Alexa’s Brand Voices

Beyond Social Media - Alexa Brand Voices - Episode 296

Episode 296: BL and David discuss Google’s Project Witness that uses virtual reality to generate empathy for jailed children; Amazon’s program to create actual brand voices to play on its Echo smart speaker; ASCII art of refugee programmers; tech titans’ efforts to combat coronavirus misinformation; augmented reality Google Maps; Facebook’s bug bounty program; Chrome’s website security deadline; reviews in Google Search Console; a glaring user experience fail in Adobe Acrobat; Target’s Minnesota Badgers miscue; …and much, much more..

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Vindictive Valentines

Beyond Social Media - Vindictive Valentines - Episode 295

Episode 295: BL and David discuss “Cry Me A Cockroach” vindictive Valentines via San Antonio Zoo; social media savvy Astronaut Christina returns to earth; Seventh Generation’s brilliant State of the Union ad; Spotify’s podcast expansion; flirting with Tinder bots; how Netflix gets to the Oscars; Twitter squashes student’s parody, then apologizes; Planters Baby Nut banned; best and worst Super Bowl LIV ads; the Iowa Caucus debacle; hacking Google Maps; world’s worst job ad and world’s funniest resume; Clearview AI slapped with cease-and-decists; Celebrity Cruises’ clueless commercial; 2020 election disinformation wars; Edelman Trust Barometer…and much, much more.

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Tesla’s Shattered Cybertruck Launch

Beyond Social Media - Tesla Cybertruck - Episode 290

Episode290: BL and David discuss Tesla’s embarrassing shattered cybertruck launch; Google Project Luna bringing Internet connectivity to rural Peru; holograms you can see, hear and feel; Google Earth Tours; America’s personalities; the “return” of organic influencers; Wall St Journal’s search engine misinformation; pinball search behavior…and much, much more.

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James Dean Makes New Movie While Dead

Beyond Social Media - James Dean Revived - Episode 288

Episode 288: BL and David discuss James Dean stars in a new movie, 64 years after his death; Monica Lewinsky’s brilliant anti-bullying PSA and Twitter bot; how Black Twitter made Popeye’s chicken sandwich go viral; Arm & Hammer helps cats; VR teaching empathy in the office; Twitter adding Topics option; top 10 brands fooled by Instagram bots; new approach suggested for digital political ads; robots who are anything but cute; @ElBloombito returns to Twitter; …and much, much more.

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LEGO Creativity

Beyond Social Media - LEGO Creativity - Episode 281

Episode 281: Co-hosts BL Ochman and David Erickson discuss the creativity of the world’s largest display of LEGO art in New York City as well as LEGO’s new Rebuild The World campaign; the five hundred new words that were added to the dictionary; Google’s new in this video search results; John Batelle’s new Daily Recount summary of the day’s political news; the city of Grand Rapids, Minnesota’s 3D crosswalks; Descript podcasting software that lets you deep fake yourself; fears of Chinese propaganda via TikTok; the pros and cons of Echo Auto; Facebook Watch TV watching you; creating a digital will; political contributions via Amazon Echo; Facebook’s app problem;…and much, much more.

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Google Maps Add Augmented Reality

Episode 279: BL and David discuss the social media generated AlienStock Festival; By All Means podcast sponsorship; podcasts now play in Google search results; moodvertising; Google adds augmented reality (AR) to map directions; Friends is LEGOized; a job for a couch potato; a lawsuit aims to silence a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist; US Soccer Federation demonstrates how not to handle a PR crisis; Facebook unpublishes pages; Samsung’s delete fest; Facebook’s face scamming; eraser ads…and much, much more.

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The Deep Fakes Edition

Beyond Social Media - Deep Fakes Edition - Episode 273

Episode 273: BL and David discuss the Pakistani press conference that was filtered with cat ears; 3D objects and augmented reality in Google search; YouTube’s augmented advertising; Cracker Barrel’s moral stand; a robobullying parody video of Boston Scientific robots; museums installing ‘braille art’ touchable recreations of exhibits; Spotify’s Daily Drive podcast playlist and the company’s new podcast-targeted advertising; the announcement of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency; an AI-generated Russian spy infiltrates LinkedIn; a deep fake Rasputin sings Beyonce; deep fake videos that are as easy to create as editing text; an algorithm that can generate an accurate portrait of a speaker based only on a sample of that speaker’s voice; Google Photos goes Driveless;…and much, much more.

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Spot The Robot For Sale

Beyond Social Media - Boston Dynamics Spot - Episode 271

Episode 271; BL and David discuss the NYC subway landshark that went viral; drone deliveries via Amazon Prime Air; Vox Media Union reaches an agreement; Boston Dynamics’ commercial Spotbot; the Obama’s partner with Spotify; Apple Podcasts transcripts; Amazon Echo’s erase feature; Instagram’s influencer ads; Google’s new search results diversity update; Counterfeits on Amazon; fear-based social media sites like Nextdoor, Citizen, and Amazon Ring’s Neighbors; YouTube’s New Hate Speech Policy;…and much, much more.

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"Runaway Train 25" Helps Find Missing Kids

Beyond Social Media - Runaway Trains - Episode 270

Episode 270: BL and David discuss the geo-targeted update of Soul Asylum’s hit song Runaway Train devoted to the discovery of missing kids; IKEA’s recreation of living rooms from The Simpsons, Friends & Stranger Things; Crossfit’s Facebook pause; Google’s Translatotron technology; Tiny replica McDonald’s bee hives; David Gilmour’s podcast series telling the backstory of three of his famous guitars; Guns Down America’s challenge to blacklist the NRA; Jeff Jarvis’ superb essay about our Crisis of Cognition; PR pros need to do the legwork; Antitrust investigations heating up for Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google; Google’s suspicious outage; The North Face’s disastrous black hat SEO tactic; the limitations of social listening;…and much, much more.

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