially interactive means.  This ReadWriteWeb article points out the only drawback I can see with the Republic Project so far which is their early reliance on pre-ordered content.  This really limits what bands without an already established substantial following can do so people like me may have a rougher time starting out than say Tim Myers.  Excellent stuff though, nonetheless.

Filed under: Uncategorized, branding, content control, music, online video

Discover Web 2.0

I’ll be back with more later, but for now here’s a link to Go2Web20.net, which is an in-depth directory of web 2.0 sites.  We all know about some of the more prominent web 2.0 sites like Twitter, Digg and Youtube but Go2Web20 offers a truly expansive list of very interesting and useful 2.0 sites.

Filed under: Uncategorized, web 2.0

Tracking Anything You Want on the Web

Over the past few years, RSS feeds have revolutionized the way people get their news.  No longer are the days when you would actually have to search for news of your interest, instead it is conveniently delivered right to your reader of choice.  One company is now revolutionizing the way RSS will operate in the future.

Trackle.com basically allows users to track anything they want on the web through personlized RSS feeds called tracklets.  You can track categories ranging from sports, news, music, video and events to job openings, crime, local news and even people (such as yourself).  You can get real-time prices from Ebay or Amazon while out shopping or check movie times and ticket prices on-the-go. They’ve even gone one step farther and allow you to track your feeds through Twitter updates.

I think Trackle’s success will have major implications in the advertising world.  The ability to target people through their personalized interests will give marketers and advertisers a heretofore non-exsistent bevy of invaluable information about their consumers wants and needs.  They will be more capable of making their message appealing to prospective customers because they will know more about them and their unique habits and interests.

Here is a link to a TechCrunch article on Trackle posted this morning

Filed under: Uncategorized, advertising, RSS, Trackle, Twitter

“Social” T.V.

TV, Advertising & The YouTube Generation from Amil on Vimeo.

I ran across this video earlier today on Vimeo and felt like it shared much of the same sentiment on television’s inevitable merge with the Internet as my post yesterday did.  I thought Amil was spot on in his analysis of advertising’s future especially on the subject of social-video networks (or at least something based on their model) taking the place of broadcast television.  Well-known platforms like Youtube and Hulu are now household names but many others are gaining momentum as well, such as Joost, Boxee and Vimeo (the site I found this video on), just to name a few.  These networks allow people to search for videos through a variety of criteria and most importantly to share their choices with friends or anyone else they might want to.

I think the most important point he makes during the clip, from an advertisers perspective, is that through the utilization of these social-video networks “advertisers will be able to target specific people.”  This level of personalization could obviously be a monumental tool for advertisers because they could tailor their ads to the exact market they want to reach.  The question is whether consumers will be receptive to such an invasion of privacy.  Many people don’t want advertisers or anyone else for that matter to know their viewing habits.  I think the key to finding success with this formula is to make sure these personalized ads actually provide people with useful and insightful content and not just a bland sales pitch.

Filed under: Uncategorized, advertising, Boxee, Hulu, internet television, Joost, personalized advertising, social-video networks, Vimeo, Youtube

Changing Mediums

 

Print media is dying

Today, I want to talk a bit about the way we receive our media.  As we should all know by now print media is dying rather rapidly.  People no longer run to the nearest newsstand to get their daily scoop.  They certainly don’t want to wait two weeks for the next issue of their favorite magazine to hit stands either.  And why would they when everything they need is only a click away.  I don’t even need to mention the absurd amount of waste and environmental damage printing billions of issues of print daily incurs.  

We now live in a content based and content driven society.  This means that whoever can produce good, original content that people want and deliver it to them when, how and where they want it will be successful in this new, consumer-tailored marketplace.  It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that the advertising and PR model of the future will be based on consumer convenience.  In all honesty, I don’t think I’ve seen a t.v. commercial or print ad that directly lead to my purchasing a product since the original video Ipod came out more than half a decade ago.  There is a such a saturation of advertising and information in play today, I think we’ve, to a certain extent, become immune to much of it.   When I want to buy a product I get online, search the message boards and consumer reviews and make my decision based on information provided by other consumers.  I take that route because I trust other people that are in my shoes to educate me more efficiently on a product than the company producing it.  And from experience I’ve learned I’m not alone.

We are reaching a point in our society where basically only three mediums will coexist and all will be powered by the same engine; the Internet.  We will access it through our computer screens, television screens and mobile screens and all will interchangeably interact  with one another.  The Internet will serve as the platform on which everything will operate. I believe this will be the demise of broadcast t.v. as well, for the simple reason of cost effectiveness.  Smart companies will ask themselves; why spend billions of dollars producing broadcast television when we can basically reach our audience more cheaply and conveniently through the Internet?  This has to be a terrifying notion for most network execs but if they don’t jump on now and start broadcasting online they’ll be left behind just like print was five years ago.

 

Here are a few links to articles related to this post:

Google can’t even save print

Tivo chief urges tv advertisers to change

This last one focuses more on safely reaching long tail consumers 

Filed under: Uncategorized, advertising, consumer convenience, Internet, PR, print media

A Brief Summary of Things To Come

This being my first post here on Advibe, I’d like to introduce my purpose for creating the blog and talk a little about the direction I want to take it in the future.  My main inspiration in the undertaking of this endeavor is the ongoing collapse of the old, intrusive advertising model in which advertisers speak to the people (which I, along with most people I know, despise), in favor of a more consumer-involved interactive approach where they work with the people.  

Nothing we are doing in advertising today will work ten years from now.  This is a very exciting concept for me as well as many others that see this shift in philosophy as an opportunity rather than a problem.  I want to base this blog on the same notion that change is inevitable in the way we will advertise but in accepting that change we can create a much more effective and appealing environment between consumers and the companies that desperately wish to reach them.  

Whether it be social media, blogs, interactive feedback or some brilliantly innovative idea that has yet to be dreamt up, tomorrow’s advertising will be driven by the Internet and the people that use it.  Today’s consumer doesn’t want to be pitched some untimely and insanely creative plea to purchase a certain company’s product, but rather be given the ability to conveniently find valuable information, when they want it and how they want it. The Internet has made that a possibility. My goal for this blog is to be a place where we can discover, learn, educate and collaborate through the proliferation of innovative ideas and media that will undoubtedly shape advertising’s new and undetermined online frontier.

Filed under: Uncategorized