Be a tech co-founder

Business Insider did some research on the 20 highest paying jobs at Google. I guess it isn't surprising that the list is dominated by engineers given that Google is a tech company. What may be a little surprising, especially for MBA students, is how few (and how relatively low paying) business-related jobs are on the list.

This matches a presentation given to Columbia Business School EMBAs last year by Sachin Kamdar, CEO of the tech startup Parse.ly, where he presented a list of tricks and traps for entrepreneurs. In it, he said one of the traps of starting a tech company was to find a "tech co-founder" and instead you have to "be a tech co-founder" (trick #5).

In order to be successful, just having a business background isn't enough, you better be able to speak the tech language too.

Startup-perks?

The culture of start-ups has been written about extensively, especially in lieue of Apple's continual success and Facebook's IPO. The article, "Are These The Best Startup Perks You've Ever Seen?" talks about how having a fun culture can benefit firms both small and large. The principle idea is to create a fun productive environment where your employees feel appreciated. Intuitively, it makes sense. Happy workers are productive workers. Yet, over 99% of the companies do not adopt this strategy. And, there is a reason for this. So when would this strategy make sense and when would it not make sense? I have listed a few questions to help us think about this:

1) Are you unable to provide healthcare benefits? Do you need 'creative' methods of compensation?
2) Are your employees wearing multiple hats, working late hours, and doing it all in an office space which looks like a dorm-room? Do you need to 'create' work/life balance?
3) Does the idea of a game of ping-pong with your boss seem awkward and unnecessary?

Having a fun atmosphere is a business strategy which can fail as easily as it can succeed. Before adopting this strategy, you might want to ask yourself a few questions.

http://mashable.com/2012/05/28/startup-perks-culture/

A new app for make-up allowing users to paint on their own photo

It is often talked about virtual apparel stores, enabling to “try” online jeans and dresses with virtual movies and photos showing how these new clothes could fit on us. The same concept has been developed for make-up. ModiFace, a provider of virtual makeover and mobile app technologies, in partnership with Stila Cosmetics, announced this week the launch of the Stila Cosmetics `Color Me Stila’ iPhone and iPad application. This application utilizes facial recognition and virtual-try-on technology to allow users to “paint” on their image using Stila Cosmetics shades. This feature, which is ideal for touch-enabled phones and tablets, makes it possible for users to paint any number/style of cosmetics on their image.

The patented ModiFace-powered facial recognition technology ensures that user’s virtual product applications always look perfect by preserving the boundary and regions which different shades apply.

The ideas that have been developed for regular virtual-makeover tools have been combined with the touch capabilities of iOS devices to create this innovative mobile application.

This is not a new tool to be used alone. Before going to work or hangout out on Saturday night it is now possible to combine this make-up tool with other virtual online applications which will allow seeing movies and photos of yourself with different clothes, make-up and haircut. And may-be one day the tool will allow to figure out about the different looks with different “+one” options in order to see which one fits the best with the nail varnish and the purse of the day.

Cloud Computing

Interesting Infographic:

http://mashable.com/2011/12/11/cloud-computing-business-infographic/

The numbers so far seem to indicate that it does add significant value to businesses. Wonder why it isn't talked about more..

Is Soho going to become a showroom for m-commerce?

Mobile commerce is still small relative to the overall e-commerce market. But it's on a steep upward trajectory thanks to the increasing use of smartphones and rising mobile internet usage. I read that m-commerce sales will reach $6.7 billion this year in the United States, a 91% increase over 2010. M-commerce sales in 2012 are predicted to rise another 73% to $11.6 billion. Approximately 37.5 million U.S. consumer will make at least one purchase on their mobile phone next year, up from 26.8 million this year. And in total, 72.8 million mobile users will research or browse items on their phone in 2012 but not necessarily make a purchase.

