For most companies a social media presence is table stakes – one of the most critical components of any digital marketing strategy. And recruitment strategy. And customer service strategy. And … securities compliance strategy?

On July 3, 2012, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings innocuously updated his personal Facebook status to declare “Netflix monthly viewing exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever [last month].” The events that followed included a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission to consider whether such a status update violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, specifically provisions prohibiting public companies from selectively disclosing information to a particular group of people before disclosing that information widely to the general public.

Asking itself the same question brands often consider when developing a social media strategy, the question before the SEC was essentially: “is what a company says through social media actually exposed to the general public, or is a social media audience too niche?”

The SEC asked a very similar question not long ago. In 2008, a federal advisory committee asked the SEC to “provide more guidance as to how companies can use their web sites to provide information to investors in compliance with the federal securities laws.” That is to say, just five years ago, the SEC explored whether an announcement made on a company’s own web site could be considered sufficiently “public” to comply with minimum disclosure requirements. In retrospect, the answer to this question is obvious – today we know a brand’s website to be its primary touch point with the public at-large. But as recently as five years ago, such a conclusion was not, apparently, self-evident. Like many organizations, the SEC is wary of “deviation from [the] usual practices.”

So how did the notoriously conservative SEC come out on social media? In an April release, the SEC “makes clear that companies can use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to announce key information.” The SEC merely requires companies to alert investors to which social media channels to monitor and those channels are presumed sufficiently public to satisfy disclosure requirements. Companies quickly responded to include Facebook pages and Twitter handles among its channels for regular news updates listed in earnings reports.

Though questions around the security of social media properties and some particulars of the SEC decision remain, the decision nonetheless marks a substantial social media milestone. Whether tweeting a complaint, “liking” a product update, looking for a job or looking for the latest news to inform an investment, brand’s social media properties are becoming a primary destination for consumers looking for information of all kinds.

When consumers turn to your social channels, what do they find? What don’t they?

When advising clients on the right marketing mix, I always recommend reserving at least 10% of their budget for experimental marketing. Digital initiatives, as a whole, used to be considered pretty experimental, but more often than not digital is now central to any marketing plan.

The risky bet these days is setting up your brand’s shop on one of the many niche social networks popping up all around us. Do you risk getting a brand presence going on Pinterest only to realize your audience isn’t there? How do you figure out what role your Facebook page plays versus your Google+ page? Here’s a look at how to tackle the big question: “Is it worth building a brand presence on a niche social network?”

Study up: Check out the site and go through the entire user experience. Sign up, download the app, collect the badges, and invite a few willing friends to test it all out with you. Is the site well designed and user intuitive? Make sure you understand all that it has to offer.

Listen: Now that you’ve figured out what’s what on the site, it’s time to see how other people are using it and tune in to the conversations they’re having. Following the flow of conversation on a social media site often leads to several insights that come in handy when you get to step four.

Check the site’s vitals: Find the site’s “advertisers” or “media kit” section to discover audience demographics, the total active user base, and other stats key to determining if it is a good match for your brand. If the site doesn’t give you those details, then you have to discover them the hard way – with good old-fashioned research. I sometimes call up the site sales rep and ask questions about the audience and try to get an idea of what’s on their product roadmap. Then I go to other sites to learn more, like checking out the site’s monthly traffic stats on Compete.com.

Look for or invent brand-engagement opportunities: It’s at this step that I bring my savviest colleagues into a room to pore through the site for marketing opportunities. Sure, there’s the option of setting up a brand page, the standard banner ad package, and maybe a sponsorship opportunity or two. I never discount these options because they can be an effective part of the marketing mix. But my colleagues and I dig deeper. Where do our respective company core values and goals align? Instead of asking what the site can do for the brand, we ponder what the brand can do for the site. This often leads to new ideas, not yet realized on the site. Some are simple ideas that no one’s thought of yet, or at least done well, like Lands’ End’s “Pin it to win it” contest on Pinterest. Other ideas fit more into a product-development category, which niche social networks are more than happy to discuss – I’ve found that they love building new and relevant experiences for their audience.

Be warned these ideas often take more time, money, and determination, but the payoff is worth it. You co-create an experience on a social network tailored specifically to your audience. Brands that innovate at this level can expect better engagement and good press attention, too.

