Welcoming Government Interventions, Thank you

3 FTC case decisions in the past three months will greatly affect mobile app developers and compaies.
- Emily Apps: The FTC announced its settlement in August 2011 with W3 Innovations for collecting children's personal information without parental consent. Per the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, companies cannot collect online personal information of children under 13.
- AcneApp: The FTC accounced its settlement in September 2011 with the marketer of AcneApp and AcnePwner for deceptively claiming their apps would treat acne without substantiation.
- Frostwire: The FTC announced its settlement in October 2011 with Frostwire for unlawfully creating a peer-to-peer application that would publicly share personal files stored on a user's mobile device immediately upon installation. This sharing would occur without authorization and violate privacy acts.

I think that all three of these decisions by the FTC are commendable and necessary. Too often the government institutions are considered to be too lax (certain environmental specifications) or overly meddlesome (foie gras ban: seriously? tax payers' moneys were going towards hours of hearings/legal documentation/meetings about whether one should be allowed to sell liver?), but in this case they are spot on. With the changes in technological innovation improving exponentially, the limits are boundless as to what mobile apps will do for us next. Its extremely important that the correct foundations and guidelines are provided - ie, that children are protected, companies cannot falsely claim product results, and privacy is strictly enforced.

My only one dissenting opinon would be in regards to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act: the act only protects those children under 13; this means that children in highschool and middle school are not protected?? Should this age limit be at least 16, possibly 18?

source: http://mashable.com/2011/10/21/apps-ftc-settlements/

The Power of Twitter Followership

Not so surprisingly, when customers follow brands on Twitter, they are more likely to buy that brand as well as recommend it to others. A study by Constant Contact and market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey revealed at 60% of followers will recommend a brand and 50% will actually purchase that brand. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

But the more interesting read for me was about actually becoming a followed company. Only 21% of Twitter users actually follow brands, and when they do, it's usually less than ten of them. Actually about 35% only follow one or two brands. But once, you have a follower, you usually keep them. Unfortunately, most followers only really read what their favorite brands are tweeting as opposed to tweeting about them themselves. There is definitely an opportunity to create a dialogue and gets customers further engaged with brands.

http://mashable.com/2011/10/20/twitter-brands-purchase-intent/

Google Analytics Launches Flow Visualization

Google Analytics has upped the ante with a new feature called Flow Visualization. Flow Visualization will provide for a much more dynamic and insight-rich Analytics view of a site's traffic.

Visitors Flow will provide a visual representation of how visitors flow through your site, where they go, and where they drop off with the goal of providing answers to key questions on the success of various page initiatives.

Goal Flow gives site owners the ability to define goal steps for users to follow and then track how users flow through and where they drop off.

The goal of these new features is to take what we have discussed in class to a new level, namely to provide advertisers and site owners with more information in a more intuitive and easy to follow format as to how users reach their site, what they do when they are there, and, most importantly, what new site features, promo campaigns, etc. are the most effective.

As advertisers and web site owners, we want to know what we are doing that is working, how users are interacting with our site, where they are leaving, what promotions are falling flat and what are succeeding. By being able to visually follow users' pathways to and through our site Flow Visualizations is likely to become a highly valuable and utilized tool by site owners.

For more information:
http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-analytics-launches-in-depth-flow-visualizations/
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/10/introducing-flow-visualization.html

Legal Risks of Social Media

According to recent research reports, http://www.kpcb.com/internettrends2011, the popularity of social media has continued to increase. In the US as of June 2011, time spent on social networking sites surpassed time spent on other internet portals. It is no wonder that businesses across all industries continually attempt to be at the forefront of this trend in order to capture the attention of these users. The hospitality industry is no different; although hotel properties were slow to see the impact of the internet on their bottom line, they have since embraced social media: blogging and tweeting about their properties, creating Facebook fan pages and YouTube channels. Perhaps because of this slow response or more likely due to the nature of the interaction with their customers (who usually share vacation information, tips, photos, etc. online) hotels need to more closely monitor the legal implications of their online presence, especially when dealing with social media sites.

