AdTech NY 2016 Wrap

Posted on November 7, 2016 by rgeller

adtechI attended AdTech last week, which featured a great lineup of keynotes and panels and over 100 vendors.

It seems like there’s never enough time at big shows to check out everything (Fusion PR is one stop away on the 7 subway line, too close to keep me from work’s orbit).  Some of the most interesting things are not in the program – they occur “interstitially”, during networking and conversations in-between sessions.

E.g. at the happy hour on Wednesday I chatted with a number of very compelling startups and established players. I list a few below, and also include some of the top tweets related to the event.

  • Ads on Top – An innovative solution for out-of-home ads that target consumers “in the wild” via digital signs.
  • Adaptive Campaigns – It’s a programmatic real-time engine that delivers the most relevant ad content for every impression; there’s some pretty interesting predictive tech behind Adaptive.
  • Algomizer – Interesting Israeli tech that helps improve online marketing results.
  • MediaStinct – A global, digital ad network providing search, video, mobile and display advertising solutions.
  • Sigmoid – Big data analytics, applied to advertising (and other markets).
  • Wynzyn – Incentivizes consumers to watch ads – they have some pretty incredible attention and conversion numbers.

 

Posted in Events, Marketing, NY Tech, Tech, Technology | Tagged | Comments Off on AdTech NY 2016 Wrap

Trump Gets Schooled in PR

Posted on October 27, 2016 by rgeller

The PR field should love Donald Trump as he teaches lessons about the power of earned trumpiswrongmedia. I’ve been at many social gatherings when the conversation shifts to the campaign, and all eyes turn to me, seeming to challenge/blame: “C’mon PR boy, spin this!”

Trump is a frustrated flack, he loves to mix it up with reporters, bluster and promote. This story covers how he micromanages PR – and this one (by NY Times Run-up columnist and  podcaster Michael Barbaro) documents how Donald fell in love with the press hit at an early age: “He can still recall the thrill of a newspaper mentioning his name for the first time, as a high school baseball player.  Trump said: ‘I loved it. It was the first time I was ever in a newspaper.'”

The campaign also teaches lessons about the value of press coverage vs. advertising. It instructs about the power of the brand – the mysterious allure of some people, companies and products. He is the muse, the media gift that keeps giving – fodder for countless stories (as well as comedians and talk show hosts). Les Moonves said Trump may not be making America great but is “damn good for CBS.”

But what about that old saying: there is no such thing as bad press?

Lynn Vavreck studied campaign ad effectiveness and reported the results in this NY Times Upshot story: Do Campaign Ads Matter? Her work is also a nice treatise on PR vs. advertising, as Trump has bet almost all on free media. She learned that ads seem to work, as Clinton’s lead is growing.

“All this suggests that Mr. Trump’s strategy, while efficient in terms of costs, may not be effective in terms of persuasion. He has let Mrs. Clinton dominate the ad war in competitive battleground states and it seems to be costing him votes.”

But one very important variable Vavreck did not explore was the sentiment of coverage. I think we can all agree, without doing tons of analysis, that recent press has not been good, and this has hurt Trump’s standing.

The situation reminds me of another truism: be careful what you wish for.  You live by PR, you die by PR. Yes there is such a thing as bad press, and we just might be better off.

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New Group Aims to Study Impact of AI and Algorithms on Society

Posted on October 18, 2016 by rgeller

banner-1571986_1920I’ve had many great conversations with my friend and PR authority Toni Muzi Falcone about the impact of technology on the field and society at large.  Recently he told me about a new effort that he helped conceive – DigiDig – a website and citizen-led group dedicated to studying this area.

Flack’s Revenge has covered tech in PR extensively, and my companion blog Hack the Feed covers algorithms in communications.  But there are implications well beyond PR – technology increasingly determines not only the news we read, but has a role in everything from banking to education, transportation, healthcare and beyond.

Following the launch of the Internet, the old saying was “the network is the computer.”  Increasingly the technology platforms (the social networks and search engines) are the computers.  Big Tech holds the cards, and has an ever-greater role in our discourse and decisions. It is important to understand where this is going, to ensure laws and safeguards are in place, and that the net effect on society is positive.

That is my quick take, and I believe Toni would agree, but this post is about DigiDig.  They started in Italy (the website for now is almost entirely in Italian) and have an international focus.  I asked Toni to tell me more, and he shared the following:

“DigiDig  questions the algorithmic society.  It is a start-up community, launched on October 9, 2016, of some 150 Italian digitally active and prominent citizens wishing to better understand, discuss and raise awareness of peers on  issues related to ‘user power’ vis-à-vis XXI century global robber barons.

