somersault

The above video demonstrates the value of a company taking a consumer’s question seriously and answering it honestly. A consumer asked McDonald’s (@McDonalds), “Why does your food look different in the advertising than what is in the store?”

The hamburger chain responded with a behind-the-scenes tour of a McDonald's Canada photo shoot showing how Watt International (@Wattisretail) preps a Quarter Pounder to look edible for ads. In 3 days, the 3½ minute viral video had 3.5 million views.

Lesson? Answer your customers’ questions with transparency and it will contribute to your brand’s positive reputation.

Also see our previous blogpost, “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategize public relations and produce videos that effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In a guest post for Michael Hyatt’s (@MichaelHyatt) blog, Jeff Goins (@JeffGoins) says, “Great leaders are effective, not because they know all the answers, but because they have the tenacity to act. Leadership, as it turns out, is really the act of making intentional decisions and accepting responsibility for them.”

Many organizations have a decision-deficiency syndrome. We have leaders who hesitate. They waffle and wait, hoping for a better opportunity. Let’s be honest: you and I do this, as well. And it’s killing our leadership.

If you want to be a better leader, resolve to be a better decision-maker. It will revolutionize your organization, inspire your team, and liberate you from the constant worry of the possibility of a better opportunity coming along.

Here are 3 scenarios in which you should make a decision right now:

1. You don’t need more information.

2. More information won’t come.

3. Something will suffer if you wait.

Read this in full.

Remember to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard of more than 300 links and RSS feeds for publishing and marketing executives; especially its Leadership tab.

The above Infographic (enlarge it) is by MDG Advertising (@MDGadvertising).

Also see research statistics in the Adweek (@adweek) article: “Mobile users aren’t abandoning print any faster than non-mobile users.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to plan and execute the mobile strategy for your brand.

And bookmark and use daily our SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

</object><p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 500px;">Watch Digital Nation on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.</p>

In our Internet era, publishing houses are having to reinvent themselves as technology companies in order to adapt their business models and remain viable. But when does technology cease to be a value-add to the consumer experience?

“Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier,” a documentary that aired on PBS’ (@PBS) Frontline (@frontlinepbs) program, asks the question, “Is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we've gained?”

Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it?

This video explores what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world. It seeks to understand the implications of living in a world consumed by technology and the impact that this constant connectivity may have on future generations. "I'm amazed at the things my kids are able to do online, but I'm also a little bit panicked when I realize that no one seems to know where all this technology is taking us, or its long-term effects," says producer Rachel Dretzin.

Read and see this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you leverage technology to effectively communicate your brand’s message.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Family Christian Stores (@FCstores) is the world’s largest Christian-focused retail chain with nearly 300 stores nationwide. Along with its books, Bibles, gifts, and music, it now is selling its own exclusive e-reader, edifi.

Based on a chart comparing edifi with the Nook Color, Nook Tablet, and Kindle Fire, edifi is comparable but a bit smaller (although same screen size), has less resolution and pixel density, runs on Android 2.3.5, comes with its own stand, and is less expensive. It’s uniquely pre-installed with family-friendly features and free apps including Safe Search Wi-Fi Web browsing, 27 Bible translations, and Christian Internet radio. With edifi, users are able to check email, access social networks, watch movies, display photos, and download ebooks and read them with the included FC Reader app.

Read our previous blogposts on the subject of tablets.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your content for ebooks, pbooks, and audiobooks.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

TechJournal South (@TJ_South) reports on a new University of California, Davis (@ucdavis) study of “buzz” marketing on YouTube that says the quality of videos aren’t as important as “seeding” them to influential people (bloggers, tweeters, etc.).

The study’s author, Hema Yoganarasimhan, professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, says seeding information in social media outlets through handpicked agents is crucial.

“It’s not the number of people; it’s focusing on the right people,” she explains. “They need to ask who are their friends, and who are their friends’ friends — and how are they positioned in the network?”

While a close-knit community may be committed and loyal to a dispenser of information, that community may generate low video popularity in the long run, the study showed. That’s because people in a close-knit community don’t interact much with outsiders, resulting in few interactions with 2nd- or 3rd-degree “friends.”

The study, Impact of social network structure on content propagation: A study using YouTube data, finds that while 1st-degree friends are important for initial marketing, 2nd- and 3rd-degree friends are essential for “viral” spread.