How To Manage Legal Risks of Social Media, http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles.aspx/6715/How-to-manage-legal-risks-of-social-media, clarifies some of the new legal risks inherent to social media: an employee that tweets a hotel photo with guests in the background who would rather not be seen at the property, conflict of interest with travel bloggers, navigating the different privacy laws in each region. Of course, these risks are not specific to hotels, however since the inception of social media, hotel properties have traditionally been on the other side constantly suing or threatening to sue other sites. TripAdvisor has been the primary recipient of hotel ire, last year a group of 700 hotels threatened to sue the site for slander, and most recently the site was sued by a hotel that earned the number 1 spot on TripAdvisor’s ranking of America’s dirtiest hotels. As independent hotel properties become more internet savvy, and increase their presence on social networks, they may not have the resources to mitigate the legal risks that they too will face using these channels.

The Value of Facebook Fans

Companies are increasingly using Facebook sweepstakes to gain more fans (aka "likes"). In fact, this past March, Expedia launched a sweepstakes that offered more than $1 million in prizes, including five trips that cost more than $100,000. What was the outcome? Expedia gained over 1 million fans. However, in general, the "sweepstakes fan" is looking for something free and doesn't always care about that brand. Therefore, it is now Expedia's mission to turn these fans into valuable customers.

Facebook will provide analytics around fans. It aggregates demographic information to give an idea of where these fans are from and even general age and gender data when there are enough fans. This allows companies to better target the audience they first acquired through the sweepstakes. The challenge for companies is to actually engage their fan base and integrate this into their overall marketing strategy. Looking at Expedia's facebook page, it is now trying to provide value for its fan base including discount to hotels. It is also trying to further engage its base by developing games and curated blogs.

A recent imedia article describes some best practices for campaigns that specifically target fan acquisition. Interesting ideas include developing a polling system for engagement, allowing fans to opt-in to communication such as SMS or email, and even using other types of media such as TV or print to drive to the Facebook page. Ultimately, a fan base is useless unless they become engaged advocates of the brand.

For more tips on how to turn Facebook fans into engaged customers go here:

http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=30235

Universities Utilizing Facebook for Recruiting

Universities are working hard to harness the power of social media to help lure in prospective students and to build school spirit among current students. The number of schools from the survey sample who reported using social media has grown from 61% to 100% in just four years. Clearly, college admissions and public relations staff have discovered that Facebook is an efficient, cost-effective way to not only reach students, but also parents, friends, and family members who hold sway in the college decision-making process.

A recent article on Mashable.com outlines the seven top ways that schools are utilizing Facebook. The strategies range from basic alumni group pages and dedicated groups for admitted students to pages for the school mascot and downloads of wallpapers and decals. The University of Kentucky has gone as far as planting giant wooden symbols on campus that look like the Facebook place markers to encourage people to check in at various campus locations.

Many of the techniques that the schools are using are easily translatable into other business settings. Arts organizations, for example, could certainly utilize the virtual tour programming to create exciting 360˚ tours of their venues to help patrons navigate the venues upon arrival or to show the view from the stage, or other vantage points that the typical audience member never gets to see. As always, it all boils down to getting people engaged and interacting with you through social media networks.

"Ads are just answers"

Google is repositioning the way it looks at ads with its "answers" project (http://www.google.com/ads/answers/). It built on the idea that "maybe the best ads are just answers" and is broadening their advertising menu. From a marketing perspective, I think google is asking the exact right question: what information does the searcher need to make the best purchase. The factors they've identified thus far (aside from specific products) are video samples, proximity, and recommendations (+1). You can read more about the thought-process behind this new initiative here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/ads-are-just-answers.html.

As a consumer, I think this process opens up tremendous opportunities. Along the lines of the discussion we had on Saturday, I never click the sponsored ads...I just trust the organic search more and the text ads in the sponsor block provide no extra value. Ads with video content or that highlight the number of positive recommendations do create value for the company (a more informative/relevant ad) and the customer (getting me the answer I want).

One question that I wasn't able to find the answer to is, what is the pricing structure for ads with media content (such as video or graphics) since there certainly is a greater advantage to having that additional media.

Branded Captchas

Solve Media offers Type-in ads as an alternative to the captchas that have become so prevalent online. Based on the idea that one of the few times in which we give our undivided attention to any online message is when we type in a captcha, Solve Media has replaced the standard random letters and digits with a brand message. According to a report , http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/159976/, which analyzed several Type-in campaigns, these new captchas appear to be very successful at increasing brand awareness and recall, although more so for Fortune 500 companies than for new brands. What is most interesting about Type-ins is that they are a new type of advertisement and one that is specific to the online experience in that the user is forced to engage with brand message. Perhaps the success of Type-ins will encourage different forms of online advertisements that move beyond passive viewing or the quasi-interactivity of clicking on an online ad.

