The Full Monty — September 6, 2016

Image credit: Richard Binhammer (Flickr)

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Programmatic and native are destined to combine; editorial and native teams already do; who one of Amazon's biggest competitors is (it isn't who you think); the importance of email; when you get algorithmic egg on your Facebook; Twitter's future may include being acquired; innovation has many meanings; ride-sharing isn't even close to killing car sales; Uber ups its marketing and gets a new competitor in Google; AI is biased and will always be; breaking through blockchain; prepare for a wireless VR headset from Apple; audio is big; GoPro gets into original content; hacking your face and your car; analytics teams need to do more than regurgitate numbers; I'm an oxymoron; and more in this week's edition of The Full Monty. Trivia and the poem of the week are now exclusively on The Full Monty podcast.

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Join Me

I'm heading to Cleveland for Content Marketing World this week: September 7-8, 2016.
I'll be keynoting at Brand ManageCamp from September 15-16 in Las Vegas.
Back to Vegas to keynote at Pubcon on October 11.
And over to Boston for Marketing Profs B2B Forum October 19-20.
Interested in having me speak at your event? Please check out my speaking page and get in touch.

Industry

Tomorrow, September 7, is a pretty big deal as far as Apple is concerned. It's no coincidence that this event is being held on the 7th; it's widely expected to the the date that Apple announces the iPhone 7, sans headphone jack, among other things.
There's demand for native ads on programmatic ad buying exchanges; champions say that it's still early and there isn't much inventory. But is part of the challenge that native ad placement needs an editorial eye as well?
Out of 140 surveyed C-level executives at magazines, 68% said that the editorial team has a role in creating native ads. Makes sense, given their familiarity with the editorial side and native ads' similarity to editorial content.
Relative to computer users, mobile users spend less time reading news content and are less likely to notice and follow links, and to do so for longer periods of time. More from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy in their look at Mobile vs. Computer: Implications for News Audiences and Outlets. One takeaway: apps are increasingly dominant in a mobile world; if yours is a decent one, you can expect lots of engagement.
GE is largely done with the finance and media business; now the industrial giant has its sights set on Silicon Valley. Is GE the competitors Amazon never saw coming? Perhaps, but then again, Amazon is the competitor that UPS and FedEx never saw coming.
If you think Millennials are waiting for your messages on social media, think again. A study from Fluent found that Millennials are 63% more likely than their older counterparts to say that promotional emails impact their purchase decisions most or all of the time.

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Platforms

Facebook / Instagram / WhatsApp

We told you about the drastic change to the curation staff of the Facebook Trending feature last week; well, this week, it came to a head when fake news stories were posted and the Trending feature seemed a little...off. That didn't take long.
In going "from messy to disastrous," one thing became clear: don't send an engineer to do a journalist's job; Facebook Needs Humans.
One former member of the curation team gave an inside scoop on how it all went down.
Mark Zuckerberg keeps fighting the notion that Facebook is a media company. The Zuck doth protest too much, methinks. Perhaps the notion of what media is itself is changing.
Move over Snapchat and Google Duo, Facebook is adding live video inside of Messenger. Perhaps Zuckerberg would be content in calling it a telecommunications company instead?
Not coincidentally, vertical videos are about to appear in your feed as well.

Twitter / Periscope / Vine

Twitter's board will meet on September 8 to discuss the company's future growth and "what the options will be if that growth rate continues to be anemic."
Shares of Twitter jumped after Twitter co-founder and Medium CEO Ev Williams said the company must consider takeover options.
Twitter is turning to Major League Baseball's BAM Tech streaming video unit to supply the technology to livestream NFL games. Perfect, since I turn to Twitter to supply commentary for Facebook posts about the games.
Live video content on Twitter - specifically Periscope now has a monitization model. Through Twitter's Amplify program, brand partners and individual content creators can now sponsor a series of Periscope broadcasts and create branded video highlights which can feature pre-roll ads.
Here are 20 ways to use Twitter to create a network plan for your business.

Alphabet / Google

YouTubers got a bit of a wake up call this week when they received notices that YouTube wasn't allowing questionable content to be monetized. Such content included excessive use of profanity. We're guessing it would have eradicated an entire revenue stream for Gary Vaynerchuk.
For its part, YouTube said that the policy hasn't changed and that notifications were merely meant to be more instructive. "While our policy of demonetizing videos due to advertiser-friendly concerns hasn’t changed, we’ve recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication." But you know YouTubers. They freaked out anyway.

Collaborative / Autonomous Economy

Innovation is something of a non-term. It can mean many things to many individuals. Here are 11 ways that startups use innovation to outrun larger established companies.
The ulimate symbol for the Uber-for-X economy has gone out of business. Washio, the on-demand laundry service, discovered that the formula needs to be a combination of affordability and frequency. So are they all washed up or were they hung out to dry?

Lodging

To make its home-away-from-home vibe work, the online housing broker insists on a level of transparency from hosts and guests that creates a level of intimacy bordering on the unseemly. How Airbnb Kills Our Ideas of Privacy.

