Seriously.
Because as one of the sources in the Today Show segment said, “I just wanted to learn a little bit about a world that seems to be still asking for content.”
–Britta
There’s something intriguing about giving up a vice during the 40 days of lent.*
And while some people take the easy way out (liver and onions) others take the high road and give up chocolate. Or cheese.
Which got us thinking–if you had to go on a 40-day content fast, what would you give up?
Here’s a sampling of “chocolate and cheese” sacrifices from those in the office who were brave enough to answer:
Jonathan
As a news junkie who visits dozens of sites on a daily basis, my top 5 toughest sites to let go of for a month would be:
1. New York Times — It may not be making enough money, but it’s still the most comprehensive and best news site on earth.
2. Huffington Post — The design is a wreck, but it has plenty of compelling content.
3. Extra Mustard — Sports Illustrated’s offbeat sports site. Hilarious.
4. My seasonal niche sports site. In winter, it’s Ski Racing; in summer, it’s Velonews.
5. Apple’s movie trailers site. I love movies, and trailers are about all I have time for these days.
Wendy
Facebook. As a chocolate and cheese sacrifice, rather than liver and onions. Would I be out of the loop after 40 days? What kind of information would I be missing? I’m interested how much “knowledge” I get from Facebook–am I subconsciously or consciously getting local and world news from Facebook via status updates, updates from family up north, or is Facebook just feeding me things I don’t need to know, and aren’t important to me in the big picture of existence?
Ian
Techcrunch. Checking NBA scores. Hearing the sweet voice of Pomplamoose on You Tube.
Britta
Saturday mornings would feel empty without Apartment Therapy and Ohdeedoh.
Even a week without Amazon.com would suck. I’d have to say yes when my local bookstore clerk says “Sorry, that title’s not in stock, but we can order it for you!” And there wouldn’t be any brown paper packages to greet my return home.
My Google homepage. Because between Google Reader, New York Times most emailed, CNN.com, weather and the current moon phase, I can stay reasonably plugged in without working too hard at it.
Miller
Print newspapers. This is not a liver and onions sacrifice. I am actually one of those old fashioned types that reads three (!) print papers every am. Seriously.
–Britta
P.S. Eccentrics (and those who smack them down) won’t want to miss this article from the March issue of Inc. magazine on the Wexley School for Girls.
*When it comes to religion, we here at Eat Media take no sides and welcome all.
Last Sunday, The New York Times Style section featured Gwyneth Paltrow’s new newsletter/blog project, GOOP.
GOOP (Gwyneth’s initials, although we never find out what the double O’s stand for) features G-Palt’s wisdom on everything from family-friendly recipes to assembling a fail-proof mommy uniform. I visited the site Sunday morning right after I read the article, and I signed up for the newsletter (who wouldn’t want banana-nut muffin recipes and fashion advice and from Gwynnie?).
But apparently the GOOP team wasn’t expecting the article to run that Sunday. In the Style section. As the lead feature.
Fair enough. I’d give them some time to scramble for more server space.
A few hours later, same error message.
And today, four days later, same error message.
Where is Gwyneth’s web team? How many hundreds, thousands, millions of subscribers have they lost from this oversight?
UPDATE: Strangely enough, I just received a newsletter from GOOP, as though their “something went terribly wrong” never happened. What??
TAKEAWAY: Crazy that we even have to say this, but it’s never okay to skip any form of testing (load testing, browser testing, user testing and re-testing, etc.). Never. But especially when you know you are about to receive national media attention.
–Britta
Yeah, it’s Inauguration Day, but you can read all you want about the big man and his big day just about everywhere else on the web, so in the interest of counter-programming, let’s talk about design.
More specifically, let’s talk about The Huffington Post. The site has grown into a new aggregating juggernaut with millions of visitors every month.
So why does it still look like a blog a couple of kids are cranking out in a basement somewhere?
Arianna Huffington has raised no shortage of venture capital, so money is no excuse.
She may be enjoying the ride right now as the hits continue to pile up, but at some point, someone is going to come along and do something very similar AND IT WON’T BE SO UGLY.
Arianna and crew have failed the Eat Media three-step mantra: Strategy. Content. Design. In that order. For a reason.
Their strategy is simple enough and follows on the heels of that other great news thief, Matt Drudge: make a lot of money by procuring other people’s content.
Huffpo’s content is a gimme: be the liberal Drudge Report.
But Huffington forgot all about step three: design. While The Huffington Post may seem to mirror the genius simplicity of The Drudge Report, it’s really just a mess.
— Jonathan
(Arianna Huffington photo from Wired and Matt Drudge photo from Media Bistro.)
True, the micro-blogging service has been a social media darling in 2008, attracting plenty of attention. And sure, it has been growing by leaps and bounds, but how does it stack up against the titan of social media, Facebook?
Not so well. In fact, so poorly, that it’s largely irrelevant. The same report stated that despite Twitter’s skyrocketing growth (in terms of registered users), it would take 36 years to catch up to Facebook, and that’s if Facebook stopped growing today. Twitter may have 5 million or so users, but Facebook is adding that many in a little over a week.
