I love widgets - here is a really cool 'favorite books' widget from Amazon

Picnic Interview: Gerd on Social Media Marketing

This is from the Picnic Conference blog, taken from a telephone interview with me, last week. Please note that I am firm believer that there is NO COOKBOOK for success in social media (whatever that means!), at least as far as I can tell. And there is no certainly not a definitive correlation between your mere numbers of followers or friends, and the quality or merit of your work. We are still very much in the very first, embryonic phase of social media marketing (and the related personal branding options), and it would be very premature to equal success in numbers with success in business or even any real degree of influence.  I am experimenting with this just as much as everyone else... so, read this below, in that spirit! 

Btw - the Picnic conference in Amsterdam (Sept 23-25, 2009) will be well worth attending (and not just because I'll be speaking ;). Last year's event was thoroughly entertaining as well as inspirational, if sometimes a bit overwhelming due to the sheer number of topics and attendees.  Check out my 2008 Picnic presentation on The New Music Ecosystem, here.

From the Picnic site (comments by me are in[...])

"Last Friday, the team at PICNIC had the opportunity to pick Gerd Leonhard’s brain about social media marketing and what has made him successful. Gerd is a well-known media futurist and a regular PICNIC participant. He travels the world speaking about the future of media, content, technology, communication, business and entertainment.

In less than six months Gerd accumulated over 5000 followers on Twitter and his website traffic [and RSS feed users] increased by 300% (60% of which comes from Twitter). As a result he decided to completely stop communicating with his 17,000-strong database by email and his business has continued to thrive. It was a pleasure to chat with Gerd on the subject of social media marketing and we are excited to share some of his top tips with you.

Pull, don’t push: Get people’s attention by providing value and earn their love by engaging with them. This will naturally lead to increased website traffic and increased sales.

Getting started

• Choose a plausible position and objectives you want to achieve
• Find out where your target audience is, i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube…
• Listen to others and decide carefully who you want to follow and get feedback from
• Track replies and keywords to help you actively participate in the conversation
• Set up multiple accounts if necessary (by topic, employee, etc)

Building momentum

• Jump in: don’t be afraid to start, there is no right or wrong way to use social media for marketing
• Provide value: link to content on your website or blog like videos, slideshows, tips, interviews; provide useful resources from other sites; don’t be afraid to re-package existing content by putting a new spin on the story.
• Avoid sales pitches: but do offer special offers or rewards to members of your network
• Participate: develop conversations with members of your network; ask for feedback or advice
• Be transparent: people will feel more connected with your brand when they know what is going on behind the scenes
• Establish yourself as a thought leader or authority: dialogue with the right people

Measuring success

• Social media marketing is not a replacement for other marketing tactics. Success with social media tools requires time and effort, not money. Success has to be defined by the individual or company.
• The number of followers or members is important, but not the only measurement of success. You can also track traffic to your website generated by social media sites, number of RSS subscribers, and increase in comments or leads.

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• Mobile Content Futures: my presentation at Mobile Monday Amsterdam (March 30) (mediafuturist.com)
• The Future of Music & Media: Gerd Leonhard at Plugg 2009 (blip.tv)
• Behavioral Targeting, Advertising, Google and the Future (futurist.com)
• Most Media, Advertising & Marketing is switching from Push to Pull (short video) (mediafuturist.com)

If you want to know more about widgets read this Advertising Age Column

Tons of great stuff here: Garfield: Why Aren't More Advertisers Using Widgets? - Advertising Age - News. Snippets: 

"At a maximum, the widget is something like the magical connection between marketers and consumers, not only replacing the one-way messaging long dominated by media advertising but vastly outperforming it. Because online the link is literal and direct, and along its path, data of behavior, preference and intention are left at every step. Oh, and your target consumers actually go out searching for your branded gimcrack. Oh, and they display it within easy reach. Oh, and they pass copies along to their friends and associates. Oh, and because they've been turned on by a friend, they are hospitable and receptive recipients. And, oh, in case this didn't quite register the first time I mentioned it, the barriers to entry are preposterously low"

"Audience migration: Oh, and one final thing. If you are a marketer who's spent the past decade investing in a robust website to attract customers and prospects, and you're therefore disinclined to cannibalize your traffic by giving away Website-in-a-Can, don't get too smug. Your audience is making that decision for you. In the past three months, according to Alexa, Apple.com's page views per user are down 9%; Comcast.net is down 1%; Dell.com, down 22%; AT&T.com, down 18%; Xbox.com, down 9% and so on as corporate e-bastions begin to experience the same audience fragmentation that is killing old media. "As popular as your site may be," says Kennedy, the reality is that people are actually visiting Yahoo, MySpace, Google and Facebook thousands of times more than they're visiting you."

