We talked to Krauss while researching our May trend report, “10 Ways Marketers Are Using the Second Screen.” He talked about what the company is learning from its foray into television and what to expect next.

How did Shazam evolve from a music recognition tool to become part of the second-screen TV experience?

The company’s older than most people think—it’s 11 years old. Before the whole smartphone craze, Shazam was a short code or a phone number you would dial. The phone would listen and hang up, and it would send you back a text message. When the App Store started, [Shazam] was actually marketed by Apple because they thought it was a great representation of how cool these new phones are.

One of the early parts of the vision of the company was to be discovery, music being the most fundamental perceived broadest need. But the founders had a vision that the mobile device is always with us; there’s lots of things that it can help us discover. As we became more and more successful, the company started thinking, How do you take this huge user base, and what do we do with it?

We did some research and found out a huge percentage of the Shazam activity around music is not what we call “name that tune.” It’s around what people already know, but they almost want to “bookmark” it out of the air because they want to buy it later or look at videos or check out the lyrics. So we were we were learning this and asking the question around TV at the same time, and it became clear, if people use us to explore stuff they already know, it does seem to make sense that TV would work. We’ve done now 30 different TV programs and tests with pretty much all the major networks and most of the major cable folks.

Is this in the U.S. only so far?

We’ve done no network programming outside the U.S. yet. We’ve done a number of advertisements. Of the 76 commercials, about eight of them have been outside the U.S., and it’s been mostly Australia, the U.K. and Ireland.

And that’s because they approached Shazam?

Yeah, it was before I even had teams in place. It was some of the U.S. agencies we were working with linking us off to their counterparts in other markets.

What kind of user behavior have you found?

Something we saw right off the bat that has continued is that once people have Shazamed, the engagement numbers are through the roof. So a viewer is literally raising their hand in their living room, right? It’s a habit people have—they hit the [Shazam app] button and they hold their hand up, and that’s the first action. The real ROI is once I’ve done that, what do I do? Do I take the action that the marketer or the program was hoping to have me take? There are some people who do it and they’re like “Eh,” or “Oh, that’s cool” and don’t really do anything, but for the most part people are engaging in a very deep way, and it’s not just in the moment.

When I Shazam something, it stays in my “tag list,” we call it. So every song I’ve ever Shazamed, any TV show or every commercial I’ve ever Shazamed, is now in that list as almost a bookmark. And we’re seeing people, the next day up to usually about three days after they Shazamed TV, they’re going back to that tag to watch the video for the movie trailer or do a click to call for Progressive Insurance, etc. They’re not necessarily doing it on the couch.

So it’s extending the message over time as well as onto the other screen?

Absolutely. And that’s why I think second screen is powerful, because look at the benefits. It’s a non-interruptive engagement experience. I can decide I’m going to take action, and I can either just put it down because I know it’s on my phone—I’ll go deal with it later—or I can engage now. That’s a huge part of why second screen is more powerful than the remote. The remote is a very disruptive way of getting at the same thing.

What do you know about the demographics of users so far?

An interesting fact about smartphones is they’re getting younger and younger every quarter as more Android devices are going into the market, but also every time Apple puts out a new phone, they make their previous one cheaper. Our general audience follows the smartphone audience. As it relates to Shazam for TV, it tends to be in the sweet spot of 25 to 54. The second biggest category would be 18 to 34.

What about by gender?

Our overall app is about 50/50. Shazam for TV is 55/45 women—more women are Shazaming TV than men, which shocks the hell out of us. Our most successful campaigns have been retail campaigns by factors of 10 compared to the other campaigns. They were humongous. Movies, and entertainment in general, have been very successful as well—that’s where we’re seeing potentially more men engaging. They see the Underworld trailer, and they want to go see more Kate Beckinsale or to see the three-minute trailer or engage in content in another way. Shazam pulls them into the Underworld experience in a different way.

Have you seen any differences between markets?

The engagement story’s been pretty consistent, but more people Shazam in Australia as a ratio to the reach than anywhere else in the world so far for TV. On a one-to-one basis—same campaign in the U.S., same campaign in Australia—Australia had a significantly higher Shazam rate. It’s not a market we have any higher penetration in. We have no idea what it is.

