DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MEDIA INDUSTRY NEWS AND EVENTS

Johns reaction: If facebook can have a social graph i want a knowledge graph said Google. Andre Agassi had to make do with Steffi Graf, yes bad joke.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING Hinted at for months, Google formally launched its Knowledge Graph today. The new technology is being used to provide popular facts about people, places and things alongside Google s traditional results. It also allows Google to move toward a new way of searching not for pages that match query terms but for entities or concepts that the words describe. Knowledge Graph? Graph is a technical term used to describe how a set of objects are connected. Google has used a link graph to model how pages link to each other, in order to help determine which are popular and relevant for particular searches. Facebook has used a social graph understand how people are connected. Knowledge Graph is Google s term for how it is building relationships between different people, places and things and report facts about these entities.
Read on

START UPS  Russ and Gary join the boys to tell the Hailo Hollywood script style story. Learn how three cabbies came up with the idea in a Covent Garden coffee shop, launched and spread the word amongst the London Black Cab community, and went on to raise one of the largest A rounds in recent European startup history.
Read on

START UPS  Peter F. Drucker famously stated that "management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." Great leaders possess dazzling social intelligence, a zest for change, and above all, vision that allows them to set their sights on the "things" that truly merit attention. The unfortunate this is this is all wrong and leadership is way over rated.
Read on

MOBILE  For me, ever since I switched my focus from the fixed Web to Mobile in 2000 it has been the year of Mobile that never really permeated in to mainstream media. I think the reason for this is simple yet not seen as obvious to most, as Mobile as a communication device has played in two main streams since the first voice call in 1946.
Read on

INDUSTRY TALK  On this weeks show we are joined by community legend Thayer Prime. We talk about her awesome name, and how she got started in tech. Thayer provides some killer tips on how to break into the industry, discusses how brands are attempting to engage with developers, the challenge of marketing to developers and her latest project, recruiting for the Government Digital Service.
Read on

START UPS  Steve Baty who will be speaking at Xmedia Lab Sydney 8-10 June, gives us some ideas on the when, the why and the how to start a business. Steve is a Principal at Meld Studios, a Sydney-based design studio and President at IxDA, a global network dedicated to professional practice of interaction design.
Read on

INDUSTRY TALK  I had a client agency meeting in London a while back and around the table sat 12 people all of us pontificating about a product predominately bought by women. Represented were developers, project managers, media strategy, creative and the social guru. Out of 17 all were men and nobody saw the irony. This is something we should address urgently?
Read on

Johns reaction: Has the fight back started?

ADVERTISING & MARKETING While U.S. newspapers wage a long-standing fight for print advertising and subscribers, they managed a slight gain in circulation, fueled by increases in digital circ. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations latest twice-annual report on newspaper circulation, average daily circ for 618 measured newspapers rose 0.68 percent, with Sunday circulation for 532 papers rising 5 percent. The report compares the six months ended March 31, 2012, to the year-ago period. On average, digital circ accounted for 14.2 percent of newspapers' total circulation in the six-month period up from 8.7 percent a year earlier. Digital circulation could include tablet and smartphone apps, replica PDFs, e-reader editions and restricted-access websites.
Read on

Data Day delivers practical results-based strategies and insights from the worlds most eminent marketing thought leaders. The program features innovative case studies from B2C and B2C campaigns to ensure relevance for all industry marketing verticals.
Read on

Australia's premier digital media and creative industries conference and networking event.
Read on

PEOPLE  Welcome to Digital People where this time we profile Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital. Peter offers insights into his work with Delloites surrounding crowdsourding, mobile, gamification and the challenges of accessing talent and keeping up with the pace of change. He also introduces yet another acronym 'clomosoda'. A good quick read...
Read on

Johns reaction: THoughts on how we measure the latest fad...

SOCIAL MEDIA Did you detect the sarcasm in that statement Two nights ago at Social Slam in Knoxville, Tennessee, I got asked if Pinterest is the hottest thing since... well, the last hottest thing (let's call it Instagram for argument's sake), then (not even twenty-four hours later), I'm on a flight home, reading USA Today when the top headline for the Money section is: "Pinterest growth curve levels off." So, that's it We've already fallen out of love with Pinterest According to the article in the newspaper: "...meteoric growth for the overnight app sensation slackened, according to two market-research firms. The image-bookmarking site and social network drew 18.7 million unique visitors in the U.S. in March, compared with 17.8 million in February and 11.7 million in January says comScore."
Read on

Johns reaction: Couldn't agree more. Funnels are tools used by agencies to explain the complex process of flogging products and services. However the reality is like many things a matrix, check out the Paul Adams video in Articles.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING The funnel is a lousy metaphor for measuring conversion. In real life, funnels let everything pass through a 100% conversion rate if you will. A better metaphor would be a sieve, or buckets with holes in them. But my problem with funnels isnt the metaphor. Its the mindset. The funnel ignores how the web works. It presumes that users are dropped into this vacuum from which we control their destiny. If a user didnt go from step 2 to step 3 then we need to tweak some copy or test new buttons. To paraphrase Billy Beane: were not solving the problem, were not even looking at the problem. Lets see where the funnel breaks...
Read on

Online Retailer Conference and E-commerce Expo is Asia-Pacific's largest e-commerce event with over 100 world-class speakers and top-tier technology providers coming together in the one place.
Read on

START UPS  We are joined by London Tech Stars Natalie and Simon from Lanyrd to talk about building a startup on your honeymoon, the experience of going through Y Combinator, and raising $1.4 million of venture money.
Read on

Online Marketer Conference & Expo Sydney is now only one week away and we have a few seats left at a great price.
Read on

Johns reaction: Another arrow to put in your quiver

INDUSTRY TALK Since Pinterest was founded in 2008, it's proven one thing: People love their visuals. And it looks like the site is becoming a hot space for online video marketing opportunities as well, with its recent integration of the Vimeo platform.
Read on

Johns reaction: Great overview of two leading crowd sourcing products, ODesk and Mechanical Turk.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING A question that I receive often is how to structure tasks on Mechanical Turk for which it is necessary for the workers to pass training before doing the task. My common answer to most such question is that Mechanical Turk is not the ideal environment for such tasks: When training and frequent interaction is required, an employer is typically better off by using a site such as oDesk to hire people for the long term to do the job.
Read on

TECHNOLOGY  Faster internet connections and cloud applications might just be the key to Australian businesses being able to grow their online presence, expand their customer bases, and ultimately be able to compete globally with ICT powerhouses.
Read on

START UPS  Justin Boswer from cloud based CRM and Marketing company HTK Horizon, recently crowned "Britain's Brightest Business", joins the boys for chat. They cover how to build a company organically, and the future of customer relationship management. Hear more from Justin in the accompanying Podcast, including the challenges of running a business from a small town.
Read on