You All Thought I Was Crazy

Since 2010, I've said in presentations, in meetings and among staff, the goal of big data and mobile is to get to customized experience.  My example of this in digital signage always was -- if I walk by a sign in a mall, based on my Facebook and other profiles plus my phone giving away that it's me, I'll get an ad for someplace in the mall they think I'm interested in.  If it's a young female, she gets Victorias.  I don't know, I get Barnes and Noble (best case; more likely some other "old person" option).

Well today: This note about a start-up in Little Rock.  They are doing high end computer based marketing.  Like . . .

UPDATE: I talked briefly with Rod Ford, the CEO, who explained how the company was built on software developed in an earlier failed tech startup and is to be expanded to enhance marketing. It's already in use on 12 college campuses, where large TV screens can recognize if, say, the person walking buy is a young male and instantly throw up a pizza special or a new pair of Nikes that would attract the potential customer.

Tip of the hat to Arkansas Times' blog for that.  My bold and underline for emphasis.

What I didn't need AT to tell me . . . why Little Rock?  Hello.  Acxiom?

Brand Thought for the Day

Courtesy of Bloomberg News, a story about the new "most valuable" brand: Apple.

Mark Gimein makes a profound and heretical statement about what makes Apple so valuable as a "brand":

Our products have everything you need straight out of the box. They’re easy to use. They don’t crash. In other words, Apple sells the brand by selling the product. 

Gimein and I concur -- shocking idea.  Do something right.  People will remember it.  And today more than ever before, they tell their friends.

Gimein reminds us in the piece that no matter how platinum the aviation brand of Pan Am was in the 20th century, they are nothing without an airline today.

There are Homers Everywhere

The story about a Montana football player appearing before the judge on minor charges of destroying a sign carried an interesting subtext.

Always good to see the judge presiding in his team colors logo chair.

Hipsters Begin to Age

It comes for all of us.  Who would have prepared us for these two stories:

The History of the iPhone

Google at 15

Any day now, don't you kids remember when we had to use our finger prints to use our phone . . .

What's Good for the Fortson is Good for the Guth

The debate over David Guth's tweet and Kansas' reaction swings quickly to the First Amendment.  A passionate defense of Guth's right in today's Chroncle.

I wonder if we see a growing trend of acceptance of/tolerance for bad behavior in the social world.

Take Courtney Fortson's case.  The former Razorback point guard made the following tweet:

He was punished for violating team rules (perhaps other issues weighed in beyond the tweet) and missed a large number of games -- publicly for his bad tweet.  For those unfamiliar, some of Fortson's teammates were accused of a sexual assault, thus the significance of the "drunk girl" reference.

This was 2009.  And he still makes SI's top 20 and another digital publication's top 15 for worst all-time athlete tweets.

Here in 2013, Guth made this tweet:

If we believe that Fortson -- as a university representative -- is held to a higher standard, does Guth not have the same responsibility?  Or have both men been cruelly wronged?

I believe this to be a First Amendment issue.

As in, rights of association, the extension the courts have made of the right of assembly.  A group can choose who it will or will not associate with.  Does Guth or Fortson's individual ability to say whatever they want in whatever format they choose trump the right of the assembly to remove them from the group for their speech they find offensive?

Discuss.

J-School Prof Disciplined for Tweet

Remember the name David Guth -- even money says he's the next battleground for First Amendment.

Guth stirred the ire of the NRA with a tweet after the Washington Naval Yard shootings, and in turn, University of Kansas has put Guth on administrative leave.

This post is not to take a side on the tweet.  It's to ponder the point: can you discipline an associate professor for their point of view.

The Chronicle gave the first note, and here's the link to the Kansas City Star story referenced.

And, for the curious, here's the link to KU's social media policy.  Clearly, KU is taking the path I've advocated for many an athletic department.  To quote from the KU PDF:

Social media is included in speech, so the same rules apply regarding hate speech

and other similar issue

Guth didn't violate a social media policy as much as he violated existing speech guidelines (or, to use my athletic analogy, "team rules" which cover general conduct regardless to whether it was online or in person).

Pixar's 22 Rules

The best "here click on this web link" advice I've received in months.

Especially #2 and #22.

Seriously, no explanation needed -- trust me this is not a waste of your time.

To Each Platform According to its Needs

Perhaps a little Marx to start the day, but while reading over some recent Facebook versus Twitter comparisons the basic concept of creating the right message on the right platform remains true.

Hashtags, in particular.

That's a genuinely Twitter function.  When Facebook emulated, many wondered what the impact would be.  At least one report out now says, it's a "zero" impact.

Digging into the numbers, I'm more struck by the small base numbers.  Sure, that's some dramatic differences -- 1.3 to 0.8 against on Facebook and .0069 to .004 for on Twitter.