What are some of the more innovative partnerships Shazam has had with advertisers and brands?

Our first major campaign we launched in the States was with Old Navy [in February 2011]. That was a really interesting one. One of the most exciting things was that close to 30 percent went shopping: We created a microsite for the clothing that was featured in the commercial—there were actually six different commercials—and 30 percent of the folks went exploring Old Navy’s new [styles].

That was over a year ago. When did you see the interest really picking up from marketers?

So we did [the Old Navy campaign], and then we backed off advertisers and focused on the networks because we wanted to make sure there was more to Shazam on TV than just commercials. We believe for people to want to Shazam TV programming, we need a really compelling experience.

It went something like two campaigns Q1 of last year, four campaigns Q2, nine campaigns the next quarter, and then it went like 12, 16. And then Q1 this year with the Super Bowl—we had 26 campaigns that were Shazamable on the day of the Super Bowl, let alone the quarter.

What are the various ideas that brands are coming up with? Are they mostly basic promotions?

The way I explain our evolution is, we’ve been in a 2D world. A lot of the inspiration or the excitement’s been coming from clients, and then it’s been going to the digital teams. I’m a digital guy, so I can say it—we think in 2D; we think Internet. What we’re starting to see now in some of the more exciting conversations is more 3D, where the TV folks are getting involved, and the folks creating the TV campaigns are starting to think about how Shazam can play an active role in the campaign itself earlier in the process.

There’s nothing more compelling than TV commercials. No banner ad made you cry or made you laugh. You can really change somebody’s perception in 30 seconds, but at the end of 30 seconds it’s over. I’ve always believed the opportunity is to have that experience jump into consumers’ hands, and we have the technology. And so now that we’re starting to talk to the creative people, that vision is starting to come through.

Can you give us an example of this “3D” vision coming to fruition?

We’re working with one of the studios on a movie that’s coming out—when you Shazam their trailer, the experience you get within Shazam is a scene in the movie. And as you move your phone around, the phone is like a peephole into the room, and as you walk to the right and move your phone to the right, you move to the right in the room, and you can look up at the ceiling, you can look down on the floor. You can interact with the experience.

Of course we have the utility functions—you can go find out when it’s playing and buy the tickets on Fandango—but how do you pull [consumers] into the story? So not only are they definitely going, but they’re telling 10 other people to go—that’s the opportunity here, and that idea’s being used in different ways. There’s other ways to take the whole idea of what we call the interactive panorama experience. It works great for retail: I could walk through a retail experience and see different clothes on mannequins.

I’d say we’re in Version 1 right now after. Version 2 is what I’ve been dreaming of since I joined the company, which is this more elaborate experience. We’ll start seeing some of those next quarter and a lot more the quarter after. One of the things we had to learn the hard way in this process is, TV takes a hell of a lot longer than digital.

What are the metrics you’re seeing for the campaigns so far?

If you take all our campaigns, we’re looking at about a 47 percent engagement rate. We had millions of Shazams [for the Super Bowl]. The halftime alone was about 40 percent of that, and that was a partnership with Bud Light and Madonna, which had huge success. So we promoted the Super Bowl like mad, plus a lot of our advertisers who had Shazamable commercials were advertising it, and we got a couple million [users]. A week later the Grammys got a half a million, and we didn’t even tell people it was Shazamable.

Thanks to the momentum that the Super Bowl brought, we’re seeing up to 100,000 Shazams for programs that we’re making Shazamable but not really publicizing, because we’re still testing them out.

What exactly is the viewer seeing when he or she is Shazaming a TV program?

As of right now, you can Shazam American Idol, and it’s a very utilitarian experience, but it’s a fairly good one, which is “I want to buy the music that’s being performed” or “I want to go to the site,” which has the details about all the contestants and that kind of stuff. A lot of us wouldn’t necessarily explore it sitting on their couch, but the next day on their train ride into work, they might just click around, right? I call it snack moments.

We’re seeing that if you Shazam a TV show, you have this utility, but then you go back and you kind of snack through it. With the Super Bowl it was really about “How do I get really simple, quick access to all those stats?” You’re taking polls—who do I think is going to win, who do I think the MVP should be, what’s my favorite commercial? The Grammys was really artist-specific as well. With some of the programming, we’re giving people behind-the-scenes.

