We decided to interview Eric Wheeler, CEO of 33Across. 33Across has a pretty great product proposition.   They offer the Brand Graph product to its advertisers based on combining social graph, interest, and social behavioral data.

So what is the “Brand Graph” product and how is it leveraged by advertisers?

Here is 33Across’ response:

“33Across operates a Social & Interest Graph of 1.25 billion users.  More than 375 Fortune 1000 marketers use 33Across to connect their brands to this graph and return a custom Brand Graph™.

Most advertisers use their Brand Graph as a social compass for rest-of-web (ROW) – a marketing blueprint that reveals the universe of predicted and likely brand loyalists based on users’ social proximity to a given brand. Marketers can then deliver media directly to the users in their Brand Graph.”

This is an interesting proposition. They have the ability to understand who the ideal consumers are to create social action that serves a brand’s interest.  In addition 33across has made an interesting acquisition of Tynt.

Tynt is a technology that allows consumers to select what they want to share from a bit of content. This is of course very interesting for us at Socialistic. The ability to combine together a graph of consumers that is aware of their social interest/intent and then combine that with their social behaviors around content seems amazing.

Many companies either choose context or audience and for us at Socialistic we believe it is audience in context that matters. So we are big fans of this acquisition.   Time will tell how Eric and his team roll this out but we are excited at the potential.

So how is a company like 33across working with the trading desk? When we pressed Eric on this he was firm on his stance. Since it is their data they have the best ability to leverage this with their technology to service brands.   This is a great take in my opinion. With the creation of trading desk technologies agencies have begun to try to take a position on how to combine technology, data, and inventory in order to deliver for a brand. While this is a great proposition it is a generalist approach and does not allow for a deep understanding of the data to drive deep results. It applies Direct Response methodologies (whether that be on branding metrics or DR metrics) to optimize the buy through singular aggregate metrics.    This technique is great but flawed when it comes to understanding how to optimize a single source of data.   I applaud Eric and 33across for taking this position as it seems to the right position to service a brand’s interest.

We at Socialistic are looking forward to seeing the potential of the 33across brand graph and what capabilities they bring to the table for advertisers.  33across is definitely a company to watch.

—John Donahue (@johngodzilla)

For more information on 33Across, check them out at:

Website: 33across.com

Twitter: @33across

Facebook: facebook.com/33Across

Captain of the Socialistic ship, CEO Colleen DeCourcy, recently sat down with the The Grindstone to discuss launching Socialistic and to offer advice on not compromising your work, striking out on your own, and knowing when not to cooperate.

Content marketing can usually be dated back to 1895 and John Deere truck company. Impressions on traditional print media were largely unsuccessful with farmers and could not really answer the main objective of educating them on new technology and machinery trends. John Deere decided to produce a magazine, The Furrow, still published today. Another immensely famous example is Jell-O’s recipe book that helped the brand achieve its first million in sales.

We also usually don’t realize that some items we know today and take for granted as mass consumption items are coming from content marketing initiatives. Ever wondered why soap operas were called “soap” operas? In the 1930s, most TV series were sponsored by brands and many soap manufacturers like P&G and Colgate-Palmolive launched the new genre. The Michelin Guides? Andre Michelin realized he needed to provide drivers with a resource to help them maintain their cars as well as enjoy their rides with lodging information. And why is Guinness associated with the World Book of Records? It was created in 1955 by Sir Hugh Beaver, then managing director of the Guinness Breweries and was only intended as a marketing give-away before becoming a huge money maker! Some of the media we consume today is directly coming from brands who realized before many that content is a much more engaging endeavor than a 30-second TV spot or a full-page newspaper ad.

The Internet and social media have definitely taken content marketing to another dimension. As consumers’ relationships with brands has evolved to a partnership instead of a simple buyer-seller transaction, users don’t want to be sold, they want to be convinced. Content marketing has a bright future ahead, but let’s not forget about its glorious past!