Personally, Facebook is a prose composition.  Twitter is a hip text world.  I've been concerned that bringing the hashtag into FB looks a little "desperate" to be cool.  Sort of like more than two hashtags gets annoying on Twitter or multiple exclamations on FB.

Look at the numbers again.  The Facebook forwarding is next to the decimal point.  Twitter?  Not so much.

Reminds me of a similar look by Facebook claiming how they had as much, if not more, raw traffic related to second/third screen interaction with television shows.

Well sure.  There are simply more people on Facebook.  We see that here at Arkansas State (15K-plus on FB to 9.5K on Twitter), but they are different audiences.  Same was true when I left Northwestern State (12K to 1.5K).  Only place we saw opposite was the early years running UA athletics where Twitter dominated . . . but only until we got serious and launched Facebook.

Facebook Important in Crisis

No surprise to this space what being on top of social commentary means in "crisis" modes -- either real or perceived.  Nice to have to research now to back it up.  Missouri School of Journalism weighs in with a new study.

Tip of the hat to the Bulldog Reporter email feed for the story.

The two researchers pulled out one interesting fact in the BR story:

Hong also found that Facebook posts written in a narrative style were more effective than posts written in a non-narrative format. Narrative style is chronological and focuses more on story-telling rather than fact listing.

 I find this another reinforcing fact that you need to create content and write for the platform, not in a single "dashboard" and send to all at once.

Your Other Data

One of my favorite presentation lines is to remind people the real reason for Facebook is it is the world's largest data mining and marketing operation.  And you volunteered for it.

Now, one of the world's largest data companies you DIDN'T opt into is opening up its data to show you what it knows about you.  Little Rock based Acxiom launched its aboutthedata.com website today.

Log on and see if they have you profiled.  The paranoid among us will say that just verified your personal data.

Acxiom's info comes from years and years of mundane data -- your voting records, your public records (driving, taxes, etc), your credit records, your bread crumbs left will purchasing on line.

Big Data crunches all that and tells marketing (or others) exactly what you've done and a reasonable prediction of what you'll do next.

Now, if I could just see the files from NSA on my phone calls also . . .

(FYI - when I tried it, it returned an error.  Some in the media are saying the data base is having troubles, and Acxiom is listing this as a "beta" on the webpages).

Once Posted, Always Available

The case of Cody Hill caught my eye today in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The 18-year-old Californian is facing murder charges after hitting a pair of cyclists, killing one. Obviously, my keen interest in riding is at cross roads with freedom of speech. Was I happy that yet another scofflaw driver who maimed (this time killed) a rider was facing ultimate justice? Was it fair to have a Twitter record used to upgrade charges?

On the same day, there is a lengthy feature that highlights the particularly twisted and sick practice of LOL RIP trolls.

I find myself upon the verge of a kids-these-days-get-off-my-lawn-pull-up-your-pants rant.

Deep cleansing breath. After all, it is Sunday.

This boils down less to a change in the coarseness of society or a lack of respect for life among youth into a really serious lesson in digital accountability.  My old "once posted, always available."

Cody joins Jacob Rees of Oregon, caught for his drunk driving hit and run by his own tweets. While Cody has the right to be young and stupid about his life, what he overlooks is that by leaving behind a trail of digital crumbs, he cast his own fate. He made his own reputation as a reckless youth permanent.

The details of the case are particularly gruesome on their own. A 57-year-old couple, riding in a bike lane, get plowed into by Cody doing 83 in a 40 zone.  The wife is dead; the husband's leg broken.  From the start, his braggadocio tweets about driving fast were noted by locals.

The police (not unlike Astoria, Ore.) used the digital record and his driving offenses to plead for an escalation of charges.

I can't quite decide if my pound of flesh for the injured and dead riders is what makes me feel this was necessary to show others that you really can't just do whatever they hell you want - both online and on the road.

Which leads to the other story.  Matthew Kocher's parents became the surf-by victims of trolls who think it is either funny or part of their mission to hijack Facebook and other memorial social pages. I do have some significant trouble thinking about people - likely not only kids - who get perverse pleasure in trolling around memorial websites.  It seems like Westboro Baptist for the online world.

One can only hope that eventually digital responsibility catches up with them.

The Politics of Friending

After spending Monday discussing the power relationship dynamic of faculty and students when it comes to social media, this note arrives in the email courtesy of Bulldog Reporter.  In the marketplace, the feeling is mutual, rather than directional.

While the focus with faculty is to make sure they understand the unintended power consequence of asking to or allowing selective friending, in the workplace, bosses aren't comfy being followed by reports and vice versa.  These numbers are rising from a similar poll five years ago, perhaps a reflection of a growing understanding of the impact of being social.

An interesting side item:  if managers aren't real keen mixing business with social inside the office, they are really not OK with clients or vendors "just trying to get to know you."  Check out the chart in the story on the response groups, and five good suggestions on office Facebook etiquette.

