For those not in the know, the Litvack clan made their mark in the new country as cobblers. I’ve blogged about the rags to riches story of my Grandpa Saul who founded Erica (named after America) Shoes. At some point in the 70’s my father took the baton and the company soared like Al Bundy rising from the couch to grab the last buffalo wing.

My Uncle Jay is now the last remaining Litvack in the shoe business but that hasn’t stopped him from ambitiously creating his own new line. After successfully launching brands for Me Too Footwear, Steven by Steve Madden, Boutique 9 for Nine West he decided it was time for him to do his own thing.

According to the story on the website (The unc was unavailable for an interview) the collection is casual, sporty, cool contemporary and more about “attitude and all the details” than “covering all classifications”. Almost sounds like he’s describing his very cool nephew! Can’t wait till he comes out with the Littyhoops knee high pump! Here is a interview of Unle Jay describing the new line on City Soles TV.

I’ve been following along from the start and rooting for him over the last 18 months. Like any bootstrapped startup company it’s taken a tremendous dose of grit and tenacity (and an understanding wife) to get the venture off the ground. He recently told me a ridiculous story about hiring a local Portuguese lawyer he found on Google to help solve an international dispute… and it worked! Like any small business owner he’s problem solving all day and all night and quickly iterating and improving the business. I get a kick out of hearing him and my aunt describe their exploits in the digital world getting the J.Litvack website and social media strategy (Facebook) going. He has yet to take my advice though to pronounce the brand Jay Dot Litvack.

I’m proud of Uncle Jay (and I’m sure Scruffy would be as well). He’s going 100 miles per hour these days. This week he’s in Vegas for the big FN shoe convention. The first orders of J.Litvack have shipped and hit stores as of this week. It’s a big accomplishment. Hopefully he can stop for a second to appreciate this milestone. Plus, it’s another feather in the cap for us Litvack’s. Might I add that I have yet to hear about a Galitziana shoe brand (unless they were the guys behind Starbury’s).

Below is a picture of my cousin Samantha modeling the shoes. The photo is so striking that you might think Sam was a professional model but in truth she’s just a recent college graduate (Go Blue!) who still lives at home with her parents and is dying to move to Murray Hill. To be clear, my intention here is NOT to embarrass her. That would be awkward. Did you know that Sam and her sister Jackie are the inspiration for J.Litvack!!!

I’ve been moping around the digital block for a quick minute. Hopefully that gives me a bit of context and insight into what’s the next big thing. Actually, it’s being calculated as we speak. That’s because it’s Data.

I know. I know. The meaningfulness of data falls somewhere between a mid-afternoon snoozer and the name of the little Asian kid in The Goonies. Leave it to the 1999 Great Neck North math team co-captain to proselytize the power of numbers. For most, data is something for the database marketing guy to crunch, research nerd to dive into or Mathematics professor to compute.

But here are two of the experiences that smacked me upside the head and made it apparent that data is the future.

In March, I attended the MIT Sloan Sports and Analytics Conference in Boston. I met lots of really smart people using data in professional sports to influence strategy, scouting and coaching. All these nerds are convinced they are way more right than the norm and the results are starting to show. Moneyball, by Michael Lewis (and soon to be a major motion picture), brought this concept to the sports fan and that sports analytic has now permeated throughout pro sports. The NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks are big believers in data mining and statistical analysis and give their own “stat geek”, Roland Beech, a seat on the bench. Most NBA teams now have their own analytics departments. It will be more impactful than when sports teams first started to watch game tape.

I recently had the good fortune of attending Darren Herman’s Silicon Alley Invitational tournament. The high-caliber group of advertising executives is focusing on how to solve advertising. The consensus of some very brilliant people all seem to focus on how to utilize data to create more effective and efficient marketing campaigns. This is generally referred to as Ad Tech and the smart money believes it is the future of advertising. Its not a far stretch that an objective and sophisticated model can outperform a 24 year old media buyers who may be influenced by factors other than campaign performance. The advertising industry shouldn’t be dominated by “sales”, it should be dominated by results. There’s a reason why Google controls 40% of the total digital marketing pie.

There are venture capital firms that focus on “big data”. There are hedge funds that only make trades based on data. I’m not exactly sure how flash trading works but I’d bet on it beating out the slick rick at the brokerage. There are now computers that can beat grand masters at chess and quirky dudes at Jeopardy.

Data is becoming the superstar.

It’s easier than ever before to collect, organize and process data. Technology is creating new input devices and therefore new data. At Sportsvite we like to share the idea that soon every little leaguer will have their stats computed from their first t-ball game and know their career batting average at any point in their life. At the same time, technology is also allowing for more powerful computation of extremely large and complete data sets. Technology makes data more manageable and useful. Because of digital their is more data waste but it now can also be recycled into the fuel.

Don’t just think of data in terms of numbers. It’s information. Twitter is an amazingly complex and unstructured data stream. Think about the secrets that lie within that aggregate stream if analyzed and computed properly. Here is one take on what it all means from a data guru. You have the inner monologue of the world!

Data is about to totally upheave entire industries. Humans created most business processes, market places, strategies and marketing metrics and principles. Over generations those original processes have evolved incrementally. But data has no regard for feelings, upheaval, paths or “politics”. It is brutally honest.

