Harvard Business and The Economy

Because the economy is on everyone's mind right now, I figured I would play traffic cop to an interesting stat I picked up today from the Harvard Business Publishing group. I live in San Francisco, and with mine and most other people's personal portfolio's getting demolished, this is really just salt in an open wound.

How much is your salary worth? It depends where you live. The Salary Value Index lists the cities that make it easiest -- and hardest -- to save for your future. The index takes into account the gap between pay and the cost of living, as well as the strength of the job market, the population's level of education, the diversity of companies, and the average travel time to work.



SOURCE: Salary.com's 2008 Salary Value Index

Spending In A Down Economy

Just thinking out loud a bit here...everyone talks about how money is tight in a down economy. People want to spend less, venture capitalists fund fewer companies or simpy provide less dollars, and advertisers cut budgets.

I relate the down economy to a traffic jam. In slow moving traffic on the freeway, if everyone just stepped on the gas at the same time, we would all move smoothly. Despite some instances, the freeway keeps on going and we aren't running out of road. Similarly, if everyone decided not to panic and just kept buying their same groceries and investing in their same funds and companies, everything would be fine. It's the one guy pumping his brakes because he's panicking that throws everyone else off.

The Great Divide Between Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue

AdWeek contributor Brian Morrissey wrote a fantastic piece entitled Strangers In The Night, pointing out the fundamental rifts between the world of Venture Capital dollars and their portfolio companies, and the major ad agencies of Madison Avenue and beyond. A fantastic read for anyoe trying to get a grip on the VC world, spending in a tight economy, and aency understanding of the startup environment.

T-Mobile G-1 Lives

CNET has a great first impression of the T-Mobile G-1, Google's highly anticipated Android powered phone...

Now that we've had a taste of what the T-Mobile G1 offers, we now compare it with other phones on the market and see if it brings anything different to the table.

1. Design - The combination of a touch screen and a keyboard isn't new of course, but I thought it would be good to remind people that others exist. The HTC Touch Pro is a Windows Mobile device that has both a touch screen and a keyboard, while the LG Voyager is a non-smartphone with both a touch screen and a keyboard as well. That said, the addition of a QWERTY keyboard does make it a little more user-friendly than touch screen only devices like the Apple iPhone or the Samsung Instinct.

2. Interface - Of course, we won't be able to really tell the difference between the G1 and that of other touch screen phones until we get one in our hands, but from the demo, it appears that you use the touch screen just like you would with the others. You swipe the touch screen to switch pages and scroll down menus, and you tap an application to open it. However, you can also hold down something (or a long press) to open up options. Just like the LG Dare, the T-Mobile G1 lets you drag and drop any application to the home screen as a convenient shortcut. Since the G1 runs an operating system made by Google, it only makes sense that it has excellent search capabilities. Just like that on the Helio Ocean, the G1 has something called one-click contextual search, which lets you search your contacts as well as the Web just by typing in a few letters and hitting Enter. We'll know more about the G1's interface once we try it out for ourselves.

3. Connectivity - The G1 is one of the first devices to work on T-Mobile's 3G network. It also works on both WiFi and 3G, and has quad-band GSM plus dual-band UMTS, which means it will work abroad as well. The iPhone has both WiFi and 3G, but only has tri-band GSM, while both the Instinct and the Dare are CDMA with EV-DO and don't have WiFi. The HTC Touch Pro has WiFi, 3G, and a quad-band GSM version, but is not yet available in the U.S. The G1 has Bluetooth but not stereo Bluetooth, similar to the iPhone. Other devices like the Instinct and Dare do have stereo Bluetooth. Also, the G1 does not allow tethering as a modem, which most Windows Mobile smart phones allow.

4. Messaging - Like most other phones, the G1 has email and instant messaging with special preference given to GMail and Google Talk. It doesn't have Exchange support out of the box, which both the iPhone and the Instinct do (and of course every Windows Mobile smart phone out there). But if you're a GMail fan, you'll love the push GMail on the G1. Also unlike the iPhone, the G1 does have multimedia messaging, plus you can multi-task applications while chatting. There's a "windowshade" that you can pull down on the G1 to retrieve an ongoing instant message conversation.

