New Communications Review

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Entertainment of the Future is Circular
“Circular Entertainment,” identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment, predicts that up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people by 2012 will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups. The study, “A Glimpse of the Next Episode” by The Future Laboratory, combines views from industry leading figures with Nokia’s research from a sample of 900 million consumers around the world to construct a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years. Read the full article here.

Want A More Successful Business? Meet Social Needs
New research from Communispace, supporting the hypothesis that people are looking to fulfill six essential social needs online, and drawing on the Maslow hierarchy of human needs, concludes that businesses that help facilitate those needs are more likely to create deeper emotional bonds than usually exist between companies and customers. In the report by Julie Schlack, Michael Jennings and Manila Austin “Meeting Business Needs by Meeting Social Needs…”, the Communispace researchers, building on the work of social scientists, have identified the specific social needs that are met through participating in social networks. The study addresses “Six Social Needs” and relates them to Online social networks, suggesting that business can take advantage of these observations in creating more affinity with their prospects and customers. Read more about the study here.

Get Back to The Basics for 2008, Marketers Say
According to the first annual survey of Top Marketing Trends for 2008 of 1700 MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group) members, conducted by Anderson Analytics, key areas for 2008 are found to be:
(1) Marketing basics (60% “Very Important”) which include specific concepts such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, segmentation, brand loyalty and ROI were of greatest interest. (2) Search Engine Optimization (42%) had relatively wide appeal, and cut across marketers in all fields. (3) “Green Marketing” (32%) was another important emerging concept and it was identified as the trendiest marketing buzzword. Read more about it here.

Almost 50% of Internet Users Google Themselves
Internet users are becoming more aware of their digital footprint; 47% have searched for information about themselves online, up from just 22% five years ago. However, few monitor their online presence with great regularity. Just 3% of self-searchers report that they make a regular habit of it and 74% have checked up on their digital footprints only once or twice. Access the full report here.

Yahoo to Dominate 2008 $8.6B Graphical Ad Market
Get ready to pay more for both premium and remnant display ad inventory. JP Morgan is forecasting the U.S. graphical ad market to hit nearly $8.6 billion this year–a 20% increase from 2007, with much of that cash flow being driven by costlier CPMs. Analysts on JP Morgan’s U.S. Equity Research Internet team gave their bullish predictions for the display market during a recent 2008 Global Internet Outlook conference call, Analyst Imran Khan named Yahoo as one of the “greatest beneficiaries of improved graphical advertising trends.” MSN, AOL and CNET were included as winners in the buoyant display market, but Khan went so far as to peg Yahoo as the leader in 2008–forecast to snag 10% of the $20 billion global graphical ad market. MSN is slated to snag roughly 7.2%, while AOL and CNET will own 5% and about 2% of the global display market, respectively. Read more about it here.

Online Advertising Spending up 48% for 2008
According to the Executive Summary of a newly released Borrell Associates study on the 2008 outlook for local Online advertising, a 48 percent increase in local online ad spending is anticipated in 2008, bringing it to $12.6 billion. Driving most of the growth, says the Summary, is the popularity of local search and online video advertising. Local search advertising will more than double next year, to $5 billion, while locally placed online video will triple, to almost $1.3 billion. A major component of local video advertising will be long-form pieces for home, automotive and health-related categories. Access the whole story here.

U.S. Advertising Spending up 4% in 2008
According to a new study from GroupM, advertising spending in the US measured media is expected to increase almost 4% in 2008 compared with 2007, when spending was up about 3%. Worldwide spending is expected to go up 7% in 2008, after an anticipated 6% increase in 2007. US advertising spending is expected increase 3.7%, to $168.6 billion, in 2008. Spending in 2007 is expected to come in at 2.8% higher than in 2006. Worldwide spending is expected to go up 6.8%, to some $479 billion. Read the full article here.

The End is Near for Netscape
Marking the end of an era, AOL has decided to retire the Netscape Web browser after nearly 14 years of operation. As a result, AOL has decided to throw its weight behind Mozilla’s Firefox browser. “AOL’s focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be,” AOL/Netscape development director Tom Drapeau said in a recent blog posting. AOL, which acquired Netscape for $4.2 billion in 1998, will maintain Netscape only as a general-use portal as of February 1. Read more about it here.

Is Your TV Ready for All-Digital Format in 2009?
According to the CTAM Pulse, a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers conducted last month by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, forty-eight percent of U.S. households are aware of the planned digital TV transition, compared to just 29 percent from a survey taken in July 2005. After February 17, 2009, the nation’s broadcast television stations will begin broadcasting exclusively in digital. Any consumer receiving broadcast TV over the air on an analog TV set must take some action for that TV to continue receiving programs from the local TV stations. Read the full article here.

Media Use Differs Between Teens and Tweens
From Mediapost: The Nielsen Company recently announced some of the findings of an in-depth study, “Kids on the Go: Mobile Usage by U.S. Teens and Tweens,” on the mobile media and cross media behavior of U.S. “tweens” (ages 8-12), finding that 5% of tweens access the Internet over their phone each month. While 41% of tween mobile Internet users say they do so while commuting or traveling (to school, for example), mobile content such as the Internet is also a social medium for this audience. 26% of tween mobile Internet users say they access the web while at a friend’s house and 17% say they do so at social events. Nielsen reports that tweens spend less time surfing the Internet than their teen counterparts. In this report, 48% of U.S. tweens said they spend less than one hour per day online. When they are online, 70% of tweens use the Internet for gaming. Comparatively, 81% of U.S. teens say they spend one hour or more per day online, with e-mail being the most pervasive online activity for this age group. Read more about the study results here.

Google Leads Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites
According to AddThis.com, the top 10 social bookmarking sites for November were: Google (#1 at 17%), Favorites, Facebook, Live, Del.icio.us, Digg, MyWeb, Ask, Furi, and StumbleUpon (#10 at 3.6%). Find out more here.

TV Watchers Also View Video on Other Devices
According to the recent release of The ChoiceStream 2007 Survey of Viewer Trends in TV and Online Video, 55% of connected consumers who watch TV watch some type of video on devices other than their TV sets, including their computers, mobile phones and digital media players (e.g., iPod). Not surprisingly, video-watching on these alternative devices is more popular among younger consumers (66%) than older ones (36%). Get more information about the survey here.

Online Reviewers Bring Goodwill Toward Men (And Women)
Bazaarvoice recently released the findings of a study that surveyed over 1,300 online reviewers to discover what moved them to share their opinions. Overwhelmingly, the survey found, reviewers are motivated by goodwill and positive sentiment: 90% write reviews in order to help others make better buying decisions, 70% want to help companies improve the products they build and carry, 79% write reviews in order to reward a company, and 87% of the reviews are generally positive in tone. Read the full story here.

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New Products and Services Announcements

NEW TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES

Rareview Announces New Year???s Resolution Coach
Rareview Interactive recently announced the release of its highly anticipated New Year’s resolution website Start a Resolution (www.startaresolution.com). Start a Resolution is a one-of-a-kind concept that aims to help people commit to their New Year’s resolutions. The site is completely free to all users and allows them to enter their resolutions and stay on track to meet them. Users are assigned a coach who will help monitor their progress. When the next user signs up, the previous user also becomes a coach and helps the next person achieve their goals. It’s a give and take (pay it forward) concept where people help each other reach their objectives. Read the full press release here.

EarthFrisk Launches Meta-Social Hybrid Search Engine
EarthFrisk.Org recently launched the first Meta-Social Hybrid Search Engine. With the motto ”If you can’t find it by using this site, it doesn’t exist,” EarthFrisk.org finally fully unleashes the Web. “We’ve created the first search engine where the community can vote and comment on the very best search results, which are the top searches of Google, MSN’s Live and Yahoo, among others, all with less spam,” stated Michael Lodispoto, the managing member of EarthFrisk.Org. Find out more about the EarthFrisk tool here.

Rummble Announces Facebook App to Share Travel Spots
Rummble, the location based content discovery service and mobile social network, recently launched a Facebook application to share your favorite places around the world, with your Facebook friends. Joining a handful of useful applications amongst thousands of time eating add-on tools to the popular Facebook service, the Rummble application enables you to easily share your favorite places around the world with all from within your Facebook profile. The Rummble service includes location based content, blogging, photos, status sets and trips so you can see which of friends is going where and when - whether you’re at home or on the move. Access the full press release here.

IBM Announces Corporate Social Networking Tool
IBM recently announced the availability of IBM Atlas for Lotus Connections, a corporate social networking visualization and analysis tool. IBM Atlas for Lotus Connections is designed to help organizations maximize their investment in social software by answering questions such as who the key experts are on a given topic, how they are connected, and whom a user’s contacts know that they do not. Developed by IBM Research, Atlas has four Web 2.0-based components — My Net, Find, Reach and Net. These components help users spot the important connections and the relationships between various groups and navigate their personal and corporate networks. Read the entire press release here.

IM-History Announces Free Chat History Service
IM-History, a new company, announced its service that allows users of public instant messaging services to manage contacts and access chat histories on line, for free. Read more about it here.

Thumbplay Brings Ringtones to Qloud
Qloud, a social music service that allows users to listen to music inside of social networks, and Thumbplay, a mobile entertainment content destination company, recently announced a partnership to contextually feature Thumbplay’s ringtones throughout each deployment of Qloud’s My Music application. This deal will allow users across a range of social networks to discover, purchase and download ringtones to more than 2,000 supported and compatible mobile phones. “We selected Thumbplay as our first mobile entertainment content provider, as it delivers a broad and deep catalog of content that will enable Qloud My Music users to extend their enthusiasm about the social music experience to their cell phones,” said Mike Lewis, co-founder of Qloud. “Thumbplay’s ability to offer ringtones regardless of users’ wireless carrier or mobile phone is consistent with our commitment to connecting consumers with music wherever they want it.”
Access the full press release here.

FeedM8 Announces Free News Texting Service
FeedM8, the global leading provider in mobilization and monetization service, recently launched Web-Alerts.com, a free service that monitors the web and sends updates via text messaging. “Web-Alerts is the ideal mobile service,” says Allen Lau, President and Co-founder of FeedM8. “It lets you stay fully connected with news that matters to you, even when you’re away from a computer, which is vital in an increasingly mobile world.” To use Web-Alerts, visit Web-Alerts.com and enter the address of any website or RSS feed. Web-Alerts will automatically monitor the website and alert the user via text message when something new appears, optionally checking for specific keywords. The text message also contains a link to the mobile optimized version of the full story. Read more about it here.

ExactSeek Announces Advanced Search Technology with Searchdaimon PartnerShip
ExactSeek.com, a web search engine committed to providing small and medium-sized businesses with affordable search engine advertising alternatives to pay-per-click, recently announced an exclusive partnership with Searchdaimon AS, a technology company located in Trondheim, Norway that has developed an advanced search technology capable of high speed indexing and search of huge amounts of unstructured data. “ExactSeek has been focused on improving its search technology for several years. Our partnership with Searchdaimon has enabled us to address the fundamental search issues of speed, relevancy and scalability,” said Mel Strocen, CEO of Jayde Online, Inc., ExactSeek’s parent company. Searchdaimon has long been a participant in the well known search technology environment at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology along with other companies like Google, Yahoo and Fast. Read the entire press release here.

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The SNCR Year in Review

Hello and happy new year! As we begin 2008, we’d like to reflect on the past year, and thank our Fellows and members for their participation and support of the Society for New Communications Research. Thanks to you, we enjoyed a great deal of activity, progress and growth during the past year!

