iMedia Connection - ad:tech blog

I have a bad habit of writing limericks. I promise that none of them are good, but appssavvy's Chris Cunningham gave me the go ahead to share this one:
Ode to SoLoMo
Users' love for their phones isn't funny
And the forecast for social is sunny
So let's talk SoLoMo
(LoMoSo? MoSoLo?)
Whatever the name, it means money.
Across the board, the most common comment we're hearing from attendees is, "Users are ready for all the SoLoMo apps and tools we can give them. But from the agency and the tech side, we're moving too slowly." Check out the summit coverage for ideas, tactics, and encouragement to be in the game. You'll never be fully ready to start, better to learn as you go.
Here are my favorite pics from the past day (including shots from the Interview Studio):

Social, mobile, and location-based targeting merged so quickly, the terminology and standards have yet to catch up. But this week at the iMedia Agency Summit in Colorado Springs, the industry's insiders are putting a stake in the ground about what it means to combine digital marketing's three most powerful trends.
From cool to creepy, we have the capabilities to target and advertise to audiences in potent new ways. And SoLoMo technologies have been in active use just long enough that we're starting to see best practices and value-based measurements emerge.
You'll want to click through the video presentations as they're posted to imediaconnection.com. We'll be hearing, over the next two days, about cutting edge practices at Twitter, Facebook, Xbox, Virgin America, Intuit, American Express, Rockfish, Levi Strauss & Co., AT&T adWorks, and many other companies. Their stories are candid, timely, and very insightful.
In the meantime, here are a few of our favorite pics from the past day, at the beautiful Colorado Springs Broadmoor Hotel.
And, my favorite discovery of the day: I sat next to a psychologist on the plane from LA, and she introduced me to the "txtRing." It's a set of two plastic rings you can wear (or tether to your... Read more

Patent and copyright law were big business even before digital erupted. But now with questions of what is and isn't open source, and the nature of digital assets being easily duplicatable, lawyers seems to be swarming. Add to the mix the massive reach some digital products can gain (e.g. the OS for a mobile device), and you're talking billions of dollars.
In case you hadn't heard, two giants are meeting this month in San Francisco courts to pound out a two-year long software patent dispute. And it's kind of juicy.
Oracle is suing Google because the company claims Android phones violate two of its patents, along with its Java copyright. The original damages claim was for $6B, though the number is reported to have been decreased at this time to $1B. (Apparently Google had offered to settle for $2.8 million.)
Google says neither the programming language or API are subject to copyright. As stated in Wired Magazine, Google's Lead Counsel Robert Van Nest hopes to prove that "there is no copyright infringement because the language is free, that Sun was aware from day one of what Google was doing, and, finally, that Android is a fair use of the Java APIs." (Sun was purchased... Read more

As we all know, original content is exploding. It's not just kitten videos, frogs playing with iPhones, Jenna Marbles and My Drunk Kitchen. YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Digital Broadcasting Group, and a long list of other entities are putting significant money into well-produced short- and long-form original video content.
Here are some to keep an eye on:
1. My Damn Channel Live
My Damn Channel Live premieres this Wednesday and will air at 4 p.m. EST Monday through Friday. Programs will be available on demand on both YouTube and the My Damn Channel website.
2. Netflix's Lilyhammer
The first season premiered on Norwegian NRK1 in January 2012 with a record audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and premiered on Netflix in North America in February 2012. Lilyhammer is the first original series by Netflix.
(A second season has been commissioned, but due to Van Zandt's upcoming tour with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band it is currently unknown when production will commence. Awesome.)
3. Hulu's Spy
Spy is smart, awkward, unique and very British. One of our new favorites.
Check it out here.
4. The Single Life
Digital Broadcasting Group teamed up with Dentyne Gum to launch the clever series. The show is now in its second season,... Read more

Video's best and brightest are in San Antonio this week for the iMedia Video Summit. Major players from NBC, YouTube, Disney Interactive Media Group, ABC, GroupM, and many other companies and agencies are discussing what's working in video, what's not, and what comes next.

We'll be posting blogs and interviews over the upcoming days and weeks. Don't miss these insider insights about who's producing original content, what changes are coming in media buying, what the hot new ideas are in video production and distribution, how to create effective video experiences for different platforms, devices, and brand types, and much more.
For those of you who haven't been to an iMedia Summit, here's a quick look at the opening evening party.