Paper-book: where have my good times gone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ

When I was a kid my grandmother was working in a book store in a small city. In my memories this book store was a place like nothing else, a kind of dreamland. I was a big fan of comics and it was so impressive to see all the fixtures full of books. Before looking at the draws page by page and reading the stories, the first contact with my heroes was the book itself. Seeing the books in the fixtures, taking one, looking at the cover, looking inside, taking another one… was my first pleasure. Then I sat in a quiet side of the store, focusing in one book from A to Z, and nothing else around could distract me. During these years I read so many comics like Tintin, Spiderman and the Smurfs. I bought my favorite ones and I was so proud to get them at home. While I was reading my grandmother was talking to the customers about the new releases, sharing her opinion and giving advice's about what to read.

These times are gone. I am no longer a kid, the book store has closed, like many other book stores are doing every day. The sales of books are going down… and the e-book appeared: digital and cold. No more pleasure to touch it, turn the pages, go back and forth. Nowadays we read on the same device as we consult our bank account.

But may-be I am too nostalgic. Have the e-books killed the book stores? I don’t think so. The book stores were closing anyway before the e-books occurred. The e-books represent a great opportunity to get people back to reading more. They give an access to reading to more people, like the ones who live far from the big cities. They give more choice than we can get in any book store. And they allow more writers to be read since it is easier to post a novella online than being “paper-published”.

So Tintin, I am pleased to see you again… in my i-pad. What? You are as well at the movie theatre in 3D?

Luxury Brands in the Digital Space

Like any other women my age, I have a bit of a taste for luxury brand bags and shoes. Shocker there, right? But I'm also a marketer and interested in how some of my favorite brands play in the digital space. And of course, most of them don't! Fashion houses like Gucci and Prada, which are historically elitist, have an opportunity to push themselves into the mainstream without losing their aura of exclusivity which has been an ongoing concern. Hence, the Digital Marketing Commandments for Luxury as pointed out by mashable.com. It's an interesting and fun read.. My personal favorite is the push towards actually spending time and money on digital media. You can't just repurpose content from a print ad and expect it to work in a social media campaign. Following these rules will help further elevate a lot of these brands by further creating a following and envy.

http://mashable.com/2011/10/11/digital-marketing-luxury-brands/

Give the Samwer brothers a break

While the whiz kids of Germany, the Internet entrepreneur trio of Samwer brothers have been wildly successful in starting, building, and selling more than 5 Internet companies over the past 15-18 years, they have continued to receive negative headlines because of their lack of comfort in speaking with media, public interviews, etc.

I agree that when they attend events like the annual IdeaLab conference, and other events around the world, they are expected to engage and speak with many colleagues, fellow entrepreneurs, and others in the same tech world. I believe it is a duty, to an extent, to "share" wisdom, experience, and knowledge with community once people have become successful as a method of good karma, and giving back to society. At the same time, I respect that many people - and no offense here because I am an engineer by education - but many of my strong techie friends and colleagues are not very socially comfortable. Their comfort zone is not in front of a camera, in front of a large group of people, or even meeting with shareholders for that matter. And so in many cases they prefer not to waste their time on things that are of not much interest. Rather, they love sticking to what they know and love, which is of course, creating, building, tweaking, and launching new and exciting tech ventures where they can get lost in the projects.

More power to 'em. Stick to what you love !

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/10/14/oliver-samwer-walks-out-of-an-interview-with-techcrunch/

Siri and Our Lives

While there was initial disappointment with the release of the iPhone 4s vs the anticipated "5", a few days have given us time to digest the impact that Siri might have on mobile technology. Siri is a voice recognition and assistance solution that's likely to change the mobile landscape as we know it. For example, instead of searching for weather you can ask the device if you need an umbrella, as you would a personal assistant. The device responds, "Rain is not in the forecast." These certainly seems like a natural progression, and it's interesting to note how much we've adapted to technology over the last decade. Certainly the next 10 years will usher in a period in which we better integrate with our electronic devices, and Google may have been one of the first to begin this trend with it's approach to search algorithms. At one level, Siri is the next level of search which has adapted to us (and our common conversational language) versus us adapting to an algorithm. The sky is the limit with this software.

