Music Industry in the Digital Era

Information technology is changing the music industry. Not only the way audience discover and consume music has changed, but also companies arm themselves with new technology in order to win the competition in the industry. Streaming media service providers have seen a bright future ahead of them when they promote music through algorithm recommendation. Moreover, current content providers have also been driven by the growth of digital technology. They announce partnership with industry-leading software service. In addition, their social data in their servers are increasing in scales of TB.

The discovery of music and even the discovery of the music artists greatly depend on the development of digitalization in the future.

Algorithm is discovered after Mixtape. It is now one of the most influential tools in discovering new music. In different types of swebsites and applications with countless playlists built up by algorithm and recommendations to target audience, the well-known Spotify, iTunes, Last.fm, Pandora, Amazon and YouTube are just tip of the iceberg. Active listeners can use the service to find their favorite musicians and more types of their favorite genres; passive listeners only need to click the mouse to listen to the endless music on the playlist. With the growing competition in the streaming media industry, Robust Recommendation, a currently more efficient recommendation algorithm, becomes an indispensable daily product.

Musicians and Twitter are closely related to each other. In April 2013, this association created an independent application, Twitter #Music, that can discover music. However, with such a strong of purpose, the service received a passive result. It barely attracted any users. In this cooperation, Twitter #Music intended to gain some strength and reputation in its weak arena. By using the data, supervisor Bob "Moz" Moczydlowsky in Twitter’s music department hopes that he and his team could design an advanced A & R strategic marketing tool to guide artists and music industry investors. He wants to build a service that "everyone can be profitable in business services in the music industry."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfF8nLZ2nLw

https://music.twitter.com/

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2013/08/12-tips-for-promoting-your-music-on-twitter.html

A better metric for online advertisers?

The traditional metrics for online advertisers are page views and clicks. More recently, shares became of more interest. However, neither of these metrics actually capture sufers' engagement.

Upworthy is making a case for "Attention Minutes" as a new and better metric to measure user engagement and value for advertisements on a website: "Attention Minutes measures everything from video player signals about whether a video is currently playing to a user’s mouse movements to which browser tab is currently open — all to determine whether the user is still engaged," Upworthy wrote. "The result is a fine-grained and unforgiving metric that tells us whether people are really engaged with our content or have moved on to the next thing."

The Financial Times has embraced time spent not just for measuring engagement of content, but also as a way to promise advertisers more band for their buck. The company has even said it could begin selling ads on a time-based model. Also Mashable is already using time spent as an internal metric for engagement with content.

The death of the page view metric has been predicted many times before. It remains to be seen weather "Attention Minutes" has the ability to actually become an established measurement for online marketer.

Source: http://mashable.com/2014/06/25/time-spent-is-the-metric-of-the-moment-as-upworthy-opens-its-attention-minutes-code/

8 Keys To A Successful Digital Marketing Plan

This article is for everyone. Whatever you are a founder, CEO, or an employee, you should know the importance of a successful digital marketing plan which might bring your company great benefit.

Here are 8 keys about how to make a successful marketing plan:

1. Set Constructive Goals for Your Business:

Your website can not only be a simple platform or just has the name of your company but also needs to have qualitative and quantitative goal to attract visitors and turn them into customers.

2. Develop a Digital Blueprint:

Before taking the action, you need to do the industry research. You need to know your competitor’s marketing tactics, your budget, your target, when to start and when to stop, etc. you must put yourself in a very competitive position.

3. Craft a Compelling Value Proposition

Every company has its core value proposition. It is extremely important to convey your core value with few words via your website or other digital marketing tools. You have to know how to differentiate yourself from others to point out that you are special.  

4. Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy

In today's ever changing search and social media environment, content marketing, such as blog articles, news articles, white papers, case studies, press releases, emails, etc., is the key to helping grow your business. And it is also important to get your content in front of your clients to attract and engage them.

5. Perfect Your Call to Action

You can sue call to action (CTA) to follow up your visitors which might increase conversion rate.

