Episode 16: Racial Targeting and a Withering Vine

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640.0"] Credit: Steve Snodgrass (Flickr)[/caption]

A publication called Facebook out for racist policies regarding its ad targeting. Was it the exposure of a nefarious practice or an overblown assertion?

Vine never had a fighting chance, thanks to mismanagement at Twitter. What went wrong? And a special tribute to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4788625/height/90/width/600/theme/custom/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/no-cache/true/render-playlist/no/custom-color/00bf8f/

 

Links

Be sure to check out other major stories from the October 31st edition of the newsletter:

• How well versed are marketers in the realm of digital? According to Unilever's CMO Keith Week, there's a whole generation of marketers who are bluffing. Bottom line: it's time to get serious, embrace the digital world and bone up on trends, skills and actual usage. 
• Social media ads drive awareness and revenues for SMBs. SMBs were three times as likely to rely on social ads as any other format. And they don’t seem to differentiate much between the two goals, which is troubling. 
• Instagram has partnered with mental health professionals and advocates to design a response to posts that could be about suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders. 

 

Credits

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

The Full Monty — October 31, 2016

 

The Full Monty exposes you to the business intelligence that matters at the top of every week. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing. And please share this with your colleagues if you find it valuable.

Unilever's CMO thinks there's a generation of marketers who are bluffing their way through digital; how AT&T will innovate after the Time Warner deal; small and medium businesses rely on social media ads; Twitter exceeded analysts expectations but also let Vine die on the vine; what's next for Twitter; Facebook can exclude entire races from seeing ads; Instagram has a public service; it's not your dad's Microsoft any more; favorite social platforms of teens; Uber promises flying cars; Silicon Valley gives up on making autonomous vehicles; what blockchain can do; IBM's Watson flourishes with partnerships; at the nexus of data and culture change; the brands people are most loyal to; and more in this week's edition of The Full Monty. Get your fill of trivia and the poem of the week on The Full Monty podcast.

Virtually everything you need in business intelligence. If you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links — and those that didn't make the cut for publication — by subscribing to The Full Monty Magazine at smonty.co/fullmontymag.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

• I'll be speaking at the Richmond chapter of the American Marketing Association on November 16.
• And at a private event for a client in Miami on November 29.
• Attending the CMO Data Summit December 5-7.
• Social Media Marketing World 2017 in San Diego, March 22-24, 2017

Industry

• How well versed are marketers in the realm of digital? According to Unilever's CMO Keith Week, there's a whole generation of marketers who are bluffing. Bottom line: it's time to get serious, embrace the digital world and bone up on trends, skills and actual usage. No excuses.
• With its acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T is saying that it may result in opportunities where companies can target individual households with TV ads that are specifically relevant to them based on income, ethnicity or other characteristics. The Holy Grail of advertising. On TV, no less.
• And AT&T has a new Internet TV service of 100 channels that will cost $35 a month. The goal is to reach 20 million households of cord cutters.
• The New York Times is picking up a new outlet: they've purchased Wirecutter, a consumer guide to electronics, for $30 million.
• News site Quartz ensures that it's a truly global brand. It set out to be a global, mobile-first publication for business readers from its inception. Quartz monetizes its 47 percent non-US audience proportionately, so 44 percent of its ad revenue was billed against non-U.S. inventory last year.
• Groupon acquired LivingSocial, previously valued at as much as $6 billion, for a "non-material amount." I wonder if they got a Groupon for it.
• Social media ads drive awareness and revenues for SMBs. SMBs were three times as likely to rely on social ads as any other format. And they don’t seem to differentiate much between the two goals, which is troubling. 
• Chief communications officers (CCOs) are increasing their focus on digital communications and reputation management. More CCOs expect to hire digital and social media talent over the next 12-18 months than any other position.

• Amazon says that it will have 2,000 grocery stores within 10 years. The physical store strategy is expensive and will pit Amazon against far more experienced players, such as Walmart (client), which has more than 5,000 stores in the US. Amazon's margins have been negative or thin for years. This could be risky.
• Mobile will represent 75 percent of global Internet usage next year and will reach 79% by 2018, nearly doubling since 40% in 2012.

---

SPONSOR

Get the scoop on what 500 marketers (budgets up to $10 million) believe and how those beliefs influence their behaviors when it comes to hiring and firing agencies just like yours.

Download this FREE 16 page report, full of information, insight and guidance on how to best approach prospects based on the findings.

Some of the results are going to really surprise you.

