Check it out:

http://www.prototype-experience.com/

Let me start by rewinding to November of last year when Facebook launched Beacon. Beacon was an application that pulled data from external websites and connected them to your Facebook account so you could share more information with your friends. Yes, believe it or not, it is possible to share EVEN MORE information via Facebook. The concept was great – it pulled information about what you were doing on the web into your Facebook account. So if you recently purchased a book from Amazon it would show up in your feed. The problem was how Facebook approached launch, there was no warning or opt in/opt out and they exposed people’s personal information without their consent. Members felt blindsided and many had their holiday gift shopping exposed, needless to say people were not happy.  Like any thriving social network, the community immediately acted by creating a group demanding that Facebook no longer publish their activity from other websites. In less than ten days, this group gained 50,000 members. After much public scrutiny (and a few lawsuits) Facebook withdrew the program.

Recently they decided to try this again with Facebook Connect, this time keeping much closer tabs on all the privacy outings.  Davin Morin, a lead developer at Facebook, wrote in his blog post about Connect “we believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It’s about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”

Facebook Connect takes the idea of social connectivity (and social suicide) to a whole new level. It allows members to log onto other web sites using their Facebook identification and see their friends’ activities on those sites. For example, reviews are probably more valuable to you when they come from people you know and trust. With Connect you can go to CNET and filter the reviews to see just those of your friends. Connect also allows you to broadcast your actions on those sites to friends on Facebook. I’m a little apprehensive about this part – there are just some things you don’t want to share with your entire Facebook network. Case and point, I bought Twilight tickets from Fandango a few weeks ago (OK, I lied, it was opening night) and when I signed onto Facebook post purchase, I noticed that my mini feed said “Carrie purchased Twilight tickets from Fandango.” What? I can’t tell you how quickly that was deleted from my feed!  

So what’s the value in this? For starters, it’s free. Absolutely no money is exchanged between Facebook and the companies using the Connect tool. More importantly, think of all the detailed information Facebook has about its users: their real identities, what they like and dislike, who their friends are, what their friends like and dislike, their relationship status, their location, and the list goes on and on. If websites use this data in the right way they can deliver more targeted, more effective ads….ultimately allowing them to charge a premium for ad space. Not to mention that it’s free advertising for Fandango (and Twilight) when their logo shows up in my mini feed.

 

 

 

I want to start by saying how skeptical I use to be of mobile taking off as a medium. I always thought it would be extremely intrusive (and annoying!) to be bombarded with advertising on your cell phone. Why would people be receptive to that? If anything, it would make their opinion of a brand go down….particularly nowadays where consumers are much more selective about the information they absorb. Despite my doubt, it’s been coming up more and more so I decided to hone up on the subject. I started researching the topic, attended a few conferences and, viola, I’m now a believer! So what changed my mind?

 

For starters, you can’t argue the numbers. There are a total of 3.3 billion mobile users in the world, 1.3 billion of which access the web from their phones.  To put that in perspective: .9 billion people own computers, 1.4 billion people have credit cards, and 1.5 billion people have a television. Wow! Looking back, there have debatably been five major forms of mass media; the printing press, radio, television, the internet and now mobile. The most amazing thing about mobile is that it is the only mass media that can do everything the preceding four can do…that, and it’s with us all the time.  91% of people are never more than 4 feet from their phones and 7 out of 10 people sleep with their phones within reach. Despite what we were taught as kids, our cell phone is one of the few things we just don’t want to “share”.  I’m not talking about letting someone borrow your phone to make a call, but what if someone asked to borrow it for the day? I’m guessing most of you would be a little hesitant. Personally, I would be much more likely to let a friend borrow my car for the day than to hand over my cell phone. Going without a car for the day doesn’t sound so bad, but giving up my cell phone? I would be lost!

 

So, yes, the mobile population is huge and people are engaged, but what’s even more interesting is the way our mobile behavior is changing. And what do we have to thank for this shift? The iPhone…
1.  95% of iPhone users regularly surf the Web
2.  Data service revenue increased from $2.7 billion in 2005 to $6.9 billion in 2007.  When did the iPhone launch? Oh yea, 2007.
3.  Number of queries on Google search from iPhones’ surpasses those of Symbian based phones and Symbian based phones hold 40% of the market share worldwide.
4. Google sees 50 times the number of searches from iPhones’ than any other mobile device

 

This is why so many major companies are launching iPhone optimized services despite the very low 1% market share and why we need to stop thinking of mobile as a medium similar to TV, Radio, print, even the internet. Often when I attend mobile presentations I’m shown campaigns that I, personally, don’t find innovative. An offer promotion via text message is great, but nothing to praise the mountains about. A campaign that recently caught my attention is the Nike Photo ID campaign that ran in Europe. Here’s how it worked – Nike encouraged consumers to take a picture with their camera phones and text it to Nike, behind the scenes Nike leveraged a technology that pulled the two major colors from the photo, and within seconds the consumer received a text back with their customized Nike ID shoe in those two prominent colors…making the consumer the designer! Of course the text also included a promotional code linked to their Nike ID shoe, making the path to purchase easy. Why was this campaign so great? It’s simple, encourages engagement with the brand, promotes the Nike ID product, and it’s fun for the audience. The video driving to the campaign is pretty sweet so check it out and you’ll notice a little shout out to Tennessee at about 5 seconds in so naturally I had to put it in here.

