Posted by Tattletech on Dec 27, 2011 in
Tuesday Rant 
I think that people should just do better. Full stop. I think we all know we can do a better job but then we just don’t. We justify our sloppy work, our tardiness, our “I will do it tomorrow” attitude because we can. The internets has made us all the ultimate procrastinators – calling five minutes after you are supposed to be somewhere saying you are almost there when you haven’t even left your flat.
And do we really need Siri? I mean really? We now can’t be bothered to stop and text someone that we have to use this Skynet 1.0 or Hal 1.0 bitch to speak to our phone so it writes for us what we used to type just to tell a friend we are “almost there” when we haven’t even left our flat? (on a side note, someone told me today that Siri is just a way for Apple to gather information and test out this command protocal to pave the way for AppleTV – you just talk to your TV – and it does stuff, sound like an X-Files episode or what? )
And you wonder why people don’t know how to relate to each other anymore.
– JH
Tags: hal, siri, Skynet
Posted by Tattletech on Dec 24, 2011 in
Technology 
This week, like almost every teenagers, I spent a few a few hours talking and surfing on the most popular social networking site in the world — Facebook.
I am sure you have noticed that at least once on Facebook or on try and reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, purchase history, or observed behavior.
Most websites today for that matter have advertising that actually looks like it’s put there just for you, things you are actually interested in. I have noticed this for more than a year and haven’t even questioned the way or how they figure out what I like or what I am interested in.
This got me thinking. How on earth do they do that?! I have done a bit of research and now I am able to explain to people who don’t understand the way sites do this.
I am sure you guys have figured out what I will be writing about this week. Yes, Targeted advertising. Targeted advertising is a type of advertising where advertisements are placed to
Basically, websites such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter etc., track your search history or look your video history on YouTube, or what pages you like on Facebook. Then, they make a virtual profile of you containing things that interest you, your favourite activities or even shops with the type of clothes you like. They will advertise anything that interests your tastes. The goal of targeted advertising is to display items, groups, activities, places you like and hopefully somebody will click and purchase something from their site.
I would really like to know what you guys think.
Do you mind if a site spies on your search history and makes a profile or would you like some more privacy? Maybe it doesn’t bother you? Or maybe you like the idea?
Or, from a parents point of view, how can a website guarantee that all of the targeted adverts are appropriate as there is no ability to for censor. For example when it comes to television advertisers and program producers have to respect the programming protocal which only allows more adult content to be aired at certain times. of the day. Personally I don’t really mind, as long as it has something to do with my interests it’s fine by me.
Tell me what you think on Twitter @sean_edwards1.
Posted by Tattletech on Dec 14, 2011 in
Tuesday Rant 
Tea is dumb. It’s a lean back beverage. Tea makes no sense and has no place in the universe, even more, it has no place in a man’s hand. Here’s how a conversation goes with tea:
Open on a guy in a office drinking tea. He is leaning back in a chair holding a big steaming hot mug of the weedy crap. Co worker Bob walks by and says: “Hey Mike, wanna come and join us for this product strategy meeting?”
Mike replies, leaning way back in his chair, “when I’m done with this cup.”
You know how a coffee drinker would respond? “Sure Bob, let’s roll and get some shit done, man life is good, my girlfriend is like magic and have you seen that new Jason Statham film? Awesome.”
Tea is dumb.
– JH
Tags: Jason Statham, Tea
As you may have seen in my
bio on TattleTech, I follow a lot of sports. I mainly follow football, or for the majority of my American readers, “soccer.” I still don’t understand why you guys call it that, but hey… that has nothing to do with this column.
This week’s subject is kind of controversial, as some people struggle to see the need of technology in major sports. My big question for today is, why doesn’t football (soccer) use “goal line” technology, “Hawk-Eye” technology or most importantly, instant replay? I find it very hard to understand why one of the biggest sports in the world, played all over the world, has not found usage for such technology. I personally think that 75-year-old Sebb Platter (President of FIFA) should be dragged into the 21st century.
Most sports: tennis, rugby, American football or even cricket, have found ways to use advanced technology during the games. In these sports, technology serves to maintain competitive integrity and enhance the product.
