The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

Mobile

No More Lost Data: How To Back Up Your SmartPhone

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Every once in a while, I’ll hear from a friend or family member that they’re mourning the loss of their precious smartphone. What’s worse, they’re often wrecked because of all the data — emails, pictures, contacts, etc. — that has disappeared when the phone got lost, dropped or wet.

We are way beyond that, people. We are living in the future. There is absolutely no reason for you to lose important data — or at least not that much of it. If you’re one of these people, let me enlighten you. Techie folks, please know that I’m trying to make this as simple as possible for those who NEED this info. [Read more…] about No More Lost Data: How To Back Up Your SmartPhone

SXSW Interactive: Beyond The Hype

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sxsw-squareAs much as people love SXSW, there’s definitely a backlash. Some blame the conference for the ever-growing tide of immigrants to Austin, which is stressing infrastructure and heightening fears about water shortages. Others decry it as just another tech conference, or bemoan the hipster factor. (Can you tell I’m a local now?)

I see more and more people tweeting with dread (myself among them) rather than excitement about the event, so it seems we all need to take it down a notch.

Remember that, at heart, SXSW is still a “festival” — not a conference. Where else would you find panel discussions on things like: “Making More of Ourselves – Sensory & Multimodal UX,” “Unearthing the Atari Graveyard: The Search for ET,” and, um, “Orgasm: The Broadband of Human Connection“? (Heck, there’s even a Ping Pong Tournament.) [Read more…] about SXSW Interactive: Beyond The Hype

Has The World Really Changed? Yup

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When the dot-com bubble was mid-burst in 2001 or so, a friend of mine would ask me, “Do you still think the Internet is going to change the world?” As if some poor investments and a negative global economic climate were going to halt the transformation the Internet was bringing to our culture. “Of course,” I’d answer. It might be slowing down a little bit, but things are definitely going to change. Especially in my chosen fields of journalism, media and marketing. This graphic reflects that conversation quite well.


Still think Digital Advertising is a fad.

Infographic by the social media marketing team @ROI_Media

CrowdFire

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Battelle in AdAge on CrowdFire:

“We want to get a cloud of media to become something fungible that people can see and work with to create new things,” he said. “I want the performance to go from one-to-many to many-to-many.”


Very cool.

Jaguar Goes JetBlue (Kinda)

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This is pretty awesome. Jaguar is adding (as a dealer-installed option) what it calls a Rear Screen Connectivity System (RSCS). Basically, it’s an AV panel that allows rear-seat passengers to connect any digital device that has an audio/visual output. Each rear-seat passenger can connect his/her individual device, hear the audio output on a wireless headset, and see the video on an LCD screen built into the front seats’ headrests. Next time I’m a back-seat passenger in a Jaguar, I’ll be sure to bring my video iPod…

Podcast Diet

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Ok, so I was skeptical about podcasting. But the last two days I’ve done many hours of driving, back and forth to San Jose for the Kelsey Group “Drilling Down on Local” conference. Here’s what’s been on my podcast list (besides the Ricky Gervais podcast which remains a classic):


  • Joseph Jaffe’s Across the Sound. This served as a great way to use former “down time” to think about issues related to interactive marketing. Also interesting for anyone considering getting into podcasting.
  • Jason Chervokas’ Down in the Flood. Despite my great fondness for Chervokas, the general lack of podcasts in my diet meant I’d never listened to DITF in its entirety. Remedied this over the last couple of days with the “Best of 2005” episode. Excellent stuff on the origins of American music.
  • Fred Wilson’s Positively 10th Street. A bit hokey at times, I’ll admit, but Fred and his family have good taste in music and I’ve gotten turned on to some stuff I’ve enjoyed. Both current and classic music is represented.
  • Lostcasts (which turns out to be by some of the folks at interactive agency Click Here). For LOST addicts.

Next up… all the podcasts Pete Lerma mentioned in his recent ClickZ column including Search Engine Watch’s podcast.

Any other suggestions?