Google CEO Larry Page, who rankled investors with his disappearance over the past few months from the company’s public events because of a vague medical condition affecting his voice, re-emerged Tuesday for an interview at Google’s Zeitgeist Americas conference in Arizona. Those who have heard Page speak before will notice his voice is higher and he speaks in more measured tones. (For a comparison, see the video below.) Officially, the company has noted that the CEO lost his voice and has chronically delicate vocal cords. Nevertheless, Page’s appearance should reassure skeptics. It’s unclear, however, if Page will be speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, which is scheduled for Thursday. During his close-to-40-minute talk, Page made a cheeky reference to Apple’s recent trouble with Maps: “We’re excited that other people are starting to notice that we worked hard on [Google Maps] for seven years.” Page also defended the company’s new privacy policy and discussed Google’s self-driving cars and Google Glass. “It’s an amazing device,” Page said. “Every time I use it, I feel like I’m living in the future.” Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/17/google-larry-page-public-appearance/
When it comes to engaging consumers online, the bar has never been higher. A recent study revealed that 82% of Americans completely ignore most online advertising. And it makes sense — faced with endless amounts of media online, we’ve all developed an eye-glaze setting reserved for pre-roll, banner and social media ads. Simply put, they don’t work anymore. Luckily, there’s an antidote to this interruptive, beat-you-over-the-head type of advertising — it just requires a very different approach. In order to cut through the noise, brands must create content — stuff that consumers actually care about and want to engage with — instead of inert, product-centric advertisements. It may seem like an easy shift, until you realize that it’s not the way the advertising industry has been oriented for the past 100 years. So where do brands go to release content that is richer, deeper and more tailored to the customer? I’d like to introduce you to a small video site called YouTube. With a billion unique users flocking to the site every month, YouTube has become the place where great content, regardless of its origin, can find a huge audience. It’s also the place where brands can make their mark as creators. When 8 million people tuned in to watch Felix Baumgartner’s insanely epic space jump, they did so because it was can’t-miss entertainment — the fact that it was a Red Bull ad was secondary. The same goes for First Kiss, a spot for clothing line Wren, which has now been viewed over 77 million times. (For a little perspective, the Game of Thrones premiere received 8.2 million viewers on its opening night.) But not all brands are created equal on YouTube. Depressingly enough, the average brand channels are still a cluttered mess of re-purposed TV spots, corporate “infotainment” and half-baked viral video concepts. Shudder. The following five companies are proof that the “content, not ads” mantra works. If a brand invests the time and energy in creating entertainment that’s focused around the customer, it has the opportunity to gain a massive fan base who will happily do the work of bringing its message out into the world. It may feel like a leap today, but it’s a leap every brand will have to make if they want anyone to pay attention. 1. GoPro Any brand who wants a quick primer on how to act like a creator need look no further than GoPro’s pulsing YouTube channel, a true action sports network told through the lens of their device. Granted, it’s easier to market a DIY camera through video content than just about anything else, but GoPro leverages YouTube best practices to cement their place as a product by and for the people. The channel page draws you in with an unmissable welcome video and then leads towards a wide variety of content – from the painfully adorable to the painfully painful, perfectly categorized and organized for your browsing pleasure. 2. Fiat Fiat’s YouTube channel is a lot like […]
Microsoft has launched a new ad for Windows Phone 8, and it features none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Narrated by Ballmer, the ad focuses on the platform’s personalization capabilities, and also features Bill Gates — if only as an image — who gives some Surface-related design advice to Ballmer. The phone featured in the ad is the powerful HTC Windows Phone 8X — a bit of a slap in the face of Nokia, who is Microsoft’s biggest Windows Phone partner. As far as Ballmer starring in a Microsoft video ad, the last time that happened was 1986, and the product being advertised was Windows 1.0. Check out the result here. How do you like the new ad? Share your thoughts in the comments. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/30/steve-ballmer-shows-off-his-windows-phone-in-new-ad-video/
Mayor Michael Bloomberg rang the bell to re-open the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday after a two-day trading hiatus. Both the NYSE and the NASDAQ were closed Monday and Tuesday as Hurricane Sandy whipped through the Northeast, the first time weather has forced the stock market to close for two consecutive days since 1888. It’s already shaping up to be an eventful day for tech stocks. Apple’s stock plunged back below $600 a share in early trading Wednesday following a shakeup in the company’s executive leadership announced earlier in the week and Facebook is down nearly 4% as the first of three big lockup periods expires, allowing employees to cash out their stock. Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, sitox Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/31/bloomberg-stock-exchange/
