Addressable Media - Connecting the World 340 Trillion, Trillion, Trillion Times

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Frank Golding is a former Director at Google, where he worked on product, sponsorship and creative strategies. He initially joined Google as YouTube‘s Director, Head of Sport for North America, creating sports partnerships for leagues, teams and athletes – across professional, college and high school sports — to help them connect more deeply to YouTube’s one billion monthly users. Prior to YouTube, he spent nearly nine years at ESPN working on digital deals across all of ESPN’s U.S. content platforms. Frank holds a JD from UVa and an MBA from MIT.

Frank is also the author of this post.

I had a great conversation with Chris Dessi after WDS3, and wanted to write a bit on IPv6.  This is that bit.  Let’s hit some facts.  Today we can create 340 trillion, trillion, trillion URLs (through IPv6, an addressing format that’s been in development since the mid 1990’s).  That is 340 followed by 36 zeroes.  To put this in perspective, that is 340 billion, billion, billion URLs for every person living on the planet in … 2100.  It is 56.9b URLs for every gram on earth.  (The WSJ had reported that IPv6 created enough URLs for every atom on earth, but later corrected itself.  We have about 132 followed by 48 zeroes more atoms than IPv6 URLs.)

This is an extraordinary jump.  IPv4, developed in 1981, had, a relatively puny, 4.3b unique IP addresses - a number we can comprehend (it is, for example, less than 25% of Google’s revenue for Q1’15).  We didn’t really use these powers until 1985, at which point by year’s end we had six .com URLs, wildly growing to 100 .com URLs in 1987.  Today (March 2015) someone registers a .com every second - 31.5m .com URLs every year.

Presumably in 1984, 4.3b unique IP addresses surely seemed to “be enough.”  We were wrong.  So riddle me this, is 340 trillion, trillion, trillion IP addresses enough?  Not necessarily, but like 1984, it sure seems to be enough.

The “address” is our keystone to the archways of a new world. The ability to attach an “address” to a place, a person, a robot, thing, feature, function, even a cell opens unimaginable and unforeseen opportunities for new media and businesses; personalized healthcare and energy.  The next “Facebook” is the machine-readable ‘social’ platform connecting quintillions (18 zeros) of machine ‘pages’.

It will do wonders for video.  Imagine a URL for every pixel on every frame of every video uploaded on YouTube.  Last year YouTube handled ~300+ hours of uploaded video every minute, and permitted uploads in Ultra 4K @ 60 fps.  Now let’s amp things up.  Let’s move that from 300 hours to 10K hours, and assume every video @60fps is uploaded in 8k fulldome.  (8K fulldome is 8192×8192 - or 67.1 megapixels - used in modern projection for hemispherical theatres (think planetaria).)  This is not likely.  Most of the next 5b online denizens will not have a device capable of producing or watching 8K fulldome, let alone you or me.  But … if they did, we would have enough URLs for every pixel of every video uploaded to YouTube during the next ~4.5 quadrillion years.  That seems like a long runway, and it doesn’t even account for dynamic URLs (ones that lapse and are reassigned).

The possibilities are limitless.  Security increases, and instant alterations to a pixel can create multiple viewpoints, new storytelling methods evolve, VR and AI explodes.  Add 1Gb transmission, and this is a very different world.

Here is the rub.  It may not be enough.   2b people are projected to come online by the end of 2016.   In addition to those media consumers, the Internet of Things, v2x communications, new forms of data transmission and metadata — all could use an address.  If the number of addresses we use increases by 10x every year, we will run out of addresses in ~30yrs.  1985 → 2014; we’re out of addresses — 29 yrs.   2015 → 2045; we’re out of addresses — 30 yrs.

30 years is a mighty long time during which our creations - ingestible media, cloud based plug’n’play brains, sound from silent video, wireless electricity, virtual reality, robotics, personalized healthcare, ephemeral media — will be incredible.  Our IPv6 addresses will open the doors to advances and communications that we are just beginning to fathom.

And then we’ll need a few more addresses.

Frank Golding

[email protected] // 917-626-7959

Dave Kerpen CEO Likeable Media

9 Questions with Social Media Guru Dave Kerpen: “The internet doesn’t forget”

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The author, speaker and entrepreneur shares social media tips, predictions for the future of livestreaming (900 people watched him walk to work this morning) and the story behind his sponsored wedding.

 

Written by, Jacqueline Lisk

Dave Kerpen is chairman and co-founder of Likeable Media, an award-winning social media and word-of-mouth marketing agency, and founder and CEO of Likeable Local, a social media software company serving thousands of small businesses. He’s been featured in countless media outlets and keynoted at conferences across the globe. Dave is also a New York Times bestselling author currently working on his fourth book. Check one out! If you don’t like it, he’ll refund you. (See question 3 to learn why this is an effective marketing tactic.)

  1. Why is it so important for businesses to be active on social media?

This is where the people are. This is where your customers, employees, prospects and competitors’ customers are. Not being on social media would be like all of your customers and prospects going to this party, and you thinking you don’t want to go. There isn’t a business on the planet that wouldn’t benefit from a social media presence.