5. Browser - The G1 has a full HTML browser present on most touch screen phones as well as most Windows Mobile smart phones, so there's nothing new there. It has on-screen controls to zoom in and out, which is a different than the pinching method of the iPhone, but quite similar to other devices. You can open multiple pages and share webpages as well. The one difference is that it uses Webkit, an open source browser built to be lean and fast.

6. Location-based services - Here's where the G1 really makes a difference. It comes with Google Maps Street View built-in, providing you with a street view of any location covered with Google Maps. It also comes with compass mode with the scene on the screen moving as you do. No other phone supports this Street View application just yet. It doesn't have applications like Where or Buddy Beacon built-in, but with the Android Market application store, I can't imagine it'll take too long for more location-based applications to be available.

7. Media - One of the big news of the day is that the G1 is the first phone to offer a mobile version of Amazon's MP3 store, providing a viable alternative to the iTunes store on the iPhone. This is major news and the implications of it are far larger than can be covered here. Suffice to say that Apple better watch its back. As for the music player, I'm not sure if it'll provide podcasting support yet, but even if it doesn't, I'm sure a third-party application will be available for it. The G1 also comes with a 3-megapixel camera, which is better than the iPhone's, but otherwise not too groundbreaking. I liked that you can trim and crop the image directly on the phone and then drag and drop the image to the home screen, which is similar to the LG Dare.

These are just a few comparisons I've come up with in the first hour since the G1 announcement. Are there any more that you can think of? Let us know in the comments.

Android Arriving Tomorrow Says Google

Exclusive brought to you from MacRumors:

The big news this week will be the announcement for the first Android device from Google, HTC and T-Mobile. T-Mobile sent out invitations to the media to "experience the first Android-powered phone" on Tuesday, September 23rd.

A video demo from Google demonstrates the device's browser and interface of the upcoming device. The new device is said to be priced at $199 and "showcase the Google brand" and incorporate a swivel-out full keyboard along with an accelerometer and a large touch screen.

The new platform will obviously draw comparisons with Apple's iPhone. Google is promoting the openness of its platform at a time when Apple is seeing more criticism about its App approval process. Google will be introducing its own Android Market which provides developers a central repository for application sales and distribution. At launch, the Android Market will only offer free applications, but billing support should be coming at a later date. Unlike the App Store, the Android Market has no approval process and any developer can upload any application.

One of the particularly successful iPhone developers, however, is staying away from Android. Steve Demeter, who made headlines last week for having made $250,000 in sales of his iPhone game Trism, told AlleyInsider that the availability of multiple handset models could introduce more headaches than its worth: “Do I want to be spending 6 months to write the game, and another 6 months making it compatible? If I had Trism available for Android, and there are 50 Android devices and every time one of them crashes (the users) contact me, do I want that?”Instead, Demeter has been hiring and is working on 5 more iPhone games.

Travis Barker and DJ AM Set To Recover

Courtesy of CNN.com:

Musicians DJ AM and Travis Barker should fully recover from severe burns they suffered during a fiery jet crash in South Carolina that killed four people, a doctor said Sunday.

DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, and Barker, the former drummer for Blink-182, are being treated at the Joseph Still Burn Center in Augusta, Georgia, after suffering second- and third-degree burns in Friday night's crash, said Dr. Fred Mullins, the center's executive director.
Barker received burns on his torso and lower body from the jet crash late Friday. Goldstein was burned on his arm and head, Mullins said.

Though he expects a full recovery, Mullins said Barker and Goldstein could be hospitalized for weeks.

Investigators, meanwhile, are trying to determine whether a blown tire caused the crash, which happened during takeoff from the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.

Investigators found evidence that one of the jet's tires may have blown moments before takeoff, said National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Debbie Hersman.

Federal investigators have recovered the jet's cockpit voice recorder, which captured a "sound consistent with a tire blowout," Hersman said.

"The crew attempted to reject the takeoff but was unable to stop the aircraft before it departed the runway," Hersman said.

Travis Barker and DJ AM Severely Injured In Plane Crash

Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and DJ AM were the sole survivors of a plane crash early this morning in Columbia, South Carolina.  The two have been touring promoting their new collaboration "Fix Your Face."  Reports say the two are the sole survivors of the crash, leaving four others dead.  The deceased included the pilot an co- pilot, as well as Barker's assistant and body guard.

