June 26, 2009
Michael Jackson’s Death and the day the Web stood still
1:44 PM | 
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The sad news of Michael Jackson's passing yesterday illustrates both the frailties and the inter connectedness of the web. There are reports that several prominent media sites went down as a result of massive server overloads due to people trying to figure out if TMZ was correct in their confirmation of his passing.
Tech Crunch writes:
"It was probably to be expected that Twitter would struggle as reportedly hundreds of thousands of tweets came in about Jackson in a very short amount of time. While I only got a couple actual Fail Whales, the site was really sucking wind for much of the hour that people were trying to get information about him. But Twitter was hardly the only site that was struggling."
Even recounting my own steps yesterday, I recall trying to understand who this "TMZ" was and why they were saying that MJ had become deceased when everyone else seemed to be saying something so differently for at least one to three hours after TMZ broke the news.
The next thing that happened is that while driving I heard a syndicated talk show host on the radio confirm the news, citing TMZ as the source. By the time I made it back to a desktop about an hour and a half later, all of the other media houses seemed to be comfortable enough with their sources that this news was indeed true and in the process many of their sites began to fail.
I think part of the reason for the near collapse of the web was the time of the day that the news came out-which was in the afternoon, around the time that most people were at work. Another interesting thing that this sad episode seems to reinforce is the difference between mainstream media and new media and the limitations of both.
TMZ being more of a new media company does not necessarily face the same type of fact checking scrutiny that a mainstream media (MSM) company might feel pressured to yield to as new media is not held to the same level of journalistic standards as MSM companies. As a result, most people initially learned about Michael Jackson's passing via some form of digital media-be it Twitter, TMZ, Facebook, Google, or etc. However, many of the same people-myself included did not believe the claim to be valid until MSM outlets confirmed it. Similiarly, although slower at reporting the news than the new media companies MSM mediums do not crash or go down, like websites have a tendency to do under such major events.
As an odd twist or backdrop to this story, I am hearing that there are several news outlets in conjunction with either a state or federal judge who are trying to change the copyright laws that govern the web, as a result of so many different online mediums running with the story immediately after it broke. In my opinion this would be the worse thing to happen to journalism in a very long time.
RIP Michael Jackson, you are sorely missed.
June 19, 2009
Shozu: Mobile Blogging
6:14 AM |
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June 13, 2009
Google Chrome Opts for Viral Marketing
8:09 PM |
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Startup Meme writes:
"Now many Google haters would call it a cheap marketing tactic, but seriously to me it sounds way better than Microsoft’s $100 million ad campaign for Bing.
I think this is great. Chrome is an amazing browser. It never crashes my system like my prior browsers. My only wish is that they will allow add ons and extensions like the other browsers out there.
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Atlanta Paper’s New Pitch To Readers: Take A Break From Digital And Try Print | paidContent.org
7:24 AM |
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| paidContent.org: "The Atlanta Journal Constitution figures that at this point in the digital revolution, readers might be starting to get nostalgic for the good old print days. The paper, which recently cut 30 percent of its staff, has unveiled a year-long, $1 million ad campaign to position the physical Sunday paper as a refuge from the frenzied “digital cacophony” that’s associated with readers’ work weeks. The campaign was actually crafted by digital ad shop IQ Interactive, Adweek reports.
To be sure, Amy Chown, VP of marketing at the Cox Enterprises’ paper, tells Adweek that the campaign isn’t meant to get readers to switch off their laptops and cellphones and return to a simpler, bygone era. It’s just meant to boost the Sunday edition. It may not be such a crazy strategy, considering that digital still makes up a small portion of revenues."
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Rushmore Drive: The end of a dream?
12:06 AM |
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A very sad ending to an ambitious dream...Over a year ago the Rushmore Drive launched as a search engine geared towards African Americans. A primary aim of the company was to capitalize on online search dollars driven by African American consumers. Yesterday the company officially closed its doors.
From Rushmore Drive:
"RushmoreDrive is now closed. Thank you for allowing us to be part of this great and loyal community over the past year.
We at RushmoreDrive believed passionately in providing a deep, rich and unique experience and are proud to have been able to serve your online search and networking needs. Fourteen months and over 7.5 million visitors later, thank you for helping us change the way our community drives the web.
As we come to the end of the RushmoreDrive chapter, we hope you had a gratifying experience. Thank you all for coming along for the drive!"
Black Web 2.0 writes:
"The closure will affect 17 employees, and according to an IAC spokesperson was due in “part of their continued effort to rationalize the IAC emerging business.”
