Disqus - Latest Comments for augieray

Re: YouGov international COVID-19 tracker

augieray — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 11:44:59 -0000

I just tried incognito mode and even went to a different browser (switching from Chrome to Edge), still no luck. This page seems to be broken.

Re: YouGov international COVID-19 tracker

augieray — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 11:42:37 -0000

Is there a secret to get this page to load? All I see is a "LOADING..." message. I've force refreshed. I even closed and reopened my browser. No luck. I'd love to see the data.

Re: SXSW PanelPicker®

augieray — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 12:05:34 -0000

Great topic--focused on how blockchain impacts the marketing dept and marketing leaders.

Re: The Ad Contrarian: Wrong Problem, Wrong Solution

augieray — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 10:07:43 -0000

I love your take, Bob. (I'm sure that comes as no surprise given our conversations on the Beancast.) I am curious if you think the problem is really tracking. If tracking stopped, but we still got the same ads in the same place (arguably worse ads, since they will no longer be quite as relevant) do you think the advertising would get better and the problem of ad blocking would evaporate? I don't think so, but I'm curious of your opinion.

Re: How to Sharpen Rift Visuals with Supersampling Using Oculus Debug Tool

augieray — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 23:07:59 -0000

Didn't seem to make any difference for me. After changing the Pixels Per Display Pixel Override, do I have to do anything? I don't see an "apply" button. Keep the Debugging Tool running? Close it?

Also of note: You indicate the setting can go between 1 and 2, but mine was at 0 on open and I seem to be able to stick any number in there. I entered 200 and it accepted it.

Re: We’ve Lost Nearly Half Our Social Referral Traffic in the Last 12 Months

augieray — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 14:16:05 -0000

I really respect the transparency here. What marketers need to understand is that organic content in social media is a terrible marketing channel for most verticals. We keep chasing success and it keeps getting further away. We shouldn't be surprised--social is a channel where the consumer is in charge, and really, how many consumers visit Facebook or Twitter to hear from brands rather than from friends, family, peers, celebrities and the like?

People want to tell me all the time how wrong I am, so I ask them to participate ina simple exercise: Estimate how many brands are in your life on a monthly basis. How many are in your refrigerator? Your cupboards? Your closet? Your medicine cabinet? Your devices? Your desk? Your vehicle? What would you guess--500? 700? More? Now, out of that number (and excluding media and entertainment brands where content IS their product), how many of those would you welcome a content-based relationship? How much time will you make for branded content in social media and your email? I have never had anyone tell me they'd regularly welcome content from more than ten brands--and most of those overlap from person to person (Apple, Android, GoPro, etc.)
We keep acting as if our brand's content will be better and more engaging than every other brands' content, but we're not competing against other brands--we're competing against our customers' friend and family in social media. It's no wonder brands cannot compete. As a result, social media reach for brands is dropping. Traffic from social to brand sites is dropping. And this means marketers are wasting a lot of money chasing pipe dreams.

Maybe it's time to get serious about what customers want--really want--and what is actually available to brands in social media. What consumers want is responsiveness, not broadcasted marketing messages. They want customer care, not one-size-fits-all sales-generating posts. They want brands that care about its customers, not brands that use social media only to acquire prospects.

I'll get off my soapbox, but if you want a data-driven approach to what is wrong with social media and what companies need to do about it, I invited you to read: http://www.experiencetheblo...

Re: The Collaborative Economy Defined

augieray — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 09:42:09 -0000

Regardless of the thought leaders who adopt this definition, I still find it has room for improvement. If Uber starts using its own self-driving cars, does it stop being a collaborative economy company? Is Zipcar not a collaborative economy model, since it isn't P2P? Is eBay a collaborative company? (I don't see many people considering it so, but it is the largest platform in the world for people to get what they need from each other.) And by this definition, every sole proprietorship fits (since each sole proprietorship is, quite literally, an individual providing services or products to other individuals.)

As I have suggested, collaborative models are collaborative because they allow people to share in the ownership and consumption of goods and services. While Uber and Zipcar have very different models, they both permit people to collectively share assets and/or their consumption. To me, the sharing in the sharing economy is not about how people procure things or even if they are sharing things out of altruism--the sharing or collaborative economy is about technology allowing the more efficient consumption of assets in a collective fashion.

