MotherPie

New Media and Little Laptops...

Other new laptops besides the new ultra light $1,799 MacBook Air have come on the market, offering portals to the web and with web-based cloud computing, these might make sense.  New moves in online news journalism are worth keeping an eye on as well.  So... crunching on.

Apple's creative programs make me love my Mac laptop (PowerBook G4) so I'm not changing.  Soon I'll install Office '08 for Mac, just out a few weeks ago and then I'll be done w/ my PC.

But portals to the web and the move to cloud computing? The iPhone seems like the handiest way to go, just for simple access and if I knew AT&T had as good or better coverage in Santa Fe than Sprint, I might just have to get one. Business leaders at Davos all had Blackberries (better email) so it will boil down to these two smart phones (Palm is closing stores and new versions, out next year, will come too late). I've been looking into these other lap top portals, though. 

Cloudbooks (or SubNotebooks) are trend shifts: The race started last fall for small, cheap, light laptops and WaPo has a good article. Eee PC is one cheap (starting at $245) portable subNotebook I read about that seems to have just hit the market with a bang, starting last fall with a Linux-based system.  They've just released in January a Windows based version.   Other mass-market sub-$200 desktops have come on the market, tripling from one to three in less than three months.  At the CES, PC maker Shuttle debuted it's $199 KPC, loaded with a Linux operating system.   Mirus Linux PC, now for sale at Sears.com, is $299 but w/ included rebate is $199, comes w/ Freespire 2.0, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution.  Everex gPC appeared on Wal-Mart shelves for $198 (so popular Wal-Mart is having trouble keeping it in stock), with operating system of gOS, version of Ubuntu 7.10.  Linux is getting easier to use: Two of world's largest PC manufacturers, Dell and Lenovo, offer Linux operating systems. You can find a $200 Linux PC -- pre-installed and the average user doesn't have to do updates like on Windows. and Linux getting easier to use. 

New Media Developments...In the last five years, the New York Times has declined in value by an astonishing 70 percent, and The Newspaper Association of America reported the number of unique visitors to newspaper Web sites last year rose more than 6 percent to a monthly average of 60 million. Monthly visits climbed 9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year ago. During the fourth quarter, 39 percent of all active Web users visited newspaper Web sites, with visits averaging 44 minutes a month. 

Thomas Jefferson said, "I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one in a month, and I feel myself the happier for it," but I bet he'd be following new developments with media tech changes.

Online news continues to shift and there are two things I'm keeping my eye on:

1) ProPublica will be something to watch develop. It is a nonprofit newsroom that plans to launch online this spring with an advisory board that includes five top newspaper editors and collaboration may happen with its original "deep dive" investigative stories appearing in major media sites. As major media sites cut back, hard tough stories will get the short shrift.   This is one of the solutions to this problem. The board includes NYTimes Managing Editor Jill Abramson, Boston Globe Editor Martin Baron, Denver Post Editor Gregory Moore, Seattle Times Editor David Boardman, and Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Others include U.S. News & World Report editor at large David Gergen, former Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll, Fortune columnist Allan Sloan and historian Robert Caro.   Much of its $10 million annual budget has been donated by Herbert and Marion Sandler,ProPublica will fill a void left by cutbacks in the newspaper business that have reduced investigative staffs.

2) CNN will very soon launch it's iReport journalism initiative - user generated reporting.  This is a direct opposite move to #1 above and it will take both to work. The site will be iReport.com.  Right now, hubs for "citizen journalism" on the Web include well-backed companies like Current Media, which recently filed for an IPO, as well as start-ups of varying size like NowPublic and GroundReport.

Magazines and improving online presence...These changes are needed but I think as things lighten up, deeper reading (intellectual magazines and books) will still be needed. Atlantic Monthly has made changes to online magazine, putting old content by Mark Twain up, having single advertisers pay to bring down firewall, more content up for online-only...  Last week the editor announced that the online edition is free.

Advertising: Pushing & Exposing Boundaries...

Zoom: This ad for the Buick Enclave, right, ran as a full-page spread in the NYTimes in November.  It caught my attention because the car zooms in from the right, breaking into the "regular copy" and disrupting the news.  It broke the (traditional) boundaries, blurring the line between advertising and editorial.  In doing research, I found that the NYTimes also ran a full story on the car in its editorial space in September.  Which is advertising and are the lines getting fuzzy between paid and non-paid advertising?  This is a different form of embedded advertising but, like embedded advertising, you aren't really sure who is paying for what space.

The Dove Ad: A top award-winning ad which you've probably already seen, was just listed as one of USA Today's top ads of 2007 as the best  online 'viral' video: Unilever Dove's award-winning 76-second ad "Evolution" turned into a Web video by Ogilvy & Mather in Canada, showing how trickery is used to turn a real woman into a glamorous billboard image. The video, seen more then 10 million times, also generated backlash. Some consumers saw a double-standard by Unilever: promoting self-esteem in ads for Dove women's products as part of their three-year "Campaign for Real Beauty", while often featuring sexy, scantily clad women in ads for its male-oriented Axe fragrances.  Resonance: This message pushed boundaries in two ways: one, by disclosing tricks behind techniques used to market to women and secondly, by word-of-mouth viral distribution.

