Author: Andrea Vascellari

Thoughts on the new Twitter.com in 3, 2, 1…

I think this could turn into a game changer for all sort of twitter clients (i.e. hootsuite, etc.) since many of their features will be included directly on twitter itself.

Your take? Write in the the comments or send it in via twitter @vascellari linking back to this post.

Andrea

It’s Time to Go Back to Conversation Streams

A recent twitter conversation with Dan York got me thinking.

The increasing pollution of the web with meaningless content made bloggers move towards higher quality blog posts. This led many bloggers, including me, to gradually reduce the frequency of released content. Blogs lost that dynamic conversation and vibe they used to have back in the day.

Did all this interaction disappear? No, not at all. It just shifted to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Buzz etc. The only problem with it is that people started to rely too much on these external platforms/environments… read this great post by Bernie Goldbach to understand more about what I mean.

Back to Dan and me. A few days ago, Dan sent out a tweet with a simple question and a link that was redirecting to a really short post on his blog. Initially I thought “why didn’t he choose to have this conversation just on Twitter?” But after a second that blog post brought back to my mind the early days of when I started blogging around 2002, when we owned our content, when we were the hosts of our conversations, when people loved to comment on posts because it was like sitting in a cafe’ and talking with some good friends about topics we cared about the most. In 2002, we probably weren’t talking about streams yet, but that was the feeling and I believe we should probably get back to it. We still need our digital homes, we can’t live like digital nomads.

As long as the quality of what we share is good, meaningful or it represents a good conversation starter I think we should still invite or leave the door open to our friends to have a cup of coffee in our digital living room to sit and talk. Worried about what people on the outside are saying? No problem, there are a bunch of tools & tech (i.e. backtype) that can eventually help us capture what the social web is saying about it.

I think this magic feeling is not gone, we just don’t need to forget about it…and this would probably help us avoid ending up feeling like Loic (@Loic it’s all good! Your name is not Brogan or Godin. You are Loic and that’s how you talk and engage with your audience. It worked well for you until now, just keep at it!).

What about me? Well, as soon as this intense period for the new launch of itive.net is over, I’ll get back to my regular posting activity… bringing back the stream feeling…or I’ll probably start right away 😉 I guess you’ll find out!

How about you? What’s your take? I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

Andrea

[Communications Report] for September 9th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

  • B2B Ads: Women click, men act | Econsultancy – Women deliver a 23% higher clickthrough rate than men, but men are 53% more likely to buy, start a free trial, download or complete a desired action than their female counterparts.
  • B2C Outpacing B2B in Social Measurement [stats] – B2Bs focus less on hits and followers, more on sales.
  • 5 Educational Email Marketing Infographics – Despite being the elder statesman of online marketing tools, email is still growing in adoption as a marketing channel.
  • AP Stops Fighting Bloggers, Plans To Credit Them As News Source – Only two years ago, the Associated Press tried to stop bloggers from using their content. Threatening to charge sites that used their content and demaned that The Drudge Reports pull headlines and story briefs from their site. But now AP is singing a different song – saying this week that they will credit bloggers for any stories they break.
  • Google Instant – The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.
  • Skype Introduces 10-Way Video Calling – Skype 5.0 beta two is already available for download; it includes 10-way video calls, automatic call recovery and a cleaner user interface. The update is also said to improve call quality and includes a number of bug fixes to make the overall experience much smoother.
  • frankencamera: open source digital camera on [technabob] – Here’s another example that make you understand that the future is not just about tech but especially about consumer empowerment to end users self customize their products/services. Apps are indeed playing a fundamental role.
  • TPB AFK | The Pirate Bay – Away From Keyboard – TPB AFK is a documentary about three computer addicts who redefined the world of media distribution with their hobby homepage The Pirate Bay.
  • The Pirate Bay Documentary Maker Fetches $34,000 To Bring Us TPB Story | Startup Meme – Unofficial Facebook Guide – Simon Klose headed over to Kickstarter, a startup which people can use to generate funds for their projects from the community. The intention was to raise $25,000 in a month to hire the services of an editing studio to turn his plans to reality. However Klose got luckier than he must have anticipated, raising a healthy $34,000 from numerous backers.
  • Kickstarter – This is a funding platform for creative projects. Projects, funded by the community, must reach or exceed their funding goal or no money changes hands. Creators keep 100% ownership. Love it.