I'd still like to see a more robust conversation about the definition and would love to have a definition that better suits all the players we today recognize as being in this industry. (But, with so many voices and opinions, perhaps that is not possible.)

Re: Attention is a Gift: Once you have my attention, why should I care?

augieray — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:49:58 -0000

I would've been surprised had we been in disagreement. I appreciate the response and the additional perspective.

Re: Attention is a Gift: Once you have my attention, why should I care?

augieray — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:38:16 -0000

You and I usually are quite well aligned, Brian, but in this case I feel your link to Josh's blog post (which references mine) misses the point.

We all agree that "true engagement is not something you sell," but "sell" is the reason the Marketing Department exists in most organizations, and "sell" is how Marketing measures its success (via metrics like acquisition, inbound traffic, conversions and, in fact, sales.) As a result, the question I raised in my blog post (and Josh feels I didn't take far enough) is if storytelling and brand content can deliver on the goals of the Marketing Department. As my blog post suggests (validated with volumes of data and links), the use of social and organic content will not be able to drive the outcomes the Marketing Department wants and expects.

We can debate if Marketing should have different goals or not, but the bottom line is this (and I think you'll agree): Between shrinking reach, low consumer trust, active consumer blocking of brand messaging and rising paywalls on social networks, the key to social media success isn't brand content but true peer-to-peer WOM. We need to get consumers talking about the experiences our brands provide, not the content they create.

In a world where Coca-Cola--a brand that engages with consumers 1.8 BILLION times a day with its product--can only reach 38,000 people in a week on Facebook and on Twitter can only occasional engage more than 1,000 with a tweet, it should be evident the secret to success isn't better posts and tweets FROM the brand but more posts and tweets ABOUT the brand from customers.

I tend to think we are more aligned than not, but if you truly think Marketing Departments can invest in content to gain organic reach and deliver on business objectives that justify the investment, then I'd like to see your data. I'm not talking about the rare case study where a brand puts money down on the roulette wheel and strikes it lucky--I mean the broad data that demonstrates all brands can generate value from the content they post to social networks. I've yet to see data that proves this, but I'm always open to having my POV challenged. It will take more than accusing me of yelling "fire" to do this, however.

Re: Inside Santiago Calatrava's WTC Transportation Hub in New York

augieray — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 14:38:54 -0000

While I think Calatrava's design is lovely, as someone who walks through this passageway every workday, I find these photos are simple not accurate. Someone's edited the white balance and brightness to bring out the whiteness and make it glow. This isn't reality. I think it is quite stunning the way it is, but I object this sort of considerable editing to portray the space as different than it actually is. Also, this passageway has been open for 18 months and is but a small portion of the Transportation Hub, which is NOT open yet, so not only are the photos themselves edited to convey a false reality, the headline is also simply incorrect.

Re: What Twitter doesn't need

augieray — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 10:38:34 -0000

I don't disagree, but aren't you really simple complaining about the nature of VC-funded businesses? None of Twitter's leaders to date had the opportunity to "tell the street to dump their shares" because the VCs who funded Twitter weren't interested in changing the world or long-term success or slow growth or revenue diversification. The VCs needed to maximize their investment and get the most return from Twitter (because the bets they placed on 10 other startups went belly up.) And so Twitter's leaders did what they had to do--what they were obligated to do--which was to maximize value as quickly as possible in front of an IPO in order to transfer future risk to someone other than the VCs while locking in the VCs' return.

My question is if any VC-funded firm can really do what is necessary. Can any leader really "have a vision that goes way out into the future," and tell the VCs who gave the funds that created the vision to "fuck you if you think we're going to screw that up for a few quarters of..." not "modest stock appreciation," but instead "immodest private valuation growth."

You blame "the street," but once the company has gone public with a $14.2 billion valuation, you can't really tell the people who buy in, "Guess what? Now we're going to shrink our value and expect to eat the losses because we were unable to tell the VCs they wanted too much too soon." Once the VCs get their pound of flesh, then "The Street" has a reasonable expectation of stock growth rather than decline. The VCs start the merry-go-round spinning at the speed they need, but sometime the speed is so great, no one on the crazy ride can grab the ring, so it all just falls to pieces.