The coolest one we’ve done so far was with Red Bull and NBC. Red Bull had this series, it was basically a hardcore snowboarding show that they aired this weekend. If you were watching any one of the athletes going down the hill, you Shazamed it to watch a video from his point of view. The numbers are through the roof. It’s one of our most compelling and most successful experiences by far. The percentage of people watching the show that Shazamed were in single digit percentage points versus decimal places percentage points of the percentage of people watching the program. And on average, there was a 130 percent viewership of the videos, so people watched more than one.

With Shazamable ads, what are some lessons learned so far as to what works with viewers and what doesn’t?

Consumers need to know that the commercial’s Shazamable, We found that on average, the best time to start the call to action is five seconds in, not right away, because it gets lost in that moment where the viewer’s just figuring out what’s going on. Leave it on-screen for at least 10 seconds, and there should be some call-out of what I get: “Shazam for a free sample.” Axe did a hilarious one—it was this “Premature Perspiration” campaign; there was a “Shazam for the unrated commercial.” You can imagine how that played out.

So you have to tell people what to do and what they get, and that leads to the second part, which is the value proposition and the experience. So the first one leads to volume. The second leads to engagement. The simpler campaigns that had a more focused user journey had much higher engagement than ones that offered 20 different things for consumers to do.

The ones that did well, the call to action made sense, offered value, and boom, I connect with that value right away. Offers do get people to jump. Content and humor also seem to be engaging for folks. This isn’t rocket science stuff. Shazam is, at the end of the day, a platform of 200 million users kind of waiting there to raise their hand. The same tried-and-true marketing rules apply.

The most interesting thing for me has been collaborating between digital and TV folks, who think of things so differently. Trying to get them to even sit at the same table is fun.

What’s the split between tablets and phones?

It’s mostly phone right now, like 90 percent. Tablets are starting to increase. I don’t think that’s a penetration thing, by the way. Tablets are going to be a different use case, and we’re developing toward that.

Tablets are more about a watch-along experience: I want a really rich experience and I’m going to stay with it, versus the smartphone model, which is, I’m going to engage for a period of time and then come back to it later, or not.

Jumping ahead to the next Super Bowl, what kind of new things do you think we’ll be seeing?

I wish I had my crystal ball, but I think the most interesting thing is, every quarter we’re going to start seeing more innovation on the platform. We’re going to keep pushing the platform technology-wise as far as we can, but it’s really about great ideas and getting the creative shops and all the different folks. It’s like, how do we get those minds involved? Because if you think about what you can do—there is really no limitation to the device. We can create ridiculously interesting experiences.

Can we expect any interesting campaigns around the Olympics this summer?

All I can say is that the Olympics for us will make the Super Bowl look like an elementary school football game. We’re taking the Olympics very seriously—the Olympics are about the sport, but it’s really about the athletes and the stories around those athletes, and so we’re trying to bring that to life for our advertisers in a really cool way.

-The Economist looks at why Google may be the “single biggest private-sector influence on Africa.”

-In a book excerpt, author Daniel Gross examines the idea that “Americans are getting used to the idea of renting the good life,” focusing on the country’s shift “from a nation of owners to an economy permanently on the move.”

-China’s super-rich expect premium pampering from the brands wooing them, report The Economist.

-The New York Times looks at the various competing paths to a mobile wallet that are getting implemented.

-USA Today reports that many new grads are adopting online registries as a way of ensuring they’ll receive gifts they like.

-The Wall Street Journal takes a look at new cinema technologies aimed at motivating moviegoers to leave the comfort of their home screens.

-The New York Times spotlights nine startups with the potential to be the next big thing, from Airtime to Uber.

-“Are Testosterone Drugs the Next Viagra?” asks Bloomberg Businessweek.

-If current trends continue, more than 4 in 10 Americans could be obese within two decades, according to a new report.

-CNN takes a look at the crop of video apps vying to be the next Instagram.

-“Nomophobia” is on the rise, according to one study.

-A new Deloitte study pinpoints where large retailers still fall short when it comes to e-commerce, as MediaPost reports.

-Amazon potentially upends the high-fashion business as it jumps into the category, The New York Times reports.

