A DIFFERENT TYPE OF AGENCY

As a collective, The Factory Interactive is fueled by a passion for developing enduring messages conceived through a marriage of design and technology. At the core, we are explorers of possibility and architects of memory. We create rich immersive experiences that increase message retention and reward the audience. Our mission: give personality to products, resulting in a stronger, more effective brand.

_{June 4, 2009}
How much will YOU pay to read online news? _{By Ashley}

Back in April, I wrote about newspapers charging for their online content. After reading summaries of The American Press Institutes “Newspaper Economic Action Plan”, I still stand with my feelings that I don’t feel confident it will succeed (yet). I just want to touch on the main points discussed in the 31 page report, which you can find in full here, and give you some of my thoughts.

Right off the bat, the report says that industry leaders should follow 5 new “doctrines”:

• True Value. Establish that news content online has value by charging for it. Begin “massive experimentation with several of the most promising options.”

• Fair Use. Maintain the value of professionally produced and edited content by “aggressively enforcing copyright, fair use and the right to profit from original work.”
• Fair Share. Negotiate a higher price for content produced by the news industry that is aggregated and redistributed by others.
• Digital Deliverance. “Invest in technologies, platforms and systems that provide content-based e-commerce, data-sharing and other revenue generating solutions.”
• Consumer Centric. Refocus on consumers and users. Shift revenue strategies from those focused on advertisers.

Ok, fair enough. Those are all practical and insightful rules to live by…and plausible. Moving on…here is how they propose they will be paid (as summed up in bold by Rick Edmonds).

Focus on “core loyalists,” lose “fly-by users

If I had to guess, I’d say well over 50% of users are “fly-by users” opposed to the “core loyalists”. Most people who log on to an online news site, are looking for something in particular. Once they find it, they log off and often times don’t come back. Or users are sent there via a link pushed out by another source (whether it be Twitter, blog, etc.). I end up at newspaper websites from around the world this way and will likely never revisit them.

Paid content wall would protect print subscriptions

The report claims that putting up a paid content wall would prevent readers from canceling their print subscriptions. It says that 22% of people dropped the printed version due to the fact they can get it all online for free. Wouldn’t a more logical approach be if you have a print subscription, you are able to access free online content? That’s not mentioned though. Their mentality seems to be very “take! take! take! mine! mine!”

Pressure Google

Thou that controls all… Google. The report concedes that 25-35% of traffic to news Web sites comes from the search giant and its Google News. So why wage war on them? The API wants to bring pressure on Google from several directions to “reinstate value along the supply chain, from the creation of content, through its harvesting and presentation.”

Kindle offers limited revenue potential, duplicates print audience

First the report says, “Publishers are coming out on the wrong end of the partnership with Amazon, which takes 70 percent of the subscription revenue,” plus most ad revenue plus republication rights. Well duuuh, the publishers knew this before entering into any kind of agreement with Amazon. No is forcing them to offer services on Kindle; and besides, it’s better than nothing.

The report also says that more than half of Kindle buyers are over 50 (I found that fact interesting), so usage tends to duplicate the existing print newspaper demographic rather than capturing a younger or a non-traditional audience.

My advice to the API: Get a better plan before presenting it next time. I don’t think they have any grounds to stand on so far. There will always be the bloggers, tweeters, etc. of the world who will produce newsworthy content… and faster than you. I’d also like to see what kind of number$ they are talking about when discussing charging, a penny an article? A dollar? I think this will make a huge difference for a lot of readers as well.

Filed under: Media News — Tags: american press institute, api, newspapers, online content, recession — @ 4:51 pm

_{June 1, 2009}
Badda-Bing! _{By Ashley}

I have spent the entire day playing with Microsoft’s new Search Engine Bing (previously Live Search) and reading tons and tons of reviews and opinions on the site. It should be told that I never once used Microsoft Live Search so I can’t really touch on the differences between the old and new versions.