The intention is to connect with the many similar or analog groups that populate the global digital space. Our immediate focus includes Brussels and New York, but we also wish to dialog with New Zealand, Kazakhstan and Namibia.

Its promoters are academics, intellectuals,  journalists, managers, lobbyists, elected officials, communicators, writers, sociologists, and polemicists.

Following two open house sessions in Rome and Milano last June, a coordinating committee of six was formed and a web space just opened a few days ago containing a shared ‘manifesto’ plus opinions and comments in Italian and English.

The  manifesto, titled:  ‘the algorithm as a technology of freedom?’, defines its main issue as

(…..)  the active and critical observation of the true nature of the global process reorganizing social and economic life, focused on the development and exchange of cognitive products of artificial intelligence.

As algorithms simplify digital procedures as well as the automation of humanity’s most delicate and discretionary activities, we cannot accept that such process proceeds in disrespect of the elementary rules of transparency, information and access to participation to its decision-making processes and operational standards.

If it is true that –as often affirmed by creators, shareholders and executives of those global groups – we are in fact confronted with a new ‘public sphere and/or space’ (and we very much believe it is so) – we also insist that the mechanisms creating new alphabets, social structures and determining influences over individual choices, need to be understandable, shared, socially negotiable and integrated.(…).

No membership fees, but requests for contributions via PayPal at info@digidig.it“

Posted in PR Tech, Tech, Technology | Tagged | 1 Comment

Apple News-buster Seth Weintraub on the State-of-the-scoop

Posted on September 28, 2016 by rgeller
seth-weintraubjpg

Seth in Paris

I had the pleasure of meeting blogging entrepreneur Seth Weintraub over coffee last week.  My friend Adam Rothberg arranged an intro after informing me that the head of the “9to5” empire (including 9to5Mac, Google and Toys) lives in our town, Croton-on-Hudson, NY.

I was very excited to meet and speak with Seth. Sites like 9to5Mac have drawn huge audiences for years and driven Apple (and other blogs) crazy by being the first to sniff out and report on the latest developments.  Also, I am impressed by anyone who can consistently make money blogging.  This great Business Insider story from 2014 reports on Seth’s history, approach and success.

That was two years ago, and things move quickly in this field. I wanted to get Seth’s thoughts on the state of the tech news scoop, his work with PR, and trends in content consumption and distribution.

We met at the Black Cow coffee shop, a Croton institution.  Seth told me how he got started in blogging back in 2007, when he noted a lack of good Apple blogs and saw an opportunity.  Seth also spoke about his other properties, including the latest – Electrek – which covers electric cars (hah! that’s whose Tesla I’ve seen parked all over Croton).

These days they compete for stories not just with other blogs, but with major media like the WSJ and Fortune.  Read on for the Q and A:

Did you ever meet Steve Jobs? He was famously prickly with media and PR

Yes, once.

(He met Jobs briefly before starting 9to5Mac, while working at a creative agency in Soho, on a campaign involving Apple. Jobs poked his head into the office, and his only comment was to note and disparage the lone PC amidst all the Macs).

Have you ever been sued by Apple?

No, but they’ve asked me to squash stories and made threats.  Apple PR subsequently

Weintraub and friend jailbreak an iPhone

Weintraub and friend jailbreak an iPhone

blacklisted me for doing what the bigger publications would love to do. I’m no longer invited to their events.

I wrote last week that the thrill is gone in Apple product news; do you agree?

Seth (nodding): 2/3 of Apple’s revenue comes from the iPhone, and the average guy on the street isn’t as excited about the possibilities of the iPhone any longer. More people want to know what’s next. Folks are still buying them, however perhaps not as often as they have in the past.

What about Google? They’re secretive too

They are less so, and they reveal projects before they are products. Here’s an example of

Seth meets Brin and gets scoop

Seth meets Brin and gets scoop

how the companies differ: We talked about how Apple blacklisted me for revealing their products. Contrast that with Google, where I broke the news of Google Glass. Instead of blacklisting, Sergey Brin invited me to a private showing of the Glass before launch.

Has Apple stayed secretive post-Jobs?

They are trying

Is traffic diminishing as a result of more people getting news and content from social media?