Although this is the end for Rushmore Drive, I do not think that it signifies the end of an African American digital ad space. In contrast to the main stream ad industry the scale and metrics afforded by digital technology make it much easier for companies looking to penetrate this audience. And so long as this is the case there will always be the need for insight and interpretation of the numbers.
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June 10, 2009
Facebook | The Facebook Blog
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June 9, 2009
Pamoja Media: Why African firms must lead charge on Interactive Advertising
12:34 PM |
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Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but just wanted to highlight some of the insight that Pamoja Media brings to the table with respect to digital advertising. This is an excerpt from a post that Joshua penned that explains why African brands should jump on board the interactive media train that is rolling through Africa's rapidly growing cities.
What I am about to say is a slight take off from Joshua's actual post but this is something that immediately came to mind after reading it. There have been many times that I have heard from various African expats in the States that are involved in media that targets various African Diaspora communities in the States. One of the most common frustrations that I hear from them is how hard it is to get mainstream American advertisers view the African segment of the US markets as a viable market that they should try to reach through advertising.
It is my assessment that African brands themselves must lead the charge in this direction and as the benefits become apparent then the advertising dollars from the US based brands will follow.
Here is the excerpt from the Pamoja Media Blog, Joshua writes:
I have been working at developing a blog conversation covering our experiences in Africa. Our aim is to get African corporations to start engaging their potential online audience through better knowledge of the opportunities that exist.
Granted, only 5.6% of the African continent is online. Africa is the second fastest growing market in terms of connectivity at 1,100%. When most African corporations think of the web, they don’t see the potential markets this space holds for them. There are two very important aspects of online marketing that I point out to any potential customer looking at the reach an online market:
- The web allows a company to reach Africans in the Diaspora effectively
- Within Africa, the greatest concentration of online traffic is based on specific cities within a country and amongst the middle and upper class
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The Hindu Business Line : Apple introduces new iPhone
6:28 AM |
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According to the company, the new iPhone is twice as fast as iPhone 3G and has longer battery life, a 3 megapixel autofocus camera, video recording and hands free voice control, says Apple.
“iPhone 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control,” said Mr Philip Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice-President of World Wide Product Marketing, launching the iPhone at the Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco"
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June 7, 2009
Africa 2.0 : White African talks Digital Marketing with Pamoja Media
7:07 PM |
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Here is an excerpt from a conversation between Hash or Erik Hersman of White African and my good friend + business partner, Mr. Joshua Wanyama.
Erik Hersman and Joshua Wanyama
photo by Benin
Erik writes:
So I went to Erik for advice on what might be a good way to approach the idea and he dispensed his wise counsel which was that maybe the blog could chronicle my experiences in Africa's digital advertising space from the perspective of an executive at Pamoja Media. My intent has always been to follow this advice, but for some reason the Pamoja blog just never really felt like the most appropriate place for me to do it. Call it a weird personal quirk, but its just one of those idiosyncrasies and I guess each one us has one, right?
So anyhow, after making my commentary on Hash's post, don't be surprised if, going forward, you find most or all of my upcoming commentary that still centers around social media and digital marketing but more within the African context.
Of course there will still be posts and mentions of social media and digital marketing in Atlanta. However, the deeper we at Pamoja Media have gone into the digital advertising industry the more I have felt the need to vent, share, and discuss those experiences with my web peers. And as a result think this should turn out to be a win-win for everyone.
So one of the interesting comments that Hash had pointed out is the need to focus on scaling up and that the only way to do it is focusing on the network. And what is so interesting about this observation is that although he is very correct the ad industry has witnessed quite a backlash against ad networks. We have had our share of advertisers where we'd had conversations that went somewhat like this, "oh, so you guys are an ad network? We don't do anything with ad networks."
As a result of witnessing, first hand, this type of behavior from advertisers we saw our strategy shift a bit towards the more hardcore agency services that Joshua had mentioned to Hash in that awesome write up.
But the challenge in being an ad agency is that without constantly adding new employees it is very difficult to scale up. Add to that the fact the fact that in Kenya, as well as the other African markets that we are paying close attention to, there is such a tiny talent pool in what we are doing and one can see that the challenges that Erik had mentioned are very real.
Then there is an added dimension that did not come up in the story that has been a challenge for us since our inception, which is that we are a US based company with a focus on serving organizations seeking an African audience. What this generally has meant for us while operating from the US is that our pool of clients has been limited almost exclusively to US or African based organizations that have a very vested interest in serving the African Diaspora market.
If they have been branded campaigns, then we have found that our story has meshed very well with the executives heading up some of these organizations. While we have had a tougher challenge competing for the larger direct marketing segment of this market, many of whom can just throw up a cpc campaign on services such as Ad Words or Overture and be done with it.
