Mike Arauz's Blog – The Archives

Sometimes we learn as much from failure as we do from success. Today's lesson comes to us from a UK newspaper called the Weekly Dispatch.

Attempting to stave off extinction, the paper launched what they hoped would be the greatest puzzle hunt of all time. Wrapped in a Sherlock Holmes-type story, each week the paper revealed clues about treasure medallions hidden in cities all over the country. Readers were supposed to buy copies of the paper (increase readership and circulation!), solve the clues, and finally go out and find the treasure medallions. Well, the paper got more than it bargained for, as crazed readers all over the country started digging up roadways, public squares, and neighbors' flower beds in an effort to uncover the medallions. Thousands of people were arrested for destroying public property. And finally, the paper had to quit the treasure hunt early after getting sued by the state for being an accomplice to the rampant destruction.



You may not have heard about this because it didn't happen recently. It happened in January of 1904.

The full story is here in this account by British journalist Paul Slade, Trench Warfare: London's Treasure Hunt Riots. (via Metafilter)

There are many incredible things in this story - and I highly recommend reading the whole thing - but, what stuck out to me was how much this sounded exactly like the kind of "viral" or "guerrilla" campaign we might try to create today.

Embedding a puzzle into a print publication to increase sales? (Wired anyone?) Hiding stories inside of stories to give people a reason to dig deeper? Creating something so remarkable that it captures the curiosity and imagination of an entire country?

Let's not be precious about the format we choose. It's all been done before. Human nature hasn't changed. And the kinds of experiences that people find compelling haven't changed. Our chance to be creative lies in the stories we create and the tools we use to tell them (e.g. any Pixar movie). So, rather than patting ourselves on the back for reinventing the wheel, let's celebrate the moments when we use what's unique about digital media to create an experience for people that they never imagined was possible.

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other digital media tools, have claimed a new and powerful role in transforming shared awareness into shared experience.


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As of Monday morning, Michael Jackson is the king of iTunes, claiming 9 of the top 10 albums and 7 of the top 10 songs.

Rob Walker wrote a great post over the weekend about the significance of being salient. When your brand is on everyone's mind, it can have a powerful impact on your sales.

Michael Jackson and his untimely death is the latest example. The same thing happened with Tim Russert's books on Amazon following his sudden death. And before that, the video of Michael Richards' racist tirade during a stand-up performance lead to a huge spike in sales of Seinfeld DVDs.

We can't always know what's going to precipitate a spike in attention. But, what's interesting to me in the Michael Jackson example, is the newly powerful role that tools like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter play.

At the height of the buzz, tweets mentioning Michael Jackson reached 22.61% of all Twitter messages.



If your experience was anything like mine, you were inundated with links to Michael Jackson videos on YouTube, embedded videos on blogs and Tumblr, blip.fm links on Twitter, and just mentions of his name over and over again.

The oversize newspaper headlines and lead stories on every news and entertainment program on TV certainly played a key role in raising awareness. Digital media, though, transformed that awareness into a world-wide shared experience, by sharing reactions, emotions, videos, music, and personal stories.

My favorite links, photos, and videos from the past 2 weeks on my Tumblr blog.

Michael Jackson Billie Jean live




An excellent anonymous first-hand account of the June 15 rally in Tehran, Iran from The New Yorker Magazine.

On June 14th, two days after the election that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is alleged to have stolen from his main challenger, the reformist Mir-Hossein Moussavi, I hurried back to Iran from a trip abroad. The next day, the day of the Azadi Street march, I had lunch with a journalist friend. In view of the election fiasco and the coverage that it had received abroad, my friend told me, the authorities were now trying to curtail the activities of the Western media. “If you want to write for a foreign magazine,” he said, “do it without a byline.” The authorities were refusing to extend the visas of most visiting foreign journalists; several Iranian journalists had been thrown in jail.

Clay Shirky talks about how tools like Facebook and Twitter have changed our world.




Mos Def is releasing his new album as a T-shirt.

Mos Def is releasing his latest album, The Ecstatic, as a T-shirt. How does that work? The T-shirt has The Ecstatic Killer of Sheep-interpolating cover art printed on the front, song titles on the back, and a download code for the album on the hang tag.

Henry Jenkins talks about Transmedia:




PS22 Chorus “JUST DANCE” by Lady Gaga




Photos by Cristin Sloan.