Transportation

The impact of ride-sharing on car sales has been largely overstated. The idea of cars as a service — instead of something bought, owned and aspired to — seemed like a foregone conclusion to Silicon Valley. And as usual, Silicon Valley lives in its own world.
The Chinese government has opened an anti-trust investigation into the Didi-Uber deal. Look out, Beijing is about to get into the ride-sharing business.
Meanwhile, in Singapore, local player Grab is partnering with a taxi company to keep Uber at bay. And if you use your Citibank card in Singapore or the Philippines, Grab will let you pay with points.
Google is moving onto Uber's turf with its own ride-sharing service in San Francisco that would help commuters carpool at far cheaper rates. The service will use Waze to connect riders with drivers who are already along their route.
Uber hired Target CMO Jeffrey Jones as its new president. A clear sign that Uber is about to step up its marketing game.
A long read on one of Uber's ultimate goal: to take over public transportation, one step at a time. Welcome to Uberville.

Autonomous Vehicles

You wanted self-driving cars. But with that comes the inevitable: your car will be hacked.

AI / Bots / Blockchain

We keep thinking that AI will solve many of our dilemmas and that AI will be neutral. But AI will be biased because it learns from humans. I'm a simple man; I'm just hoping that my robot learns that I like my martinis served at precisely 37 degrees Fahrenheit.
Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and IBM are forming a group to devise ethics for AI, and discuss its impact on jobs, transportation, warfare, and more. And cocktails. Don't forget the cocktails.
Forget the hardcover novel. Get an AI-powered book. Textbook has nearly 20 interactive elements to it, some of which involve email or going to the book’s website, but many are purely text-message-based.
Take some time to listen to this interview of Don Tapscott, author of Blockchain Revolution - How The Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, And The World. Mitch Joel gets into what blockchain is with Don, and explores the many possibilities ahead in the digital economy.

Virtual Reality / Audio

VR / AR

Apple has been awarded a patent for a wireless VR headset that works with the iPhone. Perhaps we'll hear about it on the 7th.
You may not have access to an expensive 360-degree camera, so Facebook is making it possible for everyone to create VR imagery with devices you already own.

Audio

AdWeek takes us inside today's obsession with podcasting, streaming and the power of sound.
Are Hollywood A-listers stealing potential ad dollars from legitimate podcasters? According to one producer, "Shaquille O'Neal could fart into a microphone for an hour and 100,000 people would download it, while other podcasters are putting out great content advertisers [don't pick up on], because for advertisers there's a high threshold." If Shaq could sustain flatulence for an hour, he'd have advertisers coming out of his—he'd have a lot of advertisers.
Brands are beginning to see the light about podcasting. In fact, brands like eBay, Netflix and State Farm are starting to see success with branded podcasts as they partner with successful podcasting companies like Gimlet Media.
Blogs are out and podcasts are in as the latest generation builds personal brands.
Boston's WBUR is constantly innovating when it comes to audio. BizLab, station analytics and blockchain are all part of its efforts.
Program of the Week. We usually like to pick out one show to highlight for you each week. But in this case, with Content Marketing World upon us, we found an excellent summary of 10 Marketing Podcasts for the Well-Rounded Content Marketer. Do you have a program to recommend? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts
And don't forget to subscribe to ours via email or on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

Content / Customer Experience / Influencer Marketing

Boston Retail Partners' special report, Enhancing Customer Engagement Through Social Media, finds that 81% of retailers using social media to engage with customers indicate that their processes need improvement.
GoPro is pivoting to do something it should have done a while ago: expand its business into original content. GoPro users lead some of the most exciting and interesting lives; it'll be better than JustinTV.
If you're looking for higher email engagement, try sending email on the weekends. Not inter-office email; customer emails. Given all of the notifications and work we try to catch up with during the week, this development shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Privacy / Security / Legal

It's possible to defeat modern face authentication systems by creating a virtual model derived from high-resolution photos of the device's owner. Hackers can now unlock phones with a VR headset.
Snapchat celebrities are making undisclosed paid endorsements. The only problem is the FTC can't catch them. Even more than on other platforms, policing them is a major challenge. And unlike Snapchat content, this is not a problem that will disappear in 24 hours.

Measurement / Metrics / Data

Google's Analytics app offers Insight cards to automatically spotlight positive and negative performance trends for faster analysis.
Analytics teams have to be focused on helping business people access information — wherever it is stored — and make better decisions, not just concentrate on building the perfect data warehouse or data lake.
Measuring video ad effectiveness across devices continues to be a challenge. Completion and clickthrough rates are still important, and benchmarks must be set.

Essential Watching / Listening / Reading

Digital transformation efforts often focus on technologies, tools and processes. But the additional element of people - and particularly culture - make a great difference. About 75% of change initiatives fail, largely because of the power of company culture.
Does it seem like the U.S. is overcrowded? Given the daily commute situations in and around large metropolitan districts like San Francisco, New York, Boston, Phoenix and Austin, you might be tempted to think so. But then you need to look at this map of the 5 million U.S. Census blocks with zero population.
And in turn that should help you understand that in 5 years, the Midwest will have more startups than Silicon Valley.
I'm an oxymoron. More accurately, I use the past to help predict the future. And here's how Jay Acunzo got it out of me:

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Photo credit: Richard Binhammer (Flickr)
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Tuesday, September 6, 2016