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I'm not looking at payment here, which NFC has been mired in, merely how the shopping experience can be enhanced.

I'll get a few things off my chest about what works and what doesn't. First, a super quick differentiation between the two technologies.

Near field communication ( NFC) is capable of two way communication, so payment (a debit and credit) for example, or even in medicine (a tag in your skin could send vital signs to your smartphone), and it works only at short distances. NFC can be used more basically, to simply transmit set information to a phone or tablet.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) has been around for yonks, the tags only transmit information, to an RFID reader (an NFC enabled phone or tablet such as an Android can be used as a reader, but for an iPhone a separate reader is required). These tags have been traditionally used in stock control.

There's bluetooth low energy (e.g. iBeacons) in the mix, too. However, many of the uses of beacons have been for push messaging to customers.

In this piece I'm not going to be talking about geofencing which can be done with RFID, GPS or low energy bluetooth ( iBeacons). I'll be focusing on active rather than passive engagement, though I'll discuss iBeacons in my conclusion (as they're rapidly taking hold in many of the same scenarios).

Right, now that's taken care of, let's dive in...

Burberry

Burberry implemented the use of RFID technology in some flagship stores in September 2012.

The tags assist with stock and quality control, giving a snapshot of what's in store, while also enhancing the customer experience (as we'll see).

RFID tags in clothing activate changing room mirrors when customers try a garment. The mirrors show a video about the making of the piece and its time on the catwalk.

As you can see from the video below, it's designed to work with store tech only. To get the same experience on a customer's phone requires NFC and a card that comes with the product when purchased.

Interestingly, the sales associates will assist in deactivating the RFID tags within your purchase. But, presuming the customer assented, the tags could be left in and used to track the life of the garment, provided it was within range of a reader.

I think this is a great usage of RFID for a few reasons:

It's high fashion, so a considered purchase, which means the customer will have more time and be more receptive to associated content.

The mirrors are a good size for impressing with catwalk footage etc.

The mirrors are fixed in store, so testing and optimisation can be done easily (without needing to test hundreds of consumer devices).

The customer service in Burberry is such that not allowing customers to enable content on their own devices won't affect engagement, as there'll be a store assistant on hand.

Made.com

Made.com is a pureplay but it has two UK showrooms which consumers can book an appointment to browse. Consumers use NFC technology on a tablet computer provided in the showroom to 'scan' items on show and purchase them online.

This works well, too, because:

The showroom doesn't allow customers to buy stock there and then, merely order online. This necessitates using a connected device.

The showroom is appointment only and customers punch in a code to enter - giving store devices out in this scenario won't result in them being stolen.

Casino

Casino is a French supermarket which has used NFC tags in front of every product on the shop shelves.

Customers touch their own phones to the tag and can view product info or add to their mobile app's basket.

This mobile app basket allows for physical checkout, the user can bag up the items as they shop then use their phone at the point of sale to pay for everything they've totted up.

In essence, it's like walking round with a handheld barcode scanner then paying on exit. This NFC solution is cheaper to implement than handheld scanners, which have been used in some supermarkets in Europe, placing the scanner into a terminal to give a sum total for checkout.

This strikes me as a very impractical use case, here's why:

It's NFC, so it doesn't work with iPhones.

It doesn't save any time for the customer, who still has to go to the checkout.

It probably takes more time as the scanning of barcodes at the till is quicker than using the app on your phone for each item.

How does the store prevent loss? Are the contents of the customer's bags checked? I didn't see mention of any weighing process involved (as takes place with self checkouts).

Product informatiion is already on the packaging. I rarely need more.

Harvey Nichols

In Q4 2013, Harvey Nichols put tablets in-store for customers to interact with products via NFC tags on shelves.

The stickered shelves would advertise what sort of content to expect, perhaps some Pinterest boards showing pieces being worn, or celebrities wearing a particular outfit, or more prosaic detail.

Customers could shop alone or with a store associate and save a 'collection' of scanned items when finished if they wished. Entering an email address would allow for this, and for Harvey Nichols to re-engage the customer with email.

Stats from CloudTags, the technology provider, showed:

90% of shoppers engaged in store were not previously known to the brand.

16% of all shoppers engaged with the experience.

7% self-identified via email.

18% took further action after receiving an email.

I think this particular implementation had its good points and its bad points.

Good:

I see this being as strong as the content used. The celebrity tie in is particularly interesting. If the technology is used to show you a lookbook of a particular piece of clothing, catwalk footage and celebrities wearing the piece, that would seem like a good incentive to engage.

Bad:

The device isn't ideal. The beauty of the Burberry implementation is that the customer is unburdened. They don't have to wield a smallish tablet, the mirror does the work.

Here one might question why I would want to look at an interface and not at the merchandise. This is one fundamental problem with tablet solutions for content, rather than the functionality of commerce.

Why save items for later when they can be purchased in store? Some people may be unsure or waiting for payday, but this tech seems a convoluted way of keeping a shopping list.

Argos

Shoppers can now use their NFC-enabled smartphones in-store to download information about the retailer's products and download the Argos transactional mobile app.

Although Argos' new digital stores are impressive, I question this use of NFC. Again, it won't work with iPhones. And with in-store WiFi, the app download route is more familiar for a lot of customers and works for all smartphone users (provided retailers have apps across each ecosystem).

However, this is a cheap technology to install and it likely provides a fun interaction between the store associate and the consumer.

Conclusion

It's hard to see NFC sticking around. RFID will always have a place and can be used well. iBeacons looks set to take over.

This is why:

In the long term, we want to use our personal devices and this is needed if this interaction is done at scale (and will assist in tracking the customer journey). NFC just isn't compatible. Nor is RFID, so that's a win for iBeacons.

RFID still has a place but the store infrastructure needs to be used with the tags. The Burberry mirrors are a great example. When interactions like this are designed, the impact is more lasting.

