W00t! I got one!! That 100,000-of-a-kind 75th anniversary October Esquire Magazine issue with the very modern e-ink cover. It’s blinking at me now - 2 ½ x 4 1/4 inches of pure modern media.
Esquire teamed up with E-Ink (of Amazon Kindle fame) to create the first ever e-paper magazine cover as a forward look into the future of print (no backward glances in this birthday suit).
The cover has been rumored for a while, and Hearst Corp. (Esquire’s parent) has been working with E-Ink for over two years to make it a reality.
The goal here is making advertising sing – well, at least bling.
Ford Motors defrayed much of the R&D cost, paying a nice premium to have its first-of-a-kind animated E-Ink ad placed on the inside cover. Esquire’s publishers believe this tiny animated billboard on every page is the future (and salvation) for print media advertising. It’s inevitable that as the technology sophisticates e-ink ads – and print content in general - will too. We happen to think the potential – and Esquire’s experiment - is pretty modernly cool.
The cover and Ford’s ad are made up of microchips, batteries and microcapsules thinner than a human hair and covered with a flexible plastic. The microcapsules contain black and white pigments that, when charged, work together to create the images. The batteries should keep the cover blinging for at least three months, but the juice could last as long as six.
We’ll definitely see more of this from Hearst since they have a one-year exclusive from E-Ink – not to mention that Hearst Interactive Media also owns a stake in E-Ink (modern move there, Hearst!).
Once it stops blinging for us, we’ll be putting it into our modern media archives.
And to the 99,999 other lucky Oct. Esquire owners, file this one away. You never know, it might be worth something on eBay someday. If you must toss it, Esquire suggests how to recycle it.
To see what the cover looks like see this video.
To get inside the cover, see Popular Science article, Hacking the Esquire E-ink Cover.
Photo credit – Folio Magazine
Wine tasting together on Twitter – that’s Twitter Taste Live!
Okay, first you need to know about Twitter if you don’t already. In a blurb, it is a social network site that gives you 140 characters to answer the question: “What are you doing?” You can “follow” other people and get their updates. People have micro conversations. Anyone can tune in to the conversation. That’s it. Simple and modernly powerful.
Yeah, well, you gotta use it to really get it…but once you do….
Bin Ends Wine is using Twitter to hold wine tastings. A brilliantly modern marketing technique, if you must know. Here is how it works.
You sign up for Twitter, you “follow” Bin Ends Wine (search for: “binendswine” on Twitter), and you order the wines from Bin Ends Wine that will be tasted and discussed the night of the tasting. Wine arrives. You grab a bottle and a laptop (a wine glass might be good too) and Twitter away as you join in on the conversation with international wine experts on the live stream.
For you it is wine, laptop and tweets. But here’s a peek into last week’s event from the Bin Ends Wines end:
"Twitter Taste LIVE took over the “Twitterverse” once again last night to taste the wines of Hugel et Fils along with Etienne Hugel “tweeting” from his home in Alsace and countless bloggers around the world.
My head is pounding and my eye’s are adjusting from staring at three PC screens, holding a skype call to Alsace, IM’ing with our web guy, holding an in-store tasting, streaming live and of course tweeting all at the same time, but I can say that the event last night was amazing!"
We’re not surprised Bin Ends is up-to-the-modern-moment. They’ve been going “wine 2.0” all over the Internet with their blogging and podcasting and video-ing and Flickring and Del.icio.using since 2004.
Check out Bin Ends Wine’s blog and winecast, join in on Twitter Taste Live and get some tweet ideas of your own.
Those aren’t call letters, it’s yet another take on moving radio from broadcast to a modern media. And with more than a billion java-enabled handsets sold last year, I’d say it’s a pretty smart move.
PM1 SMS, a service aimed at radio stations, turns handsets into marketing ma-chines.
Actually, I like it. It’s total modern media. It gives listeners new kinds of access to their music and moves advertising just a touch closer to where more of it should be - on-demand. But, more importantly, the revenue and purchasing models signal the move toward true mobile commerce and that advertising models are thinking modern while gaining mainstream traction.
 Listeners text a five-digit code to the radio station which triggers a plethora of expected choices - everything from artist information, wallpaper and alerts to downloading the ringtone, buying music on iTunes or grabbing concert tickets on the go. Of course there are the necessary polls, contest entry and feedback. But, listeners can also request certain radio content on-demand and use “text tags” to get advertiser information and special promotions (that would be Frame of Mind marketing) – and of course buy non-music products, all with their everywhere-I-go handset.
