“Consumers are much more interested in their own lives than they are in brands……And they are much more interested in BRANDS, than they are in ADVERTISING”

This is spot on… and when a brand gets advertising right, and it’s done in a way that appeals to their target audience (along with the outliers beyond that target), I’m impressed.  Icon Motor Sports has done just that with the long form video that is climbing the AdAge viral chart. I don’t own a motorcycle, nor have I been on one all that much, and I’m certainly not in the market for ‘leathers’… but they had me for the full 8:30 on this one.  Why?  Because I was entertained – simple as that.  Brands need to do more of this, and I believe advertisers and agencies are recognizing that.

It’s been a busy week for Mobile News Readers – especially the first three names on the list. Flipboard, really the app that started it all, released the iPhone version of it’s widely popular iPad application – same visually stunning interface, but on the screen that fits in the palm of your hand.  That was followed closely by the release of Google Currents, which has a feature that I think is missing from all the other offerings (so far), which is the ability to synch and read in offline mode – ala the New York Times.  Perfect for the long flights where you don’t have a wifi connection.  Finally, my long time favorite – Zite – joined the party with an iPhone version of it’s ‘smart’ iPad application.  I say ‘smart’ because Zite ‘learns you’ and adapts the content presented to you based on your interaction with the app.  You’re not just picking categories of content, it’s adapting to your thumbs up and thumbs down of specific content to present you with a better selection in the future.  I love that.

Being the content consumer that I am, I see a lot of use of all three of these applications in my future – with a smattering of Pulse and Yahoo Livestand (though I’m not as big on those as I am the first three).  I love being able to just pick up my phone or iPad when I have a free moment and catch up on the categories of content that I’m most interested in, wherever I happen to be.  I’ll continue to use each of them for different purposes, and at some point, I’m sure there will be a confluence of features where there is such a similarity that I’ll choose the platform that appeals to me most.  But, for now, each has a spot on my iOS device.  Curious – which is your favorite?

“Social-TV popularity and Nielsen ratings are likely to never have an exactly linear correlation, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that the shows social-media users are most passionate about have pretty good odds of not only surviving but becoming part of the pop-cultural conversation.”

Wish that could have helped one of my favorites ‘The Chicago Code’ from expiring too quickly. If you’ve not read, AdAge also has an excellent article about the art and science of monitoring social media chatter about TV.

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