Both tennis and cricket use a piece of technology called Hawk-Eye, a complex computer system that helps visually track the path of the ball and is also able to display a record of its most statistically likely path as a moving image. In cricket, this is helpful for judging LBWs (leg before wicket). And in tennis, this can tell whether a shot is “in” or “out,” making the game easier for umpires. Hawk-Eye technology makes the sports much more fair because realistically, with players such as Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer who easily serve the ball over 100 mph or with a fast bowler in cricket who can bowl at around 85-95 mph, judgments are very difficult with the naked eye and are often incorrect.
In rugby, a Video Referee or “Television Match Official” is used in most televised games. The Video Referee helps the referee (human) determine whether points have been scored. A television match official can only rule on exactly what the referee asks them, and in most cases they can only be asked about events in-goal or immediately before entering in-goal.
In the National Football League (so you use “soccer” for the game you play with your feet but… never mind, still not the point of this column, but really?), instant replay is used during the game either at the request of a team’s head coach (with limitations) or the officials themselves. This allows the officials to review a play by using cameras at various angles to determine the accuracy of the initial call. Instant replay can be used in the event of a close or otherwise controversial call, making sure that the correct call was made.
Now back to football (the real one). I find it very bizarre that most other sports have introduced review technology and yet football, one of the biggest sports, is missing out. Systems such as Hawk-Eye, goal line technology and instant reply could aid the game greatly and help prevent situations like the following:
This is one of the more famous hand-balls in recent history. It’s pretty clear. Hand, meet ball. France’s Thierry Henry is using his hand to knock the ball back down to his feet, which he would moments later use to score, crushing Ireland’s dream of making it into the World cup. There was no call made on the field. Technology could have definitely prevented this situation.
Now, take a look at this:
In this example, we can see a ball over the line and in the goal. That is a goal. Clearly. Unfortunately, it was not ruled as such when England’s Frank Lampard took the shot, trying to come back from 2-1 down against Germany during their second round match of the 2010 World Cup. Replay would have remedied this.
These moments are both infamous, but should have been known for other reasons. Bad calls took away from what should have been triumphant moments in sports. Goal line technology, Hawk-Eye technology and instant reply could have insured that the focus remain on the play and not on the officiating. Isn’t it therefor in FIFA’s best interest to install all of this technology?
I think it’s a no-brainer, but this remains a controversial subject and a few of you may not agree with my point. If you think you can change my mind, Tweet @Tattletech and give me your best argument!
You can read Fif-TECH-teen weekly right here on Tattletech. You can also follow Sean on Twitter @sean_edwards1.
Tags: FIFA, Frank Lampard, Goal-line technology, Hawk-Eye, instant replay, National Football League, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, sports technology, Thierry Henry
Posted by Tattletech on Dec 12, 2011 in
Cloud,
Internet Stuff How many times have you clicked “Learn More” on the front page of a website and actually been rewarded? Normally, one is taken to a pile of vague marketing sentiments or a mess of text.
Well, let’s give the designers for one of our new favorites, Jolicloud, the credit they deserve. They put together a pretty great slideshow for the “Learn More” section of the portable online desktop’s website, and what is better is that the “More” was well worth learning. Clear problem, clear solution.
Jolicloud addresses one of the more important issues of our increasingly fragmented cloud existence: organization. With all the content we now have scattered about the web, it’s good to know that somebody is looking to give us assistance putting everything back in order. Jolicloud is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Tags: beta, Cloud, icloud, Jolicloud, organization
Posted by Tattletech on Dec 8, 2011 in
Conferences,
Mobile 
With a great list of companies represented, the Nordic Mobile Development Summit is always on of the best events of the year for those in the mobile trade. This year, Tattletech will be covering the event and keeping you posted on what we learn. Stay tuned!
Tags: Mobile, NMDS 2011, Sweden
Friend of the blog, Josh Motensen answered the following questions for Exchangewire.com. You can follow him on Twitter @razzmuzzen
ExchangeWire: Can you give some overview on your sales house proposition in Germany?
Josh Mortensen: GlibHippo operates on more or less the same model as other sales houses in Germany but we do not sell for German publishers. We work with US based companies who have significant audiences in Germany and Scandinavia.
Like other sales houses operating in Germany, we sell inventory only for specific publishers on a very traditional and transparent commission model. We do all of our own adserving and any optimization.
EW: How do you work with local publishers? Why would they use a sales house to monetize their inventory?
JM: Our publishers use a sales house for 2 reasons:
The first reason, specific to GlibHippo, is – for Americans – Europe is really a challenge. It is too fragmented. Way too many languages. Operating an international sales team is often beyond the resources of medium size web properties. Without a sales house, their only way to monetize inventory is some form of automation, networks, exchanges etc.
