Digital Influence Mapping Project

We Are All Fashion Designers Now!

I love women's fashion. No, not in that weird, creepy way. I love the imagination and the style applied to a look. I have always known women with style who could put a look together beyond what a card-carrying fashion designer might do for the masses. Individual fashion. I gave my daughter (11)  a book on Japanese Street Fashion - harajuku - because she was intrigued by the extreme styles and drama of the looks. She puts her own looks together (no, that is not a picture of her)

Now there are two resources - one online and one in Beverly Hills - that tap into the personal stylist in all of us.

The social network for street style
"Street" is probably the wrong word. Personal Style is probably a better phrase overall but still we are talking about everyday fashion made for and by the people. I love Chictopia. The name comes from "chic" not "chick" so, don't worry.

Helen Zhu and her cofounders have established a social network grounded in people sharing their looks for themselves and getting ideas from the community. you can dive deep into the forums but the real action is in the photographs and the voting. This simplicity is the core of its beauty. In a time when we all belong to too many social networks, a simple structure that builds on teh one affinity - personal fashion - that brings members together is better than all the bells and whistles in the world.

Did I mention Hot Deals! Chictopia has a great business model that goes beyond targeted display advertising into deal sponsorships. If I were a retailer serving young women, i would be all over this community. (Sure, they don't have real "reach" yet, but I love this idea so much I knwo they will get there).

Fashion DIY in Beverly Hills
FashionologyLA recently launched (thanks Springwise) a new store catering to young girls who want a distinctive look at the touch of a few buttons. It's co-creation at the retail storefront. Here's how Springwise described the store experience (designed by: BigBuddhaBaba )

"Using touch-screen Design Pads, they begin by selecting what type of garment they'd like to create, choosing from an assortment of tops, bottoms and dresses. From there they select a fashion "mood" onscreen—themes include Juku, Pop, Rock, Malibu and Peace, all of which include a colourful array of graphic images. They then pick embellishments for their garments, choosing from options including Sew It, Clip It, Bling It and Pin It. Once a girl completes her design, she proceeds to the U-Bar, where a friendly Fashionologist uses a heat press to add the key design element to her new look and gives her a tray of embellishments to take to the customized Make It table. "

I am going to LA in a few weeks and hope to stop into the store to get some pics. For teh tween who wants a distinctive look - something that defines her - this could be a great choice. The looks have to be "ownable."   It cannot just be the difference between a glitter butterfly vs. an applique puppy. I serached Flickr and came up empty. But that is what they need - a gallery of customers proud in their looks (tough when your customers are so young and online privacy is a concern). Can they create a Chictopia-lite community? Will they offer looks as dramatic as the streets fo Japan? Whil ethe seocnd isn't likely, i hope they figure out the online gallery. Their store begs for user images.

I love how digital is putting the consumer in charge of fashion.

Links for Listening

  I had the great opportunity to speak at the SilverDocs Film Festival today to a roomful of documentary filmmakers. Each is trying to build their brand for their films and for themselves. Our session was called "Brand You" which tells you a lot of what we were trying to accomplish.

Amy Eisman and David Johnson from American University were on my panel. Great ideas. The territory we covered can be summarized by:

• Social: go deep in social media to truly engage people - ZeFrank, EpicFu, Neil Gaiman, CutLab
• Search: do everything to command right serach results from site design to social and more
• Site Design: usability and social features matter

To offer filmmakers some valuable research and listening resources we use everyday, I am publishing a list that our crack 360 Digital Influence  team has put together:

BLOG & MICROBLOGGING SEARCH ENGINES
Tool	URL	Tips
TECHNORATI Search	http://s.technorati.com	This is technorati's new search interface. You can use it to find top blogs based upon inbound links only.
TECHNORATI Advanced	http://www.technorati.com/search?advanced	The advanced search page allows you to search for blogs (rather than posts) based on tags.
GOOGLE BLOGS	http://blogsearch.google.com	Search Google's index of blog posts. The advanced search tab allows you to search based on additional criteria.
TWEET CLOUD	http://tweetscan.com/	Search public tweets for keywords and phrases.
TRENDPEDIA	http://www.trendpedia.com/	Create charts showing the volume of discussion around multiple topics. Generates cool graphs.
BLOG PULSE	http://www.blogpulse.com	Search for blog posts by keyword. Developed by Nielsen BuzzMetrics.
ICEROCKET	http://www.icerocket.com/index	Another blog search engine. You can also search MySpace content.
BLOGSCOPE	http://www.blogscope.net	Search 24 million blogs. Has several great features, including volume charting, related terms and geographical search.
BUZZ CHARTING
Tool	URL	Tips
BLOGPULSE TRENDS	http://blogpulse.com/trend	Compare the mentions of specific keywords and phrases in blog posts (GMAT vs. LSAT)
OMGILI CHARTS	http://buzz.omgili.com/graphs.html	Omgili Buzz Graphs let you measure and compare the Buzz of any term. Mostly from review sites/forums.
MULTIMEDIA SEARCH
Tool	URL	Tips
YOUTUBE	http://www.youtube.com	Search for videos and channels by keyword.
METACAFE	http://www.metacafe.com	High-traffic video search engine.
FLICKR	http://flickr.com/search/advanced	Search Flickr for photos, groups or people/users.
VIRAL VIDEO CHART	http://www.viralvideochart.com	Displays top 20 most-viewed video (1, 7, 365 days). Includes view counts and charting.
TRUVEO	http://www.truveo.com	Aggregate video search engine. Search videos from YouTube, MySpace, and AOL.
BLINKX	http://www.blinkx.com	Blinkx indexes and searches videos, podcasts and video blogs. Searches content of the video.
PICSEARCH	http://www.picsearch.com	Image search engine.
VTAP	http://www.vtap.com	Beta video search engine. Create feeds delivered to mobile devices.
FORUMS & MESSAGE BOARDS
Tool	URL	Tips
BOARD READER	http://www.boardreader.com	Search multiple message boards and forums. Sources are sometimes questionable.
BOARD TRACKER	http://www.boardtracker.com	Searches more than 37,000 message boards and forums. Similar to board reader.
OMGILI	http://www.omgili.com	Vertical search engine that focuses on "many to many" review platforms, such as, forums, discussion groups, answer boards and others.
GOOGLE GROUPS	http://groups.google.com	Searches usenet groups.
YAHOO! GROUPS	http://groups.yahoo.com	Searches all Yahoo! Groups.
INBOUND LINKS
Tool	URL	Tips
TECHNORATI	http://www.technorati.com	Enter in the URL to see how many POSTS link to a site/Web page.
GOOGLE ADVANCED	http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en	Use this search to find out what Web pages link to a site/pag - this includes both blogs and traditional sites.
KARTOO	http://www.kartoo.com/flash04.php3	Visual display for inbound links.
SOCIAL METER	http://www.socialmeter.com	Counts inbound links from several sources.
WEB SITE TRAFFIC
Tool	URL	Tips
COMPETE	http://www.compete.com	Estimates only of monthly visitor data. Best used on large high-traffic Web sites.
QUANTCAST	http://www.quantcast.com	Estimates only of monthly visitor data. Allows you to compare multiple Web sites in one chart. Best used on large high-traffic Web sites.
ALEXA	http://www.alexa.com	Comparative traffic graphs. Includes estimated reach, rank and page views.
BLOGFLUX PAGE RANK	http://pr.blogflux.com/index2.php	Tells you Google Page Rank for a web page. Best to use to compare top sites.
SEARCH DATA
Tool	URL	Tips
GOOGLE TRENDS	http://trends.google.com	Allows you to search trends and see search volume by country and region.
WORDTRACKER	http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com	Enter a keyword or phrase and will display average daily search volume.
YAHOO KEYWORD TOOL	http://inventory.overture.com	Displays previous month's search volumes for specific keywords and phrases.
FACEBOOK LEXICON	http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/	Displays volume of wall postings for specific term(s).  Similar to Google Trends.  Not great with obscure terms.
GOOGLE KEYWD TOOL	https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal	Get ideas for related keywords and search volumes.