The only recent firm I can think of that leveraged the power to take a slower and more sensible approach was Facebook, and that was only because Zuckerberg still has a controlling interest. Just think of what Twitter might be today if Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass still owned 51%.

Re: Reader Comments: Will #CodeHalos Create BIG Winners?

augieray — Wed, 13 May 2015 23:52:28 -0000

I don't know Code Halos, but you've encouraged me to check out the book. I agree that the future of social is still more relevance, and your scenario makes that point.

I remember when people used to complain about Facebook's algorithm and claim they want to see EVERYTHING posted by friends. I'd always argue that of course we don't want to see everything--one of my friends may want to see my posts about social media, another my posts about movies, and a third may want to see my political posts. As you point out, if we can find a way to make connections, content and location more relevant, there's a lot of value to be unlocked.

Of course, the problem is that it has to be VERY relevant. And it also requires a level of trust that must be earned between contacts. Not everyone is going to want to an app (or 500 LinkedIn connections) to know there's a 75% chance they'll eat somewhere. While it sounds great in your scenario, I foresee heading out to lunch and being accosted by four sales people armed with that same info.

I'm awaiting the sort of highly-personalized, trust-sensing, serendipitous app that can get this right!

Re: How to Reward Your Fans with Facebook Offers

augieray — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 20:36:44 -0000

Thank you for the very fair response to my rather snarky comment. The balance you mention is possible, but it doesn't seem as if many brands manage to find it. The right offer to the right person can build relationships, but I'd guess the vast majority of offers made do not.

Re: How to Reward Your Fans with Facebook Offers

augieray — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 18:38:17 -0000

Is that what we're calling promoted advertising that tries to sell things to customers--"rewards." Man, my mailbox was full of credit card, restaurant and travel "rewards" today (that went straight into the trash.)

Re: New Social Media Research Uncovers the Big Problem for Businesses

augieray — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 09:41:15 -0000

Thanks for the comments, Andrew. I think you and I have a couple points of disagreement, but you offer up some thoughtful challenges.

First, there is no doubt marketers are desperate to figure out social media. Their desperation does not mean, however, that social will prove to be the brass ring they hope. IN fact, I am quite confident it will not, no matter how much money marketers throw at the problem (although, to be clear, the paid media in social opportunities will present the same opportunities and challenges as paid media elsewhere, so I'm really focusing on the concept of earned or organic social media here.)

The engagement rate is shrinking and is expected to go to zero on Facebook, where a majority of social networking still occurs, this year or next. Meanwhile, several studies (IBM, Custora, Monetate) have demonstrated social media is failing as an acquisition/direct marketing channel. So, I am not "dismissing the need," but marketers' "needs" are not what will drive success (or, more likely, failure) in social media marketing. (For the record, I think there are verticals where social media can fit into marketer's goals--such as B2B, tech, entertainment--but many verticals where the benefits of social have been wildly oversold by agencies and consultants who stand to gain from brands' over-investment.)

I also do not agree with your separation of brand and reputation. To me, that's the old mass media way of thinking. No consumer parses out separate brain cells for a product's branding creating with messaging versus its reputation created by function or value. Branding will continue to drive value in some verticals (luxury brands, for example), but we are living in a world where the product and service is what drives a brand, not advertising and messaging. You see this as a disaster; I see it as both an inevitability and a welcome development.

We live in an age where the brand must be expressed in real ways, not simply communication but the actual Customer Experience. Where's the disaster in that? Companies will be forced to be more customer focused and be sure their products provide the best value and experience for their target markets. Meanwhile, consumers wield more power and get better products. Seems like a win/win to me--except for marketers and agencies who think the path to success in the social era is the same one that worked two decades ago in the mass media era.

Re: New Social Media Research Uncovers the Big Problem for Businesses

augieray — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 12:48:50 -0000

Everything thinks they're old dogs doing new tricks, but must are just doing the same old tricks in a new yard. :-)

Re: New Social Media Research Uncovers the Big Problem for Businesses

augieray — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 11:07:05 -0000

Love this., Jay. Brands don't get it--people want value, not content. They want brands to be where they want them when they want them--not brands broadcasting puppy pictures and spam.

