The Life Cube Project touched many lives during its 69 days in downtown Las Vegas. The following images are just a sample of some of the “thank you” notes written over the course of the project. Whether they were handwritten letters, comments on Facebook or Twitter, or blogs posts about the Life Cube, each and every note was deeply appreciated! Click the images for a closer look at some of the kind and wonderful words Cube-ists shared about the downtown Las Vegas Life Cube. #thankyou #thelifecubeproject #Burningman #downtownlasvegas #LasVegas #lifecubeproject #dtlv #lifecubeproject #thelifecubeproject #lifecube #lifecube #lifecube2014 #appreciation #BurningMan

#TheLifeCube #burningmanburningman #artatburningman #skeeter #BM2012 #burningman2012 #lifecube #artatburningman #bm2011 #burningman2011

After years of loyalty to a company and their product, I think my relationship with blackberry is about to end. It is funny to think how many people I influenced as an early adopter back in 1998 when the company I was at switched from Motorola pagers to a new product called “blackberry”. I think I’ve had every model and still pay for an enterprise server and support. Below is my email to Tier 2 support at RIM. Attention: Supervisor of Tier 2 Support I would like to first thank the people that took the time to help me on Sunday and Monday. We struggled with back-ups, upgrading the operating system, and restore. This all started with 2 issues: 1 -an update to the facebook app, and 2 – the phone shutting down intermittently and draining the battery when checking voice mail or taking a call. The problem happened again, and I was walked through logging process. I was asked to email when it happened again and email bb support, where someone would call back to examine the log. I emailed yesterday and again this AM a specific time. After no return call, I called and the person was not familiar with the case. I asked if one of the people that had worked on it was available. I have been a blackberry user since 1998. I have been the advocate for 4 companies moving to blackberry, not counting companies I am an advisor or board member. It has gotten harder to remain loyal to a product that has failed to keep up with current feature and function offered by other mobile devices. Often, many of my colleagues make fun of the fact I am still on blackberry. I would appreciate a call from someone that can look at the log. It is coming to the time where I finally just bail on blackberry and buy and android or apple. It used to be that BB offered amazing quality products and support. The first response from a south american call center post dealing with ATT support was terrible. Your own tech person in S. America is not even using a blackberry. I am available for about 30 minutes, then not till tonight or over the weekend. Scott Cohen #z10 #mobiledevice #mobilephone #blackberry #ATT #customerexperience #ResearchInMotion #Apple #RIM #customerservice #Android #blackberry10

I recently went looking for a car for the first time in over 7 years. I owned a 2005 Jeep Wrangler (rag top with a plow) with only 21,000 miles. I had the pleasure and displeasure of visiting a number of dealers in the Westchester area. Disclosure: I don’t like cars. Don’t know a lot about cars. My dad and brother were car guys. My wife knows cars. Did I mention I don’t like cars? Also, I don’t like shopping for cars. Observations & The Experience of Buying a New Car White Plains Honda. Waste of time. Poor (translate rip-off) value on trade-in and higher price quote on a cheaper model. The used car manager was Jersey, the salesperson was Chris. WORST: Avoid this Dealer. Westchester Mazda. If I did not buy the Fiat, I would definitely have bought the Mazda2 from Everol McKenzie. The dealership is awesome and they are straight shooters. I have a lot of respect for a business that hires people that deal fair and square. Most of the employees have been with the owner (Vincent ViSimone) for over 20 years! Victor Bellavia gave a fair price quote for my trade-in and Everol followed through on locating a car that fit what I was looking for. No pressure and honest. Really Really Good: Highly recommended. Fiat of Larchmont. Alfredo Gulla has been selling Fiat for over 50 years! He is a real gentleman and a terrific salesman. He is also the owner. He earned my business and successfully sold me. Good price on the new car and fair price on trade-in. His daughter Silvana works at the dealership too. Followed through on all that was promised and delivered the car at the price. Best: Highly recommended. Scarsdale Ford. Carlos Gonzlez was a straight shooter and very competent. The Ford Fiesta was a good value for the money, and they did offer fair trade-in value. I liked them and they are someone I would have bought a car from. Unfortunately, they did not have the model in stock for me to test drive. Good: Recommended. Yonkers Honda. Javier Cano was knowledgeable and a professional. I liked the Fit, but the extra couple grand just did not make it worthwhile. Honorable Mention/Good: Recommended. Tarrytown Honda. This dealership is great on service (my daughter owns a Honda Fit), but they did not follow-through on the initial sales call. Chad Sanders picked up the ball and was persistent and professional. I would have been happy to do a deal with him. Good: Recommended. Curry Chevrolet. What can I say? GM has failed to put forth a vehicle that competes in the $15-20,000 range. The salesperson never followed up. They had little inventory. Sad statement about the current state of the US auto industry. You may have survived the crisis – but I do not think long term you are producing what car buyers want, and definitely not training sales staff correctly. Poor: Not recommended. Westchester Toyota. You got me to the dealership, but your follow-through on post visit questions was bad. I found the cars to be ok, but you failed to have a sales team to sell correctly. Satisfactory: Not recommended. Bottom line – sales is a tough business. Car sales people have not had a great reputation, but some of the dealers I visited were really well run, with trained sales associates. Most sales people today have a good amount of product knowledge. I found the ones that played games on trade-in value and jerking me around to be offensive, sleazy, and fit the way most people look at car salespeople. I am happy with the car I purchased, and offer serious endorsements to both Fiat of Larchmont and Westchester Mazda. Keywords: Fiat of Larchmont, Westchester Mazda, Westchester Toyota, Curry Chevrolet, Tarrytown Honda, Yonkers Honda, Scarsdale Ford, White Plains Honda, Honda, chevy, ford, jeep, fiat, Toyota, Chevrolet, car dealers, car sales, buying a new car, Westchester car sellers, wrangler, yaris, mazda2, Honda fit, ford fiesta #Toyota #cardealers #ford #Chevrolet #Honda #Westchestercarsellers #yaris #WestchesterToyota #TarrytownHonda #fordfiesta #CurryChevrolet #jeep #mazda2 #buyinganewcar #whiteplainshonda #wrangler #WestchesterMazda #Hondafit #YonkersHonda #ScarsdaleFord #chevy #WhitePlainesHonda #FiatofLarchmont #carsales #fiat