Let’s go back to sports for a simple example (one that is covered in Moneyball). Since the game was invented, Baseball used the Batting Average statistic as a measure of a player’s offensive ability. Talent was valued, acquired and compensated based on this data point. In the last decade, a bunch of smart people crunched some numbers and realized that On-base percentage was a much more accurate statistical measure of offensive productivity. All professional talent evaluators in baseball will now use OBA as a more accurate measurement. They’ll readily admit that for over 100 years baseball was wrong in valuing batting average as an important statistic yet the concept was hardly ever challenged until now. I wonder what else baseball has got wrong over the years? Maybe there is a better way to position players on the field. A manager would never have the audacity to reinvent positions but a computer model would!

Sports are just an example. Try to extrapolate how data can transform health care, government, urban policy, Wall Street, education, etc. One idea that excites me is how every body function will be measured, calculated and analyzed at all times. Some little chip will be implanted in your wrist and it will be equivalent to being hooked up at all times to every machine in the Lenox Hill emergency room.

But data has some issues it needs to sort out. It has really bad marketing.

For the most part, the evil and inferior humans are afraid of data and try their best to oppress the numbers. Data is a byproduct that goes by the wayside far too often. Executives will talk about strategy, relationships, their “gut” and every other which way to describe their own importance in their business. Data also often gets manipulated to reinforce a bias rather than drive the decision. As someone who likes and trusts numbers I still find myself dumbing down my data. I’ll find and use stats that “sound good” to back up my argument. I’ll reject most business stats (that I don’t compute myself) because I’m weary of their accuracy or how they’ve been manipulated.

Data can only be tamed by the right people. It’s not you or me. It’s the engineers who study and work with large, structured and unstructured data sets. It’s the Navi warrior who can tame that weird flying dragon that the Navi flies around on.

Also, how much better does data have to be than the status quo for people to take notice? In many industries, both the buyer and seller have incentive to keep on doing it the same way. Only if data forces their hand, by being so much better than the status quo, does it eventually pick up. Again, Google is the great example. Their products (mostly all automated with a fluent marketplace) owns 40% of the digital advertising market. They benefit (better and more trackable ROI) is just too good to ignore.

As the cool kids recognize the power of data they will begin to use it in new ways. I also think data will become friendly so anyone can analyze it without getting bogged down in numbers. Cool things are about to happen. Start giving numbers the respect they deserve!

Start-ups move quick so it’s tricky to keep all of my networks and contacts updated on our progress. For Sportsvite’s business partners and clients we regularly send out a corporate update newsletter. But I haven’t properly blogged about Sportsvite since the July 2007. So for all you lucky little Littyhoopsters out there you’re about to get it straight from this blogger’s keyboard…

Once upon a time, circa 2006, Sportsvite.com officially launched with the simple goal to make it easier for people to connect with each other to organize and manage their sports activities. We focused on adult sports because we wanted to create the solution to the very problem that we faced. I, for one, still have a yearning desire to brick three-pointers, pull softballs way foul, and run very slowly. Sports are well organized for youth, high school and even college athletics. But enter the world of adulthood, move to a new city, and start a non-sports professional career and it becomes considerably more difficult to play. In fact our original Sportsvite tagline was Stop Playing With Yourself. Sportsvite’s mantra is that playing sports is just as much fun for an adult. Our aim is to leverage digital and social media to make it easier to do just that.

Sportsvite.com has grown into an online community with over 150K registered members. It helps thousands of people play their favorite sports and activities. Sportsvite members can find other players, teams or leagues in their area. It also makes the life of a rec sports team captain a bit more organized. Along the way, we realized in order to make Sportsvite a scalable and sustainable business we needed to aggregate MILLIONS of players on Sportsvite.com. To do this, we needed to have an even bigger impact on recreational sports.

The first place we looked was at the local sports leagues (think the Urban Professional League or NYCSSC here in NYC). It was clear that these leagues are creating the opportunities for adults to play their favorite team sports. Over 1500 league organizations were using Sportsvite to create league profiles (NYC Partners) to promote their sports leagues to the Sportsvite community (similar to how a business or organization will create a profile on Facebook). This is just a fraction of the thousands of sport & social clubs, parks & rec, YMCA and private local rec sports leagues that can be found in every city, town and neighborhood.

Most league organizers operate as a type of local event producer. They secure field space, hire refs and staff, manage registration and schedules, communicate directly with team captains and players, and produce sports events weekly. We spoke with hundreds of sports league organizers to understand how technology could help leagues more efficiently operate and expand their business. Most league organizers simply didn’t have the expertise or free capital to invest in digital solutions.

In 2010 we launched LeagueApps. Our goal is for it to be the best digital solution to power adult recreational sports leagues. So far, the feedback and response has been promising. Since it was launched in the early fall over 25 leagues have joined the platform. Just this month we’ve launched new league partners in Miami (Miami SSC) Philadelphia (Philly Sports Network), Phoenix (Coed Sports Arizona) and Los Angeles (All City Athletics). Next we plan to work with our league partners to enhance the LeagueApps platform to improve the experience for their members. This includes social media integration, mobile functionality, team management features (death to the dreaded forfeit!) and e-commerce features.

