Worst of the Worst from SXSWi

I’m a little late getting to this but I just recently discovered Scott Monty’s Social Media Martketing Blog.  In it, he has a great overview of what sounds like it was a really fun and informative SXSWi panel:

“I just sat in on a panel called “The Suxorz – the Worst of the Worst in Social Media Marketing for 2007.”

The panelists included Charlotte Selles (brand perspective), Jeff Jarvis, Rebecca Lieb, Steve Hall, and the moderator was Henry Copeland. While this may not seem like a who’s-who of the social media industry, they did come at it with a pretty broad perspective of advertisers & marketers using common sense. You’ll see a number of selections that were based on poor opinions of creative execution, as well as those that don’t follow good social media practice.”

Check out the full post for links to many examples of some of the biggest missteps and foolish approaches to marketing in the digital age.

The Agency Dilemma

There is some good coverage from the SXSW panel  “The Web Agency: There Will Be Blood”.  

Over on the Digital Design Blog a panelist has posted some his thoughts:

“On the whole, we tended to agree that the notion of just creating digital extensions of the 30-second spot was headed for the dustbin and that, clearly, would put traditional agencies on the defensive. We also agreed that good creative ideas would still drive digital advertising moving forward — and in off-line channels as well.

We did disagree, however, about to what degree agencies need to continue to adapt to continue to be strong in the digital space. I argued that the online medium was unique and complex and that digital agencies needed different tools to reach and engage consumers beyond creative ideas. ”

And David Armano over on Logic+Emotion brings up a campaign I don’t even remember called The Coke Show .

“Every time I come across digital properties with Hollywood level production and price tags—I have to wonder how the stats compare to blogs and social applications that can be developed for a fraction of the cost.  How much did it cost the creators of the Coke Mentos fountain to create their video?  To distribute it?”

SXSW Likes “The Guild”

One of my favorite independent webisodics, The Guild, was awarded the best original production at the SXSWi’s first-ever Greenlight Awards competition.

The Guild is a clever show that follows the lives a members of a World of Warcraft guild.  If that premise alone doesn’t get you interested, this is probably not the series for you – though, as a non-gamer myself, I still find a lot to like.

Check out Episode One:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grCTXGW3sxQ&hl=en]

The Music Debate Plays On

There was a panel on ad-supported music at SXSWi and lots of folks are weighing in.

PaidContent has some pretty extensive coverage leading with:

“If what this question means is “can ad-supported music replace album sales on a dollar-for-dollar basis”, then the answer is a resounding no. Nobody on the panel held this view, and nothing in the history of the digital media migration would suggest this is possible. It’s never that easy. If the question is more open-ended and vague, then opinions vary wildly.”

Mashable responded to a Capitol Records exec’s comment that “I need more marketing and promotion on the internet like I need a root canal without anesthetic.” by saying:

“The estimates are wide and varied, but comScore put the net returns for Radiohead’s “pay if you want” scheme at around $10 million. On the other hand, Warner Music Group posted net profits of only $5 million on their entire music catalog.”

Obviously, this debate is still in its infancy.  There will be a slew of business models out there from ad-supported to subscription based, but I think Matt Mason summed it up pretty well when he said folks have to ask themselves if they’re in the business of selling little discs or music?

Cuban Questions Eisner as SXSWi

The billionaire-owner of an NBA franchise interviewed the man who once ran Disney about value and future of web content. This is probably more important for the fact that these two guys think this is a serious area to be discussing than what they actually discussed.

However, PaidContent has some coverage for all of us. A few highlights for me:

“The time is right… we’re going to along for awhile and maybe make a little money… and then all of the sudden we’re going to wake up and then professionally driven content for the internet is going to explode.”

“If you take the position that you’re going to own all your own content, you’re going to end up with nothing.”

CNet has further coverage on the talk and some interesting information on the just-released new webisodic from Eisner called The All-For-Nots.

“There are no rules yet, Eisner said, to the point where company strategies can change erratically and make the process all the more complicated. For example, he said, the distribution strategy for The All-for-Nots will be different from Prom Queen because potential content distribution partners didn’t present them with the same deals.

“Every time you go to a MySpace or MSN or YouTube or Google, every month, they change the strategy,” Eisner said. “People actually paid us money (for Prom Queen).” With The All-for-Nots, he explained, some of the same content partners had wanted Vuguru to pay them and then get the money back through advertising revenue sharing.

So the content partners this time–which include Bebo, Imeem, YouTube, Hulu, Veoh (which counts Eisner among its board of directors), and Mark Cuban’s HDNet–will be a different set, but Eisner said he doesn’t care, as long as it’s distributed to plenty of eyeballs. “We have to go it any way we can go. We start at the top, we start at the bottom, we start at the sides.” That’s certainly start-up rhetoric.”

Good to hear he’s having all the same problems with his show as every other content creator out there.

But Who’s Watching the Bee-Watcher-Watcher?

Out in Austin there is a little festival that you might have heard of called SXSW and it has been growing like crazy with their SXSWi sideshow featuring all sorts of “new media” folks.

Thanks to the combination of lots of tech savvy attendees and a huge growth in web video technology over the last year, we’re getting to see a lot more coverage of the fest on the web.  Of course, this has its downside.

For example, do we really need Beet.TV showing a video of Daisy Whitney, correspondent for TV Week interviewing Lindsay Campbell of Wallstrip fame on her new CBS Interactive show called Moblogic.   Especially when the concept for MobLogic is that it is a show about interviewing people on the street!!!

Ugh.