---

Platforms

TWITTER / PERISCOPE / VINE

• Twitter reported its Q3 earnings this week, posting results that surpassed analysts' expectations. Twitter reported earnings of 13 cents per share and revenue of $616 million, and the service grew to 317 million users, beating analysts' estimates of 9 cents per share, $606 million, and 315 million users. But it also announced it was laying off 350 people — 9 percent of its workforce,
• Amid this mixed news, Twitter revealed that it is killing its once-popular 6-second video app Vine. Two weeks ago it was Whither Twitter; now it's wither Vine.
• How did this happen? As Vine stars fled to Instagram and Snapchat, Twitter did little to nurture them or to continue to develop the app. 
• In its 10 years of existence, the site has evolved from a curiosity to an indispensable part of the global communications landscape. And while it's a cultural success, it's a business failure, with no clear growth strategy, a confusing bundle of initiatives such as streaming NFL games and buying Periscope, and the seeming inability to address abuse and bullying on its site.
• In the coming weeks, Twitter will give users more tools to fight online abuse. The team has been working for the last few months to build "the most important safety features and updating our safety policies to give people more control over their Twitter experience."
• If that's the case, the rumor that Disney may be interested again might be reasonable.
  • Maybe Larry Page will want to buy it. Just keep it away from socially-challenged Google.
• Four Silicon Valley executives make recommendations on how to fix Twitter. And only one of them hints at making the CEO job a full-time position — unlike our recommendation.

FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / WHATSAPP

• Facebook has seen a 400 percent increase in live video use since it launched and now the company wants to make live video easier and more immersive for all users with the inclusion of augmented reality filters.
• Facebook has placed a high-stakes — and, experts say, unwise — bet that an algorithm can play the lead role in stanching the flood of misinformation the powerful social network promotes to its users. That's right, we're still getting fake news with Facebook's Trending algorithm. Good curation needs humans.
• Instant Articles worked so well for news organizations that Facebook is exploring a version for video broadcast. As they continue to compete for eyeballs, expect broadcasters to warm to this concept.
• Facebook allows advertisers to exclude groups by race, ethnicity and other factors. But is this really a concern? It allows targeted ads based on all sorts of data. It's how advertisers choose to use that data that should be the cause for concern.
• Instagram has partnered with mental health professionals and advocates to design a response to posts that could be about suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders. It's encouraging to see Instagram addressing issues among its users, in contrast to where Twitter has been.

MICROSOFT / LINKEDIN

• Microsoft held a major event in which it revealed the Surface Studio, aimed squarely at designers — and at Apple. Is Microsoft becoming more innovative than Apple?  They certainly have more motivation to do so, as contenders often do, while the leader becomes complacent.
• This week, Microsoft will launch Microsoft Teams, a supposed Slack killer. Anything is better than Yammer. If it integrates with inboxes, it could do the trick.

SNAP

• Snap (parent company of Snapchat) is seeking to raise as much as $4 billion in an IPO early next year. It may value Snapchat at $25 billion to $35 billion.
• Snapchat clearly establishes itself as teens' favorite social network. No surprise there. But the fact that Twitter and Facebook are tied? Wow.

Other

• Giphy passed the 100 million user mark. That means Giphy has 2/3 as many users as Snapchat — and is on par with Vine.

Collaborative/ Autonomous Economy

LODGING

• Last week the CEO of Lasalle Hotel Properties said that the new law in New York restricting Airbnb could be “a big boost in the arm for the business, certainly in terms of the pricing,” but its CFO was quick to say "it's not about price or competition." Airbnb picked up on that and hit back, asking “What are your current policies as they relate to compression pricing, commonly referred to as price-gouging?” and cornering the CEO with “If you agree with your Chief Financial Officer and now believe that the New York law is ‘not about price or competition,’ will you unequivocally pledge to ban any and all price-gouging at your hotels?” 

 

TRANSPORTATION

• Uber has a plan to finally deliver what humanity has consistently requested: the flying car. We can't get people to stay in the lane on the ground. What makes us think flying cars aren't going to be a mess?
• Creating autonomous vehicles is complicated, both within and without. Here is a comprehensive list of considerations and potential impacts.
• After acquiring Uber in China, Didi Chuxing's first order of business is to block foreigners from using it. That was fun while it lasted.
• Uber opens their Driver API. One example of it in use: Sears uses the /trips endpoint to stay top-of-mind, rewarding drivers-partners with Shop Your Way loyalty points for their completed trips.
• In defense of the ride-hailing leader: Uber has revolutionized transit more in seven years than the government has in 70. Then again, one might argue that it's not the government's responsibility to revolutionize anything.

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

• Tech giants Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, once intent on disrupting, if not destroying, Detroit, have concluded for now that they don’t want to build cars. Given the complexity and the unattractive margins, it's probably a good idea. But Detroit welcomes the collaboration.
• Elon Musk has figured out how Tesla can deal with Uber. He and his team have had to come up with the Tesla Network, a way to diversify Tesla into a partial-ownership business model to avoid being steamrolled. Most people can only afford about 1/10th of a Tesla anyway.
• Uber has quietly launched Uber Freight for long-haul trucking. The plan builds on Uber's acquisition of Otto, a self-driving trucking company that Uber bought in July for $65 million. The company's first delivery? About 1800 cases of Budweiser.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / BOTS / BLOCKCHAIN

• There's great fear that robots will replace our jobs. But by 2025, robotics could help increase global productivity by 40-50%, leading to an economic impact between $1.7 and $2.2 trillion per year.
• Can bots do advertising? Adgorithms attempts to take programmatic advertising to another level. Instead of just relying on automation for individual media buys, brands can turn all of their campaigns over to Albert.
• IBM hosted World of Watson last week and a number of news items were conveyed:
  • The Weather Channel has launched a Watson-powered "cognitive weather bot" for Facebook Messenger. The bot gives users a new way to access and share personalized weather content including current conditions, severe weather alerts and five-day forecasts.
  • Partnerships including with GM's OnStar will put Watson in touch with hundreds of millions of people next year.
  • Christopher Penn has a three-part series on what he learned at WoW: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
• Let's just hope all of this AI doesn't make us too complacent:

Amazon Alexa is down so we can't turn our lights off. That's a new one.