Some New Companies To Keep Your Eye On

Straight from the depths of Digital Influentials, a group of highly motivated and strategic thinkers in the digital advertising world, Cory Treffiletti offers his take on the economy for start ups, as well as naming some companies to watch in the coming months.

Of course we can’t talk about a Round Up of the last two weeks unless we talk about the big, stinky elephant in the room. The economy. The last two weeks have been tumultuous and things probably won’t get better before it gets a little bit worse. The ripple effects of what’s going on as a result of the mortgage crisis and the new restrictions on lending are clearly going to reach the start-up business in the coming months. It’s already becoming more difficult to raise money and belts are tightening now that the venture capitalists have returned from their summer vacations. This doesn’t mean that people won’t still fund great ideas, but you’d better do your homework and dot your “i’s” and cross your “t’s” if you hope to be successful! The angel route can be easier for gathering together the initial funding you need but don’t forget the term “bootstrapping”. Many of the companies we see and many of the ideas we hear about are capable of being bootstrapped for growth if only those in charge are thrifty and economical with their time. From my perspective, a successful start-up requires a scrappy, do-it-right-at-all-costs attitude. Those are the kinds of people that I would invest with and those are the kinds of people that are destined to be successful, especially in an economic environment such as this.Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s dive right into it, shall we?

Some of the best ideas that we’ve seen the last couple of weeks:The TechCrunch 50 last week was an amazing source of new companies and funky ideas, but one of the best that we saw was GO PLAN IT (http://www.goplanit.com). The site is definitely in beta and needs to be populated with far more cities than it currently covers, but the idea is simple and the execution is elegant. If you’re going on vacation and you don’t know how to plan the activities of your trip, Go Plan It will take care of it for you! Go there and type in “San Francisco” as your vacation destination, enter the dates you’ll be there and let Go Plan It spit out your activity itinerary including all the recommended places to go and things to see, laid out in a schedule with times and directions. It’s one step planning for people like me who have a tendency to lose interest in the research required to get the most out of your trip. It’s like a knowledgeable travel agent without all the up sell!

Another company that stood out from that conference was FITBIT (http://www.fitbit.com). FitBit is a small device that you clip onto your body and it tracks your vitals and calorie burning activity through the course of the day, allowing you to log it in and focus on a healthy means of losing weight. The idea is not new, but once again the execution is elegant! Since the device is wireless, it automatically uploads the data as soon as you’re in close proximity to the base station, taking all the work out of your hands. People fall off diets because they get lazy, but now laziness is not an excuse!

One more from TechCrunch was BOJAM (http://www.bojam.com). BoJam is a tool that allows musicians to collaborate online without any restrictions such as location or time. It is a fully collaborative environment where you upload your music, mix it remotely with the music of other people and locate additional musicians to fill in the holes. If you ever heard “The Postal Service” (a spin-off of Death Cab For Cutie) you know that good music can be created regardless of boundaries. Now BoJam makes it even easier and more cost effective (no need to pay for stamps with this model).

Last week we mentioned a couple of our favorite iPhone Applications and this week we wanted to continue the trend. The first one to highlight is REQALL. ReQall is made for people like me who can’t remember anything without writing it down. I used to have a habit of sending myself emails with notes to remind me, but ReQall keeps a running track of my little reminders while also copying me with an email, getting that urgency into my inbox. If you’re on the go and you’re juggling too many balls, this is a great application.

SEARCHME mobile may not yet be an application, per se, but if you add it to your homepage you get a very functional image-based search engine. The format is clean and for those of us who like to see where we’re going, it’s a nifty way to search.

And of course, since it’s football season, don’t forget SPORTACULAR. Sportacular is a great interface for viewing sports scores and news but it’s also the only iPhone app that I’ve come across where you can keep track of your customized fantasy team! I actually keep my wife’s fantasy team in the phone so we can keep tabs on Sunday afternoon (Yes – my wife has a fantasy football team - those of you men who read that line are definitely jealous)!

Crowdsourcing And The Effects On Our industry

If you haven't heard the term thrown around yet, you will soon. Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a certain act or job to a group of people and having the power of the mob decide the best way to complete said job.

With many of the top advertising agencies becoming more and more disinter mediated, overhead costs going up in a floundering economy, and the need for fresh new opinions in a fragmented media world, crowdsourcing may very well be the answer.

