Very Gone (Another local video store vanishes)

Signs of the times. I'm the first to say that the wisdom of crowds is an amazing thing but sometimes I find myself with a keen fondness towards the wisdom of the few. My local video store Very Video is closing,  no longer able to compete with Blockbuster's, discounters, Pirates, VOD and Bit Torrents. While this should not be such a surprise in an age of instant access. The closure means the loss of an eclectic collection which is not defined by the top sellers of the major distributers. It's a loss for our community. Very Video always maintained an interesting Foreign film section. In a world of homogenized content it was important to know that alternative view points were around the corner. I'll miss that.

In a world of collective wisdom what I will miss most is  the extraordinary ability of those at Very  to make  recommendations as to what might be interesting. Sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is beat by the experience of the one - sometimes.

Thanks Very Video - you mattered.  I'm starting to fear that small businesses that  trade on their smarts more  than prices are an endangered species. We are conditioned to purchase only on price,  somewhere along the line we lost sight  of value as something more than price . Interestingly enough it appears that those cheap goods have an extraordinary cost. The Independent Lens documentary "China Blue" is an eye opener. Checkout the google link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0yfNOkBClI - This documentary will make you pause. 

Note to self: There appears to be a big opportunity here to craft a specialty VOD business patterned after the wisdom of the niche players. Hmmm,  Foriegn Films with smart people calling the reco's. New ways, news approaches, new profit. A VERY useful model.

Blackberry Tracking Tool - Kinda Cool!

TTC Meet Angry Twitter

Ryan thanks for the email and the link. Twitter really is a medium and more and more it kind of feels like the text equivalent of an old CityTV mechanism called Speakers Corner. Today for those of you who are not in Toronto the background is that the union representing transit workers decided to call a last minute strike (they had promised 48 hours notice- oh well - Thug like move). It created major problems but interestingly it was a badly calculated move - 10,000 transit workers have pissed off Millions of tax payers and customers. The tweets coming from people all around Toronto are pretty interesting they reflect the personal disgust most people have for what has happened.  Twitter mechanism for taking the pulse of what the influencers are saying.

Tweet Scan

Wii Midi

Playing with the cool little Live Blog Application

Sorry Mr. Wanamaker

John Wanamaker would be amazed. John Wanamaker was the gentleman who complained that 50% of his advertising is worthwhile and 50% was wasted (knowing which was the problem). It’s a good thing he lived 100 years ago because he would be shocked at a recent Forester study I came across. The question was this: “Do you measure the ROI of your lead agency relationships” 76% of Marketers said No and to top that off 69% of marketers feel that ROI is too difficult to measure. What can I say -- WOW!  That is insane. If my investment advisor told me he could only tack 24% of my investments I'd tell him to piss-off. As a shareholder - I'd hope this was job one for the CMO's of the companies I've invested in. Once you know what works you know how to make it work better (ie: more profit). In my earlier years I was a commercial bush pilot and I'll tell you flying blind is a very bad way to fly. It's staggering to think that in 100 years the advertising industry has gotten worse at the proof thing. 

Hey Madison Avenue, Knock Knock..

Who's there?

Google!

Google who?

Microsoft!

Microsoft who?

Google and Microsoft are talking to your client and your are screwed.

Oh shit! But, I have a big idea.

Proof talks BS walks big ideas are yesterday - client's don't want bigger they want better.

How Social Media can save you a bundle on paid media.

A social media spend should come before an ad spend. The thing about real paid advertising is that it’s expensive to create and place. Screw up with a real campaign with real dollars and you are in a real bind with a serious confidence crisis on your hands. Social media is a cheap way to float messages as a test to see if people will find them interesting. If I spend a few grand running a campaign to float something to blogs and it gets picked up and discussed positively then I’ve got a pretty good idea that when it comes down to spending real money telling my story on a larger paid media scale there is a good chance my money will be well spent. Social Media is a great tool for doing quantitative research (The gathering and analyzing of measurable data) before you go and bet your farm.

The image above is for a new type of economy seat - it won’t be in service completely till 2010 but from the positive touches it’s getting as the story spreads around the blogosphere I’d expect that any advertising that talks about it will be well received. People like it. Who cares about focus groups when you have Digg and a bucketfuls of blogs.