Polygraph Media Blog

Quick Hits - February 10, 2010

It's been too long since I've made some random, unsubstantiated observations.  Lucky you.

• I have used Google Buzz for just a few hours, and I'm already convinced it's a game-changer.  Watch out Twitter... and Facebook, you'd better not get too comfortable.
• I really do think I could make a compelling argument for you that Twitter's best bet is for AOL or Yahoo or Microsoft to buy them.  Not that any of that would be inherently bad, but I just don't see Twitter surviving and thriving as an independent business over the next few years.
• Social media "fatigue" really seems to be an increasing trend among younger people who have used things like Facebook for awhile.  I spoke at an event at Texas A&M recently that really reinforced this point.  It will be interesting to see if this is a limited case or something that marketers will have to deal with in coming years.
• I have given up on working with my neighborhood association.  It involves the worst elements of  government, bureaucracy, volunteering, politics, incompetence, ego, and personal fiefdoms -- and very few benefits.
• Lots of people out there are willing to give advice to early-stage entrepreneurs... but if they haven't created an early-stage startup themselves, be careful how much you internalize.  There is nothing like starting a company from its earliest stages, and it's a very, very unique business experience.
• Writing a book while starting a company is hard.  At some point, I'll share the story of how I got this opportunity, how I made it work, and why I'll never do the two things at the same time again.  It's a rewarding life goal achieved, but everything has its costs.
• Facebook is a particularly tough topic for a book, since the platform and/or the rules change about every 3 weeks on average.
• The Austin Technology Incubator has significantly improved its portfolio in my opinion, and is rebuilding its brand around substantive member companies.  You heard it here first.
• I'm increasingly of the opinion that networking for the sake of networking is a really bad idea for early stage entrepreneurs.  I know this goes against conventional wisdom, but I have a good argument.  Later.
• Location-based services are in their v2 with foursquare, Gowalla, and MyTown.  No offense to the good folks in those companies, but I really think the act of "checking in" is too hard and lacks enough of a consumer value proposition for any of those services to "win".  You'll know you see a winner when 1) there is a real compelling reason for consumers to check in, 2) a lot of it is automated in some way, and 3) there are reasons to do so that will appeal to "Joe Public."  These are very much early-adopter technologies today.
• Speaking of location-based services, can Apple really get away with removing apps that surface location-based ads from the App Store?  I know they make their own rules, but that's unreal.
• I love the potential of Google Android.  My wife has one & it's a pretty neat device.  But it isn't quite there right now.  Let's see how it evolves before handing it the future. ;-)
• We're told that the economy picked up quite a bit in Q4 in the US... yet capital efficient startups are still in vogue.  I'm telling ya, this frugality thing is here to stay for a decade or more.
• Finally, I finally yesterday met the first woman I know who likes the iPad branding.  Ultimately, I think after the shock wears off it will be OK.  But gosh, how obvious is it that Apple's branding team is lacking???

Proposed SXSW Panel - The Future of Big Media

I have submitted a panel for SXSW Interactive to cover how big media is responding to the lightspeed changes in journalism, local news, hyperlocal, etc.  Check it out here:

The Empire Strikes Back: How Big Media is Responding to Disruption

I have lined up some top-notch panelists who understand the issues far better than you'd think.

Feel free to vote early and often ;-

A Moment of Clarity re: Advertising... for me at least

After a few meetings today & rereading this Techcrunch musing about local advertising and newspapers, I had a moment of clarity regarding the advertising industry... where it's been... and where it's headed.  Random thoughts in no particular order:

• People consume media and ads from thousands of sources today.  Consumption is ridiculously fragmented, perhaps permanently, although for all the fragmentation there are a lot of efforts to centralize as well.
• There are so many media outlets, it's arguable that people have media/advertising fatigue.  Hence, they perhaps trust friends/colleagues and a "personal touch" more than ever before.
• Small, local businesses that achieved success in the "Age of Retail" (i.e. until the mid-80s or so) either became chains or went out of business in the succeeding generation.
• Despite the relative lack of local businesses, there is still a need for advertising at the local level... and that need bridges online and offline methods.  Sophistication in online models is largely non-existent even in 2009 while it's extreme in offline advertising.  This will change but only after a lot of experiments take place.
• Web entrepreneurs smell blood in the water when large, successful offline advertising companies fail to move quickly enough to play the game with the "new rules".  Most Web entrepreneurs underestimate the power of existing brands, but managers of most large, successful offline advertising companies also aren't empowered to be bold enough to compete as well as they perhaps should.
• Chains, large and small, spent the better part of the last 10 years optimizing operations, data mining activities, etc. but they have not yet undergone the same optimization of advertising spend.  I suspect this is an anomaly and large agencies will struggle with the realities of deflation sooner or later.
• Consumer behavior, overnight delivery services, and the efficiency of the Internet combine to make ads from other parts of the country or perhaps the World more relevant than an ad for a store right around the corner.

I don't know what this all means just yet... I'm rolling around on a few ideas that I'll share in more detail over coming weeks.

Neighborhood Twitter?

I have had an interesting experience or two over the last week as our neighborhood has considered using Twitter for emergency communications.  Here's how it went:

Someone in our neighborhood suggested that Twitter is a good tool for instant one-to-many communications.  The neighborhood's Yahoo listserv isn't necessarily ideal for urgent community notifications because 1) it is monitored by volunteers who sometimes can't get to the messages quickly enough and 2) many people simply subscribe to a single summary e-mail every day.  So it was determined that Twitter is probably therefore a much better tool for sharing emergency updates.  The technologists and community organizers agreed, so it was determined that the idea should be flushed out in more detail.  In the meantime, I went ahead and reserved the @RosedaleAustin Twitter account.

The next day a reporter from KEYE TV was monitoring the neighborhood mailing list & decided to talk to Austin Police about it -- the use of Twitter to share emergency/crime updates.  So she did a pre-emptive news story on the idea that aired as the top story on the 10pm news.  Slow news day I guess, but it was interesting to see this idea evolve literally overnight into something that was at least newsworthy.

I went to the neighborhood association meeting & the item came up on the agenda.  "Did we want to talk about Tweeter?"  LOL  First they polled the room to see how many people were on Twitter.  My hand and one other went up in the room of 25 people.  They then asked me to talk about it... I told them that it is probably the right way to communicate certain types of urgent messages but it also takes a reasonable amount of participation to succeed.  i.e. what is the benefit of user-generated content when 10 houses out of 1,200 contribute and get updates?  That's where it appeared to fall apart a bit... Twitter went on trial for a few minutes.  The idea seemed to be dead until someone who has lived in the neighborhood for years observed that the group had the same conversation ten years ago before setting up the listserv.

So it lives... we have ~10 followers now and it's growing.  Now we're working out the rules. i.e. who is allowed to join the list, who is allowed to post messages, what types of messages are allowed/disallowed/etc.  I'll report back with more details as we go.