No Conflict Between Creator and Consumers

Today while I was searching for new interesting news to add to my next communications report I bumped into an interesting video produced by Simon Klose.

The crucial importance of the proper and improper use of copyright law is a key point in the future of markets in this digital era.

Click, play, think. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, here on the blog or via twitter @vascellari.

Andrea

Talk by Jonas Birgersson
Animation by Finsta
Production by Simon Klose

[Communications Report] for September 1st 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

  • What People Think of the Ad/PR Biz | Reuters – One-third of respondents voiced a positive view of the advertising/pr industry (6 percent “very,” 27 percent “somewhat.”) Twenty-seven percent were “neutral.” Twenty-five percent expressed a “somewhat negative view,” while 11 percent were “very negative.” (The rest didn’t venture an opinion.) The numbers aren’t significantly different from those yielded by last summer’s edition of this annual survey.
  • Is it time for a Chief Social Media Officer? | ZDNet – The role may not be prominent now, but it will happen.
  • New report on “The State of Mobile Communications” – Now is the perfect time for businesses to jump into mobile communications, says “The State of Mobile Communications,” a newly issued report by Burson-Marsteller and Proof Integrated Communications. The report provides recommendations based on the implications of a range of key mobile research reports.
  • 5 Tips to Maintain Social Media Momentum – Servant of Chaos – One of the challenges with social media is that it’s easy to start and it’s easy to stop.
  • The UK’s media consumption habits – Ofcom released its seventh annual communications market report last week. Its a goldmine of information about media consumption habits in the UK and is worth reading in full, the internet section in particular.
  • Facebook Usage Still Rising in Europe, but UK Growth Slows – eMarketer – The Facebook juggernaut rolls on in Europe, but the first sign of declining growth rates has appeared. In particular, the site’s meteoric expansion in the UK is tailing off.
  • Skype Etiquette – Some good tips to keep in mind when using Skype by Michael Arrington
  • Pre-recorded TV viewers cut out ads – The increasing use of digital television recording devices means fewer viewers will watch advertisements. Online video adverts have failed to make an impact on consumers with only 3% citing them as the kind of ad they were most likely to pay attention to.
  • Want an SEO job? Check out the Daily Mail’s robots.txt file … – This is actually a great idea!
  • 10 Tips For Aspiring Community Managers – Tips from community builders on what it takes to land a job and be effective at cultivating community.
  • The Value of a Social Media Fan….Priceless – CPM models are generally used to price traditional media ads which represent only a monologue selling a specific product and are not customized to measuring the overall value of social media. Facebook “impressions” are a completely different kind of media where more often than not, the post should be as divorced as possible from trying to make a sale and are more about creating dialogue, brand awareness and positive social conversation which indirectly leads to higher sales.
  • Top 5 Mobile Advertising Trends To Watch – After a tough 2009, advertisers are expected to increase mobile and digital marketing budgets over the next year. With this in mind, it’s essential that advertisers keep up-to-date on their options in the mobile space. Here, we’ve laid out five mobile advertising trends to watch over the coming year.
  • Infographic: The Geosocial Universe – This infographic, created by Jesse Thomas of digital creative agency Jess3, shows the relative size of social networks and online services such as Skype, Gmail, MySpace, Twitter and Foursquare, and also shows the proportion of their user base that access the service via a mobile device.
  • How to Handle an Employee’s Controversial Online Comment – Stuff just happens. In most situations, though, the most important factor is how the situation is handled.
  • 5 Items to Delete From Your Website Today – When we add ideas and actions, websites become more complicated. Complication creates confusion and often translates to lower effectiveness.
  • Youtube stars making 100000 plus per year: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance – There are 10 independent YouTube stars who made over $100,000 in the past year, according to a study done by analytics and advertising company TubeMogul.
  • 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now – What follows are five of the hottest social media trends right now. Each are influencing our social, online and mobile behaviors in significant ways.