 

So what’s next? Since more and more phones now come with GPS we have the opportunity to provide more relevant information to people and I see location based mobile marketing taking off. Another thing to be on the watch for with mobile is the built in payment channel capabilities.  Although this has not taken off in the U.S it has in many Asian markets and cell phones have, ultimately, replaced wallets.  Consumers link their phones to a credit card or bank card and simply wave their phones when they make a purchase. Google Android sparked a deal with Visa giving users real time updates on their card usage and, although it’s not built in payment it is building the relationship between mobile and payment channels. My guess is it will be in the U.S. very soon and I can’t wait since I am forever forgetting my wallet at home.

For those of you not familiar with Hulu I’ll provide a little background - Hulu was founded in March 2007 by NBC and New Corps as a platform for people to find and enjoy premium video content. This includes TV shows, movies, sports, and popular clips.  The content comes from over 100 providers including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros (unfortunately, but not surprisingly, ABC and CBS are not currently on the roster). As far as usability goes, the site is great! It’s very easy to use, you don’t have to download anything, and they have this great tool that allows you to clip footage and share it with friends.

 

They run an ad supported model so everything is free and legal.  They’re testing out different models and often giving users a choice in the advertising content they see, for example if Nissan is sponsoring a show you may be able to choose between ads for an Altima, Rogue, or Titan. Some viewers are also given the opportunity to watch a two minute ad prior to a movie or show and then watch their video commercial free. Interesting.  I’m going to guess that they’re testing all kinds of user behavior – is a user more likely to click through to an advertisers site if they watch a two minute ad or a thirty second spot? How does their behavior change if we let the users pick the ad being served? This testing will pay off and ultimately drive their sales prices. I will say, however, that I’m a little concerned with their ability to strategically place ads. I recently became a fan of Lipstick Jungle (guilty!) and must have seen five plus episodes that were sponsored by Hungry-Man. Sorry Hungry-Man, but I’m NEVER going to buy your product….ever. You’d be much better off sponsoring My Name is Earl.

 

When Hulu was first announced people thought it was absurd. No way could two major media companies create a content site that people would actually want to use. The name was even more ridiculous than the venture. Hulu? The blogger community had a field day.  It means “snoring” in Chinese, one blogger declared. “Perhaps they should have just stuck with Clown Co,” Tech Crunch reported. Harsh! The reality? Well, Two months after launch, Hulu edged ahead of ESPN.com to become one of comScore’s top 10 US video sites and within the first three months the site had 3.3 million users and delivered more than 100 million streams. Take that bloggers! Wait, what’s that? You now love Hulu? It’s no surprise that bloggers who had ridiculed it from the start were now singing its praises. Tech Crunch readers voted it the best video start up of 2007 and it made this years Digital Hotlist alongside Google, Facebook, and the iPhone.

 

My verdict? Hulu is the new way to watch TV. I’ve canceled my cable (honestly) which will save me around $850/year and now watch all my TV streaming over the internet, the cost? Nothing. It’s brilliant!

MySpace launched in 2003 as a hip tool for LA’s music scene. It was a place for fans. They could find their favorite artists and discover new music. It also gave struggling bands a free place to promote their music and digitally mingle with fans. The idea quickly began to stick and by 2005 MySpace was on top of its game. It was MySpace that made headlines in 2005 when Murdoch acquired it for 580 million and it was MySpace that proved Social Networking could be a mass medium – attracting 50 million users. Facebook saw this potential and opened its doors to everyone, leaving the once coveted “college only crowd” behind.  Since May 2007 Facebook has increased worldwide visitors by 162%, MySpace only increased by 5% in that same timeframe. So how do they compete?

Instead of going after Goliath head on, MySpace is going back to its roots – music. It’s already a frequent sponsor of music events and has its own record label, so how can it play on this strength more? For starters, MySpace Records is more actively recruiting talent, they recently adding Christina Milian and Pennywise to their roster, and  they are partnering with a sponsor  for new album releases to give free album downloads to fans. The catch? Fans need to add the sponsor as a friend, but hey who can complain – it’s free music!