A key and unique feature is listeners set up an M-Wallet account with the radio station and purchases are charged against the credit card on file. Currently, almost all purchasing done via mobile phone (for U.S. audiences at least) is through mobile service provider. Let true m-commerce begin!
PM1 SMS differs from Nokia’s Visual Radio in that Visual Radio is primarily a “push” model which then allows some limited user response opportunities. PM1 SMS is listener-initiated, two-way, get-it-when—where-I-want-it radio.
Virgin Radio launch an SMS response service last year – so we’re not too surprised that Virgin Mobile is just one major customer signing on with PM1 SMS.
Good call!
BusinessWeek Online is reporting the imminent launch of Project Caravan which “calls for books to be delivered simultaneously in five formats -- hardcover, digital, audio, print-on-demand, and by chapter.” Six non-profit publishers are participating, however no doubt it is being eyed rather nervously by publishing giants everywhere.
 But some of them are way ahead. New York publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for one. Check out Pulse (the book). It is Ultra-Modern Media.
You can read the entire book at the website - serialized entries are posted at 6:00 a.m. and 3 p.m. (noon on weekends) from April 10 through November 6, 2006. Or, subscribe and get chapter “chunks” by email or RSS – and what’s modern cool is you can start your subscription from the beginning, even if you “come in late.” But wait! there’s more…
There's tag clouds, links to the most popular posts and tags; annotated lists of people, blogs, forums, publications, etc. for “structuring the wider conversation” going on around the globe about the topic. Comments for participation are enabled, of course, but readers can also add to the book’s resource and network areas.
This isn't a community site - there are no discusstion groups or forums at the site. This is a bonifide modern book.
Oh yeah, and you can view the table of contents and index and buy the print book there too.
Modern Media kudos to Pulse author Robert Frenay and FSG for their “networked book.”
Fashion is always a reflection of what is happening in society, and “technofashion” is very modern media. Fashion is keeping our modern media tools at hand, helping us incorporate it into our personal expression and self-extension. Yesterday it was our car or house – today it is our modern media.
 The iShirt integrates the iPod Shuffle right into the shirt via a magnetic clasp. This quintessential Podcast accessory keeps your ipod firmly attached even during vigorous activity. PodBrix, the maker, also offers limited edition iPod-related merchandise.
 Although we’ve featured phones and cases that are jewel-studded to fur trimmed, this waterproof iPod case by Otterbox takes iPod where it couldn’t go before - swimming, kayaking, or jet skiing. They’re serious about enabling “what I want, when I want it” media.
 And, Motorola is at it again, this time with Oakley, creating Bluetooth sunglasses, riding a fashion trend in “connected” clothing. The joint venture provides communications “anywhere and everywhere consumers want to be.” Watch for more fashion that is reflecting, incorporating and enabling modern media. More importantly, how can your product keep customers connected
From Me-Everything to the We Generation. The creation and sharing of multimedia is a hallmark of the “We Generation.” Here are just two new services, among the many cropping up, that let us be “we.” These are the modern media equivalents of the post office and Community Square on a global scale. They are simple and brilliant examples of connecting customers with each other.
Ourmedia.org offers free storage and bandwidth for video, audio, photos or text. Their mission: provide a place alongside big media to “gather, inform, entertain and astound each other.”
Dropload is an online place to drop off files and have them picked up at a later time by someone else (or yourself). Upload any type of file, up to 100MB each. Just specify the recipients and they receive an email with instructions for downloading. After 7 days, the files are deleted. As handy as UPS.
Social networks and services built around our digital self-expression - modern media on the rise. Modern marketing opportunity. Are you creating, contributing, enabling or participating in social networks?
 HomeSeer is offering an RFID Home Starter Kit. It is specifically designed to track the presence (or absence) of your personal property, but it can also notify you when the kids get home from school or when little ones wander near a pool. Or, how about if the trash cans aren’t outside on garbage day?
Controversy over “people tagging” aside, RFID tags are modern media and will play a valuable role in “liquid media.”
So, start brainstorming how you can use RFID to deliver truly useful products and services that allow your customers to pull information on demand.
 Remember when you were asking yourself
“who wants a camera in a phone?” Mobit is connecting the real world with the digital
world via the mobile phone camera. They’re teaming their
visual search technology with instant gratification (and media
and marketers).