-The Wall Street Journal examines how retailers are using “geofencing.”

-Fast Company looks at the “discovery economy” that will be enabled by NFC-enabled technology.

-The New York Times looks at how “the cultural battlefield of television has changed” when it comes to gay characters.

-A survey from Meredith’s Parents Network examines just how attached moms are to their mobiles and how immersed they are in digital media.

-Sir Martin Sorrell outlines the 10 biggest marketing trends.

-The New York Times surveys the new language developing around the Internet and social media.

-Ad Age looks at how automakers are wooing tech-savvy young consumers with high-tech features. Looking further ahead, USA Today reports that “Cars of the future will be computers on wheels.”

-As American SUV owners trade down to smaller vehicles, demand for their old vehicles is burgeoning, reports The New York Times.

-Facebook announces its own app store.

-Our May trend report, 10 Ways Marketers Are Using the Second Screen, spotlights how brands are experimenting with initiatives that link smartphone, tablet or PC screens with the television. Click here to download the report.

Social media now permeates our lives—even our most intimate moments—and it seems that even those who embrace it the most (Millennials) may feel worse for it. JWT Singapore surveyed 900 consumers aged 19 to 26 in China, Singapore and the U.S. to understand their attitudes toward social media, finding that more than half feel that keeping up with their social media commitments is too time consuming and stressful. This results in a fear of missing out (FOMO)—for example, 72 percent of working Singaporeans feel left out in the real world if they don’t check social media, according to the findings.

Perhaps in an attempt to deal with FOMO, some young adults bring their social networks into previously intimate moments with a partner or date. More than 1 in 10, for instance, log on while in bed with their partner. The effect, however, may simply be more stress. More than half feel jealous or otherwise bad after glimpsing other people’s lives on social sites.

To address social media stress, brands can help ease, aid or even induce FOMO to drive engagement. For Kit Kat, JWT Singapore created a Social Break desktop widget that helps people “tune out from the stress of social networking whenever you feel you need a break,” automatically sharing, retweeting or liking whenever a user is tagged in a post. For more on FOMO and how brands can address it, download our March trend report here.

Would you agree that Gen Z is the most connected generation yet?

[Gen Z is] the most connected generation, and I think particularly for this group, they’re growing up or they’re born into an environment where the digital technology is just so much more prevalent than it ever has been.

What role is mobile playing for them?

With this generation we’re finally going to see the U.S. catch up with the rest of the world [in terms of mobile penetration]. And we are seeing more and more ownership of mobile phones among younger and younger populations within the U.S. and Canada.

A little anecdote that we found in focus groups with very young kids is that some of them were preferring an iPod Touch to an iPad. Simply because the screen was smaller and their hands were still so small that an iPad was just too big for them. So small screens are particularly useful for younger kids, and then you see in nations or cities where you have a lot of driving, this “hand back the phone” effect, so the parent is giving their own phone to the child in the back seat.

We also do see that devices like an iPod Touch give you social currency [when it comes to] sharing video, which isn’t necessarily all through social networking. So I download this video, I find it, and then I show it physically to my friends on my device. It doesn’t need to be connected necessarily to the Internet because I can download it at home.

So we’re seeing, because of this, a number of kids have two devices. One of them is their phone, which is maybe a clunky, relatively old connected text message-type device. They also have an iPod Touch or something else that isn’t a phone but that they use for everything that is intended to do with a smartphone.

How do parents feel about their child’s use of technology?

Parents’ attitudes toward technology in general have always been and are still very conflicted because, on the one hand, they appreciate the fact that they can use them as “babysitters,” and they also are more and more appreciating that those devices can help their children to learn.

At Nickelodeon we did a study called “Permission to Play,” which focuses on how kids play and what parents allow them to play, and it’s very clear that parents prefer structured play to anything that is not very structured. [Mobile] devices enable parents to put a structure around play, because with varied apps that is clearly possible. On the other hand, they have this conflict of too much screen time and all that. And we know that parents in a number of places are no longer limiting their kids’ TV time but instead they’re limiting screen time, which includes the computer and various other devices.

As kids consume more content online, how are their sharing habits evolving?

