TED Talks: Why We’re All TED-Heads – Infographic

Posted Posted in Innovation, Random Acts of Progress, Visionary

Here’s an Infographic about TED Talks at TED.com – an online idea-sharing and education platform and one of the most successful and well-known. TED Talk videos have been viewed over 800 million times since 2006. With names like Bill Clinton, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs and Jane Goodall, the roster of TED speakers reads like a who’s-who of today’s living scientists, educators and humanitarians. Now, six years after uploading its first video, TED.com is innovating online education yet again.

TED Talks Infographic

A new site,TED-ed.com now provides a platform for teachers and students to share video lessons. Teachers can modify, or “flip”, the videos to make them more relevant to their own lessons and use the site’s test and project writing tools to measure comprehension. The site continues to build its video lesson library by bringing user-nominated educators and animators together to create multimedia videos on everything from the mathematical genius of Archimedes to the significance of the Higgs-Boson particle discovery.

Infographic Source: OnlineClasses.org

In Social Media Marketing, Content in the Right Context is King

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Random Acts of Progress

We’ve written about this topic several times before and decided to revisit it again as Social Media Marketing strategies are constantly getting refined and reiterated; and context is continuously vying for parity with content.

The above 18 minute video, Brian Solis’ June 2012 interview with Deanna Brown, CEO of Federated Media Publishing, is worth watching. According to Deanna, “Content, in the right context, is ultimately king.” If you dig into the video, pay close attention to the details. There’s some valuable but subtle information in it.

4thWeb officially replaced “content is king” with “content in the right context is king” almost four years ago. The evolution of Social Media was the driver of that change. Today, Social Media is mainstream, and “content in the right context is king” is a widely-adopted Social Media methodology mantra.

The more the context and content matches the users interests (this usually requires a longer tail), the more the content resonates with users (if it’s good of course) and drives better engagement, in dialog, sharing, and active participation. This is almost always the case no matter where the destination is; be it Facebook, a Brand site, a Blog, etc. And also within a specific sub-set of that context (e.g., a specific Facebook campaign page, Blog post, etc.).

Here’s an excerpt from our 5-part series (“The 5 Stages of Social Media Engagement”) that we wrote at the beginning of 2012. In Social Media time, an eternity.

“Full results are finally coming in. The company is completely engaged with customers. At this point, results are considered a major business breakthrough and customer satisfaction is at an all time high. Revenue increases as does customer loyalty. Customers remark that their needs are anticipated and their ideas are being used to create a better company. The company is totally immersed in social media and can’t imagine business before it. Part of the company’s main policy is social media engagement with customers. They promote themselves as a company that listens and considers customer concerns a top priority. With constant engagement, companies are able to prove that they not only listen but act on everything a customer has to say. All levels of the business are engaging customers, including top level executives. Employees are fully trained and able to anticipate customer needs. By judging customer responses to pre-promotion, companies are better able to manage financial risks, despite the difficult economic times. Companies have not only prices and profits, but live customer feedback to measure results. This allows them to constantly tailor business practices for optimal results. Social media becomes an integral part of day to day business tasks. From researching customer buzz to providing real time customer support, businesses see customers as people and employees, instead of just a way to make a profit. Engagement is tied closely to revenue with practices and services changing to meet social media needs. Both the company and its customers are happier with their new relationship. Employees are more productive and campaigns are more efficient since there is no guess work on what customers want and need.”

The above excerpt is a snapshot of a fully engaged Social Media enterprise. They’ve invested much time and treasure in Social Media and a “content in the right context is king” strategy. Not all enterprises and organizations are at this level but all should adopt “content in the right context is king” thinking. Users like and want to engage but on their own terms. They like searching, voting, playing, filtering, personalizing, creating, sharing, conversing, trying and buying; but in a context that they’re interested in, and in a way that’s comfortable and rewarding to them. And the organizations and enterprises that provide context and content (in that order) that matches users interests, and present it well, typically have high user engagement and earned media rates; the holy grail of social media.

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Content in the Right Context is King

In Social Media Marketing, Content in the Right Context Is King

The World Without You (The Internet) – Infographic

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Random Acts of Progress

So, what would the world be like without you … the Internet? Almost everything we do has some connection to the internet. Aside from the fact that we wouldn’t be writing or reading this post, can you imagine life without it? Well, the following Infographic does and here are some highlights:

  • Since 2002, the number of internet users has quadrupled to 2.3 billion people worldwide.
  • The internet allows us to connect with virtually anyone.
  • The internet gives us access to an infinite amount of information.
  • There are 550 million websites (300 million added in 2011)
  • $6.3 trillion – the cost of stamps to replace emails (US alone).
  • Each internet job supports 1.54 additional jobs.
  • There are 30 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook PER MONTH.
  • The fall of the Berlin wall took 4 months.
  • It took just 1 week for 90,000 Egyptians to organize a revolution.
  • And only 18 days to overthrow 30 years of dictatorship.

The World Without You (The Internet)

Infographic Source

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The World Without You (The Internet) - Infographic

The Future of Social TV and Television

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Random Acts of Progress

The Future of Social TV and Television

Social TV Activity Today

  • The number of television and Social TV viewers using ubiquitous second screens (laptops, smartphones and tabs) to interact with television is at an all time high. HBO Connect is perhaps the most innovative second screen application to date.
  • Sales of Smart TV sets (Social TV sets really), outfitted with easily accesed social networks and social applications, are rising sharply.
  • Game consoles like Xbox and PlayStation can access social networks and feature their own Xbox and Playstation social networks as well.
  • We’re starting to see Pay-TV Platform Operators newer STBs (Set Top Boxes) outfitted with social networks and social applications that essentially turn them into Social TV STBs.
  • And then there’s the assortment of boxes like Boxee and other STBs that connect to the Internet, social networks and social applications through TVs.