-Thomas Minc (@Mincky)

Strategic Branding Manager at Socialistic

In evaluating the results of the study, it’s important to remember that one of the main drivers of social media behaviors is defining ourselves to others. What we share and how we interact directly influences the way people see us. Why are we never as good-looking as on profile pictures? Why do our check-ins paint the coolest and hippest lifestyle? Why don’t the articles we post come more often from TMZ? Online, we can mold who we are. Hence, nothing surprising in the article’s results: who would admit to being a mean and unsavory person?

However, this study is another example of a flaw that could be identified in many research studies and could be summarized by “who would say no to that?!”

Let’s look at two questions from the Pew Research Center survey as examples: “When people on social networking sites are being mean or offensive, how often do you tell the person to stop? Frequently; Sometimes; Only once in a while; or Never?” It sure looks good to answer that you often take charge and ask bullies to stop.  Who would say no to that? The second example is pulled from any consumer researcher’s bible: the MRI research. Well, how will anyone say no to “spending more time with his family”? We must be careful in research to keep questions people can honestly answer and questions that would bring some relevant differences.

It’s all fine and good to know that people are nice on social networks, but… Who would say no to that?

–Thomas Minc (@Mincky)

Strategic Branding Manager at Socialistic

However, the results from the Nielson polling done around the successful relaunch are in, and they are fairly staggering. 93% of those “New 52” readers were male, and only 2% of those readers were under the age of 18. DC absolutely managed to wrangle the bulk of the comic reading populous, but they failed to capture the attention of the two demographics essential to the industry’s future: women and children.

The answer may lie in Digital Comics, which have been undergoing their own revolution over the last year, with virtually all of the major comic publishers moving towards simultaneous publishing in stores and online with applications like Comixology, Graphic.ly, and Panelfly. The trouble is that so far these applications have also been directed more towards the comic reading population rather than the world at large, and at children in particular.

Clever application of digital comics could be the key to solving both the lack of young readers, and the lack of female readers (at least in the long run). Both DC and Marvel publish comics directed at younger readers, but those readers still need to know where their local comic shop is, or they need to seek out digital comic book readers to get their hands on a comic. Even the biggest fans of popular superhero cartoons and movies would have difficulty getting their hands on the comics they would love to read, if they got the chance.

Marvel, owned by Disney, has the best platform for addressing this. By getting young boys and girls excited by the numerous superhero cartoons targeted at both markets, they could create a platform online, perhaps building off of the success of websites like their own ClubPenguin.com, and provide kids with the comics they want directly. DC Comics has a strong relationship with Cartoon Network, and they could launch a comic reading platform in relation to that company’s website. The best, and least likely option would be having the two companies team up with other youth-friendly publishers like Archie and BOOM! Studios to build a platform together mirroring the creation of Hulu.

By presenting cartoons, games, and comics as a part of one big superhero package to BOTH boys and girls, the industry could ensure its footing in the coming decades, and reverse the downward trend in readership once and for all.

–James Tynion IV (@JamesTheFourth)

Creative Writer at Socialistic

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Joe Doran, CEO of Rallyverse as part of our Emerging Social Technology Series. Rallyverse, for those of you who don’t know, is an emerging social technology company that helps read social signals online and turns that into content to push out to the market.

According to Joe, “Rallyverse tells brand what to say and when to say, on their wall, in their stream, and in their ads. We act as a cheat sheet to the social media manager to figure out what they should say and when they should say so they can get the best engagement in the content they share.”

I wanted to know more: How does this work? Is it scalable? What’s the case they are making to brands?

Rallyverse monitors the conversations in the social web so they know what is popular and relevant in real-time. Their technology matches what everyone is talking about to a set of content feeds that represent content the brand has and/or is cool with repurposing. Rallyverse also allows the brand to customize the content with a set of inclusion and exclusion queries that they apply to social media as social signals (or, the hot topics bubbling up). They combine together the social signals with the relevant content in real-time to construct something to say in the form of a post ready to share or tweet.

Their intent is to leverage this technology to service community managers and brands with the appropriate messages and content (either branded or not) that are relevant to that brand’s community.

