I recently overheard several discussions and have seen a number of social media posts mocking virtual MMO world Second Life. Many declare it and its ilk dead. People are openly cynical towards it. Laughing at it seems like the hip and trendy thing to do unless you want to appear to be an idiot. And you're not an idiot, are you?

When Second Life first came onto the scene it was the shiny new toy with all the typical hype. You couldn't swing a dead virtual cat without hitting a marketer or interactive technologist that wanted to talk about Second Life. People ran to it like moths to a flame and then they got burned. I once heard Second Life brilliantly described as marketing's Vietnam. No one wants to talk about it or how bad things got screwed up there.

People spent tons of effort on research around it, heralded it as the next big thing, many even asked their employees to start playing it in a rush to become subject matter experts on it and figure out how to pitch their clients on creating branded virtual islands and experiences in this brave new 3D immersive world. And truly, the potential was staggering, nobody was wrong about that. But the results weren't what everyone had hoped for. Far from it. The technology and interface still had a steep learning curve for many users, there were numerous barriers to entry that made it unwieldy for many potential customers, the experience was still a stretch for the vast majority of mainstream users who were just beginning to figure out FaceBook, and the ROI for the required effort simply wasn't there beyond some immediate PR value. But more than anything, there was a conundrum around the openness and lack of control over the experience, namely that Second Life was (and still is to a large degree) rife with adult content, porn, virtual sex and many other things that most brands simply didn't want to be associated with or risk exposing their customers to as those customers struggled to navigate their way to BrandXYZ Island. So people left in droves, most corporations that had tested the waters began their mass exodus. Those that jumped on the bandwagon (who still had their jobs) shook their heads in embarrassment and apology vowing never to make that mistake again.

But here's the thing. They weren't wrong about the potential. People were simply overly zealous, reckless, and so anxious to be ahead of the curve to appear innovative and be early adopters that they just made bad decisions on timing and failed to do their homework. They invested far too much effort into something that was still far from being ready for prime time and the mainstream. They wanted to be bleeding edge and guess what? There was blood. And now people either talk about it hushed tones or openly deride it.

But did you forget the part where I said that it's full of porn, sex and adult content? That industry and genre of society is so all over it and advanced in its use of it that it's crazy. That's right. The same industry and users that were the first to embrace newsgroups, web sites, e-commerce, paid-subscriptions for content, cross-channel branding, and on-line video. And they are always months to years ahead of the mainstream adoption and monetization. They happen to have a user base that will go to great lengths to extend their experience and be willing to deal with early shortcomings of the technology. It's a multi-billion dollar industry that time after time leads the way.

Meanwhile, another massive industry, Gaming and Entertainment, has continued to embrace the technology. MMORPG's like World of Warcraft and many others plus the continually enhanced experiences offered via services like Xbox Live leverage incredibly rich and immersive interactive 3D gaming and social experiences. Project Natal from Microsoft even looks to change the game further by enabling more physical interaction without the need for a handheld controller to interface with games and virtual environments.

The technology continues to advance. The processing speeds to accommodate these environments continue to increase. The typical memory of average computers continues to increase. Broadband keeps getting broader and the average technical proclivity of users keeps getting higher.

Second Life continues to evolve with a large number of improvements for user experience and better content ratings to segment world areas that are more "adult-focused" from those that are not (a move which has even been protested by some of the Adult-Content focused current users of the platform). By some reports the amount of Adult content is even growing in lesser proportion to more mainstream content. And their parent company Linden Labs has been hard at work developing the Second Life Grid that enables companies and organizations to have and create private worlds that are independent from the mass Second Life world. Companies like Unity are doing amazing things to enable 3D games and experiences to be easily developed and require nothing more than a browser. More powerful game engines are coming out every day. And Windows Phone 7, coming out soon, will enable Xbox Live right from a phone.

So it's not that Second Life is dead. Far from it. It didn't want to go on the cart. What's dead is the spirit and vision from some whose egos were crushed because they were burned by being reckless in pursuit of the next big, cool thing. Note to these folks for the future: if it's full of little besides porn and sex it's probably not yet right for most brands. But you're crazy to not see that means it will eventually make its way into the mainstream. It just takes time. It's probably not going to happen tomorrow. But when it does, don't call it a comeback because it'll have been here for years. If you're smart, you're still paying attention to what they and others in this space are doing. And you are smart, aren't you?

I recently read that the White House has chosen an Open Source CMS (Content Management System) to develop their government Web site. This announcement caught my attention for several reasons--not only are many agencies moving their clients to open source and praising it's virtues, I also started using Drupal this past year and found it remarkably fast and easy to setup and maintain my own Web sites with quality results. Despite some criticism of open source over the years--more and more commercial (and government) developers are choosing it.