In general, not just for kids but it’s equally true for the older Millennials, content provides their social currency, particularly funny content. If I post something, then that says more about me. If you like my humor, then you are going to “get” me. And it gives me social credit—it’s currency because I was the one who found it.

Our data indicate that a significant number of kids prefer socializing online than off. How is social networking changing the way they communicate with each other and the wider world?

The biggest constraint on social networks for younger kids is the terms and conditions. The fact that you have to be 13 to sign up to Facebook is a barrier. However, we have seen in research that parents are, I wouldn’t say actively encouraging, but they are certainly aware that their kids are on Facebook, and that to a degree is perfectly fine. And it is partially also because kids and parents are friends on Facebook anyway.

Gen Xers tend to communicate with people through social media that they know offline. However, for [younger generations], that is not necessarily the case. A lot of their friends, as your report says as well, are in far-flung places.

Speaking more broadly to Gen Z, what are some of the things they value most?

I think that warmth is, like love, the new sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Connecting is really important to the Millennials and post-Millennials, and also to be in on the joke, if you will.

They’re not rebelling. It’s not like Generation X used to be. They are happy to work within the establishment. They think they are the establishment, and as long as you are providing the tools, they are absolutely fine to work within it.

The most important value to this generation that we found is the element of happiness—happiness and self-fulfillment.

How do you think this willingness to work within the establishment affects the way they relate to brands?

What we found is that just as family is seen as friends, brands are friends too. So brands need to behave like friends, and they actually need to therefore behave much more responsibly rather than just shouting out loud messages saying “Buy me, buy me, buy me.” They need to offer something, because I’m not going to be friends with somebody who’s not offering something, not bringing anything to the table.

Brands generally need to be everywhere this generation is, so that’s offline, online, on TV, on various social media. But they need to be there with a purpose, and it’s pretty bad to not be there because if you’re not there, you don’t exist. But it’s better to not be there, than to be there and not offer anything.

It’s very important to get the funny bit in there, too, to get the humor in there and to add something to the conversation. And it’s really important if a brand is on a social network or platform, to listen to what is being said about them. There is nothing more frustrating for this generation than somebody publicizing their Twitter account and then [consumers] complain to that [account] and there is never a response. That’s just not acceptable.

How do you think the current economic climate will affect Gen Z’s outlook on the world?

We’ve recently done a study called “Kids’ Influence Study,” and it was becoming very, very clear that this recession, or call it what you will, is the first time an economic dire situation is dinner table conversation.

This is a lot higher in Latin America and in the countries where the economic situation has been dire before—and where people are used to this kind of conversation—followed by North America, Western Europe, Australia and, to a much lesser degree, some of the Asian cultures, where this is partly seen as difficult to talk about. So parents are absolutely comfortable talking to their kid about what’s going on in the world, what’s going on with their financial budgets. We even had a mother who was trying to explain to her kids that they can’t have any particular thing, and it ended up that she took all her bills, all her monthly bills, put them on the dinner table and let the kids do the math.

That led to kids being somewhat self-censoring because they know, if I can only get certain things, then I should only ask for those things I really, really want and not for everything.

We also found that despite the fact that [parents] are talking to their kids about [the economic climate], they still aren’t necessarily convinced that their kids actually know much about it at all. One in four parents think their kids actually listen. Though I believe, from the kids’ perspective, that is a much higher number because we have, like you, also looked into saving and all those numbers, and you are starting to see kids saving much more than you have before. You are also, by the way, going back to values, seeing kids give to charities or be aware that that is something they should or want to be doing.

In terms of saving, there is a weird example from one of our partners we were doing research with. [Gen Z] operates in a virtual world that gives rewards for doing whatever it is, and then you can buy things for your avatars. One of the kids was saying, “Oh, I’ll get all these points, and then I’ll save some.” And it was really difficult for us to understand why they were saving virtual currency that isn’t even worth anything. But [this frugal mindset] is going even through to that level, so “I’ll have [money] when I need it.”

Do you think this saving mentality is specific to Gen Z?

I don’t think it’s specific to this group, but it’s getting stronger and it’s picking up. Of course, it does depend on the economic situation within the country. You look at Australia, they’ve not really had a recession at all, so clearly that impacts that as well.

