Bottom line: it really is a Hail Mary. If everything goes right… If Ford can stave off bankruptcy for the next year, and if their design is appealing and the car is actually quality… and if the uncensored posts are overwhelmingly positive while coming across honest and real… then this might just be the play to give Ford a much needed win. Then again, that’s a lot of things that have to go right. Recent history is not on their side. But for the sake of the the American car industry, I wish them luck and hope that they can find a way to be relevant again. If they succeed, I would be happy to buy American, even Ford. But if they don’t produce a superior product, then I’ll continue to buy elsewhere.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen too much to get excited about lately. Yes, Facebook Connect is big for the company has quickly expanded its footprint. And they are working on a homepage redesign (Yipee). But MySpace continue to buzz like an annoying little fly.  Their own website refresh, MySpaceID (connect competitor), and the MySpace Music.  Today, much to my chagrin, I have to read about the launching of  MySpace Local.  So when will Facebook step up and wow us the way they used to?  Perhaps my expectations are too high.  But where is the much anticipated payment system for on site and in app purchases?  Where is the streaming music service?  When will localization be added to the web and mobile versions of the site?  What about the planned classified upgrade?  And why the hell has the site been so buggy lately!

Will the real Facebook please stand up?

This makes sense, at least at the most basic level.  None of the major players are doing much with it yet.  Some are experimenting; no one has found the right fit to be sure.  But it will be commonplace at some level in the near future.  You can count on that.  What about all those answers that aren’t on the web though? (Yes, they do exist).  Or what if you just don’t have time to research to get what you want?  For all the useful information on the Internet, sometimes nothing is better than knowledge transferred directly from one person to another.

In comes Aardvark.  Aardvark is made for those times.  On their company blog, co-founder Damon Harowitz describes the service as “a newfangled world-changing thingumabob.”  The name is funky as it is, and this description doesn’t help much.  But his point is valid: its a great new service that is hard to describe but easy to love once you figure it out.

It’s fast, personal, relevant, and easy.  Check out the flow of the product in this image I pulled from their site:

Check out the site.  Right now the service works online via the website and instant messaging clients, and on your mobile via email.  Soon it will work via SMS on mobile and an iPhone app is coming too!  They are also continuing to make the service more intelligent, pulling in data from major social networks and other places to learn how to pair your question with the best person to answer.  It joins the list among my favorite online services and I will defintitely keep an eye on its maturation.  You should too!

Some of the benefits overall:
- Scalability: Almost everyone has a cell phone, rich and poor alike. They carry it with them all the time, all over the world, and they continue to get more sophisticated.
- Universalism: software based payment system is easily customizable for different languages and currencies, and mobile systems can be setup to be highly compatible with one another.
- Security: No other payment form has the ability to determine and verify a) a unique id [in this case, for the cell phone], b) a user pin, and c) gps coordinates all together to detect and prevent fraud. Biometrics could add an additional layer of security.

The market includes massive amounts of people in the developing world. The majority of the world’s population is unbanked.  In fact many people argue that this is the only market for m-commerce.  I disagree.  The US may be slower to change, as it has both a larger banked population and entrenched payment systems, but it will change eventually.  First, there are many unbankable people in the US (poor credit, etc.) for which a prepaid solution would provide the normal functions a banked consumer has come to expect.  But beyond that there is real value for the banked population as well.  As the software is more widely supported on mobile phones, and mcommerce is integrated into POS systems people will adapt.  They always do, especially when it means they can simplify your life – and that is indeed one of the value propositions for US users.  Get rid of more of the shit your carry with you all the time, let one device handle more.  Do things you couldn’t do with a card, like transfer money wherever you are to whoever you want (another phone, card, or bank account), change your pin, even make international remittance payments.

The key for adoption will be support and ease-of-use.  If that’s all in place, sign me up.

1) Brickfish
Brickfish offers unique, innovative ways for brands to engage with their customers. They help brands craft a message that then solicits consumer interaction.  Consumers create user generated content all around their brand and then share it virally to all their friends online.  Some of their most recent success stories have been campaigns for David’s Bridal, Nike, and others.

2) Pixazza
Millions of images are used by content publishers around the web. They add great value to the content but are never monetized and often even incur licensing fees.

Pixazza, Inc. provides an internet service that turns static images into engaging content, while generating incremental income for web publishers. Pixazza enables consumers to simply mouse over images on their favorite web sites to learn more and see related products.

3) ConciseClick, Compulsion.tv, and Innovid
All 3 of these firms are revolutionizing the monetization of online video in different ways allowing virtual product or in-video ad placements and clickable video elements, similar to the way Pixazza does for images, but with video.