Brands keep thinking about broadcasting, real-time marketing, brand journalism and content strategy. What they need to be thinking about is how to use these channels to get people exactly what they need at exactly the right time.

And it's not about content but function. When you lost a credit card, you don't want an article about what to do, you want the company to take care of it painlessly and with zero time from the customer. When you have flat tire, you don't want a post about how to change tires, you want a tire that fixes itself. And when it comes time to pick financial service products, you want a trusted party to tell you what you need and who does it best rather than having to sift through hundreds of promotional articles from different brands.

The irony is that marketers already know this, even if they can't get themselves to believe it. I do this simple exercise with people: List brands you know that have achieved significant success in the past two decades years with content. Then, list the brands that came out of nowhere with little advertising or content but built World of Mouth based on their product or service experience. (The latter list includes brands such as Ebay, Amazon, Uber, Nest, Square, Flip Video, Google, Krispy Kreme, Zappos, Tesla, Facebook, Apple Store, Jawbone, Angry Birds, PayPal, Evernote, Dropbox and Warby Parker.)

We live in an era where brands need to build function and value, not messaging and campaigns. Social media is something happening TO brands and not a channel FOR brands to exploit.

Re: Is Your Social Media Marketing Cart Before Your Horse?

augieray — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 22:48:13 -0000

As a related aside, I recently saw a great presentation by Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU and founder of L2 consultancy. He made a great point that further reinforces the way branded content is floundering and failing. He said brand building is dead (and this is the guy who founded Prophet brand consultancy 20 years ago!) He said the world no longer belongs to branders but to builders, because brands are no longer expressed with content but with function, care and value.

For the most part, the brands that have developed in the last 20 years didn't do so with branding, marketing and advertising. They did it with functionality. Uber, Nest, Google, Amazon, Ebay, Tesla and the like had some marketing content as part of their mix, but they all succeeded largely on having a better product and building word of mouth. It wasn't what THEY had to say that mattered; it was what customers said that did.

When brand experts start changing their tune around the concepts of brand-building and content, I think it is a sign.

Re: Is Your Social Media Marketing Cart Before Your Horse?

augieray — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 22:40:49 -0000

You're right, we don't agree. As organic reach continues to shrink--and it undoubtedly is shrinking--content will reach fewer people and that means less impact. You can ignore the trends, but you cannot debate them.

Someday soon on Facebook--where a majority of social networking occurs--the reach of an organic post will be zero. Zilch. Nada. I'm not sure how you foresee getting marketing value out of brands posting to themselves, but I don't care if your metrics are long-term or short-term, zero is still zero.

The bottom line with social is this: People don't want better brand content. They want better brands. If brands stopped worrying about infographics and viral videos and blog posts no one wants and invest in better products and service, they would win at social media. Social media is not and has never been a bullhorn for brands--it's a mirror that reflects what brands really are. We live in an age of transparency and authenticity, and that means the brands that win at social won't have better social strategies, they'll have better consumer strategies.

Re: Is Your Social Media Marketing Cart Before Your Horse?

augieray — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 12:56:24 -0000

Mark, this is a fine post, and I appreciate you citing my blog post. However, while you included some data points, you omitted the larger point of my post: If marketers are going to measure success in terms of acquisition and purchase--and the data shows these are, in fact, the leading marketing metrics--then social aligns poorly. As I noted in my post, if your client or employer VALUES brand building, then social fits, but if your maketing leaders only shoot for traffic, conversions and acquisition, then social is misaligned to leaders' objectives. Your advice is rock solid--provided the brand gives a hoot about brand (and sadly, I see fewer and fewer marketers who do).

I also increasingly believe that content marketing is being oversold. Consumers were overtaxed with marketing messages even before the advent of social media. Today, we have brand Facebook and Twitter accounts with millions of followers and just hundreds or thousands interacting. On Facebook, where the majority of social networking occurs, organic reach is driving toward zero. On Twitter, as I noted in my post, Forrester data demonstrates brand interactions rates that are LESS than banner ads.