Local sports leagues can be a valuable platform for brands and marketers that want to reach young, active adults through both experiential (at the field) and digital marketing efforts. Yet most leagues don’t have the audience reach or sales experience to secure sponsorship deals. Most brands can’t build a program that has enough size or impact for it to be worthwhile. So Sportsvite has networked these leagues together to aggregate an audience of active young adults. We call it the Recreational Sports Network and it allows our league partners to opt into brand sponsorships opportunities. Over 500 leagues have joined the RSN which represents 1MM+ adult sports players. Through the RSN, we’ve completed sponsorship programs for Clif Bar, Corona, Smokey Bones Bar + Grill, Buffalo Wild Wings and POWERADE.

As Sportsvite builds up its presence in adult recreational sports we’re also looking at other sectors of sports that can use a digital upgrade. Sports camps, AAU tournaments, church leagues, fitness clubs and youth sports are on the radar screen. Amazingly, many of the 5.5MM students that play college intramurals are still going down to the fieldhouse to sign up for their leagues with paper and pen!

We like to think about what the recreational sports world will be like in the next generation. I got to say it’s awesome. Every single at bat, jump shot, second serve and first down will be recorded digitally and shared with your friends, teammates and competition. Every player will have all their stats and results to see how they fare against their friends. Ask any recreational athlete if they would like to feel more like a pro. There answer will be a resounding Marv Albertesque YES. Hit a game-winning shot and read about it on a local blog. Win a league sportsmanship award sponsored by Mastercard…Priceless!

Once a person taps into their passion great things happen. By great things I’m talking about a fantasy sports league made up of your friends in your local rec sports league. Imagine that. Or look at it from a utility angle. How about a mobile app to find, organize or create a pick-up game on the fly by seeing who checks in at the local park.

In the future, everyone will have their 15 minutes of Sportscenter fame.

Here is mine…

As a digital guy I hear the term viral tossed around like a Charlie Sheen escort. I tend to be skeptical of marketing plans in which “cool” viral content will be created. I’ve been creating content on the web in one form or another for over ten years and I’ve yet to output anything that has even come close to being viral. It’s almost as if things seem to go viral by accident more so than it can be planned. I’ll view something that’s so unbelievable that my first impulse is to share it with others because you just got to see it. I’ve yet to work with anyone who has been able to consistently, and predictable create content that goes viral.

My view on viral marketing has changed a bit after following my friends at BeenVerified.com execute a viral marketing campaign this week.

The story begins with Antoine Dodson. Antoine was interviewed for a local news story in which an intruder broke into his house and tried to abduct his sister. Antoine, in all his flaming glory, calls out the intruder with a passionate rant. My favorite lines of his are “you all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your husband because they raping everyone out here!” and “you are so dumb, you are really dumb…for real”. The rest of the world seems to agree as the news segment has so far been viewed over 20 million views. The unlikely combination that the love child of Willie McGhee and Richard Simmons — from a housing project in Huntsville, Alabama no less — freaking out on camera over a sexual intruder is just too precious. The best SNL skit out there couldn’t make up something this good. It went viral.

Another phenomenon of viral content is that it gets remixed and mashed-up (thanks to digital technology it is easier to do than ever before). This happened with Antoine Dodson. One particular remix, by an outfit from Brooklyn called the Gregory Brothers, was especially catchy. The Gregory Brothers handle the auto-tune like Steve Nash with a basketball. They knew that they could create some hot shit from the Antoine Dodson remix and they did. The song has been viewed over 50MM times on Youtube and has become a top 100 Billboard hit. My guess is that they just floated the song out there and it went viral. Kudos to the Gregory Brothers. They expressly tried to create viral content and they did. Before you go and hire them to auto-tune your life and turn you into some kind of F-List celebrity realize that the combined audience of their other 48 videos on YouTube is less than the Dodson song.

Now here’s where Ross and BeenVerified.com come into play. BeenVerified is an online background checking company. They deal with large sets of human population databases as a core part of their business. They’ve also created a few mobile apps that have done well.

Ross, Josh and team came up with the idea to create the Sex Offender Tracker mobile application to identify sexual offenders in your neighborhood. Another company has actually done this but BV takes it a step further by using augmented reality. That means that when you hold up your phone it will compute results based on your exact geographic location. Open App. Point in any direction. Find predators. This app would probably get some decent PR on it’s own but BV wanted to make it viral. They wanted to people to pass it on and on and on. So they enlisted the help of sir Antoine as their pitchman.

Watch the Sex Offender Trafic app promo video featuring Antoine Dodson.

BV floated this out their on Monday morning. First, the top technology blogs picked up on this because it hits on a few digital trends (mobile apps, augmented reality, viral marketing, privacy) and it’s entertaining. Mashable, Huffington Post, and even TMZ ran with it. Readers started passing it around to their friends. On Tuesday night Jimmy Kimmel featured it as part of his opening monologue. In less than a week the video has been viewed over 600K times. This is without any marketing dollars being spent on advertising, promotion or distribution. The entire project’s distribution strategy was that this would go viral once it got out there.