At the beginning of e-commerce, I remember we were not trusting this virtual way to shop, so we were researching the products online and then go buy in store. But as the industry showed its reliability and improved its slate of mobile offerings, the opposite trend started: the consumers were visiting stores to research products and then went buy them or something else from home through their desktop.

We have now reached a new step with the mobile devices: mobile commerce is acting as an engine of overall commerce growth by converting potential brick-and-mortar sales to digital sales as consumers use their smartphones while shopping in-store. Brick-and-mortar retailers run the risk of becoming showrooms any online retailers, since many discounts are offered online. But on the other hand, if the traditional stores are clever, the shift to mobile shopping could benefit them as well: if a retailer has robust mobile offerings, it can steer in-store shoppers to look online for more information or find out-of-stock sizes and items on its own mobile site or app, retaining the sale via a different channel.

The good news is that whatever classic in-store shopping or m-commerce shopping, this new way of shopping are beneficial to the consumers. And whatever the way how I shop, no mobile device application will be able to compete with the pleasure of a walk in Soho.

The Impact of Facebook Tabs

There are a few best practices that can be instituted in creating an effective Facebook page that garners customer engagement. I've always heard that pushing content to a Tab within Facebook instead of featuring information on the main page is a bad idea as customers won't see or access it. But a recent article on Mashable talks about the impact of tabs and how to make them work. The key is not just creating content that appeals to your target audience, but also ensuring you have a clear strategy with tabs. Tabs shouldn't require too many actions and should exist within the context of each other. But the most important thing is staying on top of driving traffic there. You can't just expect customers to keep coming back without being directed there. Definitely changes my perspective on things.

http://mashable.com/2011/12/09/facebook-custom-tabs/

Tablet Users

According to a new study, usage of tablet devices is incredibly strong with Asian-Americans and Hispanics. Approximately 12.6% of Hispanics and 14.4% of Asians are consuming content on a tablet. These numbers are expected to double by 2014.

This is a great opportunity for small companies to take advantage of this usage. For example, instead of printing books in a small print run for a variety of languages like Spanish, Chinese, and Korean, companies can save a lot of money by producing digital content. Instead of the high fixed costs associated with printing, content can be developed specifically for tablets. And companies like Rosetta Stone can utilize an iPad to harness the power of video, audio, and even writing. Imagine learning how to draw a Chinese letter or practicing verb conjugations.

Or if marketers are looking to reach a more multicultural audience they should consider earmarking some of their ad budget to spend on tablet related ads and apps. It's nice to see such a high adoption rates of tablets among Asians and Hispanic and it represents a sea of possibilities for businesses to reach them.




http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008726

Really Reading It Later

I guess I'm not the only one who feels like it's impossible to find time to read all the interesting articles that cross my path. Four million people have signed up with startup Read it, a content-saving service that wants to do for web content what TiVo did for TV. And now that people have a simple way to save articles for later reading, the big question is... do they?

Read it Later hasn't answered this question outright. But they have published some interesting numbers about which authors get the highest return rate (how often users return to a story once it's saved). The author with the absolute highest return rate is Drew Magary of the sports blog Deadspin. His return rate is 83%. Authors writing about sports, news, and gaming dominate the top 20. Once you get to the bottom of the top 20 list, return rates hover around 70%.

Interestingly, there's some incongruence between what kinds of content people save and what they return to read. How-to articles are the most commonly saved, but not the most commonly returned to. It makes sense that people would feel more urgency to read time sensitive articles than instructional ones.

One can only speculate what the overall return rate might be. For myself, it seems that any time I have a moment to sit down and do some reading, going back to a saved list would usually be trumped by checking out what's new. But it's interesting to see that, at least for some types of content, people are returning. And it's a very interesting new way to measure loyalty to authors.

