While I understand that print is floundering and newspapers need to find ways to make money in the digital age, it would be nearly impossible to convince me to spend money for online news where there are so many places to get it for free.  The prices for a digital subscription for the New York Times range from $15 to $35 per month, based on the desired level of access (computer, mobile phone, tablet, etc.).  I think that this will provide an insurmountable obstacle for a large number of readers and I am frightened of the potential implications.

If the Times’ push for digital subscriptions fails, what is the next step?  Clearly the world is only becoming more digital, so if they can’t find a formula for success, what will happen?  Will the New York Times perish?  Is that even conceivable?

Equally as frightening to me, is the thought that the prestigious and reliable reporting of the Times will begin decreasing in its reach to the general public.  They will, of course, have dedicated – and affluent – readers who dutifully sign up for a digital subscription.  But surely this will result in decreased readership, and they are certainly not the only publication to be wrestling with this issue.  What of the masses who yearn for dependable, intelligent online news but don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars per year to get it?  Will they turn to more lowbrow news outlets?  Could this be the first step towards a general decline in the public intellect?

Maybe things aren’t as dire as they seem.  Perhaps this is a new beginning, an opportunity for an intelligent, reliable, objective news outlet to blaze a trail in the digital space and cater to a new generation of readers.  One can only hope…and wish the Gray Lady Godspeed.

Taxes, unemployment, class warfare: The haves and have-nots have consumed much of the rhetoric in this year’s election cycle. Today’s political discourse would have many believe that most of the country is wildly divided, occupying opposite ends of a political spectrum with little to no overlap; however, the truth is very different. Most Americans are moderate, and though political ideologies may differ, we generally seek similar goals.

Throughout what has seemed like an endless procession of debates, a comment made by one candidate was particularly jarring as it highlighted a troubling trend: a growing gap between politicians and the people they represent.

Newt Gingrich recently said of the poor, “You have a very poor neighborhood. You have students that are required to go to school. They have no money, no habit of work… They have no habit of showing up on Monday and staying all day or the concept of  ’I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal…What if you paid them in the afternoon to work…What if they became assistant janitors, and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom?”

Forget for a moment the disregard for child labor laws, even the displaced workers (replaced by a cheaper child work force). His solution centers on the premise that there is an inherent flaw in the poor that is best fixed through imposed manual labor.

How is it that in a society more open and connected than ever before the gap between politicians and voting Americans has never felt larger? If politicians (not their staff members) actually used the Web, specifically social media sites, they’d begin to understand their constituents more intimately. It’s something that can easily be done everyday, not just during election cycles. President Obama’s recent Google+ Hangout – albeit during a campaign season – is a perfect example of a politician using social media to connect with his constituency.

Obama was recently challenged by the wife of an unemployed American semiconductor engineer on his visa program that allows highly skilled foreign workers to gain employment within the US. Obama, perplexed, insisted she send her husband’s resume so he could look into this matter further.

We watch politicians debate bills like SOPA and PIPA and believe these moments expose how far removed and out of touch they are with technology, the Web and social media. But the truth is, false statements, outrageous stereotypes and inane proposals expose their disconnect.

As a politician, it is your civic duty to be in touch. Rejecting the vessels that connect you to your constituency is a failure of responsibility as a candidate and elected official.

The comments made by Gingrich offend me not because they are representative of Republican values, because they aren’t. Rather, they offend me because it is yet another glaring example of a politician pontificating while ostensibly removed and out of touch with the real issues and the people he claims to represent.

Rdio launched in the US a full year before Spotify, so naturally when Spotify with all it’s marketing dollars and buzz plopped in from overseas I was a bit skeptical. Sure enough, the service wasn’t bad, in fact it was pretty good… but not nearly as good as Rdio. You see, Rdio wasn’t just a music streaming application, it was like my personal music concierge service. It curated music for me based on what my friends and trusted sources were listening to, and delivered it in an easy to use interface. I was swooning from day one. I’d watch in my newsfeed as friends would appear, listening to their music using the popular Spotify service and like a Mac user watching someone on a PC, I’d think… “Why are you using Spotify? Rdio does the same thing…. just so much better.”

Then… last week happened. Spotify Apps.

Spotify Apps came in and shattered my world. Akin to when my parents told me I was Jewish and Santa was never coming again, everything I thought I knew was out the window. You see, Spotify Apps with its wildly open API, allows all the trusted music sources you’ve relied on for the past 5-10 years to curate customized music experiences; essentially building their own little music apps on the back of Spotify’s library and music deliver system.

