More Good Media Ideas

You likely heard the news earlier this week, that Apple announced a new streaming service called Apple Music. From everything we've read, it seems to be a revamping of the iTunes Radio service they announced a couple of years ago, but now it does much more and integrates the attributes of Beats music, the streaming service Apple acquired last year. The subscription-based service builds off what many of the competitors already do. It's a $10/month on-demand music service, but with a 3 month trial for users when it launches later this month. It seems Apple though is trying to allure subscribers through exclusive features like curated playlists by artists, a worldwide "always on" radio station called Beats1, and accessibility to exclusive artist content like photos and videos through a feature called Connect.

We are always looking for innovative new ways to get the brands we work with out in front of new prospects. One arena that has grown a ton in recent years is the universe of online music streaming through apps and websites like Pandora and Spotify. This world has blown up as of late, with over 100 different services ranging from free to $10, ad supported or not. This article from Time gives a great overview of the top 10 - based on brand awareness - and the differences in their user and song databases and other information.

 A couple of months back, I wrote some tips on how to make meetings run much more smoothly and increase productivity. Another reality of the advertising - and business - world is the prevalence of conference calls, and they can be just as painful if not done right. So below are a few tips on how to handle these necessary evils, and help you enjoy your conference calls as much as the people in this stock photo.

The condundrum of mobile advertising plagues us media folks every day. We all read the studies about how much mobile and tablet usage is up and only growing. But we also know all the realities of the limitation of advertising within this medium. As consumers we experience these everyday: ad intrusion, poor user experience, accidentally clicking on a banner or interstitial on the already small screen that takes us away from our article or app. And then on the advertising side there are similar pit-falls: small screen space to communicate your brand message, low click-through rates, limited functionality, invading your potential customer's very personal mobile device space, etc. And all of this on a virtual mini-computer that fits in your pocket - seems it would be easier to figure out how to advertise well in this space!