The Spreading Digital tentacles of lifestyle | Advantage zyaada

August 21, 2010 Leave a comment

After years of swiping that highly volatile status symbol that supplied oodles of credit to households, Visa power has finally subscribed to doing away with the cards. Starting next week ( September ’10) Visa will roll out a new payment lifestyle for subscribers on latest launch till the Holiday season gets over in December 2010 with Bank of America customers in New York. Later it will also roll the pilot with US Bancorp. Thanks Techland

Reuters reports

Customers would then “bump” their phones with point-of-sale devices in stores — actually they need only wave the phones near the devices — and their bank account data would be collected and their purchases completed.

Bank of America declined to say how many people would be involved in the pilot, and a company spokeswoman declined to comment on Visa’s involvement.

Visa spokeswoman Elvira Swanson said the Bank of America pilot was not larger than the company’s other mobile trials, but she said it could have a more powerful impact on the market than some previous pilots.

Unfortunately the pogram requires users to install new hardware on their smartphones, which does not sound like the smart thing to do for amenable users who would want to migrate to a non invasive lifestyle that does make paying and carrying digital id easy for them, no unwieldy wallets, no embarrasments at forgeting things at home / in the car.

Filed under Digital Media, Financial Services, Lifestyle Brands Tagged with

And the winner is – digital! | Advantage Social

April 26, 2010 Leave a comment

Well, pioneers will say we are late in the gainsaying. No we were not the naysayers. No it is not a holy jehad. No, Pope Benedict has no request to bless this revolution. No it is not the Book of Judas. No selling religion hasn’t gone digital. Phew, that’s another billion. Close. As April draws to a close, statistics say Twitter would have added 1 more billion to its 16 billion kitty from SMS alone.

Yes. And that news on the twitter blog is a good one, a great one and one that makes me wish I was a Cloudhopper. Twitter has finally started using the cash in the vain hope that it is ahead of the monetization of internet curve and thus people wil eventuually pay it in enough premium to cover now the third year of back breaking costs. The Cloudhopper purchase closely follows Tweetie and makes its Third party developers an integral part of Twitter.

We have said it before and we will say it again. It is time that all the tweeting , now available in the Library of Congress archives are a blessed source of will and wisdom that are sure to turn the world of digital media, social media and advertising in a tizzy.

Online advertising has also scored a neat $23 billion in advertising in 2009 according to a hat tip from the New York Times. 47% growth in Display ads, 38% in Video ads and search is still around. Well next year hopefully it will be Twitter’s promoted tweets there with a meaningful percentage and from our personal predictions, the search category would have mrphed into other pieces., incl the Apple iPad platform and maybe once Tweets count someone would have a percentage for Facebook as well.

Why am I rambling about that? Because a lot of people incl Accenture and Mckinsey have employed pioneers, our valley has gone down hooking them up and they all wanted to see a little more digital in our life. And that’s all Marketing, right! All those solo moments without advertising would also be sponsored by your refrigerator maybe. But the point is that magazine advertising scored less than $20 billion in the same year in the US. And that is where we plan to use everyone’s common decision. We think Marketing Budgets will be at least 30% Digital in a few years. And for the World’s Top 100 brands, more of that would be social and of course meaningful sponsorships would be most of the other stuff. See?

Filed under Digital Media, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with , , , , ,

Some interesting April developments from around the web | Advantage Brands

April 19, 2010 1 Comment

You guessed it. Fatigue. Advantage zyaada has penned a dozen articles today on the Finance and Economy subjects with a lot of Goldman Sachs and some other Banks popping up. (and the volcanic Ash) do check out the depth and field of vision at ADVANTAGES.US

Also Twitter Chirp kind of boxed forward movement with a lot of developer stuff going around including new developer agreements for using Twitter marks and user data.

Facebook is going the other way on F8, a lot of developer stuff about bringing back the toolbar swing for lulling users and adding a like button to every site you care about. Next you know we would be going Giga Om discussing proprietary standards, integrating internet in LED Televisions and all that gizmodo stuff about a tablet for the competitor.

Coming back to marketing and social media, I am also wary of posting more about Social media usage..most of the stuff is unscientific and definitely counterproductive to using th great examples that cannot arise daily.

There has also been a lot of discussion about Twitter’s 100 million users and Facebook’s 400 million active users. I don’t wabnt to discuss it for my brand. What I know is irrespective my social media effectiveness thru Twitter is in 1000s of clicks/other digital actions of Web 1.0. Facebook’s business effectiveness for my brand is zilch. It is some sort of a hygeine factor now to be on visually appealing Facebook pages. It is much more personal for the user and he does not like to be disturbed, though he can be targeted much more incisively right now on Facebook. Maybe for selling Tag Heuer watches and Bugatti Sports Cars or Armani and Kim Kardarshian fashion accessories..

