Cozi’s getting some big press these days.
Cozi is an oh-so-simple, but oh-so-happy-making family calendar done Web 2.0 style. It offers a family journal, lists, and reminder service and is a general keeper-and-organizer-of-family-details. Its user interface is a thing of pure beauty – and its ability to sync automatically with your calendar at work is simply brilliant. But, being able to call or text message to get my shopping list sent to my mobile phone – that’s music to our modern media ears!
Newspaper publisher, Gannett is feeling warm and cozi too. After launching a strategic partnership with Cozi in April to offer locally co-branded Cozies on three of its newspaper sites, Gannett has just announced a full-on investment as a minority stakeholder in Cozi.
Speculation is that Gannett will go modern by integrating Cozi into their newspapers’ Calendar listings. Since they also have a seat on the Cozi board in the deal, we’ll be seeing the Gannett Cozi modernness being promoted across Gannett’s print and online newspaper sites. Well, like this:
Two hundred forty year old Encyclopedia Brittanica is taking a big step by dipping their toe in the participative Web, otherwise known as “Web 2.0.” Starting this month they are inviting us to join in on a “collaboration” initiative among EB experts.
Now, before you go to thinking they have gone all wild and “Wikipedia” on us, not quite so. But it is a big step toward transparency about just who is behind the Britannica. EB is inviting their existing scholars and experts to participate in a new “community of scholars,” who will each have a profile where they can showcase all their work, including work outside of the Brittanica. EB will allow us regular folks to suggest changes to the experts’ work.
As a tip of the hat to readers (and a grand experiment in our eyes) they will allow readers to publish work in the commoners area, including articles, essays and multimedia presentations.
EB believes expert information is “collaborative, but not democratic” and that this approach will give everyone the best of both worlds: a more inclusive process while maintaining scholarly appeal.
Considering their age, we think the initiative is brilliant enough to award them a resoundingly modern rank of M+!
June is "Readers Going Mainstream" month over at This Old House. The name may indicate a bygone era comfort space, but the mag is going thoroughly modern and outside the comfort zone by temporarily renaming its June edition to "This Your House" signaling an issue entirely of content from its readers.
From One Room Wonders to Salvage, the issue is 100% about, by and from readers - they even voted on the magazine cover image.
Now, reader content in print magazines isn't 100% new - 8020 Publishing has brought us "you" magazines JPG and Everwhere on photography and travel, respectively, for a couple of years. 8020 believes magazines are great inspiration and the web has great content. A hybrid to warm our modern media hearts.
This Your House may be an experiment, but we suspect that for a TV-show-gone-print, reader content is will prove to be a high-value modern remodel.
Those aren’t call letters, it’s yet another take on moving radio from broadcast to a modern media. And with more than a billion java-enabled handsets sold last year, I’d say it’s a pretty smart move.
PM1 SMS, a service aimed at radio stations, turns handsets into marketing ma-chines.
Actually, I like it. It’s total modern media. It gives listeners new kinds of access to their music and moves advertising just a touch closer to where more of it should be - on-demand. But, more importantly, the revenue and purchasing models signal the move toward true mobile commerce and that advertising models are thinking modern while gaining mainstream traction.
 Listeners text a five-digit code to the radio station which triggers a plethora of expected choices - everything from artist information, wallpaper and alerts to downloading the ringtone, buying music on iTunes or grabbing concert tickets on the go. Of course there are the necessary polls, contest entry and feedback. But, listeners can also request certain radio content on-demand and use “text tags” to get advertiser information and special promotions (that would be Frame of Mind marketing) – and of course buy non-music products, all with their everywhere-I-go handset.
A key and unique feature is listeners set up an M-Wallet account with the radio station and purchases are charged against the credit card on file. Currently, almost all purchasing done via mobile phone (for U.S. audiences at least) is through mobile service provider. Let true m-commerce begin!
PM1 SMS differs from Nokia’s Visual Radio in that Visual Radio is primarily a “push” model which then allows some limited user response opportunities. PM1 SMS is listener-initiated, two-way, get-it-when—where-I-want-it radio.
Virgin Radio launch an SMS response service last year – so we’re not too surprised that Virgin Mobile is just one major customer signing on with PM1 SMS.
Good call!
BusinessWeek Online is reporting the imminent launch of Project Caravan which “calls for books to be delivered simultaneously in five formats -- hardcover, digital, audio, print-on-demand, and by chapter.” Six non-profit publishers are participating, however no doubt it is being eyed rather nervously by publishing giants everywhere.