Make the call: Now it’s time to decide if it’s worth your brand’s time to invest in the niche site you have your eye on. It takes guts to recommend engaging with a niche social network that a client has never heard of. But if you have solid research, a laser-targeted audience, and perhaps even a few calculations in your back pocket like expected cost-per-engagement, you might find yourself hailed as the genius that tapped into the next big social media craze.

This post by Bite’s Victoria Graham originally appeared in PRWeek: http://bit.ly/14uRvj0 

“So, what is your favorite flavor of jelly beans?” my desk neighbor Adrian looks up from his computer to ask.

“Hmmm…” I think. “The black ones, maybe the pink ones second.”

“EWWWW! Who likes the black ones?” erupted the entire pod.

Next thing we knew, for the next couple of minutes the entire office was in a surprisingly heated debate over the best type of Starburst, licorice, jelly beans and so on. It was a fun, few minutes of crazy and then we were back to work.

Those few minutes are one of the reasons I love Bite, and I think it really is a hotbed for creativity and really big ideas—it is probably also one of the reasons Bite chose to have an open office plan. We are constantly moving, perpetually talking to reporters, drafting content, keeping up with industry trends, chatting with clients—Always On. So it seems, sometimes that little break you forget you need is quite welcome.

I have been reading a lot lately about humor in the workplace and how it creates and environment for success and creativity. PandoDaily recently featured Twitter’s CEO Dick Costelo in a conversation about how “the traits associated with being a good comedian – timing, adaptability, creativity – are certainly traits celebrated at great companies.” The article went so far as to say that comedy just may be an “under-utilized management style.”

Which is why, during our most recent TED Talk Tuesday (each Tuesday we try to take a break from our busy weeks to watch and discuss a thought provoking TED Talk) I suggested we watch Shawn Achor’s presentation, “The happy secret to better work.” It was a very funny talk looking at what it really means to be successful and happy. He argues that the common perception is that we should work in order to be happy but we may have that a little backwards—the happier we are the better we work.

Shawn suggests “if you can raise somebody’s level of positivity in the present then their brain experiences what we call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs significantly better than it does at negative, neutral or stressed.” It’s a bold argument, and he goes on to say that when “your intelligence rises, your creativity levels rise, your energy levels rise. In fact, what we found is that every single business outcome improves. Your brain at positive is 30% more productive that your brain at negative, neutral or stressed.”

This is why we listen to music, ask silly questions, play life-sized Jenga, and have TED Talk Tuesdays! So this leaves us with the following questions: what is your favorite flavor of jelly beans? And how do you feel about black licorice? Or better yet, what’s the difference between a puppet and a Muppet?

Sometimes it’s hard to remember to take off my rose tinted glasses. When you work with, or even around, technology companies long enough you start drinking their Kool-Aid and become really invested in all of the ways they are going to change the world (no, really, THIS watch will help cure cancer!).

But sometimes it’s nice to get a breath of fresh air, which was exactly what Nicholas Carr was earlier this month during his interview at the Herbst Theater. The interview was sponsored by the Academy of Sciences as part of their “Conversations on Science 2013” series and brought Carr together with Wired veteran, Thomas Goetz to discuss “The Social Network Effect.”

Some of you may be familiar with Carr – he skyrocketed to intellectual stardom with his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that published as a cover article on The Atlantic in 2008. He was highly critical of the Internet’s effect on cognition and posited that it could have detrimental effects that diminish the capacity for concentration and contemplation.

He also published “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” which was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

One of the first questions Goetz opened with is, “Do you hate technology?” I mean, you would think with the titles of his earlier works, that it could be a fair assumption. Carr assured us that he, in fact, does not hate technology, but that he is hyper-aware of how it’s evolving the way we relate and communicate with one another in the physical world.

Carr made a great analogy, likening our addiction to the Internet as the neuroscience of “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” I try not to watch that show because I’m pretty sure I’ll find myself three days later still on my couch, unshowered, eating Top Ramen, still watching it. However, I don’t seem to have that complexion whatsoever about perusing the Internet. In fact, I give myself congratulatory pats on the back for my daily news scans from top publications like New York Times, Mashable, TechCrunch, USA Today and of course, BuzzFeed. The fact that I can toggle between 12 different website pages and analyze content, make edits in Word and update algorithms in Excel, all at rapid speed makes me feel like I am a great multi-tasker. However, according to Carr, the problem is that the capacity to skim and scan is outweighing all other skill sets. The Internet is detracting from humanistic contemplation. It is appealing to our “gathering” sense but dwindling our ability to analyze.