  1. Is it important for CEOs to personally embrace social media, or can they get away with delegating all social tasks?

It’s really important for CEOs to personally use social media. Without doing so, it’s harder to truly understand the landscape. To use an analogy, if you were going to try to build a significant business in France but never go to France or speak French, it would be really hard! Similarly with social media, you have to practice it personally to have a true understanding. This is such a huge paradigm switch—the transition from a one-way to a two-way dialogue. It requires immerging to really do it well.

  1. Some companies are hesitant to embrace social media because they are fearful of negative commentary. What advice can you offer for managing this type of feedback?

Negative commentary is going to happen whether you’re in social media or not. If people download Likeable software and don’t like it, they are going to complain. I can either join the conversation, listen and respond, or I can ignore it completely, hide in the corner and hope it goes away. But it is not going to go away if I ignore it and hide in the corner. The proactive business embraces that there may be negative things said about them and uses it as an opportunity. I like to say that every mistake is an opportunity for surprise and delight, and every complaint is an opportunity to learn and grow.

I respond to all my one-star reviews on Amazon.com. I apologize and offer to send them their money back, plus $50 for their time. It is pretty cool because lots of people respond to my comments saying things like, “Wow, I’m going to buy this book because he practices what he preaches and I can tell he cares. When you respond to a complaint, you are not doing it for the complainer, you are doing it for everyone else in the world who is watching. The internet doesn’t forget. When people find the complaint, do you want them to see that no one responded, or that you are the kind of business that cares about its customers and tries to fix problems?

  1. You have an impressive following on Twitter. How did you build it? What tips can you offer companies and/or individuals looking to grow their Twitter following?

Twitter is fun because there is no such thing as too much. You can pretty much share all day and night, and I am a big sharer. I like to share my own content and other people’s content, and that helped build my audience. Also, I was a real early user. That might not translate to twitter these days, but it will translate to other new platforms. Right now there is a huge land grab with livestreaming. If you can be really active on Periscope or Meerkat, you can build up your audience and be one of the top people or businesses on those platforms. I watched this little pizzeria owner in Toronto have 1500 people watching him make pizza. He happened to have been an early mover.

  1. Why do you think Meerkat and Periscope have earned so much attention? Is it warranted?

Meerkat and Periscope have really been the first apps to combine livestreaming with the mobile phone and social distribution. They have made livestreaming more accessible than ever before. It is a really big deal. Saturday night, the Mayweather/Pacquiao fight—lots of people bought it, but lots of people watched livestreams of it, as well. I am excited about livestreaming. I believe it is going to do to television what blogging did to newspapers, which is change it significantly over time. There are still newspapers in business, but there are a lot more blogs, and the leading newspapers are really blogs – online versions of the newspapers. Similarly, you are going to see livestreaming emerge as a platform to create video content and compete with television. You have an opportunity as a business or personal brand to create and bring content directly to people without the intermediary of the television set. I had 900 people watch me walk from the train station to work this morning!

  1. Isn’t that weird?

On the one hand, it’s weird. On the other hand, for someone who doesn’t live in the city to see the big crowds and the largest Macy’s in the world, it’s pretty cool. It is all about creating compelling content.

  1. Visual content has become increasingly popular and important. What tips can you provide for small businesses who have limited resources for content creation?

I am hugely biased, but we have a free tool called Likeable Hub that allows you to have access to thousands of visual ideas and posts. Our other free product is freeideaoftheday.com. Also, don’t be afraid to take pictures from your phone and create visual content that way. 

  1. We have to ask about your sponsored wedding. What inspired the idea? Do you think it’s something other couples should try?

Funny you ask! It was nine years ago, but I’m still asked about it a lot. We wanted a huge wedding, but we couldn’t afford it. We both had a sales and marketing background. My wife had the idea to get married at a baseball game and create a sponsored promotion. We pitched it to the Brooklyn Cyclones and they liked the idea, so we were able to resell the sponsorship inventory from the game to our wedding partners. It was awesome. We raised $100,000 in goods and services for the wedding and $20,000 for charity for the MS Society. To this day, I get requests from couples, mainly brides, wondering how we did it. For a while it was once a month, now it is probably every two to three months. It’s really hard, and it has not been replicated. The creative in me loves that, but the entrepreneur in me doesn’t because I like to build scalable stuff. This wasn’t really scalable or repeatable. You need a couple that is good at sales and marketing and is willing to create real value for the sponsors. Our sponsors got great value out of our wedding. They were in front of 8,000 people at a baseball game. You have to think about what value you are going to create for your sponsors. That’s the key issue a lot of brides and grooms have trouble with.

  1. And lastly, we can’t wait for your closing keynote at the upcoming Westchester Digital Summit. What can we expect?      

I’m going to attempt to do something very challenging—make people both laugh and cry.

 

Will he do it?  Join us on May 14, where Dave will be teaching attendees Why it Pays to be Likeable. Register Now! 

JR Lisk
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Jacqueline Lisk
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Q&A with Maverick Marketer Jeffrey Hayzlett: “My advice to marketers: don’t screw it up.”