Spotify is to the music-blogosphere, as steroids are to Barry Bonds career (umm… allegedly), making something good into something great.  Spotify has essentially empowered your favorite sources for music discovery (blogs, magazines etc.) to become a true access point for music consumption.

Reading Pitchfork? Like that song, album? Add it to your favorites. Now you have it on your computer and phone. Spotify Apps have made themselves a blog’s best wingman. You’re going home with that record tonight, because quite frankly… it’s just so easy.

Dear Rdio,

I love you and I know we haven’t been spending that much time together… but there’s someone else….  I’m sorry.

There was a time, way back in 2006, when we were lucky enough to be a part of these kinds of collaborative efforts. For me, digital media was at its best when we (the creative agency) were sitting around a table along with the media company, the social outreach team, the client and their marketing team, all discussing an upcoming campaign and brainstorming ideas together. The media plan had not been set, blog outreach had not begun, and there wasn’t even key art available yet. All of these parties came together to discuss the tone of the campaign, the target audience, the goals of the project, and we put our collective heads together to develop a unified plan of attack. If we came up with a great creative execution that the client loved, the media team could send RFP’s with this in mind and the social outreach team could plan ahead for where the best buzz would be generated. This was a time when the creative team was brought into the fold much earlier so we were a part of these critical conversations from the start. As a result, the user experience was better, everyone was happier and the media was badass. As a team, we were kicking ass and taking names – we were, innovating and making great strides forward in the digital media space.

And then, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, it all came to a screeching halt. It feels like we’re starting over from square one, which is frustrating because we’ve been saying the same things, making the same recommendations for the better part of a decade. It’s all about teamwork. It doesn’t make sense for a creative agency to have a brainstorm after the media plan has been purchased. What happens when we devise a killer cooperative roadblock execution, but the IO’s are already signed and there are no placements on the plan that fit the bill? Either a mad dash to try and secure a placement at the last minute, resulting in a stressful rush job, or the client will opt to scrap it altogether, but “keep it in mind for the future.” And round and round we go.

In the end, this comes back to something that I just can’t wrap my head around. The vast majority of planning, time and money spent on media are still focused on print. Most clients spend weeks and weeks waiting for a piece of artwork that a digital agency will then have a fraction of the time to translate for online. This is extremely frustrating; especially when you consider that print is floundering while digital is flourishing. For example, the New York Times newspaper is down to under 1 million copies per day in circulation for the first time since the 1980’s, while their website is getting over 45 million monthly unique visitors. Shifts like these can be seen across a number of properties, yet digital media is still consistently getting the short end of the stick when it comes to planning.

It’s past time to start bringing digital into the creative fold earlier and making a splash with online media again. It has worked in the past, so we know we can be successful again. We just can’t do it alone.

After graduating high school I attended Syracuse University to study the music business. Over the next four years as I maneuvered between internships, booking shows and managing bands, I would watch the very industry I once glorified not merely implode, but leap off a bridge with a rock tied around its foot.

My freshman year of college would usher in massive changes to an industry largely stable for the prior 30 years. The proliferation of high-speed internet would bring about an era of media consumption in extreme volumes. The use of Peer2Peer networks would explode on campuses and record labels would see sales dive for the first time in a decade. The iPod was penetrating the market at unforeseen rates, redefining the music experience, and record labels were settling $75 million price fixing lawsuits while simultaneously vilifying their customers for downloading MP3’s they’d refuse to make legally available. By the end of the academic year, the iTunes Music Store had launched lending false hope that the worst was behind us.

Over the course of the next four years The Facebook appeared, record sales would fall off a cliff, labels would consolidate, and as the industry grew smaller it seemed that the only area of growth was in the sheer volume of music being shared and consumed.

After graduation day, sitting around with my friends peering off into the rubble that was the music business, a major label – the original end goal – was in fact the very last place I wanted to be. The internet had eaten the music business up and spit it out. I quickly realized the future of all media, not just music would be dictated by consumers and their interactions with technology. It’s for this reason I find myself at Glow, where I am able to leverage my understanding of the market place with the designers and developers who are constructing its walls.

Today, the music industry still has yet to recover. Record sales continue to decline, labels continue their layoffs and revenues are lower than ever. Bands have responded by incessant touring, saturating an already crowded market and the digital licensing world is in complete disarray. SoundExchange can’t seem to give away an estimated $9 million dollars in back royalties to musicians (and managers) who probably don’t even know it’s waiting for them. The industry is a hot mess. But the future of the business looks bright and here’s why.