The Society welcomed several new Fellows and Senior Fellows as well as many new individual and corporate members in 2007. We held another successful New Communications Forum last March ??? our third annual event ??? which was attended by nearly 450 participants. We also published another issue of the Journal of New Communications Research as well as New Communications Review. The Society???s Best Practices Committee developed three new Best Practices Tip Sheets: one on corporate social media policy development, one focused on corporate blogging best practices and one on understanding how to embrace consumer-generated media to collaborate with customers and successfully achieve co-ownership of the brand.

This summer the Society launched an Education Program to bring guest lecturers, seminars and advice about curriculum development by the Society???s Fellows to colleges and universities. The SNCR developed this program to address the fact that communications professionals and educators alike are facing the shifting paradigm to new communications and social media, but often without the latest information related to research, industry trends, case studies and best practices. The SNCR Education Program was designed to bridge this gap and provide valuable education and training opportunities to educators, students and communications professionals seeking continuing education. The Society???s Fellows have provided a wide range of guest lectures and seminars, special workshops and classes to meet the needs of colleges and universities that want to supplement their core curricula with content that addresses new communications tools and technologies, new media, Web 2.0 and developments in social media. Classes and lectures are available online (sponsored by WebEx) as well as via face-to-face instruction. In addition, the Society advises faculty in Communications, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Journalism and Business departments on curricula development to address these topics.

In addition, several of our Fellows published new and important books, and many of our Fellows conducted groundbreaking research focused on new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business and society. In the beginning of 2007, we collaborated with SNCR Senior Fellow Joseph Jaffe to conduct the primary research for his book, Join the Conversation. In the second half of the year, we were honored to receive our first research grant from the Institute for Public Relations and Wieck Media to conduct a study entitled “New Media, New Influencers and Implications for the Public Relations Profession.” The study was conducted by a team of five SNCR Fellows including John Cass, Joseph Carrabis, Paul Gillin, Richard Nacht and Greg Peverill-Conti, with the assistance of our Newhouse School intern, Shayna Kim. The team shared their initial findings at the Society???s 2nd Annual Research Symposium in Boston in December.

Several of our Senior Fellows also conducted independent research studies and research projects on behalf of our corporate members, the results of which they also shared at the Society???s Symposium. These included a study by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes which compared data collected from 453 colleges and universities to other new studies on the Inc. 500 and other companies, as well as America???s largest charities to provide insight into the current state of social media adoption in the U.S. In another study, Senior Fellow Joseph Carrabis examined how the language and tone of the communication in blogs suggest power relationships and determine patterns of influence. And, finally, Senior Fellow Shel Israel undertook the SAP Global Social Media Survey in which he conducted more than 50 interviews with people in 20+ countries on five continents.

In November we celebrated the Society???s 2nd anniversary, with a small reception and 2008 Preview event hosted by Voce Communications in Palo Alto, California. We concluded our year with our first open call for Fellowship applications and our 2nd annual Research Symposium and Awards Gala, which took place in Boston in early December. We were overwhelmed by the number and quality of applications we received from prospective Fellows ??? more than 40 from around the world. We were also delighted by the number and diversity of awards submissions ??? more than 100 from 10 countries representing a diversity of initiatives and media types from individuals and a wide range of organizations, including Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dell, GM, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, IBM and many others ??? and through this process it became obvious to us that social media has come of age in the enterprise.

And, in case you haven???t noticed, we have a new website, so check out http://www.sncr.org!

It has been a full, busy and exciting year indeed. And, we have an equally busy and exciting year planned for 2008. Very shortly we will announce our 2008 Fellows. They will embark on many exciting individual research and education initiatives. In addition, they will lead on some groundbreaking research studies on behalf of our corporate members and Vendor Council members.

In addition, the Society will soon release the latest edition of the Journal of New Communications Research and has issued a call for papers for its Spring/Summer issue. And, in April we will hold the New Communications Forum 2008. Please join us! Now in its fourth year, New Communications Forum is the premier conference that brings together thought leaders and decision makers from around the globe to discuss the impact of social media and new communications on media, marketing, journalism, PR and advertising, business, culture and society. NewComm Forum is not a typical conference. The Forum provides an in-depth, hands-on exploration of the future of communications. In its short history, it has come to be known as one of the world???s leading conferences focusing on the latest trends in new emerging media and communications platforms.

Later in the year we will hold our first Fellows Retreat, and will of course hold another Research Symposium and Awards Gala in fall 2008.

We look forward to having the opportunity to continue to support the work of our Fellows as they research, educate and publish their discoveries, and we look forward to serving our individual and corporate members with unparalleled insights into how they can best utilize the latest developments in media and communications. If you???re not yet a member of the Society, we invite you to join us! We are always seeking to expand our membership and build a global virtual community of individuals and organizations who are involved and interested in new communications. Joining the Society provides you with many educational benefits and enables the SNCR to continue its ongoing research, publication and education initiatives. Ultimately, your participation helps us all to better understand the impact of new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business and society.

We thank you for your support and participation in the Society for New Communications Research and wish you a great 2008!

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Reflecting on 2007 and Looking Ahead: SNCR Fellows Offer Their Predictions for 2008

By Jen McClure, Executive Director, Society for New Communications Research

At the end of 2006, we asked the Fellows of the Society for New Communications Research to offer their prognostications for 2007. These included: an increase in the popularity of YouTube, the prediction that every presidential hopeful would have a blog, the increased importance of virtual currency and Second Life, the emergence of social media tools that help people educate, not just communicate, and APIs, plug-ins and widgets that further enhance social media websites??? functionalities.

Last year, the SNCR Fellows also predicted that corporate communications professionals and PR agencies would begin incorporating social media tools and programs into their initiatives on a large scale in 2007 ??? with the caveat that those in the financial services and healthcare industries would keep a tight rein on sanctioned and unsanctioned use of social community technologies by employees ??? to remain in compliance with regulations such as Graham Leach-Bliley, SOX and HIPAA.

They foresaw the incredible rapid deterioration of the traditional daily newspaper business model due to citizen media, and conjectured that Google???s stock price would surpass 750. They speculated that there would be more consolidations and acquisitions in the social media and new communications technology space, and that there would begin to be some major lawsuits against social media properties.

Many of these predictions and prognostications did indeed come to pass, and so we thought we???d try it again ??? with a twist. This year we asked our Fellows to divide their predictions into categories: what they definitely believed would happen in 2008, what they believed might possibly happen, and what they envisioned as some wild scenarios. Here???s what they had to say:

In terms of social media adoption, many of the SNCR???s Fellows believe that 2008 will bring an increase in microblogging (e.g., Twitter), that more strategic importance will be placed on corporate blogging ??? even as overall blog growth continues to slow and some organizations decide against engaging in social media at all. But, for those who do engage in social media, the Fellows also predict a greater adoption of other social media tools and technologies in addition to blogging, and predict that more individuals and organizations will engage in multi-media communications projects ??? integrating audio, video, virtual worlds, etc.

They foresee a continued increase in the adoption of social media by the nonprofit sector and an increase in the use of social media tools for education. They also see a continued and widening adoption of social media for political communications, but suggest that there will be important missed opportunities.

All of these developments, they agreed suggest an urgent need for new media literacy.

The new year, the SNCR Fellows suggest, will possibly bring significant developments in semantic search. They also believe that social networks will become more vertical in nature and niche-oriented. There could be an increased level of transparency on the part of organizations as they continue to open the lines of communication both internally and externally using social media tools, and encourage conversations with employees and external audiences, resulting in a more open sharing of corporate decision making.

They also see the possibility of a large scale privacy crisis revolving around a social network(s), potential litigation from a regulatory body, the development of better measurements and standards surrounding social media, and public sentiment possibly turning against blogger/pundits.
In the category of ???very remote possibilities,??? the Fellows explored several wide-ranging ideas, including: the creation of a universal identity for all social networks and the possible involvement of the government in domain allocations. They imagined that mainstream media brands (including newspapers and magazines) may enjoy a resurgence as they become more savvy and understand how to incorporate social media, develop new business models and re-invent themselves as social media properties or hybrid models of traditional media with a citizen media and/or online community complement.

Finally, they painted a possible doomsday scenario and asked what would happen if we completely lost the Internet. Where would we begin and what would we create if we had to start over from scratch?

Whatever the future holds, all of us at the Society for New Communications Research wish all of you a happy holiday season, and a wonderful and exciting new year! And, we invite you to offer your thoughts and predictions. What do you think that 2008 holds in store?

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UCLA Extension and Fielding Graduate University Launch Master’s Degree Program in Media Psychology and Social Change

On Education

Santa Barbara - CA - In recognition of the ability of media to affect human behavior, UCLA Extension and Santa Barbara-based Fielding Graduate University are jointly launching a new educational program in Media Psychology and Social Change. The program, which is available online to students from around the world, officially launches in January.

To complete the program students will take four courses through UCLA Extension and six courses through Fielding Graduate University, leading to a master???s degree to be awarded by Fielding. The courses focus on the critical social, educational, entertainment, health and environmental issues impacting the world in the 21st century. Furthermore, participants will develop skills and learn processes for applying media to impact behavior and achieve solutions for significant global concerns.

???We are proud to be working with UCLA Extension to offer this unique new program,??? said Dr. Erik Gregory, director of Fielding University ???s master???s degree program. ???Our goal is to create a new generation of media specialists who use their skills for the betterment of society.???

The master???s degree program is comprised of 10 five-week courses, all of which are offered online to anyone around the world.

???In addition to the pioneering nature of our collaboration with Fielding Graduate University and the uniqueness of the subject matter to be addressed in the program???s courses, the fact that this program is being offered entirely online is truly remarkable,??? said Eve Haberfield, PhD, director, Humanities, Sciences, Social Sciences, and Health Sciences at UCLA Extension. ???This means that people from around the world can study in this program and then apply the lessons they???ve learned in their own local settings.???

The Media Psychology and Social Change program engages students in a process that provides evidence of progress each step of the way. When they have finished the first series of four online courses through UCLA Extension, students will earn a certificate of completion from that institution. Qualified students then continue through the master???s degree program at Fielding Graduate University . Master???s degree awardees may then apply to work toward a doctorate in Media Psychology and Social Change through Fielding Graduate University .

???We have designed a unique partnership pathway leading from the master’s degree through the doctorate that is exceptionally efficient and effective,??? said Society for New Communications Research Senior Fellow Dr. Bernard Luskin, director of the Media Psychology PhD program at Fielding Graduate University. ???Most units earned for the master???s degree will apply to either the PhD and EdD options available to the students.???

???If you are a mid-career, working professional in the entertainment industry, advertising, communication field, marketing, education, health care, commerce or public policy, this program is for you,??? said Luskin.

For more information on the joint program in Media Psychology and Social Change offered by UCLA Extension and Fielding Graduate University, visit uclaextension.edu and www.fielding.edu.

For Enrollment Contact:
Heidi Parker, 800.340.1099
Alexis Markowitz, UCLA Extension, 310.825.7093

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On the Evolution of Content

On Publishing

By SNCR Senior Fellow Danny O. Snow and J. Dawn Snow

???In the Beginning, there was The Word?????? ??? John 1:1

Just as Darwin posited that all living things share a common ancestor, today???s communication theorists might envision an ???evolutionary tree??? of media descending from the earliest spoken language to the new digital technologies that are emerging today. Based on what we know today, how will the media of today adapt and evolve tomorrow? We argue that a new branch of this ???evolutionary tree??? is sprouting; this paradigm shift in communication must be understood not only in terms of new possibilities for production, but also in terms of the ways in which people write, read, and create content. In short, we envision digital media as sparking a (r)evolution not only in form but also content.