Our first hardcopy of The Life Cube Project photo book has arrived! It has been quite a journey over the last three months to put this together, but getting to hold the book and turn its pages has made it all worthwhile. While we still have some work cut out for us before we are able to send the final version of the book to donors and volunteers — including making final edits and investigating alternative publishers to deliver high-quality and cost-efficient copies — we are happy to share that we are quickly approaching the end of the voyage that has been creating this photo book from scratch. Scott and Kat, all smiles, flipping through the book for the first time. What started out as a 40-page book unexpectedly grew into a 12″ x 12″ 75-page, full color coffee table book. Through the generous donations from over 30 professional photographers and numerous friends, we were able to include over 150 stunning photos as well as carefully written text on the journey of The Life Cube from Burning Man to Downtown Las Vegas. Kat, the creator and designer of The Life Cube Project photo book. Collecting the photographs for the book was an arduous task. We contacted dozens of photographers who documented The Life Cube in DTLV as well as friends who visited the Cube and attended the burn. Once we mentioned we were creating the book on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and this blog; people reached out and eagerly sent in their own photos and artistic interpretations of their experiences at The Life Cube. Thousands of photos streamed in for weeks. As the photos were being collected, the time came to carefully select which ones were to be included in The Life Cube photo book. And when thousands were cut down to only a few hundred, then came the mission of editing each image. After we selected a self-publisher (Blurb) to create our photo book with, we began constructing the layout and design. More photos were removed, added, and edited. Chapters began to take shape, and we embarked on the task of writing, re-writing, and proofreading text for each section of the book. Eventually, everything came together beautifully, and we were left with something we were proud of. Cover photo by Justin Tyler Gines. Months of hard work and dedication have gone into the creation and production of The Life Cube Project photo book. We are eager to finalize its pages, send it to the publisher, and share it with our supporters. #art #thelifecubeproject #downtownlasvegas #lasvegas #TheLifeCube #Burningman #cube #downtownlasvegas #photography #DowntownProject #downtownproject #dtp #LasVegas #dtlv #LV #cubeist #blackrockcity #photobook #cubeist #fineart #fineart #thelifecubeproject #blackrockcity #lifecube #lifecube #TheLifeCube #BurningMan #thelifecubeprojectphotobook

It has been just a few weeks since the burn of the Life Cube in Downtown Las Vegas.  The embers may have cooled, but the memories of the project and the support and enthusiasm of the community, friends and family are still warming my heart. What began as an exploratory trip to Las Vegas at the beginning of last year has resulted in a journey that I will never forget.  There are so many anecdotes, photos, video, blogs, televised reports and news articles and yet they hardly begin to tell the tale!  In the meantime, it is with deep gratitude that I share a small smattering with you.  Attached to this letter are several links to video, and a few images to further pique your interest. While the burn was a spectacular and moving event attended by over 10,000 people, the most meaningful part for me was the interaction with the community.  Over the past three months, I spoke with over five thousand students throughout the Las Vegas valley about the dual missions of the project:  1) writing down your goals for what you want to achieve in life; and 2) connecting art and community.  They responded by asking insightful questions, decorating their own cubes and canvasses, filling out thousands of “wish-sticks” with their own hopes and dreams, and bringing their families downtown to visit the Cube and attend the Burn. Photo of The Life Cube Project in Las Vegas by Cameron Grant and The High Points, Fine Art Photography ~ http://www.thehighpoints.com Ultimately, more than 40,000 wishes went up into the universe.  We had 3700+ photos and videos posted to Instagram, 4500+ likes on Facebook, and even “trended” on Twitter, which they tell me is a big deal.  In addition, the chance to watch and interact with hundreds of artists as they paint and performed around the Cube was a truly special opportunity. This was a very long project.  Whether you were in Las Vegas with me for part of it or cheered us on from afar, your emotional, advisory, artistic, skilled and/or financial support was integral to our success.  Your encouragement has been and continues to be appreciated more than you can possibly know.   Attached is this note with some photographs in PDF format. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. scotte Video Links: ‘The Life Cube 2014’ Fremont East Studios https://vimeo.com/88944146  (3 minutes) ‘The Life Cube Project Documentary’ H. Andrews Joven https://vimeo.com/89526703  (9 minutes) Newspaper Articles from the Las Vegas Sun: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/nov/20/joe-downtown-why-giant-burning-cube-can-change-you/ and http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/feb/04/burn-downtowns-life-cube-inviting-canvas-artists/ Scott Cohen The Life Cube Project (Life Cube LLC) +1.917.690.7691 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thelifecube Website:  http://www.LifeCubeProject.com Instagram:  #lifecube, #lifecubeproject Twitter:  @thelifecube (the above was sent to friends, volunteers, supporters, artists, and craftsman on April 15, 2014) #art #wishsticks #graffitiart #Burningman #brc #downtownlasvegas #graffitiart #dtlv #lifecubeproject #blackrockcity #streetart #lifecube #wishes #BurningMan

I will need to write more about this, but wanted to make sure to document my initial thoughts.  I went to see Phil Lesh at Nokia Theater this past weekend.  We are talking about the most amazing digital experience I have ever have had! Nokia should be very proud.  This theater is the ultimate brand icon.  I was so impressed!  Access is everywhere.  The acoustics where awesome.  You feel like you are moving in an instant from experience to memory.  There is almost a sense that you are the star consumer.  It is the coolest thing.  You can sit in seats and get a view of the stage, hang in the dance floor, or walk the halls.  There is music in every nook and cranny.  It is clean, neat, and comfortable.  This place rocks.  After entering the theater, you can wander from tip to toe, close to far.  If I was to make a couple suggestions – they need to get fresh air into the place somehow — though by a couple of the walls, you could get a good stream of air.  They should play some sort of music before the band starts — it would be more pleasant.  Last, and most important — they made only one HUGE mistake – after the show, they should have been able to sell what I just heard!  I would have easily paid money to pay for a CD (or even a DVD) of the show.  Go to a show — this will be your most amazing consumer digital experience – They hit all my sensory cylinders.  Awesome job Nokia! From their Web site (http://nokiatheatrenyc.com): The Nokia Theatre Times Square is a 2100-capacity venue designed by the award-winning architect David Rockwell of the Rockwell Group and operated by AEG LIVE. The venue officially opened in September 2005 and has the capability to hold a wide array of events including concerts, live television, web broadcasts, live recordings, award shows and event parties. The marquee, an 85-foot long LED high definition screen which can display both live and digital video. It is one of the largest marquees on Broadway and is directly connected to the MTV marquee. With it’s interactive text messaging capabilities and the ability to broadcast events live from the stage directly to the marquee in real time makes it truly impressive to say the least. Located in the theatre is the Nokia Lounge where fans can charge their wireless phones, get hands-on experience with new Nokia products and services, download mobile content like games, videos and ring tones and enter promotions among other activities.