We are getting more and more traffic, but from a wider disparity of sources.  People are finding us everywhere. E.g, more are coming to us via apps like FlipBoard.

What do you think about publishing on social platforms, as many media brands are doing now?

I think it is stupid to do so exclusively.  E.g. Vox gets $.25M to publish content  to Facebook exclusively.  You lose control if you do this. Facebook owns every part of the connection between you and your audience, and the revenue is their discretion

You have an entirely ad-supported business model, correct?

Yes, we use a variety of ad formats including affiliate revenue.

What about native ads?

Native ads have been a boon; they get picked up on other sites too.

(He showed an example of a recent sponsored post, and all of the 50+ places where it ran).

We sell ads as is, without guarantees. All of our partners have done really well with them and are coming back for more.

Can you describe your readership?

We cater to the technology enthusiast sector – what marketers call influencers. I think this is what attracts partnerships with product companies. Our readers are the people who fix the computers at family gatherings, recommend technology purchases for friends and family, and make buying  decisions at work.

How do you work with PR?

We honor embargoes and take briefings but we rarely do negative reviews. We’re not out to hurt the reputation, and frankly we are wasting our readers’ time if we are reviewing something we don’t like.

The biggest question is how does a blog ramp up to 1M readers? Are there that many people hanging onto every scoop? 

Our ramp-up has taken almost a decade, and frankly there’s no secret. We just try to make every day a production of interesting and entertaining information for our audiences. All of the shortcuts (buying traffic, taking venture capital, syndicating content elsewhere) might give a short term bump but won’t help in the long run.

What is the state of the tech news scoop blog? Can the market continue to support so many?

There really aren’t that many out there. Most of the blogs out there only regurgitate content from top level sites. I don’t know what the future holds to be honest, but my focus is on keeping our readers informed and entertained. As long as I can do that, I’m not worried.

Posted in Interviews, PR, PR Tech, Public Relations, Tech, Tech PR | Comments Off on Apple News-buster Seth Weintraub on the State-of-the-scoop

Is this the End of the Big Tech Reveal?

Posted on September 15, 2016 by rgeller

There are a few proven ways to make a splash with tech product news. One does not hand-998957_1280involve any PR sleight-of-hand – the news gets attention on its own merits.  It so disruptive and interesting that the media just have to cover it. Pretty rare but it happens.

The more traditional PR launch is like a six gun salute. You cue up your news, share it in advance with selected journalists (or offer an exclusive), pre-brief them under embargo, if you’ll forgive a little PR jargon, and voilà! Launch day comes, nicely choreographed with a press release over the wire and ready-made stories.

Another, more clever approach relies on secrecy to build buzz.  You throw out some crumbs of info to build anticipation and keep people guessing.  On launch day the tension is released like a punctured balloon. People swarm around the news.

Apple has been a master of the last approach. The guessing game is satisfied by the big reveal – Apple’s legendary ritual for showing off the latest device (recall Steve Jobs’ famous rejoinder: “There’s one more thing!”). It’s captivated us, driven people to wait in long lines, and gave another reason to be excited about working in tech.

But I’m getting the feeling that the thrill may be gone.  Many were underwhelmed by the latest news (somehow debates about ear phones seem inconsequential with everything else going on in politics and the world).  The routine by now has become predictable.

Plus, it gets harder to keep news under wraps. The NY Times wrote about Apple iPhone 7 news – a day before the company made its formal splash. The main focus, though, was not about the anticipated features, it was about the news leaks.  Traditionally secretive Apple still keeps their cards close to the vest. But, according to the article, there’s a cottage industry of news busters that spoil the surprise party.

We know about [latest features] thanks to a global information chain, one that shadows the supply and manufacturing chain that produces Apple’s products. The shadow chain is intended to ferret out Apple rumors: promoting them, discussing them and then discussing them some more, long before they become facts.

Does this mean that the big reveal is done in tech? I don’t think so. Few companies are watched as closely as Apple.

Sure, there are many chances for details to leak early.  This is especially true of funding and M&A news, which typically involves many parties trying to stay ahead of ever vigilant sleuths.

In a world of TMI and crowd-sourced news tips, those who can tease their announcement, and use stealth and secrecy and keep people guessing can still make a splash.

It just might not be Apple

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Top IT News Picks of the New York Tech Crowd

Posted on August 31, 2016 by rgeller

Someone posted the question “HELP! What are the top sites where you get IT grid-1511497_1920news?” on the NY Tech Meetup mailing list last week. This prompted a frenzied exchange of emails. I chimed in, and followed the conversation with great interest.

