Mediaboss Marketing

Read the second in this series here.

Razorfish founders Jeffrey Dachis (right), who studied ballet, and his childhood friend Craig Kanarick (left), a tech whiz who had recently graduated from MIT Media Lab, plucked the digital agency name out of the dictionary. (Yes, its a real fish.)

In four years, Razorfish exploded from a pair of 27-year-olds laboring in a New York apartment in 1995, to more than 2,000 employees and about $250 million in revenue. More than just a hive of techies, Razorfish and its Silicon Alley digs were considered cool and urban. Kanarick remembers the office as a place you could stay up late and rollerblade around while inventing the future. The hip agency and outspoken CEO Dachis quickly became lightning rods for both fans and foes of the Web "revolution."

Razorfish relished the attention, opening offices across the U.S. and snapping up other interactive agencies, including Spray in Scandinavia. In 1997, Omnicom bought a large minority stake. And during 1999, the agency went public, raising $48 million at $16 a share.

When revenue fell off the cliff in 2000-2001, the pair - not yet 35 - was forced to resign.

Kanarick later co-founded a retail marketing studio and digital design lab for architecture firm Rockwell Group. This year, he unveiled New York Mouth, an online store for local artisanal foods. For his part, Dachis, 45, established the Dachis Group in 2008. The Austin-based social media marketing agency is hosting a social business summit in Shanghai in mid-April.

Photo: Jeffrey Dachis and Craig Kanarick (center left and center right) at the Razorfish/Plastic merger party (with Shane Ginsberg, left, and Len Sellers, right) in San Francisco, 1998.

ClickZ: What in the zeitgeist of the '90s moved you to start a Web services outfit?

Dachis: I was all about the expression of ideas through the arts, like dance, theater, photography and magazines. But distribution of these expressions was controlled by a few wealthy institutions. We saw that digital changed all that, distribution became cheap and it was democratized. Frankly, I sucked at creating those [art] forms. But I saw how I could be part of distributing them digitally.

More:
Digital Mad Men: Razorfish Co-founder Jeffery Dachis

The 30-second pre-roll is the blink tag of our era. It's the ad format that drives users crazy, and it's just not right for Web or mobile. Here's how to fix video advertising and make online video profitable for everyone.

Don't hate them because they're 30 seconds long.

Video is moving to the Web in enormous leaps; the promise of online video seems to be at our doorstep. Millions are cutting the cord, beloved television shows are returning through the seemingly divine intervention of online distribution, and people are consuming Web and mobile video in increasingly staggering numbers.

But all that video consumption is saddled with a burden that's keeping it from reaching its full potential: the ads just haven't caught up.

You all know the problem I'm talking about, and yes, you've seen it on our own site -- on videos hosted by me, and probably even the video embedded in this blog post. You want to watch a video on the Web, and before you can get to that video, you're faced with a 30-second ad that you can't fast-forward or skip.

In some cases, the content itself may be only a couple of minutes long, so the ad represents a huge time commitment relative to the length of the clip. And before you can move on to the next two-minute video, you might have to watch the same ad all over again. Result: you're angry at the publisher, you're angry at the advertiser, and everyone's brand takes a hit. The publisher and the advertiser haven't made an ad "impression" -- they've made an enemy.

We used to refuse to take 30-second ads in the earliest days of CNET TV, but even with 15-second ads, there are issues: the biggest one is repetition. If you watch three or four videos online, or watch a day of live programming like our CES coverage or the Holiday Help Desk marathons we used to do, you'll see the same ad three or four or 20 times. The result: brand rage.

I've been producing and hosting digital video for almost seven years now, and in that time, our feedback inboxes have constantly been full of complaints about the duration, frequency, and redundancy of ads, and believe me, I feel your pain daily. I'm a consumer, too -- in fact, I probably consume a lot more CNET TV than most people, and it's not like we have a magical in-house mechanism for skipping ads! I feel it when I watch YouTube, Hulu, video on other sites like Yahoo and CNN; virtually everywhere video appears online.

The question of digital video advertising is especially relevant now. According to Comscore, Americans watched an all-time high of more than 8.3 billion video ads in March, as they consumed almost 37 billion videos--some 21 hours per month of online video content.

The issue will only get more acute as video goes mobile -- and it is going mobile, and quickly. Cisco estimates that 70 percent of the world's mobile data traffic will be video by 2016, and it was already 52 percent of traffic at the end of 2011.

See more here:
For digital video to live, the 30-second pre-roll ad must die

By Glenys Roberts

PUBLISHED: 17:57 EST, 22 April 2012 | UPDATED: 19:50 EST, 22 April 2012

As a unit of currency it may not be worth much, but do we really want to bid it farewell? Weve long since seen the demise of the farthing and the much-loved 12-sided threepenny bit, but now theres a campaign to consign the penny to history, too.