6. Conduct a Competitive Analysis

For example, Key Performance Indicators, Sales process, Website analysis, Value proposition assessment, Target market assessment, Internet market demand for your products and services, Evaluation of existing or past Internet marketing initiatives,

7. Identify Operational Impacts on Your Firm

Even though you have come out with a comprehensive digital marketing plan, you have to determine whether the plan would have a positive effect on your firm.

8. Measure Your Performance

With digital analysis tools, you need to trace and access the performance of every piece of your marketing plan. Then you will know what is working and what is not.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/8-keys-successful-digital-marketing-plan-0934697#!9nHcr

Social Networking Game for Children-They Call It A Creative Community!

UK online game developer Mind Candy Ltd. launched a social network gaming PopJam for children aged 7 to 12 gamers groups on July 4^th, 2014. Most technology companies have not have the courage to get involved in children's social gaming market. Children players in the game can post photos, painting, sharing their work and follow a certain topic or brand.

Only a few dedicated online games or chat services have been dominating the 7-12 year-old children's game market, such as Walt - Walt Disney's "Club Penguin". Many network services are not allowed to children under the age of 13 registered, including Facebook. However, there are still a lot of children players use their parents’ accounts or cheat on their ages to become a member or user of these networks. Therefore, many technology companies have begun to try to focus on the user's social networking products for children. American Yoursphere Media Inc. plans to increase the number of children users on its network to one million.

Facebook has tried to open its network services to children aged 10-12.

Due to the need to deal with the network environment and compliance with regulatory laws to protect children, companies that introduced children online social networking games have to deal with a lot of problems, such as product costs. Insiders on child safety and market over-commercialization also expressed concern.

PopJam seems to blend photo-sharing website Pinterest and Facebook's Instagram website style. Children players can draw in PopJam game, share content with other users, make comments, and participate in competitions to get bonus points. This game allows children players share their works of art to more users.

http://www.popjam.com/

More interactive video ads make you want to click

Fuisz Media just raised $2.1 million to develop a technology to make video ads more interactive. They recently struck testing deals with Kraft, Nike, Target and Walmar.

In the case of Kraft, a 15-second clip comes with pop-up information on the brand and its products. As the video runs, a click over one of the frames pulls up a pastry recipe or product details for Cool Whip.



Interactive video is a growing segment in digital advertising along with video in general. Making videos more interactive is a great way to increase user engagement and relevance of ads.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/digital-video-ads-make-you-want-click-158743

Facebook probably about to show advertising videos in newsfeed

Facebook recently changed its newsfeed algorithm in order to better understand which users watch videos and which users do not.

The tweak includes a new video ranking system which takes into account whether people are actually watching each video — and for how long — before deciding who else will see that video in their feed. Previously, metrics like Likes and comments were key indicators of a video's popularity, but the new measurement aims to determine exactly how captivating the video content is.

The move was likely driven by two motives. Facebook often seeks ways to surface the content people are most likely to engage with, and if users like more videos, then Facebook can provide the goods.

The other motive is Facebook's bottom line. The company is rolling out video ads to users, and the News Feed tweak will give the company a better idea of which users are most receptive to video ads. The more Facebook knows about your video watching habits, the more successful its new ad format will be. The more Facebook knows about your video watching habits, the more successful its new ad format will be.

Source: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/news-feed-fyi-showing-better-videos/

Is Google over censuring in Europe when implementing the right to be forgotten?

European press has been active. A lot of criticism and scrutiny of Google and the way it’s applying the new “Right to be forgotten” rules.

Let’s take The guardian as an example.

A quick search, led me to all these different articles (among so many others!) just in the last few days:

• UK news organisations criticise Google over implementation of new law
• Things to remember about Google and the right to be forgotten
• What is Google deleting under the 'right to be forgotten' - and why?
• Google 'learning as we go' in row over right to be forgotten
• Google will be happy with mediaanger over 'right to be forgotten'
• The 'right to be forgotten'doesn't mean we should be censoring Google results

The criticisms are several.