It's hard to argue against the benefits of free software, especially when results show that the software does what we expect, often exceeds expectations, and provides more opportunities for expansion than many proprietary products. While relative newcomers Drupal and Wordpress lead the pack for CMS offerings, open source mainstays such as Linux and Perl have been around for many years--not only surviving, but thriving over time. In a study by Amit Deshpande and Dirk Riehle of SAP Labs, LLC, Total Growth of Open Source results have shown that "the total amount of source code and the total number of projects double about every 14 months." Open source enables freedom for both users and developers to move & change quickly when needed, as well as providing more flexibility with software decisions such as to upgrade or not to upgrade. It's really no surprise that businesses and individuals are moving to open source at exponential rates.

Of course, Open Source has always been very much associated with Free, although there are other solid reasons to choose it beyond its cost. The pool of development resources is not limited to a specific company or provider, but instead is seemingly unlimited. As a specific open source project becomes popular, more and more developers start contributing, growing and adding to the code. Not only do they enhance the software to make it better for everyone, but they also create markets for their own support services. The better the code is--more people will use it-- and the more support is needed. Large developer communities have evolved around each software project, contributing to its growth, and administering its support. These open source communities are continually coming up with new innovations, powerful add-ons, extensions, and effective tools.

With so many open source choices available, even the ubiquitous LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl) has come to be accepted as generic term for any completely open source application stack--substituting interchangeable parts from other sources that include "PostgreSQL, SQLLite, Apache Derby," as well as "PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy and JavaScript." Even behemoth Microsoft has entered the game with their own Open Source CMS Platform.

Additionally, interactive ad agencies are able to offer their managed computer services at lower rates when developers take advantage of Open Source technologies. This enables clients to do more within their budgets. Every size company can now take advantage of Website integration, online advertising, and interactive media development due to the emergence of open source and accumulation of knowledge brought to us by the developer community. Businesses across industries are now embracing these technologies, taking advantage of interactive media, and using a more integrated approach to marketing with the vast number of new tools that are now available from these creative, innovative communities of developers.

I've been hearing the phrase "Drinking from the fire hose" more often than usual lately. The curious thing is that it's coming from Interactive Media Professionals (including myself), as much as from end users. With the exponential growth of the Internet and its related technologies, we now have access to more information, in more places, in more ways than ever before. Web 2.0, Social Media, Application Software Development, Mobile and related technologies are having a profound impact on Interactive Marketing Strategies. Many agencies are capable at traditional & online media marketing, or they may have strong technical capabilities--but, it is rare to find an agency that has all of these abilities and deep technical resources such as Definition 6.

To follow the fire hose analogy--anyone faced with that situation would get out of the way. The high volume and velocity of incoming data require some type of control and direction to be useful to ourselves, our clients, and our business.  Developers, interactive designers, and marketers are faced with the same questions as consumers--how to manage the onslaught of incoming information. Interactive Ad Agencies are faced with the additional responsibility of creating new tools to distribute information in a clear and meaningful way. These interactive professionals are the firemen holding the hose. 

At the height of the dotcom boom, an old colleague used to remind me that technology is simply a way of doing things. As the old broadcast model of advertising becomes obsolete, and user discovery & social interaction drive engagement, the function of marketing itself must now change to meet these communication challenges. This new model now poses new questions about where marketers should be, how they communicate, and when that interaction will occur.  I still remember the first  7-Eleven convenience store that opened in my neighborhood, and discovering that name comes from its operating hours—--it was a big deal to be open until 11PM! Marketers didn’t create more ads to attract customers from 9-5, they simply changed to meet customers on their own terms.

Integrated interactive marketing campaigns must be open and immersed in the culture to create value and be relevant. Successful marketers are positioned alongside their target market, making use of tactics such as Branded Content and Branded Entertainment to engage the user, enabling them to discover that value on their own, and decide what truly fulfills their needs. This is not an easy task, and creating meaningful user interaction grows out of qualified analysis of users and their interactions. Those of us in Media and Advertising have been exposed to these ideas before, but never before have these been more important to interactive design. Today's consumer has become a partner in the design process, and defines how we approach our interactions with them. Social media tools such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter provide marketers with a limitless cache of information to help segment, target and engage users as never before— which only highlights the need for efficient processing of data.

Our obligation to clients is to find the relevant information, manage and organize it, and disperse it to potential customers.  To do this, we interpret client requirements and translate those requirements into a meaningful Interactive Experience. We need to collect and analyze enough user data to create strong, branded messages that reach the intended target. In addition, we must combine data with the tools and applications that make it meaningful to those target consumers.