He doesn’t necessarily have a solution. He called for a “calmer Internet” though I’m not entirely sure what that means. Carr says that adult brains are elastic and can change, but we have to train it to digest information differently. The Internet satisfies our craving for distraction by serving up handfuls of cute, cuddly kittens frolicking in a grassy field or endless videos of people trying to drink a gallon of milk in an hour (which, I’ve been assured, is nearly impossible to do) when we initially just tried checking today’s weather.

As I see it, we’ve found ourselves in a catch-22 – we have the ability to change our habits but technology is so ingrained in society today that it’s nearly impossible to pry ourselves completely away. Carr also brought up an interesting comparison to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in which we’ve reached a point that we now have technology about the Self (though I personally think his examples belong in the Esteem box) like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest that do not necessarily contribute to improving life but serve to entertain and validate us.

So could there be a counter trend? A movement away from technology? Carr thinks so. He suggested that there could be a subset of the younger generation (because these types of movements, according to Carr, tend to be driven by younger people) that decides to cut the wire as a statement about how technology is changing our lives, and maybe not always for the better. Whether this movement will have any impact on the larger world remains to be seen.

Stay tuned for Carr’s next book, “The Glass Cage,” which is expected to publish in 2014.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember to take off my rose tinted glasses. When you work with, or even around, technology companies long enough you start drinking their Kool-Aid and become really invested in all of the ways they are going to change the world (no, really, THIS watch will help cure cancer!).

But sometimes it’s nice to get a breath of fresh air, which was exactly what Nicholas Carr was earlier this month during his interview at the Herbst Theater. The interview was sponsored by the Academy of Sciences as part of their “Conversations on Science 2013” series and brought Carr together with Wired veteran, Thomas Goetz to discuss “The Social Network Effect.”

Some of you may be familiar with Carr – he skyrocketed to intellectual stardom with his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that published as a cover article on The Atlantic in 2008. He was highly critical of the Internet’s effect on cognition and posited that it could have detrimental effects that diminish the capacity for concentration and contemplation.

He also published “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” which was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

One of the first questions Goetz opened with is, “Do you hate technology?” I mean, you would think with the titles of his earlier works, that it could be a fair assumption. Carr assured us that he, in fact, does not hate technology, but that he is hyper-aware of how it’s evolving the way we relate and communicate with one another in the physical world.

Carr made a great analogy, likening our addiction to the Internet as the neuroscience of “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” I try not to watch that show because I’m pretty sure I’ll find myself three days later still on my couch, unshowered, eating Top Ramen, still watching it. However, I don’t seem to have that complexion whatsoever about perusing the Internet. In fact, I give myself congratulatory pats on the back for my daily news scans from top publications like New York Times, Mashable, TechCrunch, USA Today and of course, BuzzFeed. The fact that I can toggle between 12 different website pages and analyze content, make edits in Word and update algorithms in Excel, all at rapid speed makes me feel like I am a great multi-tasker. However, according to Carr, the problem is that the capacity to skim and scan is outweighing all other skill sets. The Internet is detracting from humanistic contemplation. It is appealing to our “gathering” sense but dwindling our ability to analyze.

He doesn’t necessarily have a solution. He called for a “calmer Internet” though I’m not entirely sure what that means. Carr says that adult brains are elastic and can change, but we have to train it to digest information differently. The Internet satisfies our craving for distraction by serving up handfuls of cute, cuddly kittens frolicking in a grassy field or endless videos of people trying to drink a gallon of milk in an hour (which, I’ve been assured, is nearly impossible to do) when we initially just tried checking today’s weather.

As I see it, we’ve found ourselves in a catch-22 – we have the ability to change our habits but technology is so ingrained in society today that it’s nearly impossible to pry ourselves completely away. Carr also brought up an interesting comparison to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in which we’ve reached a point that we now have technology about the Self (though I personally think his examples belong in the Esteem box) like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest that do not necessarily contribute to improving life but serve to entertain and validate us.

