You must check out this very cool advertisement for Wario Land: Shake It! - a new game from Nintendo Wii. It only takes 45 seconds, and you really have to watch the whole thing to get the full effect. It’s probably the best example of creatively leveraging YouTube in a way the truly connects to the brand message that I’ve seen in a long time. Anyone seen any other great ads recently that they’d like to share?
VP Candidate Sarah Palin (here is the SNL skit if for some reason you haven’t seen it) has allegedly had her yahoo account (really) hacked. Not confirmed, but the rumour is that the hacker contacted Yahoo claiming to be the Alaska governor and said he lost the password. Oddly enough, he was able to answer the security question about where she met the “First Dude”…Wasilla high school.
I was surfing the web trying to figure out the best way to connect my laptop to my TV (in my defence - I had an idea of how to do it in theory… but wanted to find out in practical terms) when I came across an interesting YouTube video.
It was created by a young, talented kid who lives in Japan called Adrian, aka kidguru. With a straightforward, easy to understand video, kidguru very articulately explained how someone looking to connect their laptop to a tv would go about doing it. Going to his YouTube channel I discovered that he’s been doing this for almost a year now and has turned his site Tech-World into a blogging, vlogging, podcasting, twitter site/community. He’s managed to turn a hobby into a paying job, with sponsors and understands the value of creating community around his videos. He does product and app reviews, and tutorials among other educational things.
KidGuru’s YouTube channel now has over 1,500 subscribers and over 47,000 channel views, and he is now an official YouTube partner. The YouTube partner program is an ad revenue sharing program to reward users that frequently post original content and who have a steady following of thousands of viewers.
If you have any tech related questions I suggest checking out Kidguru’s channel or sending him an e-mail!
Building on Will’s posts about Obama using text messaging to announce his running mate (which I thought was brilliant), there is a great video on the BBC web site documenting how democracy has become digitized. It’s 10 minutes, but I highly recommend you take a peek.
Web 2.0 and the tools made available have changed the face of American politics. Not only are campaigns finding new ways to reach out to citizens, they’re also finding ways to engage them to become active participants and volunteers. Some people may argue that the ‘old people’ (so to speak), are the ones that vote; but for this election, Obama has mobilized the largest demographic – the children of the baby boom. And coincidentally, many of them are now coming of age and have the power to make a difference. The numbers speak for themselves. As Don Tapscott wrote in a previous post – During the Iowa preliminary, Obama had won by a landslide in millennial votes. His 28,000 vs. Clinton’s 5,400 and Edwards’ 6,900.
Joystiq, a popular gaming blog, has a post up about how EA has handled a potentially embarassing situation surrouding their video game Tiger Woods ‘08 that cropped up on YouTube. Youtube user Levinator25 discovered an issue where Tiger Woods could walk on water, allowing him to make the “jesus shot.” Levinator25 uploaded a video of what he assumed to be a glitch in the game. Check out EA’s response:
A few days ago, an article written in the Boston.com business column told a story about Comcast responding to a complaint by C.C. Chapman about his service. While watching his HDTV, the reception starting becoming very poor so Chapman quickly started expressing his anger on Twitter and “within 24 hours, a technician was at Chapman’s house in Milford to fix the problem.”
“Chapman’s experience is one example of the ways customer service is changing in an age when a single disgruntled consumer with a broadband connection can ignite a crisis,” from Carolyn Y. Johnson, the author of the article.
The article shows the power of ordinary people fighting against large corporations. For fun, in Google, I searched “Comcast complaints” and found over 1,870 listings and without quotations around the phrase Google brings up over a million listings.
“Comcast’s customer service was rated “poor” by 30% of respondents” and it had a strong hit after this video, which showed a Comcast technician sleeping on a customer’s couch. It was viewed over 1.2 million times with over 700 comments. Also, a website named ComcastmustDie.com was created for users to tell their stories of their experience and grievances with Comcast.