A picture can launch a thousand possibilities. Take a picture
of an ad – get the nearest location to purchase. Click a quick photo of a movie poster,
buy tickets or download a ringtone. Shoot a smile and respond to a poll. Snap a shot of a label and get product information. Immediate reponse on your mobile phone. Anything becomes “animated” without any modifications to it (no bar codes, tags etc.)
And, of course Mobit supplies
response metrics.
Elle, Vibe, Jane magazines are
using Mobit to offer promotions to advertisers, and a host of them are signing up –
Saturn, Target, Absolut Vodka, DKNY, Old Spice, VW, Ford – and on and on.
We like where this is going (with caution) – customer pull – “what I want, when I want it.” What can you animate?
This post first appeared on our site in April of 2005 and has been moved here within our current site
 The first podcast debuted mid-2004
and we already have the first industry show and conference. Podcast and Portable Media Expo will be held in November, 2005, in Ontario, California, USA.
Major broadcast media outlets
jumped on podcasting faster
than any new channel to date – even faster than blogs. CNN, BBC, National Public Radio,
and a host of talk radio shows are available as podcasts. The craze began as a broadcast channel for amateurs, but it is really all about “convenience listening” and niche programming.
If you are not familiar with podcasting (where have you been), it is an MP3 recording coupled with
RSS (really simple syndication). MP3 is the standard file format for digital audio/music players and RSS is method of subscribing
to content so that it is downloaded automatically (at your defined schedule) when it becomes available. Podcasting is anywhere, on-demand listening. The MP3/iPod is the convenience-listening appliance.
Public relations people, are you listening?
 Scion’s concept car, t2B, is modern
media on wheels. The Scion’s
hallmark of personalization has been coupled with socialization.
Features like the “suicide” door on the driver’s side and single sliding door on the passenger side open the interior
completely to the outside. The “ticker tape” dashboard,sound system, MP3 docking station, and the projector in the roofturns it into a mobile entertainment system. Scion says it let’s
the owner “decide how
to use the car.”
Refreshing, and a peek into modern media integrated into our lifestyle.
W00t! I got one!! That 100,000-of-a-kind 75th anniversary October Esquire Magazine issue with the very modern e-ink cover. It’s blinking at me now - 2 ½ x 4 1/4 inches of pure modern media.
Esquire teamed up with E-Ink (of Amazon Kindle fame) to create the first ever e-paper magazine cover as a forward look into the future of print (no backward glances in this birthday suit).
The cover has been rumored for a while, and Hearst Corp. (Esquire’s parent) has been working with E-Ink for over two years to make it a reality.
The goal here is making advertising sing – well, at least bling.
Ford Motors defrayed much of the R&D cost, paying a nice premium to have its first-of-a-kind animated E-Ink ad placed on the inside cover. Esquire’s publishers believe this tiny animated billboard on every page is the future (and salvation) for print media advertising. It’s inevitable that as the technology sophisticates e-ink ads – and print content in general - will too. We happen to think the potential – and Esquire’s experiment - is pretty modernly cool.
The cover and Ford’s ad are made up of microchips, batteries and microcapsules thinner than a human hair and covered with a flexible plastic. The microcapsules contain black and white pigments that, when charged, work together to create the images. The batteries should keep the cover blinging for at least three months, but the juice could last as long as six.
We’ll definitely see more of this from Hearst since they have a one-year exclusive from E-Ink – not to mention that Hearst Interactive Media also owns a stake in E-Ink (modern move there, Hearst!).
Once it stops blinging for us, we’ll be putting it into our modern media archives.
And to the 99,999 other lucky Oct. Esquire owners, file this one away. You never know, it might be worth something on eBay someday. If you must toss it, Esquire suggests how to recycle it.
To see what the cover looks like see this video.
To get inside the cover, see Popular Science article, Hacking the Esquire E-ink Cover.
Photo credit – Folio Magazine
Wine tasting together on Twitter – that’s Twitter Taste Live!
Okay, first you need to know about Twitter if you don’t already. In a blurb, it is a social network site that gives you 140 characters to answer the question: “What are you doing?” You can “follow” other people and get their updates. People have micro conversations. Anyone can tune in to the conversation. That’s it. Simple and modernly powerful.
Yeah, well, you gotta use it to really get it…but once you do….
Bin Ends Wine is using Twitter to hold wine tastings. A brilliantly modern marketing technique, if you must know. Here is how it works.
