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.

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Links – 22nd December 2008

This post is part 1 of 2, and they will effectively be my only link updates for December. A shame considering I kept the updates fairly consistent beforehand, but December isn’t the easiest month to keep on top of things – particularly with ATP and illness.

Anyway…

Social media

• I’ve been using Twitter a lot more recently – I think the main reason is the use of Tweetdeck, which has useful filter features within a great interface. This has allowed me to distinguish signal from noise to a greater degree – something that concerns me with social media. Two posts on the subject resonated with me – Inquisitr’s “Is Social Media Becoming A Social Mess” and The Tumbling Cod’s “I’m Pretty Sure Tumblr Makes You Stupid“

• Most people reading will be familiar with the furore over Chris Brogan’s sponsored post. For those unaware, Jeremiah Owyang has a comprehensive overview of the situation. I think Chris Brogan defended his position well (for the record, I have no problem with it so long as it is disclosed. If it happens more frequently than I’d like, like others I would unsubscribe) while Dirk Singer wrote the best opinion piece on the matter that I read.

• Jeremiah Owyang has an overview of the different ways in which companies can respond to the personal brands of their employees in the social media sphere.

• E-Consultancy looks at social media’s metric problems. A while back, I wondered how best to measure the online sphere in general. I don’t envisage a universal answer being forthcoming anytime soon.

• JP Rangaswami has a thought-provoking post on the nature of asymmetric networks and conversations within the social media sphere, while James Governor also gives his thoughts on the asymmetric follow

• Tamar Weinberg has published the ultimate social media etiquette handbook

• Paul Carr has a typically humorous post on his experiences at LeWeb, and the fallout from the less than perfect proceedings

• Hugh Macleod has put together his manifesto on why social objects are the future of marketing. A brilliant read.

• Graeme Wood has put together a great presentation (with notes) on the future of media

• Mashable argue that relevancy, timing and persuading users to seek out advertising are the keys to Facebook succeeding in overcoming its advertising problem

• A superlist of what not to do in social media

• Bubble Comment is  a new tool that lets you overlay video comments onto websites. I’m not sure whether this constitutes fair use, so it may not be around for all that long in its current form, but worth a look.

The Internet

• Ged Carroll has published 29 not very technical things that every PR should know – some solid advice and some great tips in there

• The Guardian have published their top 100 websites for the year ahead – a couple of notable omissions but by and large a good list

• Merlin Mann responds to the productivity/advice blog genre that has eaten itself. His contention is that it is wrong for people to look for quick tips and lifehacks – the best way to improve is to follow a cohesive and comprehensive plan. We should concentrate on doing, rather than living vicariously.

• Cory Doctorow puts forward a persuasive argument for not extending the copyright privileges of recording artists

• An interesting article in Wired on how a potentially lethal flaw in the Internet architecture was discovered

Research and data

• The latest Trend Blend map is available. Download it along with previous editions here

• I’m a sucker for both data and innovative presentation, so Flowing Data’s 5 best data visualisations of the year was a no-brainer for me

• Research Talk have an excellent article asking just how healthy brand health measurement is?

• I loved this accumulation of elements affected by the financial crisis – whether beer, marriage or personal maintenance

• The year in media errors and corrections – there are some zingers in there

• Dataopedia is a brilliant, free resource pulling together all the publicly available stats for different websites.

A pretty huge list. So, for those that don’t have a lot of spare time over the Xmas period I would particularly recommend Jeremiah on the Izea brouhaha, JP on asymmetric networks,  Hugh on why social objects are the future of marketing, Guardian’s top 100 websites and the latest trend blend map

sk