It seems like Comcast finally got the message. With the emergence of Web 2.0 ordinary people can have their voice heard and create a terror of a public relations problem for companies. “Listening and acting upon what [customers] are hearing and being very proactive is different than waiting for a customer to pick up the phone and call us. We can nip it in the bud,” said Karen Hartzell, division vice president of customer care for Comcast’s NorthCentral division.
In the new business environment, companies need to implement a team of individuals to help combat the conversations about their company. By combat, I am not referring to a retaliation, but providing a solution to the problem. Working with customers to generate a satisfying customer experience is essential to thriving in business today. Customer service is just one of the departments shifted by Wikinomics.
I’m interesting to hearing your thoughts on customer service. Is their a company that you will absolutely never use because of their horrible customer service, or is their a certain company that has a level of customer service that brings you back? It may or may not have to deal with Comcast, but please share.
YouTube has entered the political arena once again. This September, New Zeland’s TVNZ and YouTube will partner to launch a website allowing people to submit video questions for the 49th New Zealand Parliamentary election. This demonstrates that even though there were a few “bumps in the road” during 2007 Republican Primaries, the push for including the public will continue. This partnership also shows that “television” realizes the influence YouTube has and is taking advantage of it.
It’s no secret that Google sees mobile phones as an emerging frontier for search; as smart phones (and carriers’ data plans) become more sophisticated, it becomes possible to interactively exchange data in new and innovative ways, while also allowing people to tap into existing sources of information, such as the Internet. Google recognizes that the cell phone is developing along the same path that the personal computer did – it is a tool that we increasingly use to connect ourselves to people and relevant information, wherever we go. The question for Google then becomes, in what ways can it enable people by connecting them with the information that they need, as well as advertisements that provide relevant solutions. Read More »
This week’s edition of the Wikinomics Report Card will focus on General Motors Corporation (GM). In case you missed my first report card about Major League Baseball, you can find it here. Like last week, I will be evaluating GM on the Wikinomics principles of being open, peering, sharing, and acting globally.
Company Background: GM was founded in 1908 and is the world’s largest automaker and leader in global sales for the last 77 calendar years. It manufactures cars and trucks in 35 different countries under the brands Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Pontiac, and many more. Under the strength of Alfred Sloan’s revolutionary corporate structure and leadership, GM was once one of the world’s most profitable companies peaking in the early 80’s with a U.S. market share of 45%. However, the legacy costs and complex accounting systems associated with the Sloan era have hindered GM’s efforts to create a more lean manufacturing process. Stiff foreign competition from companies like Toyota and poor strategic decisions like focusing on SUVs and light trucks in a rising fuel market has led GM to one of its weakest points in its history. Yesterday, its stock reached a 53-year low after Goldman Sachs changed it status to “sell”. GM is hoping that it can weather this storm long enough to introduce its new line of alternative energy vehicles like the Chevy Volt and reclaim some of its former glory.
Editor’s note: Josh Beil recently sent us a rather interesting piece digging into IPTV, and how the application of the wikinomics principles are required to make it successful (which you can read below). Of note for other potential guest bloggers, I (this is Denis by the way) want to highlight that this is a meritocracy - if you have a good, well-written, wikinomics-related story to tell, we are interested in sharing it with our readers. (Mid-afternoon addition: I’ve included Josh’s more complete bio at the end).
After a long day of work, you plop down on the couch after dinner and turn on the television. Your myTV channel pops up and you begin to scan your customized start channel, which shows you what shows have recorded on your DVR, what shows on network TV you might like based on your recent viewing habits as well as what your social network is watching, the top UGC clips of the day from YouTube and other video sharing sites, as well as a robust search engine that will allow you to find and download virtually any TV show or movie every published, at costs ranging from free to $19.99 per download. Furthermore, with a couple clicks on this page through your remote, you can send content to your wireless device or your car’s hard drive over your home network – a virtual digital content consumption utopia.
The reality, however, is something much different, despite all the technologies needed for this vision being well established and available. A relatively recent article (editor’s note: November 2007) in Business Week has titled I Want My iTV is an excellent read on the forces at play in the royal rumble of media consumption. The article focuses on the battle for the living room, and it highlights how the promise of the convergence of TV and the Internet is long overdue yet continues to be hampered (in the US in particular) by the various stakeholders in the value chain each trying to protect their business and avoid being disintermediated by new technologies or business models.
