Join the fans of AC Lion on Facebook and LinkedIN and recommend our page to your friends in the digital media space! Click on the logos to like our pages and enter!

Eligibility This promotion is open to individuals ages 18 or older residing in the contiguous United States. Employees, officers, directors and immediate family members (spouse, parents, siblings, and children) of AC Lion are not eligible to participate. Drawing Follow us on both LinkedIn and Facebook to increase your chances of winning the IPAD. The drawing will take place on February 1, 2011 if we have reached 1000 new members on LinkedIn. However, if on February 1, 2011 we do not have 1000 new members, the drawing will take place as soon as we reach our goal of 1000 new members. On the drawing date all of our LinkedIn and Facebook followers will be entered into a raffle where one person will win the IPAD. The winner will be announced on the drawing date through the AC Lion LinkedIn Hot Jobs group and personally contacted via email. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

Wow, think of your voice going viral.  Well, that’s what this cool new audio tool can do.  Record any 30 second clip from your cell phone or browser and send it to your friends. Could be your reaction to a great meal, your recent Black Friday great deal, a wicked pair of high heels, a bad foul throw by Shaw O’Neal, or your brand new automobile.  

Could even be your kid singing Happy Birthday Grandma! Imagine the smile when she hears that. Who needs a fancy Hallmark recordable card when you can do it yourself for nothing.   Now, that’s something to Blurt about!

Oh yeah, can use it for branding, social engagement, and that all important tracking. Entertaining and engaging!

 Click Here for more!

Zagat’s, the famed restaurant review group but a poor performer on the online world, is changing online tactics. They are bypassing their botched subscription model in lieu of a great app. For Zagat’s, its  another distribution channel, like their still successful printed books. It’s mobile, it’s local, it’s search. Looks poised for success but only time will tell.

Yet another publisher where the paid subscription model failed. Most disappointing is that they seemed ideally positioned to make it on line.  As the NY Times beautifully put it, Zagat’s was the original ‘user generated content.’ Pre-blogs, pre-Facebook, pre-Yelp, they had all these people reviewing restaurants. But they kept it paid content, which kept it outside Google’s firewall. Now they’re seen as an also-ran to Yelp and the proliferating local restaurant and daily deal sites.

So the ad model (Yelp) vs the paid content model (Zagat’s). Yelp was worth $500 million to Google. Zagat was at $175-200 million in 2008. An interesting battle to keep an eye on.

Click Here for full article.

AC Lion, as part of our ongoing partnership with PluggedInVentures, is a proud sponsor of the 2010 eCommerce Summit on Tuesday, December 21st in midtown Manhattan.  This event brings together people from social and mobile commerce, group buying and traditional ecommerce.

Each quarter, PluggedIn looks at a specific industry by bringing together its leaders and innovators for an informative and scintillating discussion. Awesome things happen at our roundtables as we put together a small group of smart and passionate people together to discuss everything dealing with ecommerce. The goal is simple: to connect the most innovative and exciting startups in the ecommerce space with the biggest and best eCommerce sites, brands, technology providers and industry analysts.

The eCommerce summit is a full day event that includes 4 topic specific roundtables with one-on-one networking and meetings in between. The roundtable format is an intimate if not laid back discussion that includes a moderator, participant panel, and guests who are relevant and engaged in the content. It’s designed to facilitate knowledge sharing, relationship building and deal making. 

Participating Companies include: BuyWithMe, Ashford.com, Yipit, GaggleOfChicks, GiltCity, dotBox, SocialAmp, TurnTo, Triad Digital, StyleTrek, ScoopSt, Vitamin Creek, Razorfish, Digitas, Peekaboo Mobile, Checkpoints, and many others.

I invite you to join me there.   AC Lion has negotiated a significant discount (to $150–$100 off if you register before 11/22/10).  Use the product code “ACLion” when you register at  http://www.pluggedinsummit.com/register/

If you have further questions, or need a group rate, please do not hesitate to ask.

Hope to see you there,

The hotel industry, who have been hammered hard by online user generated content, are fighting back.   No, they are not pasting over all those negative reviews of dirty bathrooms and dreadful views.  They are fighting back against unruly guests.   So if you had a bad weekend, and maybe put a stolen tiger in your hotel room, don’t expect to be welcomed with open arms.  GuestScan will know if you stole the towels or  trashed the room.  

So, where will Charlie Sheen stay when this wife kicks him out?  Think the Plaza will take him back?

Click Here for more.

Yep, it’s here.  More people are playing games on their iPhones and iPads than watch most TV shows.  Ranks close to Sunday Night Football in terms of consumer reach.    And advertisers love it—those gaming ads are targeting, available 24/7, longer use time and repeat viewing.  And, oh, peak usage is in the evening, what we used to call prime time viewing hours. 