Sent to me by friend John E.  I like it!

Souce:  Ad Age Bob Garfield’s ‘Chaos Scenario’ A Look at the Marketing Industry’s Coming Disaster By Bob Garfield Published: April 13, 2005 Meet George Jetson, circa 2020. He doesn’t have a personal hovercraft or a food computer, but the rest of the future is more futuristic than he thought. Spacely Sprockets and Cogswell Cogs are out of business. Digits are the new widgets. What happens if the traditional marketing model collapses before a better alternative is established? Bob Garfield dares to confront the question. TV is gone Over-the-air network TV is gone, along with program schedules, affiliate stations and hotel demand in Cannes in the third week of June. George, Jane, Judy and Elroy get their entertainment, and their news, any way they wish: TV, phone, camera, laptop, game console, MP3 player. They get to choose from what the Hollywood big boys have funded and distributed, or what the greater vlogosphere has percolated to their attention. ABC, NBC and CBS are still major brands, but they surely aren’t generating radio waves. Three initials never uttered, however, are CPM. They’ve long since been supplanted not just by ROI, but VOD, video on demand; P2P, the peer-to-peer Napsterization of content; DRM, the allocation of royalties for digital distribution of content; VOIP, Internet telephony; and RSS, the software that aggregates Web content for easy access by the user. Branded Entertainment has long since been exposed as a false idol, because consumers got quickly fed up with their shows being contaminated by product placements. Satellite radio is a $4 billion 8-track tape player, stored on a high shelf in the garage, pushed aside by podcasting, which is free. The Upfront Market is an exhibit at the Smithsonian. The Super Bowl survived as the No. 1 pay-per-view event. Survivor didn’t. The space-age family of the future can still watch CSI, any episode they want, whenever they want, but not on any advertiser’s dime — unless they choose for their viewing costs to be subsidized. Yet advertisers know everything about them and understand virtually every move they make. Marketers aren’t adversaries And the Jetsons don’t fight it. In 2020, consumers understand that marketers aren’t adversaries; they’re intimates, sharing info for everybody’s mutual benefit. Yesiree, by George, it’s a brave and exciting new world that the near future holds, a democratized, consumer-empowered, bottom-up, pull-not-push, lean forward and lean back universe that will improve the quantity and quality of entertainment options, create hitherto unimaginable marketing opportunities and efficiencies and, not incidentally, generate wealth that will make the current $250 billion domestic ad market seem like pin money. Alas, the future — near or not — doesn’t happen till later. So let’s return to contemporary business reality in the digital revolution, already in progress. Because in the intervening 15 years — or 20 years, or five — there are three more initials to consider: SOS. Because revolutions by their nature are neither seamless nor smooth. Collapse of old model Because there is no reason to believe the collapse of the old media model will yield a plug-and-play new one. On the contrary, there is nothing especially orderly about media’s New World Order. At the moment it is a collection of technologies and ideas and vacant-lot bandwidth, a digital playground for visionaries and nerds. So what happens when 30 Rock and Black Rock and the other towering edifices of network TV are rubble, and the vacant lot has yet to be developed? Undeveloped and unprepared. Unprepared to lawfully deliver CSI. Unprepared to absorb $4 billion ad dollars, much less broadcast’s $42 billion. Unprepared legally, technologically and even socially to pick up the pieces of the old world order. Hold on. Let’s change metaphors. Forget the construction site. Make it a space-age treadmill, cycling too fast for George Jetson to keep his footing. "Jane!" he pleads. "Stop this crazy thing!" But Jane can’t stop it. Nobody can stop it, and nobody can quite hang on. Ah, yes. The Chaos Scenario. Downward spiral The statistics are already getting tiresome, but let’s review a few of the more salient ones, shall we? According to Nielsen, network TV audience has eroded an average of 2% a year for a decade, although in the same period the U.S. population increased by 30 million. In the last sweeps period, for the first time, cable commanded a larger audience than broadcast. The cost of reaching 1,000 households in prime time has jumped from $7.64 in 1994 to $19.85 in 2004. A 2000 Veronis Suhler Stevenson survey showed that Americans devoted an average of 866 hours to broadcast TV annually and 107 to the Internet, a ratio of 8:1. The projection for 2005 had the TV/Internet ratio at 785 hours to 200, or just under 4:1. U.S. household broadband penetration has gone from 8% in March 2000 to an estimated 56% in March of this year, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. 70% of DVR users skip commercials Five percent of U.S. homes are equipped with TiVo or other digital video recorders, and not only does time-shifting of favorite programs render network schedules irrelevant, 70% of DVR users skip past TV commercials. Complicating problems, consolidation in the telecom industry and potential re-regulation of DTC drug advertising threaten billions in network ad revenue, jeopardizing the supply-demand quotient that has propped up network prices for five years. Meanwhile, there is the sword of Damocles called "cost." The reality-TV fad has enabled networks to fill their ever-more-irrelevant schedules and cast for hits with cheap programming. But how much longer will they last? Westerns and spy shows, superheroes and hospital dramas all once burned bright. Then they burned out. What’s ominous about that is not the inevitable end of the latest hot genre; it’s the inevitable end of the profitability that has gone with it. And the downward spiral could begin at any moment. In fact, to switch metaphors once again, Shawn Burns, managing director of Wunderman, Paris, looks at the 2005 upfront and sees "the last strand of the rope bridge." Mr. Burns, of course, makes a living preaching the wonders of segmentation and the bankruptcy of mass marketing. No wonder he observes with barely camouflaged glee that the efficiency pendulum has swung. "There’s been research," he says, "that real cost of obtaining 30 seconds of the consumer’s attention is the same in 2005 as it was before the invention of television." Fraying rope Emphasis his. Yes, he has a vested interest in being a doomsayer. He is by no means, however, the only one who sees the rope fraying. "I still love and enjoy TV and believe it is very effective for advertisers," says Association of National Advertisers President Bob Liodice. "But we’re killing it. We’re gradually killing it with cost increases, the level of clutter, the quality of the creative that is out there." "How can they continue to ask for more and more for fewer and fewer faces?" asks Geoffrey Frost, chief marketing officer of Motorola. "I don’t believe that is sustainable. I believe there will be disruption. There’s already disruption." "It’s an inevitable kind of slow collapse of the entire mass media advertising market," says J.D. Lasica, author