Admittedly, when Joshua had initially told me that he was heading back to Kenya to set up the office I almost thought he was joking-because we were having a conversation one day and out of the blue he was just like-"yo B, in two months I'm going back to Kenya to start a Pamoja' office in Nairobi..." Fortunately, for us I think that Joshua's decision to get on the ground in Kenya was absolutely sage. He has only been there for a few months and already the profile and scope of our prospective of our conversations with prospective clients has changed very dramatically.
Joshua Wanyama.
Photo By White African
Primarily because it opens up our market so that we can now go after companies that are looking to utilize the best web technology to reach local African audiences. This is where we see the greatest potential for Pamoja Media. And whether we go after the agency services business or network business, what we are finding is that in Africa often one hand washes the other. While in the US it isn't uncommon for one major corporation to have anywhere between two to five ad agencies working for them-each carrying out a different function of the ad/communications functions. But in Kenya, what we have been seeing is that when we come to them for placement, often they will ask us whether we can also be of assistance with creatives or vice versa. So this tells us that the concept of one stop shopping in Kenya is very alive and well. But more importantly it tells us that when we go to a large Kenyan brand for an RFP, we had better be able to deliver both in placements and design/strategy because if we cant do both then we might not even get a chance to sit at the table and continue the conversation.
So as long as we are able to continue developing our client roster in such a way that the larger percentage of it is placements versus agency services then I think that scaling up should come naturally for us. Of course, this also means is that it will become imperative for us to also get our feet on the ground in some of the higher web bandwidth African countries that Hash mentioned. But let me say this... if there is anyone that can accomplish the feat of scaling an interactive African ad agency, utilizing an ad network as part of its core platform, it is the team that we have assembled at Pamoja Media consisting of Joshua, Jameel, and myself.
Erik Hersman and Joshua Wanyama
photo by Benin
Erik writes:
"It’s a lot of work to sell yourself into new accounts and then keep up with the demands of high profile clients. I know, I’ve been there. I know Joshua, and I know he’ll be successful with this.
What I also know is this, it’s terribly hard to scale a service organization. It takes more people. My hope is that Pamoja Media will be able to gather enough clients in the ad network space so that that remains the core business. This can scale, and it can be done efficiently."I think that reading this post signified that the time has come for me to take any of the readers that visit this blog back to Africa-seriously. For reasons unbeknownst to me this particular post transported me back to a conversation that Hash and I shared about a year back. At that time I had been toying around the idea of starting a new blog to complement Pamoja Media , but it was difficult for me to come up with any sustainable and relevant content.
So I went to Erik for advice on what might be a good way to approach the idea and he dispensed his wise counsel which was that maybe the blog could chronicle my experiences in Africa's digital advertising space from the perspective of an executive at Pamoja Media. My intent has always been to follow this advice, but for some reason the Pamoja blog just never really felt like the most appropriate place for me to do it. Call it a weird personal quirk, but its just one of those idiosyncrasies and I guess each one us has one, right?
So anyhow, after making my commentary on Hash's post, don't be surprised if, going forward, you find most or all of my upcoming commentary that still centers around social media and digital marketing but more within the African context.
Of course there will still be posts and mentions of social media and digital marketing in Atlanta. However, the deeper we at Pamoja Media have gone into the digital advertising industry the more I have felt the need to vent, share, and discuss those experiences with my web peers. And as a result think this should turn out to be a win-win for everyone.
So one of the interesting comments that Hash had pointed out is the need to focus on scaling up and that the only way to do it is focusing on the network. And what is so interesting about this observation is that although he is very correct the ad industry has witnessed quite a backlash against ad networks. We have had our share of advertisers where we'd had conversations that went somewhat like this, "oh, so you guys are an ad network? We don't do anything with ad networks."
As a result of witnessing, first hand, this type of behavior from advertisers we saw our strategy shift a bit towards the more hardcore agency services that Joshua had mentioned to Hash in that awesome write up.
- Interactive strategy – how to scale a company’s operations and marketing online
- Creative Development – Interactive ads, landing pages, enewsletters & micro sites
- Placement – We run ads on the Pamoja Media Network, Yahoo, Google and Facebook network of sites
- Social Media Marketing – This works for clients seeking long term social engagement with customers. We handle blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other accounts for such clients
- Online PR – We also handle online PR for companies seeking to grow their reputations outside of advertising African Market online
But the challenge in being an ad agency is that without constantly adding new employees it is very difficult to scale up. Add to that the fact the fact that in Kenya, as well as the other African markets that we are paying close attention to, there is such a tiny talent pool in what we are doing and one can see that the challenges that Erik had mentioned are very real.