The ad won an unprecendented two Grand Prix awards (including the best-of-show) at the 54th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival last summer. Ad Age named it the best global campaign of the year.  The agency says that this ad has to have the highest rate of investment in the history of advertising ... "With over 150 million U.S. dollars worth of free media exposure through millions of hits on YouTube and every talk show in North America and Europe singing its praises, our Unilever clients say this piece has to have the highest ROI in the history of advertising."

Dove was looking for something to make the Self Esteem Fund more visible to a larger audience...  The client had one idea, but the ad agency, "asked if we could also shoot ‘Evolution’ if we could do it within the budget. We asked because we knew that although ‘Evolution’ didn’t meet the brief, we knew we were onto something."

Just think -- The Dove Self-Esteem Fund's goal was to reach 5 million young women by 2010.   By now, it has reached....? 

Dove's Evolution Ad:

Target Ads & Retail Sales...

Target's ads were big, bold and, in red, the most attention-getting color, they stood out.  You couldn't help but miss those ads.  They dominted the space, dominated the blocks. They were big, bold and all over Times Square at a time when Broadway was shut down with strikes at the end of November, leading into the big retail sales period over the holidays.

Target's sales, after the initial Thanksgiving rush, began to decline unexpectedly by the end of November.  When a major retailer talks about a slowdown in sales, analysts listen.  Holiday sales are expected to grow at the slowest pace since 2002.  Women's apparel sales are down 6% and the spending of women is indicative...

Is it the economy, or are consumers looking to give differently this year?  I just wonder if we are reevaluating the worth of stuff.

California Fires...

Amy Gahran at Poynter put together some links of intriguing online coverage with the California Wildfires. The blog And Still I Persist has some geographical maps that show where the fires are. A Flickr site has nearly 2,000 photos. The NPR affiliate KPBS in San Diego put together a google map, left.  Intense weather watching used to be the province of Doppler radar and Oklahoma weathermen. Now satellite imagery, like the ones from NASA, right, help plan fire management.

One of the first times I felt the impact of new media was with the reporting of the Trampas fires in the Pecos Wilderness in Northern New Mexico in 2002. Stephan Dill, former web-editor of The Santa Fe New Mexican, became acutely aware that the newspaper's online site could gather on-the-ground details much more effectively than regular media could.  ABC News' i-Caught has uploaded videos and satellite imagery is being used to fight the fires.

The newest thing might be KPBS's use of Twitter in relation to the fire situation.  New fears? Fires by arson terrorists.

Power & Information Uncontained...

Would tv anchor Walter Cronkite have commented about entertainment news?  Hardly. In the old media days, information was not as easy. We had to trust our news editors and journalists in print and electronic, to tell us what we needed to know.  Magazines could entertain and those like Life magazine filled the gap. Serious "news" organizations (all of whom have cut back on international bureaus) and cable shows choose to present stories, gatekeeping the news to maintain/get attention in order to attract/keep viewers and thus sell advertising.  A huge amount of fluff - celebrity/entertainment stories are in the mix.  Why?  Because that is what we pay attention to.  It is our fault, just as much as wanting to eat strawberries in winter and use plastic bags at the grocery store.  It is easy, man.

Art & the Real: Changing (or Keeping) Identities...

Don't you see things in context when you put them all together?  Think scrapbook.  Think exhibition.  Think life histories.  Think NEW CREATIVE TOOLS!  (If you want to go deep, go to the flip for a little philosophizing).

We play with our identities all the time and the art of it is the crux.  Teenagers know this -- they do it on facebook and MySpace.

On a big art scale on this subject, an exhibition (through October 28),The Arts in Latin America, 1492 - 1820 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art puts together art  produced throughout Latin America that reflect the seminal changes in the development of new identities as art from the Old World collided with the new.  I'd love to see it.  It got me to thinking about how we are changing.  The arts of expression then were not like those we have now.  What art of identity will we leave behind?

These (art) questions have been asked for a long time in New Mexico where Indian, Hispanic and Anglo cultures have long stewed together in this gumbo of a place. How are identities changed, what things are absorbed, what things persist, what are diminished -- these are questions that are culturally important.

My blog friend, Kathy, found a great online site to put together quick photo slideshows set to music called animoto, just out in beta.  She has her sample up on her site if you want to see her family identity presented.   Another one I found is one true media. (think identity and the art of communication of the true - don't you love that - self). Most of our art, unlike that Latin America's art, is no longer connected to the spiritual but is about the art of our own lifestyle.  I quit doing scrapbooks in 2004.  Everything is now from digitial uploads -- usually Shutterfly or i-photo.  There are services that will digitize old photos.  My only issue with total digitial is the level of archival life.  Are our identities and artistic expressions going to be lost?

