Friday again and time for our news roundup of the week.

• Facebook released its 1Q13 earnings report and reception was decidedly mixed.  This analysis breaks down 5 reasons why, from rising operational costs to lowering average revenue per user (ARPU) to the huge shift to mobile where advertising might be more difficult.
• An interesting roundup of technologies that are changing the world including 3D printing, mobile payments and software as a service.
• 10 years ago Apple launched iTunes and the music business was not the same ever again.  Between iTunes and Spotify, when was the last time you bought a CD?
• Rovio mobile launched Angry Birds Toons a month ago, and their cartoons have already achieved 100 million views through their own games (story in Finnish).  This has enabled the company to launch their own advertising network avoiding other established players.
• A retailer tests an advertising concept internally for a new service offering and then makes a silent launch on the web.  Said retailer follows closely as the creative becomes a viral hit and the company decides to use it also in traditional media. When the brand involved is one that is perceived to be as boring as Kmart, one can only expect this approach to become more common.

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While the book was not chock-full of shocking revelations as its publicity implies, it was a very amenable read on the state of the Americas before Columbus. The only really interesting thing for me was its explanation of the population collapse due to disease, something we’ve known but at least I didn’t quite fathom its scale.



View all my reviews

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For the past few months I have been curating an internal newsletter sharing external articles on digital marketing and digital business transformation, and we have decided to start sharing it with you, dear reader.  Previous issues have dealt with Google Glass, Facebook Home, Banner & Display advertising, customer reviews, Bitcoin & digital experiences.

Please find this week’s topics below:

• Lean Analytics co-authors on data-driven marketing:  Quotes from the article: ”If you take former Coca-Cola CMO Sergio Zyman’s definition of marketing, which is “selling more things to more people for more money more often more efficiently,” then analytics is how you measure whether you’ve moved the needle on one of those five “mores.” Everything we do leaves a digital breadcrumb trail, and that trail is available for marketers to analyze.  But it’s not going to be that simple. For one thing, even with all of this data, it’s unlikely most businesses will act wisely upon it. There’s no such thing as Big Data as big companies can’t handle the cultural shifts required.”

• How companies find out your shopping habits, case Target: Not a new article, but a great overview of how retail chain Target has managed to deeply model customer behaviour to anticipate their needs (to the point of creepiness, sadly). Marketers need to learn to use this information, but also make sure they keep a cordial relationship with the consumer.

• Analysis: Sleeping giant Amazon finally stirs: Amazon is become a true Internet advertising network, with access to data that even Google & Facebook don’t have on actual purchases.  Two quotes from the article: ”In today’s marketing world, data is gold and Amazon is Fort Knox” / “Amazon is not a retailer anymore, it is the largest behavioral marketing company in the world”

• Coca-cola’s first digitally-led (and digital-only) campaign: Coke aims to reach teens where they are, and they are not watching TV.

• CNN is scared of Twitter: What happens when the cable news cycle is just too slow, and you do not own the platform news junkies turn to for breaking news?  Quote from the article: “Last week, key moments in the Boston saga played out on Twitter, not mainstream television.”

• Opposing views on the effectiveness of crowdsourced investigation efforts in last week’s Boston events (Wired for,BBC against): When even law enforcement organizations are looking at harnessing external innovation, what can businesses learn from their dramatic effects?  Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

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