The Guardian, Daily Mail and BBC complained about the Search Engine application of the European rule.

According to the EU rule, the information must be either inaccurate, irrelevant or outdated to be kept outside of a search, and according to the news, publishers are complaining about Google being too hasty and removing searches that don’t fulfill any of these 3 criteria.

Is this causing the Streisand effect in a large scale?

The Guardian has an article with links to all articles that were removed from Google’s searches. The story of Dougie McDonald, the referee that admitted to have lied about awarding a penalty in the Scottish FA Cup, is all over the place.

An important remark

The way Google is applying the law is by omitting search results when you search for the specific name, however searches for any other words can lead you to those articles, so those webpages will still be accessible through Google.

Some key facts and numbers

• +90% of searches in Europe are done through Google
• +70,000 requests to remove links
• France (14,086), Germany (12,678), the UK (8,497), Spain (6,176) and Italy (5,934) are the countries where most requests come from
• +12,000 requests a day at the beginning of the implementation
• ~1,000 requests a day currently
• Unspecified number of paralegals deal with the requests

The Top 10 Digital Campaigns of 2013

10. WestJet Christmas Miracle

Fantastic idea for building its brand image!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIEIvi2MuEk

9. The Hobbit: 

An advertisement for a movie. It also seems to be a online game.

http://middle-earth.thehobbit.com/map

8. McDonalds: Happy Table

An idea that continues to poison kids…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6ATOgEcR1U

7. Chipotle: 

Maybe it want to address how health its’ foods are.

http://www.scarecrowgame.com/game.html#farms

6. Smart TXTBKS

Simple idea can bring a significant influence on our society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bUGXqhrVrw

5. Volvo Trucks - The Epic Split feat. Van Damme 

I hate this guy’s movie but like this CF. He rocks!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10

4. Amnesty: Trial by Timeline

I have no comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op571qHb-jo

3. The Most Powerful Arm Ever Invented

Cutting-edge technology benefits our world again!

 http://www.themostpowerfularm.com/about

2. Coke Ahh

Are you addicted to the smalls game? Take a break and have a Coke!

http://www.ahh.com/

1. Oreo: Daily Twist

Cool!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDSc0V3AEnk

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2319443/the-top-10-digital-campaigns-of-2013

YouTube New Challenge Yahoo

The article briefly points out that Yahoo! is considering and focusing on rebuilding its own brand by integrating different services. Like YouTube, Yahoo!’s video service is to include as many as videos to its platform which might increase the customer engagement and people’s interests in the future. However, the plan didn't go very smoothly. Yahoo! has not solved the problems in the contract, such as content ownership. At the same time, YouTube is waiting for Yahoo!’s reaction and see whether the issue is worth their while.

Even though some troubles exist, Yahoo!’s video service still has some advantages over YouTube. For example, it has more generous revenue sharing deals which might accumulate the number of video very soon and higher fixed advertisement rate than YouTube. And of course, Yahoo!’s video service allows people to create their own page as YouTube does.

The new video service seems to be interesting and might bring Yahoo! higher advertisement rate and more revenue. But it might not happen because its main rival YouTube is in the dark side and can easily copy and optimize Yahoo!’s plan.

 Source: http://guardianlv.com/2014/05/youtube-new-challenge-yahoo/

Let’s Celebrate 4th of July with Revolutionary Gadgets

Fireworks, thousands of Instagram uploads, the literally "brightest" Facebook newsfeed; yes it is 4^th of July. It represents freedom, and it is the most important national celebration for the US, remembering the country’s revolution against tyranny. What revolutions have taken place though all these years of freedom? From the first QWERTY typewriter to the iPhone, there’s a trail of gadgets that have left an incredible mark on American culture and the rest of the world.

