A Source Of Inspiration

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After having been scouted byBlogger’s Choice Awards for Best Marketing Blog, i’ve now been tagged by “The Marketer” and others, as part of the honorable mention list at Power 150, a global ranking of top English-language Marketing Blogs.

Another portuguese author is also there, the ever inspiring planner Sergio Santos of The Hidden Persuader, but way above me at #64. Hey, i’ve been around for less than a year, so i guess i’m doing fine for a rookie, don’t you think so? At least it’s been a hell of a ride so far, joining Feedurner’s Marketing and Advertising Network, becoming part of crew at Prt.sc, exchanging knowledge with peers and standing on the shoulder of some giants.

Having started more focused on digital marketing, this blog has gradually been expanding to broader themes, including the more mainstream “conversational marketing”, with some insights on traditional advertising and with special attention to what i like to call future marketing.

With online advertising playing an important role last year (specially the big deals by MS and Google), more eyes have been wondering around here. Except for those folks that keep bringing thousands of hits when searching for the “Heroes Soundtrack”. Well, no problem, i guess search engines are building their own long tail at this blog.

Back to the honorable mentions, Gordon Whitehead spreads some link love amongst the bloggers below #150. I’ve tried to do a bit more than that, and actually visited every single one of them (but skimming through the overcrowded PR ones), so here are my own honorable mentions:

• One of my favourite topics at Ageless Marketing
• If i was a agency planner, i would be reading this one
• but I’m more like David, with a little more restraining speaking about client work.
• Just in case any crisis comes along
• Novell’s CMO is blogging
• Poor template. Never mind. Great content
• A regular at my feed reader: Ogilivy PR
• Tasty marketing thoughts at eSoup
• Fine writing at BrandTarot
• Leo Burnett, blogging from Toronto
• Brand storms from the corporate blog of Durbin Media Group
• Well, that’s a fresh view:theclientsideblog.com
• Connecting the dots at Digital Influence Mapping
• Taking notes at the marketing community
• more hot-wiring ideas with mindblob
• Juicy posts at Influence 2.0
• Word-Of-Mouth turns academic with Walter Carl
• The movie of marketing or the marketing of movies?
• More free ebooks, Chip! (pardonthedisruption.com)
• More goodies from Canada
• More conversation
• Bryan know stuff
• Get your hands on these email marketing tips
• if i hadn’t a blog, i would be writing for you guys (specially with such a similar tag line)
• Ernie Schenck, calling advertising
• Adverlicio.us: a longtime favorite Online Advertising collection

I questioned Todd why some blogs sponsored by large media companies are included, and i have to agree with him when he says “every blog should be listed no matter who they’re sponsored by because all blogs benefit the reader”. But the real problem with this particular list is that it just ruined my feed reader, with a lot more blogs added and fewer sleeping hours.

So now I really have to THANK YOU, dear readers, for pushing me to keep writing and inspiring for almost one year. If this blog reaches the top 150 next year, then it’s because we both had fun at this humble place.

So don’t forget to visit the coolest blog from the list!
(Hey, sometimes we need to indulge ourselves a bit, right?)

This is an unusual football post, but as a huge fan of SL Benfica it’s my main source of inspiration for today: Freddy Adu is heading to Benfica !

© Associated Press

Besides being a rising star that luckily will be traded with profit in 2-3 years, he’s also a cashcow in merchandising, with his Benfica jersey representing good sales in the States (he’s captain of US National Team).
Last year Kikin fonseca was the cover for Fifa07 Soccer game, and this year another high profile american player is signing. For a global brand such as Benfica, it’s a great move, and if football (soccer) reaches more audience/viewers in the US in the next years, it will be nice to know that my club has built such a big brand awareness.

Actually, this post might not be totally off-topic since Freddy is kind of an Internet phenomenon, with his YouTube videos with more than half-million views and having his own website.

I don’t know if it was the above video that convinced the team to sign him off, but it surely had importance.

Which brings me to some final questions: how do scouts and sports teams use the Internet? Could YouTube replace global scouts? Should player agents invest heavily on Internet PR?

If you have interesting thoughts or examples regarding the use of Internet on sports PR, please drop a line in the comments.

Or the changing face of politics at youtube.com/debate.

More on CNN.

This is not a dark humor take on Britain. This morning friends and feeds played a bit of catch up with me, so let me share these ones:

• Adopt the Sky: A petition for cleaner air.
• She says: Inviting girls to join the creative party. Via Andre (sidenote: see, it’s not only the geeks that are short on girls)
• Take away shows: Videocasting meets urban concerts.
• New NBC series: Bionic woman video.
• Ryan McGiness: the father of skater-like design
• Dell’s new color laptop with the fine soundtrack by The Flaming Lips
• 
  Last, but the most interesting one, Lisbon art gallery Lx2.0,hosts ‘Morning of the Mongoloids’, a work by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, following the previous installation by Santiago Ortiz. Web design by Ana.

Media Molecule are a brand new game studio (new as in since the beginning of 2006) from UK that joined forces with Sony to produce Little Big Planet, a recently announced game for Playstation3. The title has taken the big studios by surprise, proving that if innovation and creativity is nurtured (check their lab), great products come along.

(Alex Evans presenting the title)

(longer video demo at GDC, San Francisco)

With a website that reminds me the works by Saul Bass, with a touch of Friz Freleng, it was probably developed by Rexbox, that previously worked on Rag Doll Kung Fu the cult game were the founders came from.

I’m not quite sure if the game is a result or an answer to web 2.0, but it surely represents a in-your-face slam dunk at Second Life, that seems to be loosing the enfatuation. The game’s juicy features have several of the best things of today’s web:

• players can create their own character: Second Life, Gizmoz or user generated content done right
• customize your material: social networking profile “pimping”
• add your own items: hmm, widgets maybe ??
• ability to create your own detailed 3d worlds: think iGoogle
• upload them to the playstation network: social media, youtube culture
• invite others to play in you environments: communities, social networks again

Oh, on top of all that it’s educational, with lovely characters and seems to have a hell of a physic engine. Now they only need to add some RSS feeds so i can check my friends latests updates and i’m all set to Gaming 3.0.

(as if we needed the buzzword. Gaming is all about the ride)

Today’s marketers need to integrate crowdsourcing, co-creation and collaboration as part of their vocabulary, as Drew McLellan, Gavin Heaton and fellow co-authors seem to do, successfully releasing their book “The Age of The Conversation” yesterday, a 3 month collaboration between 100 bloggers.

The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication. And in the spirit of conversation, you can follow-up and extend your interest in the topics covered in the book at the Age of Conversation blog — www.ageofconversation.com.

With articles by personal favourites such as Greg Verdino, Cord Silverstein, David Polinchock, Richard Huntington, Tom Fishburne, Gareth Kay or Roger from Creative Think, the book has also some interesting contributions such as a google map with all the authors or the cover by the ever inspiring David Armano.

Over 100 of the world’s leading marketers contributed with a chapter, with part of the profits going to a children’s charity fund. As i’m inclined to save some trees (and it’s cheaper), i’ll get myself an electronic version at lulu.com/ageofconversation.

It’s not as big as Wikipedia, but it’s a damn fine example of “architecture of participation“.

The cover by Katie Melua

The original by Robert Smith