of Darknet: Remixing the Future of Entertainment and president of the Social Media Group consultancy. "What we’re seeing is that not only does television have to reinvent itself from the content point of view, it has to reinvent itself as an advertising medium." Primitive standards No mystery as to how, either. As technology increasingly enables fine targeting and interaction between marketer and consumer, the old measurement and deployment standards are primitive almost to the point of absurdity. "The industry’s key currency is basically reach, frequency, exposure and cost per thousand," says Rishad Tobaccowala, president of Internet media shop Starcom IP. "I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong but that’s currently the currency. And where the currency ought to be is about outcomes, engagement and effectiveness. Because right now all I’m doing is I’m measuring how cheaply or how expensively I’m buying the pig. I’m not figuring out whether the hot dog tastes good." None of this is lost on any sentient being in the media and marketing business. Any lingering denial most likely evaporated when Procter & Gamble Global Marketing Officer Jim Stengel — he of the $5.5 billion marketing budget — faced agency heads a year ago at the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Media Conference and declared the existing model "broken." But it’s not just the ad model; it’s the content model, as well. Writer and former venture capitalist Om Malik looks at TiVo and the video-on-demand horizon and is prepared to call in the backhoes for the institution of the prime-time schedule. "Hasn’t it collapsed already?" asks the author of Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist. "Look at their viewership. Isn’t it going down every day? I mean, we can pick and choose what foods we eat, what car we drive, what clothes we wear and what colognes we use. And some guy sitting in New York decides how I should watch?" Consumer control Point taken. As more control has been placed in the hands of the consumer, the consumer has shown every intention of exercising it. Especially in the coveted 18-34 cohort, viewers are fleeing TV and going online, where nobody need have their content dictated to them. But as to Mr. Malik’s rhetorical question — hasn’t the old model collapsed already –the answer happens to be: No, it hasn’t. Network TV spending went up in 2004, by 10.7%. According to Jack Myers Report, last year’s upfront market yielded a 15.4% increase across the four majors, and Mr. Myers projects a 4% increase for the top four in 2005. Yes: increase. There are many possible explanations for the phenomenon. One is habit; gigantic institutions tend not to rapidly adapt. Another is greed: the self-interest of the comfortably situated old guard to preserve the status quo. The third is supply and demand, upward pricing pressure from Viagra, et al, which engorged the marketplace with billions in new spending. The main factor, though, is that network TV audiences remain coveted, because — shrinking though they are — they represent the last vestige of mass media and marketing, or, as Motorola’s Mr. Frost calls it, "the last surviving conglomeration of human beings in the living room." Precisely, says David Poltrack, executive vice president of research at CBS, who sees incremental revenue opportunities in video-on-demand, but no end to the dominance of broadcast TV in the foreseeable future. "Unless the advertising community finds something to replace television advertising, I think the relative value of the top-quality inventory is always going to be appreciating relative to all the other options," he says. "Unless someone can come up with a more effective way of introducing a new product than broad-based advertising exposure, I think that business is always going to be there." Which is why Motorola, whose nifty palm-sized Razr device represents the Jetsons’ media future today, mainly used TV to introduce the gizmo to the world. Because there are still a few programs that catch the imagination of enough human beings in enough living rooms to represent a mass-marketing opportunity. "I still believe in TV," Mr. Frost says. "People still watch it, and I love being associated with the right kind of programming that is different, that is appealing, that embodies the kind of innovation we want to stand for as a company." ‘Teetering ecosystem’ On the other hand, he acknowledges that the financing of the "right kind of programming" — not to mention the overwhelming majority of flops –depends on network revenue streams that could dry up quickly. "The teetering ecosystem behind all this stuff that allows people like us to sort of cherry-pick" for exceptional programs, he says, "may begin to find itself in serious trouble." So while the old model hasn’t necessarily collapsed, new-media gurus could be forgiven for seeing the beginning — or middle — of the end. Steven Rosenbaum, pioneer of citizen-produced TV and founder of MagnifyMedia, envisions a world of content created by and for individuals over broadband. He snorts at Mr. Poltrack’s defense of the status quo. "These guys," he says, "their job is to postpone the future." Viacom split Another skeptic apparently is Sumner Redstone, chairman of CBS parent Viacom. One week after Mr. Poltrack spoke to Ad Age, Mr. Redstone announced his plan to split the company in two, presumably to reduce the drain of CBS and its other broadcast properties on the stock value of the company’s faster-growing media assets. So for the moment, let’s assume that there is indeed major trouble ahead, that the law of diminishing returns will eventually kick in, that advertisers who’ve paid more and more for less and less will not pay indefinitely for nothing. Marketers will begin to abandon network TV. Ad prices will fall. Profitability will disappear. Program development will suffer, leading to more advertiser defection, and so on in a consuming vortex of ruin. But wait. The network refugees will not flee empty handed. They’ll draw carts bearing steamer trunks stuffed with a quarter trillion dollars. Then what? In the short run, obviously, more boom times for cable, and then: Payday for the New World Order. "A bit of it will go to this new emerging network which will be on the mobile phones," says Mr. Malik. "The next thing, you will see is the emergence of more Internet-based video advertising. … There’s going to be a lot of hit-and-miss in this but I think that’s another area you’ll see a lot of progress made. A third channel is … Internet-enabled cable services. They’re not home runs by any means but they’re definite solid singles and doubles." Economics of scale No dingers? So what? The whole point of new media is small ball. Quit playing for the three-run homer and amass the singles and doubles. Because, says Starcom’s Mr. Tobaccowala, "the key thing is economics of scale is going to disappear. That’s really what the issue is. Our business has been built on the economics of scale. And instead we’re going to go into the economics of re-aggregation. Which is how do you get 10, 20, 30, 40 thousand people instead of taking in 250 million and making them into 12 and 30 million dollar segments. How do you re-aggregate one at a time into the tens of thousands?" Fragmentation, the bane of network TV and mass marketers everywhere, will