Random Spew

Wanted to wrap up this blog with some loose bits that have been sloshing around but not quite made it out yet. Sufficiently nauseated? Let's begin:

1) The concept of "friend" is becoming more hazy. Friends used to a group of people like us. (That or a crappy ensemble comedy). When digital culture appropriated the term "friend" it made the whole idea muddy. Our social graph differs widely even between social networks. A keynote speaker broke down the new concept of "friend" into six new categories (from least to most intimate. Meow!)

Address Book Friend

Twitter Friend

Facebook Friend

SMS Friend

Phone Call Friend

Calendar Friend

2)  Something goes viral because it is perceived as a means of  identity creation for the individual. We don't share things out of a general sense of agape. Something gets forwarded because the person sending it views it as a building block of their desired identity. 

3) A good title and thumbnail matter hugely for viralbility. 

4) Marketers misfire with branded entertainment because they are used to purchasing cultural relevance in the offline world. That's how a traditional ad functions. An advertiser crafts the message then buys the necessary impressions to persuade. In the online world it works differently. Content providers like "The Onion" are surprisingly eager to work with advertisers. But they are dead-set against becoming a whore-ish bullhorn for the advertiser. A sense of honesty as well as an alignment between brand-story and entertainment-story are the price of successful entry here.

5) Some geographies are better suited for institutional upheaval. New York is a city defined and monetized by institutions. San Francisco is defined and monetized by individual accomplishment (one guy. one idea. one computer.) This would seem to give San Francisco the edge in current economic times. And lay out a challenge to New York to define itself beyond the hallowed, travertine lobby concerns that have typified us for centuries.

6) Some information wants to be free. Some information wants to be very expensive. This is a loose paraphrase of futurist Stewart Brand. It describes the market forces surrounding information technology and is typical of the debate on how and when to charge money for usage. It calls into question the very definition of "free".  With so many open source codes emerging for free, why pay anything? Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems answered that question somewhat famously when he scoffed that open source is "free like a puppy is  free." The acquisition cost may be nothing. You grab the puppy and leave. But the subsequent costs can be enormous. The parallels to advertising seem many. Consider online services like openpitch.com (a site that links marketers with anybody who is willing to ante up ideas for no charge). Or the doomsday scenario offered by ad pundits where marketers simply crowdsource ad creation. The real question isn't the ad agency fee. But rather the cost of handing your brand over to the uneducated and unaccountable. Then again, maybe it's not an either/or scenario. Consider China—the word's largest market for pirated luxury brands and real luxury brands. Maybe, as professional ad creators, we just got bumped up. Maybe we're providers of a vital and rarefied luxury called "knowing what the fuck works". Hopefully.

That's it for this year's tedium. Join me next year for more.