Book Recommendations: The Perfect Thing by Steven Levy
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 22nd, 2007
That night, Microsoft hosted a small dinner in New York for a group of journalists, a prelude to its launch of Windows XP the next day. I have lots of experience talking to Bill Gates and do not break into tears when he yells, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!” so the Microsoft PR team seated me next to the chairman.
I brought along my new iPod. At the end of the meal, just as the other guests at the table were pushing away their chairs, I pulled out the iPod and put it in front of Gates.
“Have you seen this yet?” I asked.
Gates went into a zone that recalls those science fiction films where a space alien, confronted with a novel object, creates some sort of force tunnel between him and the object, allowing him to suck directly into his brain all possible information about it. Gates’ fingers, racing at Nascar speed, played over the scroll wheel and pushed every button combination, while his eyes stared fixedly at the screen. I could almost hear the giant sucking sound. Finally, after he had absorbed every nuance of the device, he handed it back to me.
“It looks like a great product,” he said. [excerpt from WIRED]
I was looking for another great book to read. Adel Gabot swooped by the desk I was working on a few days ago and flashed Steven Levy’s The Perfect Thing across the room.
“Great book!” he said. “Makes for a good podcast.” Thanks for the recommendation, Adel.
The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness talks about the iPod phenomenon – what does it take to turn a piece of hardware into an icon? As a consumer who is very discerning .. well, let’s just say it as it is – vain about his taste in technology, I’m particularly fascinated with how tech zealots and tech curmudgeons are born into this world. It is icons of tech pop culture such as the iPod that fuels these kinds of people. The book is available at Fully Booked BHS for around P550.00. I tried looking for this title in PowerBooks Greenbelt beforehand but was sadly out.
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Our First Certificate of Recognition!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 26th, 2007
Juned: It was fun
Jayvee: Is that the correct word?
Juned: It was fulfilling!
We talked about blogs, blogging, and using blogs as a teaching instrument in lesson plans. According to the teachers, high school students are very familiar with Friendster blogs as their means of self expression. Why not channel this enthusiasm into a learning tool in the classroom? The teachers were very receptive and although the session was short, we’re working on phase two of our school penetration program. We’ll be working with the top journalism students of Lagro National High School and help them use blogs in a number of class projects. The possibilities are numerous. [Blog and Soul]
Thank you to Arpee and Juned for working on this project. Do you want to volunteer your time to talk about blogs to students? Click here.
Google PR is just a number and this is my miracle explanation why
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 26th, 2007Putting things in perspective, I believe the issue about the Google PR numbers game is at most, a relative discourse. Yuga says that bloggers should not rely on Google PageRank and Riz exposes the idea that PageRank is a wonky statistic.
Let me give an analogy of how Google PageRank works in the light of print industry. In the beginning, a lot of media buyers would rely on ONE thing when it came to advertising on print. That THING would be the claimed circulation figures that a publishing sales team would present forward. Anybody could claim a readership of 10,000 copies nationwide but in reality the print run receipt would only amount to 1,500 copies. How bad! How evil! But why is this done? There would be such arbitrary things to consider such as pass on readership figures which were all transcribed from an in house formulae which nobody had any idea how it was calculated.
Magazine stand visibility was another thing. So many of the same mag issue adorned the wooden displays at bookstores. Did it mean that the magazine sold well? No. Not really. It could simply mean that the particular issue was overstocked. There was so much market visibility BECAUSE there was very little conversion to sales. And magazine stands wouldn’t care less anyway as they stock on consignment.
What’s my point? There are so many things going on when it comes to determining what really brings influence forward. A magazine may only have 1,000 readers but what if their ads are all targeted towards the market? Advertisers still don’t realize this because the truth is, they don’t want to, and don’t have the time to dwell on such things. That’s the broker’s job.
The Google PageRank issue is proof that the online publishing / advertising industry is still in its infancy. PageRank, Technorati links, actual traffic … these are but figures which are arbitrarily defined by the industry as measures for influence and reach. But there has to be a system somewhere – a system that’s easy to understand and Google has made that system a no brainer for advertisers to grasp, using a scale of 1 to 10. And hey, who can contradict the number 1 company in the world? That’s advertising made simple.
The Spin
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 21st, 2007I’ve always been fascinated at how the good public relations agencies master the art of The Spin. They are able to pitch, convince and communicate ideas and transmute them into a brand campaign, advocacy, or promotion. There is no moral judgement present in such cases as these awareness campaigns are to be taken as “amoral” at the very least. What’s important is the communication of the idea. The Spin.
The Spin can convince you to choose brand X over Y. It can coerce you to donate money for a certain cause. It can reorient your moral value to see something once evil as good.
To illustrate my point, here’s what happens when you recut The Shining and turn it into a family comedy:
It’s all in the spin. Nothing is real 
b5media tech podcast – ‘Branches sold seperately’
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 19th, 2007It’s been a while since we recorded something. In this podcast for the b5media technology channel, Mike Abundo and I talk about evangelizing the farmers as well as many other things for the Emerging Earth.
