Disqus - Friends of Harrisonma1

Re: Brevity

curiouslypersistent — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:10:55 -0000

Assuming the message being communicated isn't comprimised; yes.

Re: Are Ad Spend And Commerce Spend Correlated?

curiouslypersistent — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:02:48 -0000

Do you know if the ad spend figures only include spend on that country's domain (.co.uk/,de etc)? If not, it could be that some countries are more likely to spend on international domains...

Bur is an interesting question. I think ultimately it will come down to the category of products - a Barnes & Noble online campaign may generate a lot of sales online, but an American Apparel campaign would drive footfall to the stores so people can try the clothes on.
Simon

Re: Television will be the first traditional media medium to fall

curiouslypersistent — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:11:43 -0000

(Apologies for posting here, but the main comment box wasn't working for me)

A very thought-provoking post, but I don't agree with your conclusion.

In the UK, total TV viewing figures are going up - even among 16-24s.

The main issue for TV is that this viewing is fragmenting across an ever increasing number of channels. Therefore, revenue streams have to be diversified. Take Heroes as an example of a high-quality programme that is successful and profitable over a number of platforms.

The web and VOD will further change the TV market, but TV is an inherently social medium and the living room will remain the hub. It may be streaming shows from the web, but it will be broadcast on the 50" plasma HDTV for all the family to see. And no other media creates events like TV - whether the superbowl or the final of American Idol.

For me, radio will be the first to go - to be replaced completely by an on-demand podcast service. One of the main draws to radio in the car - real-time traffic reports - can be performed by sat nav systems

Simon

Re: Mygazines will go down in a flame of lawsuits

curiouslypersistent — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:37:51 -0000

I also think Mygazines will fail - as I mention here. In the days where a lot of content is available online on the publisher's website, I fail to see the benefit of having to scan pdfs - in terms of both uploading and reading.

And I take exception to "This is an entire business based on other people’s content". While I appreciate the context is different, isn't this what Google and Blinkx do?

Re: How crowdsourcing helps some –but not all research activities

curiouslypersistent — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:51:45 -0000

I agree Jeremiah - crowd-sourcing is brilliant for idea generation and collating information. And it is a two-way process - people can equally give and receive.

However, there will always be the requirement for someone like yourself to skilfully interepret the results. Taking a mean result of crowdsourcing in itself may produce lowest common denominator catch-all findings; but used as supporting or additional evidence for more analytical studies can be very powerful

Re: Who Gets To Watch the Watchmen?

curiouslypersistent — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:43:20 -0000

Fingers crossed it will be fine. According to the NY Times, there was a $17.5m settlement over Dukes of Hazzard in 2005, and this is going to be much more important to the studios so I imagine that they will be able to come to some resolution.

And I love Alan Moore, but I get the impression that he'd complain about even the most perfect adaptation of one of his works (admittedly, they've all been pretty shoddy so far)

Re: Are Independent Studios The Future of Gaming?

curiouslypersistent — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:50:50 -0000

As you point out, independent studios have much greater flexibility in innovating and coming up with new ideas. But while the top-selling titles are the franchises, and with the amount of money needed to develop high-quality (if not high concept) games, the EAs and the Vivendis won't be too worried. But that doesn't mean there isn't a strong market for cult games - which by definition have a limited appeal - and like you I hope that the indies continue to produce new and exciting titles

Re: 105 Million Reasons Why Mark Cuban is Wrong

curiouslypersistent — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:10:43 -0000

I broadly agree with you - but TV - web-based or not - will always be no.1 due to the communal, live, event feel. Witness the CNN fiasco on Twitter, where users complained because the results were tweeted before they had been shown on TV. However, this doesn't stop Hulu and the like becoming phenomenally successful by empowering the user to take the schedule into their own hands.

Re: 3 Unique Search Engines of the Future

curiouslypersistent — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:24:58 -0000

Thanks for these. I'll have to have a play around to see if their design gives improved functionality, or whether it is simply snazzy for the sake of being so

Re: Report: Hulu a More Successful Business Than YouTube

curiouslypersistent — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:06:20 -0000

Hulu will be more successful than Youtube in monetizing its inventory. The public are more accepting of ads around "premium" content following the TV model. It is a much harder sell to get people to accept corporate advertising around UGC - aside from UGC being made by amateurs not out to make a buck (most of the time), the ads would just be too incongruent

Re: Online television viewing up

curiouslypersistent — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:19:03 -0000

It isn't that people are switching over from TV to Internet. VOD tends to replace time-shifting and is for convenience - it is largely replacing TIVO and VCR/DVDR viewing.

