Morpheus Media Mlog » Emerging Technologies

What is “Social Om”?

Stephanie Weingart — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:34:29 +0000

There is an infinite number of Social Networks that people flock to daily. Depending on your fancy, if you live in the U.S., then you might be a regular Facebook user, browse for videos on YouTube, and update your status on Twitter. However, around the world there are people on all different types of Social Networks and if brands restrict themselves to only Facebook and Twitter, they are missing the boat.

The ever-blossoming population of mothers online are engaging and playing on CafeMom and MeetUp.com. Hip young artists and emerging technology kids are often found utilizing Tumblr, iMeem, DeviantART, and searching for their daily videos at VideoSift and Vimeo. There is a Social Network for everyone and anyone. From Disaboom (an online community for people with disabilities) to Mobikade, (a mobile community for people in the U.K.) there are endless possibilities for people to interact with others who share similar interests.

Where do brands fit in to all of these Social Networks? That is where the Social Om ℠ theory comes into play. Om is defined as the whole universe coalesced into a single sound, representing the union of mind, body, and spirit that is at the heart (in this case of a brand). Before jumping into the “chosen” networks, like Facebook and Twitter, brands should consider all networks that might apply to them and their consumer. Being present in all Social Communities that their customers are will improve brand presence and perception control.

Being present on many Social Networks does NOT mean a brand has to contribute to them all. If the brand feels it can communicate best through Facebook, but wants to be present on CafeMom, the CafeMom profile should clearly state that the main community hub is located on Facebook (with a supplied link). A unified presence across all networks should be maintained. This will control the mind, body and spirit of the brand in the eyes of the user in each community. By unifying the brand name, URL, content, tone, and voice across all Social Platforms prior to seeding and maintaining a meaningful level of engagement, the brand’s audience will become accustomed to this presence across the internet.

Evolution of Social Media

Stephanie Weingart — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:34:01 +0000

Social Networks during the years 2001-2003 were platforms where people connected with one and other without targeted advertisements. Blogs were not popular to distribute content, but to use as personal journals. Many people were using Chatrooms to communicate with new people.

From 2004 to 2006, Social Platforms were not as popular as they are today. Facebook was only open to college students with valid .edu email addresses. MySpace was in its prime being used by 15-30 year olds on a regular basis. Twitter was in its infancy and only being used by a select few who were in the Internet (pre 2.0) industry.

From 2007 to 2008, Social Platforms we know and love seemed to improve and expand. Facebook opened to the public and increased engagement levels by offering Applications. MySpace came into its own by specializing in Music. And Social Networks expanded to other countries.

Today, Social Media is whatever the user wants it to be. Accessible by Mobile, Application, or Website, Social Platforms can be updated and used on a frequent basis. Because the speed of Social Media consumptions has rapidly increased, platforms are visible in multiple locations. As the future of Social Media and the value of Social Platforms continues to unfold, we will see many advancements in targeted platforms. Trending in Social Media has defined our culture. What was once a platform that kept us engaged for hours now keeps us notified and up to speed in just a few seconds. To become more beneficial for advertising campaigns, the goal should be to keep users engaged for longer periods of time.

As a Social Media marketer, I believe that expansion of these practices will start to encroach on traditional marketing campaigns, infiltrating subway billboards, and become more prominent on Search Engine result pages.

Cable-Ready Gives Way To Internet-Ready

James Simon — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:54:45 +0000

How many times have you been watching television, something sparks your interest and you want–no–need to find more about that topic immediately (any LOST fan knows exactly what I am talking about)? You grab your laptop and fervently search for more information on what you have just witnessed.

A common trend at this year’s CES was Internet-ready televisions and new vehicles for users to digest Web content. We’ve heard of products and applications such as Apple TV, Roku, Netflix through Xbox 360 amongst many others. This has been the existing way to absorb web content directly through your large format television. Taking this a step further, Yahoo and Intel Corp. are planning on developing television ”widgets” in order to access such Web content more easily through your existing remote, bypassing previously mentioned hardware and using the television exclusively.

“You are going to see very broad adoption of this open technology by the best brands in the TV industry — not just for specialty products but deeply penetrated in their product lines”…..Patrick Barry, VP of Connected TV @ Yahoo

We currently can access services such as YouTube and Google’s Picasa on our televisions as well as generic services like the weather. With the adoption of “Ready- Web” televisions, users will more frequently access Web content alongside their regular, habitual television programming. This opens the opportunity for advertisers to capture audiences outside the 30-second spot and could add a layer of targeting methodology that was not previously possible.

