KAMEIR

Google anounced today that the company is buying anti-piracy software company Widewine. Widevine provides digital media solutions for the delivery of digital entertainment to any device. Hundreds of service providers use Widevine’s multiplatform DRM and video optimization solutions for securing high quality video and audio.

Widevine is a privately held corporation headquartered in Seattle, WA, funded by Constellation Ventures, Cisco Systems, Charter Ventures, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP), Pacesetter Capital Group, The Phoenix Partners, TELUS (NYSE: TU) and VantagePoint Venture Partners.

Here’s the prepared statement he released today (12/3/2010):

Widevine is excited to announce that we have agreed to be acquired by Google.

For many years, Widevine has enabled consumers to access digital entertainment content. Through a combination of content protection and video optimization technologies, we’ve provided consumers with the highest quality Internet video experience while giving them freedom to watch on a variety of devices. With the recent growth of Internet video and network connected devices, it is increasingly important for technology to provide consumers with the capability to watch what they want, when they want, where they want.

By working with Google, we are even further committed to the consumer Internet video experience and to the needs of content owners. Widevine will continue to supply the industry with leading video optimization and content protection solutions. We are excited to have access to Google’s vast resources as we continue to improve our products, support our customers, and meet the future needs of consumers, content owners, service providers and device manufacturers everywhere.

Social Media by know is a very much over-used term, specifically by those who don’t seem to use it much (just like Web 2.0 – crinch!). Almost every online agency now touts social media as one of their specialties. But it seems that there is very little actual planning and measuring going on; no accountability and no ways to measure ROIs is offered.

Decision makers that ultimately give the go-ahead to invest in social media marketing are (or: should be!) concerned with the bottom line. Just like any other investment, it is essential that a social media strategy includes mechanisms to assess actual business value / ROI. This can be in form of a value placed on increased product/service awareness, actual sales (leads) and/or cost savings due to a reduction in support staff due to social media tools. ROI can only be obtained if there is a stated goal for the social media campaign. Regardless of how value is determined, social media should be validated just like any other marketing channel.

It is encouraging is that more companies are looking more seriously at the challenges and opportunities of social media participation. Others understand that social media is not a destination, but rather an indication of consumer behaviors aided by technology. Successful social media marketing is not about the tools, it is about the people involved; remember social media is about the C’s:  Conversation, Connections, Community, Consumer, Control, Creative, Collaboration and Content.

Participate in Poll: Are you measuring Social Media ROI?

Email me if you have questions on how to measure Social Media ROI.

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses web-based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogues. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein also define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” Businesses also refer to social media as consumer-generated media (CGM). A common thread running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. By applying a set of theories in the field of media research (social presence, media richness) and social processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure) Kaplan and Haenlein created a classification scheme for different social media types in their Business Horizons article published in 2010. According to Kaplan and Haenlein there are six different types of social media: collaborative projects, blogs and microblogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual communities. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms.

Enterprise collaboration done right by San Diego’s MindTouch.

MindTouch assembles your organization’s genius into strategic content. Using MindTouch for your strategic content you can increase customer acquisition, decrease customer retention costs and enhance your product and services development. MindTouch is also an great general-purpose platform for enterprise collaboration and rapidly developing social business applications.

RockMelt a company backed by some of the old Netscape guys announced that they are coming out with a social web browser. Looks kinda interesting and there’s probably some money to be made. Though I would be really surprised if it garnered more market share than Google’s Chrome (8%). So, I ma not sure where there’s an exit for the venture.

Three weeks into testing it: no crashes or memory leaks. So far, I like it

While talking to dozens of enterprise marketers, I was amazed to learn how many marketing professionals seem to be content using very basic online analytic tools and implementations. In response I prepared this presentation and advanced web analytics. Below please find the version I used for my speech at iMarketers in San Diego on October 19th 2010.