Last week, YouTube introduced Screening Room: a program that broadcasts independent films on YouTube and gives their creators a majority share of the ad revenue generated. This is a fantastic idea, and one that I believe will be central to the 21st century business model for media. I am anxious to see what the Wikinomics community has to say about this, but let me share a few of my observations.
YouTube plays the role of editor in the new program, selecting films from a pool of applicants. An interesting role for them to adopt, but one I am guessing they will abandon in due course by providing revenue sharing to all their content providers (or at least those who attain a sufficient audience).
Its interesting that this program is being rolled out with independent films and not mainstream TV and movies. I’m curious to know the reasons behind that. But what’s so crazy is that it means that its easier and cheaper (and more legal in many cases) for me to watch an independent movie from Norway (one of the films currently featured) than anything the major studios are creating. Could this be another nail in the coffin for the “established” content providers?
So what do you think? What does YouTube’s Screening Room signify in our evolving media environment?
As always, you can check out the original (and all the other mash ups) at www.Dilbert.com. The site is having a couple of issues right now, but the new tool that enables group mash ups is particularly interesting as you get to fill out all three boxes… anyone care to join me?
I finally managed to get my hands on a Wii Fit and I must say - it’s a pretty incredible game (despite the training avatar’s trashtalk and the Wii Balance Board that cries “Oww” every time I step on it).
Since its North American release a few weeks ago, the game has generated a tremendous amount of hype, both on- and offline. The latest buzz surrounding the game has been created by a YouTube video entitled “Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit”. In the two and a half weeks since the video’s release, it has attracted nearly 3.5 million views, and while many question the authenticity of the video’s grassroots approach (the creator and his girlfriend featured in the video both work for an advertising agency), with millions of views and a number of popular spoofs .., the video has surely helped maintain a healthy buzz around the Wii and the Fit.
The real opportunity for Nintendo to help maintain its popularity, though, could come from embracing a little bit of Wikinomics through the creation of a development kit for the Fit (and potentially even the Wii in general) whereby users and developers would be able to write their own activities and games that could be downloaded (likely purchased) through the Wii’s integrated Shop Channel. The Fit’s activity-based games in particular would be a great spot for experimentation as most are fairly quick activities that platform off of the same movements, allowing gamers to refine their skills using various activities with the same end goal - improving balance, stregth or aerobic fitness. Techy prosumers can be quite a powerful, and lucrative, source of innovation - just ask Apple. Historically not known for their willingness to embrace consumer input and creation, Apple has experienced great success with the iPhone SDK since its release in March and it has become a key weapon in the iPhone’s fight against the other big mobile platform(s) available. Read More »
If you don’t know who I’m referring to, you are clearly not one of the millions and millions of people that watched some iteration of this Chris Crocker video - now that would be a bad rumor to spread. You can check out the original, and all the other mash ups, at www.dilbert.com.
Unlike his official campaign colors, which are predominantly a rich blue, the sign behind McCain was green. That may have been an unfortunate choice. Unwittingly no doubt, the green background provided a crude “green screen,” the background used in television to project video behind the reporter. In McCain’s case, the green background allowed Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert to issue one of his famous “Green Screen Challenges.”
“By speaking in front of a green screen, John McCain issues a bold challenge to Americans to make him seem interesting,” the political satirist said. Read More »
Those of us who make predictions about the future can often run into a particularly frustrating problem – being right, but being right too early. This is something I’ve been through a few times, particularly with the Naked Corporation – I thought, and continue to think, that it’s a great book about the future of the enterprise and transparency, but when it was published in 2003 it never really gained the traction I hoped for. Fast forward to 2007 – while I was particularly happy about how well Wikinomics was (and continues to be) received, when I saw this cover of Wired Magazine that came out around the same time… let’s just say I couldn’t help but wonder how the Naked Corporation would have fared if the timing worked out better.