New services, technology and digital platforms are constructing what will be the next iteration of the music business. As the pillars of this new music industry are put to soil, what will rise from the ashes is a robust business rich with content and revenue.

Today we consume all forms of content (video, articles, music and books) in higher volume. Our expectations are such that if we pay for it, we want it accessible whenever and where ever we may be. We want the ability to share it with our friends and experience it in groups. Until recently no legal model existed to support this behavior and arguably the technology wasn’t available. But consumer demand is what drives change.

iTunes addressed the demand for digital content but it did little to address the volume at which we were consuming.

How could I possibly afford to legally pay for the plethora of content I was exposed to online without going broke? Why would I spend that money if I couldn’t have it everywhere? My home, office, car, phone, in the park, on the subway…

Rdio, Spotify and MOG represent what has been the missing link in the digital revolution that devoured the music business. Since the introduction of the iPod nothing has transformed and redefined my music experience in such a pivotal way as Rdio.

I pay a monthly fee in exchange for access to nearly all the music I want, whenever and where ever I want it. It’s easy, organized, clean, headache free and most important… available EVERYWHERE.

In time, adoption of these services will increase, the pennies currently produced for participating artists will turn into dollars, and the $88 million distributed (in Q3) by SoundExchange for digital streams will grow to hundreds of millions.

In the not too distant future consumers will make purchases on Facebook as regularly as they do on Amazon. Managers and artists will begin taking control of their social properties, seeing them not merely as promotional platforms but as new revenue drivers and Donald Passman won’t issue a new edition of his famous book “All You Need to Know About the Music Business”, he’ll need to rewrite it from scratch.

First-Ever Browser-Based HTML5 ad for iPad
Wins MOBI and OMMA Awards

New York – Sept. 27, 2011 – Glow Interactive (www.glowinteractive.com), a leading New York-based interactive marketing, advertising and creative agency, today announced that the first-ever browser-based HTML5 “gamified” ad for the iPad, developed by Glow Interactive for USA Network’s show, WHITE COLLAR, and ran on The New York Times’ HTML5 web page in January in conjunction with the show’s seasonal debut, has been recognized by two distinguished industry awards in less than a week’s time.

Last week, Glow Interactive was the recipient of the 2011 MOBI Award (produced by Digiday and presented at The MOBI Awards Gala on September 21) for the “Best iPad/Tablet Advertising Campaign” for the interactive, rich media mobile advertisement for USA Network’s WHITE COLLAR. Then last night at the OMMA Awards 2011 Ceremony, Glow Interactive was presented as the winner for online advertising creativity in the “Rich Media: Single Execution” category for that same ad execution. The OMMA Awards for Online Advertising Creativity “honor those advertisers that push the potential of online advertising creative.”

“We are so proud of the Glow team and every member involved in creating this ad,” said Mike Molnar, managing partner of Glow Interactive. “This ad and the work put into it is a great testament to what innovative and creative advertising can really do to stretch the boundaries on the latest platforms and take engagement to a whole different level.”

The interactive, rich media advertisement was developed for USA Network’s show, WHITE COLLAR, with two main objectives: 1) raise brand awareness and 2) engage viewers to interact with the in-page game to unlock exclusive content of the show. The results of the campaign proved these objectives successful and served as a first-ever industry catalyst to prove a truly interactive “touch and experience” model designed to encourage engagement through a casual game format can work better than the traditional formats. The campaign boasted a total interaction rate of 6.22%, with nearly 36% of total viewers who watched the videos to completion in one day.

For more information about the campaign’s details, including creative credits, objective, strategy and results, Glow Interactive’s MOBI Award submission can be viewed here: http://www.dm2pro.com/articles/20110825_10. The project can also be viewed at http://www.glowinteractive.com/project/usa_network_white_collar_html5_ad.

Press Contact:
Jamie Larson
Intersect Communications for Glow Interactive
PH: 512-296-9611
jamie@intersectcom.com

New York – January 18, 2011 –

Glow Interactive (www.glowinteractive.com), a leading New York-based interactive marketing, advertising and creative agency, today announced it has forged new ground once again by creating an interactive rich media advertisement that is truly a first for the iPad. The ad integrates the brand with the actual ad source, introducing a new level of engagement never before seen on the iPad. Created and designed by Glow Interactive and served by EyeWonder, a Limelight Networks, Inc. business, the ad will run today on The New York Times’ HTML5 website in conjunction with the season premiere of WHITE COLLAR, airing tonight on USA Network at 10PM (ET/PT).