As a side-note to the reader, we???ve included several binaries underneath each subtopic in order to lend clarity to our discussion. Drawing in part on Donna Haraway???s (1991) ???Cyborg Manifesto,??? (Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, 1991, pp.149-181.) we???ve included word-pairs that juxtapose ???traditional??? understandings of media with our visions for the future.

e-Books and tree-Books
Binary keywords: intangible-tangible, soft-hard, digital-printed, free-valued

In recent years, the most obvious branching of the tree has been a simple division between printed and digital media, a dichotomy for which we coined the phrase ???e-Books and tree-Books??? in earlier publications.

Electronic publishing has made information infinitely easier to propagate, virtually immortal, much more populist and far less costly. It can also influence writing style. To quote an eloquent turn of phrase from e-publisher Richard Eoin Nash, ???Less and less material is required to store and transmit intellectual property. The container of the idea begins to slowly disappear, leaving only the idea itself, no more palpable than a swarm of electrons.???

Nevertheless, the rapid rise of information in digital form has introduced new problems regarding the integrity of content. In the past, the time and expense required to render words in print served as a Darwinian ???survival of the fittest??? mechanism. But in 2007-2008, almost anyone can publish almost anything, with remarkable ease, speed and economy. Is it any wonder that it is has become harder and harder to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff?

Yet even if print content appears more ???trustworthy??? to a discerning audience than digital content, there are at least two reasons why digitized information should trump the printed word, at least in developed nations. First, in developed nations, access to digital content is approaching ubiquity. As the cost of hardware and Internet access falls, the so-called ???Digital Divide??? is shrinking. An entire generation of people born after 1985 sees the personal computer and the Web as integral parts of life that have ???always??? existed. Secondly, developed nations are now more focused on conservation of natural resources than ever before; digitized information not only eliminates the need for the paper on which it would otherwise be printed, but it also eliminates other resources necessary to print, package, and deliver tree-Books to consumers.

However, tree-Books continue to dominate the reading world. This appears true even on college campuses where students are both tech savvy and environmentally friendly. One could counter-argue that there has been clear, consistent growth in the buying and reading of digital content since 2002, as documented in annual reports from the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF.org). We believe that the eventual adoption of digital media as the norm is inevitable, if only for economic reasons. However, we believe that this change will involve much more than mere economics; rather, as new forms of media give rise to new ways of writing, readers must equip themselves with new ways of reading.

Today, readers have an inclination to perceive tangible content such as tree-Books, newspapers, etc. as somehow intrinsically more valuable and authoritative than intangible material such e-Books. The extent to which readers are able to adapt to new information forms is essentially in understanding how, and to what extent, e-Books will supplant tree-Books. In order to talk about this change, we must first develop a nomenclature that accurately captures basic distinctions between different kinds of media.

???Warm??? or ???Living??? Content
Binary keywords: dynamic-static, warm-cold, fluid-solid

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What Didn’t Happen in 2007

NewCommentary

By Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham, 2005-2006 Senior Fellows, Society for New Communications Research and co-founders, Work Design Collaborative & The Future of Work

Each year about this time we force ourselves to review our prognostications and predictions from a year ago. We’re fond of saying that the nice thing about being futurists is that no one can prove us wrong. But when you’ve been around as long as we have, your past has a way of sneaking up on you. Besides, we actually enjoy learning from our prior predictions and trying to get better next time.

So this month we’ll reflect a bit on our expectations for 2007, admit to our mistakes, and lay a foundation for 2008. Look for a new set of our fearless future visions in the January issue, right when you’re all in the middle of making your own New Year’s Resolutions. But before we begin, we feel compelled to comment on how as we get older (and it’s hard not to) we’re getting more and more conservative in our predictions and expectations. We may not have learned much over the years, but one thing stands out for us at this point: there are really only two kinds of change.

“Type A” changes are those unexpected, major events that seem come out of almost nowhere and catch all of us by surprise. Sometimes those surprises are genuine disasters (like Katrina, or the California wildfires, or the subprime mortgage crisis, or the more recent Bangladesh cyclones). Of course, in hindsight we can almost always figure out the underlying causes, and we always chastise ourselves for being so blind to what so quickly becomes obvious. Unfortunately, however, hindsight isn’t really worth all that much. Sure, it’s important to learn from experience, but when the stakes are big we’d much rather avoid surprises.

What we call “Type B” change is a whole lot more subtle. In fact, it’s the kind of change that almost never makes the news. It’s the slow, imperceptible kind of change that we find really, really hard to see. For example, until recently global warming and melting ice caps simply weren’t visible to most of us, and so for all practical purposes didn’t exist. Of course, we appear to have run right past the tipping point in that area.

Our point in highlighting slow, subtle change, is that most of us get so excited about new technologies, or new management practices, that we manage to convince ourselves that change is inevitable, and will happen as fast as we can think about it. After all, if we can see the possibilities, can’t everyone else too?

Uh, no way Jose. The biggest fallacy futurists make is in expecting human institutions and human behavior to change quickly. It’s not that Type A Change never happens, but that it’s rare (and it’s usually preceded by years of small Type B changes that are there if you look hard enough, even though most of us don’t).

Thus, we approach this prediction/postdiction exercise a bit chastened and a bit “sadder but wiser” than we were a year or two ago.

So that’s enough philosophizing. Here’s the Big Question: What did we think was going to happen in 2007 but didn’t? And why?

Technology

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Predictions for Online Advertising in 2008

On Advertising

Following are some predictions for online advertising in the coming year from MediaSpan, Good Health Advertising, Jumpstart Automotive Media, Inc. and CheckM8:

From Mark S. Zagorski, Chief Marketing Officer, MediaSpan Group Inc.:

1. The consolidation trend in online advertising will continue, particularly in the vertical network segment where niche publishers will be snapped up by larger brands looking to strengthen their foothold and expand sell-able inventory. The 70/10 rule (70%+ of online dollars concentrated amongst the top 10 properties) will become the 80 / 8 rule.

2. A user generated news portal will launch and will become the most highly trafficked news website in the world. Google will purchase it and will finally do what they said they wanted no part of ??? become a content producer ??? but will do so without hiring a single writer.

The MediaSpan Network delivers national online advertising highly targeted across over 1,300 local radio, newspaper and television websites in 300 U.S. DMAs. MediaSpan Network Sales grew 282% during 2007.

From Robert Kadar, President, Good Health Advertising Inc.

1. Growth in online media spending will outpace that of any other measured media.
2. Pharma marketers will begin to develop best practices for participating in online social media.

New York-based Good Health Advertising provides advertisers and ad agency partners an efficient and realizable new way to reach the long-tail of online health consumers while also providing health information publishers with a dependable, high-quality revenue stream. Privately-held GHA represents more than 30 high-quality health, medical and healthy living Web sites, offering advertisers a monthly reach of over 8 million health information consumers.

From Mitch Lowe, Chief Executive Officer, Jumpstart Automotive Media:

1. 2008 will be the year that targeting by audience, rather than context, will become the norm.

2. The auto industry will spend at least 8% of its advertising budget, more than $3 billion in total, on digital advertising.

Jumpstart Automotive Media, Inc. partners with leading web publishers to create the Internet???s largest and highest quality community of car shoppers. Jumpstart???s targeted reach and innovative marketing programs help automotive manufacturers and dealers improve their advertising results and help web publishers achieve a maximum return on their audience. Jumpstart is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.

From Dana Ghavami, CEO, CheckM8 Inc.:

1) As 2007 was the year that validated the online medium as a crucial part of the advertising mix, 2008 will be a defining year of how online ad inventory will be brokered. The major media portals and networks will attempt to become clearinghouses of online advertising, while media sellers and buyers will be jiving with marketplace exchanges for direct ad placements. All in all, ad dollars will find the best ways of reaching content-specific sites rather than increased spending in broader strokes.

2) As 2007 was the year that blurred all the lines between media and technology companies with the acquisition of all major ad serving providers, the reshaped ad technology landscape will take a new form in 2008. The vacuum created by substantial conflicts of interest and sensitivity of data in ulterior interest-owned hands will give rise to new independent leaders to service the major media brands.

CheckM8 offers the online advertising industry the most advanced new approaches and cutting edge technologies for ad serving, inventory management, and rich media. CheckM8’s products increase efficiency and expand the growth of web publishers. CheckM8 technology is used by leading online publishers including Business Week, Nielsen, Orange, Terra Networks, Time Inc., Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, among many others. CheckM8 is based in NY, with offices in London, Madrid, Stockholm and R&D facilities in Israel.

What do you think? Do you agree with these predictions? Do you have some predictions of your own? We invite you to share them here!

Thanks to George Simpson for sharing these with us!

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The Latest Industry Research

NewComm TidBits

Million Dollar Day for TV Courtesy of Presidential Campaigns
On Dec. 10, the 2008 presidential campaign hit a significant milestone: the first $1 million dollar day in TV spending. What makes this day so extraordinary is the majority of this spending is not from groups, but from the candidates. The spending is largely aimed at voters in just two states and the ads are, for the most part, positive. Further, this amount takes into account only broadcast TV. Read the full article here.

Credit and Housing Markets Lower U.S. Advertising Projections
Updating global ad forecasts, ZenithOptimedia provides new projections that lowers US advertising growth from the previous 3.3% in 2007 to a now expected 2.5% primarily due to a credit squeeze and continued slump in housing market. Additionally, the report notes that in spite of the many challenges that television faces: the spread of PVRs (personal video recorders); migration of viewers from premium mass-audience channels to cheaper specialist channels; and competition from the Internet, television will increase its share of global ad expenditure from 37.9% in 2007 to 38.2% in 2008, an all-time record. The report suggests that the Olympic Games will help lift television’s share of the global ad market in 2008, while online video and local search will drive a 30% growth in internet ad expenditure this year - nine times faster than the rest of the ad market. Read more from the Center for Media Research here.

Google Announces Top 10 List of Fastest-Rising U.S. Search Terms in 2007
Every day millions of people use Google search to find information, and a snapshot of these searches presents a revealing look into the ideas, opinions, preferences and interests of internet users across the globe. According to Google???s 2007 Zeitgeist, the top 10 fastest-rising search terms in the United States for 2007 were:
1. iPhone
2. Webkinz
3. TMZ
4. Transformers
5. YouTube
6. Club Penguin
7. MySpace
8. Heroes
9. Facebook
10. Anna Nicole Smith
See more statistics from Google???s Zeitgeist here.

Airbus To Lose $7 Billion Due To Information Management Failure
Airbus’ failure to share knowledge and collaborate among its multinational companies in recent years will cost the aircraft maker a staggering euro 4.8 billion ($7 billion) over the next four years according to a new report from Basex, Inc., a provider of research on the productivity of knowledge workers and how technology impacts them. Such failures stem from many sources, including fragmentation across national boundaries, a lack of managerial insight, an inability to listen to its customers, and an unwillingness to invest in the latest software. If Airbus is ever to regain financial stability, it must focus on building a knowledge-sharing infrastructure that supports enterprise-wide collaboration, rather than try to balance competing European interests, according to the report, “Airbus Hits Turbulence: How Knowledge Sharing Failures Cost Airbus Euro 4.8 Billion.” Read the full article here.