Anti-drug PSA starring a young Helen Hunt + Keyboard Cat + Hall and Oates =

Since I posted Your Competition is Everything On the Internet, I've been throwing around this challenge for people who are trying to create compelling experiences for people on the web:

Does this idea pass the "I'd rather be watching porn" test? Or if you prefer the safe for work option, Does this idea pass the "I'd rather be looking at pictures of kittens" test?

So, I decided to make a couple images to help remind us.

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Because both of these compelling experiences are merely a click away from whatever it is that you're creating. So don't think that your only competition is your competitor's website or video. Your competition on the internet is everything else on the internet.

This excellent video has been making the rounds. In it, Clay Shirky tells a few quick stories about how digital technology has changed our world.

It inspired me to put together this little diagram outlining the three main modes of digital collaboration outlined in Shirky's fantastic book, Here Comes Everybody. In order of difficulty, they are: Sharing, Cooperation, and Collective Action.

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In the next year we're going to see brands start to think about these challenges. "We've earned hundreds of thousands of Facebook fans, and tens of thousands of Twitter followers, what now?"

Once you've brought people together around a shared interest, how can you help them to take action? Or as Henry Jenkins likes to say, you need to both bring people together and give them something to do.

Jake Bronstein

What if you combined existing face recognition software with access to Facebook and other social network sites on a mobile device?

This image is a concept I sketched up for a mobile app that would identify faces via the phone's camera. Then, using face-recognition software, the app would look for matches to that face in profile pics within the user's Facebook and Twitter networks. Once the app has found a match, it would display the most recent updates, identify mutual friends, and could even access the person's blog or website if it was linked to from Facebook or Twitter.

The technology for this already exists. Apple is already using facial recognition in iPhoto, and Google is using it in Picasa. As long as the mobile device can browse images on Facebook or Twitter, it's just a small leap to start matching real-world faces to online profiles.

I've been trying to think about how Augmented Reality technology can be useful. This seems like a good example. There were a couple other recent interesting examples including gaming and a real-world browser, that were pretty impressive.

I'm probably not the first person to think of this, so if you've seen something like it before, please link it up in the comments.

And if you know anyone who has the ability to make this, please tell them about it.

Ladies and gentleman, the website you've been waiting for your entire adult contemporary life is finally here: BestofHallandOates.com!

If you dig it, please tell your friends. Post it to Facebook. Tweet about it. Help me spread the word.

(By the way, there are a bunch of hidden Easter eggs in the site. Don't miss the "Did You Know?" section ; )

A little over a year ago, I had several run-ins with the iconic duo in several settings - new memoir that had recently been published, a house party in Williamsburg, someone developing a cartoon about Oates' mustache - and I decided that there was something in the cultural zeitgeist. Although not often mentioned publicly, there is a strong undercurrent of love for these guys. And this site was waiting to be made.

I lost a little steam when I ran into trouble sourcing the videos. But, the music kept on popping up over and over. I had to finish the site.

So, at long last, here it is. Please enjoy.

The term "born digital" is something that we often use at Undercurrent; this is how I define it.

Born Digital is a term we use to describe an exploding segment of society that is defined by a symbiotic relationship to digital technology. Born Digitals are the people who are constantly relying on the internet and mobile devices to access information, to communicate with each other, to entertain themselves, to organize social action, and to document their lives. They are also powering everything that the internet has to offer by constantly contributing their ideas, opinions, and knowledge to the network. As recently as a few years ago this segment was assumed to be a subset of the youth demographic; now, however, we see that it is quickly permeating all ages of the general population. Born Digital no longer describes a native familiarity with digital technology, but rather a common behavior and mindset in which digital technology plays a pervasive and integrated role in our day-to-day living.

Every brand should be using the web to attract and connect with their most ardent fans. And they should do it by cultivating a distinct personality.

UPDATE: Changes have been made from the original post to better reflect Alan's feedback.

Alan Wolk likes to use the term "Prom King Brands" to refer to brands like Apple and Nike that people wear as a badge without irony. And if you're not one of these brands that already has an established fan base, then you should think twice about how you talk And you should acknowledge that you may not be as well-loved as these brands, yet, before you start talking to people in places like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Few things frustrate me more than the very false notion promulgated by many working in the social media space, that all brands are Prom King Brands. By that I mean the countless calls to “engage your hardcore fans” and “energize your base.” As if all brands actually had hardcore fans. Or any fans, for that matter. I mean seriously, do you think that Acco staplers (it’s the brand on my desk right now) has “hardcore fans”?

