Television is losing to smartphones, Amazon bundles streaming video services, PR wants to get more involved in content marketing, the open office layout debate, making pharma more digital, Yahoo reverses course, the year in review from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, strong brands matter in the collaborative economy, the best tech company to work for, finding your tone of voice, influencer marketing requires relationships, the Ben Franklin Effect, plus our weekly trivia challenge, the podcast pick of the week and more, it's The Week in Digital.
A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.
Each Monday we publish 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. A new issue is available every Monday morning. Please subscribe to keep up to date on developments.
News items are in regular text; additional commentary has been added in italics.
If you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links — and additional ones — by subscribing to The Week in Digital Magazine at smonty.co/flipdigital.
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Industry
- Nielsen finally admits what we've known for a while: smartphones are winning and traditional television is losing. In fact, traditional television peaked in 2010 and has been declining ever since.
- It should be no surprise then that digital ad spending is set to surpass television ad spending soon. It feels like we've been saying that since 2010.
- Expect some of those ads to be sold against Amazon's video offering: Amazon Prime Video is bundling other services such as Showtime, Starz, and more.
- Until bundling is a regular thing, it can be difficult to find which service carries the movie or TV show you'd like to see. Now Yahoo's Video Guide app provides universal searching across streaming services.
- You can blame Netflix for your slow internet: Netflix and other streaming video services account for more than 70% of Internet traffic, with Netflix taking up more than half of that.
- How many apps to smartphone owners typically use? On a daily basis 63% use 1-5 apps; on a weekly basis, 49% use 6-10.
- It's an Advent calendar for marketers: 24 days of marketing predictions for 2016.
- For communicators, it looks like PR will take a more serious interest in content marketing and influencers in 2016.
- Did you ever try to minimize or close an ad using that 'X' in the corner and it didn't work? That's by design. Marketers try to prolong the amount of time you spend on an ad by getting cute with the functionality of the 'X' button. And marketers have the gall to complain about ad blocking? #self-inflicted
- Apple is updating its News app with a cutting-edge redesign to make it seem more like...a newspaper.
- Walmart is debuting Walmart Pay, its electronic payment competitor to Apple Pay and Android Pay. But the real blow might be to CurrentC, the consortium of retailers developing their own mobile payment system, of which Walmart is a part.
- Some 20 pharma executives shared their ideas on how pharma can become more digital. Changes ahead include: more control over treatments by individuals, changes in the clinical environment, the rise of cost consciousness, and more, leaving pharma companies to be more like solutions companies than asset companies.
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*B2B Content Marketing 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends (Content Marketing Institute & Marketing Profs)
Hey — this took a lot of time to assemble. Do you get any value out of it on a regular basis? If so, please consider becoming a patron to help support this newsletter by going to Patreon. Yes, you can pledge a dollar a month, but that's a paltry amount, don't you think?
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*B2B Content Marketing 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends (Content Marketing Institute & Marketing Profs)
Platforms
- Yahoo
- Hold the phone — Yahoo is hanging onto Alibaba after all, and is now spinning out its core business.
- Speaking of spinning off, the SVP of Yahoo's advertising product is the latest high-level executive to leave the company. Yahoo needs to get ahead of this constant churn of executive talent, as the story is writing itself with no real input from Yahoo's communications team — although we know that won't stop re/code's Kara Swisher.
- Flickr is getting 360-degree photo viewing for Oculus and Samsung Gear,
- Maybe Google was off-base with its open office setup. Is more harm than good being done by the open office trend? I've asked my dog, with whom I share my open office, and he's not talking.
- Google is getting more serious about battling adware, due in large part to Chrome extensions.
- After publishers complained that rules made it too hard to generate revenue, Facebook is tweaking the advertising policies for Instant Articles.
- Facebook will show a cached version for those with slower connections and will allow offline commenting. Should come in handy when you're using Gogo Inflight. Seriously, it may help with the 2G network Facebook is working on for developing countries.
- Facebook is in a race against Google for deep learning and artificial intelligence — to the extent that Facebook is open-sourcing it.
- The 2015 Year in Review from Facebook looked at the biggest stories of the year, with the U.S. presidential election topping them, and a call to stand together in 2016 following so many tragedies this year.
- Twitter takes a look back at 2015 in both a blog post and a dedicated site looking at top trends, most influential, new voices and most retweeted. God help us, the most RTs were related to One Direction.
- Twitter is getting serious about advertising as it tests promoted tweets with users who are not logged into the platform.
- As an end-of-year retrospective, LinkedIn is taking a look at the Top Voices on its platform. Included are voices in Technology, Media and Entertainment, and Marketing and Social.
- Microsoft
- Microsoft has reversed course on its decision to withdraw the 15GB of free storage for OneDrive uesrs. Chalk one up for online petitions.