Top 10 Organizations At Odds With Technology
From PC World: Their names keep coming up over and over again in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country–those groups whose interests always seem to run counter to those of technology companies and consumers. They come in many forms: associations, think tanks, money-raising organizations, PACs, and even other tech-oriented industries like telecommunications. The tech issues that they’re concerned with are what you might expect: digital rights management and fair use, patent law, broadband speed and reach, wireless spectrum and network neutrality. I talked to a good number of tech and media policy insiders in Washington, D.C.–mostly off the record–to find out who these groups are, how they operate, and who pays their bills. We’ll start with the biggest offenders first and work our way down. Read the full article here.

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New Products and Services Announcements

NEW TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES

Six Apart Announces Movable Type Open Source (MTOS)
SNCR Vendor Council Member Six Apart has released an open-source version of Movable Type, the company’s main blogging platform. The new Movable Type Open Source (MTOS) is licensed under the GPL, which means users can freely modify, redistribute, and use Movable Type for anything they want. As a publishing system, MTOS has the same feature set as Movable Type 4.0 (MT4), and all your favorite plugins, themes, templates, designs, and APIs that work with MT4 will also work with MTOS. Unlike the commercial version of MT4, MTOS supports an unlimited number of blogs, as many authors as you like, and even features OpenID logins (another project largely developed by Six Apart, MT???s parent company) ??? all available for free. Read the full article here.

Jet Blue To Offer In-Flight Internet Access
Fliers heading from San Francisco to New York on JetBlue Airways next week may get a chance to begin testing in-flight e-mail and instant-messaging service. The New York-based recently offered free limited service on Flight 641 from JFK International Airport to San Francisco International. Service will be accessible only to travelers using two BlackBerry models, the 8820 and 8320, and to laptop users with Yahoo e-mail and Yahoo instant messaging. Passengers will not be allowed to use the service during takeoffs and landings. Access the full article here.

Universal Music and imeem Partner to Bring Music to imeem Community
Universal Music Group (UMG) and imeem recently announced an agreement that will provide the imeem community with on-demand, interactive streaming of Universal???s extensive digital music and video catalog. With this announcement, imeem is the first social networking company to offer full-length, streaming access to the entire music and video catalogs of all four major music companies on an advertising-supported basis. Beginning today, imeem???s audience of over 19 million users can listen to and express themselves with music and video from UMG???s digital catalog, which includes many of the world’s top-selling artists such as Kanye West, Amy Winehouse, Fall Out Boy, 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas, The Pussycat Dolls, Gwen Stefani, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Maroon 5 and Nelly, among many others. Read the entire press release here.

Blog Council Founded
The Blog Council, a professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging, launched recently. Founding members include the leading companies from a diverse range of business sectors: AccuQuote, Cisco Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, and Wells Fargo. The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet one another in a private, vendor-free environment and share tactics, offer advice based on past experience, and develop standards-based best practices as a model for other corporate blogs. Read more about it here.

AT&T Abandoning Pay Phone Business
AT&T has announced plans to exit the shrinking payphone business by the end of 2008. AT&T’s Public Communications unit has continued to experience significant pressure from reduced payphone usage, primarily as a result of the growth of mobile phones. The company plans to phase out both public pay phones and phones provided under contracts at government correctional facilities through the end of next year. All customers will receive advance notification of specific plans as well as information on other potential providers and product options. Access the full story here.

FCG Releases Content Management Software for Life Sciences Organizations
First Consulting Group (FCG) recently announced the release of FirstPoint, a Microsoft Office-Based Application to meet the needs of enterprise content management (ECM). FirstPoint is a flexible, cost effective, and scalable solution that can be easily configured to meet specific business requirements of a life sciences organization. FCG also offers FirstPoint preconfigured with time-proven industry best practices to meet the needs of the entire life sciences organization - from R&D to marketing & sales. Access the entire press release here.

Zanox Launches Analytics Tool For SEM Campaigns
Zanox, a performance-based multichannel commerce company, recently announced the launch of Look@Landingpages, a unique tool that enables online publishers, for the first time, to see exactly which keywords convert into sales. Look@Landingpages delivers a detailed performance analysis of search engine marketing campaigns, allowing publishers to see at a glance which keywords are successful, increasing their efficiency and profit. The tool is free of charge. Publishers need a zanox account, Google AdWords account & editor, a website and Microsoft Excel to begin. Read the full press release here.

ClipBlast! Releases Remote Control for Video Web
ClipBlast! a web video search and navigation platform, recently announced the release of ClipBlast! Version 3.0. Acting in effect as a ???remote control for the Video Web,??? the new release represents a major enhancement of ClipBlast!’s video search platform. Read more about it here.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Partners with 5min Video for Online Educational Video
5min, an instructional video website, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., one of the world’s most trusted sources of information, have announced a new partnership aimed at bringing the best in educational video to online users. Under the agreement, 5min will host educational videos from Britannica’s collection on a broad range of topics, including science, geography, history, nature and more. The collaboration will give 5min’s knowledge-seeking users easy access high-quality videos, while Britannica will benefit from exposure to new online audiences. 5min is an instructional video site that allows users and businesses to showcase their knowledge and skills through an innovative instructional media player. Since its launch in April, the website has generated a considerable fan base and now boasts over 1.5 million monthly unique visits, 4 million video views and thousands of instructional videos being uploaded every month. Read the full press release here.

Ask-Us-1st Announces Research and Publishing Source
Ask-Us-1st.com has opened a new entertaining, yet informative site on the Internet. Enlightening articles on a diverse selection of subjects are available, some of them provide an even richer experience by integrating video illustrating the point the author is making. The amount of content will grow rapidly, as new authors join the network. Extremely popular website formats right now are article directories, social networking sites and video sharing sites. Ask Us 1st combines elements from all of these, in order to provide the richest experience possible to its online audience.??? Providing easily assimilated information on a diverse array of topics, Ask-us-1st is destined to become a popular place for doing online research. Access the press release here.

Cell Phone Ads: Coming Soon to Your Phone
SMS Media Group announces the launch of Cell Phone Ads, the first of its kind network for advertisers to market to opt-in cell phone subscribers. The Cell Phone Ads network lets advertisers place up to 60 characters of text on mobile content such as news, entertainment, finance and other timely alerts. Advertising on cell phones is predicted to be worth $10 billion by 2010, and SMS is expected to be the most widely used platform by wireless users. Over 350 billion text messages are sent each month around the world, with over 15 percent of these messages, according to Yankee Group, being commercial or marketing in nature. Unlike mobile web or mobile search advertising, Cell Phone Ads offers direct SMS marketing to the wireless users inbox. These advertisements can be targeted according to user demographics and list preferences. “It’s the next evolution of direct marketing, and it’s virtually untapped by advertisers,” says Gary Brooks President of SMS Media Group. Read more about it here.

Evite Introduces QuckVite: Quick Invites From Your Phone or Computer
Evite announces a fast and easy way to get your friends together. With QuickVite, a brand new feature from Evite, you can plan last-minute get-togethers from your phone or computer in seconds. Fill in the where and the when and send. Guests receive QuickVite as a text message or e-mail and can reply three different ways. Find out more about QuickVite here.

In Social Media news…

Next2Friends Mobile Social Media Network Debuts Christmas Eve
Next2Friends, a mobile social media networking company, recently announced that it has successfully completed development and is ready to launch the beta version of their services commencing on Christmas Eve. “By enabling creation of a Social Network on Mobile Devices, Next2Friends can move network building into the real world as opposed to the virtual world,” said Andrew Doyle, COO of Next2Friends. “This creates immediate relevance for the user in contacts made which has never been delivered before. The free version of Next2Friends is likely to reach a user base far exceeding that of Facebook, Linkedin or MySpace. Read the full press release here.

Radian6 to Help Uncover Social Media Influentials
Los Angeles based Marketingworks Inc., a company specializing in digital word-of-mouth marketing and online consumer activation campaigns, has selected Radian6 Technologies, Inc. to help uncover the most influential sites and individuals in social media. Marketingworks connects with passionate consumers in numerous social-media channels, identifying the most socially active and sparking viral pass-along. The Radian6 social media monitoring solution helps PR and advertising professionals monitor and analyze social media in all its various forms from blogs to video sharing sites and from online forums to microblogging services like Twitter. Read the full press release here.

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SNCR 2007 Symposium Recap

The Fellows and members of the Society for New Communications Research and nearly 100 communications professionals gathered last week at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, Mass. for the 2nd Annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala. The event began with an opening keynote address by SNCR Senior Fellow Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D. of the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Barnes’ presentation compare data collected from 453 colleges and universities to other new studies on the Inc. 500 and other companies, as well as America???s largest charities, providing insight into the current state of social media adoption in the U.S.

Access the full presentation here.

Dr. Barnes’ presentation was followed by the 2nd Annual SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards Gala. Read synopses of all the winning case studies here.

On December 6th, the symposium began with the initial findings of new SNCR research study titled, “New Media, New Influencers & Implications for the PR Profession.” The research team consisted of SNCR Fellows John Cass, Paul Gillin, Richard Nacht and Greg Peverill-Conti. The study was made possible by a grant from the Institute for Public Relations and Wieck Media. The full presentation can be downloaded here.

SNCR Senior Fellow Joseph Carrabis presented the results of a research project, titled “The Blogging Power Continuum: How Bloggers & Their Audiences Share & Assign Power in a Knowledge-Based Medium.”

The symposium also featured three panel discussions featuring the top award winners in the SNCR’s Excellence in New Communications Awards program. The first panel, moderated by SNCR Fellow David Parmet, featured Michael Donnelly of Coca-Cola with Stephen Voltz of EepyBird.com, Ricardo Guerrero of Dell, Tim Allik of Topaz Partners representing the Scuderi Group, Christopher Barger of General Motors and Sandra Belknap of Sun Microsystems. Listen to the panel discussion here, courtesy of David Parmet. Thanks David!

SNCR Senior Fellow Katie Paine moderated a panel of winners in the nonprofit division, which included Elizabeth Pigg of Edelman representing the American Heart Association, Randy Roberson of H.E.L.P. and Ric Martel of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. And, Greg Peverill-Conti explored award-winning Second Life initiatives with Aaron of Text 100 on behalf of Cisco and Constantin Basturea of Converseon.

The SNCR Symposium closed with a presentation by SNCR Senior Fellow Shel Israel and SNCR Corporate Member Mike Prosceno, VP of Social Media for SAP. The two shared the results of the SAP Global Social Media Survey. Access the full presentation here.

Bill Ives posted a very comprehensive summary of the two-day event on Corante’s Fast Forward blog. You can check out his posts here:

Blogging at the Society for New Communications Research:

Social Media Success Stories: SNCR 2007 Winners - Part 2

Social Media & The Non-profits at the SNCR - Part 3

Online Communities & Virtual World from SNCR - Part 4

Social Media Global Trends from SNCR - Part 5

Thank you very much, Bill!

There are also a ton of photos available on Flickr. Check them out!

And, there was a lot of Twittering (”tweeting”?) going on throughout the event at http://twitter.com/SNCR. Thanks so much to SNCR Fellow Constantin Basturea for finally getting us going on Twitter. We invite you to join the conversation!