Digizine Redux: Rich Personalized Content

Online magazines are an anachronism. I remember when Launch was a CD-ROM "digizine." In fact, we did one of the first interactive advertisiments for Sony which still seems pretty cool. But the whole digizine concept seemed to me to have nowhere to go in teh age of blogs et al.

  Then came Idio.

Luv it. Typed in the bands I listen to most starting with Nick Cave and Social Distortion. And in a few moments I had a custom, daily digizine with text and motion media "published" and ready for a read. The interface has that chunky Web 2.0 simplicity which I love so well. And if I am not into the whole magazine metaphor, I can subscribe via RSS.

Some of the magic is in the format. Some in the simple promise of content that like my Pandora account will focus on artists I like and those that are related. If they can pay off on the relation- thing like Pandora does, then this will be spectacular. 

Now the challenge is that I have yet to recieve  an update (requested one week updates). I am going to chalk that off to beta-status.

No matter how "elegant" can a content service that must go beyond RSS delivery to pay-off on its value?

Did Radiohead Succeed with "In Rainbows"?

There has been a lot of speculation about whether Radiohead's release of their last "album" on a pay-what-you-want basis worked out. Only 40% of users paid for it. Did they stumble trying to sidestep the tradiitonal channels?

This month's Wired has an interview between Thom Yorke and David Byrne (looking oh so wizened).

"Q: Are you making money on the download of In Rainbows?

A: In terms of digital income, we've made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever - in terms of anything on the Net. And that's nuts. It's partly due to the fact that EMI wasn't giving us any money for digital sales. All teh contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff."

When Two Worlds Collide: Gaming and the Kennedy Center

So, we stood in line with a bunch of geeks (like ourselves). The anticipation grew. There was a circus-like atmosphere as we all participated in the launch of something special.

No, not the iPhone release. This was Video Games Live at the Kennedy Center on Friday night. Sold out for two nights. What a phenomenal experience. The Washington Symphony playing the music of Metal Gear Solid, Worlds of Warcraft and God of War while the fully rendered graphics of each projected onscreen. We were up very close. I watched the cello players and violinists look out at the hooting crowd with some mix of fear and distaste. That sens of 'we took over the Kennedy Center' was throughout the crowd. That crowd was dominated by geeks of all ages and families like ourselves who could all totally get this. My wife, who is not a gamer but is a comic book geek and action movie afficionado, said, "I don't even like playing video games but I feel like I am with my tribe."

Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall run the show. They are veterans of the business and their enthusiasm comes through. They are geeks, too. They featured the pianist Martin Leung who has many accomplishments not the least of which is a video of him playing Super Mario Bros. music on the piano - a video that has seen 40m downloads! (actually, I couldn't find that video but the guy has plenty on YouTube).

A great tribal experience. Not too slickly produced (even though Wm Morris is the touring agent and we were in Kennedy Center). Hearing the catcalls when Master Chief from Halo appeared on screen made it all worthwhile.

Co-creation: Four-eyed Monsters and Crowdfunding

Engagement can be basic - how much time and how many interactions will a user have with an experience. This simple baseline allows advertisers to try and gauge (can't say measure) how "engaging" an ad is.

That doesn't begin to describe the real promsie of engagement. In the online video world, there have been some terrific engaging experiences. From ZeFrank's The Show, now archived on Blip.tv to havemoneywillvlog, creators are trying new ways to make involving experiences.