 But some of them are way ahead. New York publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for one. Check out Pulse (the book). It is Ultra-Modern Media.
You can read the entire book at the website - serialized entries are posted at 6:00 a.m. and 3 p.m. (noon on weekends) from April 10 through November 6, 2006. Or, subscribe and get chapter “chunks” by email or RSS – and what’s modern cool is you can start your subscription from the beginning, even if you “come in late.” But wait! there’s more…
There's tag clouds, links to the most popular posts and tags; annotated lists of people, blogs, forums, publications, etc. for “structuring the wider conversation” going on around the globe about the topic. Comments for participation are enabled, of course, but readers can also add to the book’s resource and network areas.
This isn't a community site - there are no discusstion groups or forums at the site. This is a bonifide modern book.
Oh yeah, and you can view the table of contents and index and buy the print book there too.
Modern Media kudos to Pulse author Robert Frenay and FSG for their “networked book.”
Fashion is always a reflection of what is happening in society, and “technofashion” is very modern media. Fashion is keeping our modern media tools at hand, helping us incorporate it into our personal expression and self-extension. Yesterday it was our car or house – today it is our modern media.
 The iShirt integrates the iPod Shuffle right into the shirt via a magnetic clasp. This quintessential Podcast accessory keeps your ipod firmly attached even during vigorous activity. PodBrix, the maker, also offers limited edition iPod-related merchandise.
 Although we’ve featured phones and cases that are jewel-studded to fur trimmed, this waterproof iPod case by Otterbox takes iPod where it couldn’t go before - swimming, kayaking, or jet skiing. They’re serious about enabling “what I want, when I want it” media.
 And, Motorola is at it again, this time with Oakley, creating Bluetooth sunglasses, riding a fashion trend in “connected” clothing. The joint venture provides communications “anywhere and everywhere consumers want to be.” Watch for more fashion that is reflecting, incorporating and enabling modern media. More importantly, how can your product keep customers connected
Another nod to “my media,” General Motors puts an “iPod” jack into the consoles of their 2006 vehicles. Drivers can control the iPod through steering wheel controls and the track information is displayed on the vehicle’s sound system. BMW and Lexus have adapters in the glove compartment, but GM was the first to announce integration into the console. Considering the wildly popular iPod mini debuted in January 2004, this is a modern media miracle of swift adoption and integration.
Coming soon, mobile Wi-Fi so we can also download on the go!
From Me-Everything to the We Generation. The creation and sharing of multimedia is a hallmark of the “We Generation.” Here are just two new services, among the many cropping up, that let us be “we.” These are the modern media equivalents of the post office and Community Square on a global scale. They are simple and brilliant examples of connecting customers with each other.
Ourmedia.org offers free storage and bandwidth for video, audio, photos or text. Their mission: provide a place alongside big media to “gather, inform, entertain and astound each other.”
Dropload is an online place to drop off files and have them picked up at a later time by someone else (or yourself). Upload any type of file, up to 100MB each. Just specify the recipients and they receive an email with instructions for downloading. After 7 days, the files are deleted. As handy as UPS.
Social networks and services built around our digital self-expression - modern media on the rise. Modern marketing opportunity. Are you creating, contributing, enabling or participating in social networks?
 Speaking of social networks, “tribalware” is a new software category. And in the multimedia tribalware category is phling! Never be out of IM reach with phling! Send your camera photos, text – oh, and voice – to your instant message buddies while you are on the move via your mobile phone.
phling! also connects you to your PC at home so you can display or playback your files, also via your mobile phone.
This is Liquid Media, Online Oxygen*, and social networking all wrapped up into one modern media service. Communication power lies in the customer. Don’t underestimate this shift from mass channels to tribalware. This is where “frame of mind” marketing lives.
*Online Oxygen is a trademark of Trendwatching.com
 HomeSeer is offering an RFID Home Starter Kit. It is specifically designed to track the presence (or absence) of your personal property, but it can also notify you when the kids get home from school or when little ones wander near a pool. Or, how about if the trash cans aren’t outside on garbage day?
Controversy over “people tagging” aside, RFID tags are modern media and will play a valuable role in “liquid media.”
So, start brainstorming how you can use RFID to deliver truly useful products and services that allow your customers to pull information on demand.
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Cozi’s getting some big press these days.
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