<p>1. My wife's 15 year old cousin had joined the "Keep your hands off my mama, keep your hands off my Doritos" Facebook group by 9pm Sunday night. Apparently, that was a win!   </p><p>2. Betty White was the best of this year's "surprise tackle" ads. Don't know what it has to do with Snickers satisfying...

Foursquare. Yelp. Gowalla. Location-based apps are all the rage. Some say the next Twitter, even.  Alyssa Crankshaw from Traction (you can follow her on Twitter @alyssabc) put together this fantastic primer on what it all means to marketers. A terrific resource. Enjoy! Location-based social apps for marketersView more presentations from...

2010 isn't even here yet, but there's already a hot new buzzword waiting for us to get back to our desks from midwinter recess: The Real-Time Web. What is the Real-Time Web? According to Wikipedia, "The real-time web is a set of technologies and practices which enable users to receive information as soon as it is published by its...

This is a guest post written by blogger Renee Crawshaw, Associate Creative Director at Traction.  I've just returned from the iMedia Agency Summit in Scottsdale. On my first day, a group of four Summit veterans took us newbies aside to tell us what to expect in the coming days. Afterward, I asked the group of 40 or so freshmen if...

I just left the iMedia Agency Summit in freezing-cold Scottsdale, Arizona and it was a great event. Lots of energy and excitement in anticipation of what's to come in 2010.  So, what is to come in 2010? Throughout the event, there has been a series called "2010 Trend Watch" where thought leaders identified issues that would be...

In the past month, I've gotten three white-papers in my inbox about the amazing sky's the limit potential of online video. Of course, they all came from vendors who sell rich-media advertising with video—Eyeblaster, Pointroll and Doubleclick—but they all cite some great research showing that video can be a very powerful...

I recently wrote a cover story on iMedia on Marketing Megatrends that was very popular and I've been asked to speak on a panel about trends at the upcoming iMedia Agency Summit in Scottsdale in a few weeks, so I thought it would be fun to start a little semi-regular blog post called Trends with Traction. Rather than a weekly post, this one will be...

Twitter has been aunching a slew of new functionality recently, most notably Twitter Lists. I say most notably because Twitter Lists addresses one of the most pressing problems with using Twitter.com as a primary Twitter client. It's very easy to follow so many people that you wind up really following no one. People's tweets just...

A while back, I posted a recap of the infamous One Minute Match-ups at iMedia's Agency Summit in Austin. I got some very positive (and some very angry) feedback, so I thought I'd make it a tradition.    If you don't know what the OMMs are, you've obviously never been to an iMedia event. They are speed dating for the...

In the welcome letter to this year’s iMedia Breakthrough Summit, Daisy Whitney, the new iMedia Senior Content Producer, wrote about being uncomfortable. "Being uncomfortable when it comes to new marketing channels is good," she said, "It means we’re thinking, challenging ourselves, stepping (or being pushed) across the borders...

 This is a guest post from Traction account executive, Carly Schwartz — @carlicita to the twitterati. Carly got her hands on a prized Google Wave invite (eat your heart out Willie Wonka — golden tickets got nothing on these). Her thoughts are below. And a few of mine are below that.       Carly...

I’m leaving the Inc. 500 | 5000 Conference in Washington D.C. feeling inspired. The Inc. 5000 is their list of the fastest growing companies in the United States over the past 4 years. This year, Traction was ranked #1399. I go to a lot of industry events for advertising and digital media, so it was a refreshingly optimistic...

No, this is not a blog post about potty training (although that is a subject I know intimately). Last night I had nothing to say, so I tweeted: "What should I write a blog post about?" @Ray_anne responded: @adamkleinberg write about accidents in life that turn out to be blessings... So accidentally, here I am writing this post. A...

This whole Zappos RFP story has me really irritated. I feel the need to clear the air for the sheep out there. It seems like everyone in the advertising world who doesn't have an opinion they've created on their own thinks Zappos is just social medi-amazing!...