You mention that kids are more restrained when they ask for things from their parents. What does this mean for Gen Z as consumers?

In general, purchase decisions are no longer individual decisions. They’re all family decisions. It doesn’t matter who uses what, and that is again partly down to the way Millennials and the wave after that have been brought up, which is, “Your opinion matters, and the only way I can show my child that their opinion matters is by actually listening to them.” So kids are asked by their parents and families to have opinions on various things.

Millennials like consumption. To them, shopping is part of this “making me happy” thing.

How is Gen Z impacting parents’ purchasing decisions?

If you think back to the generation gap, when it existed, kids and parents just did not even speak the same language. They couldn’t communicate with each other. That gap is completely gone, and today we’re communicating about the same thing. I mean, 20 years ago parents and kids would never wear the same types of clothes. Today, everybody wears jeans and a T-shirt. Mothers and daughters are actually sharing the physical same piece of clothing. And a lot of mothers go shopping with their daughter in mind, saying, “Oh we could both wear this.”

Everybody wants to look young, and [kids] are the best at knowing what is cool and hip and trendy, so you’re asking them for advice. You’re honestly asking them, “Does this look OK? What sneakers do I want to buy? What brand is important to me?” So brand awareness is very, very big among Millennials and the younger generation as well. And parents, a lot of times, actually are listening to suggestions from the children for a new brand. And this isn’t just limited to sweets and that type of stuff, this goes all the way to houses and cars.

There are a number of real estate shows where parents who are moving, they find two options and then let the kids decide which of the houses they should buy. So there’s this whole decision-making by committee. There are a few ways of making decisions: One in the middle, which is the family meeting where everybody is deciding together; this is becoming very prevalent in a number of places. Another part is the family filter, where parents come up with options and then filter them and let the kids decide. And then, on the other side of that, is parents taking their kids’ suggestions and deciding as parents. So between those three, we’re clearly seeing a movement toward more kid power, if you will, across categories.

So I would wholeheartedly agree with one of the conclusions in your report that brands need to appeal to both the parents and the kids if they want to be seen as a family brand. And you see that. You see the car ads on TV, certainly in the U.S.—there’s hardly a car ad around anymore that doesn’t have a kid in it. We’re seeing that a lot in the U.S. We’re not yet seeing so much outside, but that’s clearly rolling into the rest of the world.

What does this mean for Nickelodeon?

It’s a family channel. [We] started out as just for kids if you go 20 years back. It’s really not that anymore. In the U.S. particularly, we have a generation of parents that have grown up with Nickelodeon, we call them legacy parents. So that is really imbedded in them, and we have a lot of co-viewing on all our channels—shows like iCarly, Victorious and Big Time Rush. Parents are enjoying them just as much as kids are.

And then you have the extension onto the silver screen with Nickelodeon movies as well. Things like Rango, this is the sort of stuff we’re building ourselves around. It’s family viewing; it’s enabling the family to spend time together. So, unlike 10 or 20 years ago, when people were saying, “Video games are making everybody sit in their own little room and not do anything together”—and cable was the same culprit, everybody had to have their own channel—right now that is completely reversed and we have people coming back together in the living room. We have people setting up bowling tournaments on game consoles, sitting down and watching family television—which we’re not, of course, calling family television, because that makes it sound boring!—but it’s television that everybody within the family enjoys.

And I believe it’s helping families build these close bonds. SpongeBob [SquarePants] is one of the prime examples: Every generation enjoys SpongeBob, and we have done a bit of research on that globally. SpongeBob, by the way, makes everybody happy, from dads to toddlers, including the grandma—everybody just finds something in SpongeBob that is funny. There is a lot of emotional appeal to various ages, and that’s what we’re setting out to do.

The “second screen” (smartphones, tablets, PCs) and the ways in which it can complement the first screen (TV) have become hot topics over the past year, though the concept isn’t new: Nielsen was reporting on Internet/TV multitasking four years ago, and one of our 10 Trends for 2009 was the idea of Distraction as Entertainment. But today the spike in connected screens, and services that link them with the big screen, is creating interesting new possibilities for TV broadcasters and marketers alike.

