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Archive for December, 2009

A Final Word For 2009

December 21st, 2009

I’m winding down the work year and as I do so, this will be my final post for 2009 in an effort to take a breath and recharge for 2010.  What a year it’s been!  This year was my first effort at a full time blog and marks a deeper dive into the Social Web. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to share experiences through speakerships, interviews, and even a podcast on Wired.  The main thing I’ve enjoyed throughout this year’s work is the opportunity to learn from the smart people I come into contact with on a daily basis.  There are a lot of hard working individuals inside and outside of Intel that are always innovating.  I’m lucky that my role here allows a peek into many different projects and programs that are pushing the bounds of media and marketing.

On the Intel front, we’ve had some very good ‘best effort’ programs that have expanded our horizons into Cause Marketing w/ our FaceBook ‘Vote for a Cause‘ Program, unique activations that bring our brand campaign to life (thank you Maggie Mason!), and Social Platform building with our latest effort – My Life Scoop.  We’ve also had some fun and brought you new features on my favorite Internet music source,  Pandora (‘Add Variety’) because we thought it was important as a ‘Sponsor of Tomorrow’ to enhance your experience on a great site.

Finally, we did something very different at Intel.  Something we’ve never done before.  We marketed our BRAND – Intel, and not just focused on the next product to hit the street.  We want you to live a better life through technology, and we needed to make sure that people understood what the Intel brand means and how we help with that. This shift in campaign focus has been a lot of fun as it’s allowed many of us at Intel to share in a common message. Deborah Conrad, our VP and GM of Corporate Marketing states that message best:

What Intel develops today leads the path toward a better tomorrow.

I think that people are beginning to see us in a different way and gain a better understanding of how exactly we make their lives better through technology.

2009 was the year that the Social Web exploded.  Those that were aware of the power of Social Media, made the prediction early on.  I think you will see in 2010 that ‘Social’ becomes mainstream and is a standard component to every marketing program rather than a new, never been done before, ‘feature’.  Consumers want to share, they want their voices to be heard, and they want to digest content on their time and on the device of their choosing. Looking back we saw the rapid decline of print.  Looking forward, we’re staring at the monumental rise of mobile.  Those media institutions that adapt to the shift in media will live to fight another day, and those that don’t – will not.

I’m proud of the work we’ve done this year, I’m ‘smarter’ (thanks to the gracious sharing of others) in the space I specialize in, and I’m looking forward to more learning and innovation in 2010.  Happy Holidays all…see you in the New Year!

Digital Marketing, Intel , ,

The Mobile Internet – Ready, Set, GO!

December 16th, 2009

Yesterday, Morgan Stanley released a comprehensive report on the growth and future of the Mobile Internet.  The chart below is one slide pulled from the summary deck and shows the incredible opportunity ahead of companies that play a role in the Mobile Internet space.  A conservative estimate shows the total available market for devices accessing the Web from a mobile perspective is 10x the available market in the desktop space.  Truly staggering.

Two quotes from slide 22 of the summary deck caught my attention:

Mobile Ramping Faster than Desktop Internet Did and Will Be Bigger Than Most Think – 5 Trends Converging (3G + Social Networking + Video + VoIP + Impressive Mobile Devices)

Regarding pace of change, we believe more users will likely connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years

Mobile Ramping Faster than Desktop Internet Did and Will
Be Bigger Than Most Think –
5 Trends Converging (3G + Social Networking + Video +
VoIP + Impressive Mobile Devices)
Regarding pace of change, we believe more users will
likely connect to the Internet via mobile devices than
desktop PCs within 5 years

The 5 trends converging quote is, I think, the most important one – especially ‘Impressive Mobile Devices’.  From my perspective we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg of what the mobile device landscape looks like.  Development of ‘killer devices’ and the speed with which content can be delivered to those devices are currently the gating factors for explosive growth in this segment.  In 2010, that will change – and those that are positioned well to take advantage of that growth will fare very well.  Thankfully, from an infrastructure and semi-conductor perspective my company, Intel, is a leader (slide 19).

Mobile Marketing , ,

The Internet: Past, Present & Future

December 15th, 2009

comScore celebrates their 10 year anniversary, and takes a look back at the last 10 years of the Internet – featuring John Battelle, Mark Cuban, and Wenda Harris Millard.

Internet , ,

Women Out-pace Men In Social Networks

December 10th, 2009

According to a recent study done by the site Pingdom, women participate more than men in most social networking sites.  The outliers?  Slashdot, Reddit, and Digg – which does not surprise me at all, based on the content that is prevalent on those three sites.  Pingdom has a nice graphic (below) showing the gender distribution across the Social Web.  For the full blog post for this report, continue reading here.

Social Media

How Much Content Do You Consume?

December 9th, 2009

According to the ‘Bits’ blog on the New York Times digital site, referencing a report from the University of California, San Diego – Americans have a ‘diet’ of 34GB a day…  WOW!  That’s a LOT of content.   The biggest gainer, by medium is the gaming platform:

“Gaming saw the biggest leap in the number of bytes we consume and the amount of time devoted to this platform.”

Not surprising, print consumption continues to decline, with a caveat:

“Print media has declined consistently, but if you add up the amount of time people spend surfing the Web, they are actually reading more than ever.”

For a graphical breakdown of how Americans consume this content, see the graph below.

Integrated Marketing , ,

How Do You Watch Video?

December 7th, 2009

Nielsen just released their latest ‘Three Screen Report‘ (quarterly report) that analyzes the use of video across 3 screens (TV, Internet, Mobile Devices) either live, or ‘time shifted’ through their DVR or downloaded means.  Key takeaways from the report indicate that DVR usage is up (+21.1%) and the viewership of Online Video spiked significantly in Q3 of this year (+34.9%).  The Nielsen spokesperson made a key statement on their blog today:

Americans today have an insatiable appetite for not only content, but also choice.  Across all age groups, we see consumers adding the Internet and mobile devices to their media diet — consuming media anytime and anywhere possible.

My take?  Your video strategy better encompass all three screens – with an increased emphasis on the Internet and Mobile platforms.  I’m not saying that the 10-foot TV experience is dead, but I think you’ll see an increased customer emphasis on mobile, portable content that can be consumed on their timeline – wherever they are.

Online Video, TV, Video , ,

My Favorite Commercial Today

December 3rd, 2009

ESPN has a long list of ‘This is SportsCenter’ commercials – some are better than others, all are pretty funny….  In light of tonight’s Civil War (for the 2009 RoseBowl berth) between my Alma Mater (Oregon) and our rival (Oregon State) I’m posting my favorite ‘This is SportsCenter’ – Duck Style!

Advertising ,

Social Media Monitoring – Where To Start

December 2nd, 2009

Social Media Today has a great article this week on Social Media monitoring – breaking it down to 4 simple cornerstones:

(1) Competitive Analysis
(2) Product Development
(3) Reputation Management
(4) Outreach

(1) Competitive Analysis

(2) Product Development

(3) Reputation Management

(4) Outreach

From my vantage point – many companies do a great job in 3 of the 4 areas listed above.  I think the one that falls short is ‘Product Development’…which is a big miss in my opinion.  At Intel, one of our marketing groups launched a pilot for this about a year ago with a technology partner – Asus, and a media vendor that understand the space very well – Federated Media. The project?  Crowdsource design a PC that will be built by Asus, with Intel Inside.  For more, check out WePC.

Social Media ,