Crowdsourcing can have a thunderous impact in many different sectors of the ad world, including both media and creative. Everyday we see different videos online on YouTube or Daily Motion or (fill in video destination of your choice), and we think to ourselves, “wow that person must be doing really well to have created such an inspiring piece.” The fact is there is a massive waste of creative going on, because of I house creative teams, lack of resources for up and coming talent, and a media world with more channels than one can count. I see crowdsourcing as being an answer to that major problem, and I’m definitely on the lookout for a company that can solve this issue.

Also, for an interesting read, check out Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe.

Upcoming Sneaker Releases

Checking back in with the world of sneakers, here's a few special edition release dates for you:

Wood Wood x Converse 1HUND(RED) Chuck Taylor

The Converse 1HUNDR(RED) campaign extends through the year and has called on Dutch brand Wood Wood to collaboration on the latest Chuck Taylor. Having a monochromatic feel to it, the sneakers are made up of gray canvas, suede, 1HUND(RED) red eyelets, and custom tagging. Furthermore, other details include the Wood Wood star map patter lining the inside of the sneaker as well as branding on the tongue. Release is scheduled for October 1st, 2008 at a select accounts.





KISS x Vans Sk8-Hi - Dressed to Kill


In 1975, legendary rock group KISS released the album “Dressed to Kill” which featured the classic hit, ”Rock and Roll All Nite”. To honor the group, Vans and KISS teamed up earlier in the year and displayed a few designs, the latest are these Sk8-Hi’s which are inspired by the album’s cover. The sneakers consists of artwork on the sides of the sneaker along with the words “Dressed to Kill” written on the outer sole. Release is scheduled for Spring 2009.

Today's info brought to you from Sneaker Files.

7 Experts Tackle Online Marketing Myths

Yesterday at the iMedia Brand Summit in Coronado, CA, seven highly touted industry folk took a shot at some of online marketing’s biggest myth and most over hyped trends. The distinct blend of agency, brand, and network people tore down a few industry standards while making some interesting predictions about the foreseeable future in digital adveritising.

Check out the coverage from the hottest panel in Coronado here.

Online Video Hears A New Voice In eGuiders

An insightful new voice has popped up in the world of online video. Marc Ostrick has launched Notes From An Online Video Junkie and is offering up some great stories and opinions on the Web video environment. Definitely some worthwhile reading for anyone in the space, be it content creators, media folks, or Hollywood hustlers of any level.

A great excerpt from recent post:

There is a huge explosion of online content, but it seems that original videos made for the Internet is still looked at as a novelty. Something that is just a fad, a cute little medium on a cute little screen. Only in the last six months to a year, have people begun to pay attention because advertisers are now starting to divert funds to new media from their traditional media buys.

Digicrest Gets A New Look

So we have a new look here at Digicrest. Are we crazy about it? Do we like it? I haven't decided just yet to be honest. If you have an opinion, lets hear it.

“When I die, I want to come back as me.”

TechCrunch50 rounded out this week with a fantastic one- on- one interview between Jason Calacanis and Mark Cuban. They talked about Cuban’s path to start- up genius and his wildly successful business career thus far. Cuban is his usual candid self and it was an absolutely hysterical interview.

Click the picture for the full transcript.

MySpace Is Out, Facebook Is In

I hate to steal the tile and content directly from Media Post, but this is a great article about the varying differences in MySpace and Facebook as a pure social network vs. a utility.

Panel: MySpace Is Out, Facebook Is In
by Karl Greenberg

A panel at Monday's PMA Digital Marketing Summit in New York tackled social media. Its biggest conundrum seemed to be this: Which is better, Facebook or MySpace? Everyone pretty much agreed that MySpace is out, Facebook is in. Hooman Radfar, CEO and co-founder of Clearspring, a digital marketing company that centers on widgets as an ad platform, says that while he agrees that there's a migration away from MySpace, "It is still relevant from a viral perspective. It is still huge, but there's segmentation where a lot of people are viewing Facebook as a utility."

Kwasi Asare, head of new media for Bad Boy Entertainment, said the Sean Combs conglomerate is seeing people migrating away from MySpace. "I would say that my marketing is focused on cracking the Facebook puzzle," he said. "People are using it as a social networking tool, while MySpace is ... annoying."