Now, the filmmakers behind a 71 minute film, Four-eyed Monsters, are trying to get known, get reimbursed, and prove out a new sponsorship/promotion idea. The film which is available on YouTube and Spout.com begins with the filmmakers displaying the fan of credit cards that funded their film. They tell the viewer that for every sign-up at Spout.com (if you want to sign up, use the link below so the filmmakers get their dough), they will recieve a dollar (up to $100K) to offset their movie debt. I am pre-loading the movie as we speak and only know that it begins on an unassuming suburban ranch house. I can say it looks nicely shot and made. We will know more later, perhaps much later.

I cannot help but want to know the fine print. Are the filmmakers who they say they are? Are they truly at risk financially? How did they hook up with Spout.com?

Arin Crumley and Susan Buice seem to be as real as you and me. (Susan has 3600 "firends" or so at MySpace; Arin, well, his MySpace page won't load so I don't know how many he's got).

So far they have about 5100 Spout.com members to their credit, so $5100. If they go all the way, that would be huge for Spout - 100K new registrants. Of course that is step one in a review service. You also need to promote activity or there isn't any "there" there.

What is Spout.com? Essentially a social network for movie reviews. They have been plugging away since January 2005. And they are pretty well known judging from their Techcrunch and news stories. Rick DeVos is the CEO. Here's how they describe themselves:

"In a nutshell, we were four guys wanting to make movies. We got tired of seeing great films die on the vine at film festivals because the Hollywood model for Marketing and Distribution is broken. Some of the best stories are lost beneath popcorn-seller flicks, but they're out there and people--somewhere, someplace--know about them. So, we thought:

If we can make it easy for people to share movies they love with others, the big movie/little movie playing field will be level and really meaningful stories will find their audience."

There is a lot of user-inclusion in their service. I can become a Spout tester (get paid!) and they actively solicit feedback on new features. They also offer small rewards like digital swag where I can download widget-like apps and tag cloud screensavers.

There are a lot of opinion sites out there. Movies is a solid genre to pull enthusiasts together in this social network-like model. The great thing is that Spout is very open. They facilitate pulling Spout into MySpace and other SNSs and are not trying to build a walled garden.

If you join, go to www.spout.com/foureyedmonsters so the filmmakers get the bucks. Could a bigger brand ever do this? A Netflix? A studio? A consumer product like Coke that tries periodically to endear itself to the creative intelligentsia? Part of the reason this seems to work so well is that Spout is a genuine start-up like the filmmakers, themselves. I wonder if big brands might spoil the experience....

    

Idea Mini Bar #3: Band Tour RSS

This easily falls into the "this must have been done everywhere but I can't find it" category. There are about 6-8 bands that I am sufficiently in love with that I want to see them when they come within 60 miles of DC. I won't tell you them all but just to give you some idea:

• Grinderman (or the Bad Seeds whichever tours US first)
• Social Distortion (yes, they are back on the road and already have some East Coast dates)
• Drive-by Truckers (never seen them but they are supposed to be a great show)
• Thirsty Merc (touring their Australian homeland at the moment)

There are at least four more.

Why can't I just subscribe to their tour RSS feed? Why do I have to check their Web sites every so often to try and catch when new dates appear? I am a fan. Make it easy for me to show up and spread the word.

Anyhow, it's hard to believe that My Space doesn't have the RSS tour feed thing built in. Aren't I on fan email alerts you ask? Yes and no. The "yes" - I am on some band's email lists but it clutters up my Inbox. My feed reader is the place to be. The "no" - I have been dropped by the Social Distortion email list. I know because my wife still gets email but I do not. If it were a RSS feed, I would have known immediately if there was some technical problem.

Could this be done by Tickets.com or Ticketmaster? No. Unfortunately with their ticket pricing practices, these guys are one level below the cable company in terms of credibility, trust and so forth. More and more bands are ticketing outside these 600-lb gorillas, that I would prefer to hear from the band, itself.

Some labels are doing it. Here is the RSS Feed for Sonic Youth. But you don't need Geffen Records to provide an RSS feed.

Hook me up, baby.