That's right, boys and girls. I'm playing Spymaster.    What's Spymaster? A major sensation in the twitterverse, apparently. Massively addictive. Ominously dangerous. Mysteriously sophisticated.   Oh, and it's a game.   Here's the basic outline of how it works: Your followers are...

This week, I had the great pleasure of attending the iMedia Agency Summit in Austin, TX. Always a great event, this Summit held the dubious distinction of being the first ever to have two sessions of the infamous "One-Minute Match-Ups," a frenetic hour-long session of speed dating between buys and sellers in the ad biz (Note to the iMedians...

I was just doing we weekend blog catch-up reading and came across a post on Make The Logo Bigger for an ad about a new film that got my attention.You'd assume that my first thought when seeing that Lorenzo Lamas was in a new motion picture called Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus would be "Awesome!" Not this time (although it was my second...

"I'm sort of a producer. But I'm great in front of the client. So, I'm kind of an account director. And I'm very strategic. My last job I was the online strategist. I used to be creative director at my old agency." How many times do I hear this on an interview? A lot. In these tough times, many unemployed people are...

After the Social Media Analytics panel got cancelled at the Web 2.0 Expo yesterday, I decided to do a little panel discussion of my own on the various tools out there. Luckily, my pal Dave Smith over at Mediasmith did a presentation at iMedia Breakthrough a few weeks ago on "The Surprising Power of Social Media Metrics." I'm using that as a...

The Ides of March have come and gone. Today's the first of April and the news is so hot, it's sizzlin'. Check out this mornings headlines! This morning, Apple announced that Woz is returning to the company. To celebrate they have launched a new iPhone app that actually makes bacon. In a press conference this morning, Michael Dell...

There’s an important trend that we're all experiencing, but has not yet made the radars of most marketers. I call it 'Browser Blur.' Browser Blur is the blurring of the lines between online and offline, between the web and the desktop (and, yes, I made it up). From the Browser to the Desktop On one hand,...

I'm writing this post on the flight home from the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in lovely Bonita Springs, Florida (lovely, although apparently you shouldn't feed the crocodiles). Another great event. Of particular note (and I think the Twitter-mad digerati in attendance would agree) were the keynotes. Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari,...

I'm at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in Coconut Springs, Florida and just saw a great presentation from RockYou. RockYou makes may of the top apps on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut and the rest of the social nets. Their penetration of the audience across social networks is huge and they credit it to their expertise in understanding...

Yesterday, I was quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Times titled In-your-face Web ad formats popping up all over. The story was on the new "supersize" ad formats launched by the Online Publisher's Association. Reading back my quote almost made my stomach turn: "A large-scale intrusive format is absolutely necessary in today's market,"...

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first annual Guacamole Report. What's the Guacamole Report? Well, it's a very official report sanctioned by powers that be on whether each brand's ads on Superbowl Sunday were dips — meaning a colossal waste of 3 million bucks — or chips — meaning they were good. Without further ado or poetic waxing, I give...

I had a conversation with Tack, one of the lead web developers at Traction, last week about APIs. I had this theory that interactive agencies were facing a new problem I was calling "API fatigue." From my vantage point, it seems like there is a new API every week for our engineering team to learn: First there was ActionScript, then Facebook API,...

I run a creative agency with a strong focus on digital. Here are some of my resolutions: 1. Be thoughtful about our process so we continue to consistently create breakthrough ideas that move the dial for our clients AND demonstrate positive ROI. I think an unrelenting focus on metrics can put us in a box where the best idea might not win—unless...

This past Sunday, as I strolled through the checkout lane in Best Buy in about 42 seconds flat (a feat that had taken between six and eight hours in days of yore), it occurred to me that what Santa Claus really needs is a good marketing overhaul to help rejuvenate the Christmas spirit in these troubled times. Here are 10 steps I would take if my...

A few months ago, Dave Smith from Mediasmith and I were talking and he told me I "had to” check out the iMedia Agency Summit coming up in Palm Springs. I went. It was the most valuable conference I've ever been to—made great connections, learned a lot, even had fun. Here's my top five takeaways from the Summit. 1. Optimism....