Once you couple SIRI with location services, you essentially have a personal assistant reminding you of places to go, errands to run, as you mindlessly shuffle through your neighborhood. Now your phone is an even stronger extension of your mind. Will Siri isolate us more or enable us to better integrate? Time will tell.

The Social Media Perception Gap

A detailed analysis highlights the gap between what consumers want from engaging with brands on social media and what businesses think they want. When consumers were asked about their reasons for engaging with a brand on social media, the top two reasons were to receive discounts or promotions and to make a purchase. When businesses were asked this same question, the top two reasons were to learn about new products and to receive general information. This perception gap illustrates that there is much room for improvement in terms of brands increasing the effectiveness of their social media strategy. In order for brands to close this gap, they should start taking into consideration what their customers want when they engage with them on social media. The report also provides some very interesting insight on why consumers break up with brands.

http://www.briansolis.com/2011/10/i-think-we-need-a-break-its-not-me-its-you/

How to Measure Results in Digital Marketing

I found this really interesting video (3 minutes) on How to Measure Results in Digital Marketing. Brett Relander of Tactical Marketing Labs discusses the importance of measuring the results of your marketing efforts and provides tips on how to do it.

http://socialmediatoday.com/brettrelander/277233/how-measure-results-digital-marketing

He talked about the importance of Goggle Analytics and how to use to understand the customer behavior, segmentation, searches, keywords and most importantly there demand for your product

I work for a retail company and we use Google Analytics to manage customer traffic and understand customer behavior. We started a Baby products marketing campaign and Google Analytics played an important role to help us measure this digital marketing campaign.

Thanks Mo Khalid

Online advertising can pay off in-store

While the general rule is that online advertising is less efficient for CPG brands, a new report shows that digital ads help to drive in-store purchasing. This is great news for companies that are trying to crack the code of how to optimize online marketing for in-store payoffs. Coupons are the key driver now but it will be interesting to see how this advertising medium evolves in the years to come.
http://www.bizreport.com/2011/10/cpg-brands-find-online-ads-pushing-in-store-purchases.html

Translation in the Digital Age

I've often thought that though we consider the digital age to be tied to a "world wide web" the global nature of our communications remains relatively limited. Much of this, of course, centers around the issue of language. Roughly 328 million speak English-- around the same number of people who speak Spanish. Those numbers are dwarfed by the 845 million that speak Chinese and another 460 that speak Hindi. So in the world of digital marketing, how do you get your message out to a global audience?

Smartling is a new tech start-up aimed at helping users translate their digital content into multiple languages quickly and accurately. The company is featured in this month's Fast Company Magazine. The idea of localizing content is not new. However, it's often been more burdensome than many suspect and the potential for Smartling to help digital companies source their translation needs in a cost effective way is enormous.

Of course, what Smartling does not address is whether one message really is appropriate for all cultures. How a company targets their segments is something that must be considered carefully. What engages users in Wisconsin will not necessarily work in Beijing. Still, it's a step in the right direction...

Fast Company Article:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1787015/smartling-ceo-jack-welde-translation-localization

Facebook Totally Caved To Apple On Its New Mobile Platform

AFacebook announced a huge extension of its mobile platform today, and as long rumored, the company is going to be spreading its payment platform, Facebook Credits, to the mobile versions of all Facebook apps.

This could have been a blow to Apple, giving a way for developers to sell content -- like virtual goods, song downloads, or news subscriptions -- within iPhone apps without having to go through Apple's App Store and give Apple its 30% cut.

Except that Facebook won't let developers use Facebook Credits on the iPhone or iPad.

Here's the relevant bit from a post by Facebook's Luke Shepard that will appear on Facebook's Blog shortly:

Today, we are extending Facebook Credits to support mobile web apps. Facebook Credits is a payment system that provides a safe, easy way for users to pay for your content. The same policies are also extended to mobile web apps, requiring all games to use Facebook Credits as their exclusive payment mechanism. By requiring games to use Credits on both mobile web and apps on Facebook, we offer our shared users a simple and consistent experience when buying virtual goods in games. Native iOS apps and mobile web apps that are running within a Facebook iOS app may not use Facebook Credits. [emphasis ours]

Now we have a pretty good idea what took so long to get the iPad app approved -- Facebook and Apple were probably going back and forth over this point. Apple won.