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• Google Tech Talk with Gerd Leonhard: The Future Of Media, Advertising, Branding and Communications
• Social Media Today: list of freevertising products and services

The Widgetization of Media: PDF with my presentation at MIPCOM, Cannes / France Oct 16 2008

I was invited by MIPCOM to present my thoughts on the use of widgets in the content industries and the so-called "Widgetization of Media" and to put together and moderate a panel discussion with 3 great speakers (Oliver Creiche of Six Apart, Tom Smith of Universal-McCann, and Neil Perkin of IPC Media - 3 very smart and clued-in people, indeed - be sure to read Tom's UMWW reports, for sure, here), in sunny+windy+chi-chi Cannes, today. More information on this event is here on the MIP blog (and I think there will be videos here, soon, as well).

In a nutshell:  If you are already into widgets on your computer & mobile devices (such as the iPhone Apps, or Nokia's Widsets) very soon you will be able to chose from 1000s of widgets that will be available on your super-sized TV screen in your living room. Imagine: stock tickers, twitter tweets, RSS feeds, music widgets, social network messages, video streams, contvertising ;) Now what will that do to the TV industry? Talking about competing for attention. And ad $$.

We are indeed heading into the Attention, Conversation and Participation Economy at mindboggling speed. Anyway, I promised to put up the PDF with the presentation so... here it is

Widgetization_of_media_gerd_leonhard_at_mipcom_2008.pdf (low-res 1 MB)

Widgetization_of_media_gerd_leonhard_at_mipcom_2008_high_res.pdf (23 MB)

The Widgetization Of Media by Futurist Gerd Leonhard (MIPCOM 2008)

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: syndication media futurist)

4 great reports from UniversalMcCann: Trusting Strangers, Widgets, Welcome to the Free World, and Social Media (Wave 3)

Tom Smith at UniversalMcCann (I like their cool tagline 'the next thing now', btw) has just alerted me to some really nice research that was done by them, so here they are. On your next flight or train ride, be sure to print them, and dive in - there's lots of great stuff in here. Tom Smith has an interesting blog, btw, too, here.

Download welcome_to_the_free_world_20080721123522.pdf
Download widgets_trendmarker_feb08_forweb_200803251313542.pdf
Download um-international-social-media-research-wave3-1208176731994979-9.pdf
Download strangers_reportLR_20080924101433.pdf

World Wide Web of Widgets - ReadWriteWeb

If you want to know about widgets... read this: World Wide Web of Widgets - ReadWriteWeb.

And take-in my sidebar;)

What are web widgets: 2 Videos incl. Linkin Park example, and a slideshow

The basics... below. If you need more details, check out my other postings on widgets or peruse the Slideshare page on widgets. Tom Smith at Universal McCann has a great pdf on widgets (from their Trend Marker series) - download it from his links via LinkedIn

And a cool video by Linkin Park, explaining what they do with widgets

A great slideshow on Widgets, via Josanku on Slideshare

Widget Ecosystem  and Widget Economy

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: personalized web)

Soon: Widgets on your TV (talk about Changes for the TV Business!)

TV-Widgets are here: Samsung just announced their first series of TVs that will be connected to the Internet, by default (see a demo of  Samsung's See'N'Search set-top box here). But here is the real big deal, imho (quote): "The Widget Channel - its official name - will be powered by Yahoo Widget Engine, allowing you to sit back on your sofa like a lazy couch potato, and enjoy small internet applications such as news and weather, all from your remote control." "Content will be accessible through an integrated Ethernet port or a Samsung wireless adaptor...." says ShinyShiny. 

