Media Bullseye

Virtually Changing Shopping

2009-11-20T20:13:49Z

Virtually Changing Shopping
by Wayne Kurtzman

Remember hanging at the mall with your friends for four days, only to end up with six items for the holidays? Well, the music isn't the only thing that has changed. And you should see what is changing in the world of online shopping.

While too many people seem genuinely excited about the return of the Officemax ElfYourself program (where you can make an elf of yourself), ecommerce is quietly changing by leaps, bounds and "points."

Growth continues for Stardoll.com, Kohl's cartoon-like site targeted for girls 7-17. Self-described as a "virtual paperdoll community site for everyone who enjoys fashion, design and making friends," users have a virtual mall experience with their "Medoll" they design to look like themselves. While adults seem to have problems navigating the site, Tweens easily go store to store (like DKNY and Sephora) and try on different outfits and accessories. Parents buy them with the Stardollars virtual currency ($1 US = 30 Stardollars). The site is simply cool, features current pop stars and can cater to any attention span and taste in clothing.

Tweens "dress up," use virtual currency, and social chat while Kohl's and their store partners presumably learn what is going to be hot at school and in which part of the country. This will also bridge these young users into the next generation of shopping.

Adults will find that the slotted-door dressing rooms may not be as necessary as they once were. Augmented reality additions to sites like Tobi.com and their Fashionista virtual dressing rooms are in the process of changing how we buy clothes. Simply use your webcam, stand in the shot and point into one of the icons (like a television meteorologist pointing at a weather map). Pointing to a different icon on the screen allows you to change the clothing options that you are "wearing"- style, color, and so on. Point to the left or right arrow and get the next outfit. Point again, and you're wearing the next one. The clothing lays over your image and if you like it, you can take a snapshot of it and post it on Facebook for comments, or you can just buy it. No virtual currency here, this is a big boy and girl's store.

Zugara, who powers the Tobi augmented reality and motion capture application [video example] explains the reason that this works so well on their web site: "Consumers are empowered now, their media consumption options are virtually unlimited, and they need to be relevantly engaged on their terms, not the brands." If you've read my columns, my mantras have been content and relevance on the customer's terms. This company is recognizing both the media and the social aspect that more people feel comfortable with.

There is a reason for the comfort level. Simply, this is nothing more than the new school version of the old school practice of a salesperson handing a customer the product to hold. Once the item is in the customer's hands, they can feel it and visualize owning it - or rule it out.

Networking giant Cisco previews the future of shopping in brick and mortar stores in a video where a woman, with a wave of her hand, is selecting and virtually "trying on" a variety of dresses in front of an augmented reality screen.

In short, there are a lot of big names pushing the mobile, desktop, and specialized devices to the virtual experience.

Somewhere in between the Amazon's of the world and the augmented reality revolution is a more visual electronics-centric product search engine called Retrevo. Claiming four million monthly users, the California-based company provides a significant amount of information from manuals to community ratings to help you reach a buying decision.

Community ratings are nothing new to Kaboodle or the U.K. based Crowdstorm, both of which have grown strong communities and trusted ratings.

Comparison shopping engines like NexTag and PriceGrabber should be working on making the next generation of ecommerce a reality (because everyone else seems to be).

The stark contrast of the day: J.C. Penney announced that they are discontinuing their "big book" catalog and moving it to eCommerce. Someone should let them know that mobile commerce, or mCommerce is coming too.

Is there more to social media than what you ate for lunch?

2009-11-20T19:58:11Z

Old Media, New Tricks
Is there more to social media than what you ate for lunch?
by Robert Quigley

When I worked as a copy editor on the editorial board at the Austin American-Statesman a few years back, a member of the board needed to fill a gap in his editorial with a key fact that could only be found in the Texas government records. After finding his fact with about 30 seconds of searching around a government site, he mused that pre-Internet, those types of searches by a journalist killed an entire afternoon. "Sometimes the Internet actually saves you time," he quipped, a bit amused.

The Internet, in that instance, increased the newspaper's productivity. The writer could focus on tying up other parts of the editorial or get started on the next one thanks to that Web search. On the flip side, the Internet can be an efficiency killer. In fact, I can single-handedly kill the productivity of nearly every worker reading this column just by sharing these two sites: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ and http://failblog.org. Go ahead and visit them ... this column will still be online when you are finally able to pull yourself away from those sites sometime next week.

When the Internet was relatively shiny and new all of 10 years ago, a lot of people dismissed it as purely a waste of time. Obviously, the Internet has proven its worth as a serious tool, and people can and do save time using it.