RFID obviously has the bonus of being great for inventory and stock reordering.

iBeacons are taking off, being introduced across 100 stores on Regent Street in London.

iBeacons offer a wealth of extra functionality.

How iBeacons work:
When you walk into a store you can choose to receive notifications (messages and discount offers). One can currently use this system in Apple stores to collect online orders, see what's happening in store (uses trail markers, which we will likely see used in museums) and access product reviews.

The next step is to link in payment and more personalisation to allow this technology to become the default way of engaging customers and allowing them to shop, without necessarily seeing a store associate.
So, what would you use in store?

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Five retailers using NFC and RFID to enhance shopping: but do they work?

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I'm not looking at payment here, which NFC has been mired in, merely how the shopping experience can be enhanced. I'll get a few things off my chest about what works and what doesn't. First, a super quick differentiation between the two technologies.

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Kelly Rowland and Pepsi Max are giving fans the chance to appear alongside the Destiny's Child star in her new track 'The Game'.

The song, which will be released later this month, is an exclusive track on the Pepsi 'Beats of the Beautiful Game' album which also features artists such as Janelle Monáe and Rita Ora.

Fans from across the world will feature in the video after they submit their entries to the Pepsi website before 15 July.

Wannabe stars should record themselves, in as high a definition as they can manage, dancing to the track.

Kelly Rowland rose to fame as a member of Destiny's Child in the late nineties.

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Kelly Rowland and Pepsi Max invite fans to be in 'Game' music video

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Kelly Rowland and Pepsi Max are giving fans the chance to appear alongside the Destiny's Child star in her new track 'The Game'. The song, which will be released later this month, is an exclusive track on the Pepsi 'Beats of the Beautiful Game' album which also features artists such as Janelle Monáe and Rita Ora.

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WHHHHHYYYY??

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Four lessons from a day with YouTube stars

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Four lessons from a day with YouTube stars

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Traces - an app that places content into real world locations

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Traces - an app that places content into real world locations

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Protein is a global community of the world's most influential thinkers, doers and connectors. We collaborate with brands in our Agency, provide space in our Studios and track consumer culture in our Journal. We've also developed a Product to help you build your own community. It's rather good, if we do say so ourselves.

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Protein is a global community of the world's most influential thinkers, doers and connectors. We collaborate with brands in our Agency, provide space in our Studios and track consumer culture in our Journal. We've also developed a Product to help you build your own community. It's rather good, if we do say so ourselves.

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Ad Tech Isn't a Threat to Agencies, It's an Opportunity

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Ad Tech Isn't a Threat to Agencies, It's an Opportunity

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There was a time when only one black box mattered: Google's search algorithm.

Today, in ad tech, everyone owns a black box. As Keith Weed, CMO of Unilever, puts it, the result is "chaos."

To illustrate the challenges involved in this, let me tell you about some work we've done for a client of ours recently.

On behalf of this client, we simultaneously engaged three demand-side platforms: Affectv, Bizo and Quantcast. All three promise to help with audience development. All three operate by overlaying external sources of data on top of a client's existing data. Each claims that the eyeballs it delivers is the best. Quantcast says it's "almost psychic when it comes to reading behavior patterns" and that its insights are "so super-strong" it can "deliver high-potential customers you didn't even know existed."

Bizo says it can "identify and precisely target business people by specific business demographic criteria." Affectv, based in the U.K., says that "by understanding and translating the real-time data people produce . . . we can deliver a new standard in digital advertising."

So how did our three-way contest pan out? Well, in terms of cost per action, performance was nothing to shout about, but nothing to get depressed about, either.

The more interesting output was the data (all three companies deliver not just leads, but information, too.) All three gave us reports profiling our client's audience. And here's the thing: the content of each of these reports was radically different. Yes, some of those insights were very interesting. But they were frequently contradictory and surrounded by a fair amount of waffle.

We had to boil down these insights to prepare something that was ready to share with the client. Which is fine. This, after all, is what we're paid to do: make judgments and build a narrative. Given the proliferation of ad-tech options in the market, I suspect we're going to be doing this kind of work for a very long time to come.

Remaining relevant
The starting point for a lot of recent commentary is different. It's hard to avoid the notion that ad tech is killing agencies, rather than helping them to remain relevant. For example, we've seen the migration to programmatic raise questions about the future of agency trading desks. Sir Martin Sorrell is skeptical, and I am, too. "I don't think that good people will want to work in something like an in-house agency," he said recently. "They want variety. . . The war for talent is tough now and it's going to get tougher."

Threats to the agency model seem to lurk everywhere. We're told, for example, that we should be worried about RocketFuel, Criteo and the like selling direct. I beg to differ. As Chairman Mao once recommended, letting a thousand flowers bloom is the best way to promote progress. And to the extent that ad-tech firms are successful at selling direct, the amount of complexity that marketers need to manage will only increase. The result? Agencies will become more, rather than less, useful to their clients.

The truth is that the automation may be proceeding more slowly than some would like us to believe. (Strange but true: by one estimate, Microsoft still controls 76% of the market for media-planning software, courtesy of Excel.) This is a process that is going to play out over many years, in much the same way that it took the Fortune 500 the best part of a decade to install ERP and CRM and get it right.

Consider the numbers
Luma Partners offers seven "landscapes" relevant to our business as an agency (display, search, video, mobile, social, content marketing and marketing automation). Excluding agencies, media owners, carriers, enterprise software vendors, commerce and payment services and hardware manufacturers, these seven areas encompass a total of 1,801 vendors.

All of these companies -- and plenty more -- have something to sell to us. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. One industry conference, ad:tech, now takes place in nine locations around the world. At Cannes this year, ad-tech executives swarmed everywhere, leaving creatives in the shade. PubMatic spent $100,000 on its presence, MediaMath sent 15 people and hosted two penthouse parties. Google staged its own conference within a conference, running 23 sessions over five days and offering yoga classes on the beach. As Miles Young, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, sniffily put it: "It's become like a Consumer Electronics Show sur la mer; a sales exchange."