TeamDeserTaxi.com (An Epic)

Eric Herbel — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:58:12 +0000

Just a few moments ago I had the opportunity to meet with an old friend of Morpheus Media, Jimmy Walker. Mr. Walker was here to share his experiences from the 2008 Mongol Rally with us here at the agency. Mr. Walker and company successfully completed a 6 week auto rally from London, England to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia last summer. If the photos are any evidence, this appears to have been the trip of a lifetime for those involved. To say that this trip makes for a great story is an understatement having just been treated to a live narrative of the experience by Mr. Walker.

While the successful completion of this trip is amazing in its own right, what is really impressive is that Mr. Walker and team were able to blog about this experience as it happened. The record of this adventure can be found at TeamDesertaxi.com and is worth a good look. The logistics involved in updating a blog hundreds of miles from civilization and potentially thousands of miles from the nearest mobile network are daunting to say the least.

What makes this trip personally interesting for me is that I had the opportunity to watch the creation of the strategy for this social media extravaganza transpire at the desk next to mine. Morpheus Media’s own SEO & Emerging Technology guru Jeffrey Donenfeld pioneered the program from the comfort of our offices here in Midtown Manhattan. Multiple scenarios had to be planned for, accounting for all possible technology failures and the redundancy needed to remain successful while traveling through some of the most isolated regions of the world. Team Deserttaxi was literally able to successfully blog from Outer Mongolia thanks to Jeffrey’s hard work.

I really wanted to tip my hat to Jeffrey on a job well done, as he is responsible for helping the team tell a great story under uniquely challenging circumstances.

Cloud computing and the rise of the machines

Toby Evers — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:42:52 +0000

But instead of spending time on this post back-tracking and explaining cloud computing in full detail, I think it would be best to go directly into some “what-if” scenarios that are quickly becoming reality. Cloud computing is taking virtualization to new heights in the workplace and on the web, using the relatively small capacities of many to create a computing superpower.

What interests me most is what this will eventually lead to. Analysts are predicting that in a few years, there will be just as much talk about the “world wide grid” as there is today about the world wide web. What is this, you ask? Aggregating small amounts of power, bandwidth and storage space from each of our personal computers, placing them all in one grid structure (much like a bit torrent does for pulling large files) and creating one all-powerful supercomputer, this grid would allow applications to run robust tasks at an amazing and possibly alarming rate.

Think in terms of a beehive. If the hive has 20 extremely effective worker bees, it cannot compete with another containing 2000 less-than-perfect worker bees, all executing simultaneously to build a large structure. The scary part here is that this becomes a hacker’s dream. Hackers can now run decoding applications on a very large scale. Encryption systems have historically stayed ahead of the processing power of the top computers out there, keeping security air-tight (in most cases). The potential to infiltrate a large-scale grid of computers is making hackers everywhere salivate at the thought.

And next, what happens as computers begin to execute small tasks on their own? These computers can connect to the grid and employ the masses to complete other small tasks. Eventually, the computer could use information from other computers in the grid to execute a large-scale operation (which began as a simple task created by a user). And then? Chaos. The machines will utilize their strength in numbers to take over our everyday lives. Seem surreal? Like a movie? Better look closer, as it’s really happening.

Google Analytics Comes To Adobe Flash

Jeffrey Donenfeld — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:32:55 +0000

Google Indexing + Tracking of Adobe Flash objects secures flash’s spot on the web.

Google just announced on the Official Google Blog that they’re working with Adobe to enable developers to add Google Analytics tracking code to Flash objects. This will allow site owners a new, powerful way of tracking not only user views of flash objects, but also user interaction with flash objects. The new tracking code features built in tag support for “click events”. By integrating these click event tags into Flash or Flex objects’ ActionScript, user interactions, including engagement length, can be tracked.

This is especially valuable for media-rich sites, in which a users engagement and value on a site is not necessarily most accurately measured by clicks, but more by engagement length and habits.

This move by Google is yet another show of search and tracking support for flash. Earlier this year Google announced that they were going to be indexing content in flash objects – this indexing has already begun, however the quality of the index is largely dependent on the flash development community implementing best practices for ensuring semantic relevancy and organization of data contained in a flash object.

The combination of flash content indexing – and thus giving flash objects SEO-relevancy, along with flash object analytics tracking – enhancing a flash object’s potential for monetization are two huge factors in ensuring flash has a place in the future, and that the technology continues to grow and be a viable commercial medium on the web.