Capessa vs. My Space Emmy Category

Two articles in the Wall Street Journal today. One on Capessa, P&G's Yahoo Health center for women:

"Capessa is a gathering place for women looking to change their lives -- from getting fit to finding love, changing careers to dealing with illness -- and to share the wisdom they have learned along the way. Explore the stories below and join the conversation on the Capessa blog"

The other article is about the Emmy's establishing a category: Broadband Emmy (started last year) in partnership with MySpace.

It's About Quality
Here's what's interesting: the Capessa article talks about how they don't want crazy, poorly produced, user-generated video. They will hook up users to be interviewed by their production company. Meanwhile, there are 50,000 filmmakers on MySpace and the Emmy's is going to honor them with an award (for some measure of quality presumably). I would argue that the problem with YouTube, cited as a home for "garbage," is the inability to search and find; a problem that will clearly be remedied by the new ownership. As many vloggers demonstrate, quality doesn't necessarily come with old-school, expensive production values.

I appreciate that Capessa is making a choice that will reflect on the brand. But "quality" can be defined by authenticity (yes, there's that word again) as much as production value.    

AniBOOM Animation Aggregation

Via Techcrunch: Aniboom - a great short animation aggregator officially launches. Not everything should be hosted by YouTube and animation enthusiasts like me will prefer to find talent through specialty sites like Aniboom. (This may change once Google integrates serious serach and browse functionality into the YouTube universe. The Web is incresingly becoming a great platform to connect talent like these animators, with their fans. It is just another example of Chris Anderson's Long Tail at work.

Even if you don't dig/Digg animation - check out the clip above.

Engagement by McCracken

One of the most interesting "discussions" is happening on Pete Blackshaw's (and team) Engagement by Engagement blog. Essentially the blog is collecting POVs on the idea of "engagement" which despite those who dismiss this discussion as 'hooey' is really all about creating a deeper, more meaningful experience for people (and ultimately a greater business and/or brand impact.)

That's where I got hooked on Hugh McCracken. His blog, This Blog Sits At The Intersection of Anthropology and Economics does just that and has a great POV on branding.

His post on his recent participation at the Advertising Research Foundation is very compelling. He, very politely I will add, takes issue with Gerald Zaltman, HBS professor, and his POV on human universals vs. cultural impact. As Hugh puts it:

"I am obliged to say that Gerry is making unsound assumptions.  He believes that culture and cultures don't matter.  In How the Customer Thinks, he speaks blithely of "human universals" and the "myth of diversity."

Here's the thing: If cultural diversity doesn't matter, marketing doesn't matter.  Is this not precisely what we do: account for the ways in which one group of consumers is different from another group of consumers?  Segmentation, I believe we call it. Changes in consumer trends?  Isn't this what we do?  Aren't we always looking for not the state of human universals, but the changes in culture that have changed our consumers?  What matters for marketing purposes, is always human specifics, not human universals." (my bold)

At Ogilvy, we learn an approach called "360° Brand Stewardship." This is a very solid approach to defining and expressing brands an is typified by a diagram we all call "the butterfly." The left edge of the butterfly portrays how we discover insight upon which to build an impactful campaign. Simply put, we do research in three categories to find the "business context," "consumer context," and the "cultural context".

To Hugh's point, I believe strongly in how culture distinguishes groups of people. And understanding and addressing these cultural differences is certainly fundamental to the success of marketing and communicating (a POV that I am guessing Gerald Zaltman would contest). If for nothing else, it informs channel selection and tactics.

What I disagree with is the statement in bold. Human universals matter a lot in marketing. I believe we are seeing the emergence (re-emergence) of the use of the "big idea" globally in a campaign that somehow adresses a human universal to be relevant in different cultures. That doesn't mean that it is always expressed uniformly but the essence of the idea has wide relevancy.

Focusing on what is common amongst all of us is just as important as respecting the differences introduced by culture. Ultimately, these are two smart guys whose line of inquiry is fascinating.