If you enjoyed this SNCR event, or if you weren’t able to make it this time, please make sure you save the dates April 22-25 to join us in Sonoma County, CA for NewComm Forum ‘08!

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SNCR Announces 2007 Excellence in New Communications Award Winners

The Society for New Communications Research has announced the 2007 SNCR Excellence in New Communications Award Winners. The Society???s awards honor the work of individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions and media outlets that are pioneering the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, virtual worlds and collaborative technologies in the areas of media, marketing, public relations, advertising, entertainment, education, politics and social initiatives.

Ten corporations were honored with Awards of Excellence in a variety of categories. General Motors was honored for its social media initiative. Dell was honored for the Dell Outlet Twitter Program. The Scuderi Group with Topaz Partners was recognized for its integrated social media program. The Dow Chemical Company and Sun Microsystems, Inc. were both recognized for their corporate blogs. The Flying Dog Brewery / coBRANDiT was honored in the Video category, as was The Coca-Cola Company, which also won a second Award of Excellence for a virtual world program. Bain & Company, Microsoft with Waggener Edstrom and Cisco Systems also won Awards of Excellence in the Online Communities/Virtual Worlds category.

In addition, several corporations were acknowledged with Awards of Merit for their blogs, including Approva, Nortel Networks, HP with Porter Novelli, The Bivings Group, Mobile Top Level Domain with Edelman, Airwide Solutions Inc., Midwest Airlines and Microsoft with Waggener Edstrom. The Arketi Group won an Award of Merit for its podcast. In the Corporate Video category. Microsoft and Edelman were recognized for their Windows Server Division video, and IBM received two Awards of Merit for its web videos. Infosys Technologies Limited and Unilever with Edelman won Awards of Merit for their online community initiatives.

In the Nonprofit division Awards of Excellence were given to the Centre for Policy Alternatives for its Groundviews blog, Public Citizen for its video, the Citizendium Foundation wiki and H.E.L.P. for its mobile media solution. Kubatana.net and Converseon???s Second Life Second Chance Trees campaign won Awards of Excellence in the Online Communities/Virtual Worlds category and the American Heart Association with Edelman was honored with an Award of Excellence for the Go Red campaign, and the the AID Foundation for Chicago won for its direct2housing.org initiative.

Additionally, several nonprofits were recognized with awards of Merit, including Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA), Capulet Communications LifeLube, the blog of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Infogroup International, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, HIMSS - Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Wikiklesia Press, EngineerAid, GINA for Missing Persons FOUNDation and Gutenberg Communications for the Help Vinay! Campaign

In the Education Awards division, Awards of Excellence were given to two initiatives: MAPS: Media Arts in the Public Schools and The United Nations University Media Studio for its ???Saving the Ayuquila River??? video case study.

In the Media Division, the Award of Excellence was given to Tapestries of Hope, and two Awards of Merit were given to ITtoolbox and PostSecret.

In the Technology Innovation division, Awards of Merit were given to three companies: CircleUp, CleanPix and Visible Technologies??? TruCast?? solution.

The Society also honored five individuals: Francois Gossieaux and Hylton Joliffe of MarketHum and sister company Corante; corporate blogging pioneer Mike Dillon, general counsel and executive vice president, Sun Microsystems Inc.; educator and new media researcher Dr. Craig E. Carroll of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina, and Chido Makunike, an online journalist and blogger from Zimbabwe, working in Senegal.

Read all the winning case studies:
Individual
Education
Corporate Blog
Corporate Community
Corporate Division
Corporate Podcast
Corporate Video
Corporate Virtual World
Media Blog
Media Community
Nonprofit Blog
Nonprofit Communications Innovation
Nonprofit Community
Nonprofit Mobile Media
Nonprofit Division
Nonprofit Video
Nonprofit Virtual World
Nonprofit Wiki
Technology Innovation

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Initial Findings of New Influencer Study Shared at SNCR Research Symposium

As more companies adopt social media, they struggle to find effective metrics for deciding who are the most influential players. This is among the initial findings of the SNCR’s latest research study, ???New Media, New Influencers and Implications for the PR Profession,??? which was presented today at the Society for New Communications Research Symposium in Boston, MA.

A survey was developed and targeted to the “power users” of social media. Nearly 300 PR, corporate and marketing communications professionals who are very experienced in social media participated in the survey, which focused on how influence patterns are changing and how communications professionals are addressing those changes. In addition, several case studies have been collected.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said that social media tools are becoming more valuable to their activities as more customers and influencers use them. Twenty-seven percent reported that social media is a core element of their communications strategy. Only three percent stated that social media has little or no value to their communications initiatives. Respondents believe that social media is most effective for the following sectors: arts, entertainment and recreation; communications; computer hardware and education.

???Blogs, podcasts, and social networks are changing the way we think about media and influence,??? said Jen McClure, executive director of the Society.

???We wanted to learn what criteria communications professionals use to define new influencers; how social media is being used to communicate with these influentials; and how to measure the effects of such efforts. The ultimate goal of the study is to offer a set of recommendations to the PR profession.???

Respondents reported that the most effective tools for their social media initiatives are currently:

o Blogs
o Online video
o Social networks

The top three criteria for determining the relevance and potential influence of a blogger or podcaster are:

o Quality of content on the blog or podcast
o Relevance of content to the company or brand
o Search engine rankings

Surprising to the researchers was the fact that criteria that measured online engagement for blogs and podcasts were among the least important to the respondents.

However, for online communities and social networks, the top three criteria for evaluating influence do reflect the importance of online engagement:

o Participation level
o Frequency of posting by the community member
o Name recognition of the individual

Fifty-one percent of respondents are formally measuring the effects of their social media initiatives. The metrics they value most are enhancement of relationships with key audiences, enhancement of reputation, customer awareness of program and comments/posts relevant to organization/products. Close to the bottom of the list was traditional media coverage.

Detailed results of the study will be published in the upcoming issue of the Journal of New Communications Research and a full report will be made available via the Society and the Institute for Public Relations in early 2008.

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2007 Individual Honorees

Society For New Communications Research
2007 Awards

Individual Honoree

Mike Dillon
General Counsel and Executive Vice President
Sun Legal Department
Sun Microsystems
Contact: kristi.rawlinson@sun.com

Mike Dillon serves as Sun’s General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Sun Legal Department. In this role, Mike leads a worldwide organization consisting of three functions: Legal, International Trade Services and Business Conduct. Mike has worked at Sun Microsystems twice during his 20 year career. From 1993 to 1999, he served in a variety of roles in Sun’s legal department including in support of Sun Microelectronics, Sun Soft, Inc., and I-Planet. In 2002, Mike rejoined Sun as Vice President of the Products Law Group. In this role, he was responsible for legal support for all of Sun’s product development efforts. In April, 2004 he was appointed to his current role as Sun’s General Counsel. Mike brings significant experience to Sun. Prior to rejoining Sun in 2002, Mike was General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of ONI Systems Corporation, a publicly traded manufacturer of optical networking equipment. Earlier in his career he was an associate and partner at several Bay Area law firms. Mike completed his BA in Communications/Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He received his J.D. from the University of Santa Clara.

Individual Honoree

Francois Gossieaux

Francois Gossieaux is a lifelong technical marketing and media veteran. He led marketing, product management and strategy at eRoom Technology, is President and Partner at MarketHum partner Corante, he founded Synopia, advises numerous companies in the technical marketing space, has developed and chaired industry events, and more. Francois has a long history with online media ??? having implemented an intranet for a large multinational company in the early 90???s, and was the organizer of the first large scale virtual event ??? InterAct ???96 ??? with Time Magazine and Infoworld. He has used blogs for grassroots political and environmental activities, and is currently blogging at emergencemarketing.com.

Individual Honoree

Hylton Joliffe
Contact: hyltonj-at-gmail.com

Hylton Jolliffe is a pioneer in social media, having founded the world???s first blog media company, Corante, in 2002, of which he is currently editor and publisher. Hylton held various senior roles for magazines, tradebook and Internet publishing start-ups in Hong Kong and New York before founding Corante and MarketHum LLC.

Individual Honoree

Chido Makunike
Contact: chidomakunike@gmail.com

Since 2006, Mr. Makunike has been an agricultural, business support consultant and freelance writer in Dakar, Senegal. He has been a frequent contributor of articles to many newspapers, blogs and websites regarding African political and economic development and agriculture. In recent years he has concentrated more on sustainable development and agricultural issues. From 2005-2006 he was the Coordinator of the Africa Organic Service Center branch of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM); Bonn, Germany and Dakar, Senegal. Prior to that, Mr. Makunike was an agricultural consultant, had his own vegetable growing business, was an immunology research associate at Texas medical Center in Houston, Texas, and a biochemistry research assistant at SUNY Syracuse, New York. Mr. Makunike has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Wisconsin, and has completed graduate courses in biochemistry at State University of New York, Syracuse.

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Technology Innovation Awards

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…CIRCLEUP!

Website: www.CircleUp.com

The Challenge
In the past twenty years email has gone from a techie tool used by engineers, academics and scientists to the defacto method of communication for hundreds of millions of people in all walks of life. Instant messaging has been hot on its heels in the younger demographic and is now reaching critical mass even in the enterprise. With daily emails worldwide totaling somewhere between 50 and 62 billion messages, an almost unmanageable torrent of information flows every single day. Email has even overtaken telephony as a communication tool in the workplace (according to a recent DataMonitor study). While email is the most widely used tool in existence for knowledge management, it has proven to be relatively inefficient when it comes to group communication and information gathering it is great at one-way distribution but inefficient at round-trip management. Today, when you ask a question or send a request to a group you get back a blizzard of emails that often include random answers, distractions and extraneous details that complicate and delay the information gathering, collaboration and decision-making process.

The Ingenious Proposal
CircleUp decided to provide a free service for groups of any size to reduce information overload. Their vision is to offer a service that allows people to pose questions and gather needed information from their groups and get back a single, organized result/answer, and then to deliver these organized results containing answers, facts, files, links, photos and feedback in a format that can be acted on immediately and shared with the group. Unlike mailing lists and existing social networking sites today that even businesses are relying on, CircleUp enhances group communication by offering a tool that saves time, reduces message clutter and enhances productivity. CircleUp is for anyone who uses email, instant messaging or Facebook to communicate with real world groups they belong to, such as sports teams, classroom parent volunteers, volunteer coordinators, grassroots political organizers and leaders of faith-based organizations. Businesses also benefit from CircleUp, using the service for day-to-day management, allowing professional users to deliver significant productivity gains in email and group communications right from Outlook.

The Call
The arrival of CircleUp introduces a new way for people to efficiently and powerfully manage their group communications, putting an end to the back-and-forth that often goes along with it. CircleUp solves the dilemma associated with trying to obtain and organize information or feedback requested from groups of people. Instead of receiving a blizzard of individual responses, you get back a single, organized result that you can print, share, export or archive to help manage and make sense of all of those responses. CircleUp easily allows users to message their circle in three simple steps, using the QuestionWriter wizard to guide them through the process. First, users create and personalize the question they want to ask, then select a specific AnswerPattern that best reflects the results (responses) they???ll receive in return. The last step is to choose intended recipients by clicking the icon of an existing circle (add or remove individual members with a double-click) or by creating a new circle directly from the user???s address book. Results can be accessed from just about anywhere through email, Facebook profiles, newsfeeds, the CircleUp website, a CircleUp widget on a group website, or via RSS. They can then be directly exported to Microsoft Excel, PDF or even transferred to Outlook contacts and Google or Yahoo maps using microformats. With the integration of the free CircleUp service with Outlook, used by close to 18 million people worldwide, CircleUp extends its service to small business, home office and professional users to deliver significant productivity gains in email and group communications. Now businesses are using CircleUp to maximize their productivity and positively impact the bottom line. For example, businesses can CircleUp all of the employees to ask ???Will you be making a change to your benefits during open enrollment???? and get back an organized list of people who need the paperwork, instead of a ton of emails (and the risk that someone???s email might slip through the cracks). CircleUp 45 sales reps in the field to ask for suggestions on how to solve a thorny customer problem. Get back a single, organized result that can now be shared by everyone, and found quickly and easily for future reference.