Why is it at all interesting what a few NYTM members think about IT news? First, I find it challenging to get any useful feedback along these lines – and this can be frustrating for someone whose job is to get clients PR results. When I ask what people read, and how they get their tech news, I often get shrugs and blank looks (probably because they are getting news from social media, where the original source can be obscured). So it is a step forward when people loudly and passionately name their choices.

Also, the NYTM crowd is a nice microcosm of the tech startup world as it includes programmers, project managers, CTOs, entrepreneurs and investors in NYC, a hot bed of innovation second only to Silicon Valley. They’re great folks to ask about this.

The Thread

The fun started when, Gartner Webinars Host Nancy Northrop emailed:

So, my boss just asked me to come up with a top 10 list of websites where IT people get their news and info. Can you help me out? Where do YOU get your news?

I was one of the first to reply:

Happy to help but need more info – by “IT news” do you mean B2B, enterprise IT?

There are tons of blogs and sites for IT tech and many good ones – some like TechCrunch cover startup and Silicon Valley news – others cover specific segments like big data, ad tech, fin tech, IT strategy (like CIO), etc.

Others cover developer topics and others, still, the data center, cloud, OSS, etc.

As the responses started coming in, she explained further:

I would say large and enterprise IT. CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and other leaders (or future leaders). Can be B2B or B2C. What these people add to their Flipboard/check daily, etc. Thanks everyone! Getting really good ideas.

TechCrunch, or not TechCrunch?

Back in the day we used to joke that every startup just wanted to be in the Wall Street Journal. These days, TechCrunch stands out as the top pick. So I was curious to read the thoughts here. Of course, I called TC out in my initial response.

There were mixed opinions. One person wrote: TechCrunch.com the one and only.

To this, another replied: First off, I wouldn’t have a single source of tech news as “my one and only”, and especially not TechCrunch.

Popular Picks

There were only a small number of names consistently cited:

  • TechCrunch
  • CIO Magazine
  • The Verge
  • Stack Overflow
  • Hacker News
  • Tech Smash
  • Network World

The top picks were otherwise all over the place. The next section has examples.

The Lists

I checked with each person for permission to report their top choices; the unnamed ones below could not be reached or requested anonymity.

Anonymous (Instructional Technology Specialist)

  • Wired News
  • Mashable
  • CIO Magazine
  • CNET News
  • CNET Reviews
  • Computerworld
  • DMNews.com
  • E-Commerce Times
  • Information Week
  • InfoWorld
  • Network Computing
  • NetworkWorld
  • RCR Wireless News
  • SearchITChannel.com
  • SiliconValley.com
  • Sys-Con Italia
  • Tech Republic
  • Techzone360
  • TMC Net

Miles Rose (of SiliconAlley.com fame)

  • Stackoverflow
  • Ars technica
  • Quora
  • Check Apple News and see what comes up under IT

Guillermo Garcia (founder of Vinter.tv)

  • The Verge (nicest to read, the one I start with)
  • Crunchbase (acquisitions, investment rounds…)
  • Techcrunch
  • Hacker News
  • Some Reddit channels
  • Stack Overflow (coding wouldn’t be what it is without this)
  • Venture Beat

Anonymous (developer)

  • Reddit
  • Hacker News (but not nearly as much as Reddit)
  • Network World
  • The Register aka “El Reg”
  • BBC
  • xda-developers
  • Drupal.org and Planet Drupal
  • Boy Genius Report
  • To a lesser extent newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal
  • A whole bunch of people on YouTube including

Niche News

A couple of emailers cited Apple and Android-related blogs, like MacSurfer, and a digital media workflow engineer highlighted the importance of security tech: A lot of what enterprise IT needs is SECURITY. I didn’t see anything specifically addressing how enterprises can keep up with appropriate countermeasures. My goto is the Content Security and Security Association (CSDA) and their Cyber Security News…

Influencers

Influencers can guide you to the important news items, and sometimes also produce editorial content.