Facebook is celebrating hitting the 1 billion monthly user mark with the company’s first ad campaign. The social network hired ad agency Wieden + Kennedy — best known for its Nike work — to create the 90-second film above. The ad compares Facebook to chairs, bridges, basketball and other vehicles that bring people together. “What we’re trying to articulate is that we as humans exist to connect, and we at Facebook to facilitate and enable that process,” Rebecca Van Dyck, Facebook’s head of consumer marketing, told Advertising Age. “We make the tools and services that allow people to feel human, get together, open up. Even if it’s a small gesture, or a grand notion — we wanted to express that huge range of connectivity and how we interact with each other.” In a blog post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg added, “For the first time in our history, we’ve made a brand video to express what our place is on this earth. We believe that the need to open up and connect is what makes us human. It’s what brings us together. It’s what brings meaning to our lives.” The ad campaign will roll out in 13 countries, including the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Spain. There is no mention in the film of Facebook having hit the 1 billion mark. What do you think? Does this make you think of Facebook any differently? Let us know in the comments. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/04/facebook-ad-campaign/
Marketer Tom Monday has always been inspired by independent enterprises — businesses or individuals that are fueled by an unflappable passion for what they do and who they can reach, not just a desire to get rich. For more than a decade, Monday labored in the music industry in a variety of roles to help bring exposure to smaller (but no less important) performers. Then, in 2011, he moved onto a more corporatized position in the field, a decision he would later regret. “It was soul-crushing,” Monday tells Mashable. “I had a moment when I said, ‘I have to go back and work with people who are making things that are interesting and that I care about.’” “Telling their story” In 2012, Monday decamped from his job and turned his complete attention to a new passion that he and his professional and social circles were buzzing about: Helping small-batch food and drink producers establish a foothold in American kitchens. “There are a lot of similarities between independent music and independent food and drink, and a lot of my friends started talking about food and drink the way they used to talk about music,” he says. “They started wanting to not so much turn me onto a band, but turn me onto a small batch bourbon they just encountered, or a food truck or a pop-up shop.” The problem for many independent brands, however, is marketing. While they can go from their kitchen to a farmers market, they often have trouble navigating grocery chains and implementing customer acquisition strategies. Monday, who spent more than a dozen years in marketing, could help. The first step, he told them, was to tell their story, which would justify charging a premium for their product. Without a story about the maker, and where the product comes from, most small-batch producers struggle to attract the attention of customers who might be tempted to purchase a cheaper, mass-produced alternative. “People won’t pay premium for something if they don’t know a lot about it and haven’t been able to experience it,” Monday says. “It’s hard for people to tell their own story, so one of the most exciting things we can do is have a good product from someone who has a good story but hasn’t been able to tell it yet.” Since 2013, under the name Small Batch America, Monday has helped dozens of small brands, like Mast Brothers Chocolate, Grady’s Cold Brew and Sour Puss Pickles, tell their stories. He’s done so using many of the connections he made in the music industry. Backstage at concerts and festivals across the country, Monday has brought small-batch products to musicians who pride themselves on supporting small producers. He’s even been able to find a home for some of the products he represents in the green room of the The Daily Show. “One of my goals is to get venues and festivals to care more about what they’re serving their guests,” he says. “It seems silly to me that […]
Less than a week after Facebook‘s big announcement about hitting 1 billion users, all anyone can remember are the chairs. Facebook celebrated hitting the milestone with its first ad campaign, an inspired effort that compared the social network to chairs. The Internet’s response has been swift. Mashable has tried its hand at lampooning the ad and the Tumblr Are Like Facebook has had some fun comparing Facebook to bananas and boxes, among other things. This latest parody takes things a bit further into NSFW territory as well as bizarro territory. (“The universe is a big place full of things that have names. And people you can connect with. People that have a hook for a hand…”) Is it funny? We’ll let you decide. Sound off in the comments. What Facebook Is Like Bananas Via Are Like Facebook Boxes Via Are Like Facebook Chair Via Are Like Facebook Dumpsters Via Are Like Facebook Empty Chairs Via Are Like Facebook Free Throws Via Are Like Facebook Muffins Via Are Like Facebook Pelicans Via Are Like Facebook Pillows Via Are Like Facebook Politicians Via Are Like Facebook Rappers Via Are Like Facebook Sad Kittens Via Are Like Facebook Sad-Kittens-fb-600 Via Are Like Facebook Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/08/toilet-paper-heroin-facebook/