More interesting is their recent acquisition of the rights to millions of songs from the four major music labels — EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner Music.  Enter MySpace Music. This initiative launched on September 24^th and allows users to stream tunes for free on the web and create playlists that can be shared with friends. All music is free of digital rights and is, naturally, sponsored by advertisers.  McDonald’s, Sony Pictures, State Farm, and Toyota have all signed on for sponsorships. MySpace isn’t the first to offer free streaming music, but with their vast following and robust community tools it’s pretty likely that they will quickly become the leaders in this space.

What I appreciate most about their model is how they work with advertisers to create programs that are relevant to this music crowd. Fast Company highlighted a few of these in last month’s issue, but in case you missed it here are a few of my favs: (1) McDonald’s held their “pick-the-next-jingle” contest on MySpace. The contest generated nearly 1 million page views in 3 weeks, pretty impressive.  (2) When Cartier wanted to reach the tech savvy crowd they partnered with MySpace to stream exclusive songs, by various artists. The songs were then available for free download from the Cartier site.  (3)Toyota is currently working with MySpace Music to sponsor “Toyota Tuesdays” which gives people free music downloads and, of course, throws the Toyota logo all over the place. I don’t have tons of numbers to back up the success of these campaigns, but I would assume they are doing pretty well – MySpace charges a premium and advertisers keep coming back so it seems to be working

As a side note – I found myself becoming more and more of a MySpace fan as I was researching this topic so kudos to them! Now if only I could get my friends to stop spamming me with these bulletins…

Ever read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell? If so, the concepts of Connectors and Mavens should be nothing new to you. Connectors are individuals who have ties into many different realms and are the catalyst for change. Mavens are people who have a strong desire to help consumers make smart decisions – they tell the connectors and the connectors tell the world. There have been a lot of arguments around whether or not this notion is viable and I’ve decided to join in….for a lack of better words, my vote is no. I just don’t see how this concept could stick, possibly in the late 90’s, but I’m skeptical of it even that.

Nowadays it is so easy to spread influence – email is used by all internet users and the adoption rate for instant messenger is at about 80%. Internet users are starting to interact in new ways and we’re seeing a growth of “digital friends” (42% of social network users are interested in meeting new friends online). The web has also allowed us to expand our network; we’re now “friends” with people we’ve never physically met and people we use to know, but would no longer be in touch with in a pre-web era. Strangers are becoming a thing of the past.

The rise of blogs, social networks, and sharing sites has changed the way we interact with brands and people. Any consumer can be a publisher of information and millions have embraced it, making it so easy to share opinions and cultivate influence – all of us are influencers, not just these select few that Gladwell references. Almost all ecommerce sites allow users to post opinions, rate products, and create wish lists. When shopping online we’re even presented with “consumers who liked this also liked this” recommendations so, whether or not we know it, we all act as influencers.  

Businesses are being given a great opportunity here. Nobody knows your customers better than your consumers and now they actually want to tell you what they think (finally!). Companies have spent millions in research to “better understand” their customers so why are so many companies hesitant to get involved? Dell and Starbucks are great examples of how you can embrace the consumer, but there’s tons more info out there if you’re willing to leave the corporate site. Think of all the insights we could uncover if we just took the time to listen.

(*Thanks to McCann for a stellar study that provided a lot of the data to back this up.)

 

 

 

Picture this – Sally and Joe have been dating for a few years and things are getting pretty serious. One night Joe gets down on his knee and finally proposes. Sally is ecstatic! She has dreamt of this moment her whole life. She says yes, they shed a few tears and she can’t wait to share the news with everyone. So who does she tell first? No it’s not her family. Nope, it’s not her friend since second grade either. Instead, Sally rushes home, goes straight to her computer, logs into Facebook, and gleefully changes her status from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Engaged”. But don’t worry mom and dad – you were next on her list.

For some reason we tell Facebook everything! Just how much? Depends, but they likely know our relationship status, gender, age, birthday, sexual orientation, geographic location, education level, area of profession, our current mood, heck they even know the latest on our friends. So much for keeping secrets!

Facebook knows everything. Women are conscious of their weight, Facebook knows that. Soon to be brides are even more conscious of their weight – guess what, Facebook knows that too. So it’s no surprise that as people change their status from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Engaged’, just like our dear friend Sally, they start to see a hiatus of ads about losing weight. These can range from “Want to get rid of that muffin top?” to “Don’t be a fat bride.” I assure you though, it’s OK, these ads will all disappear as soon as you change that status of yours from ‘Engaged’ to ‘Married’…hope you weren’t planning on having a long engagement! And after you tie the knot? Oh, it gets even better. You’re likely to see “Trying to have a baby?” “Fertility Issues?” Come on Facebook, cut the ladies some slack, they’ve only been married a few days!

The Washington Post did a great article on this a few weeks back that should have been called “My Facebook page called me fat” (so we’ll just act like it was). Check it out, but don’t do anything you’ll regret in the morning –I assure you, your BFF didn’t purposely hurt your feelings.