I’m still not sure what this all means. While the PR and exposure has been valuable for BV, they are still figuring out (like much of the rest of the media world) the ROI on this type of campaign. I’m still not sure if you can plan or bank on viral but sometimes you just have a one-off Home Run idea and if you execute properly you can optimize the odds that it does spread virally. The Gregory Brothers did that and so did BV. But viral traction doesn’t necessarily tie directly back into sales since it’s hard to perfectly connect that viral spark with the actual product or service that genreated it. Just because Antoine Dodson cracks you up doesn’t mean you need a sex offender application on your phone. Yet, I’d bet most digital marketing agencies would triumph either campaign as a shining success and charge a pretty penny to their clients.

As for Antoine he’s leveraged his good fortune to move his family out of the hood (NPR Podcast). He even offers a Halloween costume on his website. Who knows how long he lasts as a viral star before he has to do what most other established brands need to do – pay for marketing.

This week Sports Illustrated published their 2010 Fortunate 50 highest-earning American athletes and ranked Lebron as the fourth overall with total revenue of over $45 Million. Two-thirds of that revenue is generated by sponsorship and marketing deals with corporate partners that include Nike, Sprite, Glaceau VitaminWater, State Farm, Upper Deck, and McDonald’s. During the Knicks futile quest to sign James, the team presented an Interbrand report that predicted that Lebron could generate over one billion dollars during his career if he plays in New York City.

Most of Lebron James’ current deals are traditional sponsorships which typically include television commercials, promotional appearances and the marketing rights to use an athlete’s name and likeness. Digital rights are often included as part of a bundled package or as added value. Digital is not yet driving the revenue. Interbrand didn’t even bother to include digital revenue when calculating Lebron’s Billion.

This will change. In the next decade Lebron will derive substantial revenue through digital sponsorships.

Last week’s “Decision” resulted in a healthy dose of digital growth in the LeBusiness. The new LebronJames.com website and email newsletter launched. The “Decision” television special on ESPN was sponsored by Microsoft Bing in a distinctly digital sponsorship. The Lebron James Facebook page has been “liked” by 2.8MM fans. In just a few weeks on twitter @KingJames gained over 490K followers. Lebron and his marketing team were able to leverage the media coverage and fan frenzy as a catalyst to aggregate a digital audience. Now they will try to monetize it.

LebronJames.com may attract additional sponsorship as it did with Bing but with limited monthly traffic (less than 500K uniques) there is a ceiling on direct digital advertising. Lebron does have a considerably bigger audience on the major social media platforms. Twitter’s direct monetization mechanisms are still immature but popular athletes on twitter are rumored to receive $5K-$10 per sponsored tweet (via Ad.ly). Facebook pages are great promotional opportunities and have become more integral in all media campaigns. Innovative Facebook programs like Amare Stoudemire selling playoff tickets for the Suns through his own Facebook page may also be a new revenue stream in the future.

Lebron’s announcement also signaled the dawn of the individual star athlete as a media entity. Recent trends have seen professional teams create regional sports networks, and professional sports leagues create their own media businesses. Is the next evolution for individual athletes to form their own media companies?

Perhaps it’s already happening with the massive media coverage of star figures such as Tiger Woods and Lebron James. Despite critical reaction, the “Decision” drew 9.9 million viewers on ESPN. Interest in Lebron is at record highs and his new digital media platforms allows him to directly boradcast to his fans (rather than through the NBA or even the Miami Heat).

If Lebron James (or at least his brand) is looked upon as a media company the digital revenue opportunities go far beyond sponsorship. Weekly Youtube video podcasts, twitter contests, email newsletters, memorabilia sales, online auctions and e-commerce opportunities all begin to add up. It becomes conceivable that Lebron can generate an additional $10MM – $20MM per year through digital business with new sponsors or incremental dollars from current brand partners. Some of these digital opportunities don’t even need Lebron’s personal time which makes it even easier to scale. This digital revenue alone can more than makes up for the increased salary that he passed up.

I’m interested to see what happens on and off the court in Miami. If Lebron is successful at building out his own media property it’s a telling sign of a power shift in professional sports. I’m not sure how David Stern, the owners or even the fans will react. Stern didn’t seem to happy with Lebron’s “Decision”. But if Lebron, D-Wade and Bosh continue to stick together they may soon have a healthy dose of power and influence to match their ever-growing paychecks. But first, let’s see them get some rings!

The issue isn’t the content as much as how it is delivered and how quickly it becomes stale. The Super Bowl commercials are great because they are all new and fresh. But most commercials run for months with the same exact 30 second unit. Perhaps there is an argument that repetition is an effective marketing tactic. But I don’t need to re-read my Comm 101 course pack to know that annoying the crap out of people isn’t an effective marketing tactic.

Imagine somebody gave you $5MM to spend on 50 prime time 30 second content blocks over the course of 3 months with the goal to be as influential as possible. Would you really think the most efficient way to do this would be to develop one piece of content and then run it 50 times? How about running 50 pieces of content one time each?

We now live in a real-time instant gratification world where fresh content is at our finger tips through Facebook, twitter and [choose your favorite] mobile apps. Pick up a newspaper and the first thing you realize is that the news in it is one day OLD.