But what is the real use case? How could brands leverage this to drive their goals and objectives? I pressed Joe on these questions and he explained how brands could leverage this to go after anything from lifestyle content to product-related content. The brands using Rallyverse become better participants in social and see significant growth in fans as well as significant increase in overall engagement. Joe mentioned doing some breakthrough ROI work for retailers in driving customers from social to purchasing. According to Joe this would make Rallyverse a scalable solution for anything from brand marketing to direct response marketing.

My perspective is that Rallyverse could be a great test technology for a marketer with a few conditions: They have to have an interesting set of approved or ok to use content (theirs or others) that could be connected with a subject. That subject or topics has to have a decent enough critical mass within the community they are messaging into to be relevant at scale. The proof will be in the pudding but definitely will keep Rallyverse in mind for upcoming test opportunities.

The things that Rallyverse is going to have to watch for in order for them to be successful in our opinion are the following:

1. Ensuring they can scale when more then one advertiser has similar content that targets similar interest points. In B2B this is all too often.
2. Ensuring that they can construct messages and copy that will learn how to get closer and closer to the brand cadence. The matching technology is neat but the more they automate their message construction while being sensitive to brand cadence the more they will experience acceptance from marketers.

We wrapped up our chat with Joe by asking him what he sees as impending social trends. His prediction is that this year is going to be the year where we experience the evolution of “Your Content is the Ad”. He continued to discuss how content marketing has been an undercurrent for the last 5-7 years but this year is going to be the year where brands begin to figure out how to stich together all of their different content into an experience that works to drive their goals. We couldn’t agree more!

What I find personally intriguing about Joe is his story and the fact that he is an ex-General Mills brand guy living and striving in the ad technology sector. As someone who has been agency side and ad tech side, I am impressed with his ability to succeed in both sectors.

–John Donahue (@johngodzilla)

Resident Nerd at Socialistic

For more information on Rallyverse check them out at:

Twitter: twitter.com/Rallyverse

Facebook: facebook.com/rallyverse

Website: www.rallyverse.com

This past Thursday, Facebook announced a “Subscribe Button” social plug-in for websites that lets readers subscribe to their favorite writers. That’s a cool idea—if I read a post that I really connect with, I’d be more than willing to give that blogger a shot in my News Feed with the simple click of a button. Again, it’s a pure value-add, and it provides a boost for bloggers, giving them another way to grow their personal brand and audience. Very cool.

 But if Facebook really wants to become a content engine, they need to take the Subscribe button one step farther and let people subscribe to websites, not just writers.

 I know what you’re thinking: “But what do you mean? Can’t you just “like” the fan page of whatever site you want to follow?” Yes, you can, but “like” and “subscribe” are very different things. Through Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm, you’ll automatically see “most updates” of someone you subscribe to, while updates from a fan page are only seen by about 10% of fans on average. “Like” and “subscribe” signify very different degrees of interaction.

 For instance, I’m a social media dork, and I love Mashable.com. I’d love for as many Mashable updates to appear in my News Feed as possible. But the only way for me to get Mashable posts to appear in my News Feed often was to “;ike” Mashable, then wait for a Mashable post to actually appear in my News Feed, and then select “Highlight this story” when I saw the post. I had to do this 3 times before Mashable posts started appearing with the same frequency as subscribe.

 The problems? A) This is a pain in the ass, and B) most users don’t even know that the “Highlight this story” option exists.

 It could be that Facebook is avoiding offering the “Subscribe” button to websites in an attempt to convince websites to build Facebook social readers, which receive top-billing in the News Feed. But until Facebook offers a generous revenue-sharing model for the social readers, they need to offer websites a “Subscribe” button. If they’re really interested in being a user-friendly content engine, it’s a move they’ll make.

Verizon FiOS and A&E’s The History Channel are the surprising duo ushering in the long-anticipated era of Remote Shopping. The service—available to customers in the Northeast, California, Texas and Florida—will launch on shows like “American Pickers” and “Pawn Stars” and allow customers to purchase items like coins, bicycles, radios and jukeboxes featured on the show. According to FiOS TV, the service will “contextualize what you’re watching on television” and “enhance the programming and create value for subscribers.”

A small icon will pop up in the upper right hand corner of the screen when an item is available, and when the viewer clicks to make his purchase, the screen will split. Viewers will then be directed to complete the purchase through TVWallet.com.

