• Final Stop Of The Day: Universal McCann's Brian Monahan
    So by this point, I've pretty much figured out that Interpublic forecaster Brian Wieser has no intention of releasing a hard number associated with his new social media forecast, because his conclusion is that much of what we define to be social media, isn't media at all. And it's probably not much of an ad-supported medium. At least not in terms of the way advertising has historically been defined. So it was fitting that we ended the day with a conversation with Universal McCann San Francisco digital media guru Brian Monahan, who doesn't believe that social media is actually …
  • Social Media: What It's Not
    "It's not a one-way conversation," says Raquel Krouse, the social media guru at Interpublic's Emerging Media Lab. Krouse was responding to a query from Interpublic's Brian Wieser, who's been probing the industry's best and brightest gurus all day long to get at the heart of, and to define social media. In response, Wieser asked Krouse, "If I post something on my facebook page and nobody comments, is that social media?" Krouse answered that Zen riddle with one of her own: "If a tree falls in the forrest, and there's no one around to hear it?" And …
  • Standing in the balcony area of the IAB's social media conference at the Roosevelt Hotel now.
    We're standing, because the ballroom seating is all full, indicating that social media is a standing-room-only event these days. Walked in mid-panel, so not sure who the experts are, but they're saying all the right things. This is an official part of Brian Wieser's social media whistle stop tour in Manhattan today. Not sure what Wieser's getting from this, or how it's working its way into his social media "forecast," but he's standing next to me and working his BlackBerry as fast and furiously as I am mine. But I'm posting for you. He's chatting on Twitter to …
  • Heads Up: Wieser's Social Media Forecast, It Could Be Zero
    Asked by Buddy Media's Michael Lazerow for a preview of what Wieser's social media forecast will net out like, Wieser confided: "There are no numbers," Wieser said, "This is the forecast. You are part of it."
  • "I Don't Think Social Media is Monetizeable"
    That insight comes from Michael Lazerow, head of Buddy Media, a company that was founded to make money via social media. The way he sees that happening, is by associating brands and marketers with what's going on with social media, but not with social media platforms -- networks like Facebook -- themselves. So brian Wieser wonders "where the money is" for social media outlets. Lazerow doesn't necessarily think it's there from advertising. It's going to have to come from selling data, or "dating," or micropayment systems leveraging the connection of people on their pages.
  • "All Media Is Social Media"
    Sitting in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel now with Michael Lazerow of Buddy Media, downstairs from where the IAB's social media conference is taking place. Lazerow is telling Brian Wieser that social media has always been around -- "since the caveman days." "Think about the eay we used to watch television as families. That was a social medium," he says. What's changed with online social networks is the speed and "ubiquity" of it. He calls it an "accelerant," something that takes social media interactions and accelerates and spreads it like, well, wildfire.
  • Miscelaneous Notes On Social Media With Josh Stylman
    So I just learned that the backroom of Coffee Shop is not the best place to blog, or even microblog. At least not if Verizon is your carrier. No signal there, so not sure how many of Josh Stylman's pearls that I lost attempting to do so, but he had some good things to say. Right now, Wieser has suggested that if he ever does something like this again, he'll try to get a "b-to-b entity" to sponsor it, just so he can figure out what kind of value they get out of it. Stylman said the key …
  • "The future of the book is the blurb"
    That's what Brian Wieser just threw out at Josh Stylman, invoking one of the many McLuhlanisms he researched on his cab ride down here. Stylman responded by paraphrasing McLuhan that people are defined by the media they use. Stylman says the important thing to keep in mind when it comes to social media is that, "It isless about the media, and more about the people." "Societies have always been shaped more by the media they communicate with, than the content..." was the exact McLuhan quote that I probably just garbled. So Stylman and Wieser are heavily …
  • "the future of the book is the blurb"
    That's what Brian Wieser just throught at Josh Stylman, invoking one of the many McLuhlanisms he researched on his cab ride down here. Stylman responded by paraphrasing McLuhan that people are defined by the media they use. Stylman says the important thing to keep in mind when it comes to social media is that, "It isless about the media, and more about the people." "Societies have always been shaped more by the media they communicate with, than the content..." was the exact McLuhan quote that I probably just garbled. So Stylman and Wieser are heavily debating …
  • "It's kind of like Twitter, but in real life"
    That's how I replied to Josh Stylman, co-CEO of Reprise Media when we met a Coffee Shop in Union Square when he asked me how the "day" was going so far. "Well said," Stylman said, adding that he thought Twitter was evolving and morphing into something else now that it has reached critical mass. Stylman couldn't say for sure what it was becoming, but he seemed to think that it was moving to something better for users and marketers alike. You should know that Stylman believes "all media is becoming social media." The only question is whether that …
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