Now let’s analyze your average commercial

1) It’s been played on television for a few weeks or even a few months
2) Therefore, there’s a good chance you’ve already seen it multiple times
3) The concepting, development and production may very well have started over one year ago

Man, if I wanted old, lame content I would watch TV Land.

Luckily for some, there is a vast brand marketing and creative agency conspiracy brewing in which everybody just pretends that their commercials don’t suck. An amazing commercial is just one that sucks a little less than the rest of them. This is comparable to when I get together with my fat/slow/short friends and we play basketball against each other. My 17% 3-pointer percentage is impressive compared to Evanter’s broken shot or Hillman’s defense is suffocating when he is guarding Kosh. Now imagine we charged for spectators to watch us play and they paid without it ever dawning on them how inferior our game was compared to professional basketball. Am I on crazy pills??

Here’s a little secret – there’s is a reason why people DVR shows just to skip the commercials.

A few years ago (July ‘08) I wrote a blog post in which I basically suggested one way to make commercials suck less is for them to introduce new music. It was a cutesy idea but didn’t really solve the major issues I’ve mentioned above.

So when I first saw what Old Spice did this week I was amazed. I’ve seen the future!

Quick backstory – Old Spice has been running a series of commercials called “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” with a cocky, confident, chiseled dude who articulately talks about the weird stuff that he is doing. They are the exact type of clever commercials that suck less and can be tolerated even after you’ve already seen each ad over a dozen times. This week they took it to another level. Over a two day period, Old Spice created over 80 short YouTube video ads in which the Old Spice Guy responds directly to people through social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). Old Spice Guy responds to both celebrities and regular folks all in high quality, well-written “commercial-like” responses. You can watch the YouTube videos here.

So in real-time Old Spice was creating awesome, fresh content. It leveraged cheaper production costs, social media distribution platforms, and two way communication with its viewers to do something cool. Instead of relying on technologies from the freaking 1960’s, Old Spice figured out how to leverage modern day tools, platform and technologies to create the kind of stuff that people love.

I was into it. On Wednesday, I tweeted to Old Spice that I would donate $100 to any charity they mentioned if they made a video reply to me. I was so excited that I crossed my toes as I typled.

I’m not saying every brand should start employing this exact gimmick. But I’d be willing to bet marketing and advertising will look a lot more like this in ten years than the standard 30 second commercial. It definitely will take some time. Processes need to be modernized. For instance, the way commercials are approved and trafficked are obsolete. Brands have to be willing to further let go of how tightly they control the marketing message. The intricate conspiracy of pretending that commercials don’t suck will need to be exposed like Jeff Francouer lack of plate discipline.

Hopefully this is a harbinger of more cool stuff to come in television advertising. Otherwise, when the advanced life forms in 2150 look back at the “Lebron Era” of history (in their Comm 101 classes) they’re just going to laugh at how stupid we all were!

Here is a video that Old Spice made in response to a comment by Perez Hilton…

Small business owners have long ago figured out the key to advertising and marketing while brilliant MBA’s, award-winning agencies, and self-proclaimed “marketing gurus” hopelessly manipulate the 4 P’s of marketing into buzzwords of mass destruction. The simple principle: only spend money if it leads to making money!

Local businesses are advertising the same way that they did a decade ago. This includes the obligatory phone book ad, penny saver coupons and local print publications. If they want to go Hollywood (think car dealers) they pony up with a super cheesy thirty second radio or television advertisement. Case in point…

Until recently, there have been few truly effective (effective = money making) digital platforms for local small businesses to advertise efficiently. The one true success, Google, happens to also be the greatest company of this generation. For those who think Google is just a nifty tool to help pickup French chicks, the true value is that it enables businesses to place small text ads on relevant search result pages AND allows the advertiser to easily track the result of their advertising expense. But there is a tremendous opportunity that goes way beyond Google. Just ask your local pizza place, neighborhood bar, barber shop, arcade or bowling alley. My guess is that many small business owners just aren’t nerdy enough to be advertising through Google. In fact, small businesses often look at their web presence as a cost center in which they have to pay to develop and maintain their own website rather than as a revenue generating marketing play.

New digital start-ups try to conquer the local space because of the vast untapped market but the well runs dry before they ever see substantial advertising revenue. Dating back to the dot com days with Microsoft Sidewalk, to hyperlocal news sites like Backfence.com and experiments from the Washington Post, the local space has been a digital albatross. The cost to create local content far outweighs the non-existent revenue from the zipped pockets of non-digital local business owners.

Thanks to the ever-evolving digital landscape, local businesses now have a plethora of digital resources they can use to help drive sales. Restaurants have an increasingly significant reputation to maintain on review websites like Yelp, Menupages and Citysearch. Businesses can use Facebook fan pages combined with highly targeted facebook ads. Twitter is a fluent platform to instantly connect with customers. There is also a renewed focus and investment in local email newsletters (Thrillist, Urban Daddy, Flavorpill and enhanced television and newspaper websites. To take the place of failing print media companies, local news (Everyblock, Patch) and relevant blogs and blog networks (Outside.In, Placeblogger) are taking their place. An even more promising development is the progress of the mobile web which is naturally location conscious. New apps like Four Square, Loopt and even BBM have tremendous potential to connect advertisers with potential customers. This NY Times article does a good job sizing it up.