— Dennis Crowley (@dens) October 29, 2016

• What is blockchain? Simply put, it's "any distributed electronic ledger that uses software algorithms to record transactions with reliability and anonymity." And it has the power to change all kinds of businesses.
• For example, blockchain is empowering the future of the insurance industry.
• Applied to cryptocurrency, it could prove to be a powerful defensive weapon in their arsenal to increase data encryption and database security.

Virtual Reality / Audio

VR/AR

• HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asus are all shipping VR headsets for your PC starting at $299.
• Product developers are more bullish on augmented reality. In a recent survey, more than half said they were more optimistic about the future of AR than VR. Makes sense, given the less alienating nature of the technology. See Facebook's direction, as noted above.

AUDIO

• Think you need a podcast? Think again. Unless it's something that truly stands out, you might be better off saving your resources. Of course, that means there'll be more time to listen to mine.
• Program of the Week. This week, in the spirit of Halloween, our recommendation is Welcome to Night Vale. It's a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. 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 oniTunes, Google Play,  Stitcher,  Spreaker or SoundCloud.

Content / Customer Experience / Influencer Marketing

• It’s no longer enough to target your chosen customers. To stay ahead, you need to create distinctive value and experiences for them. Here are 10 principles of customer strategy.
• Marketers spin; storytellers twist. Spin is a technique that traditional marketers use to transform negative situations into positive ones. It’s one of the weaker communications devices because it’s motivated by selfishness–seeking to benefit the teller more than the listener. Twists, on the other hand, are motivated by generosity. They’re little gifts that storytellers give to their audiences to make stories more enjoyable and memorable.
• Simplify your approach to content marketing, and above all, document your strategy.
• Using data to craft stories is easier than you might think. Here are five ways to get started.
• Going inside the meeting that killed Vine, we discover that Twitter failed to negotiate with some of its biggest power users while it still had the chance. A lesson in the importance of nurturing your audience.

Privacy / Security / Legal

• Digital ambulance chasing — er, targeted advertising by legal firms — is a thing on Facebook, where firms are seeking clients laid off from Twitter.
• A London court ruled Friday that Uber drivers should be classified as employees, rather than independent contractors. This could have a large impact on England's 30,00 drivers and on drivers in the 450 cities and 70 countries in which Uber operates.

Measurement / Metrics / Data

• The most significant culture shift today for marketing teams is adopting an analytical marketing approach. Changing culture is notoriously difficult, but you can do so by using data to change the status quo, use stories to convey insights, or use different metrics. 
• Culture is a stronger determinant of success with data than anything else. Including data. Understanding the nine steps along the ladder of digital attribution. Or, as Avinash puts it, "You can't give a toddler a Harley Davidson."
• All too often, it's tempting to use data to prop up our successes; but data can also help you to determine what needs fixing that can have the most impact. 
• Digital analytics, demystified: puzzle vs. mystery.
• Privacy-related traffic from mobile apps could open the door for data loss and security breaches. Be sure your mobile apps and the data you collect from them are secure.

Essential Watching / Listening / Reading

• The 2016 Brand Loyalty report is here and traditional brands are losing ground. While digital brands represent the lion’s share of this year’s list, they also command 80% of the top 20 loyalty leaders spots.
• Could the future of branding be debranding? Instead of brands, real people and real tones of voice will become the interface between consumers and products. One can dream.
• Contrary to popular belief, you don't have the attention span of a goldfish. Doubly true if you've made it this far in the newsletter.
• The art of listening is a learned skill. What great listeners actually do.
• Last week, Christopher Marlowe was given credit as one of Shakespeare's co-writers. To demonstrate the impact of the Bard on our modern language, here are words and phrases coined by Shakespeare.

---

Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to have trends on digital communications, marketing, technology and business delivered to your inbox each Monday. Between this and the podcast, it's a lot of work. And it's not a team sport, either. If you join us as a patron, it will show how much you value this kind of content.


I speak to groups and advise brands and agencies to help them embrace the fundamentals of human communication in the digital age. You can join these other top-notch clients by reaching out if you'd like to put my experience to work.

--

The Full Monty — October 24, 2016

The Full Monty exposes you to the business intelligence that matters at the top of every week. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing. And please share this with your colleagues if you find it valuable.

Where were you when the Internet went down?; AT&T and Time Warner did a deal since our last newsletter; the newspaper industry is preparing for a shift as advertising revenue drops by nearly 10 percent; shifts in Facebook advertising you need to know; Google will be tracking your PII; Airbnb listing in NYC may be illegal; Uber has 40M MAUs; self-driving cars are not five years away; there's an AI war on and it involves Google, Apple, IBM, Microsoft and even the U.S. government; the difference between influence and persuasion; a to-do list for Silicon Valley from the president; 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.

