Things worth reading for January 11th through January 12th:
Comics to capital markets, – VERY interesting guest post by investment banker Knolla on how he learns and tracks the markets. Some of his insight sources will surprise you: ““the ‘shared worlds’ of Marvel, DC, Valiant & Image comic books as well as the Dragonlance & Forgotten Realms novels. Shared worlds, where different authors use the same settings and/or characters to tell stories with varying levels of interconnection, require a different kind of reading, I think, than stand alone or self-contained works. With plots that would go on for months, if not years, crossing over at various times into other titles I learned to categorize and recall data in a way that helped me make connections and anticipate twists in the story. Later this would be incorporated into one of the frameworks I use for identifying & monitoring investment themes. It was also an early exercise in sorting signal from noise in learning which authors’ characters were more restricted in their ability to influence the larger arcs.”
Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: Introduction to Communications Technologies – Henry lays out his syllabus and approach for his big lecture class at USC this semester– reading it might make you want to go back to school.
Is Quora.com The Next Big Thing? « Marketing Strategy for Entertainment and Brand Clients – Stradella Road – Gordon has a nice overview of Quora, so if you’re still trying to figure this one out start here.
Things Real People Don’t Say About Advertising – Quick & Funny & worth the click. Made me smile.
A VC: When They Are Throwing Money At You – Seven thoughts to consider BEFORE raising a round– from Fred Wilson. Don’t miss.
(Glowing) Book Review: The Personal MBA (Buy it today!) – Marketing with Meaning – I trust Bob, so check this out– “Overall, The Personal MBA is a rare combination of “engaging airplane read” and “must-have desktop reference.” Josh has spent years pulling together a best-of business education, and putting it into easily digestible chunks. His book is both a needed refresher for what you know, and the missing key to what you never learned but need now.”
Social Gaming Market to Surpass $1 Billion – eMarketer – “Nearly 62 million US internet users, or 27% of the online audience, will play at least one game on a social network monthly this year, up from 53 million in 2010. Their numbers will continue to grow and, along with them, money spent on virtual goods, lead-generation offers and advertising.”
Personal Hotspots Coming To All iPhones In March – The Personal Area Network (PAN) is quickly becoming a reality. Think about how this changes the hunt for bandwidth in your day-to-day life… and layer that on top of FourSquare, ShopKick, Augmented Reality and other Location Based businesses and we have a whole new ballgame.
Social Media Icon @JayRosen_NYU on his Twitter strategy – How NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen uses Twitter– insightful, clear and helpful. Don’t miss the heart-breaking final answer– took me clear out of my morning rounds.
Google’s Search Algorithm Has Been Ruined, Time To Move Back To Curation – “What has happened is that Google’s ranking algorithm, like any trading algorithm, has lost its alpha. It no longer has lists to draw and, on its own, it no longer generates the same outperformance — in part because it is, for practical purposes, reverse-engineered, well-understood & operating in an adaptive content landscape. Search results in many categories are now honey pots embedded in ruined landscapes — traps for the unwary. It has turned search back into something like it was in the dying days of first-generation algorithmic search, like Excite and Altavista: results so polluted by spam that you often started looking at results only on the second or third page — the first page was a smoking hulk of algo-optimized awfulness.
“There are two things that can happen now. (Okay, three. We could stop search, which won’t happen.). We could get better algorithms, which is happening to some degree, with search engines like Blekko and others. Or, we could head back to curation…”
Jon Bond Joins Social-Media Agency Big Fuel – Advertising Age – Agency News – ‘ “What’s evolved from my original plan is that now the goal is to make social media the center, and build complementary pieces around it,” Mr. Bond told Ad Age. “Social media has tentacles that reach all aspects of marketing. The model is no longer about a series of agencies doing new-age marketing. Tomorrow was a holding company, and this is a platform company.”
‘In other words, Big Fuel is looking to partner with companies whose capabilities are related only to social media. Mr. Bond said there are a few acquisition targets the agency is considering, such as companies that offer proprietary technology, for instance.
‘”What’s become clear is that social media is at the center of the marketing world,” Mr. Bond said. “So the question is: What social-media agency is going to be at the center of social media? I think that is up for grabs and [Big Fuel] has the right DNA, right scale and right client base to define the global social media AOR.” ‘
Why I’m Having Second Thoughts About The Wisdom Of The Cloud – “It used to be that if the US government wanted access to documents or letters in my possession they’d have to subpoena me directly. As a foreign citizen there are all sorts of ways I could fight the request – and it was at least my choice whether to do so. As someone living in the US I also had the whole weight of the 4th Amendment on my side. Now, with everything in the cloud, the decision whether to hand over my personal information is almost entirely out of my hands. And unless, as happened with Twitter, the company storing my data decides to fight for openness on my behalf, there’s every possibility that I won’t even hear about the request until it’s too late. That’s just not how things should work in a free society.”
Bump Technologies Expands and Raises Money – NYTimes.com – “Bump Technologies makes an app that lets people bump their phones together to exchange things like business cards, photos and even money.
“On Tuesday, Bump will announce that it has raised $16.5 million in venture capital. The firm Andreessen Horowitz is Bump’s newest investor, and its previous investors, including Sequoia Capital and Ron Conway, also contributed.
“Bump started in 2008 as a way for people to exchange contact information without trading old-fashioned paper business cards. But in its newest incarnation, the start-up wants to become a mobile social network for exchanging photos and messages with family and friends.”
Ad Agencies Turn to Students to Expand Digital Talent Pool – WSJ.com – Agencies are hiring 10 to 14 year olds to reverse-mentor them into digital savvy… “Ad executives say big agencies are spending roughly $750,000 to $1.5 million on training programs this year. Many are setting up formal online and in-house workshops that offer courses in social-media marketing and mobile marketing. Others are shipping executives off to take classes at digital ad schools such as Hyper Island, a Swedish school that recently opened a branch in New York.”
Disney’s ABC Seeks to Exploit Marvel Comic Franchise for Shows on Network – Bloomberg – With Thor & Iron Man @ Paramount, X-Men @ Fox and Hulk @ Universal, Disney’s premium on Marvel looks only to benefit Television in the near future. “Walt Disney Co.’s ABC is looking to tap characters from its Marvel comic-book franchise for network television shows, building from an initial list that includes the Hulk and AKA Jessica Jones.”
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