FM Blog

Welcome, Ryan!

2009-11-18T21:05:13Z

Prior to joining FM, Ryan Nathanson managed custom online marketing campaigns for fortune 1,000 technology companies at Techweb.

His experience included conceptualizing and creating rich media websites, online applications, and print advertising campaigns. With a degree in Electronic Media Management from SUNY New Paltz, Ryan continues to stay on top of the latest media and marketing trends.

In his spare time, Ryan enjoys riding his motorcycle, snowboarding, and his most recent hobby, flying. Welcome to FM, Ryan!

Forrester: Palm Trend Tracker: a new interesting addition to market researchers’ ‘tool-box’

2009-11-12T17:17:54Z

The tracker trends the buzz on Twitter and displays the top 30 tweets. At the same time these can be customised and allows you to see conversations on any topic you need.

The site displays the current and emerging trends on Twitter, real time tracking and the location of the tweets. The idea is simple – to let you know in advance of raising topics on Twitter. Read more…

Intel’s LifeScoop Offers Tech Tips and News for the Non-Geek

2009-11-11T17:51:30Z

The geek set is well served by lots of great technology content coming from very talented bloggers and journalists who live and breathe technology. But this content is often geared toward the geek set – those folks who are interested in iPhone firmware updates, Intel chipset design minutiae, or the latest Facebook TOS kerfuffle.

There is a surprising dearth of technology content and resources out there for the rest of us – busy moms, dads, college students and professionals who are smart, savvy technology users but that don’t have the time or inclination to be uber-geeks.

Enter Lifescoop, a practical guide for how people use technology in their everyday lives – home, school, cooking, movies, pictures, multimedia, email, storage, you name it. This is a practical, useful tool that aggregates all the best news, information, tips, tricks and how-tos. And, what’s more, it’s all updated in real-time, so it has the newest, coolest, freshest, most useful information available.

Verizon’s Droid Gets the STAMP Treatment

2009-11-09T16:15:18Z

If you’ll remember WAY back to like a month ago, we announced a new display ad product dubbed Ad STAMP. Adweek covered the news here. It’s essentially a big, bold display advertising package meant for large brand advertisers who want to make an unmistakable impression. Last Friday, Verizon did just that when they introduced the world to their new Droid phone.

Here’s a screenshot from ReadWriteWeb taken on Friday showing a STAMP execution for Verizon’s Droid launch, which, from what we hear, is going quite well. Kudos Verizon!

Quality Conversations: It’s All About Trust

2009-11-04T00:49:52Z

One of our mantras here at FM is “Quality, Safety, Scale, Engagement.” Today, we’d like to take a moment to concentrate on the “Safety” side of that equation (which, btw, has plenty to do with quality and engagement, but that’s for another day).

One of our strongest selling points has always been safety. At FM, a marketer’s message will never end up on a low-quality site, or one with objectionable content, and it will always be on a site where the message is welcomed by the author and appropriate to the audience.

We created policies to address this in 2005 and again in 2007, but things have changed. The recent buzz about the new FTC guidelines didn’t bother us, because our disclosure standards have always been more comprehensive than the law requires. But the rapid evolution of new kinds of ad opportunities meant it was time to revisit and reconfirm our approach.

So we put together a document entitled Quality Conversations: It’s All About Trust (PDF). It’s a set of guidlines that we’re now using inside FM as we design campaigns, making sure we enhance and uphold the integrity and trust between Author and reader that’s essential to the FM ecosystem.

This is a living document, something we’ll review and update as needed. We welcome your feedback.

Sigma Group’s Fuel For Thought Series with Battelle and Spande

2009-11-02T22:30:10Z

If you’re available and in the area, be sure to check out Sigma Group’s Fuel for Thought event this Thursday, November 5 at the The Hilton in Parsippany, NJ.

It sounds like a great event with some very timely, thought-provoking content. And, guess who else is there? Our own John Battelle is keynoting and Pete Spande is presenting the following session:

Conversation at Scale
Pete Spande, SVP of Sales
Social media provides tools that enable brands to connect with their customers at scale. Doing this effectively requires new creative approaches and sometimes new technologies. This presentation will look at how these tools and technologies can be utilized to connect directly with customers through a number of case studies highlighting the best practices from work being done in the field right now.

Go here for the full agenda and to request a seat.

The All-New Dooce Community

2009-11-02T21:51:37Z

Behold! Dooce’s all-new community site made possible by the fine folks at Suave. Check out Heather Armstrong’s announcement post where she unveils the new site to her rabid fans. She writes:

For a few years we’ve been trying to come up with a way for the readers of this site to connect and interact with each other, to get to know each other better, for me to get to know you better, and for little bunnies to fart sunshine.

And so the Dooce Community was born:

Perhaps you just want to meet other dooce® readers, or maybe you’d like some tips on photography, or maybe you’d like to compare horror stories when it comes to adopting a herding dog. I think we all have a lot in common, and I’ve always thought that I could sit down with any one of you, have a beer, and shoot the shit late into the evening. Of course, if you’re one of my Mormon readers, we’d have Sprite and shoot the heck until curfew.

Congrats Heather and Jon!!

Welcome Aly!

2009-11-02T18:53:36Z

Aly Sjoberg joins Federated Media as the Regional Sales Manager, in the San Francisco office.

Prior to joining FM, Aly spent 7 years selling media and customized programs for Viviendi Universal, Kaboose, ManiaTV and most recently with JiWire.

She has worked closely with advertising partners in the software, tech, finance, women’s lifestyle and parenting categories.

Originally from Los Angeles, and a UC Santa Barbara graduate, she relocated to the Bay area a year ago with her husband Josh and is enjoying her time exploring the city. Welcome, Aly!

Welcome Melissa!

2009-11-02T18:48:46Z

Melissa Chen previously worked at Embarcadero Technologies, a software company as a senior revenue accountant. In her spare time, she likes to hang out with friends, explore the Bay Area and the wonderful city of San Francisco.

After work, she likes to work out, or explore the many happy hours that San Francisco has to offer. Recently, she caught the traveling bug and spent two weeks in Spain and has a trip to Australia planned soon. Welcome, Melissa!

Welcome Peter!

2009-11-02T17:24:19Z

Peter Shanley joins Federated Media from Yahoo! Inc., where he ran a strategic research program around user data, privacy, and trust in next generation advertising.

Prior to that position he worked in the Y! Brickhouse product incubator based here in San Francisco, founded by Caterina Fake (Flickr). Federated Media is his first sales role and Peter is excited to bring his past experience to bare in this new arena, leveraging a product/strategy background to deliver creative solutions for FM customer needs.

Personally he is thrilled to have the Bay Area as his sales region, having moved West to the area 7 years ago after graduating from Yale, with no plans to leave any time soon. Welcome to FM, Peter!