become the Holy Grail, the opportunity to reach — and have a conversation with — small clusters of consumers who are consuming not what is force-fed them, but exactly what they want. Producers and broadcasters capitalized with billions of dollars will be on approximately equal footing with podcasters and video bloggers capitalized with $399.99 12-months same-as-cash from Best Buy. And just as DailyKos, Instapundit, Wonkette and Wil Wheaton have coalesced large followings in the cacophony of the blogosphere, some of the citizen-video programmers will find not just a voice but an audience. Wait. Did I say "will find?" Make that "are finding." "All of that is happening," says Drazen Pantic, founding member of videologging Web site unmediated.org, "In the last two or three years, we’ve had a silent revolution of consumer electronics. And broadband is coming. It’s a huge proliferation in the last two years. And so people are going to start broadcasting from home and so on. You will have zillions of people, broadcasting for the audience of 10." Except when it’s much bigger than 10. A month ago, a little girl named Dylan Verdi posted a home movie on her father’s Web site. PressThink.org’s Jay Rosen dubbed her the world’s youngest vlogger. The link went viral and, as her father Michael reports on his own videolog, "24 hours later 2,000 people had downloaded her video." It would have been much more, but he had to shut his site down so he wouldn’t wind up penniless from bandwidth charges. Web proves it can outdraw TV The Internet has also demonstrated its ability to outdraw TV. JibJab satirical animations have been downloaded by the millions, for instance. And even TV programming has drawn better online than in its native habitat — such as when comedian Jon Stewart went on CNN’s Crossfire to assassinate Tucker Carlson live on cable. "That episode got, what, 400,000 viewers maybe on big old powerful CNN?" says Jeff Jarvis, president of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications, and author of the media blog BuzzMachine.com. "Well that same segment was copied onto the Internet, where it got at least 5 million views. So what’s more powerful, the network CNN owns or the network no one owns? So now suddenly the distribution is exploded. Now on the Internet we can all swim in the same pool as content created by, you know, Universal or Disney. The tools are cheap and easy." It is a beautiful thing: the total democratization of media, combined with the total addressability of marketing communications. We, the people, cease to be demographics. We become individuals again. "Choice is a good thing," Mr. Jarvis says. "Choice is a proxy for power. The more choice we have the more power we have. The most important invention in the history of media was not the Guttenberg Press, it was the remote control. It gave us control over the consumption of media. Then came the cable box and the VCR and the TiVo and now come the means of creating content. Now I can create a radio show and put it on the Internet. Nyah, nyah, nyah." Maybe it’s "nyah, nyah, nyah — take that Big Media." Or maybe it’s "tra la, tra la — what an empowering new world." Either way, it’s underway. Straight-to-Internet campaigns On the advertising side, Google last year generated $3 billion in revenue, about the same as The New York Times Co. No surprise that Vonage, the Internet telephony carrier, is using the Internet to find subscribers, but Procter & Gamble put its money where Jim Stengel’s mouth is by launching Prilosec OTC with 75% of its budget allocated off TV. American Express allocates 80% of its budget off the airwaves. The new Pepsi One campaign will use no TV whatsoever. (Not Capital One. Not Purina One. Pepsi One.) In the new-media laboratory called South Korea, where universal broadband is social policy and its penetration exceeds 80%, the Internet’s share of ad spending is twice that of the U.S. TV, meanwhile, accounts for only 34.4%. In the wake of BMW films, such diverse U.S. marketers as Amex, Burger King, Lincoln-Mercury and Motorola have created an ever-expanding universe of content/advertising hybrids, Webisodic short films to reach younger prospects online. Mercury’s "The Lucky Ones" is so barren of product and brand messages it is scarcely advertising at all. Netcasting, of course, also delivers pure programming, too. From the top down was the streaming, on Yahoo, of Kirstie Allie’s new show, Fat Actress. From the bottom up, video logs — or vlogs — like Dylan Verdi’s are being generated every day. At Rocketboom.com, chirpy, irreverent host Amanda Congdon delivers oddball news and snarky observations in a primitive studio (or maybe a one-bedroom). At J.D. Lasica’s alpha Web site Ourmedia.com, citizen journalists and producers post their own news reports, animations, music videos and whatever else amuses them free of charge. So that should be the answer: the seamless transition from TV to online, from mass media to micro media, from mass marketing to permission marketing. But not so fast. George Jetson does his vlogging in 2020. Om Malik says he believes the scenario could just as easily take place by 2010. But this is 2005. What if the rope bridge finally snaps, say, next year? Or the next? It better hadn’t. Because the future isn’t quite ready. Think: Yugoslavia. Perhaps you are familiar with it. It used to be a country, ruled by an authoritarian criminal. Then it began to fragment. There went Slovenia, and Croatia next. Then Bosnia. Kosovo made its move, and in the ensuing madness, the regime collapsed. The unshakeable Slobodan Milosevic, who had fomented four wars in the name of Greater Serbia, was overthrown. Democracy! Empowered individuals! A new model! And, five years later, unemployment is 32%. The average monthly income is $336. The prime minister was assassinated by organized criminals and the country’s most notorious war-crimes suspect is at large. Unmediated.org’s Mr. Pantic, formerly of Belgrade’s freedom-fighting radio station B92, is only too familiar with the problem. "There is no way," he says, "to make the transition into anything that is different or new or whatever without chaos. Because as with democracies you need five or six newly elected parliaments, you need to replace people who have ties with the old regime." Change doesn’t happen overnight Likewise, he says, in the transition from old media to new: "The new paradigm is not going to be established overnight." There are too many obstacles. BROADBAND PENETRATION It has catapulted to nearly 60%, but that is still a long way from 100%. In South Korea, where penetration exceeds 80%, online advertising does indeed have twice the share of the U.S. online industry, but it is still less than 5%. CAPACITY "I don’t think the interactive community has sufficient capacity to handle a seismic change in a transition from network to online," says the ANA’s Mr. Liodice. "I don’t think that’s gonna happen." Online-marketing consultant Joseph Jaffe agrees. The author of the forthcoming Life After the 30-Second Spot doesn’t believe there will ever be a dollar-for-dollar transfer of TV money to the Internet. But even 10% of all money now allocated to TV would more than double the total online spending. "You’ve got a handful of publisher properties that may be able to kind of cope initially," Mr. Jaffe