A few months back I stumbled on the Zappos Twitter account and was amazed to see that Tony the CEO is the voice of the brand. He doesn’t simply tweet about Zappos, but he opens up his life to all 12,000 of his followers. A particular tweet brought to my attention was one about his frustrations with not having time to shower before catching a flight. Talk about things people can relate to – he’s actually a real person! As I dug around on the Twitter account I found the Zappos blog. The content of the blog is very personal and after reading a few employee postings it became clear that the employees are huge advocates for the company.

In addition to their ability to embrace social media, Zappos is also the model for great customer service. Shipping is always free and they frequently WOW me by upgrading my shipping just to say they appreciate my business. Oh, and when I tweet to thank them the CEO replies with “glad you had a good experience, thx for your support! ”

This stellar service is instilled in all Zappos employees and new hires are required to complete a four week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. After a week or so Zappos will approach its newest employees and say: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” They actually bribe their new employees to quit! Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for.

So is all this paying off?  Well, in July 2007 a customer contacted Zappos about returning a pair of shoes and, as standard process, they sent her a free UPS label – all she had to do is drop the shoes off at UPS. A few weeks passed and Zappos had not received the shoes so they sent her an email to follow up. She replied that her mom had recently passed away and she completely forgot, but she’d get to them when she could. They emailed back that they had arranged for UPS to pick them up so that she didn’t have to worry about it. She was amazed, but don’t think they stopped there. The next day she came home and there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers from none other than Zappos. She was touched and blogged about it. Her blog post, “I heart Zappos”, has been read over 350 million times!

At Zappos they don’t just want their customers to be satisfied they want them to be amazed. They truly are a customer service company that just so happens to sell shoes. My opinion of them has skyrocketed after learning about their core values and I wonder how many other people have been touched the same way….

*This post was inspired by “Customer Service is the New Marketing” from the Web 2.0 conference.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet.

I’m currently in NY attending the Web 2.0 conference, which is basically a geek fest for marketers, developers, and business strategist. Why should you care about what these people with a passion for the web have to say? Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years you know that web 2.0 is the future of brand communications and if you’re not quick enough to adapt it’s likely you’ll miss the train.

In 1965 34% of evening TV viewers could name a brand advertised during a show just watched.  In 2000 this number dropped to 10%. It’s clear that consumers are no longer listening and we’re told that interruptive marketing has seen its day. We’ve evolved from “telling people what to think” to the rise of the internet where “people are telling us what they think about what we tell them”, but this is only the beginning of the communication shift. Enabled through social media (blogs, media sharing, feeds, online communities, etc), conversations among consumers are ridiculously easy. People are meeting, connecting, organizing, sharing, and collaborating in an unprecedented fashion and consumers are (gasp!) “telling each other what they think.”

Oh and as if this media shift isn’t a challenge enough….in the 1990’s the number of brands on the grocery store shelves tripled from 15,000 to 45,000. This product proliferation and availability means more choice for the buyer and more of a challenge for marketers.  The VP of Nike had it right when he said “we’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive, we’re in the business of connecting with consumers.”

It’s been a long day and that’s all I got for now, but stay tuned for social media posts around the Web 2.0 conference.

 

 

Google is an industry leader in the search and advertising business, with Yahoo! and Microsoft being a very distant second and third. However, Google was beginning to fear that the power Internet Explorer (owned by Microsoft) has in the web browser space could be leveraged to promote Microsoft’s search and advertising business. Enter Chrome, Google’s beta web browser that launched early last week.

Initially, it’s likely that Firefox will feel the burn of Chrome more than Internet Explorer. IE currently has a web browser penetration of 73% much in part because it comes preinstalled on all Window’s based PC’s where as Firefox and Chrome both need to be downloaded. But wait – didn’t I hear rumors that Google is hammering away on their own operating system? Hmmm, everything is starting to make a little more sense.

Chrome is simple and fast. In fact it is the first browser built from scratch with web based applications in mind. Web based applications (also called cloud applications) haven’t taken off yet, but it’s less than a coincidence that moving towards web based apps would make the need for the current Microsoft Office obsolete.

Google is also expanding in the media space. Knol is a beta site that contains user generated articles about certain topics. It hopes to create an online encyclopedia based on articles by subject matter experts, think Wikipedia. The difference?  Wikipedia is collectively edited and ad free where as Knol contributors maintain editing control over their content and can choose to place ads (sold by Google) on their pages. This is not Google’s first venture into the media space. Ever heard of YouTube and Blogger? Google owns them too. Needless to say, media companies are also starting to fear the wrath of Google.

Google, you need to make up your mind. What’s it gonna be? Search advertising, web browsers or media? Keep this up and people may say you remind them of a certain Redmond based start up.