Web 2.0 Gets Big — and Corporate

New York Times, November 10, 2008 — As the economy totters, it’s easy to make fun of the concept of “Web 2.0” — the rallying cry of a generation of chipper start-ups spawned over the last few years with an unusual aversion to vowels. Certainly, most of the venture capitalists I’ve talked to at the Web 2.0 Summit have said they are shying away from companies that are based on the idea of growing an audience now and figuring out how to make money later.

Why Pharma Fears Social Networking†

Brandweek, October 19, 2008 — Although a majority of marketers have embraced online social media and user-generated content efforts, one industry is conspicuously not taking advantage of the gold rush: pharmaceuticals.

The reason: Marketers fear that user-generated content will include complaints about injuries caused by their drugs’ side effects. The law requires these “adverse events” to be reported to the FDA. The FDA’s adverse-event databases are regularly combed by lawyers looking for potential class-action suits.

Thus, drug marketers have stuck with a decidedly Web 1.0 model, in which customer interaction is kept to an absolute minimum.

This head-in-the-sand approach may be about to change. A debate is raging in the drug business as to whether companies should adopt... continue reading

Woman to Woman, Online

New York Times, August 14, 2008 — Heather Armstrong’s wickedly funny blog about motherhood, Dooce, is more than just an outlet for the creativity and frustrations of a modern mother. The site, chock full of advertising, is a moneymaking machine — so much so that Ms. Armstrong and her husband have both quit their regular jobs.

What Web Buzz Does for Car Sales: Not Much†

BrandIntel Finds Online Chatter Doesn't Indicate Which Vehicles People Will Buy

Advertising Age, February 26, 2008 — Positive online buzz for cars and trucks doesn't necessarily translate to volume sales, according to marketing-data firm BrandIntel.

Web 2.0 Experience on 93% of Marketers’ To-Do Lists for 2008

Marketing Charts, February 8, 2008 — Half of online businesses plan to add “Web 2.0″ online capabilities to their sites within the next six months, and over 93% intend to do so within the year, according to a Scene7 study of retailers, manufacturers, agencies, and high-tech companies that sell products or services online.

Ad Houses Will Need to Be More Nimble†

Clients Are Demanding More and Better Use Of Consumer Data, Web

Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2008 — The Web's emergence is forcing ad executives to succumb to marketers' demands that agencies reinvent how ads are created, and forgo their TV-centric approach. Clients are even calling for changes in the way ad firms are structured. But until now, few advertisers have spent more than 5% to 10% of their marketing budgets online. With the growth of online video and social networking, ad experts expect that percentage to jump significantly this year.

Peter Kim on Consumer-Generated Media: You Have To Measure It To Manage It†

Brandweek, December 10, 2007 — I'll admit it: I stayed as far away from science classes as possible in school. If you're like me, familiar royalty terms may be more Burger King and Dairy Queen than Lord Kelvin. However, today's marketers can apply a lesson from Kelvin to help make sense of today's wild west of consumer-generated media. To paraphrase: if you can measure it, then you can manage it.

Grow More Comfortable with Web 2.0 Tools

KenRadio, November 14, 2007 — More than 36% of Web users “highly trust” the information they receive from friends and acquaintances in their online social networks, according to a new social internet survey by Faves.com. The number jumps to 90% when including those that “moderately trust” their social network contacts. In contrast, just 4% highly trust content/opinions from vendors or advertisers, 4% highly trust comments on blogs or forums, and 3% highly trust news communities such as Digg or Reddit. The same survey found that 34% of respondents visit a social-networking site at least weekly.

Girl Power

No rich relatives? No professional mentors? No problem. Ashley Qualls, 17, has built a million-dollar web site. She's LOL all the way to the bank. :)

Fast Company, September 1, 2007 — ate last year, Ian Moray stumbled across a cotton-candy-pink Web site called Whateverlife.com. As manager of media development at the online marketing company ValueClick Media (NASDAQ:VCLK), he was searching for under-the-radar destinations for notoriously fickle teenagers. Beyond MySpace and Facebook, countless sites come and go in the teen universe, like soon forgotten pop songs. But Whateverlife stood out. It was more authentic somehow. It featured a steady supply of designs for MySpace pages and attracted a few hundred-thousand girls a day. "Clever design, a growing base--that's a no-brainer for us," Moray says.

Bikers Hog Web As Harley Video Ads Go Live From Sturgis

MediaPost Publications, August 8, 2007 — A LARGE PORTION OF THE avid motorcycle community--some 450,000 strong--is in the Black Hills of South Dakota this week attending the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Thousands of other bikers and fans who couldn't make the rally in person are flocking online for unprecedented live video coverage--via Harley-Davidson banner ads and a downloadable Google Gadget.

This marks the first time a Google Gadget has included live video, while the display ads arguably represent the greatest use ever of live video in a banner ad--offering 10 hours of coverage each day.