It's the End of the Year: Time for a Top-10 List

In the spirit of the new year, Mashable.com is offering a round-up of the top 10 viral video ads from 2011. The list includes the usual suspects like the wonderful Volkswagen "Darth Vader" ad that aired during the Super Bowl alongside some lesser-known choices (check out the fully-tattooed "Zombie Boy" getting covered in foundation). What's important to notice here is that none of these ads is the same. As was mentioned in class several times, the key to making a viral video is the content. There are no hard and fast rules as to what will make people latch onto a video and turn it into the next big thing. The important thing is to make the content engaging and relevant.

Enjoy the Top-10 list.
Happy Holidays and here's to another slew of "Top" lists in 2012!

http://mashable.com/2011/12/08/innovative-viral-ads-2011/#rIu5B3Fsstg

'Face' of Facebook speaks for itself

     There are a lot of debates about why Facebook attracts so much attention. First of all, it is not the only one social media platform and, second, it is not the only website we go to when online. Some people believe that such strong attachment to Facebook is because of its name.
     A study conducted recently showed that people have a very strong emotional response to Facebook. Out of three, Facebook was the first in terms of attention, emotional engagement and memory retention.
     The secret, as some people believe, is in the word 'face'. People associate a word 'face' with human face and feel more interested. Another study has shown that people spend disproportionally more time on reviewing newsfeed and photos on Facebook than on other activities. A human face is very important for people because they somehow can connect it to themselves. Everybody has a face (not surprisingly) and is likely to compare other faces to his own one. Moreover, scientists believe that children from very young ages start to distinguish human faces and form some kind of perception of them. In an experiment conducted among 84 adults wired with EEG sensors it was discovered that participants got more excited about Facebook when it came to emotional emgagement.
  A study also showed that whenever respondents see a familiar face their excitement even increases. No matter whether it is a friend or a celebrity people are more likely to react more actively than when they see unfamiliar face. Even an ad by Facebook was scored higher than one from Visa.
   People respond to the word 'face' vividly, they associate it with themselves and feel personal engagement with the brand.

Google+ knows who you Are!

As the walls of privacy continue to fall down, Google+ has now uploaded a capability that mimics Facebook's facial recognition feature that caused many to worry about how much FB really knew about them. But looks like Google+ is continuing to follow FB's footpath by rolling out its own facial recognition tool - key differentiatior: opt in only requirements now satisfy those who were previously concerned about their privacy being invaded and even suggest certain photo tags based on who the consumer interacts with within their "circles". It seems that even though Google+ didnt create this idea from scratch they may be hitting the mark with customized on/off options. why not let customers choose and manage their own preferences?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/12/09/google-gingerly-rolls-out-facial-recognition/

The Next Facebook

In light of the first question on the final; I asked myself: what will the next Facebook be? When Google+ first came out, there was a lot of speculation regarding will it take over or not. I am sure most people didn't think it will, and it was just a matter of time till this became clear. I personally do not know all the reasons why Google+ didn't really take over, but what I do know is that for me, it wasn't different enough! Yes, different. I do not believe that next Facebook will be something that is very similar to how things are now but with minor tweaks, rather, I believe it will be drastically different which won't make the transition so obvious. I was reading an article in the Washington Post titled Where will the next Facebook come from? by Dominic Basulto where he discusses that “the next Facebook” has not been created yet. He goes through where he thinks it will come from. He focuses on the younger generation and mainly college campuses. Dominic explains "Consider for a moment that when Google was planning to go public in early 2004, Mark Zuckerberg was still a sophomore at Harvard, working on a little project called The Facebook. Concepts such as the “Social Graph” and the “status update” were not yet part of our everyday lexicon? Facebook, like IPO predecessors Google and Netscape, is the type of zeitgeist-defining company that has changed the way all of us think about the Internet. With that in mind, perhaps the single, best way to predict the Next Big Thing would be to spend a few days hanging out on college campuses in Palo Alto or Cambridge or New Haven, observing how the youth of today are using technology to socialize with one another ." I am not sure if Dominic is right, but regardless of where this new idea will come from, I think it will be very different and it will bridge the gap between out online social life and our physical one. I also believe that the new platform will break many more privacy barriers that years ago we couldn't have envisioned to happen, but Facebook will have been the tool the paved the way for the next 'big thing'.