The Success Story
Denis O’Malley is a youth soccer tournament organizer in Concord, California. O’Malley used CircleUp to streamline the process of receiving tournament t-shirt orders. Using CircleUp, he created an email poll to receive information on sizes and numbers of shirts from over 100 team captains - receiving the details of 1,800 t-shirts by sending out just two CircleUps. O???Malley was able to save hours by avoiding his old process of viewing each email and typing the results in by hand. Shannyn Flory, a real estate agent, based in Boise, Idaho uses CircleUp to get quick answers from her fellow agents on feedback on the houses that she is selling, such as its pricing, condition and likely interest to homebuyers. By using CircleUp, she reduces phone calls and paper - and it enables her to simply show other realtors the CircleUp results page, instead of having to compile emails and notes into a readable document. Flory has also used the service to compile agents’ recommendations for the best contractors in various areas, such as landscaping or roofing. CircleUp isn???t just another destination website. CircleUp is helping to define the new era of Email 2.0 where users can get the messages they need through the channels they want, and can manage the amount of information sent to any one channel to improve personal efficiency, reduce information overload and enhance group communication. Since launching at DEMO in Feb. 2007, CircleUp has demonstrated what Email 2.0 looks like — round-trip communications management, for free!

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…CLEANPIX!

Website: www.cleanpix.com

The Challenge
In most businesses today, digital files are still being delivered manually. This method requires burned discs, overnight couriers and increased hardware for storage and management, which causes increases in cost both monetarily and environmentally.

The Ingenious Proposal
Simply put, digital files should be delivered electronically. CleanPix created a digital file courier for logos and marketing materials. CleanPix wanted to reduce or even eliminate the use of burned discs (plastics), packaging (paper/plastic), overnight couriers (fuel) and the need for additional hardware (raw material) in the management and delivery of digital media files. CleanPix solves the current problem of communications managers having to spend too much time, effort and cost to put their company’s marketing materials into action. It is often difficult to find the right file, figure out what file format you need and how you are going to get it to the person who requested it. CleanPix gives you the right file, right format, right now!

The Call
Create a service that uses a collective use of hardware and software (ASP) for clients to manage and deliver digital media files. The service needed to be easy to use and require minimal technical skills by both the administrator and end user. The service does not require any special purchase of hardware or software. This immediately reduces plastics, packaging, fuel and raw materials consumption.

The Success Story
CleanPix has eliminated or greatly reduced the manual delivery of media files for its clients and increased their PR and marketing visibility worldwide. In the past 6 years they have recorded over 300,000 successful downloads for their clients. As an example, NYC & Co., a client since 2002, has approximately 2,500 downloads per month. The overall impact for the environment is huge.

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…VISIBLE TECHNOLOGIES!

Website: www.visibletechnologies.com

The Challenge
Consumer Generated Media (???CGM???) is the term that encompasses all social media content on the Internet authored by consumers. This content ranges from blogs, to social networks, consumer review sites, message boards, and videos. CGM represents the fastest growing segment of the Internet, with more than 1 million new articles of content posted online and in social communities everyday. Millions of people worldwide are sharing experiences about themselves and interacting with companies, brands, services, and products. For companies, these online conversations represent a new opportunity and challenge for brand monitoring, reputation management, word-of-mouth marketing, and consumer engagement.

The Ingenious Proposal
Enable companies to identify, monitor, listen, engage and influence what consumers are saying about their products, brands, or services online and in social media communities. Visible Technologies??? TruCast solution is the industry’s first comprehensive service for social media analysis and engagement enabling clients to track, analyze, and participate in CGM conversations in blogs, forums, social networks, and online communities. The TruCast solution monitors in excess of 70M sources of CGM and online content — like blogs, podcasts, videocasts, forums, discussion boards, and all major publicly available mainstream media. The TruCast solution is an enterprise software solution that is offered to clients as a software-as-a-service (???SaaS???) model. Clients pay an implementation and monthly recurring fee for the services — typically a 2-year engagement. Additionally, they have an a la carte model for basic brand monitoring outputs and reporting that can be provided pre-implementation of the full service offering.

The Call
Visible Technologies was founded in 2003 by a group of Seattle technology enthusiasts who had a vision of creating social media software solutions to empower individuals and enterprises. Through their TruCast and TruView solutions, Visible Technologies has catapulted interest in social media activation and engagement with their brand monitoring and online reputation management solutions. Visible Technologies also helps brands and individuals manage and protect their online reputations with its powerful TruView search engine solution.

The Success Story
In 2006, Visible Technologies formed a strategic partnership with WPP, one of the world’s largest communications firms. The two companies continue to collaborate to create technology-driven marketing and communication services to meet the needs of clients. For clients using Visible Technologies??? products, ROI can be measured by several key factors: the amount of data/content/posts collected, the amount of users that engage in conversations, identification and interaction with influencers, and the amount of time from comment to measurement. With Fortune 100 clients and individuals utilizing TruCast and TruView, Visible Technologies is quickly becoming the industry leader in the rapidly evolving new media environment.

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Nonprofit Communications Innovation Awards

NONPROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNICATIONS INNOVATION CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…DIRECT2HOUSING!

Website: www.direct2housing.org

The Challenge
Finding adequate housing in a large city can be challenging. Finding adequate supportive housing options is even tougher. Direct2Housing.org was created by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) to assist all case managers, housing advocates, social workers and people in the metropolitan Chicago community, in locating housing resources and housing service providers.

The Ingenious Proposal
The only housing database of its kind nationwide, Direct2Housing fosters greater communication and collaboration among housing advocates in different agencies in order to provide the most consistent, highest-quality services to clients, and creates an environment where housing advocates share resources rather than compete for them. Direct2Housing is a FREE online tool for the community. Supportive Housing programs can register for a free username and password that will allow them to enter their program information. The general public can go to any computer with and Internet connection and do a free search for supportive housing options at the main page. The audience is the front line case managers and social workers who see clients who are in need of housing assistance. They can sit with their client and help them do a search for the supportive housing options that they may be eligible to apply for. Because Direct2Housing can be accessed at any computer with an Internet connection, the client is empowered to go to the library or a computer lab and search for information on their own if they can. The goal is to make the contact information, eligibiltiy criteria and application process for the entire broad range of supportive housing options transparent and accessible to the entire community.

The Call
The website allows users to view the contact information, application process and eligibility criteria for Supportive Housing Programs. The staff at these housing programs are able to easily update information about unit availability by simply filling out an online form and clicking “submit”. This allows for program information to be more transparent than ever before. When someone completes and submits the short registration form, the Direct2Housing administrator will screen the applicant to determine what kind of housing they provide and therefore, what kind of access rights they will be given. If an agency has a Housing Advocate on staff that develops relationships with Private Market Landlords, the Housing Advocate can use Direct2Housing to enter their Private Market landlord listings. They are given access rights to a password protected search engine that can only be viewed by other users who have “Housing Advocate” access rights. Homesharing is a program that aims to set up compatible matches between responsible adults who have extra space in their homes and those needing affordable housing to share expenses. Ideal participants are people who own their home or condo and have a room for rent. A Homesharing provider could also be a leaseholder who is looking for a roommate. Home Sharing Providers can use Direct2Housing to enter their Home Sharing Provider listings. They are given access rights to a password protected search engine that can only be viewed by other users who have “Home Sharing” access rights.

THE SUCCESS STORY
With limited staff time, AFC had only been able to encourage a small number of agencies to register for a username and password and then follow through with entering and updating their information. For this reason, AFC hired a Community Outreach Consultant to work out in the field, at Supportive Housing Program sites. Since January 2007 this employee has provided demonstrations of Direct2Housing for agency staff members, helped them register for a username and password, and taught them how to enter their agency information. In the first six months of 2007 this has resulted in an increase of supportive housing programs added to Direct2Housing of over 500%. This type of increase directly impacts the amount of transparent, available housing resources for all case managers, housing advocates, social workers, and community members.

Additional funds are needed to further increase awareness of Direct2Housing to the community. Distribution of posters, business cards and postcards began in Spring 2007. An ad campaign ran on the CTA Red Line trains in the summer of 2007 that significantly helped to inform the public, but it must be ongoing in order to be most effective. Training and education will be provided for all Housing Locators, Housing Advocates, Information and referral specialists and Landlords working to help connect homeless clients with resources and services. Direct2Housing is a copyright protected product that AFC owns. At this time Direct2Housing is only being used in the Metro Chicago area. It has potential to be purchased and utilized in other cities. In order for other cities to benefit from this community tool, training materials would need to be developed. The AIDS Foundation of Chicago is grateful for the opportunity to improve the Coordinated Housing Advocacy Program, improve the Direct2Housing community tool and better serve people in need of housing assistance.

NON-PROFIT DIVISION, COMMUNICATIONS INNOVATION CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…ENGINEER AID!

Website: www.engineeraid.com

The Challenge
Often in developing and disaster-hit regions there is a lack of appropriate skills and knowledge to allow continuous self-help development and there is a demand for skilled people, such as engineers, to provide advice and solutions to technical problems. Conventional development charities aim to meet this demand by sending volunteers abroad. This requires investing huge resources in travel costs and limits the pool of available personnel to those able or willing to travel for reasonable periods of time. This pool could be greatly widened to include engineers of all disciplines who wish to collaborate and solve problems if there was an effective gateway for communication between them and people in areas of need. EngineerAid believes that with the innovative use of digital collaboration technologies the benefits and reach of the development aid can be improved whilst reducing the carbon footprint and the resources required to send experts abroad.

The Ingenious Proposal
Provide a platform that facilitates the provision of engineering solutions to social development projects. The transfer of appropriate technical skills and knowledge between engineers in developed economies and people who work and live in less economically developed countries allows continuous self-help development in developing and disaster hit regions through effective digital collaboration technologies. Objectives of the program are: 1. Ensure that as far as possible the support given is appropriate and follows the principle of socio-economic and environmental sustainability. Improve the knowledge base of people in developing areas by promoting wider distribution of successful advice and solutions within communities by those who have already benefited. 2. Recruit and maintain an engineering volunteer base which is both technically capable and effective at ideas. 3. Provide a high level of accountability and reporting on their activities to all stakeholders in the charity but particularly those who give their time and donate their money. 4. Identify a continuous stream of development projects suitable for aid in the unique format we provide and developing increased interaction with other non-governmental organizations (NGO) to deliver sustained and long-term support. 5. Generate awareness among the engineering profession that there are opportunities to use their skills in a philanthropic way. Engineer Aid aims to provide a service with open access, giving simple, direct and timely advice required at any stage of infrastructure building in developing countries. EngineerAid works with communities (not limited to, but presently focusing on, Asia and Africa), who cannot access the technological expertise Engineer Aid provides. The solutions are provided by professional volunteer engineers working within public and private sector companies globally. EngineerAid works both independently and in partnership with other NGOs. We intend to continue building networks extending globally and provide a means of opening communication lines with like-minded organizations to compliment and improve each other???s services.