Let’s celebrate this year’s Independence Day by remembering some of these State-Of-The-Art gadgets. Now let’s focus on some huge technological revolutions, beginning with Apple, what else! Apple itself has used “revolutionary” to describe more than 30 products and features. Maybe Wikipedia could update the definition of revolution as the transition from the traditional typewriter to the iPhone. From the iPod introduced in 2001, which was the first gadget to kick off the digital age of music, to the iPhone, which has replaced more than 10 tools, and introduced the touchscreen smartphone space.

Moving on, let’s recall one of the first cellphones, Motorola StarTAC, or the Sony Walkman which made music portable for the first time (and made headphones a must for everyone), or the first affordable computer Apple Macintosh 128K which was literally like a box. Also, let’s remember that before the first Handycam was released in the mid-1980’s, video cameras were huge shoulder-mounted units, and Canon EOS was the first digital SLR that costs less than $1,000.

These are only a few remarkable revolutions during the history of America, of course you can discover tons of them! For now, check Wired’s  list with their 16 favorite ones with pictures that'll remind you of your childhood!

Enjoy, and Happy 4^th everyone!

via

8% of Digital Marketers Would Increase Ad Spend for Digital Branding

Here is a piece of news, revealing that most companies would increase Digital Ad in the future.

MediaBrix, the leading advertising and services platform for social and mobile games, today announced new findings from a survey conducted by Millward Brown Digital, which polled 300 digital marketing decision makers at Fortune 5000 companies and leading advertising agencies in the United States. Key findings indiciate that digital marketing decision makers allocate their budgets fairly evenly across digital advertising formats. However, 88 percent said that making emotional connections through digital media would encourage them to spend more on digital branding campaigns. The survey also found that 30 percent of digital marketers believe that ads purchased through programmatic methods produce negative customer experiences that damage brand loyalty or negate their branding objectives in other ways.

As to digital marketers' chief concerns, 37 percent stated that "banner blindness" concerns them most when buying brand ads purchased through programmatic methods, such as ad exchanges or agency trading desks. "Banner blindness" is defined as when visitors to a website, mobile website or mobile app consciously or subconsciously ignore banner-like or advertising information. This concern topped others, including quality of inventory, viewability, click fraud, ad collision or fraudulent traffic.

However, 81 percent of respondents indicated that targeting users based on their emotions, or emotional targeting, would help address the issue of banner blindness.

"The Millward Brown Digital survey confirms that making emotional connections is extremely important to digital marketers, while ads bought through programmatic methods can be damaging for brands," says Ari Brandt, CEO and Co-founder, MediaBrix. "Programmatic clearly has a place within digital media, but the industry has not addressed quality and effectiveness. Until that time, seemlessly integrating ads during emotional moments -- that fortify a brand's relationships with users and add to the overall experience -- is the most powerful and effective form of advertising in existence."

View an infographic containing key highlights from the survey.

View a presentation of the full Millward Brown Digital survey results.

Methodology Millward Brown Digital surveyed 300 digital marketing decision makers over the age of 25 who work at a Fortune 5000 company or advertising agency in the United States. The research was fielded between April 14, 2014 and April 20, 2014.

From marketwatch.com

Is China's Great Firewall Blocking Messaging Apps?

Japan's Line and South Korea's KakaoTalk Report Big Disruptions For Users in China

Two popular Asian messaging apps – Line and KakaoTalk – aren't working properly in mainland China this week, prompting concerns the government is cracking down on them.

China already blocks many foreign Internet sites, including Google, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Flickr and Microsoft's OneDrive were just blocked as well.

There are 500 million mobile internet users in China – the world's largest smartphone market -- and it seems the government has started paying closer attention to foreign smartphone messaging apps, too. (The most popular messaging app in China by far -- local product WeChat, which has more than 355 million monthly active users at home and abroad – is still working fine.)

Line and KakaoTalk both confirmed connection issues for users in China, but neither explained what exactly caused them. Some users also reported access problems with Viber, a popular app for calls and messages, but it worked fine for this reporter.

