originally published in Ad Age Facebook tried to remove almost every objection to buying a virtual reality headset with the launch of Oculus Go. Its move is more intriguing given the timing of the latest release from Snap, whose app Snapchat created a mass market for augmented reality. The devices are polar opposites, but they […]
Category: Emerging Media
Bracing for the Age of Creative Disaffection
This column originally ran in Ad Age. I shortened it considerably before submitting it, and they are much better editors than me, so you can find the polished version there. My rougher, more meandering version is below. A chief creative officer who I met with several years ago lamented about how much work was farmed […]
27 Ways Marketers Can Use Blockchain
Originally published in Advertising Age Before anyone has had a chance to figure out their artificial intelligence strategy or augmented reality plan this year, along comes the blockchain to suck all the buzzword-filled air out of the room. But blockchain may be more impactful than anything marketers have encountered since the advent of the internet. […]
When Will Facebook Find Its Voice?
A more polished, edited version of this appeared in Ad Age. You’re stuck with the original ‘director’s cut’ here. When Will Facebook Find Its Voice? Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and now Apple made their voice-activated hardware approaches clear. There’s one proverbial elephant that isn’t in the literal living room right now though: Facebook. Does that mean […]
A 5-Step Framework for Visual Search
originally published on Convince & Convert How would you hashtag the Mona Lisa? You can probably come up with a lot of ideas. Perhaps your list would include: #art, #DaVinci, #smile, #masterpiece, and #Louvre, among others. Conversely, reading a few of those hashtags would make it easy for most literate, English-speaking adults to guess the […]
Divining the F8 of Image Recognition for Marketers
Originally published in Ad Age; image via Wikimedia Commons Facebook’s F8 developer conference this week provided the most fanciful view yet of where augmented reality is headed. The event also gave marketers — Facebook is, after all, one of the world’s largest ad-supported busineses — a glimpse of AR’s commercial potential. While Facebook previewed its […]
The Tech Shift from Passive Voice to Active Voice
originally published in Ad Age At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, it seemed like every device that debuted was voice-activated. Manufacturers added voice activation to televisions, refrigerators, cars and toys, with Amazon’s Alexa emerging as the predominant platform powering them. Even a hairbrush produced by Withings, Kérastase and L’Oreal has a microphone (to […]
Multiple Metrics for Measuring Chatbots
Originally published in Advertising Age About 20 years ago, marketers started adopting metrics for online advertising that remain commonplace today. About 10 years ago, The same thing happened when the advent of smartphones spurred the rise of mobile marketing. As conversational commerce takes off, this is happening again because of automated conversational software known as […]
How Bots Will Change Humanity
Originally published in The Indian Economist Our global society is entering an era of conversational commerce. We need to start paying attention to who we will be having these conversations with, as any different direction can have sweeping ramifications. Conversational commerce, a term coined by Uber’s Chris Messina, refers to how transactions are increasingly started and […]
Look Behind the Curtain: Why I Joined Oz Content’s Board
In some news I’ve been eager to share for a bit and finally can publicly, I am now officially a board member of Oz Content. I had met the founder, Matt Lovett, in early 2014, and we reconnected this March at a friend’s breakfast discussion, leading to this new collaboration. He also introduced me to […]