[display_podcast]
Not that I’m preempting a regular b5media tech podcast – I don’t want to promise anything. But I do hope I can keep this up and open the invitation to the other b5media tech channel bloggers.
Hey PR Agencies! This is how to do a social media PR campaign!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 15th, 2007
This is a template I took from the news blog of CNET. The post caught my eye because it talked about an actual TEMPLATE to doing social media campaigns. I’m not sure if Mike Abundo (head curmudgeon) or Steve Rubel (PR guru) would agree with this chart — but hear me out for a bit. The image above is basically a means to illustrate the different channels of our innovative Internet space, with a zero in on social interactions online. You can download the PDF template by clicking on this link.
Click HERE to see how Ford made use of this template to come up with their own social media friendly site.
Enter the social media news release (SMNR), originally conceived by SHIFT Communications, a viable new format to spark and cultivate online conversations about a product. Todd Defren, Shel Holtz, Chris Heuer, and other bloggers have been on the soapbox preaching about SMNRs for almost a year now. The list of companies that have used the SMNR includes Coca-Cola, BEA, SAP, Novell, and Belkin, among many other smaller companies.[Read]
The chart doesn’t tell you HOW to do things. It tells you WHAT is available in the Internet community – blogs, social networking, social bookmarking, viral videos, and the like.
My guesses on Apple’s UNUSUAL trackpad features!!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 5th, 2007Rumor has it that Apple will be unveiling the new line of MacBooks this coming 4Q complete with biometric scanner built into the trackpad. But its not really the thumb signature that intrigues me, but the fine print of the “unusual features” that the new trackpad will contain. Here are some of my guesses:
- pinching of the trackpad to zoom in and out of the cursor area (the old default command was to scroll with two fingers while holding CTRL)
- iPod-like circle scrolling for certain applications
- Flicking the trackpad to scroll quickly through lists
- reconfiguration of the tapping motion on the track pad to do other things (like zoom a photo to fit to browser)
The new track pad should, by induction, sport some of the innovations of the Apple iPhone touch screen.
Andrian Lee’s “No Scratch” Gadget Solution
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 5th, 2007Met up with a few of the SEMCON speakers last week for a brief photo session. It was there that I got to see Andrian Lee (he’s going to talk about the Ultimate Checkout Solution on Oct 10) and his uncanny gear protection solution.
An Open Letter to Apple
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 1st, 2007A little bird told me that Apple SG reads my blog. I’m writing this letter to document some of my mental diarrhea in time for the release of the iLife ’09 suite late next year. The letter verbalizes some ideas of combining the UI of GarageBand with some of the features of iMovie ’08, especially fixing the UI for the “paste over playhead” option which is found in iMovie HD.
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“The New Order” Ad Congress this November
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 30th, 2007I’m a little disappointed that this year’s advertising congress isn’t getting a lot of buzz in comparison to the past ones that were held in Baguio and Cebu. I’m not quite sure which agency is sponsoring this year’s ad congress PR — the radio and television, as well as the online beat campaigns don’t seem to be very visible, if at all they are being run.
I have a theory why they aren’t very visible. Just check out their website address:
http://www.20thadcongress-theneworder.com/
Oh god. Who can possibly remember that insanely long URL? Ironic as it is, the “New Order” which will be held in Subic this coming November 21 to 24 2007 will touch on such things as new media, social media and emerging trends for advertising. As a guy who’s been in the blog industry for 2 1/2 years, I will be first to say that they should have chosen a friendlier URL.
From what I learned, the “New Order” pitch goes something like this: In the same way that soldiers were sent to Subic for training, so will advertisers and communicators be sent off for different kind of training. Wheee.
So, who’s going to ad congress? It would be cool to see new media practitioners and blogtrepreneurs there! If you’re a corporation, it would be a splendid idea to sponsor some interested bloggers and get to know them better.
Tagay!
Speedlinking 19/9/2007
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 19th, 2007Today is going to be especially memorable for me as I start my adventure in bikram yoga. While I sweat inside a human-sized toaster, here are some links for you to enjoy:
- As tradition goes, here is the link to the schedule for Philippine Christmas Bazaars 2007.
- Royal Elastics, the guys behind the lace-less shoes, is here in the Philippines. What’s interesting about their marketing campaign is that they are making use of the iTunes Store for free music mix downloads. You heard it right – FREE music mixes from the iTunes Store. I was able to download 3 hours worth of mixes via their website. Just click on the downloads button and select one of the albums. The Royal Elastics store is located at the ground floor of Mall of Asia a minute away form Highlands Steak House.
- Titik Pilipino launches, a podcast series with Filipino artists. The first episode features Christian Bautista.
- Nostalgic memories point to Kylie Minogue singing “Especially for You” with Kermit the Frog and Rita Moreno singing “Fever” with Animal on drums.
- Belated happy birthday to the Drive by Shooter!