Virtually everything you need in business intelligence. If you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links — and those that didn't make the cut for publication — by subscribing to The Full Monty Magazine at smonty.co/fullmontymag.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

• I'll be speaking at the Richmond AMA chapter on November 16.
• And at a company event in Miami on November 29.

Industry

• AT&T purchased Time Warner for $85 billion. Wow! Didn't see that one coming.
  • The last time Time Warner did a major deal, it was the worst in corporate history (with AOL). What's in it for them? For starters: content packaged with data connections, a shrinking DirecTV business, and competition with Verizon, Facebook, and Google.
  • Then again, here's why it doesn't make sense for AT&T to by Time Warner: a company that owns pipes, whether over the air or through the ground, doesn’t actually benefit from owning the content flowing through those pipes. Maybe not, but they stand a better chance of growing their subscriber base when they can make some of that content available to stream free over their network, as other carriers have done with music and video.
  • You should care about the deal. Why? Competition, net neutrality and a variety of content types are under their control now.
• Global spending on newspaper advertising is expected to drop by 8.7% in 2016, and publishers are cutting costs and restructuring. It's particularly troublesome, given that the overall global ad market is expected to grow 4% this year to $529.1 billion, with a 14% acceleration in digital-ad spending. The Wall Street Journal is consolidating sections in its print editions and the New York Times is looking to significantly boost digital revenue by 2020. 

• A fascinating related thought: what if the newspaper industry made a colossal mistake by giving away its content online? This ignores the fact that the IT era - of word processing and electronic layout - paved the way for more efficiencies while revenue was rising. The newspapers were fat cats at one point; the entire linchpin of the newspaper business model was controlling distribution, and when that linchpin was obliterated by the Internet, it was inevitable that the entire apparatus would collapse.
• Meanwhile, NBCUniversal is doubling its investment in BuzzFeed with another $200 million.
• Streaming video continues to rise, as indicated by Netflix's 20 percent increase in subscribers and Walmart's Vudu launching free movies and TV shows.
• If you'd like to reach viewers with digital video, the best time is between 3 a.m. and 12 p.m.
• If you're not yet subscribing to Christopher Penn's Almost Timely newsletter, don't waste another moment.

---

SPONSOR

Get the scoop on what 500 marketers (budgets up to $10 million) believe and how those beliefs influence their behaviors when it comes to hiring and firing agencies just like yours.

Download this FREE 16 page report, full of information, insight and guidance on how to best approach prospects based on the findings.

Some of the results are going to really surprise you.

---

Platforms

TWITTER / PERISCOPE / VINE

• One columnist thinks that Twitter's issues are so pervasive that the service doesn't have more than six months left. We agree that Twitter seems devoid of a strategy (and of a communications plan to accompany it), but is it that bad? This commentator thinks they'd go private before they collapse.
• Disney opted not to buy Twitter primarily because of the clash of cultures. Twitter could hardly be called "the happiest place on earth."
• Twitter fired its new head of VR because he called the San Francisco homeless "degenerates." On Facebook. Because Twitter didn't think to check Facebook before they hired him.

FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / WHATSAPP

• Advertising on Facebook is always changing. With that, here are five major shifts in Facebook advertising all marketers should know about.
• You'll soon be able to reach users on Facebook with push notifications, thanks to their Analytics for Apps mobile analytics solutions.
• Messenger will suggest "Conversation Topics" for you to chat with friends about. Because you're too daft to know what to talk about with your own friends.
• Instant Articles will feature video and 360-degree images. Part of Facebook's further push into VR and video.
• Think I'm kidding? Be on the lookout for Facebook Live video being advertised on TV, billboards, buses and more.
• In keeping with its parent company, Instagram is trying live video. We can't escape it.
• Facebook debuts live video scheduling, scheduled broadcast sharing, pre-broadcast lobbies to verified Pages, with plans to expand to all Pages in coming weeks.
• Instagram Stories are now part of the Explore feature. This will be a personalized selection of Stories from across its global userbase. Look out, Snapchat!

ALPHABET / GOOGLE

• Google has dropped its long-standing ban on tracking personally-identifiable information. They're latest tech company to drop the wall between anonymous online ad tracking and users' names. Yes, it's just as creepy as Facebook's. Here's how to disable it.
• The new Pixel phone is getting good reviews. But there's one flaw it exposed: Google's confusing messaging app strategy. Duo, Allo, Hangouts and Messenger have some overlap and simply don't work together.
• CBS is launching a Web TV service in 2017 and Google signed on, ostensibly for YouTube to host it. Just like Facebook Live going all-in with broadcasters, this is the new TV.
• YouTube took a swipe at Facebook, saying that 96% of its users watch rather than scroll, and they do so with the sound on. Facebook meanwhile is trying to get advertisers to create video that account for silent viewing. Makes sense, as YouTube is a video destination, while video is a distraction on Facebook (for now).