So could there be a counter trend? A movement away from technology? Carr thinks so. He suggested that there could be a subset of the younger generation (because these types of movements, according to Carr, tend to be driven by younger people) that decides to cut the wire as a statement about how technology is changing our lives, and maybe not always for the better. Whether this movement will have any impact on the larger world remains to be seen.

Stay tuned for Carr’s next book, “The Glass Cage,” which is expected to publish in 2014.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember to take off my rose tinted glasses. When you work with, or even around, technology companies long enough you start drinking their Kool-Aid and become really invested in all of the ways they are going to change the world (no, really, THIS watch will help cure cancer!).

But sometimes it’s nice to get a breath of fresh air, which was exactly what Nicholas Carr was earlier this month during his interview at the Herbst Theater. The interview was sponsored by the Academy of Sciences as part of their “Conversations on Science 2013” series and brought Carr together with Wired veteran, Thomas Goetz to discuss “The Social Network Effect.”

Some of you may be familiar with Carr – he skyrocketed to intellectual stardom with his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that published as a cover article on The Atlantic in 2008. He was highly critical of the Internet’s effect on cognition and posited that it could have detrimental effects that diminish the capacity for concentration and contemplation.

He also published “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” which was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

One of the first questions Goetz opened with is, “Do you hate technology?” I mean, you would think with the titles of his earlier works, that it could be a fair assumption. Carr assured us that he, in fact, does not hate technology, but that he is hyper-aware of how it’s evolving the way we relate and communicate with one another in the physical world.

Carr made a great analogy, likening our addiction to the Internet as the neuroscience of “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” I try not to watch that show because I’m pretty sure I’ll find myself three days later still on my couch, unshowered, eating Top Ramen, still watching it. However, I don’t seem to have that complexion whatsoever about perusing the Internet. In fact, I give myself congratulatory pats on the back for my daily news scans from top publications like New York Times, Mashable, TechCrunch, USA Today and of course, BuzzFeed. The fact that I can toggle between 12 different website pages and analyze content, make edits in Word and update algorithms in Excel, all at rapid speed makes me feel like I am a great multi-tasker. However, according to Carr, the problem is that the capacity to skim and scan is outweighing all other skill sets. The Internet is detracting from humanistic contemplation. It is appealing to our “gathering” sense but dwindling our ability to analyze.

He doesn’t necessarily have a solution. He called for a “calmer Internet” though I’m not entirely sure what that means. Carr says that adult brains are elastic and can change, but we have to train it to digest information differently. The Internet satisfies our craving for distraction by serving up handfuls of cute, cuddly kittens frolicking in a grassy field or endless videos of people trying to drink a gallon of milk in an hour (which, I’ve been assured, is nearly impossible to do) when we initially just tried checking today’s weather.

As I see it, we’ve found ourselves in a catch-22 – we have the ability to change our habits but technology is so ingrained in society today that it’s nearly impossible to pry ourselves completely away. Carr also brought up an interesting comparison to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in which we’ve reached a point that we now have technology about the Self (though I personally think his examples belong in the Esteem box) like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest that do not necessarily contribute to improving life but serve to entertain and validate us.

So could there be a counter trend? A movement away from technology? Carr thinks so. He suggested that there could be a subset of the younger generation (because these types of movements, according to Carr, tend to be driven by younger people) that decides to cut the wire as a statement about how technology is changing our lives, and maybe not always for the better. Whether this movement will have any impact on the larger world remains to be seen.

Stay tuned for Carr’s next book, “The Glass Cage,” which is expected to publish in 2014.

Can you communicate a message in 6 seconds or less? Some think so and that’s the challenge facing brand marketers as they jump on the Vine bandwagon.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, this free Twitter-owned service echoes the required concision of its big brother, allowing users to share short video clips – just 6 seconds of either continual or ‘punctuated’ recording time.  This hot, new social media platform launched at the start of 2013 has resulted in an abundance of largely creative and amusing videos being uploaded by early adopters.

Vine has “become the muse of marketers looking to reach people through imaginative messaging,” says Jennifer Van Grove of CNET.

Whether we like to admit it or not, the attention spans of people browsing the web are getting shorter and shorter. If you don’t get your point across quickly, they lose interest and move on. Is Vine an antidote for this internet attention deficit disorder?