You sign up for Twitter, you “follow” Bin Ends Wine (search for: “binendswine” on Twitter), and you order the wines from Bin Ends Wine that will be tasted and discussed the night of the tasting. Wine arrives. You grab a bottle and a laptop (a wine glass might be good too) and Twitter away as you join in on the conversation with international wine experts on the live stream.
For you it is wine, laptop and tweets. But here’s a peek into last week’s event from the Bin Ends Wines end: "Twitter Taste LIVE took over the “Twitterverse” once again last night to taste the wines of Hugel et Fils along with Etienne Hugel “tweeting” from his home in Alsace and countless bloggers around the world.
My head is pounding and my eye’s are adjusting from staring at three PC screens, holding a skype call to Alsace, IM’ing with our web guy, holding an in-store tasting, streaming live and of course tweeting all at the same time, but I can say that the event last night was amazing!"
We’re not surprised Bin Ends is up-to-the-modern-moment. They’ve been going “wine 2.0” all over the Internet with their blogging and podcasting and video-ing and Flickring and Del.icio.using since 2004.
Check out Bin Ends Wine’s blog and winecast, join in on Twitter Taste Live and get some tweet ideas of your own.
Those aren’t call letters, it’s yet another take on moving radio from broadcast to a modern media. And with more than a billion java-enabled handsets sold last year, I’d say it’s a pretty smart move.
PM1 SMS, a service aimed at radio stations, turns handsets into marketing ma-chines.
Actually, I like it. It’s total modern media. It gives listeners new kinds of access to their music and moves advertising just a touch closer to where more of it should be - on-demand. But, more importantly, the revenue and purchasing models signal the move toward true mobile commerce and that advertising models are thinking modern while gaining mainstream traction.
Listeners text a five-digit code to the radio station which triggers a plethora of expected choices - everything from artist information, wallpaper and alerts to downloading the ringtone, buying music on iTunes or grabbing concert tickets on the go. Of course there are the necessary polls, contest entry and feedback. But, listeners can also request certain radio content on-demand and use “text tags” to get advertiser information and special promotions (that would be Frame of Mind marketing) – and of course buy non-music products, all with their everywhere-I-go handset.
A key and unique feature is listeners set up an M-Wallet account with the radio station and purchases are charged against the credit card on file. Currently, almost all purchasing done via mobile phone (for U.S. audiences at least) is through mobile service provider. Let true m-commerce begin!
PM1 SMS differs from Nokia’s Visual Radio in that Visual Radio is primarily a “push” model which then allows some limited user response opportunities. PM1 SMS is listener-initiated, two-way, get-it-when—where-I-want-it radio.
Virgin Radio launch an SMS response service last year – so we’re not too surprised that Virgin Mobile is just one major customer signing on with PM1 SMS.
Good call!
BusinessWeek Online is reporting the imminent launch of Project Caravan which “calls for books to be delivered simultaneously in five formats -- hardcover, digital, audio, print-on-demand, and by chapter.” Six non-profit publishers are participating, however no doubt it is being eyed rather nervously by publishing giants everywhere.
But some of them are way ahead. New York publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for one. Check out Pulse (the book). It is Ultra-Modern Media.
You can read the entire book at the website - serialized entries are posted at 6:00 a.m. and 3 p.m. (noon on weekends) from April 10 through November 6, 2006. Or, subscribe and get chapter “chunks” by email or RSS – and what’s modern cool is you can start your subscription from the beginning, even if you “come in late.” But wait! there’s more…
There's tag clouds, links to the most popular posts and tags; annotated lists of people, blogs, forums, publications, etc. for “structuring the wider conversation” going on around the globe about the topic. Comments for participation are enabled, of course, but readers can also add to the book’s resource and network areas.
This isn't a community site - there are no discusstion groups or forums at the site. This is a bonifide modern book.
Oh yeah, and you can view the table of contents and index and buy the print book there too.
Modern Media kudos to Pulse author Robert Frenay and FSG for their “networked book.”
Fashion is always a reflection of what is happening in society, and “technofashion” is very modern media. Fashion is keeping our modern media tools at hand, helping us incorporate it into our personal expression and self-extension. Yesterday it was our car or house – today it is our modern media.
The iShirt integrates the iPod Shuffle right into the shirt via a magnetic clasp. This quintessential Podcast accessory keeps your ipod firmly attached even during vigorous activity. PodBrix, the maker, also offers limited edition iPod-related merchandise.