Now that flash sites are becoming increasingly monetizable assets, I believe support and development will continue to grow. Based on my experience working with clients who are focused heavily on their brand image and website, I know that maintaining the flashy aesthetic of a flash site is important. Sure, a similar feel can be attained with a hybridized XHTML, CSS, Javascript, and Flash site, but for those companies who choose to remain purely flash based, this is great news.

Industry support for these new tracking and indexing initiatives for flash has been strong. Shenan Reed, owner of Morpheus Media (full disclosure: I currently work there as SEO & Emerging Technologies Manager) commented:

“This is very exciting news for some of the luxury brands out there that are very concerned about the image their sites project and maintaining the same smooth, glamorous aesthetic they have in their stores. The previous challenge was that they were building beautiful sites that were un-findable – it would be like building a gorgeous retail location in a dark alley of a major city and not putting a name on the door. Finally they can have their cake and eat it too!” – Shenan Reed

I agree, and look forward to the future of the semantic, trackable, indexable and usable web. In addition to the Morpheus Media Mlog, I also write my own emerging technologies blog, Jeffzilla.com and have posted a summary of this post on it. Here’s Google’s video explaining the basics of the tracking, as well as a real world demonstration, hosted by Brett Crosby, Group Manager Google Analytics, and Matthew McNeely, VP of Engineering at Sprout.

United Airlines, Bloomberg Media, and You

Eric Herbel — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:42:45 +0000

After a week of review and troubleshooting it looks like no one (and everyone) is somewhat responsible for what transpired around the sudden devaluation of United Airlines last week. It appears that a collection of happen stance phenomena conspired to knock the airline down a few billion dollars. Some might even call it karma. While this perfect storm of circumstance aligned to unlock a potentially devastating inadequacy in the way investors come into information, this drastic decline in worth does not seem premeditated.

So even though several people dropped the ball (the Sun-Sentinel, Bloomberg, and even United themselves) the fact that this financial mess occurred is only an unlucky coincidence. However, what this occurrence does bring up is the potential for a planned misinformation campaign aimed at creating a position of positive arbitrage in order to achieve a corporate takeover. The likelihood of this occurring directly following this past event is unlikely, however the market has a short memory. In addition with the collapse of Lehman Brothers earlier this week, and the bailout of AIG imminent, market volatility is creating a caustic brew that has everyone a little edgy.

While there appears to be no immediate fix to keep the engines from propagating bad intel, I believe the short-term fix is a strong mixed media presence. If any company is concerned of how the market currently perceives their bottom line, a social media presence can help bring truth to value. If bad information is being spilled then think of how rapid a response a Twitter message (tweet) or blog post on the companies website can be produced to refute. This can occur almost instantaneously and in real time. If United even got wind of this report last week and had an active social media presence, reassurances could have been issued in a much quicker manner than it takes the general media to pick up and cover the story.

As we accelerate into web 3.0 it is critical for organizations of every size and shape to be willing to connect directly with the community. As of right now this is most easily done through social channels. So as the markets continue to readjust themselves make sure you have a strong conversation occurring with those who are invested in your success.

Chinese Fake Olympic Fireworks

Peter Gray — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:04:55 +0000

In our modern age, we find that telling truth from fiction is becoming increasingly harder and the opening ceremonies at the Olympics this year, being held in Beijing, China was subject to just a controversy. The broadcast of the opening ceremonies was praised by many broadcasters to be simply amazing. In recent weeks news has come forward that the actual ceremony and the broadcasted ceremony was two different performances. Part of the fireworks display had been prerecorded and on top of that was digitally enhanced. Though the Chinese government has stated that it was due to weather issues, they shot fireworks off days before the actual ceremony to make sure the fireworks would be seen appropriately for the actual broadcast. A spokesperson for the company that digitally enhanced the fireworks stated that many people couldn’t tell the difference, between what was digitally done and what was not. I admit the performance was amazing. Yet, if this story had not been reported, the general public and I may not have ever known that what we had seen was not real. Granted the repercussions of this deception are minimal, and considering the legacy of fireworks in China, goodness knows they have a reputation to uphold. The trouble is these are simple manipulations of the truth in images that the public perceives. The moral nonchalance of the conscious exploitation of perception in humans is startling to say the least. Or perhaps it’s the technological simplicity that is bothersome.