In this new age of discovery, the true Integrated Interactive Agencies are taking the time and effort to find the tools necessary to do the job, or when needed, create them. With information coming constantly from every direction, those who are efficient at organizing, managing, and presenting it will be successful. Otherwise, we're just spraying a fire hose.  If we attempt to do that, consumers will just get out of the way.

If I haven't convinced you yet that you should spend some marketing time and money by focusing on the Hispanic population, let me try again.  Media Post has several great articles on the subject.  Here is another one by Diana A. Terry-Azíos called "Brand Loyal, Yet Unbranded".

As a general rule, Hispanics are more brand loyal than other groups.  They are less risky with their purchases and stick to brands that have provided good quality products.  However, when many of them move to the U.S., they are likely not going to find their familiar brands here.  So they have to start shopping and they have tons of choices to choose from in the U.S.

Another issue is that they are not as compelled to buy "Made in USA" as other U.S. citizens nor will they be compelled to buy products endorsed by people they don't know.  If Hispanics don't know who Michael Jordan is, then he isn't going to help Hanes sell more underwear to them.  And Brett Favre isn't going to help sell more Wrangler jeans to them.

Here are some key points to marketing to the U.S. Hispanic population.

- You have to prove that your product is of good (or the best) quality.  Hispanics will often spend a little more if they are getting the best quality.
- Start a marketing campaign that will speak directly to Hispanics, perhaps with Hispanic stars, but definitely with Spanish content (and not just English content translated directly to Spanish).  Your marketing campaign needs to address quality, convenience and emotion.  But also keep in mind that the growing young Hispanic consumer considers himself/herself as Latino AND American.
- Use multiple touch points to stay in contact with Hispanic consumers. For example, studies have shown that Hispanics are more likely to respond to text messages than other groups.

For more Key points, see the article I am referencing.

Oh, and by the way, here are some interesting facts about the growing Hispanic population.

45.5 million -- The estimated Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2007, making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority. Hispanics constituted 15% of the nation’s total population. In addition, there are approximately 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico.

About 1 of every two people added to the nation’s population between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, was Hispanic. There were 1.4 million Hispanics added to the population during the period.

3.3% increase in the Hispanic population between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, making Hispanics the fastest-growing minority group.

Want more?  Here are some interesting facts.

So what are you waiting for?  The growing Hispanic population is waiting for you to give them a good reason to buy your products and to tell their friends just how good you are.  As word spreads through their community, your profits should start growing at a faster and faster pace.

We can help you.  We are an Atlanta interactive advertising agency.
 
Definition 6 is an interactive media agency that creates marketing initiatives that engage people.  We capture and analyze relevant metrics from web analytics, email marketing, online media, and social media campaigns to continue to test and refine marketing plans.  We’d like to help you meet the challenge of addressing the new expectations of consumers.

I have seen several articles recently about how Dell made $3 million using Twitter (How Dell Generated $3 million in Sales Using Twitter, Social Media ROI: Dell's $3m on Twitter and Four Better Examples).  Interestingly enough, the articles stress that having the $3 million in sales is not the most important thing that Dell is doing, but rather a good result to a much bigger strategy.  The important thing Dell is doing is customer communications.  They are actually listening to their customers.  They listen for their complaints and listen for their ideas and then they interact with their customers by replying to them.  Customers love it when a company responds to them.  By building a constantly growing base of customers, Dell is earning more respect.  So it is no wonder that when they started posting promotions on Twitter they generated a lot of sales.

It is important to note that even though Dell was able measure a hard ROI of sales that came directly from Twitter, there is a more difficult measure called "soft" ROI that no doubt led to the hard ROI.  The soft ROI is measured in things like fewer support personel required to take phone calls, the value of an online community that openly discusses a company's products or services, and the value of forums where people can search for answers rather than waiting on hold for a customer rep on the phone.  I think if you can build the soft ROI's, then the hard ROI's will be easy to create.

Definition 6 is an interactive marketing agency that can help companies start with the basics to build up a strong and powerful customer base using social media and then help to start generating hard ROI's.  We can help you with your long term strategy rather than just focusing on getting a company Twitter account up and running.  Just having the account is not going to help you generate revenue or customer loyalty.  It is how you use that account that will accomplish those.

Lori Willard, Online Media Specialist here at Def 6, passed along a MediaPost Research Brief that shows that reduced advertising during a recession negatively impacts consumer perception.