The second, more important, reason: Publishers, and I think this is true worldwide, don’t really like automation. They tolerate it – but they know offering inventory to the algorithms is the equivalent of “empty calories”. It is revenue with little long-term nutritional value. The economics just never work in their favor. (They don’t really work in the advertisers favor either. Another advantage for sales houses)
Publishers know when their inventory is in the hands of the robots, they get arbitraged in a way that gives shameless a bad name. Particularly in markets where they do not have local knowledge.
EW: Do small-to-medium sized German sales house have proprietary technology – such as audience targeting capabilities? Or is the relationship with publishers more consultative?
JM: Sales houses in Germany have their own technology to varying degrees. Many have built their own adservers, for example, in order to accommodate the specifics of their inventory. But broadly speaking, it is more consultative. If they do use audience targeting or any sort of more sophisticated tech, it is usually third party. Sales houses are not in the tech development business.
EW: There are currently German 400+ sales houses? Is that number sustainable? Will there be consolidation in the sales house space?
JM: I think when non-Germans look at the country from the outside, the sales house phenomena is confusing. Americans and Brits make the mistake of seeing the German auto industry as symbolic of the whole economy. The stereotype is that Germany is a model of scale, efficiency and mechanization.
For online advertising, the automated ad-platform and algorithm gee-whizzery in the US and UK makes the dominance of sales houses a disconnect. They are just so, so analogue. So improbably quaint.
But the sales house is reflective of Germany’s macro economy. Small and medium sized businesses, creating highly specialized products and services, in German they are called Mittelstand. They are the country’s commercial engine. These businesses are not anti-scale. They just prefer focus and quality.
Sales houses are the Mittelstand of online advertising. Each house is quite adept at representing their specific inventory and delivering the sales.
The 400+ sales houses in Germany may prove to be a surprisingly stable number. Some consolidation is inevitable, for example along certain verticals. But I would not bet on seeing the German market develop on the same model as the UK or US. The emergence of two or three dominant players is unlikely. For both cultural and economic reasons, fragmentation and diversity are tenacious with a capital “T” in Germany.
EW: Do all these sales houses fight to get on agency media plans?
JM: Yes. But sales houses are often organized around verticals as well so they are talking to different planners. Sales houses do face the serious disadvantage of media planners’ schedule. It is a problem of limited time however, not a question of inferior product.
JM: If the market moves towards automation how do small sales houses compete with SSPs and exchanges? Can SSPs and exchanges really aggregate supply without working with German sales houses?
JM: Sales houses will compete by creating their own networks much like Forbes or CBS Interactive have done in the US.
Sales houses will remain the gatekeepers, retaining control of the inventory to keep pricing transparent and, more important, maintain comfort for advertisers.
If SSPs and exchanges hope to aggregate supply, it will be through the sales houses. Neither publishers nor sales houses have any interest in the commoditization automation brings.
Do not underestimate the strength of sales houses’ relationships with their publishers. It is very unlikely an exchange could come with a proposal that would threaten a sales house’s arrangement with a publisher.
It is worth noting that German publishers seem hesitant to monetize their remnant traffic at the risk of compromising their inventory. This does not mean they won’t. You see premier German publishers appear on exchanges but only for seriously remnant inventory, cross border IPs for example.
Also worth noting: even über american media companies like Turner Networks have pulled their inventory from exchanges for reasons very similar to why German publishers never joined in the first place.
EW: How critical are sales houses to the growth of automated buying and the adoption of RTB?
JM: Just like the growth of aggregated supply, Sales house will be the key drivers if RTB is to take-off in Germany.
EW: How do sales houses view the data-driven display space and RTB? Is it a threat to their business model? Will they have to evolve model to stay competitive?
JM: In the case of Germany, the whole data-driven display slash RTB discussion reflects an Anglo-American cognitive bias toward technology, scalability, venture capital and exit strategy.
The “platformification” of online advertising is a silicon valley phenomena finding considerable resistance in Germany. And it is not because Germans are Luddites, they are just not driven by the same imperatives as their anglo-saxon cousins.
These companies are not interested in becoming a Techcrunch Series-A Page Three Girl. Their directors do not spend every waking moment so consumed by creating shareholder value that they dare not ignore even a fraction of a cent from a ringtone peddler. They are not building companies whose real purpose is a sale to Google.