I see brands ramping up their brand journalism teams at the same point in time when social networks (and consumers) are ever less receptive to brand content. Content is important, of course, but I wonder if 2015 won't be the year when marketing leaders start questioning if they are getting the bang for their buck from their investments in earned media and content marketing.
One final point: Your headline promises that social media marketing can be effective, but I don't see any data. In addition to the Forrster, Custora and IBM data I cited, I also noted that the latest CMO Survey found that 85% of CMOs have nothing but a "gut" feeling they're getting value from their social media investments. While all of us can cite an example of a brand that did well, the fact is there is desperately little data that demonstrates--in aggregate--marketers are succeeding with their social media investment. I'd love nothing more than to see a post from someone who cites as many data points as I did that demonstrates social media is an effective channel, but what I see all the time are either individual and non-repeatable case studies or no-data posts by people who echo the same do-it-right-and-it-will-all-work-out-for-you sorts of adages.
I'd like to see evidence marketers are driving value with social strategies across a breadth of verticals, but after six years of studying social (including covering it as an analyst at Forrester), I see little evidence all of our wishes and hopes are amounting to actual brand or marketing value.

Re: REPORT: Not Surprisingly, Brands’ Organic Reach Down, Paid Reach Up on Facebook - AllFacebook

augieray — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:33:31 -0000

Funny you call out that paid reach is up. Look again at that chart. It was up for ONE month a year ago and has been steadily declining ever since. In fact, look at the spread between paid & organic in October 2013--the second month on the cart--and compare it to the spread in September 2014. In the past 11 months, the reach of paid is dropping even quicker than that of organic!

Re: Facebook Inc (FB): What Do Huge Insider Sales Mean?

augieray — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 00:50:34 -0000

The fundamentals remain strong? Really? Because I see a company with a PE ratio of 79. In what investment world is a PE ratio of 79 "strong." Sure, the company has grown leaps and bounds, but it is no longer able to add huge numbers of new users, and in fact there is now evidence younger users may be falling out of love with Facebook. Meanwhile, the price per ad was up 123% year over year, which also is completely unsustainable growth.

Where you see strong fundamentals, I see a company that is running out of gas to fuel its phenomenal growth. If it begins to show slower growth in the next two or three quarters, which I think is likely, that PE ratio could be cut in half (which would put the stock price right back in its IPO range.)

Re: Bitcoin: The Financial Singularity is Here

augieray — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 16:20:12 -0000

Thanks Socrates. You and I are not on the same page, but I appreciate the discussion. My thoughts:

1. Fiat currencies MAY be endlessly created, but central banks manage growth. Such is not the case for cryptocurrencies--while each grows at a predetermined pace, the NUMBER of cryptocurrencies can (and has) grown exponentially (which brings me back to my original point about unlimited virtual currencies undermining value.)

2. You are correct that cryptocurrencies are at no one's bidding while the supply of US dollars can be manipulated. That, in and of itself, means nothing however. You have to look at HOW the Fed manages it. Most economists believe they have done so quite well--lowering rates & increasing the supply as the economy falters and raising rates and limiting the supply as inflation rises. Bitcoin could, with enough adoption, prevent central banks from evening out the economic cycles, which doesn't seem like a benefit to me.

3. People in the US will ALWAYS need to convert bitcoins back to dollars since that is the official currency for paying taxes. Fed, state and local taxes account for 30% of income, so the idea Bitcoin will be held for transactions like dollars are today seems impossible to conceive, and whenever people need to convert bitcoins back to dollars, the government has ability to seize and prevent transactions.

4. Your dream of mass adoption of bitcoin is nowhere to be seen. The number of daily transactions has been essentially the same for over ten months (https://blockchain.info/cha.... With no growth, there is no way for bitcoin to stabilize. And to the extent many people are treating it like a speculative investment and not a currency, this volatility will continue. We are a long, long way from Bitcoins being adopted as a currency for transaction by anywhere near the number of people necessary to bring stability to the currency.

5. So, who do you think will have an easier time creating cryptocurrencies and encouraging adoption? A shadowy bunch of speculators telling everyone they're going to get rich (if they'll only buy the currency so the price will rise and those same promoters can cash out) or a national bank regulated and secure? You may answer one way, but most people without the Libertarian streak that is driving bitcoin fans will likely answer another.