PINTEREST

• Like Snapchat, Pinterest is working on an Explore section for publishers and advertisers to create video and multimedia posts.

SNAP

• Chipotle turns to Snapchat as part of its reputation management plan with an edgy new show called "School of Guac." This might be helpful in winning back a younger crowd after their food safety issues.

Collaborative/ Autonomous Economy

• Groupmuse is Uber for classical music. More specifically, it's a network of some 1,200 musicians who will perform chamber music in homes, a calendar of events, and the ability to sign up to host concerts in your home. It's chamber music the way it was originally conceived. 
• And if you'd like conducting lessons on demand, none other than Maestro Leonard Slatkin, musical director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, can teach you.

LODGING

• In New York, Governor Cuomo signed a bill into law that bans rentals of less than 30 days in a multi-unit building if the tenant is not present. Hosts caught listing their apartments could be fined up to $7,500 a year.
• Airbnb immediately filed a lawsuit against New York.
• Be sure to check out this contest being promoted by Airbnb: two people will have a chance to stay in Bran Castle, the real-life inspiration for Dracula's castle in Transylvania — the first time since 1948 that anyone has stayed overnight. Just submit what you'd say to Count Dracula if you met him. Or to Governor Cuomo.

TRANSPORTATION

• Travis Kalanick says Uber has 40 million monthly riders. This cohort spends about $50 a month on the ride-hailing service.
• Uber's ultimate goal is to become a robotics company, in case any drivers were curious.

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

• All Tesla vehicles being produced will now have full self-driving hardware. And you'll want to watch this Telsa driving itself from home to work. Now if we could only get it to stop and pick up an In-N-Out burger for us.
• Meanwhile, Apple scaled back its autonomous vehicle program to only focus on the software, not the creation of vehicles themselves.
• In Singapore, one of the perfect cities for testing autonomous vehicles, one was in an accident with at truck. This demonstrates some of the challenges still facing the industry.
• Which should make it clear that, despite what Silicon Valley breathlessly predicts, self-driving cars are not five years away. The challenges to be answered are not technological in nature, but legal, regulatory, ethical, behavioral and more. You know, the human stuff.
• Is the self-driving car un-American? Given that so much of our culture has been car culture, the advent of autonomous vehicles may reframe our view of the self.
• People keep asking: "Where's my flying car?" Fortunately, Airbus has a secret flying car plan called Vahana.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / BOTS / BLOCKCHAIN

• Seen as revolutionary in the world of finance, the blockchain’s software code can let banks, investors and others in the market transfer and record assets and exchange information without an intermediary. 
• There is confusion in the marketplace around AI technology and the terminology used to describe it.
• Microsoft has reached "human parity" with speech recognition technology. This is a significant step forward in AI, as voice-activated systems proliferate. As long as the humans don't mumble.

• Apple hired its first director of AI research, an associate professor of machine learning. He's been trying to get AI to learn from raw data — the Holy Grail of machine learning.
• Google's AI can now learn from its own memory independently by combining external memory with neural networks.
• IBM is betting on Watson and its putting a great amount of resources into it, as the company determines how to build a business around AI.
• Three brands discover some very human lessons from chatbots with customers — namely, seamless interactions make for happier and more engaged users who want to keep coming back.
• The U.S. government wants to weaponize artificial intelligence. Why not? They've already weaponized the ever-oxymoronic military intelligence.

 

Virtual Reality / Audio

VR/AR

• USA Today Network has a new weekly program called VRtually There, the first-ever branded news experience, exclusively in partnership with YouTube and Toyota.
• The NBA will broadcast more than 25 games in VR this season. At least one game a week will be in virtual reality as part of a new, multi-year partnership between NBA Digital and VR production company NextVR. My jump shot will still suck in VR.
• Even though Apple is seen by many as the leader in technology, CEO Tim Cook is more bullish on augmented reality (AR) and says "there's no substitution for human contact." Tell that to my 13 year-old.

AUDIO

• NPR is expanding and restructuring Story Lab — a multi-part initiative that includes teams from programming, NPR’s internal News Lab, NPR Training, and the listening app NPR One — in order to build up its next generation of shows and podcasts.
• A new app Bumpers aims to allow anyone to create podcasts directly from their phone.
• Here's a look at how the biggest players in podcasting are monetising the platform. 
• EarPrint headphones will provide a custom audio experience for you and you'll realize just how poor your hearing actually is.
• Program of the Week. This week, we take our recommendation from Esquire, who have the 25 essential pocasts for 2016. 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

• The game of content marketing is changing, and you're about to see a ton of trends lists published soon — but this isn't your typical trends article. It's the most meaningful content marketing trends and how they'll influence 2017, Part 1 and Part 2.
• We talk a lot about influence, but what is the true goal of influencing? Persuading. This stellar discussion on The Marketing Companion gets to the heart of the difference and how it is done.
• You know who your content is appropriate for? Forget Millennials. Your target is Perennials. Yeah - in other words, people.