I disagree. I believe any brand that makes a great product has fans out there waiting to be identified and collected. That's what all these social tools offer. You don't need to be a famous brand or a revolutionary product in order to have fans. It's not the fact that Acco makes staplers that's preventing them from having fans (although they probably do), it's the fact that they don't have any personality.

In order for a brand to earn fans, you just need to know how the way you see the world is different than the way other people see it, and be willing to tell people about it in everything you do.

Case in point, British-based Innocent Fruit Smoothies.

A recent blog entry about Wombat poo, posted to their brand blog:




Talking about having cake for lunch on Twitter:




It's personality like that, that enables a brand to have fans like these:



Innocent didn't see the fact that they just made fruit smoothies as an excuse to get out of making friends on the web. Rather the opposite happened, they used their product as an excuse to bring people together.

I don't think it matters whether you make fruit smoothies or staplers or iPhones, every brand deserves fans. You just have to be willing to earn them.

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How do you think brands should behave online? Do you think Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and YouTube subscribers are for everybody? Comments welcome.

A few of my favorite links, photos, and videos from the past week on my Tumblr blog.

In Twitter news, @delloutlet just passed $2 million in sales. How's that for ROI?

Jax de Leon created beautiful graphic visualizations of Sufjan Stevens' album "Come On Feel The Illinois!"




Helge Tennø wrote a great post about the importance of context over product.

Products are just stuff, and represent nothing of value on their own. It is first when they are introduced to a situation (or context) of importance to the customer they become valuable. It is the situation surrounding the product that is important, and it’s in this situation companies are real experts at adding great value.

This incredible stop-motion animation has been making the rounds.



And The High Line park opened: Michael Surtees and NewYorkology

Pardon my absence. I'm finally getting around to finishing the design and development of a little website that I started over a year ago: Best Of Hall And Oates.



It's not quite ready, yet. (It's currently hiding at a very obvious undisclosed location...) But, you'll be the first to hear about it when it officially launches.

Rounding up my favorite links, photos, and videos from the past week on my Tumblr blog.

Have you seen the video about the controller-less next generation of the XBOX? (via Faris)




Awesome photos by Max Dworkin




Charlie Todd, creator of Improv Everywhere, pointed out that Best Buy accidentally (or maybe on purpose?) used a photo from his Best Buy prank as a photo of real Best Buy employees on their website.


I've been meaning to write this same post for years: Tomi T Ahonen, From Utilty to Futility: Demographics in Marketing

Our friend Peggy Ann Salz over at M Search Groove mentioned the diminshing utility of using demographics in marketing segmentation and targeting. I wanted to return to this topic, and argue loud and clear, that the evidence is overwhelming, that we (marketing professional) have experienced in the past few years a total shift where customer demographics have gone from utility to futility. Yes, futility. They are now counter-productive. You, reading this blog, need to start to remove all references to demographics in all of your company marketing.

And Bud Caddell was on fire this week, so he's bringing us two links:



and Keyboard Cat, Acrylic on Canvas

Content doesn’t spread on the web because of its inherent qualities. We choose to share content because of its value within a network.

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In yesterday's post I argued the importance of designing for networks instead of just groups of individuals. In order for a piece of content to spread on the web, individuals from one network have to choose to take what they've discovered and share it with new networks.

The principle underlying this behavior is that the people who decide to introduce a video or image or message to a new community need to perceive some value in taking that action. Taken from Henry Jenkin's Spreadable Media, there seem to be three elemental sources for this kind of social value.

How will sharing this... strengthen my bond with the other members of this network?

How will sharing this... define our collective identity, helping us to identify who's in and who's out?

How will sharing this... give me status within this network?

If you're creating something that you hope will spread on the internet, you have to identify specific networks of people pursuing shared interests. Then make sure that the people within those networks can answer at least one of these crucial questions affirmatively.

For people who are in the business of creating stuff to spread on the internet (maybe we can start saying that instead of internet marketing), are you already trying to answer these questions with your ideas? Comments welcome.

Too often we design experiences for groups of individuals, when we should be designing experiences for networks of connected individuals.

If you want your ideas, creations, and branded messages to spread on the internet then you have to build your message, and the experience in which it's delivered, with an understanding of the interest networks who will spread it. Bringing together a large number of people to see what you've done is meaningless unless you take advantage of their connections to each other and their connections to new people beyond your reach.