Marshall Sponder, senior web analyst with Monster Worldwide, said social media sites like Facebook are serving as replacements for personal web sites. "But," he added, "there has not been a lot of return on advertising yet. I think what's really holding it back is the need for social networks to become ubiquitous."

Both Sponder and Radfar said the wide adoption of so-called "cloud computing" will make social media sites ubiquitous. Radfar used a program called Mint as an example. Mind is an online financial tool that requires a certain level of trust among those uploading personal banking data. "When it launched, it didn't think anyone would ever use it."

When Asare said that advertisers mulling placement on Bad Boy social media properties were balking because there's no way to control the content on social pages where ads might appear, Sponder said that's the nature of the biz. "They are not in control; you can't change that, but can monitor and moderate it."

Asare said the fact that "sexy" brands - e.g., personalities, films, fashion and music (Bad Boy's stock in trade) -- garner the best response rates in social media environments amounts to an opportunity for more prosaic brands. "The music industry is hurting for new revenue streams. Non-sexy with sexy music content. From my perspective, those are the deals I'm looking for. In the music industry, we are looking for those opportunities."

Michael Phelps Giving The Finger

MTV Video Music Awards: Two Thumbs Down

If this blog is in fact my own rantings and ravings on pop culture, then allow me to jump on the train of people completely bashing last nights MTV Video Music Awards.

First order of business is the addressing of the awards show venue, Paramount Studios. For anyone watching on a TV larger than 12 inches, it was plain to see that the awards were being held in what looked to be an unbelievable small sound stage. Was the Kodak Theater booked? Is MTV cutting back on their entertainment budgets? Either way, lock it up. It looked like a public access show in someone's basement.

Second; Russel Brand. Honestly, I think he is hilarious. Being a man of heavy, dry sarcasm myself, I like his one liners and post punchline banter. But last night his loud, frenetic style was too much for the small room, and it translated through to the TV broadcast. And who really needs political advice from a celebrity? My biggest pet peeve is celebs using their fame and status to get on a soapbox and preach their political beliefs like we give a...(fill in the blank). I'm here to watch Paris Hilton look at the wrong camera for an awkward 5 seconds, not listen to you preach about the downfall of the American democratic system.

My only positive of the night came from the boring opening skit with Britney Spears and Jonah Hill. It was boring and Spears has NO sense for comedic timing. However, Hill through in a hilarious spoof of a plug when he pulled out his Verizon Chocolate phone. Ten points for making phone of marketing and advertising.

'Oldest Living' Has Moved

Drum roll please.............Oldest Living Digital Marketer, the seer of seers, the wisest of the wise, and cheekiest of the cheeky has moved to a more convenient and exclusive URL.

You can now find his genius at www.oldestliving.com.

Be sure to update your links and feeds where appropriate. You wouldn't want to miss a thing from the OLDM.

Suzuki- Berman, errr Burgman

User experience, speed, and precision motor vehicles all in one place.

www.suzuki-burgman.com

I say no more. Thanks to Alessandro Del Piero for endorsing my family's product.

CARAT CARAT CARAT!!!

What is there really to say? We’ve all seen it, we’ve all talked about. Carat and there email blunder…..opening lines of the story below:

E-mail Blunder Alerts Carat Staff to Major Restructuring
Top HR Exec Accidentally Sends Out Talking Points About Upcoming JobCuts Published: September 03, 2008

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Struggling media agency Carat is planning a major restructuring of its U.S. operations, including an undetermined number of layoffs -- news it accidentally released today via a memo the agency's top New York-based HR executive e-mailed to the entire agency that appeared to be intended only for senior managers.

In a rare, uncomfortable look into the preparations for employee layoffs, management informed its rank and file of forthcoming layoffs and other changes in Microsoft PowerPoint and Word documents full of "message" points on how people should be told of their fate and what should be said to their still-employed colleagues, clients and vendors. According to one source, the memo was sent to all staffers before the mistake was realized, and it was pulled back by the IT department. The documents, obtained by Advertising Age and posted with this story, detail talking points for managers as they talk to clients, vendors, the press and employees as Carat tries to navigate the fallout from the news.


For full article, click here.