For that reason, sales houses are only tangentially interested in data-driven display. Ad-tech is a tool not an end in itself. Data-driven display and RTB will grow in Germany but it will grow slowly and on German terms.
Data and RTB are no more of a threat to the sales house model than Wal-Mart was a threat to Germany’s retail model.
EW: How do you see the market evolving over the coming 12 months?
JM; For the next 12 months, data-driven display and RTB still face two significant challenges.
Despite the hype, they have not reached the penetration and volume needed outside Germany to make them a must-have in Germany.
They remain very much a tool created by and mostly for the American market. Both the German online space and the data RTB industry will have to evolve together for their to be more uptake.
In 2012, I think we will see more serious dabbling in the data-driven space, with the active word being “dabbling”. There is too much attention on this space right now for it to be ignored. Do not expect to see a tipping point, however. Not this year.
Tags: Advertising, CBS Interactive, German, German language, Germany, Mittelstand, United States, Wal-Mart
Posted by Tattletech on Dec 6, 2011 in
PR,
Public Relations 2.0 Word on the street is the 2012 is going to be a difficult year for PR. There are many challenges facing the industry in today’s market. However, it is also a great time for the savvy, and as with any challenging time, the savvy will emerge on top.
The forward thinkers over at Hammerkit have put together a webinar for December 15th which will focus on three things PR agencies can do to ensure business will boost profitability and look back on 2012 as a great year. Namely: repeat, repeat, repeat!
Sign up for their webinar here, or we promise, you will be missing out.
Tags: 2012, Business, Business Services, Hammerkit, PR, Public relations, repeat, Web conferencing
Posted by Tattletech on Dec 1, 2011 in
Fif-TECH-teen 
This week’s column is about one of the biggest recent “trends” — dubstep.
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music first introduced around 2000 in South London by artists such as Rusko, Caspa, Skream and Benga. It is known for tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals. Recently, dubstep exploded all over the U.S. thanks to the American producer and DJ, Skrillex. The reason dubstep is relevant for this space is that it is a technologically driven genre. Its limits are only those presented by available technological resources, and the more the field of electronic music advances, the more the music changes.
The basic tools or instruments most commonly used in dubstep are: a sampler, drum machine, synthesizer, keyboard (Midi) and computer. I know that all of you know what a computer is (because otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this), but as for the rest of the equipment, I will now explain:
- A Synthesizer is a machine (usually a keyboard) capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies.
- A sampler generates sounds using recordings (samples) of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it and played back with an interface (often a keyboard).
- A drum machine is an instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music. They are also a common necessity when session drummers are not available or desired.
- I suppose all of you know what a keyboard is, but you may not know the difference between a standard musical keyboard and a Midi keyboard. First, Midi stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. The difference from between a standard keyboard and a Midi keyboard is that the Midi keyboard integrates with a computer. The Midi keyboard is plugged into a computer via USB or Midi cable and controls a computer’s software. The software on the computer can serve any number of functions, from metronome to sampler to digitally voiced instrument.
- There is a huge amount of music producing software available that can be used for dubstep. Among the more popular programs, Fruity Loops is an entry level unit, and Ableton Live and Massive seem to be more for the advanced user. Some of the more popular producers and DJ’s use these software packages; I know for a fact that Skrillex uses Ableton Live for live shows.
As the software gets more advanced it becomes more expensive. I plan to begin my foray into the artform with Fruity Loops (here is a link to a demo you can try), but after that I plan on getting “the builder” (my dad) to buy me a lot of equipment and software, and who knows, maybe I will one day be referred to as the “dubstep phenomenon of the ‘ass crack’ of Brittany, France.”
The popularity of the dubstep has gone completely through the roof. There are over 40,000 dubstep-related videos on YouTube and nearly 25,000 results for “dubstep remix.” My personal opinion is that it is only going to get bigger because although it is still called a trend, it has been around a while now and if I am perfectly honest, I can’t see its popularity fading quite yet. Well, at least I hope so…
Another reason dubstep may be here to stay is because as the technology gets better, the genre’s limitations continue to dissolve. That is why as a fan of both music and technology, I’ll keep listening and enjoying.
You can read Fif-TECH-teen weekly right here on Tattletech. You can also follow Sean on Twitter @sean_edwards1.
Tags: Caspa, Dubstep, Electronic music, Midi, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, Skream, Skrillex, YouTube