The traditional market for buying media was sufficiently complex that advertisers hired agencies to navigate it on their behalf. Why should it be any different in the case of digital advertising? When it comes to digital, the level of complexity is far greater. In the words of Terence Kawaja of Luma Partners: "Fragmentation is here to stay... I've now stopped calling for consolidation. It will just never happen... I say to people: Just get comfortable with the fact there are going to be a lot of companies."

We've witnessed an incredible flowering of innovation during the past five years. But we're nowhere near done. The majority of clients are going to need agencies to curate this incredibly vibrant and confusing market on their behalf for a long time to come.
Bob Ray is the president of DWA, a media-planning and communications agency for tech companies.

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Ad Tech Isn't a Threat to Agencies, It's an Opportunity

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There was a time when only one black box mattered: Google's search algorithm. Today, in ad tech, everyone owns a black box. As Keith Weed, CMO of Unilever, puts it, the result is "chaos." To illustrate the challenges involved in this, let me tell you about some work we've done for a client of ours recently.

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He may be huge on YouTube, but few in Hollywood know who Shane Dawson is. Not yet, anyway.

The 26-year-old is best known to 12 million-plus subscribers across three different YouTube channels, but he's about to make a name for himself in film and TV, too. Dawson is directing a movie commissioned by Starz for upcoming docuseries "The Chair," which follows two filmmakers who are given the same script to shoot. And NBC ordered a script for "Losin' It," a sitcom based on Dawson's life working at a Jenny Craig weight-loss center, which he is developing with Sony Pictures Television.

" YouTube opened up a lot of doors," said Dawson, who is repped by UTA. "It's the best place to be discovered, because it's something that you personally have done, rather than (you) reading someone else's words."

But Chris Moore, ("American Reunion," "Project Greenlight 3") executive producer of "The Chair," confesses to being nervous about enlisting a YouTuber with zero experience to fashion a feature-length film. "It's really difficult to make the transition Shane's trying to make," Moore said. "Bringing digital talent into this space can be very risky."

Photo by Chris McPherson for Variety
There is no doubt a new generation of talent who create their own content on YouTube, Vine, Instagram and other platforms are becoming household names among young consumers online. Parents may be oblivious to names like Cameron Dallas or Jennxpenn because those talents aren't on Disney Channel or the radio, but they inspire screaming throngs reminiscent of Beatlemania when they make appearances in the flesh.

Yet as the careers of people like Dawson mature, this species of stardom is subject to interpretation. There's the question of whether this new breed has the staying power to cross over into traditional media, but that may not even be necessary, given the increasingly meaningless distinction between Internet culture and the so-called mainstream.

It wasn't so long ago that establishing unknown talents required aggressively marketing them in film and TV in hopes of pumping up box office or ratings. But digital platforms have flipped the conventional formula on its head. Online personalities amass an audience first, and make money after. And what's more, building that audience can be done without Hollywood's help.

"The viewer is the new studio boss," said Will Keenan, president of Endemol Beyond USA, the TV production giant's domestic digital arm. "We can't force content on people anymore."

Traditional media companies know this all too well. That's why there's been a rash of deals like Disney buying Maker Studios, a large YouTube multichannel network, in a deal worth upwards of $950 million; and DreamWorks Animation snapping up AwesomenessTV last year for up to $117 million. Now Fullscreen, another big MCN, is in talks with AT&T and Chernin Group to sell a controlling stake to the two companies' Otter Media online-video joint venture.

These acquisitions are being made because young adults watch significantly more online video than do their elders, according to Nielsen. In the first quarter of 2014, consumers aged 18-24 viewed 2 hours and 28 minutes of online vids per week - nearly an hour more than the average for all adults. TV isn't dying, exactly, but consumption patterns are changing.
SEE ALSO: VIDEO: Shane Dawson Talks About His Next Project
No wonder that for every digital star like Dawson, there are others content to build their careers on the Internet. Many are making comfortable livings - and then some - by serving their fan bases, without trying to make it big elsewhere.
Shane Dawson photographed by Chris McPherson for Variety
The biggest YouTube star is Felix Kjellberg, a 24-year-old Swede known as PewDiePie to his 29 million subscribers, whom he delights with daily videos in which he simply plays videogames while cracking jokes. Kjellberg recently revealed that his channel grossed $4 million in ad revenue in 2013.

"The biggest stars in the space aren't making the same type of money that traditional celebrities are," said Brent Weinstein, head of digital media at UTA. "But they're catching up."

Moreover, there is a "long tail of digital creators" who make higher incomes than the rank-and-file of traditional actors, Weinstein said. According to YouTube, several thousand channel partners earn six-figure incomes through the vidsite.

WME digital agent Avi Gandhi said he's seeing an increasing number of online stars making seven figures a year, with some approaching eight. As the ad business - which has had 70 years of buying on TV - starts figuring out that the Internet is a missed opportunity, even more dollars will pour into the ecosystem. "These digital stars, a lot of them, have online audiences bigger than TV shows," Gandhi noted.
STAYING NATIVE
Jenna Marbles surely figures into this elite group. With 13.5 million subscribers, she is second only to comedy duo Smosh among U.S.-based YouTubers. Born and raised in Rochester, N.Y., Marbles - whose real name is Jenna Mourey - still has no desire to do anything other than regularly post odd, funny and personal episodes on her channel every Wednesday. The 27-year-old mostly produces the entire show alone from her Los Angeles apartment.
SEE ALSO: Survey: YouTube Stars More Popular Than Mainstream Celebs Among U.S. Teens
"Everyone is expecting you to use what you're currently doing on YouTube to do something else," she said. "I'm like, what's wrong with hanging out and getting drunk and making silly videos? It's not that I don't have the foresight for a larger project. I'm just not convinced it's worthwhile."

Marbles does have one gig that's not strictly on the Internet: She's the host of SiriusXM's "YouTube 15" show, which features the top emerging and breakout songs based on YouTube data of the previous week.