Before we all have a neighborhood block party let’s realize it’s going to take at least another decade for Joe the Plumber or the average small business owner to be digitally-aware enough to do their own online marketing. This creates a neat little digital black hole.

Great local digital applications for users.
Meager local advertiser revenues.

In this situation I think the middle man wins. Who or what can help local businesses advertise digitally through the many new local platforms? How can that scale by city or neighborhood? I don’t think an individual publisher or platform can scale on its own because the unit economics don’t work. By that I mean that the cost of monetizing in an individual market is greater than the current revenues generated from a limited local audience. But if the local sales costs can be reduced, or the audience better monetized, then the unit economics can make sense for individual platform/publishers. I don’t think the “middle man” is a marketing agency. That is too manual for the digital world. More likely, the “middle man” is some kind of automated market place that allows local businesses to efficiently spend on local advertising and see a positive ROI. Yeah, that is kind of similar to a Google Adwords model. But it doesn’t overcome the friction of bringing the non-digital small business on to the web. For once I don’t have all the answers! I would love to understand Google’s local strategy.

I’ve become a true believer that Sportsvite’s success will lie in local. Participating in recreational sports is inherently local. No matter how well we can aggregate a recreational sports audience, the most value to marketer’s lies in how Sportsvite can influence their local activity. As Sportsvite captures the attention of players within their community, it is creating a highly effective marketing platform. Now we just need to understand how to reach the local advertisers and then scale to just about everywhere!

I would do this by turning every one of McDonald’s 31,000+ worldwide restaurants into food centers that promote and embrace health, education and the environment. Those are three of the most challenging issues facing society today. They are causes that will become increasingly damaging in future generations if they are not solved in this generation. Believe it or not, but McDonald’s is in the best position (more so than any government, charity or sitting President) to be able to accomplish positive change.

You might think I’m lost in the Barbeque Sauce (the best BBQ sauce in the entire world I might add). So hear me out.

McDonald’s does a better job of reaching and engaging a mass audience than any media company, news organization or communication company in the world. It serves 47 million customers (half the audience of the Super Bowl) EVERY DAY. McDonald’s is located in 119 different countries. People everywhere understand what the golden arches represent – a tasty, affordable and quick meal. McDonald’s is one of the most recognizable brands across the globe and its products (Big Mac, McNuggets, Happy Meal) are almost as well known. The point here is that when McDonald’s does something, everybody, in all corners of the world, receives the message and comprehends it in a similar way.

The obvious place to start is with health. I would change the entire menu to focus on nutrition and healthy eating habits. I’d phase out all fried foods, milk shakes, and desserts. Replace French Fries with baked potato strips. Apple Pies with Apples. Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit with egg white omelets. Stress fresh foods, fruits and vegetables and a balanced diet and focus on portion control. McDonald’s has such a great influence over society’s diet that these simple changes can sway children to grow up eating healthy and shun bad foods as they now do for cigarettes.

Next, I’d focus on education, especially for youth. Nutrition is obviously a natural topic but I’d also use McDonald’s to hold classes on enrichment or extra curricular activities for children, mothers and employment training. All McDonald’s should offer free internet access, a study section (similar to Starbucks) and perhaps even a low-cost computer station. Students with good grades would receive gift cards, discounts and special status at their local McDonald’s.

Finally, I’d make sure that each McDonald’s renovated their facility to adhere to the highest standards for energy efficiency. This would include carbon neutral locations, emphasis on using recycled materials, and obtaining food supplies from eco-friendly farmers and producers. McDonald’s would be an example of a green business and promote a green lifestyle.

These three simple movements would be more powerful, and precipitate greater change than any government policy, foundation or public initiative. Yup, it would make the world a better place.

You’re thinking this is impossible. You might be right. There are more obstacles than in the Eliminator on American Gladiators. Fresh, wholesome food would be too costly. Carbon neutral facilities are an expensive investment. Nobody would want to eat healthy food, especially at McDonald’s! People would just go to Burger King, Taco Bell or other fast food restaurants. Franchise owners would revolt. Shareholders would revolt. Etc, etc, etc.

I realize it might not be all peaches and (non-fat) cream to make this happen. It’s not easy to change the world. Especially if you’re a global corporation. Nobody expects you to do any good (Just don’t do anything absolutely horrible) besides making tons of money. McDonald’s made $22.8 billion last year, and they damn well better beat that this year if they want to be deemed successful.

But there are some trends and ideas that I believe can make the possibility of something like this happening more realistic. If you don’t believe me, believer Umair Haque. He’s to technology + business in today’s, or maybe even tomorrow’s, world what Dostoyevsky was to stories + themes. Haque argues that companies need to go from great (highly profitable) to good (virtuous to society). Check out the post here.

First, if executed correctly this would be the most genuine and authentic marketing initiative in the entire world. Authenticity is hot right now (although if you watched the Super Bowl commercials, you probably think that “lame” is hot right now). Pepsi passed up on Super Bowl ads this year to focus its entire marketing push around Project Refresh. At the end of the day they though, they are still just selling flavored, carbonated and caffeinated beverages. Does anybody really believe that Pepsi drinks refresh the world (as they claim in their commercials?). With that kind of boasting, there philanthropic efforts only go so far. If people really believed McDonald’s was foregoing profits to improve society they would rally around a genuine cause and shift the paradigm in brand marketing.