ViOS and A&E are targeting the 25-54 year-old demographic through The History Channel, and  say that they’ll consider it a success if 5% of viewers make a purchase. This seems like a high estimate, but who knows? If if happens, A&E will likely try out the service on Lifetime shows like “Drop Dead Diva,” “Army Wives,” and “Project Runway.” From there, the possibilities are endless as other networks would be sure to adopt the service. Love that stainless steel wok on top chef? Click. Dig Mike Ditka’s throwback Bears sweater on Sunday NFL Countdown? Click. Love Blair’s new outfit on Gossip Girl? (I do!) Click. The service has the potential to take product placement to a whole new level and make watching commercials an active shopping experience.

While we’ll still have to wait to know whether holiday shoppers will shop with their remotes, a new survey indicates that they plan to shop on their mobile devices far more than anyone expected; Ipsos and PayPal conducted the survey and found that “at least 46% of consumers plan to make mobile purchases this holiday season.” That’s a huge number, and the overall findings indicate that mobile shopping might finally be breaching the tipping point. Consider these other stats:

• More than 60 percent of mobile buyers will make mobile purchases while at home
• 51 percent of mobile buyers use PayPal as a mobile payment method
• 35 percent of mobile purchases are spontaneous
• 24 percent of mobile buyers spend $100 or more on their last mobile purchase

PayPal is calling this trend “couch commerce,” since it indicates that consumers are becoming accustomed to browsing and purchasing goods via their smartphones and tablets from home. It’s easy to see why: the Amazon Mobile app arguably offers a more enjoyable retail experience than Amazon.com, and deals apps like Groupon and Living Social are downright addictive for discount aficionados. For retailers, optimizing for mobile and creating engaging shopping applications has never been so crucial.

Without a doubt, retail is shifting to digital at a rapid rate in myriad ways—if you have any doubts, just look at the record $6 billion that was just spent on online shopping during the week of Cyber Monday. It should be at least a little bit easier to find a parking spot at the mall this year.

Yes, a Google company wants us to value search a little bit less.

“Our approach is very different from when I first joined the company [in 2006],” YouTube sales chief Suzie Reider said this past week. ”Back then, the thinking was “let the algorithm predict what people want to watch.”

Recently, YouTube made a highly-publicized $100 million investment in content creation, and they talk up their 20,000+ content creators at every turn. It’s been expected that YouTube would try to challenge the cable companies, premium channels and Netflix/Hulu by upping their game as an original content provider and programmer.

“What will be new for us is promoting a channel guide, and a new look and feel,” said Reider. “We’ve never explicitly promoted content. We are now going to help users find things.”

Google has thus far avoided subjectively curating content. Until now, you either earned the favor of the algorithm, or you paid them for sponsored placement. Google has never released, for instance, their “Top 10 Politics Sites of 2010”—it would undermine the algorithm.

But on YouTube, will there be a curated news channel? Will there be a memes channel? Will YouTube now be the one to tell us which ridiculous YouTube videos to watch, instead of Gawker and Tosh.0? In a way, YouTube is hoping to suddenly make itself the world’s most powerful Editor—the force that can make or break your Internet fame.

It’s not insane to wonder if this is Google dipping its toe into the deeper waters of content curation; after all, if people trust Yahoo to curate content, why wouldn’t they trust Google? Google’s investment in Google + indicate that they don’t believe search will dominate forever, and every content creator on earth wants Google’s favor. YouTube channels may only be the beginning.

The Guardian and Yahoo soon followed with their own social readers, and less than two months into the Open Graph Era, the big 3 social readers have combined to outperformed Spotify (10.7 million vs. 7.8 million). That’s something few expected, and it’s especially impressive when you consider that you have to be a Facebook user to use Spotify in any capacity.

While the Washington Post Social Reader came first, Yahoo (6.2 million downloads) and The Guardian (2.6 million) have actually passed Wa-Po in the standings.  It makes sense that Yahoo’s tantalizing celeb-gossip headlines reap more downloads. But this isn’t a sign of a power shift; all three are enjoying very healthy growth.