Recommended Reading – 24th April 2010

I decided against posting a list last week, and instead held out until I had a decent number of quality links worth sharing. I now have a high-quality list, which can be found below:

• Laura Miller on Salon suggests how Apple could learn from Amazon in its use of metadata, if it is serious about selling books. I argued last week that metadata is a valued, and overlooked, resource that offers a lot of potential for analysis – particularly on mobile.

• James McQuivey on the Forrester blog argues why Hulu should be available for subscription. The comparison to Netflix is a good one, but whether the networks (not to mention the operators that carry them) would ever approve this is a completely different matter.

• Asi Sharabi lists 8 sins of nu-marketing folk. Sample quote for the sin of dogmatism: It’s easier to shout “it’s all about this!” (’this’ being the buzz-word of the day: engagement, relationships, co-creation) than to scrutinise the context face the uncertainty, and admit the complexity

• Dirk Singer highlights 20 free social media evaluation tools.Though Fresh Networks might argue that the quality of these tools is too low to bother with (at this time).

• Joel Rubinson discusses “second order decision strategies” and how behavioural economics can help us understand, and thus improve, the pre-planning stage of the purchase journey.

• Alastair Gordon writes a very interesting piece on what the ownership of market research companies could look like in 2020. He posits that operations suppliers could takeover some of the client-facing project management/analysis companies. I’m not sure I agree – research quality is largely hidden and thus undervalued, so I don’t think these companies would have the ability to successfully integrate in this way – but a thought-provoking theory.

sk

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Links – 8th February 2009

I know it’s overkill, but the snow excitement is yet to abate. I didn’t create this snowman, but he is so exceptional that he deserves all the publicity going.

Picture by me

Anyway, things I would recommend reading include:

• Live | Work have an absolutely brilliant post on Service Thinking – a must-read

• Umair Haque’s Smart Growth Manifesto proposes a focus on outcomes rather than incomes, connections rather than transactions, people not product, and creativity not productivity. Very thought-provoking – another must-read

• Brian Morrissey argues that banner advertising is in crisis. I wouldn’t go as far, but the industry is in danger of total commoditisation. There needs to be more inventiveness and context – the New York Times/Apple example is a great case study

• Asi Sharabi channels Sturgeon’s Law to sober up from digital. Some digital campaigns may be great, just as some TV campaigns are great and some press campaigns are great. But a lot of advertising isn’t great. There is a great observation in there about social media helping brands become more humane.

• Dave Trott’s blog is fast becoming one of my favourites – a regular must-read. I particularly love this tip on great management.

• A look at how marketing isn’t marketed very well – based on the article “Branded for Good” (Harvard Business Review)

• Silicon Alley Insider set up a Twitter contest, inviting people to propose a business model for the service. They chose a market research tool as the winner. Commenters were unimpressed – largely, I think, because the proposed revenues were quite modest. (Via Tom)

• Dom from Twitter gives the story on how the service was born

• A great synthesis on IBM’s recent research into social networks and social capital (Headshift)

• Chris Anderson lays out the thesis for his upcoming book “Free” in the Wall Street Journal

• Harvard Business Review’s breakthrough ideas for 2009

• Fred Wilson comments on Facebook opening the API for status updates by asking “Hasn’t it always been about status?”

• The Compare the Market/Meerkat campaign has been getting a lot of attention online (and rightly so). Amelia Torode, a Planner at the agency responsible, summarises the success

• And finally, Neil Perkin’s presentation on community created by the community has justifiably gone down a storm. He requested readers submit a slide, and received 30 replies (including one from myself). It highlights about both group thinking and individual ideas can be harnessed for maximum effect by some sort of moderator/curator/director/benevolent dictator. Great stuff. Click through the link above to get the transcript of the deck.

Additional links and pictures can be found at my tumblr

Hangover permitting, I’ll be at the coffee morning on Friday

sk