4) Engage Advertising and Massive Inc.
Both of these companies create custom in-game advertising. Purchase in game products through an eBay powered marketplace, drive past branded billboards as you race through city streets, take your character to a bar and choose from Coca Cola, Absolut vodka, or Bacardi Rum. The possibilities for integrative experiences truly are vast, and based on results thus far they seem to be effective.

Let me start by saying “I hope so.”  I have long favored this type of music consumption.  I love music.  In college, I downloaded music incessantly, growing my collection to close to 40,000 songs.  But I don’t have time for that anymore – I would glad pay $10 or $15/month for unlimited access to an endless library of music across multiple devices of my choice.  Unfortunately, due to DRM restrictions and proprietary platforms the latter requirement has been lacking to this point, and these services and floundered rather than flourished.

That said, I think that over time the leasing model will become more accepted as the use cases and benefits begin to rival ownership.  The record companies just need to let go.  Let’s be honest – I didn’t buy my 40,000 songs in college.  And I wouldn’t buy them now.  In an era of digital music, its too easy to share, and the marginal cost of distribution  for music approaches zero (meaning once the original tack is produced it costs almost nothing to make a million digital copies) for both record companies and users.  Something has got to change.

Predictions (I’m not psychic, many of these things are already happening):

-  Mass DRM will fail and platforms will standardize.
-  Some users will still buy music downloads and favor ownership, but many will move to a subscription model.
-  Many users will still “share” (sounds nicer than “steal”) music for ownership
-  Standard CD sales will die – record labels will need to adapt by offering limited edition packages that include more than just CDs – think artist bios, lyrics, exclusive content, collectible memorabilia, etc.
-  If record labels don’t adapt they will die and artists will go it alone or join a new breed or music management company.
-  Concerts, licensing, merchandising and other forms of revenue generation will become more important.

Content is wanted on-demand, and is more and more available in this format. TV shows are recorded and ads are skipped.  Print readership is down.  Newspapers are going out of business.  More of people’s time is being spent on the Internet, especially younger generations.  Trying to stay relevant, budgets are shifting online, where targeting is easier and more refined, performance is tracked in-depth, and feedback and optimization can be real time. But the interactive arena is maturing and evolving as well.  Basic display ad inventory is growing exponentially and prices are dropping, the product already seems to be being commoditized.  As ads on websites and in internet video become more prevalent, users are increasingly ignoring them.  They aren’t there for the ads, they are there for the content.  Paid search aside (it is slightly different and merits its own discussion), there is no value being brought by the ads.  And that’s really the root of it.

Online or offline, consumers now expect brands to bring value to the table if they want to have a conversation. Simple push marketing doesn’t cut it anymore.  If they choose to join you at the table, be prepared. Consumers have more knowledge and access to information than any other time in history.  Advertisers to need to focus on the following 4 things:

1. Make it integrated.
If you want communication attempts to be successful, you can’t interrupt a consumers experience.  And you also can’t let yourself completely disappear in the background. Find unique ways to integrate yourself into the consumers activity.  If you want your brand to be a part of their lives, you have to make it fit.

2. Make it meaningful.
Beyond fit, there has to be value.  What does a user get from his or her interaction with you.  What do you add to their experience.  Why are they going to remember you?

3. Make it honest.
If you are inauthentic, consumers will know it and you will damage your brand.  Be real and target the right audience.  If real doesn’t work for you maybe you need to rethink who you are.

4. Make it easy.
If the consumer has to think about the interaction he or she is having with you, its not easy enough – and its not going to work.

Welcome to the era of engagement marketing.  Can you adapt?

Bottom line: nothing is foolproof. Fire can destroy locally stored back-ups. And technical problems or human mistakes can result in the loss of data stored in the cloud. Both issues are rare enough. And doing nothing is the most dangerous of all. So, whatever method gets you to actually back-up your data… do that.

Microsoft is considering and has raised with Yahoo! an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo! but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo!

This leaves us with a couple of options:

• An outsourcing deal with Microsoft competitive to what has been discussed with Google. Microsoft couldn’t win this type of deal based on the merit of their real monetization so my guess is that they would be buying this inventory even if they lose money just stop the potential deal with Google. And it would only be on so called “Back-fill” where Yahoo has no coverage
• They are discussing alternative arrangements, such as a spinning off of search technologies, or other strategic deals whereby they share intellectual assets and inventory.

Whatever it is, expect to hear something soon. Whatever is going to happen is going to have to happen within the next few weeks.