All of the above is making Social TV readily accessible to users/viewers today and dramatically reshaping our behavior patterns around watching traditional TV. What we watch, how we watch it, how we’re influenced by advertising and product placement, how we influence our friends around consumption of content and ads; all of this is dramatically impacting TV as we know it.

Social TV Drivers

The TV and Pay-TV Advertising market is currently worth over US$400 Billion worldwide. And TV Broadcasters/Networks as well as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and many other social networks, and the Internet TV crowd including Google, Apple and Microsoft — are all going after it via Social TV It’s also quite possible that some social networks will ultimately morph into Social TV channels. In fact, Facebook has grown so large that it currently has a user base in every top TV Broadcast market that’s larger than the top Broadcasters have in those same markets.

Big brands are driving enormous interest in brands and sales of products by combining TV advertising with social marketing. For example, the USA Today/Facebook Super Bowl Admeter was a new web and mobile experience that went live on USA Today’s website as well as Facebook Brand Pages during Super Bowl 2012. It allowed Facebook users to view, rate and share Super Bowl commercials throughout and after the game, on the web or via their mobile devices. There were just under a billion earned impressions generated during the 91 Super Bowl Commercials. Thats a lot of social activity. To note, the underlying application for Admeter was built on the Involver platform.

“Social media has made TV a social experience again. We’re very interested in facilitating conversation − tapping into the power of social conversations across different programs to give viewers the power to connect with each other and build our relationships with our fans.”
-Gayle Weiswasser, VP, Social Media Communications, Discovery Communications

Weiswasser is right about the social experience. But it’s a much different social experience that favors the (somewhat) time-shifted communications of tweeting, posting and email conversations over live face-to-face socializing with friends and family in front of the traditional TV set. So, Social TV is a different flavor of social in that sense. Perhaps more social in quantity and less social in quality is one way of looking at Social TV. Of course, you also have more opportunities to be social with Social TV.

“The future isn’t either traditional or digital: it’s a feedback loop between the two. Television fans want to get involved and be counted. It’s how creative we are in engaging those fans – and keeping them connected even as they may move away from the traditional network – that will determine how potent and profitable we will be in the future.” -Kevin Reilly, President of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting

“The rise in the number of people that discover our content via social networks like Facebook and Twitter is significant.” -Philip Bourchier O’Ferrall, SVP, Viacom

Reilly and Bouchier nailed it. But at least for the foreseeable future, Social TV will be a work in progress of traditional TV and Social formats forever seeking a path to the ultimate integrated design.

Motivation to Advance Social TV

Social Brands are using social metrics (an order-of-magnitude better than TV metrics) and clearly see how and why their social channel activity adds value to their TV advertising activity (and vice-versa) and, in-fact, helps their TV advertising buy strategy. [Stay tuned for one of our next articles that dives into social metrics — volume, conversation, sentiment, and more — as it relates to Social TV.] And the value goes way beyond this. Think of the benefit to the producers of content — they’re able to understand what shows, scenes, actors, and just about anything else you can think of, works or doesn’t work, essentially in real-time. So, Social TV is good for all stakeholders and to the extent that Social Brands can get more value out of their TV advertising dollars, they will potentially invest even more in advertising which will help drive the growth of Social TV.

TV used to be all about eyeballs. But Mass Media, once dominated by Broadcast Media, is no longer the domain that it once was. It’s been invaded by New Media and Social Media. In the process, maybe unexpectedly, TV has become even more massive and is now supported by viable, growing social communities built around shows, brands, broadcasters, social networks, and other industry participants. So, the future of TV will still be about eyeballs — but Social TV eyeballs. And the future of Social TV will be advanced and shaped by all industry stakeholders that are focused on that.

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Infographic – Facebook 'Likes' Money (Behind the IPO)

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Net Neutrality, Random Acts of Progress, Visionary

Facebook was developed and launched from inside a Harvard dorm room (8 years ago)

Facebook is now on the brink of an Initial Public Offering that has the company valued at up to $100 Billion. That’s well over enough to cover the national debts of Cuba, Guatemala, and Panama put together. There are 900 Million registered users on Facebook. That makes Facebook the third largest country! The average user spends 20 minutes a day on Facebook. 900 Million users Facebooking 20 minutes each day comes to 16,000 years of Facebook in one day.

2 Billion pieces of information are “Liked” on Facebook every day.

Mark Zuckerberg and 1,999,999,999,999 others like this. Everyday. An IPO or “going public” means that anyone can now buy a piece of this company. Kind of like paying to show you “Like” them. Initial offering will price shares between $28 and $35. According to Zuck, $35 doesn’t sound like much. But it’s raised a lot of eyebrows.

Facebook’s total value is almost $100 Billion

That’s almost twice as much as Boeing and three times as much as Starbucks. At almost 1 Billion users, each Facebook user is worth about $100.00. Yelp’s users are worth about $20 each. Instagram’s users are worth about $30 each. Twitter’s users are worth about $70.00 each.

Is this company really worth $100 Billion? Some are skeptical. Zuck says: Even though we’re a $4 Billion dollar company, with a nearly 50% profit margin, we’re growing at over 75% per year!!!!! Warren Buffet says: I’m not buying it.

Facebook IPO Infographic

Infographic Source: MBA Online

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