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The globally renowned business juggernaut talks candidly (as he always does) about digital marketing, social media and the future of our industry.

Written by, Jacqueline Lisk

Jeffrey Hayzlett is known for his decisive, no-nonsense approach to business growth, and when we got the chance to ask him some of our most pressing marketing questions, he didn’t disappoint. Jeffrey is a renowned speaker, the host of “C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett” on Bloomberg Television, a frequent TV and radio commentator, author of the best-selling books “The Mirror Test” and “Running the Gauntlet” and a keynote speaker at the upcoming Westchester Digital Summit. (And that’s the abbreviated version. Phew.)

Read on for Jeffrey’s thoughtful, direct and often humorous advice, and discover his knack for coining smart, pithy phrases. We call them “Hayzlett-isms.”

  1. As digital marketers, we wonder how to best spend our marketing dollar, and how to best fight for our audience’s attention in an increasingly crowded marketplace.  Do you have any general advice for effective digital marketing? 

Whether it’s broadcast, radio, direct mail or digital—if it sucks offline, it sucks online. You have to make your message relevant to the right audience with the right timing. If it’s not, you tend to get ignored whether you’re online or offline. Just because it is digital doesn’t meant the principles of marketing don’t apply. They apply more than ever.

  1. Do you believe that every company needs to be active on social media? 

You only need to be active on social media if you want to do business and stay in touch with your customers, because that’s where your customers are. There’s an old comedian, the late Sam Kinison, who used to say, “Go to where the food is.” He was talking about starving people who lived in the desert. He’d say, “You live in the dessert – move to where the food is.” That’s what businesses need to do. Social media is part of everyday business these days. It’s just the nature of the game. You get into the game or prepare to lose it.

  1. How should companies approach emerging platforms such as Snapchat?

Check it out and see if it’s right for you and right for your customers. Not every business is going to be on Snapchat. I’m not on Snapchat, because it’s not the place for my customers. You are not going to find a lot of B2B businesses there. Here’s the rule: If your customers aren’t there, don’t go there. If your customers are there, get there and get there as big as you can.

  1. What is the purpose of content marketing and is it a marketing must? 

Content marketing forms a deeper bond with your customer or prospect. It is a really cool way to differentiate yourself, and it allows you to tell stories. I don’t care who you are, we all like a good story.

People are always looking for the right information at the right time, so content marketing is exactly that. Nobody wants to have information thrown up at them. Nobody wants to be shouted at. People want to be educated. For example, I’ve had a number of speakers and authors ask me how I do my podcasts. Later today, I’m going to use my iPhone to record myself showing the equipment I use. Now that’s relevant to these folks who want to do their own podcasts. It’s highly valuable. But it doesn’t mean crap to an 18-year-old with no interest in podcasts. It has to be relevant to your audience.

  1. Any predictions for the future of marketing? 

Here’s my big prediction: Marketing will change. Every time we think we have it narrowed down to “this is the answer,” it changes! That is the nature of marketing. It is also going to get more personalized, but more restrictive. People will have tools, permissions-based systems that they use personally, that are actually better than some of the tools we use professionally. We are going to have to be constantly on our toes.

The other thing is that the business of marketing is going to get more like business. There will be less of the touchy-feely stuff. That’s a good thing.

  1. What’s the future of mobile advertising?

We are talking about the most personal device that’s ever been invented in the history of the world. It used to be that you identified with your house or car, now it is really, truly your phone. You know where your phone is more than you know where your children are. If you doubt that, go to the mall, lose your children and your phone at the same time and see which you go looking for first. If you are honest, it is usually your phone. We have a chance as marketers to engage one-on-one with people who want to be engaged with. My advice to marketers: don’t screw it up.

  1. How big a role will wearables play in our future?

They will be huge. If you think we are in data overload now, wait till the wearables start popping up everywhere. The amount of information that you are going to be able to have at your fingertips for your personal use or for marketing purposes is astronomical by more zeros than you can count. The key is whether you use that data and then how you use it.

  1. You’re a busy guy.  We’d be remiss not to ask for your best time management/productivity tips.  How do you balance it all?   

It is tough. I am a good delegator, although I should be better. I have people who are responsible for certain things, and I try to let them do their jobs. I organize my life so that all I have to do is hit the mark. That’s kind of a saying inside the company. My job is to hit that mark and be who I am supposed to be. Everybody else’s job is to make sure I hit that mark. If we do that, that’s pretty good.

I also use a lot of apps. I try never to keep more than 10 emails in my inbox at any given time. My best app of all is Linda Maschino. It is very expensive but well worth it. (Linda is Jeff’s assistant. She is not available for download.)

  1. As managers, how can we best identify and nurture potential future leaders?    

I create tension. I think tension drives the best in people, so competition, for example. I am constantly looking to keep people in a state of tension, whether light or heavy. Then you see who rises to the top. Cream always rises to the top.

Like what you learned? Join us on May 14, where Jeffrey will be teaching business leaders how to overcome common challenges to drive true change. Register Now! 

JR Lisk
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Jacqueline Lisk