The goals and aspirations of digital talent vary widely, according to Sarah Passe, an exec in CAA's business development group who focuses on the sector. "If you're addicted to that social interaction, it's more fun to post a video than, say, write a script," she said. "They're used to having an idea and executing it" - and sometimes it's challenging to get them interested in opportunities that are farther out.

And just because someone is famous on YouTube doesn't mean they can succeed in another sphere, even when that is what they want. Look no further than Rebecca Black, the Southern California teen who vaulted to instant fame with her viral YouTube musicvideo " Friday " - much of the traffic driven by people mocking her - then faded back into obscurity.

"Just because you have a huge fanbase as a sports star doesn't mean you can be a movie star," said Chad Gutstein, CEO of Machinima, a gamer and fanboy-focused multichannel network whose backers include Google and Warner Bros.

Still, talent crossovers from the Internet into TV and other media are ongoing, and they have been, in dribs and drabs, for some time. Lucas Cruikshank began making "Fred" videos on YouTube, starring as a whiny teen with a high-pitched voice in 2008, when he was 13. Nickelodeon cut a deal with him, ultimately producing three "Fred" movies and the 20-episode "Fred: The Show" series that aired in 2012.
Jenna Marbles photographed by Chris McPherson for Variety
More recently Nick has run shows from AwesomenessTV. The Viacom kids' cabler also has ordered a 13-episodes series "ReactToThat," based on the YouTube franchise created by the Fine Bros. showing people from different walks of life responding to viral videos.

Another YouTube property that's jumped the media divide is Epic Meal Time, currently with 6.4 million subscribers. The Web series' creator, 29-year-old Canadian Harley Morenstein, prepares outlandish dishes (e.g., burger-stuffed lasagna, an 84-egg sandwich, a donut casserole) each week with his brother Darren and assorted buddies.

It's now a show on A+E Networks' FYI network: "Epic Meal Empire," a 16-episode half-hour series that premiered July 26, in which the crew invents crazy food concoctions, based on requests.
SEE ALSO: Digital Stars: Inside the 24-Hour Job on the Internet Stage
Morenstein said the longer TV format helps bring out the nuances of the show's personalities. And the bigger budget has meant the Epic Mealers can super-size their thinking. In the YouTube series, EMT created a foot-long car made entirely of meat. On the TV show, the freaky foodies made an edible Corvette the size of a golf cart, with a pizza steering wheel, rear tires made of Rice Krispies and an actual grill in the back.

The most amazing part? "Not having to clean up at the end of the show," Morenstein said. "We had people for that!"
THE PLATFORMS
YouTube isn't the only place where digital stars are finding footholds in mainstream entertainment.

Logan Paul, 19, is a fast-rising digital star who is as close to an overnight Internet success as it gets. Last July, he began posting funny six-second skits on Twitter's Vine, and now has 4.8 million followers.

"It's gotten to the point where it has totally consumed my life," said Paul, who grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland. In June, after finishing his freshman year at Ohio U., he drove cross-country - with his parrot, Maverick, who has his own Twitter account - to West Hollywood to pursue ambitions of growing his digital brand and potentially breaking into TV and movies.

He's already gotten a foot in the door. Next year, Paul has a role in Fox comedy series "Weird Loners." In the pilot, he appears as "Naked White Guy," a dude who wakes up in the show's Queens, N.Y.-set townhouse after a raging party. Executive producer Michael J. Weithorn had seen Paul's Vines, and called him in for an audition.
SEE ALSO: Why I Watched Nothing But YouTube for a Month
In the meantime, Paul is making real money as a Viner through sponsorship deals with brands including HBO, Pepsi, Ubisoft, Virgin Mobile and Ritz crackers. He's on a national tour this summer to promote Hanes' new X-Temp line of shirts and underwear. His Vine bits for the campaign include "World's Worst Matador" and "Modern Day Shootouts" - designed to show "I can stay cool under pressure," Paul said. Like other digital stars, he's learned to be a hybrid of entrepreneur and showman: He recently signed a management deal with L.A.-based the Collective, and is repped by UTA.

How much does Paul make? "More money than I made mowing lawns in high school," is all he would say. According to social-media ad agency Niche, Vine sponsorship deals average in the mid-thousands per campaign, but can be worth up to $50,000.

And if a video hub consisting of videos that last no more than six seconds like Vine seems an unlikely springboard, consider Snapchat, a messaging service for sending photos that expire in 10 seconds that's hugely popular among teens, with an estimated 82 million monthly active users, most of whom are between ages 13 and 25, according to research service BI Intelligence.

Last fall, Snapchat introduced a Stories feature, which lets posts stay up for 24 hours before they disappear. In June, content using the feature was getting 1 billion views daily - more than double that of two months earlier.

Logan increasingly distributes videos on Snapchat. He said the 24-hour timeout adds an exclusivity and urgency for fans to check out videos ASAP.

For many digital stars, it's not about sticking to any one platform. Many of them have presences on multiple platforms, driving fans from one to the other. But it's YouTube that is easily the biggest platform that's been fueling the ascent of digital stars. The Google subsidiary has a first-mover advantage, according to Robert Kyncl, YouTube's global head of content. "If you become the place where (creators) built their audience, there's a tremendous sense of loyalty by the audience out of habit," he said.

YouTube has promoted its star creatives in national marketing campaigns on TV and other media, aimed at raising awareness on Madison Avenue that the site has popular content that reaches a wide audience. In April, it kicked off a series of ads featuring fashionistas Michelle Phan and Bethany Mota, and foodie Rosanna Pansino. This summer, it's highlighting Epic Rap Battles and Vice News.

YouTube execs quietly have reached out to Hollywood producers to potentially play matchmaker with some of the top-tier talent on the video site, and may selectively invest in original programming, according to sources familiar with the strategy. Various strings may be attached to the funding, including exclusive windowing on YouTube or a share of revenue for content distributed off the site. Asked for comment, a rep said, "We are always exploring various content and marketing ideas to support and accelerate our creators."