- That must mean that slacktivism is working. Online activity gives protests a longer lifespan and reaches more people who are heavily engaged online.
Trivia question: Without peeking, who's the voice behind the classic holiday song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" and what else is he most famous for? *
Collaborative Economy
- A strong brand matters in the collaborative economy, because people prefer known brands. But is it enough to power an existing brand to be as nimble and scrappy as a startup?
- Ford seems to think so, as it is investing in ride-sharing capabilities to counter threats by Uber, Lyft and the like. Sounds remarkably akin to trying to build your own dashboard software system, instead of letting the professionals do it themselves.
- Samsung is looking to get into the connected car business as it aims to supply components to companies building connected vehicles.
- Jaguar thinks Telsa's Autopilot is one misstep away from causing a great setback to autonomous driving.
- Uber's latest innovation is UberHop in Seattle, which matches multiple passengers up with a single driver, requires riders to walk to a location to meet the driver, and will drop riders off along the route. See also "Smart Route" (San Francisco) and "Commute" (Chicago). The concept rings a bell...
- Airbnb has raised another $1.5 billion on a valuation of $25 billion, making it the world's third largest unicorn.
- It follows that Airbnb has dethroned Google as the best tech company to work for, according to Glassdoor ratings.
Audio
- Spotify is considering allowing some of its artists to withhold music from its free ad-supported service. This is in response to artists like Taylor Swift, who pulled her music because of Spotify's previous requirement that all artists had to make music available on the free version.
- Meanwhile Taylor Swift is making a $plash with Apple for her 1989 concert material.
- The Guide to Podcasting explores the state of the podcasting landscape in 2015.
- Still puzzled on how to listen to podcasts? Here's a handy starter guide for listening to podcasts.
- Podcast Recommendation of the Week. This week, check out Serial, now it its second season. A podcast from the creators of This American Life. One story. Told week by week. Hosted by Sarah Koenig. Do you have a podcast recommendation for us? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts
Content / Customer Experience
- You're ready to produce content — great. Now get out that handy 16-point content publishing checklist to help guide you through the publishing and distribution process.
- As you're creating content, it's essential to set yourself apart by making sure you've developed a strong voice.
- Working with influencers can be an important component of your marketing program. But you should have started on the relationship part of it months ago, not on the day you're getting ready to launch. Relationships matter with influencer marketing.
- Want a guide? Get the definitive book on influencer marketing.
- Here's an influencer to get to know: the highest-paid YouTuber. She plays the violin.
Privacy / Security / Legal
- If you're a fan of the Collaborative Economy section above, you might want to read how criminals use Uber, Tinder and Airbnb: it's crime in the era of sharing.
- A landlord in New York says his tenants have turned a 3-bedroom apartment into a 10-bedroom Airbnb rental space. He's not happy and they're using the law to keep him from doing anything about it. We'd have to award them Most Creative Use of Space.
- Google has made great progress in its battle against unwanted adware and they explain how in this post on the Google Online Security blog.
- Some Kickstarter projects don't end the way they should. When a $3.5 million project backed by some 12,000 people failed to deliver, Kickstarter hired an investigative journalist to track the money.
Measurement / Metrics / Data
- Shel Israel's latest book Lethal Generosity
covers the importance of data. But he also covers the importance of putting a human face to company efforts in this data-driven age.
- Communications professionals are likely familiar with the Barcelona Principles. This 2.0 version shows how to operationalize the measurement principles.
* Answer to the trivia question above:
- "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, who was also well known for his time as Tony the Tiger, pitchman for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.
When You Have the Time: Essential Watching / Listening / Reading
- This is a long read, but worth your time: media topics and trends worth paying attention to, including:
- The pay TV ecosystem is much more robust than it's given credit for.
- Facebook is the Internet.
- "If you've got an audience, you'll make money" is nonsense
- We’re going to see a clear “hollowing out of the middle” in digital media over the next five years.
- Ben Franklin was a man before his time. The Benjamin Franklin Effect demonstrates that a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person. Read on to discover how, when he asked a hated rival if he could borrow his book, he turned that rival into a fan.
- Related reading: "How To Fend Off a Jerk" by Dave Delaney.
- Related book: Hug Your Haters
by Jay Baer.
- We're all critics. That doesn't mean we're well informed or expert. Brett Eason Ellis thinks the cult of likability is at risk of causing too much homogeneity.
- One to ponder: is there still a point to collecting books?
Hey — this took a lot of time to assemble. Do you get any value out of it on a regular basis? If so, please consider becoming a patron to help support this newsletter by going to Patreon. Yes, you can pledge a dollar a month, but that's a paltry amount, don't you think?
I advise brands and agencies to help them improve their communications and digital acumen. Please get in touch if you'd like to put my experience and digital smarts to work on a project, to consult with your group, or to address an audience at your next corporate or industry event.