Thinking economically, these long run initiatives really would ensure that McDonald’s would be a profitable cornerstone of society. Efficient infrastructure would save on energy costs. Enabling restaurants to be learning centers would solidify them as local community establishments. Healthy food would promote eating at McDonald’s more often. Recycled products would save on paper costs. Haque argues that great companies that aren’t concerned with doing good will no longer be great in the next decade.

Without fully thinking this through, I’m going to propose that these initiatives should be subsidized by local and national governments through subsidies and tax breaks. It would be an effective means to generate impactful change in health, education and environment. Can you name one government initiative or public policy that could be more effective? McDonald’s would truly be a public-private partnership. I’m not trying to be political here but maybe I am doing just that. I also realize that the shades of gray in this idea can cover the Seattle skyline. How can we be sure that a franchise will not try and cheat the system by collecting the subsidy without doing the greater good? How can we trust McDonald’s? Does it make sense to regulate McDonald’s like we do for the railroads, airways and electrical companies?

Obviously this is more of a thought exercise than it is a prediction of how McDonald’s is going to refine their brand strategy. But how long can we watch worthless Super Bowls ads before we demand more from a brand for us to find value in it. Yes, a quality product will always be important. But a brand is more than a product. A brand message that shouts “buy, buy, buy” just doesn’t work anymore. We are too smart and too immune to the marketing tactics of the past. As a consumer, I’m ready for the marketing of the future. I’m not exactly sure of what that is, but it better be real.

Here’s a video of Eddie Murphy talkin’ MickeyD’s…

I have a few distinct memories of experiences with the World Wide Web that have made a lasting impression with me. They all happened in college. This makes sense as I really dug deep into the power of the web my freshman year of college when I first encountered high speed Ethernet in Mary Markley Hall. Before that I had to put up with the slowness of dial up and the wackness of the damn AOL busy signal.

I decided to create my very own website called Littyhoops.com in 2002. It was a college basketball website in which I voiced my opinions to the world and picked games. It was a glorified blog before there was such thing as blogs. Therefore, everything took lots more time to setup as I figured out how to code, host, design and manage the site on the fly. But it was all worth it because I loved the feeling of being able to broadcast my message to the world. All of a sudden, I had a soapbox to stand on that was high enough for anybody who wanted to watch. It boggled my mind that what I wrote in my basement apartment could instantly be shared with the world.

Another web memory I had during college was reselling Michigan vs. Ohio State football game tickets my junior year. The game fell on Thanksgiving that year and I realized that many out-of-state students would be going home for the holiday. I worked with my friend Dick B. to collect about 75 tickets and then went about selling them through eBay, craigslist and even a local website called Orange Sorbet. At one point we were selling $15 tickets for $150 each (then damn MSU and TJ Duckett upset Michigan on a phantom second). I would check on the auctions and my email every hour in amazement on how easy it was to sell the tickets and generate revenue. One day, Rich and I met up with a woman in an Ypsilanti restaurant who gave us $1000 in cash for a handful of tickets. I was scrambling to get rid of the final few tickets before I left town myself that weekend and actually somehow set up a meeting for my friend Kraz to meet a dude on the side of the highway to exchange two tickets for an XBOX (impossible to get at the time).

Finally, the third digital memory I have from college is creating a website for Robert and his nephew Robert who ran Champion’s – a local laundrymat/keg market/convenience store down the block from our house in Ann Arbor. Colby, Brodsky and I somehow came up with the idea to convince a teacher to let us do this as an independent study project (easy way to get a guaranteed A). We had fun with it. Posted a bunch of goofy photos, threw up some coupons and beer specials and Ben surely towed the line of indecency with his wily copy. We then “borrowed” some ridiculously large email list and sent an email blast out to every student in greek life (you could still do things like that back in the digtal stone ages). Instantly, the Robert’s saw an effect in sales from the website and email and they quickly realized the value of the website. Unfortunately, soon after Robert and Robert and us had an unfortunate falling out that included racial slurs and death threats.

All three are great memories on how I discovered the power of the web. While I enjoyed creating Littyhoops, I realized that the economics of that website sucked. I would need to increase my traffic by literally 500x to begin to sniff similar revenues as the other two projects. I was most captivated how I could make money from the Internet. It seemed magical. It still does.

So that was basically my long, over the top introduction to what I’ve been thinking about these days — digital business models. The common belief is that there are three ways to generate revenue online.

1) E-commerce
2) Advertising
3) Subscription

One of the very first things I realized at CSTV (and this probably holds true for any big media company) was that if I wanted to get anything new accomplished it better have some advertising dollars attached to it. (Incidently, his is why media companies got into a pickle by giving away all their content for free – they believed the best way to monetize was to grow audience and sell advertising around that aggregated audience.) When you work in sports media you quickly realize that it’s a never-ending cat and mouse game between sports properties and major brands looking to reach the mass audience of sports fans. Unlock brand’s advertising budgets in any way possible and the cash flows and you’re a hero.