Thus far - in the UK at least - there has been little cannibalisation in viewing

Re: Tim Berners-Lee has lost the plot

curiouslypersistent — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:39:29 -0000

I think this conflates truth with credibility. Truth is nebulous and is largely subjective. But truth/conjecture from one site can be more trustworthy than others, and I can see that is the argument behind ranking the source. It would never work though - aside from the gaming implications, mass opinion resorts to the lowest common denominator. Lolcats would rule the web

Re: State of the Blogosphere 2008: Technorati Numbers Indicate Blogging Is Niche and Slowing

curiouslypersistent — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:17:59 -0000

I agree that blogging is a mature industry. People have experimented with everything from Movable Type to Blogger to Myspace. Some stick - some go to Twitter or to Facebook or back offline.

No harm in slowing down.

Also, re the "average" of 600 readers per day. Perhaps we should use a median rather than mean average, to account for the indoubtedly massive long tail?

Re: I Guess I'm Doing Something Wrong

curiouslypersistent — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:48:31 -0000

Agreed

Re: New York Times Syndicates ReadWriteWeb

curiouslypersistent — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:38:25 -0000

Congrats - onwards and upwards!!

Re: Can modern brands be built with traditional people?

curiouslypersistent — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:35:10 -0000

Great presentation Adrian.

In a way, I think consumers can be better branders than us. Stefano's analogy of a written, authored story doesn't really work if you conceive of this as working on two levels. On the first level it is about perceptions and so the story is verbal. As such, it is exposed to Rashomon like embellishments and alternative perceptions. Each word of mouth story in itself may be limited, but combined they create a mystique that can become self-perpetuating. Gone are the days where brands can be distilled into a single word - managing complexity is very much the direction we are heading in. That brings in the second stage - the marketer as editor - trying to forge all these overlapping elements into a coherent narrative.

(The above paragraph is incredibly jumbled but I hope my point is visible)

Best
Simon

Re: Reading Blogs at Work: Why You Should Do It & How You Can Make it Worthwhile

curiouslypersistent — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:25:53 -0000

I read blogs at work. But others may not if

- They don't have access to a computer

- They have no interest in their job

- They are overworked

- There are no valuable/relevant blogs in their sector

- They prefer non-blog sources and services

I can't see the number getting above 20% anytime soon

Re: The Expansion of Ignorance

curiouslypersistent — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:15:03 -0000

So knowledge is networked? The more pieces of information available, the more nodes and the more possible connectors?

Re: Zuckerberg's "Second Law" And My Vision For Social Media

curiouslypersistent — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:47:43 -0000

A fair point regarding the rising number of people sharing, but I can't see individuals continuing to share extra information above and beyond a certain point (a unique point for each person).

With reblogging, retweeting and so forth, the noise becomes far too loud and the signal becomes list. Power users may be able to mentally filter out the 50th reposting of an original thought, but the average person won't be able to

Re: The blogosphere is alive, well and kicking

curiouslypersistent — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:28:23 -0000

Hear Hear. The Internet has always been about blurring boundaries and this is just another example

Re: HowObamaGotElected.com

curiouslypersistent — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:35:48 -0000

Questions based on past events vs questions based on current events

Re: Google SearchWiki is Not a Wiki

curiouslypersistent — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:30:12 -0000

And you can't seem to scroll past the first page of comments? Comments on google.com are now in the thousands...

Re: Online Video Not Killing TV, Says Nielsen

curiouslypersistent — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:18:30 -0000

Record year - and this is what? wave 3?

Re: Display Advertising Works, But It Works Differently Than Search

curiouslypersistent — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:20:01 -0000

Very interesting, thanks for providing the link to the white paper.

The findings make sense to me. Online advertising is often presumed to be just about clickthroughs and CPAs. However, it can also be used as a branding mechanism in conjunction with other media.

Dynamic Logic have done some work - this being one example - that shows that the biggest effects for online advertising are in awareness and imagery, not in purchasing.

The internet is a fabulous mechanism for measuring the impact of sales for DR campaigns, but this is far from a one trick pony and the other elements shouldn't be forgotten

(Of course, brand impact is far more difficult to measure, and that gets into a whole new can of worms)

Re: Why Facebook May Already Be Killing Twitter

curiouslypersistent — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:12:26 -0000

It depends on how you use each service e.g. I use Facebook purely for personal relationships and Twitter for a mixture of personal and professional