Today sees the very interesting announcement form PRSourceCode of some PR related research about the influence of key media in the tech space. It lists the top five key publications, website and bloggers and ranks them in order of importance.

A link to full results and article can be found here

For obvious reasons this information helps us as media planners educate our clients with additional insight and key facts supporting the use of different media vehicles within our plans. One obviously assumes that media owners who attract and audience do so with quality content however it’s also obvious that certain brands and their editorial contributors do have higher value for the audience.

Of most note to me personally are the following…

• Network World and eWEEK – more influence than CIO Magazine. 
• That the top tech journalists are all from not tech publishers
• No place for Walt Mossberg of WSJ in this journalist list
• The high placing of the new Bloomberg BusinessWeek – impressive for a magazine who was so badly run down just six months ago.

Definitely food for thought and perhaps a wake up call for some brands….

OK so today sees the posting of the following research in B2B magazine which studied the perceived impact on ROI for B2B companies via Twitter.

Link to the article is here

As expected the reality of proven sucess is very unclear but what appears most evident is that those who dedicated time and effort and seemingly enjoy the media platform are generally those who see it working for them. Unfortunately I think it’s also obvious that we like to self validate, especially in marketing, and will willingly look for success in programs we believe in, perhaps being more generous than we should.

I don’t doubt there are ways to make social media work, especially for those who really “get it” and spend time on it. The question of course is whether that’s a proportion of time that is sustainable or even achievable for most B2B marketers, who in my experience are always struggling to manage thier resources effectively.

What do you think ? Is Twitter really working for you?

This from B2B Magazine…”Research firm eMarketer said Monday that it has revised its forecast for U.S. Internet ad spending upward to 10.8% growth this year compared with 2009″.

“EMarketer said it anticipates that search spending will increase 15.7% this year, while banner ad spending will jump 8.2% and video spending will increase 48.1%.”

This last fact is the most interesting. The huge growth in advertising video on the web is finally upon us, driven almost certainly by two factors:

1/ Video is now regularly consumed on web devices, driven by the You Tube generation and the fact that bandwidths and delivery now allow us to see decent quality content in a satisfactory manner (less of the “buffering” syndrome). Advertisers are more confident their ads will be seen as intended.

2/ Targeting and accountablity is offered at a much higher degree through online media than traditional TV where video based ad content has traditionally been delivered.

What impact will this have? Firstly more advertisers can now consider TV ads without having to have a TV budget. It’s become much more affordable as a media option and will indeed grow as a result. Already this year we have many more instances of clients creating video content for their sites with versions created for running as video ads.  

Secondly the shift will drive change within the TV industry. They will have to respond by offering more metrics and targeting capabilities. They have the potential to out perform the web. Cable companies know a lot about their subscribers – what they watch, who they are, where they live, etc and can combine this powerful information to offer individualized targeting every bit as robust as the web. They will soon be able to offer much greater penetration of intereactive services too, allowing the audience to engage directly and most importantly measurably with different ad campaigns. This shift in budget will only accelerate that developmental process.

Expect to see big changes in TV land within the next 12-24 months.

As a small business owner there are always periods of time when investments in infrastructure become a blinding necessity. Just recently we embarked upon a re-branding and website overhaul which we trust will be completed by the end of this month – that’s a significant investment in time, energy and cash. But the rewards are tangible and satisfying. Next on the agenda is the question of materials upgrades…

With this in mind I came across the following article on Bmighty.com about the value of smb’s upgrading to Windows 7. It reminded me of the fact that I had already blogged about XP verses Vista back in 2007 . Back then we made a decision to not support Vista. We deliberately purchased a half dozen machines with XP that were put on ice and rotated into our renewal program as other machines slowed or new staff joined. That policy ensures a consistent operating platform and contented employees for two more years. Given all we know about Vista it was a wise move.

Now maybe different. While XP still feels perfectly adequate for most day to day business applications the tech world is radically different now than it was back in 2001 when XP first showed up (yes THAT long ago). I’m dealing with a generation of iphone app users now and frankly the expectations they have as consumers absolutely impacts the expectations they have for business tools.

So the big question for this new generation of Microsoft Windows software is whether it really does offer enough bells and whistles to justify early adoption. Already I hear that there are issues. Initial versions will downgrade to XP to facilitate transition but reportedly after a relatively short period it will only downgrade to Vista (OMG!!!).

Microsoft need to be very careful – there are other valid alternatives solutions available to smb’s now like the ability to pull apps from the cloud (back in 2001 we had a server in house running Lotus Notes for email, database and collaboration tools – now everything is piped in via the web) or even a move towards Apple technology which can more easily be integrated into the existing systems as several of our team have done.

So I will watch with interest the reaction to Windows 7. I’ll read the reviews and listen to the discussions on the web amongst early users and see just what this has to offer and then we will decide in which direction to move…if I’m a representative sample of a typical smb then Microsoft better get it right this time or it could be game over for them.