Our identities are never static.  We, the people, are changing, culturally.  How will our art tell our story?  Art is a mirror to our society.  Do you ever go back through your own work and gain a sense of yourself as seen over time? 

Go really deeper into the philosphy of art and our identities on the flip...

Kodak Moments and Social Shifts...

It is all digital. Isn't it amazing how quickly things can so dramatically change? When we moved to NYC I packed along my old trusty (film/antique camera) and put all the old scrapbooks and photos into storage.  The film and camera have sat unusued.  Now I have I used Flickr for camera research when I bought my newest digital camera (the better to capture my daughter's August wedding moments!).   

She tried on the wedding dress and I pulled out the film camera but alas... the batteries were dead.  I wonder if this is the last hurrah and if anyone around can even develop b/w photos on archival paper anymore.

A before and after metaphorical moment in a snap-shot.

Sunday Soapbox: Real Issues & Media & Farmer's Markets...

You are what you eat (and read and watch). I hate to be stupid. Stupidity is my biggest pet peeve so I berate myself when I fall for dumb hijinks.  Especially when I'm supposed to be smart about some (media) things. You know.

Some things just get attention.  Attention sells.  Corporate media subsists with advertising.  Entertainment entices what some in politics call "the lazy middle" and distraction is tool.  I know this.

Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears are sad stories.  I can tell you more details about them and get more conversations going with trash trivia than I can about things that are important. It is sad that they get so much attention and distract us from more intelligent matters. I detest that this is so.

Who has time to dig deep and do more than skim the surface?  It is summertime, anyway, right?  Politics in the summertime? Boring unless it is YouTubed.  Still, I try.  I really try  to be smart about important matters, to think and to understand deeper issues.

How Time is Spent Online...

I thought this was important to publish because I think it is interesting to see how time is spent across the various options online. 77% of the respondents to my blog survey spend an hour or more a day in the blogosphere.   Traditional newspapers are seeing their readership drop but this shows that those going online are participating more for news and information in the blogosphere rather than in the traditional channels.

Go to the flip for stats and rankings of top online news sites...things are changing at mach speed.  We are, too.

Marketing Through New Media...

The effort to reach consumers has gone up a few notches, escalating especially in the online environment. One of my friends emailed me that her son had submitted a jingle for the American Idol Pringles contest.  To go vote for his jingle to be the Grand Prize Winner, I had to sign in to vote, providing my name, email address, birthday and zip code.  I gave ten minutes of time to Proctor and Gamble dealing with Pringles.  (Go here to vote for the Pringle Jingle - his is the "United States of Pringles" and it looked fun and creative).  A bunch of people spent a lot of time and creativity for just for fun (or to win the award).  The audience reach is much higher, the engagement is much deeper and the cost is - I presume, much lower than traditional advertising.

What a way to get people to connect to your product for free and encourage others to spend time engaging with it, too.

John Edwards is the fifth-ranked Twit (or was when I wrote about it last month - the NYTimes is just now writing about Twitter) and has a lot of MySpace friends, too.  News of his $400 haircuts hit the news and a YouTube video of him primping his 'do became viral.  Like Hillary's off-key singing video, some of this is reverse marketing but it is a new way of reaching audiences -- very  different from billboards, tv and radio commercials.  New media is changing political marketing and communications -- there will be a default line in this presidential election dividing old media marketing impact and new media marketing in influencing outcomes.

The blog MotherTalk is promoting Arianna Huffington's new book, Fearless, encouraging every mother blogger to write about a time when fear was overcome and linking to Huffington's book. My blog friend Lauri takes up the promotion and encourages others to think about the challenge.  All of this is completely free promotion for Huffington's book by creating a meme for bloggers.

The Webby Awards are voted on by people. I got an email from the Cooper-Hewitt Design museum in my NYC neighborhood letting me know their website has been nominated and encouraging me to go vote.  Verizon is the sponsor of the awards. In order to vote, you have to sign in to access the site and that first page is a marketing trick for Verizon. After spending ten minutes trying to register and giving emails and setting passwords, Verizon had a lot of my attention but now it has my frustration. I'll stick to Sprint.  After trying three times to get past tech glitches, I quit. When I tried to respond to their email that sent me registration problems, techsuppport_pv@webbyawards.com, it bounced back as an unknown user.  But if you want to go register and vote for the webby awards 2006 People's Design Awards, go. Tell me if you had the problems, too.   It might just be my computer.

My brother is coming from Colorado this weekend and he'll help with some of my tech woes.  I can't comment on some blogs after I deleted all of my cookie files (my anti-virus was deleting 60 harmful cookies daily so I just deleted them all).   

My study found that most mom blogs were not interested in monetizing their blogs.  The marketing effort is sure moving online like a tsunami this year.