Fun with FOIA -- Northern Style

A tip of the hat to the D1 Ticker for this note on how bloggers and participatory media (read: message boards) used open records laws to discover potential blackball moves against Stony Brook by Hofstra.

Quaint echos of almost a decade ago in Arkansas . . .

Recruiting's Productivity Tool?

Great note coming through The Chronicle regarding a Texas A&M study on "tech savvy" for student affairs -- actually more social savvy.

Inside the 49ers Studio

A great short read from the new executive producer for the San Francisco 49ers on his philosophy (shocking - influenced by NFL Films) toward video for the team.  All poking fun aside, the Steve Sabol quote is one that should be pinned up on every branded media internal video operation's wall:

“Tell me a fact and I will learn. Tell me a truth and I will believe, but tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”

It's refreshing to know the 49ers top press conference problem -- hey, we can't hear the questions at press conferences -- brings a universality to that age old problem.  (Look in the first comment under the story for this).

Make All the Facebook Laws You Want

I remain amused at the interest of state governments to institute limits on the ability of higher ed (or K-12 for that matter) to "police" social media as a violation of the First Amendment.  Aside from the obvious -- you violate terms of service when you ask to get passwords/logins, etc -- these items are not about embarrassing the institution as much as self-inflicted wounds upon the individuals.

Our most recent case in point -- a fraternity in the Pacific Northwest that lost its on-campus house and the ability to recruit thanks to its Facebook page.

In the brief from The Chronicle, note they were disciplined for violating the student conduct code of the university, not for breaking a social media policy.

Reminds me of another Oregon event where the perp of a hit and run DUI event busted himself by posting it online.  Or any number of other times where bad social led to loss of jobs.

Our jobs in higher ed include . . . educating young people (and the young at heart coming back to college) about the perils of over-sharing.

Weiner and Sharing

I am reminded of the Disney classic . . . "a tale as old as time."  Digital never dies.  Once again, Anthony Weiner proves this, and this screen capture from HuffPo today is not as much about the lesson of not putting your privates online, but about how we share that.

My attention is on the nice five-spot share bar on HuffPo -- a snapshot if you will of how the readers of this article interacted with the news and video.  The proportions are not terribly surprising, leaning heavy toward Facebook as a platform and almost zero for Google+.  What I did find interesting is the desire to comment directly in the space, perhaps a higher number than I would have anticipated, and how dominant at this moment (captured at 6:30 pm CT) Facebook was over Twitter.

We don't know without tracing through the comments generated on Facebook pages or Twitter feeds to know if there was an equal -- probably larger -- amount of commentary scattered across those platforms.

UPDATE:  So a little more scanning around, here's another version of same from Mashable.  Regrets for Google+ (and any other platform beside the big two), but interesting how this piece of sports news (who has the largest total fan bases as measured from adding social and attendance) gets a near 50-50 split in the Facebook/Twitter sharing.

I also have a moment of Edward Tufte sparkline graphics with the "index" of how hot the story is.

I Always Feel Like, Somebody's Watching Me

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the local Kroger store with a big Red Wolf window painting.  I did not use the word "Kroger" in the post.  No one in the comments said the word.  As a new resident to Jonesboro, I did get a Kroger "points" card, but I have not filled it out to turn it back in.

Today, my top sponsored ad on the right side of my Facebook page is for Kroger.

In Natchitoches, we had Brookshires -- no Kroger literally within 150 miles.

So why did I get that ad?  The Kroger sign logo was big in the photo -- did they read it off the image?

Social media peeps -- could that be true?

The Athletic Future is Now

Today Wisconsin rolled out their new look to their athletic website.  I freely admit to not having spent a lot of time with it, but it reminds me in some broad stroke concepts to what another W launched -- Washington State.

No IAB ads at the top.

No over the top promotional splashes.

Content. Lots and lots of visual content.  Wisconsin also brings a ton to tight social integration.  WSU still has some old school ad placements, but they are less jarring.

This is what fan bases want.  It serves the needs of the brand better than something that has the look of -- as one social media wag once said -- "the Vegas strip with all those buttons and ads."

Kudos to UW and WSU.

Facebook Art Faux Pas

Facebook evolves, and with the latest versions of mobile the idea of swapping cover art based on "advertising" or themes gets dicey.  Sure, you have a nice wide canvas on the desktop.  The new layout destroys that and puts the emphasis back on having a high quality profile picture.

Facebook long had rules on the amount of text content, but the new layout is more draconian than any suggestion to have "less than 50% text" in your artwork.

To that end, I've included an attempt to add some inspirational messaging to a cover art.  (No, not mine.  Advised the admin involved to not do this.)

While the key information (the word being defined, along with other chunks of data) is covered by the profile online, it disappears completely in mobile.  Actually, the artwork begins to work somewhat in mobile because almost all the text is chopped off leaving just the eyes.