6. Thanks, but I'm afraid I don't have 85 minutes to give up right now. If you have something you've written that makes your point about mining, I'd certainly be interested in a link for a quick read.

Thanks. There is much to learn here, and while I think the technology will bring great things (as you point out with your "Internet of money" quote), I don't foresee the currency itself gaining the adoption necessary. But, I could be wrong--time will tell!

Re: Bitcoin: The Financial Singularity is Here

augieray — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 14:14:30 -0000

I am still a skeptic of the currency (not the technology). I appreciate the thoughtful article, but despite having read quite a lot, I am always left with the same thoughts:

1) Since cryptocurrencies can be endlessly created, there is no fixed supply and hence no stable value. To use a physical metaphor, if today shops accept shells and I collect shells, but tomorrow the shops decide to accept coconuts too, then the value of my shells is reduced. US dollars and other currencies hold value because there is a reasonably limited and controlled supply, but every time I turn around there's a new cryptocurrency--Bitcoin, Namecoin, Dogecoin, NXT, Betacoin. If there is no limit to the types of cryptocurrencies, then no one cryptocurrency can reliably store and hold value. Imagine if US dollars could simply be printed at will, and you get the idea of the challenges of cryptocurrencies that can be created at will.

2) To me it is a red blinking light that something else is going on other than the "internet of money" that every article seems to trot out the Libertarian BS about armies and governments controlling the money supply. First of all, this factually untrue in the US. The Fed controls the money supply, and while it is influenced by government officials, it demonstrably has its own mind. (Many presidents have been angered that the Fed won't expand the money supply and lower interest rates, but the Fed does what it wants.)

Also, it is not government's ability to "control" money that gives them the opportunity to tax and maintain an army; it is their ability to set laws governing commerce that do so. The US government can just as easily tax Bitcoin commerce as it does US dollars. If block chain ledgers are available for anyone to examine, the US government can track Bitcoin, and even the pseudonymous nature seems a minor inconvenience for government tracking. Increasingly, governments are requiring exchanges to collect personal information, and it seems to me Bitcoin is no more anonymous than most other forms of digital transactions.

Of course, government regulation of Bitcoin depends to some extent on people following the laws and reporting such transactions, but the same is true today even with dollars. HSBC was fined for money laundering because it did not follow US laws--the bank didn't need to rely on cryptocurrencies to do it, nor did the US government need to "control" currency to discover the violation and enforce a penalty. Bitcoin no more undermines the US government's ability to tax than does Mexican pesos or Euros (which can be used to transact business without US dollars.)

The key to Bitcoin, as you point out, is the tech, not the currency. I still think Bitcoin is a lousy currency, but Bitcoin is a very interesting technology for transferring value. Bitcoin's lack of stability may undermine it as a store of value, but if two parties want to transfer value today, the lack of stability need not be a concern in this moment--they can transfer money with minimum fees and then convert the Bitcoins immediately to alleviate the risk of rapidly shifting values.

In this way, it truly does challenge banks and money transfer firms. But while banks may have their fee structure challenged, they can also avail themselves of cryptocurrencies to avoid fees themselves? Couldn't BOA create BOAcoin to transfer money globally and avoid any fees they might otherwise face? In fact, with the competition for mining being so great that people cannot even cover the cost of their electricity without specialized hardware, couldn't banks themselves be in a great position to out-mine everyone else and earn the fees for themselves?

Sorry for the length of this comment, but your article got me thinking. I still fail to see how cryptocurrencies can ever be sufficiently stable to act as a true currency for the masses, but the technology should be game changer for some financial service firms.

Disclosure: I work at a credit card company within customer care. I have nothing to do with products or money transfers, and my opinions and questions do not reflect those of my employer. These comments and questions are my own personally as I seek to learn.

Re: Logic+Emotion: Native Advertising Isn't The Enemy—We Are

augieray — Fri, 09 May 2014 11:05:21 -0000

There may no sadder thing I've read this month than that media losing trust will only "matter to the highly informed—the one percent of media consumers you could say." An indpependent media worthy of trust should matter to everyone.