LaughlinOutLoud

Chat Roulette is another one of those things that I (a) can’t believe exist (b) can’t figure out the appeal of and (c) can’t seem to turn away from.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

The video provides a great summary of the newly-minted phenomena. For those who are new to the concept, it couldn’t be simpler. The website randomly connects you to a video chat partner. You chat until one of you moves on. (This act is called “nexting” and, at first, it’s hard not to take personally.)  You are then randomly connected with someone else.

The concept fascinates me. It’s the internet – anonymity + social networking + user-generated content + addictive behavior + sense of discovery – in a nutshell. More than that, it’s a real window into the global village. Real people. Real lives. Real grown men dressed in catsuits.

And, to me, it’s a great reminder. That people are not rational. They are not expected. And they are not stock images. Whether or not I’m ever able to carry on a real, live video chat with a randomly selected stranger (let’s just say I get “nexted” – a lot), it’s good to be reminded that they’re out there. And even when they have nothing better to do, most people have very little patience or attention for what you have to say.

Last Saturday, Dave Hanneken and I had the opportunity to visit the Diane On Business radio program to talk Super Bowl ads. It was my first time on the radio and I had way more fun than I care to admit. You can check out the end result, in the form of a podcast, at the bottom of this post.

Hear The Podcast

The essentials of advertising is the top result of 103,000,000 for a Google search of “the essentials of advertising.” It was written in 1921.

Growing up, the threat of something going on your permanent record was real. But, in the end, it amounted to a manilla folder in the filing cabinet of a principal’s office.

Things have changed.

Now we really do have a permanent record. As marketers, brands and people. Compliments of Google and Bing. Facebook and Twitter. Digg and Reddit. What your brand does today may be a click away from now until the end of time.

And that matters. McKinsey estimates that by 2011, the Internet will play a role in more than 45% of all retail sales, as either a research tool or a sales channel. Think about that for a second. Half of all purchases may be available with a pretty comprehensive record of everything your brand has ever done.

So the idea that, in this new age of technology, creativity matters less or that pitch-perfect execution isn’t essential is short sighted.

In fact, the stakes have never been higher. Who knows how long they’ll last?

But first, take a look at Ogilvy’s and Crispin’s new web-sites.

These are new designs that position both agencies as leading edge by using aggregated media stories about them and their clients as an opening screen.

I love the urgency and energy.  In both cases, the clutter that I’ve been fighting professionally all these years has become the organizing concept.  In a weird twist on Marshall Mcluhan’s insight of the medium becoming the message, we’ve seen the Bauhaus movement toward white space and simplicity yield to a supernova of design.  These sites are like trying to read the Congressional Record on acid.   Yet they work.

There’s a wonderful irony at work here.  Agencies are using clutter to demonstrate their ability to cut through it.  These sites serve as a vivid demonstration that the loss of control a lot of marketers are experiencing puts an even greater emphasis on ideas that elbow their way into our consciousness.

Maybe what we’re seeing is the transitional period from white space to white noise as a design maxim.

Earlier this year, I saw Daniel Levine speak. He used a phrase that has stuck with me since: The Tyranny of Transparency. The sharing of data and opinion is giving consumers insight that they’ve never had before. Right down to the street corner.

Consumers are more empowered than ever. This is a good thing. We can all embrace transparency by being better at what we do.

But that doesn’t mean transparency doesn’t have its irrational side. The latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey asked over 25,000 consumers in 50 countries if they trusted a number of forms of “advertising.” The most trusted source was “recommendations from people known” at 90%. No surprise there. But number two was a tie between “brand websites” and “consumer opinions posted online,” which both registered 70% of consumers reporting that they either completely or somewhat trusted these sources.

So 70% of Red Sox fans are at least somewhat trusting of the opinions of anonymous Yankee fans’ online? Would they say that face-to-face sitting in Section 312?

While this pendulum will likely swing back at some point, these numbers are actually all “up” from an identical study done in 2007.

Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere reports that 82% of bloggers post product or brand reviews and 89% post about brands that they love (or hate). As I mentioned here a few weeks ago, 62% of consumers go online to share opinions.

If 70% of consumers are trusting of these opinions, your brand has a new high-level priority on its hands. You need to manage your brand’s reputation online. Or, clearly, somebody else will.

Force of nature? 2.0 flavor of the month? Twitter is either the most important communications tool ever imagined or the predictable end of increasingly annoying presence-casting.

A post to gizmodo.com illustrates that only 5% of Twitterers have more than 100 followers. Quantcast.com reports that only 1% of Twitter users account for 35% of its visits. And an oft-cited study out this month from Pear Analytics, cites proprietary research that over 40% of tweets are “pointless babble.”