Such issues of timing and prediction underlie Paul Krugman’s excellent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times called “Bits, Bands, and Books”. He opens by quickly recapping the technology bubble of the late 1990s, the inevitable collapse, and then jumps to the recent oil and food shocks that have reminded us we still live in a “material world.” But it’s what he says next that is most important:
So much, then, for the digital revolution? Not so fast. The predictions of ’90s technology gurus are coming true more slowly than enthusiasts expected — but the future they envisioned is still on the march.
It is no secret that Obama has blown his opponents out of the water on YouTube.
Seven of the videos on Obama’s official YouTube page have drawn more than a million views, with his speech on race pushing the 5 million mark. Not one Clinton video has made it to a million, and McCain’s most viewed clip has drawn less than half that.
The cumulative viewership of all the YouTube videos Obama has posted in the last three weeks is almost 2 million, while neither Clinton nor McCain has broken 400 thousand.
Is this because Obama just coincidentally happens to appeal to those young and wired voters who use a lot of YouTube? Partially, no doubt.But Obama is also using YouTube more effectively. Specifically, he is posting longer and more insightful videos.
Consider, for YouTube videos posted by the candidates over the last three weeks:
The average length was 7 minutes.
Three of the four most-viewed Obama videos are over 20 minutes, and the fourth is 13 minutes long.
The only two Clinton videos that were longer than 20 minutes (all the others were less than four minutes) were in her top-three most viewed.
For all three candidates, on average, longer videos get more views:
Apparently, and I absolutely refuse to search for the videos to verify this, there is a popular series of prank videos floating around the web called “fire in the hole”. In short, people videotape themselves in the process of ordering a drink from a drive-thru, and then tossing it back in through the drive-thru window, yelling “fire in the hole” like it’s a grenade as it hits the worker. The most popular of such videos have apparently been viewed almost a million times. As reported on MSN Today (and a variety of other sources), this happened to Taco Bell worker Jessica Ceponis recently, and the video made the rounds on YouTube. While she was originally kind of scared (thinking it was a personal attack), when she found out it was a “prank”, she got angry - and decided that some punishment was in order.
It turns out that these prankster masterminds might not be particularly bright, and tracking them down proved fairly easy - Ceponis viewed the video, tracked down one of the boys on MySpace, befriended him, found out where he lived, and called his mother (that sound you hear is a few hundred personal detectives going out of business). With the case then turned over to the criminal justice system, Ceponis was hoping for a very traditional remedy - a face to face apology. Instead, she found out they got 100 hours of community service, and were ordered to post a video apology on YouTube - which, because of juvenile prosecution laws, could not show their faces.
Ryan Schultz sent me a great wikinomics in action story last week, highlighting the fact that Studio Wikitecture won the “Founder’s Award” for their open source entry to a competition hosted by Architecture for Humanity on the Open Architecture Network. Their entry, for a tele-medicine facility in Western Nepal, was selected for a reason that is truly music to our ears: “for embracing a truly collaborative way of working using online crowdsourcing and Second Life as a way to create a highly participatory design approach.”
The details of their entry can be found here. To quote the project description:
In keeping with the collaborative spirit of the Open Architecture Network, this entry was created by an open and public community of over 40 contributors from around the world representing a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds. To facilitate this effort in design collaboration, we developed a grassroots ‘3D-Wiki’ technology that is built on the virtual reality platform: Second Life. With this technology, we were able to focus a very diverse range of ideas into a naturally evolving process ranging from comprehensive text-based research to 2D plan diagrams and on into immersive 3D virtual models designed and built on a replica of the project site.
Here’s a neat mashup that shows videos featuring key words and search terms on a timeline. With it, you can track the entire lineage of viral videos and their remixed progeny. It’s pretty neat to see how videos gain popularity as measured by how much they are referenced by other videos like the iraq and such as.
Technology and the US election I've written several times about the impact of social networks on this year's US Presidential election - see here and here. And let's be honest, the use of such networks and new web 2.0 technologies has been dominated by Obama. He’s embraced social networks like no other candidate in an attempt to connect with [...]
