Saturday, July 25, 2009

Paradyme Shift Trickles Down To USPS

This Washington Post article describes how personal and business internet usage is having severe impacts to the status quo operations of the U.S. Postal Service, with one visible result being the removal of the ubiquitous blue mail collection boxes from communities around the country.

The seeds of what we now know as the internet were sown in the mid-'60s to early '70s, and twenty years later became the first commercial online services and products we, the public, could purchase and use. Now, nearly another twenty years have past, and the impacts to traditional services and media are well documented. Music, movies, gaming, newspapers, reservations, banking, retailing, and communications have all been transformed by this paradyme shift. Of course, the post office would feel it, too.
Neither snow nor rain not heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Perhaps not, but maybe the internet will.

Dorothy and Andrew Yankanich moved into their $18,000 brick rambler in Wheaton in 1966 and soon began what would become a daily ritual: Walking across the street to the squat blue mailbox and dropping off bills, birthday cards, letters, catalogue orders and whatever else needed to be sent on its way. For 43 years, in rain and shine, through the raising of seven children, the friendly box they could see through their front window's lace curtains was always there.

Until, one day at lunchtime a week or so ago, it wasn't. Yankanich, 82, watched as postal workers hacked at the rusted bolts and hauled the box away for good.

The full article is here

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Community Arts and Social Media

This post on Mashable lists exemplar case studies of community arts organizations using social media to great effect.

As more diverse organizations dive into web marketing, for-profit organizations can learn well from their indie counterparts about experimentation and innovation online. A few notable community and arts groups have been inventive in their use of social media and truly collaborative in their outreach in ways that even the most seasoned corporate marketer can appreciate.

Among the arts and community organizations using social media thoughtfully and in big ways (which aren’t necessarily representative of their limited budgets) are independent artists and companies in photography, film, modern art, radio and craft. They’ve capitalized on the audiovisual nature of the Web to showcase the storytelling and community-building aspects of their work, and the results are worth a pass-along.


http://mashable.com/2009/07/08/community-arts-organizations/

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Music Labels Reach Online Royalty Deal

A New York Times article on Tuesday's agreement between Music Labels and SoundExchange and online broadcasters:

Webcasters with significant advertising revenue, like Pandora or Slacker, will pay the greater of 25 percent of revenue or a fee each time a listener hears a song, starting at .08 cent for songs streamed in 2006 and increasing to .14 cent in 2015. Pandora had $19 million in revenue last year and expects that to rise to $40 million this year.

Small sites with less than $1.25 million in revenue, like AccuRadio, Digitally Imported and RadioIO, will pay 12 to 14 percent of it in royalties. All stations will be required to pay an annual minimum fee of $25,000, which they can apply to their royalty payments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/technology/internet/08radio.html?hp

United Breaks Guitars

Bad brand experiences can sometimes inspire customers... to take revenge. Here's a great example of how social media and video services can turn an individuals bad experience into a mass shared bad experience.



UPDATES:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/United-Breaks-Guitars-a-Smash-Hit-on-YouTube.html?yhp=1

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-united-breaks-guitars-video-ual-july8,0,4414385.story

And finally, THIS UPDATE:

http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzguit0715,0,7779013.story

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Product Design Case Study: U2 & Barco

Our team is working on a communications design product development project for one of our large, progressive clients. I found these three short, related videos that perfectly illustrate how innovative product design ideally works:

1) Establish creative/business need,
2) Understand objectives (especially your end customer) and limitations (especially related to ongoing, sustainable operations),
3) Closely collaborate between creative, business, technical, and implementation teams, and
4) Realize results