“... I think that a big reason consumer-goods companies have been slow to adopt digital marketing is that it is so direct and immediate and personal when it comes to dealing with consumers. Most of these companies have built and sustain their market advantages not on being more preferred by consumers, but by being more efficient at manufacturing or distribution, or by having more and greater pricing leverage with distributors and retailers.

Many times, the true effectiveness of consumer-goods advertising in driving the business has more to do with its impact on those intermediaries during contract negotiations than on its ultimate impact on consumers.”

Dave Morgan
Executive Vice President, Global Advertising Strategy
AOL
Via MediaPost

“Dear Jeff Bezos, Amazon is asleep at the wheel. Ebay, You should have been vBay 24 months ago. Craig Newmark, Do you know you own a TV network?

... Guys - you’re blowing it. Ecommerce.  Dating.  Auctions.  Comedy.  Community.  Branding.  News. Politics. It’s all about User-Generated Video. There’s a sea-change happening.  And the leaders in the web aren’t on it.  Amazon. Ebay.  Craigslist. Guys, time to get in the game.  Heck - even NBC beat you - how crazy is that?

Your community has a Video Voice, empower it and embrace it, or ignore it at your peril.”

Steve Rosenbaum
CEO
Magnify.net

Commenting on Google’s recent “YouTube Videocracy” event in NYC…

“Google made a good investment. Just a few years after launch, the platform has radically changed the media consumption ecosystem. Unlike other acquisitions in the space, YouTube provides value to the end user like no other platform does. The democratization of video consumption and creation might not thrill the big networks, but it is here to stay.”

Sara Holoubek
via DM News

Because people have developed trust, they are communicating as open human beings and making connections. Twitter, Second Life, Facebook, etc. are all just conduits and catalysts for this rather wholesome process. Don’t worry about the purpose, or getting it right (there are better approaches, but just play a bit; you don’t even have to be yourself… people will help you along). 

You really can’t screw it up too bad because how the platforms are used will be radically different from person to person. Like Second Life—just stop mass marketing.  Start creating or sponsoring wholesome and good things and let nature take its course.  Evangelists, fans and friends will form if you are just receptive and make an investment into the people. Loosen up—let them have control.”

Wayne Porter
Social Media & Security Researcher
Co-Founder Revenews.com

“When you look at places like Myspace and Facebook… the teenagers aren’t scared of pedophiles.  They aren’t running away from people that can exploit them that way—they’re running away from marketers and advertisers.  That’s one thing that we have to be respectful of and aware of… as business people, marketers or people that want to get word out about organizations or causes… so that when we approach these different networks we do it in such a way that it’s not offensive. In some cases it can be offensive by us just being there…

Innately the people who participate in these networks—right off the bat—do not want this to be a place where businesses go in to try and sell them something and conduct business.  This is a place where they go for refuge… to socialize… to meet people and to share ideas and build relationships with people personally.”

Giovanni Gallucci
Social Media & Online Community Expert
Gallucci.net
(via Phil Windley’s IT Conversations interview)

“Virgin real-time data + arbitrage identification algorithms + understanding investor flaws + algorithms to target mental flaws + direct and indirect market influence = $

As I see it, competitive forces between traditional publishers, market saturation from the bottom, and market influence from the likes of data hoarding companies like Google are going to quickly commoditize anything that is sold as information. To survive you need emotional touch-points that consumers share.

A friend of mine was a leading affiliate for an information product, selling over $300,000 worth of someone else’s service. How did they reward him? They cloned his sales channel and killed his business model. Everything that is not a memory, brand, or experience is becoming a commodity. What prevents you or I from becoming a commodity?”

Aaron Wall
SeoBook.com