Look out! America’s most popular apps will reshape media! And… Was media’s “crisis of proliferation” predicted…back in 1976? It’s episode 28 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus, the “Happy Birthday paradox” and HBO’s Westworld nudity PR stunt. Brand authority Tom Asacker and Media Strategist Mark Ramsey go inside what’s really happening in media. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! Click the play but

Apple says the future of TV is apps – but is it? And… Why is Verizon launching a video service nobody is asking for? It’s episode 27 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus, rants and raves for the ubiquity of all things “artisanal,” the 23rd Annual Sports Fan Loyalty Index, MTV’s gangbuster ratings performance for the VMA’s – on Snapchat, and the delightful inappropriateness of Nicki Minaj’s wax figure at Madame Tussauds.

My talk with digital trend-setter Chad Robley is one of the opening sessions from hivio 2013, the inaugural radio ideas festival in San Diego. Chad is CEO of Mindgruve, a digital agency whose clients include brands like Proctor & Gamble, House of Blues, Oracle, Merck and Live Nation. Watch as Chad describes: The importance of content in any digital play, and how integrating that content into the everyday lives of consumers is the best way to move them (not “speaking at them”

The rule most broadcasters use in framing their mobile app (if they’re wise enough to have one) is: Does this app offer up a stream of the station? Does it throw in some podcasts and some blogs and even some social media feeds? All of that’s fine – as far as it goes. But does it go far enough? When you ponder a mobile platform for a station that can already be experienced on every mobile platform on every highway in your market (i.e., the “car”), you have to ask this question

Are we suffering app overload? That’s the conclusion of Business Insider: People download a lot of apps, but they abandon 95 percent of them, according to a study by Nuance.The result: They keep using the same apps—Nielsen says Facebook, YouTube, Google Play, Google Search, and Gmail were the top five apps in both 2011 and 2012.And they’re not spending markedly more time in apps: 39 minutes a day in 2012 versus 37 minutes in 2011. While the Nuance stats are not new, the “if y

…or at least, not completely the right idea. Consider the study from the IPG Media Lab and YuMe.com which examined “advertising in the wild” to assess the effects of “viewer distraction” in a TV-viewing habitat of numerous gadgets and gizmos. One of the conclusions was that “smartphones are a persistent companion to video content.” As the authors of the book Social TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media, and Mobile T

“There’s an app for that.” You’ve heard that phrase countless times. But there’s an important lesson wrapped up in that phrase. Consider this:  There’s an app for what? And the answer is “whatever problem a consumer happens to have.” Apps are generally solutions to problems.  They’re not simply tools for you to amplify your brand – in fact they may not be that at all.  Apps are not necessarily about your brand, they are about your consumers. Even if they are in the presence o

You’ve heard the dustup over whether or not Apple has unceremoniously banned all single-station apps from their app store. The evidence indicates that, in fact, they have not. But all single-station apps are not created equal, and if you are out to make a “lazy app” – an app redundant to your over-the-air station with functionality that is unworthy of Apple’s (or anybody else’s) mobile experience, don’t be surprised if the Gods of Cuptertino turn up their nose at you (and don