Privacy / Security / Legal

• Early Friday morning, major Internet portals such as Twitter, Reddit, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon and others were taken down by a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS). The attack came in three waves, but caught many companies unaware, as it became clear that someone is learning how to take down the Internet.
• That someone is still unknown, but their methodology was eventually discovered: millions —perhaps as many as 10 million — Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as cameras, DVRs, and the like, were compromised. Given the adoption of such devices, this could just be beginning of a bleak future.
• Dyn, the company that sustained the attack on its DNS servers, gave a statement indicating that this was "a sophisticated, highly distributed attack involving 10s of millions of IP addresses...across multiple attack vectors and internet locations." Essentially, because the devices still contained their factory passwords, it was fairly simple for the hackers to set off this attack. The lesson: change the passwords on all of your connected devices.
• Americans increasingly appreciate and understand the danger of being hacked, but few are doing anything to prevent it.
• Some of the information we're getting from Wikileaks were from John Podesta and Colin Powell's Gmail accounts were hacked, and it was with their unwitting help. Don't shake your head like that; it could happen to you. Would you click on these fake Gmail alerts?

Measurement / Metrics / Data

• The science of headline writing determines whether A/B testing actually works. It can also be applied to email subject lines.
• Mix up your metrics with these offbeat alternatives. 

Essential Watching / Listening / Reading

• President Obama has a to-do list for Silicon Valley. Among the items are tackling inequality, strengthening cybersecurity, and ensuring that AI helps (not hurts) us. And a flying car.
• GM has a to-do list for Silicon Valley: move to Detroit. By reinventing its culture, the old-line automaker hopes to attract those looking to shake things up, rather than conquer them. You know what they say: if you can't beat them, get them to join you.
• New York is really a microcosm of the world. BuzzFeed proves it with How to Walk Around the World Without Leaving New York City.
• Maria Popova brings us 10 learnings from a decade of writing Brain Pickings. Here are the ten, but click through to read her insightful comments and to learn from the many links she provides to great minds of literature, philosophy and more.

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.
2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone.
3. Be generous.
4. Build pockets of stillness into your life.
5. When people tell you who they are, believe them; when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them.
6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.
7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.”
8. Seek out what magnifies your spirit.
9. Don’t be afraid to be an idealist.
10. Don’t just resist cynicism — fight it actively.

•  And we close with 11 of literature's best closing lines.

---

Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to have trends on digital communications, marketing, technology and business delivered to your inbox each Monday. Between this and the podcast, it's a lot of work. And it's not a team sport, either. If you join us as a patron, it will show how much you value this kind of content.


I speak to groups and advise brands and agencies to help them embrace the fundamentals of human communication in the digital age. You can join these other top-notch clients by reaching out if you'd like to put my experience to work.

--

Episode 15: A Trust PSA and Stop Your Internal Fighting

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1200.0"] By Sabine's Sunbird (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

When you're trying to change hearts and minds, is it an immutable concept that you should also be honest with people? How far can the envelope be pushed in pursuit of a public service?

Who owns social, content, and customer relationships? Does it matter? Should it? 

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4768781/height/90/width/600/theme/custom/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/no-cache/true/render-playlist/no/custom-color/2fa1df/

 

Links

Be sure to check out other major stories from the October 24th edition of the newsletter:

• Global spending on newspaper advertising is expected to drop by 8.7% in 2016, and publishers are cutting costs and restructuring. It's particularly troublesome, given that the overall global ad market is expected to grow 4% this year to $529.1 billion, with a 14% acceleration in digital-ad spending. 
• Advertising on Facebook is always changing. Check out the five major shifts in Facebook advertising that all marketers should know about.
• Is the self-driving car un-American? Given that so much of our culture has been car culture, the advent of autonomous vehicles may reframe our view of the self.

Credits

Theme song: "The Liberty Bell," by John Philip Sousa, performed by the United States Marine Band and shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Incidental music: "One More Stripper" by APAMusic, royalty-free license from Pond5.com.

Voice over: Toni Deckers

Subscribe on iTunes - and leave us a review. Also on Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or SoundCloud.

We'd appreciate your support on Patreon.

 

 

 

The Full Monty — October 17, 2016

Changes in the publishing world, from shorter stories to ecommerce; it's crisis time for Samsung and Wells Fargo — both are raging fires in more ways than one; Twitter is now without a suitor; Facebook goes to work; Google shows Facebook how to do news; Yahoo may be without a suitor soon as well; email is growing in importance; Uber undercuts the subway and harasses Latin American drivers with drones; President Obama on the future of AI; VR -gimmick or soon to be ubiquitous?; dueling audio streaming services; Silicon Valley's (non)impact on the American worker; the Bone Zone; Blue Light Special on Archive.org and more in this week's edition of The Full Monty. Get trivia and the poem of the week exclusively on The Full Monty podcast.

Virtually everything you need in business intelligence. If you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links — and those that didn't make the cut for publication — by subscribing to The Full Monty Magazine at smonty.co/fullmontymag. And don't forget to subscribe to the email update here.

Upcoming Speaking Gigs

• I'll be in Boston for Marketing Profs B2B Forum October 19-20. Want to meet up? Let me know.
• Interested in having me speak at your event? Please check out my speaking page and get in touch.