So, Tweet all you want, but you’ll remain on the fringe of the social media universe. It’s an elite fringe, for sure, and it’s probably a good way to connect with influencers, but Twitter’s a long way from being a smart or viable marketing platform.
- Jonathan
The instant gratification of digital cameras has largely killed off the market for film cameras. One of the early—and greatly lamented—casualties of this evolution, has been the Polaroid. 
You remember the Polaroid—Aunt Gloria would always trot one out at Christmas—and snap small, fuzzy photos of everyone in the room. But, unlike every other film camera, Polaroid photos would develop themselves right in front of your eyes.
It was magical.
Now the magic may be coming to a close—as Polaroid plans to stop producing the film in February 2009—but fret not. Those of you with a flair for the vintage, but who have long since sold your Polaroid camera for 25 cents at a garage sale, now have a digital option.
Go to www.poladroid.net and follow the simple steps.
Here’s how one recent photo of my son went from 2008 to 1977 in a flash.
This is one of those rare moments when digital technology both killed off and preserved one of its analog predecessors. So the lesson to be learned is: Nostalgia is a powerful force; don’t forget that when you are planning a content strategy. But, fer Gawd’s sake, make sure you use 21st century technology to implement that strategy.
-Jonathan
While attending the SAP Sapphire 08 Conference in March, I had the pleasure of listening to Keynote speaker Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Mr. Lencioni’s book is one that I have skipped over in the bookstore hundreds of times. It has one of those covers that says, “self-help this way”. But on stage Mr. Lencioni is a whole different story—or better yet he is the same story but he is more animated and incredibly engaging.
Lencioni’s lecture, and review of his book, provided insight into some of the issues your customers might be facing. When customers aren’t internally on the same page it makes a content manager’s job challenging to say the least. Keep in mind that one of the most difficult things about managing content for companies is navigating the loss of control the company feels. On one hand, organizations know they don’t have the time or bandwidth to manage and create the volume of content that is required to succeed in today’s market. But on the other hand it isn’t like emailing a file to your printer and having a dented Minivan deliver boxes of stationary to the office a few days later. Hiring a content marketing agency to assist with content creation and management is one part execution, one part strategy and two parts teamwork
A content marketing partner should be an integral part of every organizations team. If you are hired to manage a client’s content make sure you understand your clients and their message. If their internal systems are unclear or there are inconsistent messages from client contact to client contact, let them know. You will gain trust by asking the right questions and stopping to ensure you get the nuts and bolts—and in turn they are less likely to micromanage you.
“Teamwork remains the greatest opportunity for competitive advantage, because teamwork is what allows you to leverage your investments in technology strategy and intelligence,” Lencioni said from the big stage.
To effectively use trust and teamwork as tools, content marketers need to listen, advise and listen some more before creating relevant: editorial, how-to’s, videos or case studies. And organizations need to do their part too and come to the table with clear goals, likes/dislikes and understand that a content marketing partner is a part of their team, not a hired gun. Spend the time. Select the Team. Build the trust.
SAP, the third largest software company in the world, looks to Eat Media to provide editorial outside the ubergeek realm. David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”, talked with us about his perspective on the future of marketing.
His message lacks sugar coating, and it may be tough for some marketing departments to swallow: If you haven’t adopted the new rules of marketing, you’re on your way to becoming obsolete. Scott talks with SAP INFO online about the power of Google and how companies should stop begging for attention.
Last week, SAP held an invite-only three-day global online marketing event. (Sadly, I wasn’t invited, but David Meerman Scott was, and he writes about it here.) This virtual event was said to include online communities, virtual conferences, expert content—the works.
It seems every other day I read about another “Can’t Miss Event of the Year in Online Marketing,” but I have “Can’t Missed” every single one of them, despite impressive panelist offerings from Web 2.0 wiz-kids to traditional print legends to design/advertising superstars. So here I sit in NYC, with the MinOnline Digital Media Summit happening less than a mile away from me tomorrow, without a ticket to the ball. The reasons for me not attending are two-fold, but both hinge on trust.
1) Conferences, for the most part (with the exception of SXSW), suck. I’ve been on both sides of them: The “stand at the booth for three days with an unnatural grin plastered to my face until my cheeks ache” side, and the “sit in a huge lecture hall, load up my bags with tchockes and network until I don’t like who I’ve become” side.
2) Conference content is much better suited for the web with me as an active participant. Let me watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it.
When looking at conference agendas I can’t help but think:
Is it a community or congregation?
Is it a back and forth interaction, or a sit and listen?
Is it information that I could have procured from the author/speaker’s book, or was it interactive and off the cuff?
In order to get me to purchase a $700-1,300 conference ticket, I need to be provided some sort of guarantee that my attendance is going to be worthwhile.
Am I going to learn something of significant value?
Will I make a useful contact or sale?
Are the speakers/organizers going to answer questions that help me get to the next level?
For some, conferences are successful, useful and exciting. I’m not trying to denigrate the conference world—it surely has its place. What I am trying to say is, there are some among us who are interested in the content but not the excited about the limited delivery options. Because in the end it’s all just content, and information delivered and received (live) from the mouths of the informants is not necessarily different from a well-produced webcast of the same event. Or is it?
So how about you? Where do you stand when it comes to conferences?