Doctoring images is as old as the images themselves. There’s a famous photograph of Abraham Lincoln standing stoically with an American flag in the background that is prevalent in US history books. However such knowledge is revealed that Lincoln’s head was placed onto a picture of a congressman, determined partly because the technology of photography was incapable of producing the picture at the time. This shows us that traditional film isn’t perfect either, but today it is easier to manipulate with digital “film”. With the ubiquity of digital photo enhancing technologies around the world and the accessibility of these technologies that the internet provides, can we even trust any digital image? Should we trust digital images?
Iran, it was recently reported, digitally altered images showing the launching of long-range missiles to add an additional missile to the launch. They digitally duplicated one of the three missiles launched to show a fourth. The affect of showing four rather than three is probably negligible, but the use of digital doctoring from beyond entertainment purposes is alarming.

Iran showing the missile launching is moved to both bolster nationalism at home and to be threatening abroad. The decision shows the willingness of a government to alter images which may provoke a war is alarming. What’s left then for a media-savvy, internet addicted, image inundated public? There’s no indication to believe that the number of “authentic” pictures will increase. The Supreme Court has not yet placed legality and limitations on media organizations to use these photos. It seems left to the public to decide the capacity for truth that photos do indeed hold. This places a stronger code of ethics onto the individual photographer whether they believe they are representing historical truth or they are portraying an opinion. So the next time you see a photo on the news look a little closer and you decide if it is depicting truth or trying to deceive your perception.

Facelift: Facebook gets a new look

Amanda DeVincentis — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:02:10 +0000

Just sixteen months after Facebook launched it’s application platform, the social network released a site redesign Monday July 21st. The new design, which can be viewed by going to www.new.facebook.com, features a cleaner look that fades away the previous more boxy layout and now pushes “The Wall” to the forefront with a Twitter-esque status update box. Facebook is focusing more on user ability and making it easier and faster for users update and generate more content.

On Monday, the company unveiled the simpler site design inviting users to try out the improved features, while still allowing them to revert to the current version. Since the beginning of the year Facebook has been developing the new design, and over 100,000 users have offered feedback and suggestions on the project. The new design is limited to begin with, but will be available to all of the 80 million plus Facebook users in the next few days.

The new profile design features tabs, “The Wall” tab being the default. “The Wall” is now incorporated with the newsfeed. The new design takes advantage of the ability to split up different types of information with simpler navigation. There are also “Info”, “Photos” and “Boxes” tabs, as well as the ability for users to add own custom application tabs. It seems, however, that the new layout may not mesh well with some of the 24,000 existing platform applications that have been launched in the last year.

Today the fate of those existing applications may change as Facebook is holding it’s second annual f8 developers conference. Topics include introducing the new Facebook profile, user experience with applications, advanced application building, mobile, and marketing applications on Facebook. While many rumors have been swirling, some definite news came early. It’s sure that we will see the Facebook payments platform in one form or another. Facebook wants to find a way beyond advertising to help developers make money for their applications, and the iPhone App Store proves people are willing to pay for quality applications. It is also known that Facebook will launch Facebook Connect, allowing third party services to authenticate Facebook users and merge profile data, with Digg as their launch partner.

It has also been speculated that Facebook will also announce a tier system for applications. Each tier will have different rules for user engagement. Top trusted applications that have proven themselves to have as good or better user experience as Facebook, such as iLike, will reside in the top tier. There will be a middle tier, where the majority of applications will fall, followed by a bottom tier of untrustworthy applications.

With not only the new site design but more application developments breaking today, it seems these changes will live up to Facebook mission to, “…make the world more open and transparent by giving people the power to share.”

Anxiety for the intense MAC user

Toby Evers — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:09:31 +0000

No, I’m not talking about the feeling you get when you install Office 2008 for Mac and realize the new excel is worse than it was in the 90’s and you can no longer get any work done. I’m talking about a new FREE (yes FREE) application I’ve discovered called Anxiety. If you are overloaded and inundated with tasks in iCal, and need a way to keep that list in front of you at all times so you don’t miss a beat, and really just need to work through a detailed checklist to get through your day, then this is the app for you.

If you operate on a split screen (like me, laptop on one side, monitor on other), it’s a bit more convenient. Anxiety provides a small partially transparent window on your screen, that stays on top at all times. You can display any calendar you’d like. So if you have tasks on multiple calendars, you can flip between the different calendars with ease. Once you check off a task, it turns green, blinks and then softly disappears (actually displacing your anxiety with a nice finishing touch). Explaining this app doesn’t fully do it justice, so I invite you all to give it a try on your own. I’m personally addicted, and my anxiety is now at a controllable level… sigh.