Industry

• The Wall Street Journal is reorganizing its newsroom as it aims to reach 3 million digital subscribers. The result will be shorter, snappier and more creative stories.
• CNN launched a personalized business news app, CNN MoneyStream, which allows users to follow their favorite companies, topics, and CEOs as they would follow sports stars. Personalized news is poised to become a big thing in the near future. No two users' news home pages will be the same.
• Similarly, many companies still need to adapt to the deep connection their customers and employees have with their mobile devices. The smartphone is qualitatively different than a tablet. It provides freedom from the form. It enables a new approach to human–device interaction: an approach that doesn’t mimic an individual sitting at a desk with a piece of paper, doing a task.
• Chief communications officers say that digital communications and employee engagement are among their top priorities. Also of importance: cyber security and shareholder activism.
• BuzzFeed introduced a shop as part of its ecommerce strategy. This is one way that publishers are diversifying in order to normalize their revenue streams. Think research, events and more.
• I joined Newsmodo to discuss the collision of journalism and branded content. Would love to hear what you think.
• This week in crisis:
  
  • Samsung got one of the worst pieces of news that a brand can get: the US Department of Transportation banned any Samsung Galaxy Note7 phones from being brought on board planes, powered on or off.
  • Wells Fargo's embattled CEO John Stumpf stepped down after its months-long soap opera of pushing unnecessary accounts on unsuspecting customers. It's a textbook case of crisis mis-management and could have been handled much better in order to protect its reputation. It's also one of the topics of this week's Full Monty podcast.

• Here's the definitive cord-cutting guide, based on your viewing habits.
• Flipboard announced Storyboard for brand storytelling. It's much more fluid and lighter than creating an entire magazine, and it allows users to share an in-depth narrative by stitching together formats such as video, articles, images, gifs and sound. In this way, it's much more similar to and even expands beyond Facebook's Carousel ads. Disclosure: I'm what Flipboard calls a "super user" and I paid a visit to Flipboard's HQ last week. Please check out my magazines on Flipboard.
• We still need to be careful about how we're messaging people, whether it's in ads, over email or via text.
• Email is evolving and time spent with it is growing, according to Adobe's Email Survey 2016.
• According to consumers, they still prefer being contacted by email and Millennials in particular spend the most time with it.
• Most Millennials have installed ad blockers and 14% have them installed on mobile and desktop devices.

---

SPONSOR

Get the scoop on what 500 marketers (budgets up to $10 million) believe and how those beliefs influence their behaviors when it comes to hiring and firing agencies just like yours.

Download this FREE 16 page report, full of information, insight and guidance on how to best approach prospects based on the findings.

Some of the results are going to really surprise you.

---

 

Platforms

TWITTER / PERISCOPE / VINE

• As indicated last week, Salesforce has officially ended its bid for Twitter. Twitter now has no major bidders left. And the cheese stands alone.
• Twitter is now at a major inflection point. "On the one hand, [you have] the market's lack of faith in Twitter and, on the other, Twitter users' profound engagement with the service. [That] is really at the heart of what's happened to the company in recent years." This commentator's opinion? Twitter should go private.
• Twitter's woes signal the end of the social wars. Although smartphones and social media remain as important as ever, the war to control those platforms are over. The future is virtual reality, hardware, video and artificial intelligence.
• Twitter will not host Flight, its annual developer conference this year, instead focusing on smaller regional events.
• Periscope will now allow streaming from professional video devices other than your phone, through Periscope Producer. This is in a bid to woo more professional videographers to the service.

FACEBOOK / INSTRAGRAM / WHATSAPP

• You can now stream Facebook videos on Chromecast and Apple TV. The merging of digital, streaming and traditional TV is almost complete.
• Bleacher Report will broadcast live high school sports using Facebook Live. Professional sports organizations should pay attention to this. See previous item.
• Workplace (formerly Facebook @ Work) is here and it's set to compete with Yammer, Slack and other existing systems. Since employees are already on Facebook all day, this should be an easy transition, right? RIGHT?!?
• Facebook still has a fake news problem. Since it fired all of its human news editors, it has repeatedly trended fake news stories.
• A fake Instagram account had a noble cause, but is hoodwinking users a good idea?
• Business Insider's team is betting on Instagram Stories over Snapchat.

SNAP

• Snapchat is seeking Hollywood content partners to make original programming for its Discover channel, specifically short-term content, which could include reality-type shows, comedy, animation and prank shows.

ALPHABET / GOOGLE

• Google News is adding 'Fact Check' tags to news items it has indexed, to help particularly with US election-related items. Facebook ought to try this.
• Google is about to divide its index, giving mobile users better and fresher content. Currently, Google has a single index of documents for search. They plan on releasing a separate mobile search index, which will become the primary one.

A new AI-driven update for Google Photos will turn your photos the right way, create animations out of a string of similar photos, help you rediscover old memories, and highlights of your best photos.

YAHOO

• Verizon indicated that Yahoo's massive data breach may constitute a material development, meaning the entire deal may be on hold.