And it’s not just primetime.  Last month BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti pointed out that Zynga has 50 million users, mainly female gamers between 18 and 30.   That used to be the target audience for soap operas, which are fading away (or maybe they just had amnesia, a missing twin, were kidnapped or lost in the jungle for years). 

And I know this first hand.   Logged into YahooGames to see my fave time wasting game had been taken over by Resolve laundry detergent.   The message boards were flaming about it but people were still playing.  Who cares what was happening on network TV?  That’s so 20^th century.

Click here  for full article.

Men’s Age-Defying, Line-Reducing, Rejuvenating, Sun-Soaked, Thrill-Seeking Body Enhancement Serum—Coming soon to a Walmart near you!

Oh, did I mention the sports car on the packaging?  The motorcycle on the mountain road in the ad?

Yes, men’s personal care products are on the rise.  And the editor of ModernMan.com sees a correlation between the growing economic and social pressures on men and their increased interest in personal care products.   Yep, you saw that right—more out of work men means more men doing the household shopping chores.  And the retailers are noticing and catching on.   Even WalMart has expanded its men’s products section in 800 of its stores.   Those out of work, stay at home hubbies need to look younger to compete in today’s workforce.

Even P&G is getting into the act.   ManoftheHouse.com was created to help these men navigate their lifestyle changes.

It’s not just shaving cream or sunblock anymore!

http://adage.com/article?article_id=146396

AC Lion is proud to sponsor of the 2010 PluggedIn Mobile Eco Summit  on Monday, September 20th in midtown Manhattan.  The Mobile Ecosystem summit encompasses 4 roundtables of 90 minutes with high level networking and meetings among participants and attendees.  The roundtable format is an intimate and laid back discussion with a moderator and a roomful of guests who would like to listen to the content of the discussion.  Roundtables are kept intimate in order to foster networking and meaningful discussion. In fact, roundtables have been referred to as “cage matches” for founders, c-level execs and investors, as they allow for honest conversation with insightful back-and-forth dialogue.

Roundtable participants include:

Mobile Apps:

eyeDip, WorldLiveMobile, Toura, MEDL Mobile, Appsolute Media, Fox Mobile, Time Inc.,  WSJ, MTV, Sony Music, Turner Broadcasting,  and Thomson Rueters.

Mobile Marketing:

AppsSavvy, Socialight, Adenyo, Appular, Bravo Media, Joule, Razorfish, and MRM Worldwide.

Mobile Advertising:

Medialets, Jumptap, Greystripe, Percent Mobile, InMobi, Todacell, Ringleader Digital, Ogilvy, Microsoft, and Google.

Check-In/LBS:

Xtify, Buzzd, Facebook, Fiddme, Where, Loopt, Topguest, DoubleDutch, Izea, and Grouptabs.

I invite you to join me there. Click here to register.

Ah, the days of red carpets, cat walks and engraved invites are going the way of the typewriter and the answering machine.  Effective in their day but vestiges of a bygone era.   Even haute couture is now available on your iPhone.

And here in the Big Apple, Fashion Week brought this to the forefront.  Marc Jacobs has streaming videos of fashion shows, live backstage with Betsey Johnson.

And Burberry hit the ball out of the park.  You can have the best of both worlds: see (and be seen) at the runway show.  And buy that trendy overcoat from your seat with your new app.  Not in NY?  Join the scene at Burberry stores worldwide, watching the fashion show on hi def and buying through an iPad app. 

Who needs buyers telling us what to wear when we can see it ourselves?  Maybe we should just stay home and watch Project Runway next time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/business/12shows.html

Nice to see Crain’s and Inc. magazine confirm what we here at AC Lion already know:  NYC is a hot spot for fast-growing digital media companies.  Of the annual list of 500 booming businesses, AC Lion’s sweet spot (or, new media advertising, as they call it), software and IT rule.   It’s a full fifth of the NY area companies listed (Click here for the full list)   

Around here, this is no surprise.   Digital media has more than held its own during the recent economic downturn.   And I hear it from friends and family all the time—expressing surprise that a recruiting company is doing well during a ‘jobless recovery.’   As I tell them, it’s just like real estate—location, location, location.  Our location (i.e. digital media) is in demand—and so are we.   Our clients are hiring—and so are we.  So times are good for us here at AC Lion.  (BTW, always open to referrals to good sales people and recruiters).

So thanks to Crain’s and Inc. for confirming what we know to be true—the Digital Mad Men (and women) will continue to be based in NYC!