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Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights Blog and Podcast - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image

Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Blog is marketing and communications insights from the edge. If blogs, podcasts, viral marketing, consumer generated content, search engine marketing and anything related to digital marketing or interactive marketing are on your radar, this Montreal based business blog is for you. Mitch Joel will unravel the complex world of new marketing and social media with the perspective of a digital marketing agency based in Canada. The Six Pixels Of Separation podcast is also here. Join the digital marketing conversation. Take part in the new marketing discussion. Stay tuned to see how this interactive agency in Canada is making a digital difference. While marketers still struggle to understand online marketing, an entirely new generation of marketing opportunities is already taking place and they're being created by your customers. The Twist Image blog is here for all of your digital marketing adventures.

Why Business Needs To Stop Worrying And Love WikipediaToday

There is a huge disconnect when it comes to understanding Wikipedia.

My nephew is in elementary school. In case you have been wondering, elementary school does not look anything like the school you went to when you were growing up. Kids are not only using computers to write up reports, they are using the computers to create videos instead of written reports.

Many technologists argue that this is the first time in history in which the younger generation is showing the older generation how to do things - before the mass penetration of technology, it was always the other way around.

Let's be honest, most 12-year-olds are the system administrators of our household computers. At the very least, they are the ones who are showing us how to download music, and how to sync that over to your iPod. While they go to school, we get schooled by them in the ways of the technological world and how things connect.

I asked my nephew if he ever uses Wikipedia for research on his school projects - to which he admitted that he does, but that the teachers do not encourage its use because the content is not "trustworthy."

When people say that Wikipedia is not trustworthy, it reminds me of the same folks who still think they can get a computer virus from a website that has Flash animation on it. It's simply not true. It's about time to understand the power of Wikipedia and what i

Deliver ValueYesterday

What may seem like value to you may well be spam to the person you're sending it to. This is the curse of traditional companies fumbling their way through the social channels.

Marketing and Communications professionals have been trained to listen to what a client wants, figure out a smart, clever and/or impacting way to deliver that message and then go forward, create the campaign and do everything within their power to get that message out there. When you apply this as the overarching strategic imperative, we are all missing one core point: no matter how targeted that messaging is, it's still going to hit a bunch of people who really don't care all that much about it.

Even the best of the best in advertising and communications don't get 50% success rates on any of their campaigns (targeted or mass). This means that the majority of the people you are targeting are simply not all that interested in what you have to say. 

The problem with that is Marketers don't think they may need to do less, they think the opposite. They will look at failed campaigns and think they need to target more people the next time to get a better result. Just today I got a press release from a company that should definitely know better. The message was not targeted, in fact if they even took a quick glance at this Blog they would know that it doesn't cover the industry of their client, and I will not be at their upcoming conferen

The Naked TruthJanuary 6

"One in five teen girls (22%), nearly as many teen boys (18%) and one-third (33%) of young adults say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude photographic or video images of themselves."

That was the scary and raw research delivered by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com in a study entitled, Sex & Tech. You can expect this news to makes its way through the regular mass media channels as a call to arms on the dangers of the online channels, privacy, mobile devices, the Internet and the new reality that younger people are more connected than ever and may not understand the long term implications of being able to publish anything at anytime to one another (and the world).

If we move beyond the images and videos, the numbers get just as raw and unnerving. Here's what was reported today on Marketing Charts for the news item titled, One in Five Teens Sends Sexually Explicit Images:

"On the receiving end of the messages, 48% of teens and 64% of young adults (56% total) say they have gott

There Is A Cost To FreeJanuary 5

Whether you are creating any form of content online (text, audio, images or video) or are simply consuming it, there is a huge cost to all of this free goodness.

On December 23rd, 2008 I posted a Blog entry titled, Breaking News On The Internet, where the question came up:

"Who is going to pay for all of this content that we are all now consuming online?"

That question could well be the crux of the problem most Marketers have with trying to figure out either how to monetize the Social Media channels or how to connect with consumers within it. The business behind most content has always been:

1. Advertising supported to make the content free.
2. Advertising supported to subsidize the cost.
3. Advertising-free with a cost.

Free without any form of advertising is only a business model if you can either sell and profit from the content (like a book) or if the media is being supported in another way (like government funding or private support). It's the way it has always been, so exploring new business models (see: Trading Analog Dollars For Digital Pennies) is a huge challenge for most companies. The other side of the coin is forgoing the idea of getting into these channels via advertising, and engaging in the concept of creating your own c

SPOS #137 - Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - +1 (206) 666-6056 - Podcasting All-Star DiscussionJanuary 4

Welcome to episode #137 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Podcasting is not dead. In fact, it can't be dead because it hasn't even developed its own two, full lungs yet. If you have had a hard time understanding what all of this audio and video content is and how it can be used in Marketing and Communications, this episode is exactly what you'll need. Actually, it's not really *my* Podcast at all. Joseph Jaffe, author of Life After The 30-Second Spot and Join The Conversation plus Blogger and Podcaster over at Jaffe Juice gathered a bunch of Podcasters to discuss the media channel. This is the conversation. Enjoy the conversation...

Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #137 - Host: Mitch Joel.

• Running time: 1:39.13.
• Audio comment line - please send in a comment and add your voice to the audio community: +1 206-666-6056.
• Please send in questions, comments, suggestions - mitch@twistimage.com.
• Hello from Beautiful Montreal.
• Subscribe over at