In the meantime, the web’s other social acquisition account aggregator and advisor Mint has extended its offering to almost all American banks as according to the site an average American uses 11 different banking institutions and unless he can get them all in one place…

The other social revolution on the town square Foursquare recently celebrated Foursquare Day with near million members

Of course last but not the least it’s fashionable in Twitter universe also to hate “Promoted Tweets” and to call/not call them advertising based on whether you are User or Twitter

I would recommend however, that all the developments be not taken in isolation but as a whole picture serious thought be given to being brand leaders in shifting the marketing budget emphasis from print and TV to social media and not “online advertising”

Filed under Apple, Digital Media, Financial Services, Marketing, Social Media Tagged with , , , , , ,

Universal Studios Opens Theme Park in Singapore

March 18, 2010 1 Comment


Fellow WP blogger Adrian, gets us this wonderful photo essay from Sentosa Resort World….and not just Betty boop with kids in tow! Thanks Adrian

Strait Times

UNIVERSAL Studios icons Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop, accompanied by four children, were among the symbolic guests at its theme park’s opening at 8.28 am on Thursday.

Eighteen prancing lions drummed up the mood before the long-anticipated park thew open its doors to the public at 8.40 am. There were some 200 eager park-goers raring to enter the Resorts World Singapore grounds on Sentosa.

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Not really an idea | Advantage social

March 9, 2010 2 Comments


Here’s the scoop from 2000 till even 2009. Electronic Billing saves you paper. Thus you save trees. Well, we are wrong. On fact according to Green Advocates, Institute for Sustable Communications, because both the paper making industry and the electronic media use electricity, they are almost equally criminal in wasting our green planet. So Abhi might have to change the Idea Cellular brand campaign and so many who claim digital campaign are earth shakingly green would have to rethink budgets.

Thugh numbers petain to the US, in this case, the Carbon footprint may not be very different globally despite the different redundant/ modern but non renewable sources of electricity production. Unless you are using solar and Wind energy . We think so.

The comparison : 75 billion units of Electricity (kWh) by the paper industry vs. 61 billion units of Electricity (kWh) by the IT Industry/media…

To catch the numbers, get yourself the Adage podcast on iTunes..

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The earthbound tweet | Soyuchi Noguchi

February 12, 2010 Leave a comment

Tweet that man made wonder too

Soyuchi Noguchi found some time to go over the planet in relief

Filed under Digital Media, Social Media, Sports, Twitter Tagged with , , , , ,

Oscars are coming to Town

February 11, 2010 1 Comment

People wait in line to buy tickets on the opening day of the 60th Berlinale International Film Festival on February 11, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. The 60th Berlinale will run from February 11-21. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) People wait in line to buy tickets on the opening day of the 60th Berlinale International Film Festival on February 11, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. The 60th Berlinale will run from February 11-21. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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iPad vs Kindle: MacMillan loses the plot

January 31, 2010 1 Comment

In a move reminding of the precipitate ways of the Music Industry, Macmillan seems to have argued with Amazon over increasing the price of ebooks in the fledgling market. Amazon, rightly moved Macmillan off its shelves, thus causing tremendous losses to MacMillan.

We can tell you as customers that even $9.99 is not going the whole way for market development of the e-books market. Apple’s iPod had revolutionalised the music industry by making songs available for $0.99 ea. However, Apple had avoided the public spat and convinced publishers to go along with it.

The pecuniary advantages of negative reinforcement may well be limited. Apple’s ibookstore is planning to price titles at a steep $12.99 and $14.99. However, amazon’s action may also be compromised if it resricts the ban to only e-books from MacMillan Titles and should go the whole way.

On the flip side, even if MacMillan sells half its inventory thru Amazon, it will lose out on those markets in the next year or so and sales will surely dip by aleast 8-10% from the defranchising. Amazon’s model may not dissuade from bestsellers or any titles already preselected in the customer’s mind but when it comes to browsing and selecting purchases and gifts based on Interests, an immediate negative impact is likely on those not available at the site.

C-NET published this shocking piece of news yesterday

Amazon.com has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site. The publisher’s books can be purchased only from third parties on Amazon.com. A person in the industry with knowledge of the dispute, which has been brewing for a year, said Amazon was expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books. The person did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter. Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of e-books to around $15 from $9.99. Macmillan is one of the publishers signed on to offer books to Apple, as part of its new iBookstore on the iPad tablet unveiled earlier this week.

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Building43 : Twitter spends a lot of time here

September 18, 2009 Leave a comment

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Facebook vs Twitter series 11/800 (Sun Valley Buzz)- Buy up Twitter | Dealbook

July 7, 2009 Leave a comment

Moguls and bankers are packing their bags to attend Allen & Company’s annual media conference, which starts Tuesday in Sun Valley, Idaho. The recession is bound to put a damper on this year’s schmoozefest, where the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller regularly roam, as executives decide it is not the right time to fly off to a mountain resort.

Those who do attend will be debating the troubled state of traditional media companies and how they will fare in an increasingly digital environment.

“People in the traditional media world are terrified,” Ken Auletta, a New Yorker magazine media writer who will lead a panel on new media at this week’s conference, told Reuters.

“They’re in the analog world, and the world is becoming digital,” he said. “They’re insecure about what’s going to happen to their businesses.”

Young Web entrepreneurs have been adding new excitement to the Sun Valley conference, which has been the birthplace of some high-profile media deals. The founders of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace and Internet video portals like YouTube and Joost drew large crowds in recent years.

This year, Evan Williams (above), the chief executive Twitter, will likely be in high demand as media moguls try to determine if the hugely popular microblogging service is a money-making opportunity or simply another Web 2.0 fad.

via Sun Valley Buzz: Tough Times and Twitter – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com.

Filed under Facebook, IPL, IPOs, Online Maketing, Social Media, Twitter Tagged with , , , ,

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