Then there is an added dimension that did not come up in the story that has been a challenge for us since our inception, which is that we are a US based company with a focus on serving organizations seeking an African audience. What this generally has meant for us while operating from the US is that our pool of clients has been limited almost exclusively to US or African based organizations that have a very vested interest in serving the African Diaspora market.
If they have been branded campaigns, then we have found that our story has meshed very well with the executives heading up some of these organizations. While we have had a tougher challenge competing for the larger direct marketing segment of this market, many of whom can just throw up a cpc campaign on services such as Ad Words or Overture and be done with it.
Admittedly, when Joshua had initially told me that he was heading back to Kenya to set up the office I almost thought he was joking-because we were having a conversation one day and out of the blue he was just like-"yo B, in two months I'm going back to Kenya to start a Pamoja' office in Nairobi..." Fortunately, for us I think that Joshua's decision to get on the ground in Kenya was absolutely sage. He has only been there for a few months and already the profile and scope of our prospective of our conversations with prospective clients has changed very dramatically.
Joshua Wanyama.
Photo By White African
Primarily because it opens up our market so that we can now go after companies that are looking to utilize the best web technology to reach local African audiences. This is where we see the greatest potential for Pamoja Media. And whether we go after the agency services business or network business, what we are finding is that in Africa often one hand washes the other. While in the US it isn't uncommon for one major corporation to have anywhere between two to five ad agencies working for them-each carrying out a different function of the ad/communications functions. But in Kenya, what we have been seeing is that when we come to them for placement, often they will ask us whether we can also be of assistance with creatives or vice versa. So this tells us that the concept of one stop shopping in Kenya is very alive and well. But more importantly it tells us that when we go to a large Kenyan brand for an RFP, we had better be able to deliver both in placements and design/strategy because if we cant do both then we might not even get a chance to sit at the table and continue the conversation.
So as long as we are able to continue developing our client roster in such a way that the larger percentage of it is placements versus agency services then I think that scaling up should come naturally for us. Of course, this also means is that it will become imperative for us to also get our feet on the ground in some of the higher web bandwidth African countries that Hash mentioned. But let me say this... if there is anyone that can accomplish the feat of scaling an interactive African ad agency, utilizing an ad network as part of its core platform, it is the team that we have assembled at Pamoja Media consisting of Joshua, Jameel, and myself.
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June 6, 2009
Twitter Blog: Not Playing Ball
3:54 PM |
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Way to take a stand, Twitter. I agree with Biz Stone that individuals who whose Twitter to impersonate others, seemingly for a profit or to confuse the public, do a serious injustice to the Twitter community and to the public at large. Additionally, him calling out Tony La Russa for wasting tax payers money on such a lawsuit is very apt.
"Impersonation violates Twitter's Terms of Service and we take the issue seriously. We suspend, delete, or transfer control of accounts known to be impersonation. When alerted, we took action in this regard on behalf of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.
Reports this week that Twitter has settled a law suit and officially agreed to pay legal fees for an impersonation complaint that was taken care of by our support staff in accordance with our Terms are erroneous. Twitter has not settled, nor do we plan to settle or pay.With due respect to the man and his notable work, Mr. La Russa’s lawsuit was an unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous. Twitter’s Terms of Service are fair and we believe will be upheld in a court that will ultimately dismiss Mr. La Russa’s lawsuit.Verified Accounts Beta (A Sneak Peak)We do recognize an opportunity to improve Twitter user experience and clear up confusion beyond simply removing impersonation accounts once alerted. We'll be experimenting with a beta preview of what we're calling Verified Accounts this summer."
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June 5, 2009
Jay Rosen on how the web has put old media out of business
10:13 PM |
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I am sure that if you're like me then you find it so tired when old media attempts to delay the inevitable by attacking new media companies like Google and Craigslist. Well here's an excerpt from a beautifully written article that explains why no matter how hard they try its already too late for old line media organizations to escape their fate.
"Listening to news executives talk about micropayments, Kindles, public subsidies, micropayments, collusion, blocking Google and anything else that might save their businesses, it occurs to me that they may have missed some developments in, ah, well, the past ten years. For those and anyone else who is interested, I offer the following primer on how things have changed.
Any attempt to create a viable news operation needs to recognise and take advantage of these changes. I will probably have missed some - I’m hoping you can add them.
UPDATE: Jay Rosen suggests reading this post alongside this one by David Sull: “newspapers are essentially a logistics business that happens to employ journalists”. He’s right - it makes some great points."
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