Edward Potter shared the names and Twitter tags of the following, and wrote

..Can branch off to their followers. Not where you’ll find a review of new routers, more like what life will be like in 2750, tech focused. 🙂 The 1000 mile high view people:

Non-news News

Many mistakenly throw other types of sites into the “IT news ” mix. For example, one emailer mentioned a vendor site (Cyware). Another cited Twitter as his primary online news source. Yet another called out this type of misunderstanding:

…although they’re definitely useful in other ways, I personally wouldn’t consider StackOverflow or Quora as a “source for tech news”. They’re sources for tech answers

 

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Lessons in Tech Branding from Rock Icons

Posted on August 23, 2016 by rgeller

Inspiration can come from funny places – if you are in tech marketing, perhaps you’ll like rock-2099_640the following story about branding, which offers lessons from the world of rock music.

The Music and Branding Connection

I am a big fan of podcasts, and like listening to them while jogging. I’m also a music lover. A few years ago, I discovered Sound Opinions, a superb forum in which rock critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRagotis discuss music news, interview bands, host impromptu performances and dissect new album releases. They cover pretty much all genres of popular music, and it’s a great way to discover up-and-coming artists, niche players and forgotten classics.

After I heard their latest and ran through much of Sound Opinions’ back catalog, I was in search of another music-related podcast and stumbled upon My Favorite Album, hosted by Aussie Jeremy Dylan. He’s a music industry filmmaker and journalist who invites noted musicians into his studio to discuss records that greatly influenced them.

Recently, talented sideman Mike Bloom (who plays guitar for Julian Casablancis of The Strokes fame) was on to discuss Jimi Hendrix’s Axis Bold as Love, the classic that included the song Little Wing. This inevitably got to how Hendrix was perceived and classified.

Here’s an excerpt:

Dylan: He’s not just a raucous, incredible guitar player … It’s so far beyond that, and probably gets a little bit lost…. There is a tendency to put a reductive label or classification on any significant artist just because it’s easier…

Bloom: To brand…

Dylan: Yea… I remember reading a Taylor Swift interview when someone asked “Aren’t you pissed off all these people think you’re just some girl who just writes revenge songs about her ex-boyfriends all the time?”

She said “People are busy… Most aren’t playing that close attention. They can only hold maybe one idea or a couple of adjectives about some celebrity they’ve never met in their head at one time.”

So with Jimi Hendrix, the version of that is… Jimi Hendrix, wild man who set his guitar on fire and played it with his teeth and behind his head, and was the loudest, most raucous electric blues rock guitar player of all time… and that’s his theme, so that’s what most people think Jimi Hendrix is.

In the same way, Paul McCartney is upbeat, silly love songs

Bob Dylan is lots of words and vaguely political stuff

Bloom: Of course everything needs to be distilled down to a way it can be consumed I guess…

Dylan: Yes, even though there’s massive contrasts, contradictions and nuances and other dynamics to their art, and them as people, but there’s the one thing, idea that most people have about then.

Similarly, tech companies have “many contrasts and nuances”. Yet the famous names conjure quick associations (e.g. Apple is the stylish design-driven leader in consumer tech. IBM, the Big Blue diversified IT tech nerd, etc).

What words do people associate with your brand? Do you agree with them? Would you prefer other words?

Bucket, Bucket, Who’s Got the Bucket?

Of course tech is big, growing, generally very competitive, and this makes it harder for new entrants to get recognized and build brands. Even established companies sometimes need to rebrand. The NY Times covered this in the article When Every Company is a Tech Company does the Label Matter? The story said that GE, an old line diversified industrial and financial services company (until recently), now wants to be known for advanced research and technology.

Doubtless, a lot of this gets to opportunism and money. Categories and labels have their own brand associations and perceived value. The markets reward companies in hot areas like tech (and trending segments like Big Data) with higher valuations.

Within tech there are many categories and sub-categories, as mapped out by the Gartner Magic Quadrant reports. There are many genres and sub-genres of music, too – about 1,400, according to this NY Times article The Psychology of Genre. It says:

“We listeners are endless and instinctual categorizers, allotting everything its spot like bins in a record store… Categories help us manage the torrent of information we receive and sort the world into easier-to-read patterns.”

It goes on to further describe perception vs. reality and what happens when there is a disconnect:

“This ‘categorical perception,’as it’s called, is not an innocent process: What we think we’re looking at can alter what we actually see… When we struggle to categorize something, we like it less,” due to something researchers call “cognitive disfluency.”

Does your company fit neatly into an established category? Are you disrupting an existing space or is the technology a totally new “species?”

It’s important to carefully think through these things, as there are pros and cons to just fitting in vs, trying to blaze a new trail.