Lately though, advertising hasn’t lived up to its billing. There are two main causes. The first is that the advertising market has gone into the crapper during this so-called Great Recession. Marketing budgets have been slashed as marketers are forced to evaluate everything and focus on proven tactics and ROI. The second is that digital advertising just really isn’t all the effective. With the exception of Google, which has an awesome thing going with search, most big brands don’t really understand how their website can help a brand be cooler (branding) or sell stuff (Direct response). Social Networks, Twitter, Facebook (virtual products? please!), blogs and mobile have had difficulty creating innovative monetization models to go along with innovative products, platforms or communication.

Chris Dixon wonders what happens if this is it for digital business innovation? What happens if all these breakthrough platforms end up monetizing in a similar fashion as AOL Instant Messenger? Groundbreaking behavior and communication product for sure, but not a business. That sounds like an industry that I want no part of.

Perhaps the ad market will soon make a comeback and easy advertising revenue starts flowing online again. Traditional media (print, radio, television) all got fat eating off the advertising world. Then in the 80’s cable television came along and innovated a new business model (charge cable companies for distribution of content). My gut tells me that digital is going to create new business models and not just borrow the advertising playbook. I’m more interested than ever in evaluating and innovating new digital business models. Link instant messenger, a great idea or product doesn’t always add up into a great business (especially in the digital world). I want to be in the business of creating great businesses.

E-commerce interests me. It allows you to buy anything from anyone at anytime. It makes efficient and fluid markets and increases transactions. Check out Etsy and buy handmade good from Africa and then think about what you are actually doing! In addition, the market share of people who shop online will increase. Children today view Amazon.com as Toys R’ Us or Wall Mart. E-Commerce has yet to be integrated with the social web. This blows my mind away how far we still have to go when it comes to e-commerce. I want to buy stuff that my friends recommend to me. That’s more effective than any advertisement I will ever view. I expect major innovation in the E-commerce space in the next stage of the web.

Mobile interests me. The utility ability of a mobile application is so powerful and so intimate. Most people have their phone on them at all times. It’s so valuable that the iPhone has been able to do something that the media companies could never really figure out how to do on the web. They charge for applications. The more the product is downloaded the more $ it generates. I like that model.

Subscription and micro-payments interest me. What kinds of digital services are people willing to pay for on the web? I’d love to offer something of such value that a consumer would lock into paying recurring fees to access it.

There are so many great ways to generate money on the web. My goal is start to learn more about some of these different opportunities. I want to talk to people who have non-advertising business models that are generating revenues and are profitable. What are they doing right and what are the fundamentals of their digital business? The tools that are available to an online marketer are as powerful as anything I have ever come across in business. I want to take advantage of that.

I no longer want to hear (or think) about great digital ideas or products. I want to focus on great digital business (and new money making schemes!).

I’m sure there are thousands of different types of beach sandals that are comfortable and get the job done. Slipping on a pair of sandals is in itself a podiatric pleasure. No bending, no laces, nice weather, etc. Everybody loves sandals that they named a beach resort after them.

Eight years ago I discovered Rainbows. They are the perfect leather sandal. Within a matter of weeks of wearing them in, they will mold perfectly to your feet. Rainbows, quite simply, make walking a more enjoyable experience. They’re sturdy enough to be worn wherever you go but light enough to still be great for the beach or pool.

Rainbows are are manufactured in Southern California (San Clemente). I first encountered them when I moved to San Diego but didn’t think much about them at the time, figuring they were just another brand like Adidas or Reef’s. But then my friend Colby swore by them. He even gave me directions on how I could pick up a pair directly from the factory store (which is basically a beach hut) at a discounted price on my way back to San Diego from Los Angeles. I’ve worn Rainbow sandals religiously ever since. My last pair was pretty beat up so my little sis bought me a brand new pair for my birthday last year (which will be my third pair in 8 years).

The company takes a lot of pride in their durability and quality and offer’s a lifetime guarantee against any manufacturing defects. According to the website, the secret is in the specially formulated glue to keep layers together and the straps in place and the densities of sponge rubber with “memory” to mold to each individuals feet. Rainbows also has a fan page on Facebook with over 18,000 fans.

My sandal of choice is the Tan Leather Double Arch Wide Strap. It’s the basic sandal with a thicker bottom which provides more cushion and makes it feel like I’m walking on air. Wally and Hillman prefer the single layer as they both claim to have flat feet thus disqualifying them from the extra layer of goodness. I don’t really know much about the other products as everyone seems to stick to the basic model. Wy mess with perfection I guess.

A few disclaimers. The price for a pair seems to be rising (around $45) especially if you try to by them at a retail store. It also takes a few weeks to break in which may consist of potentially painful blisters that Little Guy compares to being stabbed in the foot with Shitaki knives. Sometimes if they get wet, the leather fades a bit turning your toes yellow. Wearing them in water is fine though and is even recommended as one way to help break them in.

Here is a the Rainbows sandals video on Youtube that has received the most views. Pretty fascinating huh.

If you don’t already have Rainbows, I hope this blog post turned you on to them. Leave a comment if you like or dislike rainbows. Also, let me know if you end getting a pair. Regardless, enjoy the summer.