The wondrous Apple Car, Microsoft's mobile comeback, the evolution of the NY Times' digital strategy, Facebook values videos, A/B test your tweets, Snapchat heads to Fashion Week, self-driving cars will disrupt many industries, when the sales guy controls the magazine cover, the nuances of B2B content marketing, the value of a chief marketing technologist, the future of journalism with David Carr and more, it's This Week in Digital.
A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.
Each week, we compose a newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, business, digital communications and marketing in order to keep leaders up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in your job. Please subscribe - either to our full feed or just to this newsletter to keep up to date on developments.
If you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links by subscribing to the This Week in Digital Magazine.
The Engaged Leader: A Strategy for Your Digital Transformation is Charlene Li's latest book. And if it's anywhere near as insightful and instructive as her Open Leadership book, it will be well worth it. Pre-order your copy today.
Industry
- Apple fanboys specifically and the tech world in general were all abuzz about the proposed Apple car, which could hit the market as soon as 2020. (Bloomberg)
- If the rumor is true, it's one of the worst kept secrets in Apple history. And some think that with the complexity, thin margins and lack of Moore's Law, the auto market is simply not right for Apple. (Monday Note)
- Former GM CEO Dan Akerson thinks Apple is better off partnering with automakers rather than taking on an entirely new industry. (Bloomberg)
- Microsoft - often the butt of "blue screen of death" jokes - is making a comeback. In mobile. And if you've used their Outlook app for iOS, you'll understand why. (New York Times)
- Yahoo! is getting more deeply involved in mobile as it hosts an app developers conference. (CNET)
- When the CPG business downsized half gallons of ice cream and orange juice to just 48 ounces, there was a mild backlash, but now we're living with it. But what about when television networks speed up shows by 7.5% to be able to sell more commercials (many of which are of the 15-second variety, which you can guarantee are more than half the price of 30-second spots)? (CBS News)
- The New York Times continues to make digital more central to its strategy. In a memo Thursday, Executive Editor Dean Baquet indicated that with mobile providing more than half of the traffic to the site, digital is king: "Desks will compete for the best digital, rather than print, real estate," he wrote. (Politico)
- The Internet's Original Sin: after the very first ad appeared on the Internet, it was all downhill from there. (The Atlantic)
Platforms
- If you want to make informed decisions about your social media strategy and understand the changes in the social media landscape, including what new innovations arose in 2014 check out SHIFT's The State of Social 2014 eBook. (SHIFT Communications)
- If you want to get more engagement on Facebook, stay away from posting photos. Once thought to be the top way to get readers to engage, it has fallen away to the more superior video post. (Business Insider)
- Little wonder then, that video is a central play in Facebook's multi-channel network (MCN) approach as it begins dealing with media companies and brands together. (Medium - BRaVe Ventures)
- In a blow to some CRM and social account management service companies, Twitter announced the introduction of TweetDeck Teams, a way to share access to accounts without sharing passwords. (Twitter blog)
- What good is Twitter if it doesn't drive traffic to your website? (The Atlantic)
- If you want to be retweeted more, check out this nifty online tool that's an instant A/B test for your tweets. (Retweeted More)
- Snapchat
- In the media world, it's all about content distribution. That's why Snapchat's Discover platform could be the biggest thing for news and content discovery since Twitter. (Fusion)
- Snapchat knows its users. Now Snapchat users can record video while streaming music. (The Verge)
- Fashion Week used to be all about Instagram. Now much of what's happening at Fashion Week can be found on Snapchat. (Bloomberg)
- The New York Times is expanding its presence on Instagram, with a number of handles to support different beats such as fashion, video, sports, marketing, travel and more. See how they use visual storytelling to help build awareness and loyalty. (Digiday)
Collaborative Economy
- Will lawsuits be the downfall of the collaborative economy? (Fast Company)
- What's another $1 billion to Uber? In this case, it's Series E financing as the juggernaut continues. (NY Times Dealbook)
- Talk of Apple and Google getting into the automotive business means that more autonomous vehicles will disrupt more than just the auto industry. (Web Strategy)
Content
- Over at Forbes, "Revenue Dude" and "Product Guy" evidently have more say than the editor, as native advertising stealthily invades the cover and they see nothing wrong with it. (Consumerist)
- Twitter has the potential to be a great storytelling medium, if you know how to use it. Comedian Norm MacDonald spent an hour telling a multi-tweet story of what it was like behind the scenes at the SNL 40th anniversary show. And it was a masterpiece. (Gothamist)
- Another great report to help you get your head around where things have evolved: the State of Content Marketing 2015. (Contently)
- A study by Regalix indicated that audience relevance, compelling storytelling, and video are among the most important elements of B2B content marketing - and, interestingly, that sales is not a primary goal. Nuturing prospects and influencing purchases ranked first, followed by generating leads and creating awareness. (Marketing Charts)
- Related: B2B customers do not follow a traditional marketing funnel. If you're in the B2B world, do you really understand your customers? (McKinsey)
Audio
- David Carr's last piece of work was as a moderator at a discussion about podcasting at The New School. The panelists talk about what makes a good story, how many listeners a podcast needs to be financially sustainable (50,000), why Ira Glass is the dark lord of everything and 8 other insights from veteran podcasters. (Techly)
Metrics / Measurement / Data
- Twitter is going large with mobile analytics with its Answers platform, geared toward developers. (Twitter)
- "Just because the CMO can decide on his or her own choice of technology, run it in the cloud, pay for it on a credit card, or from their cost center, it doesn’t mean they should." The case for the Chief Marketing Technologist. (CMO.com)
Privacy / Security / Legal
- If you recently bought a Lenovo, you'll want to read all about Lenovo installing Superfish adware on its new computers. (The Next Web)
When You Have the Time: Essential Reading / Listening / Watching
- Think you know Detroit? Think again. The city that built the original mobile technology is far more than cars and burned out buildings. In fact, it's experiencing a digital, technological and innovation rebirth as the multi-part series Detroit vs. Everybody uncovers. (re/code)
- David Carr continued to be remembered as a champion of digital media and a sage advisor. (Mashable and Medium)
- Boston University honored the memory of David Carr, who was the Andrew L. Lack professor at the College of Communication, as an innovator with his eye on what journalism should be. In the video below, he discusses the future of journalism with Bloomberg Chairman Andy Lack and BU College of Communication Dean Tom Fiedler.
--