The signs are encouraging and already a number of brands and media outlets are using Vine as a cost effective and innovative way to bring to life previously ‘flat’ content.  Some great examples of brands helping to demonstrate what Vine is good for include:

• Lowes recently made headlines with their brilliant use of Vine by simply illustrating life hacks and tips for home improvement via this channel
• ASOS asks users to share their unboxing of their purchases and regularly offers snippets of candid behind the scenes office fun through their Vines
• Not forgetting that Vine also includes sound, Doritos (UK) recently launched a ‘name that tune’ competition, asking users to identify songs played by a Mariachi band for prizes
• Bacardi takes advantage of the stop motion feature on the app with creative how-to, 6 second cocktail mixes, asking users to select the next cocktail to bring to life

These brands have embraced the platform to test unconventional campaigns on social audiences who seem to appreciate their business-as-unusual approach. However, like Instagram before them, many popular and Editor’s choice Vine’s comments are often filled with desperate self-promotion and ‘follow me’ requests, rather than real brand engagement.

At the very least, Vine serves as an innovative addition to a brand’s marketing tool kit that can help enhance a 140 character tweet and bring a brand’s social media presence to life. Many are likely to find video content more compelling than traditional web content so it’s likely the service will continue to gain some momentum.

One thing is for sure – Vine needs to find its niche, just as Instagram and Pinterest did. The key to its success will be encouraging more users to sign up and interact before the novelty wears off and people forget about it.

As it’s a channel in its infancy, there’s little guidance for best practice, but brands that do this well experience incredible results while those with haphazard content see almost no return. With an engaged, expanding audience, brands will have no choice but to invest in this channel to maximize its potential as part of any integrated campaign.

63% of people agree that customers do not want to be friends with a brand. That was the result of the live poll conducted on Twitter and among attendees at the latest #empty13 event hosted by Bite this week.

The event explored the perils of presuming intimacy with customers, a key theme from the last empty13 event. Five speakers debated the whether brands should be aware of falling into the trap of presuming they can form an automatic intimate relationship with consumers just because digital media make it easier to do so.

ITV’s MD of Commerical, Online and Interactive Fru Hazlitt opened proceedings by arguing that actually your customers do want a relationship with you, but only on their terms. ITV has found that consumers engage with content, rather than brands themselves. In fact, in television terms, this has been happening for years, from postcard competitions to the foam bricks that were thrown at TV sets across the country 25 years ago in frustration at poor programming. Technology has just enabled these interactions to happen in real time.

Fru revealed to the audience how ITV viewers were interacting with its current roster of programming. The channel recorded 100 million interactions in 2012, with flagship detective series Broadchurch registering 2,500 tweets a minute during the final episode and accounting for almost two-thirds of all tweets in the country. This, said Fru, meant ITV could no longer ignore the rubber brick. The channel’s digital strategy has seen downloads of its XFactor app reach 940,000 during its last series while the team saw 4.5 million buzzes from viewers using the Britain’s Got Talent gamification app during the first episode.

This highly interactive, highly entertaining programming has been a hit with viewers and Fru is starting to see brands adopting a similar tactic. Advertising “is no longer broadcasters renting out their breaks like a cheap motel room” according to Fru. Rather, advertising has been undergoing a quiet revolution which has seen brands adopting highly creative and clever promotions that emulate highly engaged TV programmes by promoting engagement with the content over the brand.

Microsoft CMO Philippa Snare agreed that we have certainly become a nation of screen addicts. However she disagreed with the motion, arguing that there is subtle difference between what people are looking for online and through devices, and what traditionally companies are making available to them.

She told the audience that no one screen is king, and that actually every device has a personality. The tablet, according to Philippa, is a wizard, there to show you things and entertain you. The PC is becoming more a sage, there to help you with work and banking, while the TV is the entertaining everyman. The phone, in Philippa’s eyes, is now like your lover, something you miss when it isn’t there and are very afraid to lose. Devices are increasingly reflecting the needs of people, but at the end of the day consumers are still a very fickle bunch. Ultimately, consumers want brands to be there, be bold and then be gone.

Rather than devices, Telefonica’s Global Digital Marketing Director John Bartleson argued that it was platforms that were empowering consumers during his defence of the motion. In his view, the existence of things like social media platforms has allowed consumers to empower themselves rather than relying on celebrities to dictate their tastes and trends.