No matter that there are more than 11billion in circulation, a growing number of Britons think we can do without one of the oldest coins in our history.

Canada has already ditched its cent (known as a penny) following similar moves in Australia and New Zealand to abolish their low-denomination coins. The Canadian finance minister said: The penny is a currency without any currency. Financial institutions face increasing costs for handling, storing and transporting pennies. Over time, the pennys burden to the economy has grown relative to its value as a means of payment.

Treasure the penny: The biggest argument for keeping the penny is financial. Its existence helps to keep prices down

With the U.S. and Russia toying with the idea of doing away with fiddly cents and kopeks (one-hundredth of a rouble and the equivalent of our penny), should we follow suit?

Battle has already joined between the modernisers and the traditionalists.

On one side of this great currency divide is the Federation of Small Businesses, which claims shopkeepers hate the penny. They say it clutters up tills and forces staff to make unnecessary trips to bank bags of low-value coins.

They point out that the pennies clogging up our purses and wallets and rubbing holes in our pockets are worth less than one-twelfth of their value when they were introduced in 1971 (then, they bought the equivalent of 12p).

See the rest here:
They¿re fiddly, virtually worthless and weigh down your pockets. Now a radical idea is gaining currency: Should we the ...

by Shirley Callow

Each year, staff from Barclays are asked to nominate a charity they would like to see benefit from their fundraising activities for the year. In 2011 over 46,000 was raised for Hospice Isle of Man.

Crossroads was established in the Isle of Man in 1988 and its aim is to help improve the lives of carers and to offer practical support and advice to carers, their families and people with care needs. Each year Crossroads provides over 50,000 hours of respite and 50,000 of meaningful support so that carers can have a few valuable hours to themselves to relax and do all of the things most people take for granted.

Jackie Betteridge, CEO of Crossroads Care said: Anybody can become a carer at any time; it is not exclusive to any particular segment of our society and can happen over a period of time or in seconds. Looking after somebody with a disability or illness can be very stressful, many carers lose their identities and the impact on their life can be devastating. We employ over 80 people in the Island to help take over the responsibility so that carers can have a few hours to themselves. At present it costs over 1 million per year to provide our services and so being named as the Barclays Charity of the Year is a real boost for us. We are very much looking forward to working with the team in the coming twelve months!

Chair of the Barclays Charity Committee Stuart Nelson said: Our staff are excited by the prospect of helping to raise money for such a worthwhile local charity. We are planning a number of events throughout the year to really help boost fundraising. As an employer we feel it is important to support the fundraising efforts of our staff through a number of initiatives including a for scheme and allowances for people who volunteer their time to help raise money for worthwhile causes. I am proud to be part of an organisation that is so active in its local fundraising.

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I am proud to be part of an organisation that is so active in its local fundraising."

Stuart Nelson, Chair of Barclays Charity Commitee

If you'd like to send any information or news releases to us then please feel free to do so and we would be more than happy to consider sharing your news with the Isle of Man!

Send your Isle of Man news to:webmaster@manx.net

Originally posted here:
Barclays announces Crossroads Care as 2012 Charity of the Year

by Jade Foster

Fans of vintage style are in for a treat at the iMuseum on Friday 27th April as students from the Isle of Man Colleges Hair and Beauty Department will be recreating Victorian, Edwardian and 1950s hairstyles in a live styling challenge!

Students have been using photographs from Manx National Heritages archive collections to achieve the complicated hairstyles as part of their course training this year and they will be putting their skills into practice during the event. Visitors are invited to come along and watch the students style their models and will also be able to access the iMuseums amazing digitised collections.

Katie King, Community Engagement Officer for Manx National Heritage said, When we were looking at some of our Victorian studio portrait photographs and others from the archives the earlier this year we were fascinated by the range and style of fashion in the photographs. We were intrigued by the complicated hairstyles, and even believe we might have identified a fashionable Manx hairstyle from the period - an unusual front plait. We thought this seemed like an ideal opportunity to work with the talented hairdressing students at the Isle of Man College to see whether they could recreate the looks live in the iMuseum. We are delighted they have taken up the challenge so enthusiastically.

Lindsey Jackson, Hair and Beauty Assistant Programme Manager for the Isle of Man College commented, Our students have really enjoyed the challenge of re-creating the styles from the archive collection, but we have been using modern techniques and equipment. We are all really looking forward to the event!

Visitors are invited to the iMuseum from 10am 12 noon on Friday 27th April to watch the live styling event. Admission is free.

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believe we might have identified a fashionable Manx hairstyle from the period - an unusual front plait."

Katie King, Community Engagement Officer for Manx National Heritage

Continue reading here:
Vintage Hair Styling at the iMuseum