The initiative may be partly in response to YouTubers who have grown to fame on the site - and then launched bigger projects off the site. Those include "Camp Takota," the comedy film starring YouTube personalities Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart that was released this year and is available for purchase through VHX and iTunes.
MAKING MONEY
The money digital stars earn doesn't come solely from YouTube, which is the only one of the online platforms that pays talent anything. For many, YouTube ad revenue, of which Google gets a cut, is the largest chunk of change. But the biggest Internet icons - whether they're on YouTube, Twitter, Vine or another social network - have a host of other ways to monetize their large fan followings.

Sponsored content, for starters, is a growing piece of the pie. The Fine Bros., for example, have created videoclips based on the "React" concept to promote Universal Studios' "A Million Ways to Die in the West," AMC series "Halt and Catch Fire," Friskies cat food and etailer Audible.

Target also is dipping into the YouTube well. The retail giant is running an online ad campaign this summer aimed at college-bound kids, with branded videos on Target's YouTube channel from creators including Todrick Hall, Ann Le and Tiffany Garcia.
YouTube-related data and revenue estimates provided by OpenSlate
Live concerts and events featuring digital celebs also have taken off. DigiTour Media, an L.A. startup that produces concerts and events featuring YouTube and Vine stars, launched its first music tour in 2011. Last year, DigiTour sold 18,000 tickets to its events. This year, it's already sold 100,000, and expects to top 125,000, with events in 45 markets (including four festivals, in New York, Los Angeles, London and Toronto). In 2015, DigiTour expects attendance to reach 250,000, according to co-founder Meridith Valiando Rojas.

"The touring business is the healthiest part of the music business," said Valiando Rojas, a former A&R exec with Columbia Records. "We realized that there was an untapped opportunity in the social space."

In May, DigiTour, which Valiando Rojas said is profitable, received just under $2 million in funding from Ryan Seacrest and Advance Publications, parent company of Conde Nast. Also in the music space, DWA's AwesomenessTV, together with music-biz impresarios Russell Simmons and Steve Rifkind, cut a deal with Universal Music Group to form Awesomeness Music, a label focused on YouTube talent. Among those signed to the label are Cimorelli, the singing group of six sisters from Sacramento, Calif., that started out doing covers of songs and now has 2.7 million YouTube subscribers.

Books are another source of revenue. Simon & Schuster's Atria Publishing Group, in partnership with UTA, this spring formed Keywords Press, an imprint that publishes books by Internet celebs. Keywords has announced deals with Dawson and Justine Ezarik (" iJustine " on YouTube).

Then, there's the opportunity for the digitally famous to sell their own branded merchandise to their legions of followers. Mota, the fashion and beauty vlogger with 7 million subscribers, distributes her own line of clothing through Aeropostale.

Phan, who has a deal with Endemol Beyond USA to develop her primary YouTube channel, a fashion-related MCN and other video properties, sells her own line of makeup in partnership with L'Oreal. Even after YouTube splashed her face on TV and billboards, Phan said she still doesn't think she's become mainstream. "The majority of my branding is online, and I am going to choose to stay online unless the right opportunity comes along," she said.

Other digital-video sites are tapping into YouTube talent, as well. AOL in July launched "Follow Me," a 10-episode series documenting the lives of digital creators - mostly culled from YouTube. The show, produced by Fullscreen, will feature stars including Brittani Louise Taylor (1.1 million subscribers); and Ricky Dillon and JC Caylen, two popular members of online video group Our 2nd Life (O2L).
WHAT IT TAKES
There are specific qualities that determine who becomes a celebrity online, standing out from the billions of people who also post content.

Sure, being a star in any medium requires having some kind of charisma and the ability to perform. Being attractive and funny helps, too. But the key attributes for online success, according to professional Internet creators and industry execs, boil down to working hard, consistently delivering fresh content, having an authentic voice and connecting with a virtual audience on an ongoing basis.

It's definitely a full-time job and then some, according to Anthony Padilla, half of the two-man YouTube comedy team Smosh (18.3 million subscribers) with his childhood friend Ian Hecox.

"We've had plenty of days where we worked for 18 hours straight," Padilla said. "We have been doing this stuff for almost nine years. We make sure to take one or two little vacations every year to clear our minds."

The Smosh guys are affiliated with Defy Media, the digital studio formed last year by the merger of Alloy Digital and Break Media.

There's also an element of luck and timing in hitting the digital big time, Hecox said. "We got started on YouTube very early, when there wasn't a lot of content on there," he noted. "I would say it's definitely harder to break through today."

Another big difference between new-style Internet entertainment and old-school TV and movies is that, in many cases, the storytelling itself is all about the creator. It's a mindset and a thirst for popularity that some might call narcissistic. But as long as audiences feel like they have a personal bond with the talent, that's fine.

Marbles put it this way: "I have no tangible talent. My talent is (in) being an Internet friend."

A thick skin is also essential, said Ray William Johnson, who rose to Internet fame with his long-running YouTube series "Equals Three," a shortform program that riffs on trending topics, which he launched in 2009. This March, he announced he was retiring from the show, and relaunched it with a new host, Robby Motz, a 20-year-old theater student who'd never been on YouTube - until now.

Besides liking Motz and believing in his talent, Johnson felt his new host could withstand the vitriol often leveled at high-profile digital stars. "It's hard to perform right out of the gate, and have people call you the most horrible things humans can call you," Johnson said.

CAA clients from the traditional media biz often asked how they can grow their audiences on social networks, Passe said. But that's not something that can be outsourced or manufactured. "There are no shortcuts," she said. "The people who are good at it, are very good at it. Ultimately, it's about them."

Any way you look at it, Millennials, like their parents and grandparents before them, are eagerly consuming new and different forms of entertainment. Baby Boomers had broadcast television; Gen X had cable TV; and today, there's digital media. The significant change: Internet content doesn't have to be distributed by a studio or a network.