Article:www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/where-will-the-next-facebook-come-from/2010/12/20/gIQAEizaGO_blog.html

'Adware' Frusterates Facebook, Google

Today the Wall Street Journal reports that third-party software developer is wrecking havoc on the largest digital advertising platforms. When users download the various apps by the developer, the have the option of one that enables more user customization. The problem is that this customization can layer adds over Facebook's existing ones. Since the only beneficiary is the third-party developer, Facebook and Google are trying to end this practice. Still, this is a gray area in the digital arena, and will likely continue.

Even if Facebook and Google end up playing a "game of cat and mouse" with new updates, advertisers have an obligation to not participate in apps that layer adds over google and facebook. Gap and American Express are among the advertisers that can be found on the layered ads, despite not directly working with them, and they must proactively work with their marketing agencies to maintain credibility in digital marketing. Imagine a world with subscription costs for Gmail and memberships fees for Facebook. If we're going to continue getting free services of value for the masses, we need to make sure advertising is done in a fair, credible way. Covering up adds on sites that user's are leveraging is simply not fair, despite the value of customization that Sambreel is offering.

The world moving to mobile: one game at a time

Another conversation around one of my favorite topics: cloud computing.  In my industry (cable and communications), cloud computing is a powerful tool for geographically wide spread companies to improve performance of internal data requests (reporting, transactional info, etc), or improve performance of the viewer experience (loading of channel guide, on-demand movie access, etc).   But this week, OnLive announced the release of its software which would power mobile gaming through its cloud servers.

Brilliant.

Why should cloud computing only be available for business operations or functionality that requires you to be stationary (i.e, watching TV at home)? 

I am already convinced that the typical desktop computer functionalities will eventually be taken over by mobile devices, but had solely been thinking it would do so from the perspective of "practical" functionalities.  To apply cloud computing to mobile devices for entertainment purposes is something I had not anticipated, and solidifies my conviction. By moving the processing requirements to the server side rather than requiring the mobile device to power the game, even outdated mobile devices with sucky processors would be able to have a quicker delay-less experience. 

The implications of this to the gaming console manufacturers is also significant. Rather than requiring that a gamer have the latest Xbox or Playstation with the most powerful processors to support the ridiculously high-tech games, all the processing in the future could be handled in the cloud; consoles could become as obsolete as the old school motorola cell phones that were the size of a normal person's head.

Facebook Subscribers/Subscriptions button: creepy

There have been a few articles posted about the new Facebook functionality where your friends are able to view your subscriptions and subscriptionees (is that a word?).  I first noticed this on a friend's page randomly, and curious I clicked on his "subscriptions"; to my surprise, and probably to him as well when he notices it, there were quite a number of subscriptions to women's pages that were not celebrities and not his fiancee, but thats another story ...

On the surface, this sounds alarmingly similar to Twitter, so it begs the question: what will happen to Twitter?  I have always found it difficult to grasp the purpose of Twitter, as I find it strange to follow someone's updates w/o the added frills of pictures/notes/their friend's comments/etc (all the added functionality of Facebook).  Now that Facebook offers a very similar service in obvious contention with Twitter's service niche (whatever that may be), will Twitter be edged out of the market as it offers no other additional services?  Or will Twitter evolve into something totally unexpected and be able to withstand the competition? 

Mobile Payments - coming soon to you!

Breaking (ish) news: LevelUp is launching a mobile payments web app that allows anyone on a web-connected device to pay with their phone — using any credit card or any web-connected device with a simple QR code.  Merchants must downoad a reader or the Merchant app, which then provides analytics such as insight into the behavior of customers and savings on interchange fees.   This service is currently in San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and has access to over 2 million customers through the reach of a previous product.

