Frontiering Talk

The Wall Street Journal has written an excellent article on the new forces at work in the Social Media space.

Take a look through these unknown writers and directors who now carry significant influence!

Perspective: It used to be the case that famous people offline, generated a lot of interest online, but now fame and influence can and is coming from the online world to the offline world.

Motorola has launched a wiki to enable consumers to share information with other consumers.

From the wiki it states …

“Because the possible applications for the Q will always expand, the “ideal” user guide would also be able to grow and change. This wiki is an attempt to do that. It’s a place to capture and share the knowledge of the greater community of Q users. If, for example, you have added a new application to your Q, you could post instructions on how you did it here, for the benefit of all Q users.

This site has been established by Motorola for the use of Q users. It has been seeded with the contents of the in-box user guide. Additional content will be provided by Q users as they explore the Q’s capabilities. ”

Perspective: We think this is a great initiative which recognises that Motorola consumers can indeed help co-write the useability manual for the Q smart phone.

The Sony Bravia Award winning tv advertisement showing the coloured balls bouncing down San Francisco, has launched a supportive blog to chronicle the creation of the follow up ad.

Perspective: Not only does the blog provide additional information for those interested in the making of the famous advertisement, it also provides pictures and information for bloggers to make it easy for them to spread the message about Sony’s Bravia technology.

via Adrants

This is the presentation that I gave at Adtech Shanghai

[slideshare id=176617&doc=frontiering-for-ad-tech-1195795916588180-2&w=425]

Tags: adtech

101 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke + 523 Methos mints = One cool science experiment

These videos are hosted by Revver, which is a consumer generated video site that includes ads and shares the revenue 50/50 with the video creator. In this case there is a Menthos ad at the end which almost summarises the whole essence of the mint.

See the current Menthos Ad which interestingly enough has a guy who sneezes and mistakingly shaves off a little hair from the guy. He ponders the repurcussions until his friend helps him come out clean.

Perspective: Consumers are freely trading their time to watch these videos, and in this case Menthos gets to communicate it’s product while benefiting from the viral aspects.

It’s official, as previously blogged here on Frontiering Talk, Kyle really did trade One Red Paperclip for a House!

Read about it here.

We have written many posts about the power of consumer generated media. Unsoliticed information by consumers who share their thoughts and opinions are powerful.

So it’s not surprising that sites designed to be a trading place for products and comments are spreading. Ebay, Amazon, Cnet are full of professional and consumer reviews of various products.

But when bloggers are payed to review products, the model is potentially at risk of producing unethical buzz. I believe this is the case with newly launched PayPerPost.
The current “Opportunities” listed on the site reveal a list of advertisers who are paying to have their advertising “blogged” for money.

Perspective: At Frontiering we are not paid to review or comment on sites. If we were, we would declare that interest. These ethics are important to ensure independant views and trust are maintained. Although PayPerPost doesn’t hide the fact that bloggers are paid for reviewing the opportunities, it’s doubtful all associated bloggers will reveal that fact, and hence their reputation will ultimately be affected. Far better to build and harness the natural buzz created by your brand / category zealots!

Here’s a clever way to use your consumers to market your product to their friends.
You provide them with a simple widget that they can paste into their Myspace page which provides them with active content on a subject they are passionate about.

That’s exactly what Roller Warehouse have done with this Rolling News Widget. The news widget scrolls current Roller Skating News from the Aggressive Skate Blog.

As an additional incentive, consumers who post this Widget on their Myspace are entitled to a 5% discount.

Perspective: What information can you give your passionate consumers in a easy to use way like this?

via Technology Evangelist

Tags: WOM

As a follow to our post on Google Sketchup, the designers at Form Font 3D have created a bunch of Ikea furniture 3D models to help you sketchup your home.

Perspective: This is a great example of a traditional company embracing the digital world to help ensure their products are top of consumer minds. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ikea or other frontiering furniture companies created a furniture store in Second Life .. like this store or this one.

Here’s an interesting idea, particularly if you are aiming to attrack consumers who frequent night clubs.

It’s called Passout Marketing. The idea is that you use Passout Marketing to have your logo stamped on patrons wrists to signify entry into the club. So far, the clubs they have available to advertise in are limited to some of the exclusive bars in the US, but there is no reason why you couldn’t sponsor a night club directly.

Perspective: New marketing ideas are more likely to generate conversations, and conversations overcome the clutter that is competing for consumer attention.