If there's one thing I learned from Cinderella, it's not to trust talking rodents. 

If I had to chose another lesson it would be this: items are best utilized for their natural context.

If the shoe doesn't fit, forcing your way into it is both painful and useless. 

Contextual relevancy (the correct foot) is essential to obtaining the desired value (the prince) out of content (the shoe). 

We would do well to remember this.

A 90 minute movie may be enjoyable from the couch on a big screen tv, but it would be unwatchable when viewed a cell phone.  While a 30 second YouTube clip looks great on my cellphone, it is unwatchable on my TV.  Context drives the content experience.

Or as Valeria Maltoni said  "content works best within context".  I couldn't agree more.

And the implications are many.

Marketing Implications

The Current Dynamic: Content generators (newspapers) give the nod to feed aggregator users (Google Reader regulars), by creating RSS feeds.  These feeds feature the newspaper's existent text content and do not require additional formatting or redesign.  This content works reasonably well in the aggregate environment.

However, even as an avid feed aggregate user, I still prefer to read lengthy articles in their native environments.  There is a tangibly real value in reading content together with the pictures, formatting, sidebars and color schemes it was intended to be viewed within.

The Challenge:  Many brands are trying to live in the context of an aggregate experience (widgets in social pages, Google Reader, podcasts, etc.) by creating mini-microsites in the form of widgets and long form commercials in the form of podcasts.  A magazine ad would perform poorly on television. 

New Channel > New Experience > New Marketing.

The Solution: It's time that marketers began thinking about the aggregate user and the flaws of the strip-and-syndicate model.  We need to be building distributed utility that fits the need of the user within the context of the user, rather than the models that suit the brand low hanging fruit (text).  We need to think strategically within user and platform centric models, ultimately delivering unique utility that drives brand objectives.

It's time we started designing for success.

The Current Dynamic: RSS strips everything.  It strips the design, the context, the subsequent conversation.  RSS Readers strip much of the richness of the content in favor of the simplicity and ubiquity of pure text.

In a social media environment, RSS often strips even the social out of social media.

The conversational aspect of blogs as I see it, lives in three places -

1. blog to blog conversations within the blog posts themselves,
2. conversations living within the comments sections on blogs, and
3. conversations (many of them public) taking place on external social media channels, such as Twitter. 

Read a blog in an RSS reader and you're only getting 1/3 the social capability of the channel.

The Next Steps: 

We can and will learn to aggregate and syndicate well.  But a new format is needed.

• Wouldn't it be great is Google Reader could adjust the tonality and feel of their reader based on the piece of content being viewed?

• Wouldn't it be fantastic if an aggregator could adjust the UI to the nature of the content (text, video, audio) rather than vice versa?

• Wouldn't it be neat if Google Reader could display a few dynamic widgets on the page?

• one containing related posts from across the blogosphere
• another could contain comments and discussion threads in the blog comments together with the ability to contribute within the reader interface
• a third would contain related media from across the internet - Twitter, traditional digital media, YouTube videos, etc.

Key Takeaway: Syndicated media need not lack for context.  However, without context, media is often stripped of it's richness and ultimately, value. 

By all means, syndicate and aggregate, but do so with caution.

Windows Media Player is a mess.  It's slow, doesn't natively bundle a robust codec support base and ties into a less-than-popular DRM scheme.  It looks like a dieing product.  But I believe that Microsoft may be sitting on an untapped goldmine.

Over the past couple years Microsoft has continued to invest in their desktop media player and DRM (beyond the media suite coupled with Vista).  Microsoft has fully revamped the UI and redesigned overall experience, delivering a far better looking player. But the success of their player is going to hinder on the value it delivers, not the wrapper it presents.  A shiny nickel will always be worth less than a crumpled dollar bill.

But there is hope for Microsoft in this world.  Microsoft has one thing that Apple, iTunes and the popular VLC Media Player don't have - advertising.  Wow, that sounded evil.  Let me explain.

Microsoft has:

• an incredibly powerful network of users and strong desktop penetration,
• a robust network of content owners (they are a Hulu syndication partner)
• and their key differentiation: advertisers. 

When properly and strategically leveraged, Microsoft is in the unique position to offer ad-supported downloadable video.  I'm not talking about NBC Direct's poor excuse for ad supported downloadable video.  I'm talking about a seamless experience.  I'm talking about leapfrogging iTunes in their own field.