My initial reaction to going to Bing.com was, “Ugh, this is just not Google” (BING = But It’s Not Google??). But I gave it a shot and was pleasantly surprised. I will start with what I loved about Bing. For my “case study” sake, I did a comparative search on both Google and Bing with the search term “cupcakes” (I was hungry at the time).

Image Search – While the  search results themselves were nearly the same, the Bing results page is extremely intuitive and easy to use. The left sidebar produces ‘related search’ terms and the option to search by size, layout, color and people. Google offers similar options at the top of the page but is not as convenient.  In addition, when  you scroll over an image on Bing, it slightly enlarges the picture and gives details of image size and the option to see similar images to that one in particular. Google provides the image information underneath the picture, and when comparing the two side by side, Bing is much more visually pleasing and easy to navigate. Lastly (and the coolest part), there is infinite scrolling, meaning the more you scroll the more images populate the page.

Video Search – It’s pretty neat! On Bing, when you scroll over the image a 30 second preview starts to play.

Maps- Bing automatically populates the map with local bakeries opposed to Google, which starts nationally and requires you to narrow your search down. Other than that there isn’t too much different between the two engines.

Now down to the meat and potatoes, the actual search:

Microsoft calls Bing the “Decision Engine”, even previewing the site on www.decisionengine.com. There has been a lot of criticism in the first few days. Specifically about Bing returning a kind-of biased search result. And if this is true, then the arguement becomes, is Bing making the actual decision for you? And what does this mean for trends? Some go as far to say that using Bing is seeing the Internet through Microsoft’s eyes. While I see the arguement in that to some extent, I do believe it’s a little (ok, maybe VERY) over-the-top. Let’s look at a few of the facts:

• Bing brings the “best match” to the top, not the most popular. (Which in theory, if Bing is making decisions for us, wouldn’t the best and most popular eventually be one and the same?)
• When I watched the demo video,  Home Depot was entered in the search, the alternatives to the left produced Ace Hardware and Walmart. I have read several blogs arguing that since it doesn’t suggest the “Mom and Pop” shop, its going to mean the demise of local shops as we know it. (I couldn’t help but laugh at this since I think this is highly doubtful)
• “Bing’s health results bring together resources from the top medical sources in the world, including the Mayo Clinic,” Microsoft says in the demo. The alternative health suggestions are buried deep down in the world of Bing. In order to find alternative medicine results, you must get very specific with your search term.
• In my cupcake vs cupcake results, not much was different except that the ‘related search’ on Bing is shown on the left side of the page, which personally, I prefer. The results, and order of them, were extremely similiar.
• Search history is shown on Bing, in the almighty left sidebar.

Final thoughts: I actually really like Bing. While I probably won’t use it for basic search, I will, however, continue to use it for image searches and shopping (very well done and I can see high conversion rates because of the way it is presented). I don’t think Bing will be making any decisions for anyone anytime soon. It will provide suggestions, just as Google does, and we will choose what suites our query best.

Michael Arrington,of TechCrunch hits the nail on the head though:

Whether Microsoft ultimately succeeds or not in “winning” the search war, the competition is very good for the rest of the Internet. Google needs to be pushed to try innovating new things (not this). And search marketing competition will ensure that Google doesn’t get too greedy.

If Bing catches on, which I am surprised to hear myself say that I think it will, then Google will be forced to evolve. In the end, that just makes it better for the end-user. For now, Google is Google and will likely remain the powerhouse… but a little competition never hurt anyone!

Filed under: Media News — Tags: bing, Google, live search, microsoft — @ 7:08 pm

_{May 27, 2009}
Baby Boomers dropping from Facebook?? _{By Ashley}

But wait???? In the beginning of the year, wasn’t the big news the fact that Baby Boomers were joining Facebook in masses (yes, my Mother joined)??? Ah, the fickle and ever-changing world of 2.0. Side note: (And not a joke) For Mother’s Day my Mom asked my younger “soon-to-be-a-doctor” brother to accept her friend request as her gift. He opted for a humorous card instead.