The study says video ratings are important — but it doesn’t much matter if the rating is good or bad. Yoganarasimhan’s analysis shows that video quality, as measured by viewer comments and ratings, have little effect on viewership in the long run. However a video with any rating is likely to have more viewers than one with no rating.

Read this in full.

Tim Schmoyer (@timschmoyer) of ReelSEO (@Reelseo) offers 6 tips in “How to Connect with Key Video Influencers in a Social World.”

1. Become engaged in other creators’ blogs and videos....

2. Be genuine....

3. Start with your niche....

4. Collaborate with others at your level....

5. Give a glowing review....

6. Invest the time....

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategize and produce videos that effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

GalleyCat (@GalleyCat) reports that net sales revenue from ebooks have now surpassed hardcover books in the first quarter of 2012.

According to the Association of American Publishers’ (@AmericanPublish) March net sales revenue report (collecting data from 1,189 publishers), adult ebook sales were $282.3 million while adult hardcover sales counted $229.6 million during the 1st quarter of 2012. During the same period last year, hardcover accounted for $335 million in sales while ebooks logged $220.4 million.

Here’s more from the report (Q1 2012 chart embedded above): “While ebooks continue to show growth, downloaded audiobooks also keep accelerating vs last year – as some experts have said, tied to ongoing popularity and acquisition of smartphones and mobile devices.”

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogposts, “Ebooks Projected to Comprise 50% of US Trade Book Market By 2016,” “Extensive New Study: The Rise of E-reading,” and others about ebooks.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your content as pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The Audio Publishers Association (@AudioPub) (#JIAM2012) has declared June Audiobook Month.

Author Cathryn Prince (@CathrynPrince) writes on her blog about the magic of audiobooks.

I didn’t think about audio books as something for me until I started commuting about 45 minutes to and from an adjunct teaching job. I’m not teaching at the moment, but as Dr. Frasier Crane said: I’m listening. A lot. I discovered a whole new world in audio books. I imagine audio books to be the distant relative of the serial shows of radio days.

Read this in full.

The above video is Jim Dale (@JimnJules), the voice of all the characters in the Harry Potter audiobook series. As a narrator, he's won a Grammy Award (2000), 5 Grammy nominations, and 7 Audie Awards.

NPR Books (@nprbooks) offers a list of audiobooks “that’ll make the family road trip fly by.”

See the list of winners in The Audies competition, the award that “recognizes distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment.”

For a behind-the-scenes description of the making of an audiobook, see Publishers Weekly’s (@PublishersWkly) “How Chef Marcus Samuelsson Records an Audiobook.”

More reporting about audiobooks is available on PW’s audio blog, Listen Up (@PWAudio).

If you’re interested in audiobook reviews, subscribe to AudioFile (@AudioFileMag), the magazine that covers the world of audiobooks.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to create an audiobook for your content.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In The New York Times Media & Advertising section (@NYTimesAd), David Carr (@carr2n) says “the velocity of transformation is growing” in this digital publishing era.

Technology has altered the media business more than most, not in one big surge, but in a series of waves, each one shifting the ground that traditional businesses were built on.

He recounts how David Carey, the president of Hearst Magazines (@HearstCorp), had The Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) on his mind when he addressed a group of employees last week.

“I am telling them to beware of digital upstarts that don’t follow any of the rules of big companies like ours,” he said. “Huffington Post has gone down paths that others scoffed at and they have emerged with a string of very strong products.”

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify blue ocean strategy for your brand in this fast-changing publishing climate.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

At a media event today in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced its new tablet, Surface (@surface) (#Surface), which, when it debuts (a release date was not announced) will feature a 10.6-inch wide display with Gorilla Glass, its own kickstand, Bluetooth, front & rear camera, a full-size USB port, dual Wi-Fi antennae, a multitouch full-size keyboard, a stylus which writes freehand on the screen, a trackpad, and presumably Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) — and yet is only about a half-inch thick. Models will come with either 64 gigabytes or 128 GB of storage.

Its capacity as an e-reading device was left unexplained. Microsoft has invested $300 million investment in Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader, though B&N was not part of today’s announcement.

Read coverage by USA TODAY, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, VentureBeat, and The Verge.

Somersault (@smrsault) helps you stay abreast of new technology and its impact on publishing.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.