@Twitter: You are making me think…

Ok, you know those moments in which everything should be up and running but it’s not?

For example, I just checked my twitter profile, @vascellari, and I noticed that my followers and the community of people I’m connected with…well they are both down to zero.

This wouldn’t have been a problem if it would have happened just to me and not to the account of my company too @itive (especially now that we just launched our ‘new itive‘…).

In cases like this when you see your entire social capital disappear there’s just one thing to do: Relax…and think positive.

(deep breath)

Ok…so…

Hey what about you and the experience you are having using Twitter? Have something to share?

Andrea

UPDATE: See? Thinking positive helps…My Following/Followers are back! 🙂

[Communications Report] for August 19th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

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The New itive.net

Via itive.net – “The New itive.net“

“This is a new era. We are moving in an environment that is becoming increasingly competitive at a speed we have never seen before. Whether you’re a small-mid size entrepreneur, public institution, a corporation or government, we have invested our knowledge, experience, competence–heart and soul–to help you take things to the next level.

  • We aimed for the top by adding new, highly specialized and skilled members to our team.
  • We optimized the internal processing and project management organization from A to Z.
  • We built a methodical framework to create an organized path which allows our clients to successfully achieve their objectives.
  • We launched a brand new website taking care of each and every detail in order to turn our clients’ experience into something unique, cutting-edge and memorable.
  • We spent the last 6 month re-structuring our entire company in order to provide the best service for our clients…
  • And because of the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of our business, we always have our eyes and ears open for the latest updates, so that we can keep improving our services and ensure that our clients will stay fully satisfied now and many years down the road.

Itive is more competitive and stronger than ever before.

Find out more about our latest updates and our services for existing and new clients at itive.net.
We hope to see you there!“

Privacy

This is a video (below) that I directed, shot and edited for YouTube Play, a collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum to unearth and showcase the very best creative videos from around the world. Leah D’Emilio worked together with me as producer adding her insights and helping me turn the concept I wanted to express into something magic.

The video is called Privacy.

Social media is one of the primary vehicles through which we interact with society. This is redefining the concept of privacy. My intention is to discuss how privacy is being redefined using the following 3 aspects of private self:

  • Watching others/sharing our physical self through video.
  • Written thoughts on personal profiles.
  • Private conversations in public spaces.

– With a Panasonic GF1 I recorded various angles of a woman’s body as she laid in a dimly lit room. It is a test of the viewer’s perception as to which part of the body she is being shown and from which perspective. She symbolizes our desire to watch others and how we become “naked” as we expose our lives online.

– The text scrolling along the bottom of the screen are real updates written by random facebook users who have kept their profiles public and therefore searchable on youropenbook.org. Using key search terms I was able to find very personal written statements from complete strangers who would probably never say what they wrote in public, yet their thoughts are available for public search.

– Finally, the third element of “Privacy” is the audio recording of a public space in New York City. The audio element of this project reflects how anyone can listen in on private conversation in the “real world”, paralleling the idea that anyone can “listen in on” what would be considered “private conversation” in the virtual world.

In this project the video’s role is elevated as the primary vehicle bringing these aspects together to discuss the future definition of privacy.

“Privacy” will be examined by a jury of experts that will decide which works will be presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on October 21, 2010 with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. The selected videos will be on view to the public from October 22 through 24 in New York and on the YouTube Play channel.

I’m really interested in hearing your thoughts on “Privacy“. Feel free to share them here on my blog, via twitter @vascellari, on my Facebook profile or on my Facebook Page.

Andrea

[Communications Report] for July 29th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.