Additionally, tech can also be used to generate revenue through concerts, events, gigs, etc. You may have to adjust your budget and find out what ticket price would maximize revenue to benefit you. You can use software and other resources to monetize your artistry and plan your live music performance. It is essential to explore the various facilities tech can provide to accomplish success in the music industry.

Conclusion

In a noisy world, the brand is an immutable concept, shorthand that can help you be understood and recognized. But first, it needs to be known.

The branding can just happen (like your name, everyone has one) but given its importance why not decide what you want it to represent, and proactively build it?

It’s easy to get distracted, and taken in by the latest shiny new marketing toy. Writing for TechCrunch, Samuel Scott urged marketers to look past trendy concepts and embrace the cornerstones. For example instead of focusing on content marketing, they should “practice real marketing and brand building.” Absolutely.

But what do you do when your company doesn’t fit neatly into an established category? After all, isn’t technology constantly changing, rendering segments obsolete and spawning new ones (Facebook’s motto is “move fast and break things”)?

I include a couple of my earlier posts, on this topic below, and welcome a conversation with you about this – please comment or click here to learn more.

Assume the Positioning: Words that work in Tech PR

Cracking the Quadrant: Confessions of a Former Gartner Analyst

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Huffington Goes Viral with Data Science – You can Too

Posted on August 9, 2016 by rgeller
Cross posted on Hack the Feed

My recent posts have explored how publishers are working with social platforms to expand audience and IMG_2875adapt story telling formats (see Publishers & Platforms In a Relationship, and Platforms as Publishers: 6 Key Takeaways for Brands). They reported the experiences of social teams and editors at some of the largest broadcast, print daily and native web outlets.

Those featured, however, didn’t go into detail on the role of advertising to boost reach.

At last week’s NY Data Science Meetup (at Metis NYC) we learned how the Huffington Post, the largest social publisher, is using data science to better understand which articles can benefit from a promotional push. Their efforts have propelled merely popular stories into through-the-roof viral successes.

The meetup was about Data Science in the Newsroom. Data science is certainly a hot topic with many asking what is a data pipeline or what is a data engineer? Geetu Ambwani, Principal Data Scientist at Huffington Post, recalled the days when their editors monitored searches trending on Google to inform content creation and curation. Since then it is a new game, as more people are discovering and consuming news through social media.

In an age of distributed news, HuffPo needed a new approach.

Data across the Content Life Cycle

Geetu discussed the role of data in the content life cycle spanning the creation, distribution, and consumption. For creation, there are tools to discover trends, enhance and optimize content, and flag sensitive topics. Their RobinHood platform improves image usage and the all-important headline.

Geetu’s favorite part, she said, was exploring the “content gap” between what they write and what people want to read. It’s a tension that must be carefully considered – otherwise writers might be tempted to focus on fluff pieces vs. important news stories. It’s an interesting field to go into and many people are considering data science careers nowadays, especially as it looks as though it’s going to have a long and prosperous future.

When it comes to consumption, data can even be used to improve the user experience – e.g. via recommendations and personalization. Correspondingly, using data analytics tools (take a look at the site here to learn more) to parse customer data can allow sales and service teams to gain in-depth insights into consumer trends and behavior patterns, which could allow them to predict the results of future marketing campaigns and provide clients with up-to-date information.

Project Fortune Teller: Data Predict Viral Success

Geetu and her team turned to data science to help with distribution. “The social networks are the new home page – we need to be where the audience is,” she said.

Only a small percentage of their stories get significant page views on the web. Performance on social often varies by platform. The team honed the content mix for each to improve engagement. Part of this was determining which articles out of the 1000 daily stories should get an extra boost.

Geetu wondered if they could mine data to spot the ones that have “legs” beyond early popularity. With this info in hand, they could promote these with high value ads, and populate Trending Now and Recommendation widgets to further boost sharing and reach.

And thus , Project Fortune Teller was born. The team looked for winners according to a range of data such as web traffic growth, and social consumption and sharing. But it was no easy task. There are many variables to consider. They needed to determine the optimal time window, as some articles take a bit longer to start to trend. Finally, they intentionally excluded hot news stories, instead focusing on evergreen content that was resonating.

Geetu and her team mined historical data, using time series analysis to build a model (for more details, see this SlideShare presentation). They notified the content promotion staff when there was a likely winner. The resulting quick action turned popular articles into viral successes.

Do you want to achieve data-driven content marketing success? Click here to find out how.