But eventually, there will be a blurring of mediums, according to some bizzers - a convergence, in which the distinctions of whether someone is a digital celebrity, a TV personality or movie star are all but erased.

"Focusing on the talent is the big thing," said Erin McPherson, chief content officer at Maker Studios. With the MCN now part of Disney, she's scouting for talent that can cross over to opportunities on film and TV - including ABC and ESPN, as well as non-Disney networks - and other digital platforms. The idea is to also work the flow the other way: so, for example, Lucasfilm's "Star Wars" team can mix it up with digital-native creators who know how to win fans in big numbers.

Arguably, traditional stars like Jimmy Kimmel and Ellen DeGeneres qualify as YouTube stars given the tremendous followings they've amassed on the platform, according to Kyncl. "You will see both digital-first and analog-first brand building," he said. "Ultimately, it all just blends."

The rise of digital stars - who control their relationship with the audience more closely than any generation of talent that has preceded them - will inevitably change the dynamics of the industry, said Larry Shapiro, senior VP and head of talent at Fullscreen and a former CAA agent. "Hollywood believes in pixie dust. Silicon Valley believes in data," he said. "Today's entertainment has to be a combination of both."

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New Breed of Online Stars Rewrite the Rules of Fame

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He may be huge on YouTube, but few in Hollywood know who Shane Dawson is. Not yet, anyway. The 26-year-old is best known to 12 million-plus subscribers across three different YouTube channels, but he's about to make a name for himself in film and TV, too.

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Recession kills off brand loyalty at supermarkets

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Recession kills off brand loyalty at supermarkets

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Increasingly penny-savvy shoppers are electing to ditch their favourite stores in favour of rivals offering keener deals, as the lingering aftermath of recession kills off the last vestiges of brand loyalty in the retail sector - according to retail monitoring group IGD.

The survey found that the typical shopper now jumps between four different supermarkets to stock up their kitchen with the proportion of people using more than one store on a single trip rising from 42 to 47 per cent.

Discount grocers such as Aldi and Lidl have led these changes as they attract increasing numbers of shoppers from the established 'big four' chains; Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.

Commenting on the changing shopping patterns IGD chief executive Joanne Denney-Finch, said: "While the UK economy continues to improve and some shoppers tell us they're feeling better-off, savvy shopping techniques picked up during the recession have become mainstream."

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Shoppers flirt with rival supermarkets as recession kills off brand loyalty

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Increasingly penny-savvy shoppers are electing to ditch their favourite stores in favour of rivals offering keener deals, as the lingering aftermath of recession kills off the last vestiges of brand loyalty in the retail sector - according to retail monitoring group IGD.

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Premier League kicks off with 5.5m Tweets

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Premier League kicks off with 5.5m Tweets

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The opening weekend of the 2014/15 #PremierLeague season has set Twitter alight with 5.5m tweets mentioning matches over the period, with Manchester United dominating the majority of conversations - albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Highlights from the weekend include Manchester United's square off against Swansea which was the most-discussed match of the period with 1m tweets, with the Reds cementing their dominance by claiming two of the three most discussed Twitter moments.

These were the full-time whistle as Manchester United went down 2-1 to Swansea, which generated 32k tweets per minute; Arsenal taking a 2-1 lead when Aaron Ramsey notched up an injury-time goal (28k tweets per minute) and Wayne Rooney scoring an equaliser for United to take it to one all in their Swansea match, which clocked up 21k tweets per minute.

Manchester United added to their Twitter tally after their manager, Louis van Gaal, claimed the most discussed person on Twitter accolade.

In all the top three most mentioned players over the period were Aaron Ramsey (@aaronramsey), Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) and Ashley Young (@youngy18) - the latter after apparently being hit by some stray guano whilst on the pitch.

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#PremierLeague season kicks off with 5.5m tweets, with Manchester United leading the pack

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The opening weekend of the 2014/15 #PremierLeague season has set Twitter alight with 5.5m tweets mentioning matches over the period, with Manchester United dominating the majority of conversations - albeit for all the wrong reasons.

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Driverless cars to hit Britain's roads within 6 months

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Driverless cars to hit Britain's roads within 6 months

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The UK Government have given the green light to fast-track the arrival of driverless cars.

Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed two measures this morning that will bring the cars to British roads by January 2015.

The announcement comes after Google announced they were to manufacture 100 self-driving cars in May.

Which cities will win?

Though this is an exciting announcement, it is only trials in selected areas of the country that will take part initially.

Up to three cities will be selected to host trials for autonomous cars which will last between 18 and 36 months.

Cities across the country can bid for a share of a £10m competition to host the driverless car trials.

Driverless car review

Ministers have also launched a review that will examine road regulations to decide how the UK can become one of the first countries in the world to have driverless cars.

The review will look into both cars that drive themselves but have a driver who can take over and cars that are completely autonomous with no driver.

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Driverless cars to hit UK roads in 6 months - UKTN (UK Tech News)

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The UK Government have given the green light to fast-track the arrival of driverless cars. Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed two measures this morning that will bring the cars to British roads by January 2015. The announcement comes after Google announced they were to manufacture 100 self-driving cars in May.

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Social media monitoring by employers predicted to rise

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Social media monitoring by employers predicted to rise

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A third of young people would be happy for their employer to have access to their social media profiles in return for job security, according to a report that claims such personal data monitoring will become more commonplace.

The report, written by consultants from PwC using a survey of 10,000 workers worldwide and 500 human resources (HR) professionals, suggests personal data from Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites could be used by employers to understand what motivates their workforce, reasons why people might move jobs and to improve employee wellbeing.

PwC predicts that online monitoring by employers will rise over the next decade. By 2020, people currently aged 18-32 will form half of the global workforce, bringing with them different attitudes to technology and personal data.

The research claims that younger people are more open to sharing their personal data with their employers, with 36% of Generation Y workers saying they would be happy to do so.