In other parts of the world, mainly 3rd world countries, true mobile payments are abundant and often the preferred method of payment.  And we're talking true mobile payments - as in standing at the grocery store check out line, receiving  a code from your bank to give to the checkout attendant, and having the funds automatically transferred from your bank account to the merchant. 

So, of interest to me in this article is the fact that this company already has a 2 million user customer reach, and is growing.  The current service works with credit card or reward points, but the logical next step might be incorporate functionality for actual funds from a bank account, and the step after that would be to have a standardized system across borders.  Another step towards making the world a smaller place ...

Are We All Marketers?

In the July 2011 McKinsey Quarterly, business journal of McKinsey and Company, an article titled We’re all marketers now discusses that "Engaging customers today requires commitment from the entire company—and a redefined marketing organization." According to the article marketers have been adjusting to a new era of deep customer engagement. They’ve tackled on new functions, such as social-media management, and altered processes to better integrate advertising campaigns online, on television, and in print. Finally they also have added staff with Web expertise to manage the explosion of digital customer data. McKinsey argues that in their experience, that’s not enough! In fact, to truly engage customers for whom “push” advertising is increasingly irrelevant, companies must do more outside the confines of the traditional marketing organization. At the end of the day, customers no longer separate marketing from the product and they don’t separate marketing from their in-store or online experience. The writer explains "In the era of engagement, marketing is the company." This article is an interesting read and helpful. For more info go to (Source: www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/Were_all_marketers_now_2834).

SEO and UGC

One may argue that SEO is one of the most basic and optimal things a brand can begin with when creating a digital strategy. so how to pop to the top of the list? Is it creating user generated content? Absolutely! But many make the mistake of leveragin UGC through other external websites. But what about using one's own site to promote UGC? Take for example Amazon - reviews are engrained on amazon's own website , producing optimal SEO results. However one can not do this after one sees significant traffic to their own site in order to solicit reviews,comments etc. If you don't have a ton of traffic use review sites such as Yelp.com or Bazaarvoice.com so your UGC ison a site that is popular and will naturally flow to the top of SEO results.

http://searchengineland.com/keys-to-engagement-user-generated-content-seo-102557

Twitter continues to "try" to be Facebook

Recent updates to Twitter, available on both the mobile and web versions, Will allow customers to embed their tweets on blogs and other websites yet again blurring the lines between social media platforms. Which mechanism does one use? Facebook? Twitter and Facebook? At what point is there so much overlap between socials media platforms that brands may now be over saturating their customers?

But perhaps even more important is Twitter's ability to provide advertisers richer prominence (larger header image )on the main twitter page. In addition customers can manage their preferences on what tweets to post at the top of their page. Twitter feels confident that this "selective promoting" will assist brands to speak to engaged audiences. However, if one is selecting a certain tweet to be posted first above other brands and friends, will certain advertisers now be able to reach NEW potential audiences? Either way seems twitter is attempting to follow FB's lead on monetizing the site. Must be working. Twitter has signed up 21 large partners such as Dell and Hp for the moepnetized enhanced sites.

http://memeburn.com/2011/12/new-twitter-great-for-brands-enables-easy-tweet-embedding/

Facebook updates android app

Facebook just recently updated it's Android app which has more of a feeling of the Facebook site. Interesting considering android devices continue to gain popularity over the iPhone and blackberry. Will the phone now replace the commonplace laptop?

However the more interesting note is that the app will not include Facebook ads prohibiting marketers to advertise to the now appealing tech savvy android user. Shockingly enough now over 43% offacebook users AccessFB thru their mobile device. if facebook mobile apps are not allowing advertising will Facebook ads become extinct? Or will Facebook then begin monetizing the Facebook mobile advertising service? It will be seen how FB continues to evolve their media vehicle.

http://news.accuracast.com/mobile-7471/facebook-updates-android-app-mobile-ads-coming-soon/