#VideoCalls& #VideoChat Moves from Madison Ave to #WallStreet: Turn Up the Volume!!!

Because this blog has been around longer than many of what have become ubiquitous 'apps', whether social media-centric, website wonders, or communication tools, we've had the benefit of being prescient and predicting trends that would stick vs. the stuff that would slide down the wall.

Maybe its because this blogger has always aspired to be a Hollywood film producer, but anyone that's visited this blog more than 2x over the past 7 years will know that we've had a particular bent towards anything/everything that exploits (monetizes) video. After all, from an eyeball-grabbing, wallet-fetching perspective, "it" is almost always  about sight, sound and motion.

Years ago, we looked at the financial metrics of video chat businesses that dominated the Web-based, adult-entertainment silo. We predicted the same technology would be embraced by a broad spectrum of mainstream industries.

Even if we thought many industries would move faster than they actually have, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the fact is, more than 90% of human beans are followers that wait for others to 'prove' a concept, establish a trend and move ahead of the pack.
All of that said, and as profiled by this past Sunday's NYT, video chats on mobile devices are now the "it" app, teleconferencing via Skype has become not only a norm, but a revenue-producer for a wide range of professional service providers (other than adult entertainers!).

Even the financial services and securities industry is finally getting it! These are the silos that have traditionally (or notoriously) eschewed any form of communication that provides any kind of transparency, could be easily misinterpreted, or might show a face of the company other than a professional model hired to be a spokesperson or talking head in a TV commercial.

The head blogger here has advocated installing live-cam video on major Wall Street trading floors for years, so as to allow institutional customers to see (if not hear) the action taking place. Its not a theory that this approach would create an infotaining (even if only ephemeral) enhanced connection with said institutional customers. 

Lo and Behold..Breaking News...The US Securities & Exchange Commission (those funny arbiters of what's right and not right, and who is allowed to say or see) has issued a no-action letter to a group that wants to broadcast "investor roadshows" over the internet. [Roadshows are the institutional investor presentations that have traditionally taken place behind closed doors, followed by uber luxe snacks served to help whet the appetite for those managers to make 8-figure investments].

According to latest news, Roadshow Broadcast LLC can now transmit those live (and canned) shows over the Net without having to register as a broker/dealer.   In separate news, CNBC is purportedly plotting out a new reality show that will otherwise facilitate pretty much the same thing. This blogger won't say whether he's been asked to exec produce for CNBC, but would be happy to entertain the offer!

#NYTimes Trashes Twitter (Touche!); Questions Merits of Social Media

Kudos to Bill Keller, NYT's Executive Editor, for his witty perspective on the merits of social media, and the [negative] ramifications of relying on abbreviated discourse. At least that's the way this reader read it.

Click on the title link to read Bill's musings.

#SocialMedia for Syncophants; Making #Tupperware #Titillating

While sitting at the Gramercy Hotel Bar with LA's entertainment lawyer/personal manager/agent extraordinaire Michael Wallach and author of best-selling "How To Get Arrested",
thanks to Verizon, we found ourselves drinking less and fondling our mobile devices more.

Needless to say, the barkeep was non-too-happy. Instead of our socializing with the gaggle of young, aspiring actresses who dropped by to rub shoulders (if not more) with "this generation's Jerry Weintraub"  after they heard about his NYC visit via FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and/or 4Square, we found ourselves busy sucking down bandwidth and re-charging the batteries of our swanky new cell phones to better carouse the web. What were we thinking??

Since I wasn't imbibing and taking in the scenery, here's what I was thinking:  Social networks, in and of themselves, have value, but there is more value by linking them to each other. Miraculously, this exact observation was made in  today's NYT by Dell Computer's Chief Marketing Officer Andy Lack. I don't know Andy, and I don't know if he knows of me, but given his creds and his title, all I can say is that great minds think alike.

To my clients (and others) that I've counseled on the topic of best practices for social media, the simple streamlined steps of simultaneously updating/posting to your various social networks is easy to do, and based on the turn out to the Gramercy Hotel Bar, it works!

Lest I forget to remind all of you corporate marcom "gurus" that are still talking, but not yet doing the social media "salsa", even staid Tupperware is joining the dance party. See the profile in today's advertising section of the NYT.

Great ideas are worth nothing unless you execute on them.