Today, the customer is focused purely on outcomes and brands need to deliver on those outcomes, as well as manage consumer expectations at the same time. The more agile an organisation is, the easier it is for it to adapt to a changing market. John used the example of the music industry as one that tried to maintain the status quo rather than changing its models, and paid a heavy price.

As European VP of one of the most disruptive brands in music, Spotify’s Chris Maples agreed with John’s sentiments. He used his experiences at the digital music service to emphasise that in order to build a genuine dialogue with customers, brands need to ensure authenticity is at the heart of everything they do. Brands cannot force themselves upon consumers, or chase after them like puppy dogs; they have to speak in a language that customers understand and that doesn’t jar. Ultimately, it comes down to building credibility with your customers.

Chris highlighted the nation’s obsession with tech, saying that people are now wedded to devices and in most cases mobile phones have grown into a fifth limb. He explained how a brand’s relationship with a consumer spreads through every part of the waking day, but the clever brands are the ones that enter into dialogue with consumers some of the time, not all of the time. Every brand, argued Chris, is only one click away from going out of business.

Bite’s Jon Silk brought the event to a close with an unusual metaphor for brand behaviour. Drawing parallels with a rogue’s gallery of friends taken from his Facebook, Jon argued that brands should not act like a bad friend to consumers. In some ways, every brand is like a bad friend as they ultimately just want your money, but there does exist opportunities for brands to be selfless and interesting, as a good friend should be. Jon outlined 5 key rules for brands to follow to be a good friend to consumers: don’t keep secrets; don’t boast; be a good listener; give people respect; and be generous.

This blog post was written by Molly McGaughan, Sandy Choi and Hyeri Kim at Bite New York.

The internet has changed the way we live – from how we work to how we play, how we learn to how we socialize. But, perhaps the biggest gift the internet has given us is an infinite supply of the cutest sh*t you’ve ever seen. Puppies licking kittens, babies laughing hysterically, llamas being fabulous, sloths – it seems as though everywhere you turn, a new cute internet sensation is born.

But what’s our obsession with all things cute? Is the internet really run by… cat gifs? In this post, we pay tribute to some of the cutest, most viral videos and animals of today in an attempt to wrap our heads around the power of the “cute factor.”

Boo, the World’s Cutest Dog

All dog owners claim that their dog is the cutest, but with over six million Facebook fans, Boo takes the cake.

The pup’s widespread popularity began in 2010 with shout-outs from celebrities like Ke$ha, who called the tiny Pomeranian dog her new “boyfriend.” Since then, Boo has become an international superstar. His list of accomplishments is longer than most humans’ — the seven-year-old dog has appeared on Good Morning America and even has a series of books.  For his birthday, this little pup even helped raise over $10,000 for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital’s pet therapy program in less than a week. Pretty sure we couldn’t do that as humans.

But what makes Boo stand out amongst all the other cute dogs on the Web? His owner updates Boo’s Facebook page and Instagram handle daily with a picture of the dog that stops you in your tracks and makes you say “aww!” Posted with catchy taglines that are written from Boo’s perspective, each picture is liked by thousands of fans every day. For example, Boo gets over one hundred thousand likes just for sleeping; or eating; or staring.

Boo’s popularity teaches brands a valuable lesson – a picture can be worth a thousand words. Sometimes, one picture can build your brand image better than a blog post that your team has been working on for weeks!

Grumpy Cat, the World’s Angriest Cat

There is no shortage of cats on the internet. Let’s be real for a minute. Cats are everywhere. These furry little creatures are invading our lives.  But unless you’ve been living under a rock, the cat that takes this year’s catnip is the ever cheerful, Grumpy Cat. There’s something about this ferocious feline (who legally goes by the name Tardar Sauce) that has managed to steal our hearts and make us smile in the face of her misery.

Her negative nelly attitude has birthed ridiculous memes, which has made her an internet sensation. Since her humble beginnings on Reddit, Grumpy Cat has catapulted to fame and has even managed to score a book deal and a national media tour that has placed her in the spotlight at this year’s SXSW, Good Morning America and Time Magazine, to name a few.

What we find so refreshing about Grumpy Cat is that not only is she cute, she’s extremely honest and spunky. Her no bullsh*t attitude is one that we can all relate to, except that Tardar isn’t afraid to show it. She’s the kind of cat we’d like to sit down and have a beer with because she’ll be real with you. And at the end of the day, isn’t that all we can really ask for? A cat to be real with you?