In an email, a co-founder of GreatFire.org, which monitors web censorship in China, said the blockages were probably linked to pro-democracy marches in Hong Kong on Tuesday, the anniversary of its handover from British to Chinese control. Protests are always a sensitive issue in China and are frequently tied to internet disruptions.

The GreatFire.org co-founder, who goes by the pseudonym Charlie Smith, said photo-sharing site Flickr and Microsoft cloud storage service OneDrive were probably blocked because of concerns about sharing photos from the demonstrations. Pictures might also have been the trigger for a crackdown on the messaging services, he said.

A spokesperson for Japan's Line said that mainland users have been "experiencing a connection issue" since Tuesday and that it was trying to resolve the situation. It's unclear how many of Line's 420 million users are in China, but a Line executive told The Wall Street Journal last month that it was planning a push in China later this year, with a local team to develop content specific to the market.

Meanwhile, South Korea's KakaoTalk notified users Thursday that access was disrupted on the mainland and asked people to put word out to friends in China. KakaoTalk said some services were still working (including text messaging and sending of images) while others were not (registration for new users, using some emoticons, adding friends.)

The company said it was "investigating the causes of the issue and trying to find a solution." KakaoTalk has 150 million users worldwide but does not break out figures for China. The world's most popular chat app -- WhatsApp, owned by Facebook – was apparently not experiencing any problems.

People in China can get around blockages by installing VPNs, or virtual private networks, on their computers or phones, but it's a hassle that many don't bother with.

China's internet has been more heavily patrolled than usual lately. Google and Gmail have been blocked since shortly before June 4, the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

"If this recent blocking trend continues, I think the authorities don't realize how much resentment they are creating," the GreatFire.org co-founder said.

In addition to blocking foreign sites, the government has lately launched a campaign to "clean up" the Chinese internet and local messaging apps, scrubbing away porn and rumors.

Though WeChat wasn't affected by outages this week, its parent company, Tencent, said last month that it had blocked 20 million accounts, or 5% of the total, for prostitution links. That campaign was nicknamed "Operation Thunder Strike."

Facebook To Use 'Missed Calls' To Dial Up Ad Dollars In India

New Ad Format Tailored to Unique Mobile Habit

Facebook hopes to dial up its ad dollars in India, its second-largest market, through a new mobile-ad format unique to the country.

During COO Sheryl Sandberg's visit to India this week, Facebook announced it was introducing a new ad format tailored to the country's unique mobile behavior: the "missed call." Data costs for voice calls and texts can be prohibitively high for most Indians, who typically have pre-paid phone contracts. Missed calls are a popular workaround -- dial up a friend then hang up, and they're alerted without mobile charges.

In recent years, several technology companies in India have tapped the practice for sports polling, brand campaigns and ad dollars. The tactic is effective largely because it works with feature phones, without Internet access, which are dominant in emerging markets. Now Facebook is leaping in.

"When a person sees an ad on Facebook they can place a 'missed call' by clicking the ad from their mobile device," Facebook explained in a postannouncing the new format. "In the return call, the person receives valuable content, such as music, cricket scores or celebrity messages, alongside a brand message from the advertiser -- all without using airtime or data."

Facebook has tentative plans to take the new ad format to Indonesia, South Africa and Brazil.

India is quickly catching up to the U.S. as Facebook's biggest market. In April, the company announced it had reached 100 million users in the country. But it barely dents Facebook's bottom line. India generates around $12.6 million in ad dollars for Facebook, just 0.23% of its total revenue.

Facebook has been placing ads on feature phones for more than a year and half, helped by deals with emerging market telecom providers to subsizide data for accessing a stripped-down version of the site. Facebook works with Bharti Airtel, one of India's largest telecom operators. Around 66% of Indians reaching Facebook on mobile devices use feature phones, according to the company.