As much as a lot of our parents love this social media phenom, new reports from Facebook insiders report that Baby Boomers are dropping from the beloved site as quickly as they  joined. According to data that Facebook supplies to its advertisers, the 55-to-65-year-old age group’s activity has drastically declined over the past couple months (by 651,080, to be exact), making it the only demographic to experience an overall drop in numbers.

The big question is why? Is it that all the parents are getting upset their children won’t add them as “friends”? Or is it the new real-time interface is too confusing for them?

I have one guess: TIME. Most Baby Boomers do not sit at a computer all day long for work like the younger generation. Nor do they see the value, or necessity, in checking their facebook multiple times a day. And let’s face it, it takes a lot of time to stay on top of things on Facebook! So instead of getting emails notifying them that they’ve had a gummy bear thrown at them (because they probably don’t know how to turn off notifications), they opted to delete the account.

What do you think the reasoning is?

Filed under: Media News — Tags: baby boomers, facebook, mothers, parents, social media — @ 4:20 pm

_{May 19, 2009}
Twilocal Business _{By Ashley}

I am starting to feel like a broken record but Twitter is still growing… and rightfully so.  (And I’m pretty sure I’ll keep repeating this over and over) The success stories keep pouring in from across the interwebs, especially in regards to local businesses. Business owners are using Twitter to communicate with customers as well as run promotions.

Naked Pizza (@NAKEDpizza), a New Orleans health food restaurant, has shown how to use Twitter effectively. They did a promotional test run on April 23 with an offer valid ONLY for Twitter users. It brought in 15% of their business that day. “Every phone call was tracked, every order was measured by where it came from, and it told us very quickly that Twitter is useful,” said Jeff Leach, the restaurant’s co-founder. “Sure, there’s the brand marketing and getting-to-know-you stuff. … But we wanted to know: Can it make the cash register ring?” (They even put their Twitter name on the marquis outside of their shop.)

Naked Pizza isn’t the only local restaurant jumping on the band wagon. I stumbled across this link today which provides a ton of restaurants all over the US and their Twitter accounts.

This small business twitter trend is going to quickly grow because of two things: 1. it’s EASY and 2. it’s instantly in front of your target (at least if you’re like me who is on Tweetdeck and/or Tweetie all waking hours of the day). This combination is a recipe for success. We also must keep in mind that this technology is relatively new. It will continually evolve, which meaning more tools for businesses and even furthermore making this a marketing tool that is here for a twlong time to come.

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: Marketing, naked pizza, pizza, promotions, twitter — @ 6:54 pm

_{May 12, 2009}
F.T.Disaster _{By Ashley}

This Mother’s Day, thousands of people placed their orders for flowers online through F.T.D or 1-800-FLOWERS.  And hundreds of people received their flowers late and/or not at all. Something new? Nope. So why the big deal now? One word: Twitter.

The complaints were through the roof on Sunday via Twitter. According to Twendz, (a program which  pulls Tweets and measures the sentiments expressed about a brand or topic and measures how positive, neutral or negative the tweets are) 63% of recent tweets about FTD are negative. And 83% of tweets that include “FTD” and “Mom” are negative. There were also complaints for 1-800-FLOWERS but one difference is Flowers is doing something about it… a customer service Twitter page. This small act has reduced the negative Tweets to 33%.

The point of all of this is, you ask? Complaints are not new, in fact, the same thing probably happens every single year but this year, we have the cultural phenom known as Twitter. This just goes to prove how important it is for companies to get involved with social media and squash the negative feedback ASAP. By a seemingly simple act of creating a Twitter page, 1-800-FLOWERS has won the Mother’s Day flower-off this year. (And I say seemingly simple because it is absolutely a full-time job to monitor the social media buzz for your business)

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: 1800flowers, feedback, ftd, mothers day, social media, tweets, twendz, twitter — @ 9:45 pm

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