What does this mean? Well, if you are into widgets (i.e. embeddable content objects, both web-based or desk-top based) on your computer or your iPhone (I think this crowd counts about 170-200 Million people right now - so this very early, still - but all of us brave consumers that buy those cool iPhone apps are basically widget users, now, too!), very soon you can, and probably will 1000s of widgets available on your 50+inch TV screen in your living room (or wherever else you "like to watch"). Imagine: stock tickers, tweets, RSS feeds, music widgets, social network messages, video streams, contvertising ;)  Now what will THAT do to the TV industry? Talking about competing for attention - a real challenge, imho.

Contagious Mag adds: "Yahoo! and Intel have joined forces to develop a Widget Channel which will allow users to access their favorite internet content whilst watching TV. The Widget Channel will utilise a comprehensive software network, built around the Yahoo! Widget Engine and delivered via an Intel set-top box. The result will be a series of TV Widgets, or as Yahoo! describes them - 'small Internet applications designed to complement and enhance the traditional TV experience'.  What this means, is that viewers will have instant access to news, sports results, weather reports and even feeds from websites such as Flickr. In order to make the fusing of internet and TV as seamless and intuitive as possible, there will also be a Widget Gallery function made available at a later date. This will allow users to customise each widget and how it is displayed, as well as publish them across multiple TV's and related devices"

Truly, we are heading into the Attention, Conversation and Participation Economy at mindboggling speed. This will also help to boost interactive services, 3D and Virtual World Experiences. More via the Yahoo/Intel press release, Video here (quality is not so hot but it's a good start)

Cool: YourMinis Widgets: get a widget with my blog posts, with one click

YourMinis rocks. This is their RSS widget displaying my latest blog posts. You can just copy and paste it onto your iGoogle page, blog page or wherever you want. Finally!

Widgets: The Marketer’s Recession Survival Tool (Michael Jones)

Great post by Michael Jones of UserPlane / AOL - if you want to know about widgets, quickly, read this: Widgets: The Marketer’s Recession Survival Tool. Some high-lights:

"In April 2007, comScore estimated that widgets reach 177M people every month, or 21% of the worldwide online audience. Currently, only a fraction of widget traffic – perhaps as little as 0.5% - is being monetized. And that 0.5% is being monetized most frequently through traditional CPM models. In order for widgets to pay off in the long term, however, new models are required that will drive revenue beyond the top few widget providers and generate significant returns for all customers investing ad dollars...."

"The convergence of behavioral intelligence, distributed advertising models, and micro-markets is helping to create a sweet spot for widgets. eMarketer predicts an increase in the behavioral targeting market to $3.8B by 2011 from $350M in 2006"

"The very definition of CPM is also changing as new models for media buying emerge. New ways to purchase and monetize connections between brand and consumers will emerge, including opportunities to move the point of purchase to these distributed applications. Not only will widgets incorporate ads based on individual behavior and areas of interest, but widgets will likely become e-commerce services as well"

What's next for the New York Times: how about Widgets, iPhone Apps, APIs, Syndication, Twitter

Good read from the Silicon Alley Insider here: "The New York Times, like all U.S. newspapers, will eventually need to figure out how to make enough money from the Internet to make up for its declining print business. Fair enough. But we think technology-wise, at least, the Times is a lot further along than its peers..."
I am impressed with the NYT's newly found openness and Web2.0-ness, too - and this could very well become a blueprint for other media, too... stay tuned - I am covering this in my new book "The End of Control" (eta late 2008).

Amazon Video Widget - with ads for books

Amazon has just added Video Widgets that allow you to upload your own videos and the insert small ads for Amazon products (books etc). The ad integration is quite interesting and not at all interruptive, imho.  Check out this video with 2 of my books and 2 other book as 'ads', below.  I think this is a perfect example of how advertising will (and can) provide free content - the viewer trades his attention for free content. Now, the next step would be the VIEWER picking the 'ads' (or rather, contverts) he wants to see.

Update: Amazon seems to have some tech problems here - the products don't always come up ;)

Radiohead “In Rainbows” Widgets

Link: Radiohead “In Rainbows” Widgets.

"...what we’re seeing is a standardization of widget features that are widely being adopted by musicians, combining viral sharing tools, self-promotion and easy access to content that can be monetized...." !

Cool tool that turns blog posts into podcasts (Blogbard)

Just found this below - the robotic voice is a bit weird but hey... it's a fit ;)

I think you can even use this link to download my blog posts to iTunes

What's a Widget Worth?

Good read about Widgets (Business Week): What's a Widget Worth?.