Clearcast Digital Media

How can online media benefit MY business?

Today we release part three of our five part podcast series about how to leverage online media for your business,no matter what size and no matter what kind of business you're in.

We focus on some concrete, real life success stories from different businesses to get this discussion out of the theoretical and into the practical.

As always, go get it in iTunes, or listen live right here on the blog.

A visit to my analog past

Faithful readers of this blog will know that we try to keep things digital around here. But sometimes it becomes necessary to give a nod to our nearly forgotten analog past.

Last week I unpacked several boxes of record albums that had not been touched since we moved into our house 4 years ago. Listening to them again brought back a flood of memories that were tactile and emotional. Looking over the cover art (Apple's cover flow will never be a match for actually HOLDING an album in your hands), reading along with the lyrics, revisiting the liner notes and just the action of placing the album on the turntable and dropping the needle was a strangely special, and nearly forgotten, experience.

Albums will never return and it's been a long time since there was a generation of young people who even know what an album is. But the best moment for me was when my wife (no audiophile she) exclaimed, "Is it me or do records SOUND better than CDs?"

We've said it here before: it's all about the experience.

A roadmap for success

Frenchman Loic LeMeur has been referred to most often as a "serial entrepreneur." While that sounds vaguely sinister or ADD, he does have quite a track record.

I know I am somewhat late to the party in coming across these rules of the game, but in these times of economic uncertainty, they seemed especially apt. These are his 10 Rules for Startup Success:

1- Don't wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible.

2- Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors. (This was my favorite rule. On its face, it seems counter intuitve but it really isn't.)

3- Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.

4- Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.

5- Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.

6- Be the first to recognize a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.

7- Don't spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.

8- Don't obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict anyway.

9- Don't plan a big marketing effort. It's much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.

10- Don't focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

How change happens

I recently read someone characterize their shift to digital as a series of "mundane circumstances." It began with them falling behind on reading the NY Times, either due to a lack of free time or because someone would steal it from the lobby downstairs. They still read the Times- they just went to their website to do it. Then it began happening with the photography magazines she subscribed to and later the cooking ones. Recipe clipping was just as easy, if not easier, using del.icio.us rather than looking for scissors and having your kitchen fill up with bits of paper.

The point is, this is how massive changes take place- via a series of mundane circumstances.

We recently opined that the writers' strike might lead people to make the internet a permanent part of their entertainment mix and that when the strike concluded (which it seems to have done, thank goodness) those who migrated away might not necessarily return. Well, looky here...nearly 30% of respondents to a recent poll said that they were spending more than two hours a day online since the strike began. Of interest to online marketers: 41% said their online spending had increased during this period. Once you lose someone, it's much harder to get them back.

The slow drip drip drip of change continues unabated. Mundane circumstances, indeed.

How are people using Web 2.0 tools?

One of the questions we frequently field from the clients to our consultancy practice is, "What are the usage numbers like when it comes to online media?"

A couple of recent reports can help shed some light:

1- eMarketer estimated the 2007 podcast audience to be 18.5 million and predicted it to rise to 28 million in 2008. 2007 podcast ad spending was at $165 million. Wizzard Media, owner of 3 of the leading podcast hosting companies, reported 1 billion podcast downloads in 2007 and the company is now traded publicly on the AMEX. (They served a billion podcasts WAY before McDonald's served a billion burgers.)

2-comScore reports that users watched 10 billion online videos in December 2007, with over 141 million Americans taking part in the fun. At this writing, the rumor is that the writers' strike is coming to a negotiated end. And not a moment too soon as comScore's EVP of media and entertainment observed that "...viewers have been seeking alternatives for fresh content. It appears that online video is stepping in to fill that void."

Grand Central freeze!

These kinds of things always crack me up. I wish there were more coverage of people's reactions, but this is really great.