The updated Facebook mobile platform has a lot of other features for mobile developers that help users discover and spread their apps, and a lot of these features were done in cooperation with Apple.

Bookmarks. When users install a Facebook app, bookmarks to the mobile version of that app will now appear within the Facebook app on iPhone and iPad. If users click on the bookmark, the mobile version of app will be launched -- unless users don't have it. In that case, they'll be guided to the iTunes App Store to buy it.
Requests. Facebook apps will now be able to send requests to mobile phone versions of the same app. For instance, if I'm playing a game on the Facebook Web site, and my opponent is playing on her iPhone, she'll see a notification whenever the app tells her something (like "your move, sucker.")
News feed. When mobile users see an app notification in their Facebook news feed, they'll now be able to tap on that notification to launch the app. Previously, users could see app notifications on the mobile version of Facebook, but couldn't interact with them.
Authenticated referrals. Whenever a user gets one of these notifications on their mobile device, they will be prompted to log in before launching the mobile app. This lets developers deliver a personalized experience.
The updates are available on iOS and Facebook's mobile Web site today, but are coming to Android native apps soon.
Developers can get all the details on Facebook's developer site. Facebook is also holding a Mobile Hack event on October 28 for interested developers.

Web Start-Up Froth and the Angel Investor

The WSJ published a story titled, "Web Startups Hit Cash Crunch" and there has certainly been considerable buzz about an impending crash. To wit: nearly one-third of daily deal sites have shut down this year, and many other "me too" business models are struggling to gain traction after raising cash.

The recipe for the froth seems pretty clear: a week economy is encouraging many people to take chances funding a start-up, while unpredictable public markets are encouraging investors to chase the next Google or Facebook. The problem is that most investors don't have access to start-ups founded by entrepreneurs with proven track records, since VC firms like, Sequoia, already have established relationships. While a lot of unlikely entrepreneurs are churning out business plans these days - and you never know, your neighbor looking for angel investors might have the next great idea - be very weary of the start-up mania that's occurring right now. Here are some tips for investing in a good start-up:

1) Truly understand the market and business model -- this seems obvious, but a lot of investors get caught up in ideas they don't entirely grasp. Do your homework and make sure the model can be monetized. I see far to many companies burning cash without a plan.
2) Make sure this is a unique model, and not another "Me too" company. While some clones will work or can be done better, the first mover advantage is huge. Just look at Craigslist.
3) Diversify -- most VC firms make 100% profits form just 10-20% of their investments (and don't expect to be seeing a success rate like that without serious connections). It's better to put $20k in 5 companies than $100k in one. Even great ideas, like mobile apps, can fail for reasons beyond anyone's control. The App Store and Google's algorithms can ultimately decide.
4) Vet management -- Lots of people have ideas, but far fewer are able to execute. And make sure at least someone on the team has experience in the market they're entering.

New Fourquare Feature: Radar

We're in an interesting era of content explosion in the mobile/digital world - as we get our hands on more info, recommendations, suggestions, reviews and deals, it seems that apps are constantely trying to notify us when there's something better or more exciting we could be doing. This trend is continued with Foursquare's newest feature - Radar.
Radar tells you what's going on around you and pushes those notifications even when the app is off. This assumption is that you'll want to be reminded to check out this new restaurant, or that your friends are meeting nearby. Foursquare really needs to get this right, because if the notifications aren't contextual, personalized and helpful, this could be the most annoying app feature I've ever heard of.

As we continue to evolve in the information overload space, it puts the onus on apps/mobile features to really curate content, as opposed to just blasting out whatever the last advertiser told them to.

Check out more detail here: http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/12/foursquar-radar/#comment-box

Facebook Analytics

http://www.brandingpersonality.com/new-facebook-analytics-tool/

Facebooks new analytics tool, "What people are talking about" is a great way to see how well your fan page is doing. The tool tracks metrics such as number of wall posts, likes, sharing things from the page, answering questions on a page, mentioning your page, and checking out your page. The tool also reports two new metrics that have never been tracked before - "Friends of Fans" which is exactly what it sounds like and "Weekly Total Reach", which reports how many people on facebook have referenced the page in any way, how many other pages have mentioned it and how many things on your page have gone viral.

The tool rolls up all of these metrics into a simple "What people are talking about" score which gives you an overall score on how well your page is doing.