With its new ad format, Facebook is partnering with Zipdial, a Bangalore-based startup that operates a missed call platform for advertisers to reach Indian consumers. Zipdial has worked with Indian and international advertisers, such as Unilever.

The Omnicom Group is also a partner. "We are working with Facebook to explore new ad solutions which are directly built from the way people communicate on mobile everyday," Cheuk Chiang, the agency network's Asia Pacific CEO, told Bloomberg.

Twitter Buys Apps Ad Specialist TapCommerce, Extending 'Off-Twitter Strategy'

Twitter Buys Apps Ad Specialist TapCommerce, Extending 'Off-Twitter Strategy'

Another Ad-Tech Purchase to Expand Twitter's Reach in Mobile Ad Sales

Twitter said Monday that it had struck a deal to acquire TapCommerce, a two-year-old startup that automates buying for app advertising. The price was around $100 million, according to a person familiar with the deal.

The acquisition comes on the heels of Twitter's purchase of Namo Media, a company focused on native mobile ads, on June 5. Last September, Twitter agreed to acquire the mobile-ad exchange MoPub for $300 million.

With these deals, Twitter is focusing intently on bulking up in programmatic ad technology and expanding its mobile advertising reach and repertoire. Richard Alfonsi, Twitter's VP-global online sales, called this its "off-Twitter strategy."

"They continue the ad strategy we laid out with the MoPub acquisition," he said of TapCommerce. "This provides a super set of inventory in the mobile ecosystem."

TapCommerce currently buys ads through real-time bidding across 50,000 different apps, according to Twitter, adding to the "tens of thousands" of sites and apps reached by MoPub, by Twitter's count.

Founded in New York in 2012, TapCommerce specializes in mobile-app "re-targeting" -- serving ads to smartphone owners that have already installed apps but left them largely unused. The company relies on "deep linking," which send users swiftly from one app to another, a technology that Facebook and Google have been advancing recently.

TapCommerce works with travel and e-commerce companies, like eBay, as well as mobile game developers. It has raised $11.7 million in venture capital funding.

The acquisition is also part of Twitter's aggressive foray into the app-install business, Facebook's cash cow. Earlier on Monday, Twitter introduced new ad formats for app-install ads, along with a new cost-per-click pricing structure. The TapCommerce business will be folded into these efforts, which are built primarily to capture direct-response ad dollars, Mr. Alfonsi said.

With its re-targeting ads, TapCommerce has worked extensively with Facebook inventory. Asked whether or how TapCommerce would adjust its relationship to Facebook, Mr. Alfonsi said that was still to be determined.

Last quarter, Twitter reported ad revenue of $250 million, with 80% coming from mobile.

Marketing or market research? Facebook #fail

If you are someone who conducts market research, you know that people get a little creeped out when you start "surveying" them instead of just "talking" to them. As a researcher, you are trying to put the subject at ease but in the end, it's never quite the same since they know you are going to use that information...potentially for evil.

The Facebook study revealed to the world this week showed what happens when marketing and market research collide and go awry. Why exactly do people share their data on the web when in aggregate, almost no one would prefer that anyone have access to this data except the people they are explicitly sharing with?

It comes down to lack of options, network effects and the price: zero.

Consumers needs to vote with their actions. It's time to turn off Facebook and start going back to a world where not everything was open.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/opinion/jaron-lanier-on-lack-of-transparency-in-facebook-study.html?_r=0

Google buys Songza to sell ads?

Did Apple buy Beats to sell ads?

Clearly the answer is no but yet the WSJ quoted Songza CEO Elias Roman as saying that there was a potential for richer "targeted advertising." This seems a bit short-sighted to me as the acquisition of 5.5M subscribers just to sell ads seems a bit pointless. Google already runs its own Music service and wouldn't want to compete with itself in this space.

The obvious play is the integration of Songza's playlist approach into Google Music - perhaps as a minor reaction to Apple's Beats acquisition.

The battlefield for music streaming has yet to declare a winner but in the mean time, startups like Songza are cashing in.