John Harding, human resource services partner at PwC in Manchester, said: "Just as advertisers and retailers are using data from customers' online and social media activity to tailor their shopping experience, organisations could soon start using workers' personal data (with their permission) to measure and anticipate performance and retention issues.

"This sort of data profiling could also extend to real-time monitoring of employees' health, with proactive health guidance to help reduce sick leave. Key to the success of organisations being able to use employee data will be developing measurable benefits for those who hand over their data and building trust through clear rules about how data is acquired, used and shared."

Cary Cooper, distinguished professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University, said there were obvious pitfalls. "First of all, it is naive to think that if you trade off your privacy rights (eg access to one's social media) that an employer can ever guarantee job security," he said.

"Second, I can't see, if an employer had access to an employee's social media, how this could possibly lead to greater employee motivation or wellbeing. This seems a plain case of trying to find out what employees are doing and thinking - clearly an intrusion into their private life. I see no HR justification for it whatsoever."
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Social media monitoring by employers predicted to rise

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A third of young people would be happy for their employer to have access to their social media profiles in return for job security, according to a report that claims such personal data monitoring will become more commonplace.

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Convincing people of the power and potential of data is the biggest obstacle to progress, according to author and academic Viktor Mayer-Schönberger.

The author and Oxford Internet Institute professor told an audience of Wikipedia experts and volunteers that "less than 1% of the world's data is still analogue," but that there is still "a trade-off between the quality and quantity of data points". He asked is we should aim to collect more data, or try to prioritise gathering higher quality data.

Charting the evolution of small data, which shaped how we made sense of the world around us, he believes that collecting data could be cheap, as well as the cost of analysing it. "Small data - like Newton's law of gravity - gave us shortcuts. Einstein took it one step further and captured relativity."

Mayer-Schönberger said we need to "embrace the messiness" of data. "One example of this is Google Translate, which came to being from previous failed experiments with machine translation from the 50s onwards.

"Nothing happened until the end of the 1980s, when IBM's brilliant engineers had the idea of improving algorithms of languages. It was only Google, 10 years later, who saw that what was missing was data. They fed the entire world wide web into the project, and it didn't matter if the correlations were messy."

'The value of data lies in reusing it'

The same goes for everyday, more human examples. Doctors in Toronto used a big data approach to save the lives of premature babies; establishing their vital signs helped them to predict if they were vulnerable to infections.

"The data was messy, the findings were correlations. But it helped the doctors to find the first steps, which meant ensuring medications were delivered, and thus lives being saved. In this way, big data gives us a new perspective on reality."

Ultimately, Mayer-Schönberger argues, the value of data lies in reusing it. In Britain, he pointed to the example of the NHS, which uses data to analyse different prescription cultures across the country, and can extrapolate new ways to save money.

For Mayer-Schönberger, society does not lack expertise and tools, because more people are choosing a career with data at the forefront. But data is missing, and access to data needs improving.

Why we must remember to delete - and forget - in the digital age
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Better data could save lives and make sense of our world, says academic

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Convincing people of the power and potential of data is the biggest obstacle to progress, according to author and academic Viktor Mayer-Schönberger. The author and Oxford Internet Institute professor told an audience of Wikipedia experts and volunteers that "less than 1% of the world's data is still analogue," but that there is still "a trade-off between the quality and quantity of data points".

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Rules around working from home to be cleared up for entrepreneurs 

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Rules around working from home to be cleared up for entrepreneurs 

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Near-unscratchable screens that are expected to be one of the biggest selling points of the iPhone 6 when Apple unveils the latest model in September are to go into large-scale production this month.

To create industrial quantities of man-made sapphire, the material already used to cover the fingerprint-sensing home button and camera lens on its phones, Apple has a $578m (£350m) deal with manufacturer GT Advanced Technologies, which has built a plant powered by renewable energy in Mesa, Arizona.

The iPhone 6 will make its first public appearance on 9 September, when Apple has scheduled a big media event. "You should be good without a screen protector on your next iPhone," predicted technology blogger Marques Brownlee, who has subjected what he claimed was a leaked prototype of the new screen to his own durability tests on video: stabbing it with a hunting knife and trying to snap it while standing on it.

Until now Apple has relied on toughened glass, which can however easily be shattered and marked. But screens already demonstrated by GT can withstand scratches from concrete. Its thin sapphire layers, which could also find their way onto Apple's rumoured smart watch, are flexible, potentially improving resistance to knocks and falls. In March 2012, Apple patented a concept for laminating thin layers of sapphire to each other and to glass, producing surfaces that are strong and resist chipping.

Apple is said to be preparing two new iPhone models, both of which will have larger screens than their predecessors. The biggest will measure 5.5 inches corner to corner, while the smaller iPhone will have a 4.7-inch screen, according to reports.

The Wall Street Journal claims Apple has ordered an initial batch of between 70m and 80m handsets, its biggest first run production ever, to be sent out from factory gates in time for Christmas and New Year. Last year's initial order for the iPhone 5S, which introduced Apple's first fingerprint sensor and had a 4-inch screen like its predecessor, the iPhone 5, was for between 50m and 60m devices. But Apple is preparing for a ramp in sales from China, where its recent distribution partnership with China Mobile should boost demand.

GT chief executive Thomas Gutierrez told investors on a call this month: "The build-out of our Arizona facility, which has involved taking a 1.4 million square foot facility from a shell to a functional structure and the installation of over 1 million square feet of sapphire growth and fabrication equipment, is nearly complete and we are commencing the transition to volume production."

GT's new plant will reach full operational capacity in early 2015, but the company is expecting to collect a final $139m payment for its construction from Apple in October.
Topics

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iPhone 6: mass production of new sapphire screens begins

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Near-unscratchable screens that are expected to be one of the biggest selling points of the iPhone 6 when Apple unveils the latest model in September are to go into large-scale production this month.

