Last week, Franz Ferdinand (the band, not the Austrian archduke) rocked a crowd of 2,500 during a show at Oakland’s Fox Theater – and then shared exclusive concert footage with even more fans through their branded Kyte channel. Welcome to rock n’ roll 2.0.

360i recently met with Kyte CEO Daniel Graf to discuss what the digital media platform has to offer for marketers. Kyte hosts several production and distribution tools – both online and through mobile channels – for a broad spectrum of media content. Like Franz Ferdinand, hundreds of artists – including Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz and 50 Cent – use Kyte to promote their music online and via mobile technology. Graf told 360i that one 50 Cent video (via www.thisis50.com) had garnered almost 50,000 views in an hour. Another recent show by the popular rap artist boasted 200,000 views.

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At 360i, when we’re engaging communities and sparking conversations around our clients’ brands, there’s one constant – the initial interaction starts online. With so much emphasis on the digital world, marketers can sometimes overlook the thousands of individuals who choose to talk about their shared passions face-to-face using the Meetup.com platform.

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So what’s one of the world’s most respected venture capitalists talking about at Ad Age Digital? Earned media.

He noted paid media’s about media and creative. Earned media’s about conversations, and also analysis. (He blogged about earned media recently if you want more on this).

He actually proposed a future scenario, soon available (along with the rest of his presentation), on his A VC blog, where overall marketing spending rises thanks to increases in spending on technology and creative, but a decrease in spending on media. He’s not even labeling this a prediction, but more of a possibility.

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By Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i

Display advertising: Can it be both a branding and a performance marketing tool? I’d argue yes, but not at the same time. And that’s where some of the recent debates over the art-and-science approach to display have gotten it wrong.

You see, we need to rethink the way we buy and sell display advertising in a way that clearly distinguishes between various marketers’ objectives — whether that is direct response (e.g., e-commerce sales or generating web leads) or enhancing the brand (influencing purchase intent, favorability ratings, etc). We’ll be best served by treating it not as a hybrid but as two different tactics.

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More than ever, consumers are relying on peer recommendations gleaned from the digital world – and that’s why it’s increasingly important for brands to make good customer service an integral part of their marketing mix. 360i’s latest POV on “Customer Relationship Management 2.0” suggests brands extend their conventional CRM efforts to more personalized and proactive customer outreach in the social sphere.

The good news is that social media users in the U.S. are eager to meet brands online. A recent study found that 85 percent of Americans agree that companies should not only be present, but also interact with customers via social media – and more than half say they feel a strong connection with brands they interact with in a social environment. Read the full article

360i announced today that it has won five Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) awards from the Web Marketing Association. The awards recognize 360i’s innovative digital campaigns on behalf of clients Comedy Central, Cox Newspapers, DIY Network, Oxygen and HGTV. Read the full article

Way back when the PS3 and Xbox 360 were first launched, one of the big sticking points with each of the console’s fanbases was the missing or incomplete backwards compatibility available to each system. This is not really an issue that anybody talks about anymore — prior to the launch of the 360 and the PS3, it wasn’t clear how thoroughly downloadable content would take the place of backwards compatibility.

Taking a look at the top-selling Xbox Live Marketplace titles of 2008, half of them are titles that were available for older platforms, and only a handful are truly original titles, with “Braid” and “Castle Crashers” two notable examples.So it’s safe to say that the respective marketplaces for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 have taken up the role that backwards compatibility once occupied — offering gamers the option to fire up retro titles and play the games that resonated in their youth (or at least that resonated four to five years ago). Read the full article