According to a new Ad-ology Research study, "Advertising's Impact in a Soft Economy," more than 48% of U.S. adults believe that a lack of advertising by a retail store, bank or auto dealership during a recession indicates the business must be struggling.

Conversly, a vast majority perceives businesses that continue to advertise as being competitive or committed to doing business.
 
Other key findings include:

• 40% of consumers use coupons more now than a year ago

• Most consumers are as willing or more willing to pay more for ‘healthy' or ‘organic' products than they were a year ago

• A ‘deeply discounted price' was the number one factor that would make consumers more likely to purchase a big-ticket item (+$1,000)

• Store websites ranked second only to search engines as the way consumers research products and shop online

Ad-ology summarizes the research by saying:  “It is critical to advertise in the current economic climate, to maintain long-term positive consumer perception of your brand.  Advertising not only assures consumers of a business’ reliability in a soft economy, but it can influence where and what they buy, especially when the ads address concerns about value.”

Definition 6 offers strategy consulting services to help you with your advertising initiatives for the following disciplines: email, SEO, SEM, online media, social media, and mobile.  Don't let your advertising negatively impact consumer perception.

In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire previous history of mankind.  

Andreas Weigend explains how/why at http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/now-new-next/2009/05/the-social-data-revolution.html.  There have been two “data revolutions” in the way consumer data is solicited and collected.

Initially, successful companies gained power by collecting, aggregating, and analyzing the customer data they collected.  But, most companies didn’t fully utilize all the data collected.

Then, companies like Amazon.com realized that users often trusted recommendations by other users more than promotional materials.  Users started to actively contribute explicit data, such as, information about themselves, their friends, or about the items they purchased.  Amazon leveraged this new knowledge to help customers with their purchasing decisions.


Successful firms encourage and reward users who contribute honest data.  Netflix allows users to contribute ratings for movies that they have seen; the incentive to contribute accurate data is to get better recommendations for new movies.  Customers are starting to interact with each other. Knowing that they are not alone has shifted the balance of power from companies back to consumers.


Why spend time on hold with a customer service representative if we can just Google see if someone else has already solved the same problem?  An online user community was likely to be more helpful than a representative employed by the company.


Bottom line:  The online world is beginning to be ruled by the expectations of the users.  Companies that want to stay relevant have no choice but to accept the ideas of the consumer revolution as swiftly as possible and address the higher expectations for customer relationships.

Definition 6 is an interactive media agency that creates marketing initiatives that engage people.  We capture and analyze relevant metrics from web analytics, email marketing, online media, and social media campaigns to continue to test and refine marketing plans.  We’d like to help you meet the challenge of addressing the new expectations of consumers.

In my continuing research into marketing to the Hispanic consumer, I'm finding great articles from MediaPost that provide good information on why and how to reach this particular audience.  So here is an article by Joseph Kutchera (Why Does Google Send U.S. Hispanics To Foreign Web Sites?) that talks about what Google is doing with search results for the Spanish speaking community and how you can apply similar ideas to your marketing campaigns.

The first thing he points out is that if you search in Google using Spanish words, 50% or more of your responses are going to be for sites outside of the U.S. borders.  So why does this happen and why do marketers miss this target audience?  Kutchera provides the answer.  "Google and other search engines index sites globally while we marketers, agencies and media sellers work within the economic and political borders of the U.S."  When people search using Spanish words and terms, Google is going to return sites that have Spanish content on them.  Does your website have Spanish content?  If you do, you may still be missing out on this audience for a few different reasons.  Kutchera points out the following.  1) Your Spanish site may not be optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) like your English site.  2) Many Spanish speaking Hispanics like to go to sites of their country of origin. 3) Spanish language markets are more likely to spend time on their content, making it more relevant than someone from an English language market who is updating a Spanish language website. 4) U.S. advertisers have been slow to move budgets toward online marketing and therefore not providing the resources necessary to provide the content that is necessary.

So what can you do to reach the Hispanic population:

- Purchase non-U.S. targeted inventory on your search buys along with your U.S. targeted inventory.
- Reach out to Hispanic country-of-origin web sites through ad networks.
- Apply behavioral, contextual, and language targeting to further segment and understand your Hispanic audience.

As a Senior Consultant at Definition 6, an interactive marketing agency with expertise in Web Search Engine Optimization and Search Marketing Consulting, I'm seeing lots of evidence for companies to shift some marketing dollars to specifically target Hispanics in the U.S.  This growing population is getting online at a very fast pace.  There are millions and millions of them out there that could be buying your products or services if they could find you.  Are you willing to let them go to your competitors?  We can help you target them.  We can help you get ahead of the curve.