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Facebook Calls the News Shots, Upending Media and Marketing

Posted on July 14, 2016 by rgeller

I generally don’t chase breaking news stories – my posts come once or twice a week at most. This may stormy-1472633_1920seem a disadvantage in the fast moving world of social media. But the slower pace affords some perspective – I try to look beyond the quick headline, see the bigger picture and connect the dots for readers.

And experience has shown that if I miss one news cycle, there will be another right around the corner.

For example, in just a few short weeks, Facebook drew fire for apparent bias in their Trending Now feature. Research came out confirming that it is the number one social network for news – and the chief way many of us get our news. The company changed its algorithm, decreasing the organic reach of publishers. And just this week they’re again catching flack – this time, for not seeming to think through implications of Facebook Live, as citizen journalists broadcast raw footage faster than Facebook can filter the streams (see Farhad Manjoo’s NY Times piece).

On the one hand you have admire their continued innovation. Facebook never stands still, always seems ready to shake things up to keep users engaged and coming back. On the other, you wonder how much they’ve thought through all the implications. It’s a little like the proverbial dog chasing a car. Facebook has caught the news “car”, now what does it do?

They seem to be playing all sides, trying to make everyone happy while increasing their influence. There have been the predictable media responses about impact on journalism, echo chambers and trivializing of news.

The reality is, news is is in the eyes of the beholder – and in a content and algorithm-driven world, Facebook – increasingly the arbiter – says News with a capital N needs to get in line.

Meanwhile, media should adapt their strategies, as it is clearly a mistake to focus on Facebook and platforms at the expense of cultivating other sources of traffic and attention.

Marketers go where media and users do – so they need to take a fresh look and revise their play books.

As to the impact on users, and society at large? There, I am not so concerned. We continue to have endless choices of info, news, opinion and analysis.

If people want to rely on Facebook to stay informed, that is their prerogative. If they want to ignore news and spend their time with baby pictures, that is fine too. These are likely the same people who looked no farther than the bridge of their nose for other views before Facebook.

Posted in PR Tech, Social Media, Tech PR | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Israeli Startups Join Axis Innovation at NYSE

Posted on June 27, 2016 by rgeller

I had the great pleasure of attending an event hosted by Axis Innovation this IMG_2843morning at the NYSE.  It featured presentations from nine hot Israeli startups and culminated in a visit to the floor of the exchange, where we watched the opening bell ceremony.

Axis is an advisory firm that connects investors and corporations with tech startups. The event was part of a road show to investors, and one of many that Axis hosts in  cities around the world.  The company is based in Tel Aviv, and also operates in NYC.

According to their website, the NYSE session front-ended a  two day event that includes “leading Israeli series A tech startups and US VCs, angels, and corporate investors… to develop business opportunities and ultimately make deals.”

Below I share highlights of each presenting company.

Datomia

They redefine how data is stored and transferred in the cloud, to maximize security and throughput.

Eco-Fusion

Eco-Fusion’s app personalizes digital medicine to assist in preventing and managing chronic diseases.

Fringefy

They’re developing the next generation of visual search for mobile and connected devices with advanced computer vision tech.

Medivizor

They are an antidote to our tendency to consult “Dr. Google” – Medivizor tailors personal health info and updates, based on the specific of each medical situation in an easily understandable and actionable way.

Optibus

Optibus enables a better public transportation system through efficient and real-time scheduling and control.  It dovetails nicely with trends like urbanization and self-driving vehicles.

Pocket Cause

Pocket Cause makes it easy to donate from your mobile device, and integrates with charitable websites. They are seeking to disrupt and improve the $26B online donation industry.

PrivatEquity.biz

It’s a global online platform where investors can access the securities of pre-IPO companies from employees, former employees, founders and other shareholders.

ScanTask

They have developed a field-proven Saas agronomic platform that mitigates agricultural risks and improves farmer profits while giving corporations, governments and FIs ways to track and benchmark remote growers.

SecBI

Unsupervised machine learning tech that outwits the hackers and mimics an expert cybersecurity analyst. SecBI reduces breach response time and optimizes mitigation.

The Catholic Charities rang the opening bell; in a bit of gallows humor, one person wondered aloud whether last rites or a sermon might be more appropriate, given the concerns about the markets’ continued reaction to the Brexit vote.

Posted in Events, NY Tech, PR, PR Tech, Public Relations, Uncategorized | 2 Comments