Grumpy Cat has shown us that the support of popular sites such as Mashable and Buzzfeed can truly make, even the grumpiest of cats, a star. She has taught us that it’s important to keep people engaged. By updating Tard’s social channels on a regular basis, her owner continues to maintain her status as the most relevant cat in today’s cat-tastic world. Oh, the irony of grumpiness bringing joy to the world!

Ouch, Charlie!

Remember that time when a small British boy named Charlie bit his brother’s finger? How could you forget? At over 500 million views, the “Charlie bit my finger – again” YouTube video is the most successful user-generated viral video in history. Featuring Charlie and his brother, Harry, this 56 second video struck YouTube gold when the boys’ parents posted it with the intention of sharing a cute, private moment with the boys’ grandfather. The fateful upload in 2007 was just the beginning; since its debut, the viral video has spawned Charlie t-shirts, Charlie calendars, YouTube ad dollars (enough to fund a new home for the family) and way too many bad British accent imitations across the world.

With millions of clever, impressive and funny videos uploaded to YouTube every day, it seems like an enigma to have something as simple as a child biting his brother’s finger claim the number one spot, which is why Ouch, Charlie’s popularity hasn’t come without some naysayers. Advertising Age’s Michael Learmonth argues that these types of user-generated and widely popular videos call into question the “quality” of content that is glorified on the internet.

While we agree that this video might not be Oscar-worthy, it certainly makes us think about the perfect formula for virality. Perhaps it’s an art and a science, or maybe it’s just about capturing the right moment at the right time that is too universally cute to ignore.

Now with that said, once you’ve had your cuteness fix for the day, please join us in thanking the internet for all of its aww-worthy moments. After all, we can all use some more cute in our lives, right?

This article by Bite’s Justin Pearse originally appeared on The Drum. 

It’s become a pretty widely accepted idea that the future of mobile is HTML5. What isn’t so widely discussed is that the future of TV will be too.

At least that’s the clear message I picked up at an event hosted by Decipher this week on the emerging TV landscape.

For brands and agencies the emergence of HTML5 as the basis for new connected TV environments could be very significant in areas such as enabling EPGs to handle new ad formats, with far greater graphical and interactive input.

It will also make the integration of third party content and services into connected TV services potentially far easier. Freesat, a fast growing player in the broadcast market with three million boxes sold over the last four years, has built its hybrid broadcast broadband offering on HTML5.

As The Drum reported recently, YouTube took advantage of the technology to launch an HTML5-designed app on the platform. The advantage of HTML5 is a dramatically improved integration process, making deployment far quicker than traditional routes.

The app is in fact said to have been turned around in matter of weeks.

What’s so fascinating is to see the future of TV being built on open web standards. In exactly the same way that many in the mobile industry are betting on HTML5 to further stimulate open innovation on the mobile web, it could also play an significant role in driving the development of connected TV experiences.

There are numerous industry-wide initiatives taking place that will help drive the adoption of open web standards into TV even further, such as the European Hybrid Broadcast and Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard.

In addition, of course, open standards like HTML5 make global roll out of content services far easier than having to develop for multiple proprietary TV platforms.

HTML5 is gaining such traction in the TV industry that there was even a firm prediction at Decipher’s event that YouView, which was built in Flash, would be soon rebuilt in HTML5 in order to keep up with development cycles.

As the web and TV continue to merge, it is internet-speed development time that needs to be taken into consideration rather than the more languorous pace of traditional consumer electronics.

None of this is particularly new. However, a momentum does seem to building in a focus on web standards in breaking down the barriers between the linear TV experience and an on-demand, web experience.

The impact of the web on the TV industry has arguably been far slower than was expected back in the early days of red button and Sky’s Open interactive TV service.

The adoption of open web standards should be incredibly important in accelerating its influence.

In the digital industry, it’s far too easy to become blinkered to anything happening on any platform, technology or media outside your day to day focus. Social media, ecommerce, UX, content marketing, mobile, and so on – every area moves too fast to risk taking your eyes off your primary are of focus.

But in fact this is why it’s so refreshing to take a step back, to re-focus and understand the in-depth challenges of another sector, like connected TV. And appreciate once again how many common challenges and approaches exist across all sections of the digital industry.