says, "and then be able to at least kind of sustain that increased demand. But for the most part, when the tsunami hits, all hell’s gonna break loose." QUALITY Dylan Verdi is a cute little girl, but once the novelty of world’s-youngest-vloggerdom wears off, there is no reason for anyone outside of her immediate family to watch her iMovies. "I mean you can put a lot of bad video clips that you shoot with your camera phone on the Web," says Mr. Malik, "but how many people want to watch that? If you’re going to create a product for passive consumption it has to be good. I mean look at all the shows that fail. There is very low tolerance for bad television." FINANCING "Where," Mr. Malik asks, "does the money come from to produce the programming of high enough quality to reach the audiences that are obviously going to be smaller than the status quo?" In a video-on-demand universe, networks may send along free samples of new shows to paying customers of existing ones, but absent vast reservoirs of ad revenue, the risk of program development may well be prohibitive. A collapse of the old model could create a Hollywood dustbowl. LEGISLATION. Peer-to-peer software such as BitTorrent, which permits affordable transfer of large video files, also enables video piracy, and could be legislated or litigated into oblivion by a beleaguered Hollywood desperate to preserve the value of its backlist. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, last year introduced an anti-p2p bill called the Inducing Infringement of Copyright Act of 2004 (Induce Act). COST. As pricing in the search business has amply demonstrated, any influx of spending into the online space will drive prices upwards, potentially erasing the efficiencies promised by even the most ultra-targeted media buy. The metrics of reach may change radically, but not necessarily those of frequency. As Mr. Tobaccowala puts it, "Millions of people arrive at the Yahoo Homepage. What people don’t realize is that they arrive one at a time." SUITABILITY Content will be enormously diverse, agrees Forrest Research research director Chris Charron, but will it constitute a legitimate advertising medium? "A lot of people talk about these social networks and blogs and the blogosphere as being great ways to attract consumers and attract eyeballs and potentially good advertising opportunities, but history shows that is not the case, even recent history. Remember GeoCities? I think they were bought by Yahoo for $3 or $4 billion. Well, it never became a very viable advertising outlet and that’s because it wasn’t a great context for people to place ads. Advertisers weren’t interested in putting it on a personal homepage for Chris Charron for my friends and relatives to see." CONTENT DIVIDE Convergence means not only technological and economic disruption; it means social disruption. Cost of broadband and VOD programming will surely exceed $100 per month for each household, and most likely twice that, disenfranchising tens of millions of Americans and changing the dynamics of a shared popular culture. The idea of a vast digital underclass mocks the Internet’s promise of the democratization of media. Then, of course, there is the biggest monkey wrench in the works: the absurd lack of preparedness for anything other than the most deliberate evolution into a Jetsonian future. "Even if all the technology were in place and scaled up to size," says Mr. Tobaccowala, "what isn’t ready really is either clients, agencies, or the media companies. Because in effect what we have to change is the way we do business." Oh, preparations are underway. Earlier this year, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. retained McKinsey & Co. to figure out how to transition to this Internet thing — which is something like nailing plywood to the windows when the hurricane makes landfall. News Corp. no doubt feels safe enough, because Fox network customers are still lining up to buy, partly because they know how to do that. GRPs are buggywhips that just feel so familiar and reassuring in their hands. No wonder Mr. Stengel is showing up at the 4A’s revival tent preaching salvation: "If we believe that there’s life beyond the 30-second spot," he demanded, "why are we still dependant on reach, frequency and advertising pre-market scores?" Yahoo’s gambit So don’t storm the Bastille just yet. Even the revolutionaries aren’t quite organized for the revolution. Among those not quite ready for the end of prime time is Yahoo, which hired ABC programming chief Lloyd Braun to develop whatever content will be when content will come from the likes of Yahoo. "The key for us," he told an iMedia Brand Summit in February, "is to be able to come up with that unique, signature, compelling content for the Internet, the way television has been able to do over the years." Duh. As to what that might look like, he was a little bit fuzzy. "What I’m not saying is that we’re just going to be doing television shows on Yahoo, and we’re going to be streaming them, so we’re going to do our version of Lost, or our version of Alias. There’s going to be a big place for video streaming and all of that, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t believe ultimately that the future of Internet content is by doing on the PC, or on mobile devices, what you can already get on your living room television set. We have to really get our arms around what those expectations are. What is the audience looking for when they go on the Internet?" Yes, that would seem to be the question. But nobody has definitively answered it. That’s why there are hand-wringing Cassandras like Jim Stengel and giddy opportunists like Wunderman’s Shawn Burns. But what if you are a direct marketer in what promises to be the Golden Age for direct marketing and a historic opportunity knocks and you lack the manpower to answer the door? Under the current circumstances, Mr. Burns says he’d first advise clients to scale up their Web capabilities by a factor of 10. But he concedes that in a Gold Rush economy, he doesn’t know where all the Web designers would come from to do the work. That, of course, is the essence of the Chaos Scenario — a critical shortage of resources and infrastructure. It’s almost comical to hear Starcom’s Mr. Tobaccowala talk about the marketing landscape of the very near future. "Expect to see a lot of event and store-based marketing," he says. "Expect people to actually go completely away from electronic media to experiential media, if you can call it that. So expect for instance Starbucks, bars, all kinds of things — bathrooms, OK?" Bathrooms? Jim Stengel has $5.5 billion burning a hole in his pocket, and he’s supposed to invest it in bathrooms? "That’s exactly the point," says John Hayes, chief marketing officer for American Express. "There isn’t the off-the-shelf capacity today. You have to create it. You have to build them. You have to come up with the ideas. To access the talent, you have to basically construct solutions." Hence Amex’s Jerry Seinfeld/Superman Webisodes and sponsored concerts Webcast to prospects. If the old model is broken, Mr. Hayes can’t just sit around waiting for somebody else to fix it. "As in any industry," he says, "those who are unprepared for change will obviously suffer the consequences." That warning has to be pried from Mr. Hayes’ lips, but