The war is on … HTML5 vs Flash. Working in advertising you would think by now I would be used to hype. But I’ve been working with technology longer than I’ve been working in advertising. And in the land of technology, hype is definitely nothing new either. From Windows 7 being the savior of mankind to Java revolutionizing the we live our lives to HTML 5 being the definitive answer to all our future media needs! Its all hype, I don’t believe in any of it. But not that that stopped from learning about Windows, Java and, now, HTML 5.

Touted as being the savior from Flash and championed by none other than Steve Jobs himself, lately I’ve been inundated in the death of Flash. Whatever. Flash has dominated Internet Video for about 6 or 7 years. Why? Because it works! Pure and simple, any Internet browser you use to watch video can use, play and manipulate Flash. True, that pesky “plug-in” can be annoying and “older” technology adopters degenerate into a panic when they get the “Download current Flash player” message on their IE5, but beyond that, I really don’t understand why all of a sudden Flash is such a bad thing!

Sniff! Sniff! I think I can smell our old friend Mr. Hype behind all this! The world has too great obsessions, technology and war. What can be better than a technology war! I’m not reading about this in Information Week or Adage. The battle between Google and Apple, Flash and HTML 5, etc., is news in the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Not a good thing. Now the CEOS and Marketing VPs feel compelled to take sides…sides in a battle they know very little, if anything, about. The “techies”, the guys who are supposed to know the difference between h.264 and “Ogg”, are drowned out by the siren of the wielders of the purse strings. “We heard flash is dead, can we an HTML 5 player please, expecting, of course, that not will the vaunted HTML 5 play as well flash video, but even BETTER! Better being subjective, but sooner or later, being put in bean counter terminology for either saving or making money. But this assumption has absolutely no basis on anything other than what they read in the latest New York Times technology page.

I write about technology and advertising in this blog. How the two work together, fit together, live together to bring value, entertainment and purpose into our lives. Ok, that’s a bit much, but you get the general idea. Not that the new technology wars were brought on or only effect the world of advertising. These “techno” wars go well beyond that. But advertising has always played a vital roll in the development of media technologies and the public, going all the way back to early radio. I like to think of it as the oil that greases the media wheels for, when you get right down to it, even free media is in its own way, “commercial”.

Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals, or services.

And whether we like it or not, as the Internet redefines “traditional” media, its going to redefine the “traditional” commercial, as well, whether it uses HTML 5, or Flash or snake oil. The leaders, the visionaries, the creative minds of the media world need to focus on those new definitions. Its the technologist’s job to find and use the right technologies to make those new definitions work. “Hype” is now and always will be a part of our way of life, but let the hype follow the flow of the ideas and not the hammer and nails that put them together. Different tools do different jobs in different ways, that’s all. Some tools are better at some jobs than others. But, for the most part, any tool does much better without the hype.

My youngest son is deep into World of WarCraft (See the articles Wow Wii!, june, 2009). He plays at the highest level with fellow players all over the world. He puts on his headphones, fires up WoW and he’s good for hours…literally hours if not days! Thank god for school or there would be no reason to stop at all. On one hand I can’t discourage him, on top of the all the hours he spends playing he’s also picked up on how operating systems work, how to set up a network router and install software on his own. He even (though he’s loathe to admit it) knows a bit about programming (flash, of course). Being in the “computer” business myself, like any father I want him to be ready to go into the world on his own one day. And nobody knows better than I, that requires and will continue to require, a very high degree of computer literacy, at least in my own field. And I assume, almost every other.

Still, I also wonder what ever happened to the old “going outside to play” school of growing up. Apparently, every kid hears this from their dad if they have one. They write about it in books popular with today’s 12 year olds.

When I was a kid (…yes, I’m saying it..), video games like pong and donkey kong were fun but really just a few steps up from checkers and “Go Fish”. The real fun was playing with other kids, first, hide and seek and ringalerio, kickball and tag. Then as we got older, baseball, football, hockey or basketball with the local kids was the point to every weekend; weekdays too, if you had time after school. Way back then families had numerous kids so it was never hard to find other boys and girls my age (give or take 2 or 3 years) interested in doing the same crazy things we all liked. Of course, it wasn’t always about athletics since most of us weren’t particularly “athletic”. It was more about playing. More importantly, it was what we now called “social networking”. Web 1.0 (or lower) was basically kids in the same neighborhood creating a world of their own. Some kids you really liked, some you really hated but most were just somewhere in between. What we had in common, was that we were all just kids. We fought each other, we helped each other, we teased each other, we were sometimes downright mean to each other. But in one way or another we all somehow KNEW each other. Our strengths, our weakness, who was good at what and who wasn’t. We knew whose brother liked who’s cousin’s sister and whether or not she liked him back.