Microsoft is the best suited company to deliver this eventual reality.

Microsoft's desktop player should become everything that Joost could have been, had Joost had access to first-run mainstream network content.  Microsoft should be providing downloadable, portable (to Windows DRM capable devices) premium ad supported content. 

This would give the Windows Media offering an amazingly unique value prop, one that nobody else could deliver.  Google, AOL and Yahoo! don't have the desktop penetrations that Microsoft has.  Apple doesn't have the advertiser relationships.  And users don't have a free and legal way to gain access to portable content.

Everyone wins.

Staples has a catchy slogan - That was easy. If they hadn't promised an "easy" transaction, I might not have been quite so irked at my experience.  They made a commitment, and they failed.  And unfortunately I don't know that anyone from Staples is even reading this post, so they may never know just why their business is performing the way it is.

As many of you know, I'm in the market for a new computer. 

While some have suggested that I just go Mac, I took the advice of John@Dell and visited Staples to sample some of the Dell products on display.  However, I couldn't find a single Dell computer in the entire store that was in working order.  Was that "Easy"?

Nearly every computer on display was inoperable.  Many were either 'off' or frozen in an update mode.  For those units that were operational, nearly all the touchpads  on the display units were slow or unresponsive.  Every single laptop was physically damaged, and many were missing keys or more (ex - an XPS was missing the front "bumper").  When I asked a sales person for assistance, he was glad to be of assistance, but he didn't know anything about computers - other than that Staples offered an in-store repair warranty from a team of trained and certified technicians.  When I asked about the units on display, he said that they couldn't be fixed.  Yet just 3 minutes later, he tried to sell me on their in-store repair plan.  It was just hillarious.  They can't fix their own computers, but they want me to fork over a few hundred dollars so they can fix mine.  Was that "Easy"?

When I asked about upgrading the RAM, he referred me to their website.  When I asked about upgrading the hard drive in the unit to a larger hard drive they had on sale, he didn't know which hard drives were on sale, nor did he know "what we have" in the store.  Forget bait-and-switch, this was just bad business.  When I asked about DDR2 and DDR3 RAM, he shrugged, then left to assist another customer.  Was that "Easy"? 

When trying to purchase a pair of 15 dollar skullcandy earbud headphones (FYI - the BEST noise canceling budget earbuds at an amazing price point), I needed to wait for a sales representative to unlock the case.  Then, after unlocking the case, he wouldn't give me the headphones.  Rather, he left them behind the counter at Customer Service for pickup after purchase.  So I went to checkout counters to purchase the headphones.  However, as I didn't have the item (and the sales rep didn't give me a payment slip), they couldn't ring me up at checkout.  So I had to go back to Customer Service to purchase this item separately from any other items I was purchasing.  Was that "Easy"?

Which leaves me wondering, what IS easy at Staples?

• The long lines at the copy and print department?
• Their semi-knowledgeable sales staff?
• Their great location and parking (which they actually have)?
• Their seemingly under-qualified tech support?

Which begs the question - are Dell and HP doing themselves a disservice by allowing Staples to display their merchandise?

Four and a half years ago I bought a cutting edge HP laptop - the ze5470us - for about $1,600.  This was a serious investment for me as a college student.  It had the newest wireless format (802.11g), a DVD burner (unheard of at the time), a massive 80gb hard drive, a blistering 512mb of RAM and a zippy Pentium 4 running at 2.66ghz.  I was in geek heaven.

Then it started overheating.  Constantly.  It shut off at random.  It crashed regularly.  It turned most of my (at the time expensive) DVD-Rs into coasters.  The screen dimmed noticeably within just a few months.  And the problems got worse over time.  It wouldn't boot properly.  It wouldn't play DVDs.  The DVDs it did play had no audio.  And the battery life went from hours to minutes in less than a year of usage. 

I called customer support.  Regularly.  I spent tens of hours on the phone with customer support.  They lied to me.  They insulted me.  They even hung up on me.  But I was stuck in my service contract.  And I had invested to much in the unit to give up on it.  Eventually, we arranged for what would be the first of many reformats and eventual mailings to the HP service center.  And the laptop finally seemed to be fixed and working properly.  At least for a few weeks.