Although we’ve featured phones and cases that are jewel-studded to fur trimmed, this waterproof iPod case by Otterbox takes iPod where it couldn’t go before - swimming, kayaking, or jet skiing. They’re serious about enabling “what I want, when I want it” media.
And, Motorola is at it again, this time with Oakley, creating Bluetooth sunglasses, riding a fashion trend in “connected” clothing. The joint venture provides communications “anywhere and everywhere consumers want to be.” Watch for more fashion that is reflecting, incorporating and enabling modern media. More importantly, how can your product keep customers connected
From Me-Everything to the We Generation. The creation and sharing of multimedia is a hallmark of the “We Generation.” Here are just two new services, among the many cropping up, that let us be “we.” These are the modern media equivalents of the post office and Community Square on a global scale. They are simple and brilliant examples of connecting customers with each other.
Ourmedia.org offers free storage and bandwidth for video, audio, photos or text. Their mission: provide a place alongside big media to “gather, inform, entertain and astound each other.”
Dropload is an online place to drop off files and have them picked up at a later time by someone else (or yourself). Upload any type of file, up to 100MB each. Just specify the recipients and they receive an email with instructions for downloading. After 7 days, the files are deleted. As handy as UPS.
Social networks and services built around our digital self-expression - modern media on the rise. Modern marketing opportunity. Are you creating, contributing, enabling or participating in social networks?
HomeSeer is offering an RFID Home Starter Kit. It is specifically designed to track the presence (or absence) of your personal property, but it can also notify you when the kids get home from school or when little ones wander near a pool. Or, how about if the trash cans aren’t outside on garbage day?
Controversy over “people tagging” aside, RFID tags are modern media and will play a valuable role in “liquid media.”
So, start brainstorming how you can use RFID to deliver truly useful products and services that allow your customers to pull information on demand.
Remember when you were asking yourself
“who wants a camera in a phone?” Mobit is connecting the real world with the digital
world via the mobile phone camera. They’re teaming their
visual search technology with instant gratification (and media
and marketers).
A picture can launch a thousand possibilities. Take a picture
of an ad – get the nearest location to purchase. Click a quick photo of a movie poster,
buy tickets or download a ringtone. Shoot a smile and respond to a poll. Snap a shot of a label and get product information. Immediate reponse on your mobile phone. Anything becomes “animated” without any modifications to it (no bar codes, tags etc.)
And, of course Mobit supplies
response metrics.
Elle, Vibe, Jane magazines are
using Mobit to offer promotions to advertisers, and a host of them are signing up –
Saturn, Target, Absolut Vodka, DKNY, Old Spice, VW, Ford – and on and on.
We like where this is going (with caution) – customer pull – “what I want, when I want it.” What can you animate?
This post first appeared on our site in April of 2005 and has been moved here within our current site
The first podcast debuted mid-2004
and we already have the first industry show and conference. Podcast and Portable Media Expo will be held in November, 2005, in Ontario, California, USA.
Major broadcast media outlets
jumped on podcasting faster
than any new channel to date – even faster than blogs. CNN, BBC, National Public Radio,
and a host of talk radio shows are available as podcasts. The craze began as a broadcast channel for amateurs, but it is really all about “convenience listening” and niche programming.
If you are not familiar with podcasting (where have you been), it is an MP3 recording coupled with
RSS (really simple syndication). MP3 is the standard file format for digital audio/music players and RSS is method of subscribing
to content so that it is downloaded automatically (at your defined schedule) when it becomes available. Podcasting is anywhere, on-demand listening. The MP3/iPod is the convenience-listening appliance.
Public relations people, are you listening?
Scion’s concept car, t2B, is modern
media on wheels. The Scion’s
hallmark of personalization has been coupled with socialization.
Features like the “suicide” door on the driver’s side and single sliding door on the passenger side open the interior
completely to the outside. The “ticker tape” dashboard,sound system, MP3 docking station, and the projector in the roofturns it into a mobile entertainment system. Scion says it let’s
the owner “decide how
to use the car.”
Refreshing, and a peek into modern media integrated into our lifestyle.
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W00t! I got one!! That 100,000-of-a-kind 75th anniversary October Esquire Magazine issue with the very modern e-ink cover. It’s blinking at me now - 2 ½ x 4 1/4 inches of pure modern media.
The cover and Ford’s ad are made up of microchips, batteries and microcapsules thinner than a human hair and covered with a flexible plastic. The microcapsules contain black and white pigments that, when charged, work together to create the images. The batteries should keep the cover blinging for at least three months, but the juice could last as long as six.
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