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[AUDIO VERSION: I also recorded an audio version of this blog post. Click below to listen. Let me know if this is something you find helpful!]
Facebook recently made updates to their API and SDKs, but one of the most impactful changes was buried at the bottom of the announcement:

You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app's Page.

The change went largely unnoticed for the first 24 hours or so. I've read responses ranging from "no big deal" to "freak-out mode." In this post, I'm going to help you understand what this change means and how it will impact you as a Facebook marketer.

What It Means

If you use apps like ShortStack, Heyo, TabSite and many, many more, you may be using a like-gating (also known as "fan-gating") feature. It works by showing different content to fans and non-fans.

Let's use a contest for Brand A as an example. To make it work, you need to provide different views whether a user is a fan ("Click to enter!") or non-fan ("like first to enter!"). When you visit Brand A's custom app, Facebook will check to see whether or not you are a fan and present the view accordingly.

Well, this is no longer going to work. If you already have an app that is using this functionality, it will continue to like-gate until November 5. After that, the like-gating functionality of the app will stop working.

Like-gating functionality will not work for any new apps created going forward.

Why Facebook Did It

Well, let's take it straight from Facebook:

To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.

Facebook wants users to like brand pages because they actually "like" them, not because they were promised some freebie or contest entry for doing it.

Ultimately, Facebook says this will improve the experience for both users (they will see content they actually want to see) and advertisers (targeting by interests is more effective).

Why It Makes Sense

Look, I have used like-gating. I constantly run ads to build relevant likes, and one approach I took in the past was offering my free ebook in exchange for a like. I found that to be very effective.

I personally think this approach works. I am giving highly relevant content to people in exchange for a like. If they like that content, they should also like seeing my posts in their News Feed.

Unfortunately, this may be the exception when it comes to like-gating. The majority of brands using like-gating do it in connection to a contest. Many offer prizes (think iPads) that aren't closely connected to the brand. Or it could be in exchange for coupons or even a contest with a relevant prize.

The main issue with this form of like-gating is that it is not in exchange for content. There is no implied desire to see that brand's content in their News Feed.

On one hand, like-gating can be compared to website lead magnets where a valuable piece of content is offered in exchange for an email address. In either case, the value of that opt-in may be less than if provided without incentive. But the lead magnet is certainly an effective method of list building.
The difference, though, is that the negative impact of like-gating goes far beyond your number of likes.
Facebook tells us that the average user would see 1,500 stories in a given day. Facebook's algorithms bring that number down to a more manageable 300. In order for Facebook to be a desirable place for users, the best and most relevant content needs to be surfaced.

Facebook uses many signals to determine what users see. But like-gating confuses those signals. Does a user really want to see content from that brand? It's not always clear.

This move is aimed at preserving the value of the like. If users are liking pages for the purpose of getting something rather than because they actually want to see the content from that brand, it can harm the user experience. A bad user experience means users spend less time on Facebook.

Less time on Facebook - and fewer users - also negatively impacts advertisers. The implied reason is obvious - advertisers need users to be online to target them.

But preserving the value of the like is extremely important for advertisers as well. If I target users who like Brand B's page, I do so because I think they have a common interest. But if Brand B built their audience through nothing but contests and giveaways, the value of that targeting is minimized.

That's why I've written before about the "death" of interest targeting. It's impossible to be 100% confident in the quality of another brand's fan base. They may have acquired their audience by buying likes, running poorly targeted ads or by constantly running giveaways.

Why It May Be Too Late

This all sounds great, but I can't help but think Facebook is a few years behind on this change to make much of a difference.

There are well over 1 Billion Facebook users who already like dozens, if not hundreds, of pages. Audiences are well established. Implementing this change will do nothing about the people who were incentivized to like pages in the past.

While this should be a positive change, the increase in quality will be a drop in the bucket. It should hardly be noticeable, particularly for larger pages.

I appreciate the move, and it may actually help the user experience. If a user rarely interacts with a brand, they won't see that brand's content anyway. But I doubt it will do much of anything for advertisers.

If I target fans of a particular page, I'm not able to only target "actively engaged" fans. I target all fans, and that will include those who were incentivized to like the page.

But targeting based on activity seems like a pretty darn good idea, doesn't it??

Likes Still Matter

One common response to this change I've read is that it doesn't matter because you shouldn't be focused on likes anyway.
I find this to be way off base.
The argument is focused first on the fact that Organic Reach is down for most brands, so the value of a like is diminished. While Organic Reach may be down for some (not all - including me), brands are still reaching a lot of people for free. That remains significant.
Likes still matter.
Additionally, the act of a "like" helps marketers bucket users for more effective targeting. If you build your audience with relevant people, this gives you a highly effective group of people to target when building your email list, driving traffic to your website or selling.

I've seen it over and over again: Fans convert at a very high rate. I see this through organic content and with ads. Read this example and this one from my personal experiences.

Now What?

This isn't the end of the world. Embrace that your fans will be those who care most about your brand. But also accept that it will now be harder to increase those numbers, particularly if you previously thrived with contests and other like-gating.

No matter what the method of increasing your audience, you need to establish a compelling value proposition. Why should someone like your page? The "incentive" may be as simple as providing the most thorough, helpful or entertaining information in your niche.

Don't panic. Increasing likes still matters. But it may be time to get more creative with your methods.

Additionally, you should still use third party apps to build your email list. So instead of requiring users like your page to get the incentive, you are collecting an email address. This is allowed!

Your Turn

How does the loss of like-gating impact your approach and Facebook marketing in general?
Let me know in the comments below!

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No More Facebook Like-Gating: What It Means and Why You Should Care - Jon Loomer Digital

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AUDIO VERSION: I also recorded an audio version of this blog post. Click below to listen. Let me know if this is something you find helpful!] Facebook recently made updates to their API and SDKs, but one of the most impactful changes was buried at the bottom of the announcement: You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page.

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Startups and roundabouts

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Facts and numbers

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Cool stuff

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Opinion pieces from the industry

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Big updates