Having invested heavily in this unit, I needed it to last at least a couple more years, so I opted to renew my service contract.  However, HP failed to properly process my renewal.  This took about 6 weeks to fix.  In the meantime my original service contract expired.  And my laptop started overheating again.  And again.  And again.  And now they refused to fix it, as it had been out of warranty for a few weeks.  After much debate and another six or seven hours (in total) on the phone, they managed to resolve the issue and I had my warranty.

So I spent another year on phone with service representative who didn't speak English as a first language, only to return the laptop for yet another visit to the service center.  It was returned with no noticeable improvements.  I sent it back.  They returned the "fixed" unit with red stickers all over the case, the login name had been changed to "test", and little else was done.

In the meantime, my extended service contract expired.  And the laptop was still overheating regularly.  Now that I was out of contract, there was nothing that I could do.  I was a student.  I needed this unit to work.  I was stuck.

So I opened up the unit and dusted off the fans.  I purchased a pair of external laptop fans and left them running on high at all times.  I invested $100 in a RAM upgrade (to 1gb).  I purchased an external wireless card from Netgear for $30.  And the laptop finally worked as advertised.

And the laptop still works remarkably well today.  I still use this laptop as my primary home computer.  It handles web surfing, email, chat, iTunes, Hulu, VeohTV, word processing, and even light video encoding for my laptop fairly well.  Sure, Microsoft Office 2007 doesn't run smoothly, but after downgrading to Office 2003, all is well.

So now I'm once again in the market for a new computer.  HP claims to have improved their customer service.  Dell is clearly working hard to improve their service as well (PLEASE SEE UPDATE BELOW), though friends and relatives still seem to be running into a few too many service issues for my comfort.  Additionally, unlike my HP, most Dell home-user oriented laptops seem to be poorly made and feature an  annoying, creaky, cheap plastic casing.  Apple and Sony are both overpriced, and Toshiba, eMachines and friends seem to have even worse customer service than HP.

So what should I do? 

• Should I look at the current stability of my HP laptop after my own enhancements or the years of horrible service?
• Should I consider Dell, despite the annoying creaky plastic and poor design of many of their more competitively priced units?
• Or should I stick it out as long as possible with my current, more dated machine, and wait for the perfect sale on a "good enough" unit?

UPDATE: Just minutes after publishing this post I was contacted both in the comments below AND on Twitter by Dell.  Assuming I can identify the right machine and design (no creaky plastic), I believe that Dell's commitment to service will heavily influence my decision. 

Interactive/clickable video sounds great... in theory.

Advertisers dream of the day when their products will clickable in-stream.  As a user, I would enjoy the ability to purchase background music or a film soundtracks from within the video viewing experience.

As an experience designer, how would you layer in this interaction?  How would you notify consumers of a clickable asset without intruding on the user experience?  When does notification become interruption?  When does interruption become invasive?

I don't have an answer, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Here are a few examples of what I've seen to date:

• Permission.tv puts floating target beacons over the clickable elements within a video.

• Back Channel Media will soon be testing call-to-action icons on digital TV.

• Overlay.tv (kudos to Scott for sharing) allows users to turn on and off calls to action (floating targets).

• Joost inserts semi-relevant widget overlays over video.

• HoneyShed (a client) puts calls to action for the "clickable" items on a sidebar.

Which is the best solution?  I really don't know.  But I have a feeling that we are not yet where we're going to be.

When I was newly married, a good friend bought me a book on relationships.  This therapist stressed over and over again : relationships are only as strong as the party who values them least. If Joe puts 10 out of 10 value points into his relationship with Jane, while Jane only invests in 7 out of 10, the Joe/Jane relationship is only 7 points strong.

If brands want to develop perceived value, affinity and/or relationships with their target customers, wouldn't the same relationship rules and dynamics apply equally to courtship, dating and marketing?

If I were a single guy courting a girl who only had a 3-5 (out of 10) interest in me, I would do more than open the door for her when she walks into Starbucks, I would try to impress her.  I would put on the right clothes, shave, shower and show up with flowers.  Similarly, if a brand wants impress a customer, they have to do more than open the door for them by giving out coupons.  Brands have to woo customers into more than transactions.  Brands have to exercise the strategies of courtship and dating towards relationship building.

Sounds simple right?  But most brands aren't doing this! 

Here's what most brands do: they get lazy.  Consider the situation below:

I am interested in a particular girl, but I don't have the time to open the door for her, so I purchase a door-stop, write my name and number on it, and position it under the door of my favorite hangout.  Now the door is always open for her to enter!