“The iPad rich media, over-the-page browser ad for the premiere of WHITE COLLAR is undoubtedly the first of its kind for any iOS device,” stated Alexandra Shapiro, SVP Brand Marketing and Digital at USA Network. “By customizing the interactive experience for our current and potential fans, USA is using technology to create more meaningful and memorable communications.”

Previously unavailable on iOS devices, Glow’s innovative approach works to intelligently integrate their clients’ solutions with ads to develop a truly interactive, brand-relevant, experience. In the case of WHITE COLLAR, iPad users will be delivered a self-contained, FBI-themed game that is integrated with content fromWHITE COLLAR and is playable from within the ad banner. Users take on the role of a special agent and are given an easy-to-use, virtual scanner tool that can be dragged off the banner unit and around the page of The New York Times to hunt for hidden clues living within the actual content of the page. When found, they simply drag the tool back to the ad unit to solve the clue, which will in turn provide a reward response and unlock exclusive video content, including sneak-peaks or other special footage from the show only seen within the ad.

“We hear a lot about in-app advertising on the iPad, but we are shocked that no one is taking advantage of the number one app out there, the Safari browser. Browser-based, rich media on the iPad offers a massive opportunity for advertisers who want to extend dynamic display media into the hands of mobile users on a device that has now reached mass market saturation with over 14 million units sold,” said Mike Molnar, managing partner of Glow Interactive. “The high prospect of engagement as we move from a click-to-interact-activation message to a touch-and-experience model is very novel and intriguing to this audience. Couple that with compelling functionality and we see great opportunity to increase engagement time with users more than ever before, especially in this case given the major trend of casual gaming among the consumer market.”

The game within the WHITE COLLAR banner ad is built entirely in JavaScript specifically for HTML5 browsers compliant with the iPad platform in mobile Safari. It is also completely user-initiated, unobtrusive, easy to play, and easy to quit or close.

ABOUT GLOW INTERACTIVE:

Glow Interactive is an award-winning, digital marketing and creative agency based in New York City that is driving an online evolution that puts consumers first, ensuring they’re engaged, entertained, challenged and connected no matter the medium. Over the last decade, Glow has focused on using the latest design practices and technology to develop successful, dynamic interactive marketing and advertising campaigns, branding initiatives, games and viral applications. The company’s success is illustrated by its long list of Fortune 500 and 1000 clients, including USA Network, Toyota, Showtime, Canon, Discovery Channel, Avon, The History Channel, A&E, Condé Nast, Wendy’s, Microsoft and others.

For more information about Glow Interactive, please visit www.glowinteractive.com.

Press Contact:

Jamie Larson

Intersect Communications for Glow Interactive

PH: 512-296-9611

New York – May 12, 2011 – Glow Interactive (www.glowinteractive.com), a leading New York-based interactive marketing, advertising and creative agency, today announced that its managing partner, Mike Molnar, has been selected by CableFAX as a recipient of the “Sweet 16 of Cable” award, which honors the top brand and agency advertising executives supporting the cable industry.

Recipients of this award were honored this morning at the CableFAX‘s annual Sales Executive of the Year and Sweet 16 Awards Breakfast at the Grand Hyatt in New York City. For the complete list of “Sweet 16” honorees, visit CableFAX’s award site: http://www.cablefax.com/cfp/events/seoy2011/#0. Nominations for the “Sweet 16” were chosen from a pool of media buyers and brand marketers who fervently support cable and whose brands have profited in the bargain.

“Mike has brought so much to the Glow team,” said Pete Levin, CEO and co-founder of Glow Interactive. “His new business and account efforts – across the board, but especially in cable – have really helped elevate Glow to the status we are at today. He’s a perfect fit for the Sweet 16 honor.”

As managing partner at Glow Interactive, Mike Molnar oversees the daily operations and works to continually develop the evolution of the company. Since joining the company in 2002, Mike has helped his partners Pete Levin and Ted Kacandes ramp up the company to 20+ people and leads new business initiatives and client relations. Mike has worked to launch several high profile, award-winning campaigns for The History Channel, A&E, HBO, Showtime, USA Network, Discovery Channel, Wendy’s, Canon and more. Collectively, the Glow team has won over 15 industry awards including multiple Horizon Interactive Awards, Promax/BDA, Webby’s, OMMA and AdTech honors. Prior to joining Glow, Mike was a publicist for “America’s Most Wanted” – his first foray in dealing with cable programs – as well as a celebrity publicist in NYC.