Collaborative/ Autonomous Economy

LODGING

• Airbnb is providing landlords a financial incentive if they'll let their tenants rent out units to travelers. The arrangement would give landlords additional revenue, but most landlords have been reluctant to get on board with it.
• If you're an Airbnb host, there's some additional revenue in the works for you too. According to the company, when you provide your guests with a hair dryer, you'll see $10 more a night on average.

TRANSPORTATION

• Uber and Gilt are selling passes for unlimited use of uberPOOL in New York City, undercutting the competition. uberPOOL is now cheaper than taking the subway. Sounds responsible.
•  Uber is using drones to advertise to drivers stuck in traffic. It's only a matter of time before some frustrated driver shoots one down.
• If the drone routine works, Uber's next conquest may be Latin America.
• GM's ride-sharing service Maven hit the streets of San Francisco. The ZipCar / Getaround competitor hopes to make a splash with the tech crowd.
• It's Uber, but for pitching investors inside an Uber. Hail an uberPOOL in a three-hour window in New York and you may have a chance to pitch your idea to a venture capitalist inside. Bonus if it's for another Uber-for-X idea. It's the Russian nesting doll of venture capital.

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

• Germany orders Tesla to remove 'Autopilot' from its advertising, claiming that it is misleading.

AI / BOTS / BLOCKCHAIN

• Interview with Barack Obama and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito on AI and its impact on society, medical research, self-driving cars, and more. President Obama is a special guest editor for the November issue of Wired.
• Google wants to make its Assistant more human, so they're hiring comedy writers.
• X.ai launched a pro version of its AI scheduling service for $39 a month.

Virtual Reality / Audio

VR / AR

• Is VR just an overpriced gimmick, and nothing more? One columnist thinks so.
• Not if you're Sony. The latest PlayStation with VR has sold "many hundreds of thousands" of units.
• VR may have started with gaming, but it's destined for virtually every other industry.

AUDIO

• Amazon Music Unlimited launched. It's like a streaming music version of Prime. Look out, Spotify and Pandora.
• Pandora responded with Pandora Plus, an ad-free option as the middle tier of its three-tier system.
• This American Life introduced Shortcut, a tool to make sharing audio easier. This could not only transform the way audio is shared, but how it is discovered as well.
• Marketers are looking to amp up their digital audio spending. US marketing and media professionals will allocate an average of 11.6% of their ad budget and inventory to digital audio placements by mid-2017.
• Program of the Week. This week, our recommendation is not a program, but a network. It's Macmillan Publishing's Quick and Dirty Tips network, which began with Grammar Girl. 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

• In the rush to acquire new customers, we seem to have forgotten about the lost art of customer retention.
• Retailers instinctively know they're losing to ecommerce competitors, but don't know what to do about it.
• Related: Amazon is expanding its grocery business with convenience stores and curbside pickup locations.
• You may not realize it, but your entire Internet experience is being manipulated with the clever use of colors.
• What are marketing leaders focused on? Influencer marketing and employee advocacy programs. The Gartner report also notes that investment in social engagement and social customer service technology is on the upswing, with two-thirds planning to increase their investments in the coming year.

Privacy / Security / Legal

• The federal government warns of DDoS attacks that may be coming via cellular gateways. Some of the infected devices power automotive and industrial equipment.
• A Chicago disability rights group is suing Uber over wheelchair access.
• Another setback for Uber as two drivers were just granted unemployment benefits. 

Measurement / Metrics / Data

• It's not just Facebook; advertisers have issues with ad measurement systems from other platforms such as Snapchat, Twitter and Pinterest.
• As more publishers expand to new audiences around the world, here’s how they can find and activate on trending stories to build regional newsrooms.
• Big data will modernize your crisis communications plan. But only if you let it.
• Analytics cost Ted Williams a good 15 points on his batting average. And baseball is reviving the practice.

Essential Watching / Listening / Reading

• Too many distractions and not enough jobs. Is Silicon Valley bad for the American worker? Certainly not the Facebook @ Worker.
• Thought and cognition are not the same, and perfectly illustrate the difference between art and science.
• Management guru Peter Drucker seems to have been a visionary, as his writing is still fresh. How did he do it? In his own view, he was a historical writer who used education, culture, art, music, and historical consciousness in his approach. Or, as Shakespeare wrote, "What's past is prologue."
• The modern bookstore got its origin in London in the late 18th century; this is the story of how it happened.
• The latest Internet meme sprouted out of the second presidential debate, as Ken Bone was introduced to the world. He quickly got an Uber deal and became an instant celebrity before we found out too much about him in his Reddit AMA.
• So the question remains: where do you go when the Internet finds you embarrassing?
• Someone just uploaded their complete collection of Kmart in-store background music to Archive.org.

---

Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to have trends on digital communications, marketing, technology and business delivered to your inbox each Monday. Between this and the podcast, it's a lot of work. And it's not a team sport, either. If you join us as a patron, it will show how much you value this kind of content.


I speak to groups and advise brands and agencies to help them embrace the fundamentals of human communication in the digital age. You can join these other top-notch clients by reaching out if you'd like to put my experience to work.

--