One of the weakest aspects of online display advertising (aside from the fact that no one likes it and everyone ignores it) is that it doesn't engage networks, it engages individuals. It actually takes people out of more familiar contexts where they are likely to be connected to their networks, and drags them into new environments where they are often cut off.

One of the things that I saw in my diagram was how important these different networks are. We are each connected to many different networks (defined by our curiosities, interests, passions, and life experiences). We have varying levels of intimacy and loyalty to different networks. And we travel fluidly from one network to another.



We need to evolve what we learn about our desired audience to a new level, in which we understand the culture, social practices, and behaviors of a network of connected individuals pursuing a shared interest.

Which leaves us with the crucial question of why any person chooses to share anything with anyone else in their networks? Why do things spread on the internet, a la Henry Jenkin's Spreadable Media (or read my notes on Parts 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8). More on this tomorrow.

I accept that people and brands are going have a use for their own websites (I still do). Given that, the important questions are: What role will your website be playing within the overall context of the internet as a whole? Are you spending an amount of money, effort, and time that is appropriate to that role? Would you be better off putting that money, effort, and time into developing content?

One of the first things I realized after I published my post yesterday, was that the diagram over-emphasizes the importance of websites. Ironic, because I've been arguing against the importance of websites. (BooneOakley showed us yesterday that there are some very smart alternatives to the branded .com with their new site entirely within YouTube.)



Most brands aspire to be wildly popular at the top tier of the web. A smash success would be becoming a hugely popular and well recognized internet phenomenon. But, then they turn around and spend a ton of money on a flashy branded microsite that is going to live down in one of the bottom tiers of the web. And after they put it up, they spend even more money on display advertising in order to beg people to leave that top tier of the web and come down to visit their site.

On the other hand, a discrete piece of content is not bound by these different strata. It can live and travel fluidly around all the different environments of the web. Videos, images, text, and even single words or phrases, can be easily taken and re-posted in more personally relevant places. And replicated over and over. All facilitating the spread of the original idea, and making it more likely that new people will discover it.

If you're going to build a website, you should at the very least think of it as a loose aggregation of portable content. Reveal the network that your brand is a part of by sharing other people's content (and showing your personality through this content). Make all of your own content easily sharable: use YouTube to host your videos, use JPGs in HTML so that they can be copied and pasted, use standard blogging platforms to make it easy for people to take and link back to your message.



The .com is only dead if you cut it off from the network. The more connections you can enable, the more chances it will have to thrive.

The most important difference between small websites and big websites is not their number of visitors, but rather the interconnectedness of those visitors.

Like a scene out of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," I've been staring at a sketch of this diagram in my notebook for the past few weeks, mumbling "I think this means something..." to myself as I ride the subway each morning.



In this overly simplistic diagram, the big white circles represent random websites. And the smaller black circles represent individuals who visit those websites, and are connected to other people who visit those websites. They are divided into strata based on the size of the website.

Inspired by Tim Malbon's excellent post, The Web as a Column of The Ocean, I started to think about the different environments in which digital experiences live. For those of us in the business of designing online experiences, I think it helps to be aware of the context of an experience within the internet as a whole.

I started by describing the types of websites you would find at different levels:

1. Sites (practically) everyone uses: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc.


2. Major News Portals, Big Blogs, Conversation and Content Sharing Platforms: NYTimes.com, ESPN, HuffingtonPost, TechCrunch, Photobucket, Flickr, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, etc.


3. Community Sites, Forums, and Small Blogs: Fan sites, individual LiveJournals, 4Chan, Delicious, ffffound.com, etc.


4. Niche Experiences and Utilities: Single serving sites, tools and downloadable software, sites you probably only visit once.


5. Lost and Forgotten: The vast under-sea of abandoned websites (h/t Bud Caddell).

As I visualized these different strata of websites the network structure of the visitors started becoming clear.

As we explore and discover information and content on the web, what is the likelihood that a group of people pursuing one shared interest will cross paths with a group of people pursuing another shared interest?

This is why things that blow up and become hugely popular on the web do so at the top strata. Because there's so much mixing and overlap. However, the lower strata are crucially important. Because of their more narrow focus and secluded environment, they create a qualitatively different relationship between the explorer and their discovery. Which means more to you personally? Discovering a funny video that's already on the top of the Most Popular page on YouTube? or Finding a funny video on that weird niche blog that none of your friends know about?

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I think this means something... I'm not sure what all the implications of this framework are, but I plan on spending the rest of this week on my blog exploring the possibilities.

I'd love to hear your first impressions, and what it means to you. Comments welcome.