it is a warning nonetheless — sort of a reciprocal to another sort of warning. David Poltack, of CBS, may or may not be the spokesman for the status quo, but you can’t miss the "You’ll be sorry" quality to his caution about his notion of the chaos scenario should marketers abandon network TV. An economic downfall? "If they do," he says, "then the entire marketing system that perpetuates this economy will be weakened. And this is not a problem for just the broadcast television networks. This is a major problem for everyone who markets a product to the consumers in this country. Because there has been and there is not currently on the horizon anywhere near as effective a way to market products to the mass consumer marketplace. And if in fact that current system deteriorates to the point that advertisers and marketers abandon it, I don’t see anything that’s going to replace it and the entire marketing infrastructure and the economy is going to be diminished. And that’s a lot bigger problem than just a network television program." In other words, what’s good for CBS is good for America. The other possibility is the opposite: that what’s bad for CBS, and for ABC and NBC and Fox and Conde Nast and the Gannett Co. is very good for America, because what emerges from the ruins will be superior in every way to what it replaced. Better for marketers, better for the economy and especially better for Mr. Jetson, who won’t have a robot maid but very likely will have a million-channel universe. As Rishad Tobaccowala elegantly concludes, "Those who come to destroy TV are those who are eventually going to save it." And the world will rejoice, happily awash in electrons. But before the liberte, fraternite and egalite, beware. This is revolution, and first we will be awash in the blood of the old guard.

Hi5 raises $20M in funding By Rhiza Sanchez | July 22, 2007 – Source:  http://www.901am.com/ Hi5 was reported to have raised $20M in funding with the help of Mohr Davidow Ventures. Struggling to compete with social networking giants Facebook and MySpace, Hi5 has about 30 million members to date, serving up to 200 million pages a day. Compared to its counterparts, what makes Hi5 different is their conscious effort to regionalize their network across different major languages including Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, Portugese, and Romanian. Because of this, Hi5 has gained popularity in Latin American countries.

Source:  PaidContent – Writer:   Tameka Kee – Mon 11 May 2009 05:56 AM PST CPMs are the default standard for buying display, and paid search ads get measured in clicks. But when it comes to valuing a social-media sponsorship, “advertorial” content on a magazine site or even a virtual-world campaign, there’s a growing consensus that neither of those metrics is good enough. Click-throughs aren’t great for ads on social networks, for example, because most people are there to interact with the content—not click on a link that will take them to some advertiser’s site. And with an oversupply of inventory and easily dismissed ad units dragging down CPMs, publishers are pushing for an alternative currency that attributes more value to their audiences. That’s where “engagement” comes in—and there are a variety of ways to try to achieve it. Facebook has its Engagement Ads that try to entice users to interact; Hearst’s digital division is letting advertisers pay to “engage” with Seventeen and CosmoGIRL readers by answering their questions; and video-ad firms like VideoEgg and ScanScout offer “cost per engagement”-based buys. Meanwhile, publishers’ sales teams are increasingly serving up stats like time spent, return visits, and event the number of times a brand gets mentioned in the comments, as proof of why advertisers should pay more for their inventory. The problem is that other than “time spent,” there aren’t any real standards around engagement. That’s partly because all these sites offer different ways for users to interact with their content, but also because each advertiser’s goal will be different. “There’s a consensus that engagement is going to be how we hold online advertising accountable from now on, but we’re still grappling with how to tie it back to real business results,” said James Kiernan, VP and group client director for P&G at Mediavest. “Like, how many ‘engagements’ does it take to drive purchase intent? How do we tie it back to sales?” We spoke with some companies to find out which metrics they’re using to broker their engagement-based deals. —Time spent, the “go-to” metric: “That’s the primary statistic that advertisers look for with our games,” said Neal Sinno, VP of business development at advergaming firm Arkadium. “We can also tell them who’s playing, how many times they’ve played and things like whether they emailed a game to their friends—but they really want to know how long their target is seeing the brand images for.” Arkadium powers the casual games section for sites like myLifetime.com and AARP.com. —Offer a new way to interact with users: Hearst launched Q&A sections on Seventeen and CosmoGIRL in April; advertisers can buy standard banner ads or come in as an “expert” and answer readers’ questions. A brand like Clearasil can buy an expert spot in the beauty section, for example, and pay for overall engagement (in this case, the percentage of users that ask or answer a question), but also on an impression basis. “They can say, ‘we want 100,000 people to see the entire Q&A thread,’ or even get the Q&A as part of a buy across the whole network; the bottom line is that they’re adding value to the audience’s conversation,” said Matt Milner, Hearst Magazines Digital Media’s VP of social media. —Tie engagement to a purchase: IM-based virtual world IMVU is reportedly bringing in about $1.7 million in revenue per month, 90 percent of which comes from the sale of virtual goods (via Virtual Worlds News). And it’s just starting to do branded merchandise deals with advertisers. “There’s no reason that a legit brand couldn’t sell at least 100,000 items over several months,” said IMVU’s VP of business and finance Kevin Dasch. “But we can also give them real-time stats about the number of times a user wears their item, the amount of time they spend looking at their page, as well as the number of groups that have popped up around them on our network. We try and bundle those stats with some standard banner impressions, so advertisers can measure their spend in the ‘traditional’ way, but also get comfortable with this kind of engagement.” Kiernan called other options, like in-game ad units, “very engagement oriented,” since advertisers only pay once a player views the ad at a predetermined angle, for a minimum amount of time. “We’re still buying on a CPM, but it’s a more accountable CPM,” he said. Kiernan added that the majority of buys were still made on a CPM or CPC basis—with engagement metrics bundled in as an add-on. Meanwhile, Publishers Clearing House is tracking the number of people that enter their contests via networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. “We’ve generated about 9,000 contest entries from a pool of about 1,500 fans across various networks,” said Alex Betancur, GM and VP of PCH Online. “That’s 9,000 opportunities to present them with magazine offers—which is how we define engagement.”