And yet she rarely comes by, and when she does stop by, she never really considers the doorstop, despite the sign I hang on the door directing her to look at the doorstop.  Despite years of interaction, a deep and lasting relationship is never developed.

Bringing this back to social media/relationship marketing, brands need to do more than to serve as doorstops to relevant experiences.  They have to be the experiences.  They have to woo their targets, creating meaningful and lasting relationships.  There are very few customers that care more about brands than brands care about themselves (sports is a rare exception).   Brands have to create relationship equity, driving value and interest in a brand/customer relationship.

Key Takeaway: If you want your customers to care about you, to value your brand, to have a relationship with your brand, then you have to do more than open the door.  You have to woo them.  You have to foster relationship equity.

Note: for more on this thread check out my article in tomorrow's issue of Personal Branding Mag.  Get a free sample here!

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Insightful people are not influentials.    Knowledgeable people are not influentials.    Smart people are not influentials.

Key Takeaway: Influence is not defined by one's credentials, but by the depth of the avenue of influence a given party places in this subject's hands.

In Plain English: the level of influence a "thought leader" has on his/her audience is not defined by his/her credentials or even the quality of his/her perspective, but by the level of credence and attention this "thought leader" has garnered against this audience.

Example: Joe Blogger may be brilliant.  But the level of influence he has on me is directly proportionate to the amount of attention and credence I put in his perspective. 

Food For Thought: With all the talk about the role of influentials in community, isn't it time we reconsidered the role of individual-defined influence filtering?  Just because I read TechCrunch or may be a member of the Mashable or NewTeeVee communities, does that inherently imply that my personal influence filter is similar or even related to others in the community?

I recently heard a great story from my friend's dad.  Thought I would share.

50 years ago, it was unheard of for a good Jewish mother to order in take-out for the holidays. 

About 10 years later, as mothers began to go to work, they began to "outsource" many of the side dishes for large holiday gatherings.  Being the savvy businessmen that they were, the local kosher caterers and delicatessens soon realized that no matter how high they drove up their prices before the holidays, mothers would still purchase their food for their families.

At the time, my friend's father was managing a take out place.  In a Godin-esque move, he decided not to raise his prices, and to hang a sign in the window stating that "We do not raise our prices for the holidays".  While his boss fumed at his audacity, business boomed.

Key Takeaway: In a crowded market, this teenager realized that the key to marketing in a uniform market is not product innovation, but offering differentiation. 

Think about the home computer market.  There are a billion and one companies offering affordable home PCs.  I myself am perpetually in the market. I've noticed a few trends.  Most notably, everyone other than Apple, is remarkably similar to everyone else (other than Apple).  It's a murky market, with a fat middle and little else to talk about (for most users).

• Dell tries to be everyman's computer.  While they were once the cost leader, they are now positioned as the brand-name in hom computers, leveraging ease of use and customer service as their key differentiators.  At the same time, Dell's attempts at going cutting edge with their XPS lineup are muddying their brand waters. 
  
  • Competitive Stance: Dell's multiplicitous and confused brand messaging have left them with a single differentiation point: customer service.
• HP and Compaq are recognizable brands offering best-of-the-middle products at a competitive price point.  However, their anything other than robust customer service experience may well position them as an also-ran in an increasingly competitive home PC market.
  • Competitive Stance: HP/Compaq is leading the bland middle of a thick, undifferentiated and confusing market.
• Sony is all about the flash and style of computing.  Their units look great, are generally over priced as compared to the competition, run well, and most importantly look great.
  
  • Competitive Stance: Sony's products look great, perform well and are priced for a very fashion conscious consumer.  Sony is about style.
• Acer is the semi-recognizable brand with fantastic components and leading specs at ridiculously low prices.  Never mind that their customer support is horrible or that their PCs are poorly made (plastic casing overheats just as much as HP units).
  • Competitive Stance: One word, price.  Solid specs, amazing prices, and little else to say.
• Toshiba is a puzzle to many.  This is a name consumers know from other electronics, but not one they necessarily associate with PCs.
  • Competitive Stance: They make computer's too?  It would be nice to see Toshiba step-it-up with some eye popping designs.

Needless to say, the home PC market is a murky mess.

This is a market begging for a differentiator.  This is why the press loves Apple.  They are the anti-PC. 

So what would you do if you were working at any other PC company? 
How would you differentiate your offering? 
How would you make your brand sustainably unique?