Our May trend report examines how marketers are currently tapping into the second screen, spotlighting a range of examples. It also includes highlights from interviews we conducted with five experts and influencers in television (full-length Q&As will be posted here in the coming weeks). It’s early days—and we expect to see more innovative experiments and approaches cropping up in the months ahead—but so far it’s clear that the second screen offers brands the promise to turn what could be a negative (media multitasking and distraction) into a positive: an immersive brand experience.

Click here to download the report.

Extending stories over various platforms isn’t a new concept, as we noted in our 2011 trend report Transmedia Rising. But transmedia is becoming more pervasive as content creators find new ways to extend their properties and as consumer attention toggles between screens and devices. We’re seeing more of it in TV, where shows like Lost and Heroes were among the first to experiment with the idea. As part of MTV’s new “storytelling without borders” strategy, its Teen Wolf series is spinning off “Teen Wolf: The Hunt” next month on Facebook and elsewhere. This will offer an original storyline while also “serving as a complementary online experience,” with fans able to “friend” and interact with the characters in real time, according to MTV.

Meanwhile, the Syfy channel is prepping Defiance for 2013, a TV series that will launch concurrently with a massively multiplayer online game from Trion World. Promotional material explains that “the dramatic tapestry of the series and the intense action of the game will exist in a single universe, where their respective narratives will inform one another and evolve together into one overall story.” In a different vein, Bravo ventured into transmedia with its most recent season of Top Chef, adding Last Chance Kitchen as an online series in which contestants booted off the TV show compete for a chance to return.

As transmedia entertainment becomes more mainstream, brands will have new opportunities to mesh organically into content in various forms, as multi-platform story extensions are generally built in early on. For more background, download Transmedia Rising here.

Image credit: trionworlds.com

-The Philippines looks to be on a “sustainable upward trajectory,” reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

-Foreign Policy releases its first “Sex Issue,” dealing with “how and why sex—in all the various meanings of the word—matters in shaping the world’s politics.”

-“Is big tech replacing the big banks and Wall Street as the corporate villains du jour?” asks Time.

-The New York Times assesses the progress of “The Post-Cash, Post-Credit-Card Economy.”

-In India, mobile Internet use is set to exceed fixed-line PC access by the end of 2012, according to statistics published by TheNextWeb.

-A new study finds that with more ways to communicate via an online connection, people are both talking and texting less on the phone.

-The Wall Street Journal examines “Tweens’ Secret Lives Online,” spotlighting some of the social sites popular among kids. For more on this cohort, check out our recently released trend report on Gen Z.

-The Pew Research Center finds that more American teens are using video chat to keep up with friends, Mashable reports.

-The AP looks at the multi-screen experience that TV watching now entails.

-For the second year in a row, fewer Americans have access to a TV set and signal, according to Nielsen.

-The company also released its Cross-Platform Report, examining how Americans watch TV and video from screen to screen.

-USA Today spotlights the rise of social television and how “the notion of passive viewing has changed dramatically” for a segment of the viewing audience.

-Inspired by natural design, robotics researchers, mathematicians and computer scientists are exploring origami as a means of production, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

-Bloomberg Businessweek’s “CEO Guide to Customer Experience Technology” spotlights how companies are adopting new technologies that let customers interact with products, how Intel is making the in-store experience more digital and how restaurants are incorporating tablets.

-GigaOM explains how tablets and smartphones are fueling commerce.

-USA Today looks at the race to name the generation that comes after Gen Y.

-The Economist explores why Britons are making fewer car journeys.

-Whether or not goods are actually custom-crafted, “bespoke” is the marketing word du jour, reports The Wall Street Journal.

-A Wall Street Journal video spotlights the documentary Mansome and the rise of male grooming.

-The New York Times gives a brief on the men’s underwear market and the rise of high-end briefs.

-Orchestras are looking to reinvent themselves for the digital age, fusing classical with electronic music in a new kind of concert format, according to The Wall Street Journal.

As their kids spend more time on social networks, parents are still trying to figure out how they feel about this habit. This week, a segment on BBC Radio 4—featuring JWT’s director of trendspotting, Ann Mack—explored whether parents are overreacting when it comes to kids’ use of tech and social media, and The Wall Street Journal explored the issue in “Tweens’ Secret Lives Online.”

