Squawk Box Sept 22 – Slot Music and Social Network Marketing

Sandisk has announced a new initiative called Slot Music. It’s music purchased on an SD card. It’s going to be available in Walmart and Bestbuy; you buy a 1G MicroSD card, and simply plug it into your phone or PC, and play the music.

The initiative is being roundly panned by the likes of Om Malik, and to a lesser degree Mike Arrington. We discussed it. It’s not obvious that Sandisk is jumping onto the deck of the Titanic called the music distribution industry. In fact, it might make sense for some markets and geographies. As a substitute for CDs, however, Slot Music is an unlikely story.

We also discuss a new study by Universal McCann which says that consumers now trust social networks and strangers more than brands. The survey covered 17,000 internet users from 29 countries.

The study describes a “new influencer landscape” which is characterized by three significant trends: the rise in social media, the importance of digital friends, and the proliferation of influencer channels. The study also mentions the impact of this phenomenon: an influence economy, the democratization of influence, and the new“super influencer.”

Any doubts about social networks and marketing? You won’t have them any more after reading this document.

On this morning’s Calliflower Conference Call: Andy Abramson, Dan York, James Body, Jim Courtney, Michael Graves, Nick Desbarats, Phil Wolff, Sergio Meinardi, Bill Volk, and Tom Orr.

And here are the chat wall posts, and the recording.

Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.