The Call
EngineerAid is currently providing remote solutions to technology problems in the less economically developed countries by providing a platform to engineers to communicate, collaborate and solve problems. The Concept and the Strategy: EngineerAid has been the first to successfully facilitate useful and meaningful direct communication between engineers in developed economies and people who work and live in developing economies. Our methodology champions empowerment, concentrating on knowledge transfer from professional engineers to disadvantaged communities and technical answers and advice is given directly to those who make enquiries. Local networks and self-help groups are strongly promoted. The Tools: Enquiries or engineering problems are logged via a tailor-made online intelligent system, and after careful matching are allocated to individuals with a particular expertise in the relevant area. Experts are then able to use online collaboration and communication tools authored and tailored to provide responses to the projects. This integrated network allows specific engineering problems to be translated and reviewed on a large scale and the solutions are provided by professional volunteer engineers working within public and private sector companies/organizations around the world. Transferral of the information takes place in a multitude of formats, languages and time zones but the concept remains the same: open communication channels between our target communities and professional engineers, providing simple, timely and direct help. As all communication between engineers and enquirers is carried out online, expense in terms of time and cost is minimized making EngineerAid entirely sustainable as well as environmentally friendly. In addition to this, the collaboration between the expert knowledge of engineers and the local knowledge of enquirers means that the work we do has a long-term, lasting impact for the communities we help. The Components/Guiding Principles: Technology Requirements - Human interaction and communication technology for the end users, collaborative tools to enable engineers to design sustainable solutions, dedicated software for transmitting and sharing the information, and managed hardware and software (dedicated servers and accompanying software). Enterprise Structure: Non-profit management, Board of Directors, and General Manager. 4 primary team manager roles: IT & Communications, Projects, Fundraising and Marketing.

The Success Story
EngineerAid???s services are supported by professional engineers, each with an average work experience of 10 years (amounting to a commitment of 474 hours of engineering support per month, the equivalent of ??569,000 per annum of engineering resource) thus ensuring the highest standard of expertise available within the sector. Their work with other NGO???s - developing strategic partnerships, networking with grassroots organizations and providing support to developmental projects, clearly indicates the quality of delivery of our services. Additionally, EngineerAid carries out regular monitoring and review by using knowledge based systems to ensure that enquiries are answered promptly and that, where necessary, they adapt to the changes in demand. They have been able to provide aid that has an immediate impact on the target groups and have successfully supported over 50 projects worldwide in 2006-07, and the feedback they have received so far from their projects is extremely encouraging. “We are indebted to EngineerAid for their support and prompt advice. We hope to continue this partnership and develop a sustained model of support.” - Department of Forests and Environment, India. ???You won’t believe me how much of help your reply is to us here!” - Duetsi Khadro, Indonesia.

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Nonprofit Wiki Award

NONPROFIT DIVISION, WIKI CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…THE CITIZENDIUM FOUNDATION!

Website: www.citizendium.org

The Challenge
The Wikipedia model suffers in two respects: the credibility of its content and the maturity of its community. These problems probably cannot be solved from within. The Wikipedia community, unfortunately, is very resistant to significant change. Suggestions that a special role be made for experts, or that contributors be required to log in, are met with fierce resistance. In September 2006, Wikipedia’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, started a non-profit competitor, called the Citizendium, or the Citizen’s Compendium. The Citizendium is an open wiki encyclopedia, but it requires the use of real names; experts have a role in the system (they may approve articles); and the community’s governance process is developing into an online constitutional republic. While the project’s first year has generated hundreds of contributors and some 3,000 articles, Sanger’s challenge has been to demonstrate the long-term viability of the model of an expert-guided, responsible, but still bottom-up wiki encyclopedia.

The Ingenious Proposal
The Citizendium’s goal is to sum up humanity???s understanding of the universe, in as much breadth and depth as a collaborative global community can achieve. Accuracy is key. They encourage their expert editors to approve articles when they are ready. They want approved articles to be, in the long run, as authoritative, error-free, neutral, and well-written as encyclopedia articles can be expected to be. As to quantity, they hope to grow to hundreds of thousands of articles within a few years, and millions within ten years. This is not the traditional goal of encyclopedias, which has been to offer up only mainstream views of the most important aspects of the most important topics. Cheap disk space and bandwidth, and the potential of participation by ultimately millions of people, mean that they can capture their understanding of reality with far more nuance and detail than traditional encyclopedias. They also hope to demonstrate the viability of an expert-guided wiki model, open to the public but requiring contributors to use their real name. Sanger is the main person responsible for engineering the Wikipedia model in its first 14 months; there is a good chance he will, with Citizendium, demonstrate yet another viable way to use wikis. The Citizendium’s audience is the same as Wikipedia’s: a world of students, writers, researchers, and members of the public excited about vast quantities of information, but eager for more reliable information.

The Call
In some ways, the Citizendium works similarly to Wikipedia: an open, bottom-up wiki, a wide variety of people may join and contribute to whatever topic they want, whenever they want. The interface, using MediaWiki software, is fairly simple and easy for any reasonably technically adept person to learn. This system has allowed the Citizendium, like Wikipedia, to create thousands of articles in a short time. Yet the project is truly a by-the-bootstraps operation; when first announced, the project had a zero budget, and has been able to survive for a year on little more than $40,000 in donations and with one full-time employee.

The Success Story
Citizendium’s differences with Wikipedia have proven extremely consequential and successful. Because the Citizendium requires the use of real names and biographies, there has been virtually no vandalism; furthermore, the community is mature and collegial, yet still dynamic. Because the Citizendium has a guiding role for experts, articles tend to be of remarkably high quality. Moreover, there are over 40 approved articles and over 600 “developed” articles, i.e., articles close to approval. In addition, the Citizendium has recently enabled contributors to add various other kinds of reference information: bibliographies, external links, tables, image galleries, timelines, and much else.

With support, the Citizendium Foundation could hire a programmer who would transform the text-oriented MediaWiki platform into something that handles all different sorts of information intelligently. The Citizendium, in turn, would show the world how to use the software. Support for an administrative assistant would also help the project to do a serious recruitment drive; until now, most people have arrived via the many mentions of Citizendium in the press. Similarly, support for a development director would help the project tap into the millions of dollars that are available for a project that has already proven itself in this way. In short, while the Citizendium has already shown that it has the potential to solve Wikipedia’s problems, further support would make this assured. The success of the project is generally to be measured in terms of number of articles per day, and particularly, number of approved and developed articles; and also numbers of active participants. If, after the grant were made, these metrics were to increase at a significantly accelerated rate, that would count as a success. For example, a jump from 13 articles per day (the present number) to 20 would be significant; from our present 200 authors editing per month to 350 would be significant; from our present 35 authors doing work on the wiki per day to 55 would be significant. Such growth can perhaps be expected as a matter of course (see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Statistics), but there’s no doubt that a grant would help them accelerate. If used to enhance MediaWiki software, the grant would also be assessed based on what coded, tested, installed, and used features were added. Moreover, if used for a recruitment assistant, the grant would be assessed based on how much accelerated the new contributor rate was.

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Nonprofit Virtual World Award

NONPROFIT DIVISION, VIRTUAL WORLD CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…CONVERSEON!

Website: www.converseon.com, www.plantit2020.org

The Challenge
How does one use the virtual world to positively impact the physical world? Virtual worlds present an interesting but challenging environment for marketers. Many brands have struggled with integrating brand experiences in a manner that respects and embraces the unique culture of the virtual world, while leveraging the potential of the medium to impact real world activity. Converseon???s two-fold challenge: 1) How do we, a social media agency, effectively enter and gain acceptance within Second Life? 2) How do we overcome ???donor fatigue??? and demonstrate the power of virtual worlds to positively impact a real world???s socially responsible initiative on behalf of a non-profit partner, Plant-it 2020?

The Ingenious Proposal
Have people plant virtual trees in the virtual world of Second Life. For each virtual tree planted, Plant-It 2020 will plant a real indigenous tree in a rainforest area. The goals are to: 1) raise awareness of non-profit Plant It 2020 and reforestation while demonstrating the power of virtual worlds to positively impact a real world???s socially-responsible initiative; and 2) Capture the attention and support of Second Life residents and encourage the support of this influential group to move outside of the virtual world into the real world through blogs and other social media properties.

The Call
Create a low budget innovative project that provides a platform for tech influentials to form a deep relationship with Plant It 2020 and empowers them to raise awareness of the charity both online and offline. Second Chance Trees Island was designed and built in Second Life. Second Life avatars can purchase and plant a virtual copy of an endangered rainforest tree for 300 Linden Dollars (about $1.50), while participating in an immersive educational process. In turn, this triggers the planting of a corresponding indigenous tree in endangered rainforest regions in the real world. The Second Life presence was supported by outreach within the virtual world and a comprehensive social media strategy communicating via a wide range of social media venues to help the campaign extend its reach beyond the virtual world. The island was launched in April with a media release, a dedicated website, outreach to environmental and Second Life bloggers and personal contact with influential Second Life residents. The island was continually supported through the hosting of live events in-world (Earth Day in Second Life, etc), social media such as Flickr and MySpace and targeted outreach to bloggers and Second Life influencers. In July, Plant It 2020 was selected as one of 50 finalists in the American Express Members Project, a program whereby cardholders could nominate a charitable initiative to receive a donation of up to $5 million from American Express. To encourage votes from American Express cardholders, a call-to-action machinima video was filmed within Second Life and uploaded to YouTube and other video sharing portals. It became viral with the assistance of a social media press release and outreach to environmental, technology, marketing and Second Life bloggers along with key influencers in Second Life. Alongside the Converseon team, a globally dispersed group of selected Second Life residents provided support for the project including leading designer Luna Bliss and Australian Machinima artist Decomposing Monstre. SAE Paull Young (LL Platypus) headed up the in-world efforts hosting events, building relationships with key Second Life residents and with continual outreach to key bloggers.

The Success Story
Plant It 2020 received significant visibility not just within Second Life, but through widespread blog commentary, mainstream media attention and recognition from the high profile American Express Members Project competition. It was Selected as one of 50 finalists in the $5 million American Express Members Project competition. Thousands of avatars have visited the island, purchasing over 600 indigenous rainforest trees. The campaign was featured by the Financial Times and CNN who called it an ???innovative??? and ???wholesome??? initiative that aims to ???make an environmental difference in the real world.??? Dozens of Second Life residents have posted hundreds of positive blog posts and photos. In just 7 days there were 100+ blog posts and 6,000+ views of a machinima video supporting the Members Project initiative. The Google Search Engine Results for ???Second Chance Trees??? went from zero entries to 15,900 individual mentions online in six months. 14 of the top 20 Google Search Engine Results for Plant It 2020 reference Second Chance Trees.

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Nonprofit Video Award

NONPROFIT DIVISION, VIDEO CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…PUBLIC CITIZEN!