In the age of Photoshop, it’s almost impossible to say with absolute certainty whether any given image is real, but one former Photoshop employee hopes to change that. Fourandsix Technologies, a startup founded by a former Adobe Photoshop executive and a digital forensics expert, unveiled its first piece of software this week, which promises to help law enforcement determine whether a photo is authentic or not. The software, called FourMatch, analyzes the meta data in picture files to quickly determine if a photo has been modified. FourMatch relies on a comprehensive database of more than 70,000 “signatures” that are left on a file from each piece of hardware and software that goes into creating it. As the company explains in a description of the product, “Once an image has been edited and resaved from a software product, this signature is changed to match the software rather than the original capture device.” FourMatch is primarily intended for police and lawyers who need to determine whether a photograph has been tampered with in any way between the time it was first captured and submitted as evidence. However, the software won’t tell you exactly how the image has been altered — if it has been at all — because it only analyzes the file data rather than the image itself. For this reason, it can just tell you if a file has been touched by another application. “This first product we’ve put out is not a magic bullet that will tell you everything you need to know about an image,” Kevin Connor, the company’s president and co-founder who worked at Adobe for 15 years, told Mashable. “This is sort of a first step and there are certain scenarios when it will be very valuable, particularly in the law enforcement space.” Indeed, the software currently retails for $890 so it’s clearly not intended for the average consumer. In the future, though, the startup plans to release other tools to determine the authenticity of pictures that should have broader use. In particular, Connor sees a growing need for technology that can detect photo fraud in medical research, help media companies assess whether their photographers have been too liberal editing their photos and sift through pictures going viral on social media to figure out whether they’re real. Likewise, he thinks tools like this could help banks verify the authenticity of pictures of checks and other payments taken by customers. “People are using images more and more to communicate and facilitate transactions,” Connor said. “There will be more situations when you might want to be able to verify that it’s true.” Image courtesy of Fourandsix Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/09/21/fourandsix-fourmatc/
Organic foods and beverage maker Clif Bar is launching what it claims is the first geo-location Twitter campaign. The company wants you to send a geo-tagged tweet to @CLIFMojoGo the next time you’re in a park, at the beach or on a trail. Once the company has verified you are indeed outdoors, it will send you instructions to claim a free trail mix bar. You’ll also be entered to win a Garmin GPS watch and other prizes. Twitter does allow advertisers to target users in 210 U.S. regions, but doesn’t allow them to target users in specific locations — for example, in parks or at the mall. Clif Bar’s strategy, though labor intensive — they’ll have to verify the location of the tweets manually — is a clever workaround. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/07/30/clif-bar-geo-targeted-twitter-campaign/
Jessica Alba is a mom, an investor, actress and yes, a Windows Phone 8 user. Alba joins singer Gwen Stefani in a celeb-laden pitch for Windows Phone 8. The ads present the celebs as busy multitaskers who use the devices to organize their lives. Alba, for instance, uses her phone to get recipes for breakfast and schedule events for her daughters. Stefani uses Office on hers to keep track of new lyrics and to Skype her family from the road. The ads, breaking Wednesday night to support the launch of the Nokia Lumia 920, will be followed by others featuring Andy Samberg and Cam Newton. Microsoft isn’t the only mobile player to tap celebs to promote its devices. Samsung has employed LeBron James and James Franco to pitch the Galaxy Note II and the Galaxy 10.1, respectively, in very similar day-in-the-life ads. Perhaps its working. Samsung’s smarthphones are far outselling Apple’s iPhones these days even though Apple has itself used Martin Scorcese, John Malkovich and Zooey Deschanel, among others, to promote the iPhone. Bonus Gallery: Lumia 920 Low-Light Photos Nokia Lumia 920 Low-Light Photos Great in Low Light All of the photos in this gallery were taken using the automatic settings in the Lumia 920 at night. Palm Tree Details in this palm tree look great, with virtually no blur, even though the photo was taken at night. Street Sign Subway Station Often dark in photographs, the subway station in San Francisco looks clear and well lit in this photo. Pineapples This fruit was located at an outside market at night with minimal lighting. Avocado Tomatoes Limes Lemons Streetscape The Lumia 920 seemed to have trouble with this shot, losing the details in the trees while brightening the photo at bit overall. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/11/14/jessica-alba-gwen-stefani-windows-phone-8-ads/