Try telling the airline industry that Twitter doesn’t matter. Or the makers of Bruno that Twitter isn’t “sticky.”

The numbers, though accurate and interesting, miss the point. And the story is in danger of getting lost.

Two things: First, a recent report from eMarketer shows that 62% of U.S. internet users go online to opine. (Full disclosure, I had to look that up. It means “to hold and state as one’s opinion.”) Twitter is one more tool your consumer can use to do that. And it is one more tool that is evolving and becoming more searchable and sharable by the day. Second, the way people consume media is changing. And Twitter allows for really specific, real time updates on content that matters to you. That’s value. My #followfriday? @kopps.

Will Twitter will be around next year or will we have moved on to the next big thing? I hope it’s the former, as I’m a huge fan of the service. But, for marketers, it matters less. Because the way it has fundamentally changed our behavior most definitely will be here to stay. So whether it’s Twitter – or something else – our approach can’t stay the same.

Yesterday I received a link to an online case study for Element skateboards. There is lots of online buzz about this being great work. And the buzz is deserved. The idea behind the campaign blew me away. The way they thought about using technology blew me away. The awards that it won? Let’s just say everything about it impressed me immediately. And after about three minutes of digging further, I realized that this was not a case study. It was a student entry in an awards competition.

That’s the internet for you. Students in Norway come up with an idea. Produce a video. Put it online. Get people excited about an idea. One that walks and talks like a real idea. One that creates awareness in the brand. Changes perceptions of the brand. Builds equity in the brand. Creates jealousy among art directors, copywriters and planners everywhere. And, in actuality, never “existed.”

Pre-execution buzz has existed in many categories for many years. And, perhaps, Element (or some other skateboard brand or some group of dedicated consumers) will take this idea and make it real. But, then again, it might not.

This idea may live out it’s life as an idea, and still make an impact. Technology changes everything. In this case, the way in which the idea was presented changed perceptions. And it did so by looking like it changed reality.

Earlier this week, we had the pleasure of presenting the “State of the State of Digital” to a bright, interested and engaged audience. In pulling the presentation together, I was served my daily reminder of just how much things have changed. To wit:

“If Facebook were a country, it would be the 8th most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan.” — Mark Zuckerberg, January 7, 2009

To be clear, when I say I was reminded how much things have changed, I mean since January 7, 2009. According to Facebookʼs most recent numbers, it has over 250 million members. Which would place them fourth on the most populated countries in the world list. Now ahead of Indonesia. Nigeria, we hardly knew thee.

Thatʼs quite a jump in seven months. And it raises an important question. In these exponential times in which we live, how fast do numbers become irrelevant? If Wikipedia can have trouble keeping up, what are the rest of us to do?

One surprising exception – time spent online. Forrester reports the amount of time spend online per week by the average American is 12 hours. Last year that number was… 12 hours. Thatʼs not exponential at all. According to analyst Jackie Anderson, “Engagement with the online channel has deepened. Web users are becoming savvier and are better multi-taskers.” So while hours online arenʼt growing, productivity is. And competition for their time has (potentially, exponentially). Savvier users will look for savvier solutions. And, with this deeper engagement and apparent comfort, the internet is starting to “more closely resemble a traditional media channel.” Oh, how quickly things change.

Facebook has been quite adamant that they would not allow people to change their “Username” after you have selected it. However, it seems Facebook may have taken a step back because they have updated your “Account Settings” to allow you to change you username, as a one-time only service.

One has to wonder if the influx of change requests and complaints have made Facebook change their mind. Will they do so for “Pages” as well?

Digging a bit deeper in the interface, Facebook has not yet given Page administrators this ability. While changing your username may be valuable to those who made a mistake or chose one without much though, this is likely one of the more valuable features for an administrator.

Another important note, if you have been unable to secure a preferred username you should check with your Facebook account team. They may have black listed trademarked names to proactively protect your brand. With a little help from Facebook we were able to change the username for one of our client’s “Pages”.

Friday evening, it’s 11:00 PM, do you know where your marketing agency is? Are they securing your Facebook username?

Over the course of this past week Facebook has released details on how to claim your Facebook username. Once called “Vanity URLs” the username rush will make it much easier to share your Facebook profile and pages.

For marketers it’s very important to secure your preferred username. Much like the valuable .com domain name, the Facebook username land grab will cause some companies to miss out on a preferred username. However Facebook has implemented some procedures to avoid issues with registered trademarks and copyrights.

If your brand does not currently have an official page, and you have the rights to a given name today, you can proactively prevent the registration of that name by filling out the form here: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights.

If for some reason you discover the name you hold rights to is taken, you can report the infringement here: http://www.facebook.com/copyright.php?noncopyright_notice=1.

Otherwise, what are you waiting for? Grab your username now, facebook.com/username.