While researching our April trend report on Gen Z, the youngest generation, we surveyed 400 parents in the U.K. and the U.S. about their approach to social networks, among other things. Although the majority of parents trust their child to act responsibly on social networks, many are concerned, especially those with tweens. Around 8 in 10 parents of tweens feel they need to supervise their child’s use of social networks, and 7 in 10 feel that social networks pose a danger. Parents do see the upside, appreciating that sites like Facebook help their kids stay in touch with friends, but our data also show that only about half feel social networks will help their child be a better adjusted adult.

With parental anxieties running high, brands must address safety concerns, persuading parents that their practices and tools are rigorous and reliable. Disney’s Club Penguin, for instance, limits kids to certain words and phrases and integrates other controls into the site.

In an increasingly digitized world, with many objects now replaced by digital/virtual counterparts, tangible items are taking on a new allure. This fetishization of the physical and the tactile is one of our 10 Trends for 2012; we termed it Objectifying Objects. A range of new services now allows people to get to grips—literally—with their social media output, turning it into real-world items.

MOO Inc. offers business cards created from Facebook users’ Timeline images and data, using the same fonts and layout; it includes the person’s Facebook URL. As a default, the back of the card features a quote from the customer’s Favourite Quotations field. Apparently intended for the most prolific tweeters, the Twitter Poster re-creates the customer’s profile picture using his or her own tweets (in itself an interesting interpretation of the modern-day portrait). And Instagram users can decorate their homes with their creations using Stitchtagram, a service that crafts handmade pillows using fabric printed with Instagram shots.

The more people embrace the digital format, the more they also miss what it can’t provide: something to have and to hold, to display or frame. Expect more novel services that transform our virtual information into real-world stuff.

Image credit: stitchtagram.com

-The Economist examines the rise of e-commerce in India (one of our Things to Watch in 2012).

-For the first time decades, net migration from Mexico to the U.S. has zeroed out, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The Guardian takes a look at why many younger Mexicans no longer see the U.S. as a land of opportunity.

-The Economist spotlights a new study that spotlights just how far ahead Africa is in terms of mobile money.

-With an advanced “mobile wallet” infrastructure, Canada is “in the lead in developing a system that could one day make cash obsolete,” reports Reuters.

-The World Bank’s new Global Financial Inclusion initiative examines why about half the global population lacks a bank account and why, as Businessweek reports.

-Nigeria continues attracting multinational investment despite recent violence in the country’s north, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

-Yet another report warns of worse-than-expected extreme weather caused by global warming, this one from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

-Ad Age asks whether mascots like Ronald McDonald will go the way of Joe Camel as the obesity epidemic spurs activists to target kid-focused marketing.

-MIT’s Sherry Turkle examines today’s “Flight From Conversation,” arguing that our mobile devices “are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are.”

-The Guardian takes an extensive look at “How tablets are eating the PC’s future – but might save the desktop computer.”

-Oversharing online is a new source of tension among couples, according to The New York Times.

-McKinsey Quarterly surveys China’s social media landscape.

-MIT’s Technology Review spotlights how fast-growing mobile social networks in Africa are challenging Facebook.

-GigaOM’s Matthew Ingram asks, “What if Facebook isn’t so special after all?”

-Business Insider says “Pinterest’s hype bubble has burst.”

-Mother Jones outlines the rise of “brogrammer” culture in Silicon Valley and argues it’s hurting the companies that foster it.

-The Wall Street Journal looks at how strategic pivoting has become essential for today’s young tech entrepreneurs.

-The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how men’s attitudes toward grooming have changed, with male skin care now one of the hottest corners of the beauty category.

-Who has the most plastic surgery across 25 nations? The Economist charts the data.

-Reuters looks at how U.S. apparel brands are following Europe’s fast-fashion retailers in speeding up their time to market.

-As Myanmar opens up, The New York Times examines some of the challenges of developing tourism in the country’s more remote regions.

-Wired examines a skill near to our hearts: “How to Spot the Future.”

-Our April trend report, “Gen Z: Digital in Their DNA,” provides a snapshot of the generation born after 1995, focusing on their digital habits: how they use connected devices to socialize, spend, shop and more. We also report on how their parents feel about these habits and what this means for marketers. Read about it here.