When I see my son hooked into his WoW colleagues, I ask myself is this any different? Ok, instead of the kids being across the street or down the block or in a neighborhood that had its own name, they could be anywhere in the world. He could be chatting it up and planning strategy with kids his own age or full-grown adults, all insid this ultimate fantasy come alive on a video screen. Is this leading to a more open, broad-minded world where my son will grow up and be influenced by lives and personalities thousands of miles away in some cases? Does this mean he’ll learn more, know more and do more by the time he finishes high school than I have yet to do in my entire lifetime? That would be nice, but something tells me it simply not that simple. My son my be interacting with people from all over the world but in reality he’s interacting with World of WarCraft and all the technologies that bring this wonder to millions. Its the technology that’s becoming a part of their lives…not each other.
For the reasons I expressed earlier, this alone was not alarming. But once I saw the following:

Life is Too Short for Social Interaction

Since I’m in the “viral” business, “viral apps” aren’t knew to me. Yes, this is meant to be a “parody”, but to be absolutely honest when I first saw this video I took it at face value. I actually believed Google had launched a product called Xistance. Why not, I’m part of the “Google World” and they launch new products practically every day? Nothing wrong with that. So when I as watching this I was naturally thinking, yeah, my boy would love that! Maybe I should tell him about it? Until, of course, I heard the final tag line, “Life is too short for Social Interaction”! My eyebrows furrowed but the question remained, would my son embrace this technology as something desirable? I don’t think so, he’s a very social fellow. (He has more friends on Facebook than I ever hope of having) But if there were such a product I can see him and many more like him not scoffing at it but eagerly signing up. Will Web 3.0 go beyond giving us new venues to express ourselves and keep in touch, or does it mean just the opposite, living our lives behind an impenetrable “cyber wall” that is far more “real” to some than anything going on in the “outside world”? What can breathing “fresh” air ever offer over the Kingdom of the Droids? Who’s to say?

Just got the latest, extremely hyped issue of Esquire Magazine. Something must be working because its the first Esquire magazine I’ve ever gone out and bought. Kind of surprising since its traditional market has been, since  its Depression-era inception,  eligible young men “about town”. Of course, that alone can mean many things to many people. But my guess is the magazine has lasted so long (..and apparently still going strong) because that’s something all young men (and most older ones) would truly want to be. Including me. And, although I’ve only read one article (on a company called Psyop but more on that later), I was thoroughly impressed.

Always on the look out for the next “digital” marketing scheme, I’ve been listening to the buzz on augmented reality for the last two years or so…lots of buzz but no “sting”. I tried a few projects myself. The technology itself is not to unwieldly or overwhelming but like all skilled programming it does require time and more than a bit of daring to master to the point of actually being creative. But the guys at psyop have been cracking away for almost 10 years at “high-end” digital animation. I know because I actually replaced Psyop’s founder when he left Nickelodeon’s Digital Laboratory to start his company. Its no coincidence they are in a position to go to a David Granger (Esquire’s E-C) and offer him a chance to leap out there on the “bleeding” edge of trendy. Its as trendy as you can get. And from my understanding of Esquire, that’s what has been keeping that particular boat floating for almost 80 years.  Especially, in these days of publishing in “crisis”. Something tells me, Mr. Granger “gets it”.

What did I like about Esquire’s AR so much? Simple, it was really cool! Old fashioned, if I was 12 years old and did this I would have exactly the same response my “40-something” enthusiasm could muster. Except for some initial quirkiness with setting up the ‘black box” so my computer could react to the AR avator properly, it was quite a new experience. To avoid this next time (we’ll be seeing more of this in the future), they’ll simply put the “black box”  on a cardboard tear-out, or something stiff so people won’t have to kill themselves to hold it steady in front of their computer. Also, if you’re trying it for the first time and are more of a “recreational” computer user than I am, well, its not exactly intuitive.  In the meantime, I was glad this is what I do for a living or it might have been daunting even for me.

But what I really liked, was the simple entertainment value. The initial Morton Downey introduction was really captivating, unfortunately, it ended in a shameless plug for his next film, but at the same time the marketer in me was seeing a LOT of potential. The other “features” weren’t quite as beguiling, but I’m betting the one with Gillian Jacobs walking around in her enormous bathroom with only her Brooks Brothers shirt on will garner a fair amount of “cyber” buzz. And if Brooks Bothers is paying any attention (probably not) , they should be doing their best to “sponsor” the next episode. In fact, Mr. Granger should be lining up sponsors left and right just on the “hype” factor alone. The intentions are clearly to go “viral” perhaps even landing on the Ad Age Viral Video Chart.  The world of media is being rewritten and we are here to see it.

On the downside, two features were hard to manuevor for the reasons I gave above, the avatar being on a relatively thin piece paper in the middle or the edge of two magazine pages, all of which had to be laboriously  held up at once for an extended period of time. No thanx. But don’t worry they’ll figure that part out. I did. Finally, the feature I liked the most was also the most surprising and entertaining, a piece of modern jazz piano by an artist named Robert Glasper. It was a little over 7 minutes long and I sat through the whole thing, and enjoyed it. Up to now, I had never heard of the guy and doubt that I ever would have. But not only do I remember the name, I’m writing it down. In one fell swoop, I was impressed, entertained and educated all at once. And I still haven’t read any of the articles! And you’re telling me this ISN’T the future?!  Next up…”Holo-mercials”!

Looks like Volkswagen (with some help from TribalDDB) GETS IT…

This video is currently number one on the  Ad Age Viral Video Chart. Considering how long its been on the chart (Since October…) that’s pretty impressive. But watching it will show you what happens when “Awesome” meets “Fun”…you guessed it.. you have “Awesome Fun” for everybody! (Well, almost everybody in OdenPlan, Sweden anyway )

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