For the fun of it.  This is one of his best since he did his (original review 7/12/06) of Craftsteak.  Thank you Frank for your honest review and thank god for your sarcastic wit!  You provide me with the best laughs and the most fun after a really long hard day at the office.  Whoever hired you should get a raise – you are a superstar in my food world. RESTAURANT REVIEW | HARRY CIPRIANI, The Gloss of Opulence By FRANK BRUNI, NYT Dining, Published: November 14, 2007 OVER the years the Cipriani restaurant family and its employees have faced charges of sexual harassment, insurance fraud and tax evasion, the last leading to guilty pleas by two family members in July. Harry Cipriani – No Stars (Poor) But the crime that comes to mind first when I think of the Ciprianis is highway robbery. Based on my recent experience, that’s what happens almost any time Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue serves lunch or dinner. In this gleaming room in the Sherry-Netherland hotel, the Ciprianis charge $22.95 for asparagus vinaigrette — 12 medium-size spears, neither white, truffle-flecked nor even Parmesan-bedecked — and $34.95 for an appetizer of fried calamari. That’s at dinnertime, I should clarify. At lunch there’s a whopping $1 discount per dish. A dinner entree of fritto misto costs $48.95, even though it amounted to an extra-large portion of fried calamari with a few decorative shrimp and token scallops strewn, to negligible effect, among the generic calamari rings. I assure you of the accuracy of those numbers, and of these: $66.95 for a sirloin, $36.95 for lasagna, $18.95 for minestrone. It’s tempting to devote the rest of this review to a price list. Nothing else I can present is nearly as compelling. Besides, prices are the point of Harry Cipriani, which exists to affirm its patrons’ ability to throw away money. It’s the epitome of a restaurant whose steep tariffs justify themselves, subbing for membership dues and assuring that the spouse, in-law, client or canine psychic being treated to a $16.95 piece of chocolate cake will be impressed. Regulars accept and revel in this, or have bit by bit deluded themselves into believing that the $36.95 spaghetti with tomato and basil has something special to recommend it. (Trust me: it doesn’t.) But what of the uninitiated New Yorker or innocent tourist who sees the Cipriani name, with its connotations of extravagant banquets and extraordinary privilege, and waltzes through the doors expecting something magnificent in return for a king’s ransom? These victims in the offing deserve a heads-up on what they’re likely to find, which is service so confused and food so undistinguished it wouldn’t pass muster at half the cost. During one of my dinners, servers first tried to deliver another table’s veal chop to ours, then began to deliver our entrees before they had cleared our appetizers. Another night servers gave me rabbit although I had asked for duck, and then, after a profuse apology, neglected to bring my companions and me one of our desserts. But what I remember most vividly about that particular night is the potatoes. And I hasten to add that I’m taking it on faith that they were potatoes. That’s what they visually suggested, those desiccated yellow-beige coins that had somehow acquired the texture of Brillo and could almost have been used to scrub whatever pan they had emerged from. They weren’t, in fairness, representative of the restaurant’s other vegetables, like the assortment in a transcendently vapid risotto alla primavera, cooked to a state of depressing flaccidity. But while the veggies can be mush, the empire seems to be solid: bigger than ever and growing all the time. This past summer the family opened the restaurant Club 55, which joined its many other gilded dining establishments in Manhattan. Outside New York the Ciprianis have restaurants in London and Hong Kong, and they’re establishing resort hotels in Miami Beach and Beverly Hills. Of course it all goes back to the 1930’s and to Harry’s Bar in Venice, where the bellini and beef carpaccio were reputedly born. But on this side of the Atlantic, the progenitor and lodestar is the Fifth Avenue clubhouse, which opened in 1985 and was last reviewed in The Times in 1991, when Bryan Miller raised it to two stars from one. It’s a different restaurant now, literally. In June 2005 it closed for renovations, and when it reopened last May, the visible changes included more than fresh coats of lacquer on the lustrouus wood-paneled walls. The bar had been moved to the northern side of the restaurant, a rearrangement that helped make way for about 30 additional seats. The hosts can now cram about 130 people in. And cram they do. At times they place the Frisbee-size tables for four so tightly together that Harry Cipriani seems to be doing an haute impersonation of Prune or the Spotted Pig. It’s a bizarre mix of indulgence and deprivation, the crisp white jackets on the servers communicating an ostentation that’s contradicted by plenty else, including the brusque manner in which those servers sometimes hustle diners through a meal. Even in an enclave this expensive, there are things seemingly done on the cheap. I can’t think of a credible motive other than cost saving for serving an appetizer of turkey tonnato in place of veal tonnato. That’s for $27.95. Although steak Rossini typically involves foie gras, what Harry Cipriani puts on top of a gigantic (and, it should be noted, juicy) filet mignon are chicken livers, chalky when I had them. That’s for $55.95. Among the scores of straightforward dishes, some had appeal. Calf’s liver was flavorful, veal sweetbreads tender and roasted branzino moist. I liked the oil-glossed octopus carpaccio, and cakes were dependably fluffy. But the kitchen’s blunders outnumbered its successes, which were modest in any case. The wan tomatoes beside buffalo milk mozzarella didn’t have a drop of sweetness. Main courses of lamb and salmon were overcooked, as were the meats in several pasta sauces, including an oily veal ragù over green tagliardi. Pasta sauces by and large were washouts, seldom registering much presence or any nuance. An amatriciana had no zest, no zip, and the meat in it looked and tasted not like guanciale or pancetta but like ordinary cubed ham. The selection of wines by the glass — a small carafe, really — is pathetic, and that fabled bellini is $19.95 for a restrained ration of white peach juice and prosecco. But the people-watching is nonpareil. You rarely see blondness this improbable, cosmetology this transparent, wealth this flamboyantly misspent. And while that isn’t cause enough to visit Harry Cipriani, it’s consolation if you must. Harry Cipriani POOR In the Sherry-Netherland hotel, 781 Fifth Avenue, (60th Street); (212) 753-5566.