Website: www.citizen.org

The Challenge
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts. A class action lawsuit about the pediatric use of a popular anti-depressant was brought by parents against pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline. The case settled and resulted in a $48 million reimbursement fund, a fact that needed to be broadly publicized. The drug company was only required to announce the settlement terms once, terms that were very unfavorable to the majority of potential class members. Public Citizen filed a legal objection and succeeded in significantly improving the qualification terms, but the court did not require the drugmaker to re-publicize this new outcome. Class action notifications typically use newspaper and/or magazine ads, which don???t necessarily reach the target audience. Public Citizen needed to reach parents or guardians of children who ever took the anti-depressant Paxil before their 18th birthday, or the people who took Paxil themselves. The word had to get out before the deadline for claims submissions, August 31, 2007, and they quickly discovered that traditional media weren’t at all interested in covering this story. Public Citizen needed to come up with a better, faster way to reach the biggest audience they could find.

The Ingenious Proposal
Since the drug has been marketed since 1992, Public Citizen figured that the kids who took Paxil would now be part of the population who most frequently use and enjoy YouTube. Hence, “Paxil Payback” was born, becoming the first time in the history of class action notification that the job was performed by a YouTube video.

The Call
Public Citizen produced a 90-second YouTube video to illustrate in a simple but dramatic way precisely why parents brought a class action lawsuit against the giant drug company, and to inform the public that the lawsuit had settled and refunds were waiting to be claimed. Using their own staff to create props and act in the video, they wrote, produced and directed the project, made possible with the generous donation of studio space and a video technician by a non-profit labor association. Public Citizen then edited the piece at a small, local production company who specializes in working with non-profits.

The Success Story
Unlike most class actions suits, Public Citizen doesn???t know who or where the qualified class members are because of patient/client privilege. Only a few named parents pursued the lawsuit directly, so Public Citizen took the completely unique and innovative step of using YouTube as a method of class action notification. Called “Paxil Payback,” the video has been viewed almost 6,000 times in one month, posted on other websites, and generated news coverage by Public Radio Intl.???s “Marketplace.” It was blogged by the Wall St. Journal and the Miami Herald in both their legal and health columns and written up by the National Law Journal and the St. Louis Dispatch, to name a few. Every YouTube view, and every posting and article meant Public Citizen???s message was spreading virally. At first they didn’t even realize they had become the first organization ever to advance the class action notification process in the hottest public forum of our time. As it turns out, YouTube is also helping push the message the old-fashioned way, by contributing to word-of-mouth within families and communities. The Paxil Pediatric Settlement Fund administrator is not required to reveal the number of claims it is settling, but Public Citizen continued to spread the message until the August 31, 2007 deadline. They want every parent whose minor child took Paxil to benefit from the $48 million waiting to be claimed.

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Nonprofit Division Awards

NONPROFIT DIVISION

AN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE GOES TO…THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION!

Website: www.americanheart.org, www.goredforwomen.org

The Challenge
One humid August morning, 46-year-old Nancy McKesson collapsed in the elevator on the way to her office. She was a vegetarian, took an at-work yoga class, and cheered at her son???s softball games on the weekends. Nancy never thought a heart attack would happen to her. In fact, she never even considered it. Despite the fact that heart disease is women???s #1 killer, only 13 percent of women in 2004 viewed it as a health threat. This alarming statistic led the American Heart Association (AHA), a nonprofit association that aims to protect people of all ages and ethnicities from the ravages of heart disease and stroke, Edelman, a global public relations firm, and other partners to initiate the Go Red for Women (GRFW) campaign to raise awareness of heart disease risks and prevention. AHA hoped that as a result of the team???s efforts, hundreds of thousands of American women like Nancy would join GRFW, and achieve awareness that would lead to an average of 14 more years with their families.

The Ingenious Proposal
Create the American Woman study, involving a national, in-depth look at women of all ages and ethnicities. The survey aimed to determine women???s habits and practices regarding protection against cardiovascular disease. The team learned that 73% of women understood that heart disease is a major threat and more than 75% were interested in actively preventing it in themselves and other women. However, because there was no way for women to know, feel and understand their personal risk, it was difficult for them to internalize the message. AHA needed to create a tool that would alert women to cardiovascular disease risks, including problematic cholesterol, blood pressure, and body mass index (BMI) numbers. In the meantime, 2006 was witnessing an explosion in American consumers leveraging the Internet to research health information. According to Harris Interactive, 80% of U.S. adults were searching for health information online, representing a total of 136 million people. Additional 2006 demographic research by Nielsen/Netratings indicated that nearly 57% of these Internet health consumers were female, and a large majority was over the age of 25. Edelman and the AHA conducted another research initiative to review women???s online activities and priorities, from which we determined that nearly 40% go to the Internet first for heart health information and most want to receive information on healthy living and nutrition. These findings validated the results of the prior studies and served as the basis for the GRFW Web site and e-communications content. Objective 1: As women???s heart health had become AHA???s largest and most important cause, AHA???s primary goal was to accelerate awareness of the grassroots Go Red campaign, resulting in a long-term goal of 500,000 program registrations. Objective 2: While the public was familiar with the AHA, the Go Red movement remained hidden in the shadow of its parent organization. AHA desired to increase the visibility of Go Red (via millions of online and offline impressions) so that its standalone brand and messaging became readily identifiable. Objective 3: Create automated mechanisms that allow women to take active steps to prevent heart disease. Objective 4: Actively engage stakeholders with the authority to influence women???s heart health. GRFW honed in on women ages 35-54 because these women are most at risk for future heart disease. GRFW aimed to motivate them to alter their lifestyles with respect to diet, exercise, and access to physicians. Also, in order to effectively reach the critically important Hispanic audience, the plan included the use of Spanish-language communication materials. Based on the research, the team concluded that the most effective way to achieve their objectives with these audiences was to center the campaign around the core message that women should personally take part in the fight against heart disease and ???Love Their Hearts.??? Communication strategies involved: Sharing GRFW messages among women through a new, interactive Web site and an easy-to-use assessment tool that served as a call-to-action; saturating national and local media markets with GRFW messaging; and reaching out to influential people (media, corporations, politicians, health professionals, etc.) to generate buzz.

The Call
A combination of online and offline tactics was executed to spread the word about GRFW to the target audience and influencers. The standalone, bilingual Web site, GoRedForWomen.org, was friendly and sophisticated, and evoked the look and feel of the GRFW brand. The content was based on what the research determined the target was looking for: informative, personal, and emotionally engaging health-related material. It included heart health facts, real-world, video case studies, an e-commerce engine for purchasing GRFW products, and most importantly, a GRFW Heart Checkup. This risk assessment tool, which was only possible using the algorithm capabilities of the Internet, allowed women to take the test and know their 10-year risk of heart disease. A woman could print out the results and take them to her physician and share the tool with loved ones. A monthly e-newsletter included heart-healthy tips, events and activities, news, recipes, and promotions. Four national partnerships (Macy???s, Pfizer, Bayer, and Pacificare) were leveraged online with contextual advertising and member discounts. GRFW???s online presence was supported by search engine marketing, webcasting, partner development and traditional PR tactics including: National Wear Red Day: Thousands of corporations and hundreds of cities participated by going red. This could mean local news anchors wearing red or companies serving heart healthy red foods in the cafeteria. Cities Go Red: Landmarks across the nation glowed with the color red, including the Empire State Building and Niagara Falls. Public Service Announcement: GRFW messages lit up the jumbotrones in Times Square. Media Outreach: We conducted local market broadcast and radio tours with national spokespeople, national pitched and paid placements and podcasts. GRFW was seen on The Today Show, The Early Show, Live! With Regis and Kelly, the Wall Street Journal, and Ladies Home Journal. Rhapsody in Red Event and Live Webcast: Taking place during New York Fashion Week at the New York Public Library and hosted by Sigourney Weaver, the event engaged influencers, healthcare professionals and media in the movement. Medical Community Outreach: Pfizer???s sales force distributed 10,000 physician toolkits, while Bayer launched an online CME course to familiarize 40,000 pharmacists with AHA???s guidelines.

The Success Story
The GRFW campaign is still underway, but has already measurably increased awareness and action to prevent heart disease. The new site has registered 450,000 online members, 90% of its long-term goal of 500,000. These members receive information, on health tips and events to help prevent heart disease. The GRFW campaign generated over 1.8 billion online and offline impressions. The GoRedForWomen.org site was re-launched and achieved nearly 9 million hits in its first month alone, tripling the total traffic of the old site. In a single month???s distribution, 75,000 members opened the e-newsletter. Since the launch, subscription has increased by 75% and open rates have doubled. More than 130,000 people have launched the GRFW Heart Checkup tool. The average length per user session since launching the tool has risen from three minutes thirty seconds to four minutes and ten seconds. 12,800 companies and 150 national landmarks participated in National Wear Red Day and Cities Go Red. In 2006, Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced the HEART for Women Act, the first-ever federal legislation designed to address women???s health.

NONPROFIT DIVISION, OTHER CATEGORY

AN AWARD OF MERIT GOES TO…GINA FOR MISSING PERSONS FOUNDATION!

Website: www.411Gina.org

The Challenge
Singer-songwriter Gina Bos disappeared on October 17, 2000 after performing at a pub in Nebraska. Gina’s story had no scandal or suspects, no hook needed to get national attention. Gina just vanished. ???Gina???s sister, singer-songwriter Jannel Rap, could not live with herself if she did not do something to create ways to gain attention for missing children and adults who vanish without a trace or hook.??? In 2001 Jannel organized GINA, bringing together recording artists from all over the country in an effort to raise awareness of all the people who go missing every year.??? GINA???s mission is to bring together media agencies and artists that create an avenue of hope and awareness that can guide people whose family members become missing. 850,000 missing persons police reports are filed each year and we only hear and see a handful of stories. Working to create media hooks while finding and creating alternative ways to get the attention of the media is the ongoing challenge.

The Ingenious Proposal
Janel founded GINA for Missing Persons FOUNDation in an effort to educate the public about missing persons by utilizing entertainment. Goal: to find and bring home missing people by creating alternative ways to gain attention for the them by utilizing entertainment, events and media outlets. To create events all over the world that are earmarked to gain the most attention possible in the media and beyond. Major recording artists, TV and Movie personalities and media will eventually use their spotlight to aid missing persons local to their events and or their national exposure. To continue to create a website that is an information and education hub for the world???s missing and assists the families of the missing with resources to make their search easier.

The Call
The Look, Listen and Pass it On CD/DVD: Recording artists donate their music or concert footage to be placed on a CD or DVD. The faces of selected missing are placed on the CD/DVD, which are given away at events. GINA is asking people to look, listen and pass it on. GINA Sessions Webcast: Artists perform monthly and profile different missing persons on a live webcast. People are asked to call the local authorities if they have any information about the missing persons profiled. GINA Concerts: artists all over the world earmark their events to profile missing people local to their events. The press usually cover these events and so the local missing person receives press that they normally would not receive. The Squeaky Wheel Tour: A 19-day tour, involving 100’s of artists internationally in an all-out effort to gain attention for the missing persons local to their events. FINDing Gina: a documentary about Jannel’s band, Clementine, on the SWT Tour performing with other artists in an effort to gain attention for the missing via a webcast, press, events and ultimately the airing of the 22-week series. www.411Gina.org: Extensive website with resources for the families of the missing that profiles their missing loved ones.

The Success Story
To date, over 140 missing people profiled have been found. This has been a collective effort by the families of the missing, media, artists, other nonprofit organizations, law enforcement and volunteers. The ache that never goes away is not knowing what has happened to your loved one. Many families live with this ache for decades. The natural grieving process is on hold. Bringing their loved one home gives them a chance to begin to grieve and heal.

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