Social media now is seen the way the Web in general was seen 10 years ago. The most common knock against Twitter (by those who either haven't used it or only gave it a brief chance)? "Who cares what someone eats for lunch?" Facebook is often seen as a time-wasting toy, and the constant invitations to join fake mafia families don't help the cause. YouTube is known as the site where you can gather in a cubicle and laugh at an idiot in front of a camera. Yes, social media can be a diversion that kills instead of enhances productivity. Just like the Fail Blog, there are plenty of non-business uses for social media.

So why spend time on social media? What can you really get out of it besides what your friends eat for lunch?

As a journalist, I see plenty of benefits of being involved in social media networks, including branding, delivery of news, interaction with the community and more.

An overlooked benefit is that social media, far from being a time-waster, is actually a productivity enhancer.

Much like the example where the editorial writer finds what he needs in 30 seconds, I can get information quickly that in the past would have taken a long time to find, or that I may have never found at all. Not only is the information out there, but it comes from a source that's even better than Google for getting accurate results. It comes from the minds of experts themselves, who are willing to help you out. Search engines can only dream of accurately providing the types of responses one can get from asking a question on a good social network.

So what makes a good social network? It's not necessarily the application; it's the people who use it and connect with you. On Twitter, I follow more than 860 people. I am not following them blindly - I made a conscious decision when I clicked the "follow" button each time, based on whether I thought it was a person who would be interesting and provide more than what they're eating for lunch. It has paid off. I follow people in all walks of life, but I also follow more than 100 journalists who are constantly thinking about what's next in the news industry. I organized those journalists in a list so I can easily filter down to just that group when needed. There are people on that list from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Mashable, the Miami Herald, The Guardian and many more. And these are the people who are making things happen in the online side of their businesses. I've gotten advice within seconds from experts at the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, without needing to even lift up the phone. Is there a conference or a gathering in the world where you could not only meet experts in your field like that, but have constant contact with them afterward?

Thinking about trying something new or radical? Float it in front of your experts first. Can't find an answer to a problem, and Google is no help, if you follow enough good people, you will find your answer. Of course, there's more to social media than getting - it's a two-way street. You can and should be the expert in someone else's toolbox.

I think the editorial writer was a bit amused by his revelation, because it might have gone against his previous thinking about the Web's potential. I've seen the same thing happen to people who have gotten into social media with some skepticism, only to discover the wealth of information that's out there waiting for them.

Robert Quigley is the social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman and is a blogger for http://oldmedianewtricks.com and http://knightpulse.org.

The Revolution of Infinite Information

2009-11-12T21:22:33Z

The Revolution of Infinite Information
by Wayne Kurtzman

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently was concerned that most people have not come to grips with the emerging information revolution. His concern is that many people haven't thought how even simple day-to-day tasks are due for a disruptive change.

Carried by Boston's WBUR radio [full story and video], Schmidt spoke about Google and the future of the Internet. The talk was part of a memorial for Michael Hammer, an MIT computer science professor who died last September.

"To understand what we [Google] are doing, think about a world of an infinite amount of new sources of information; an infinite number of digital devices - all GPS located, attached to people with an infinite exposure to information. And imagine the scale of the kinds of questions you could ask, that you could not ask before, you literally could not do it before .... I've become convinced that people don't understand how profound that revolution will be."

An infinite number of locatable devices attached to an infinite exposure to answers that you could never ask before. How could this change your life, from shopping to driving to work? The influx of knowledge and collaboration - and managing those skills - will result in a world totally different than that we have today. This would be true for even the most simple tasks. To put it plainly, we are in the process of reinventing the wheel and sliced bread at the same time.

"One of the most obvious questions is tell me where I am and tell me where I'm going" Schmidt continued. "Well, not only can we actually tell you where you are, (and you are the search,) but we can also predict where you're going to go based on your patterns and movements ... and so on."

They are also grappling with the privacy concerns and summarized Google's position that the individual consumer owns their own data.

Google is working very hard at parsing and ranking live, real-time data from Twitter and other real-time sites and merging it with content from web sites to deliver pertinent and credible results. Microsoft is also working on similar results. The goal: to provide the information you need as easily as possible.

Today, according to Schmidt, the US ranks 14th in the world in Internet bandwidth speed. We do have some catching up to do, but within the next five to 10 years, expect some convergence of home entertainment devices, but especially more devices to a single "pipe" of data coming into your home with significantly better bandwidth than available today. How much faster will it be? Chances are it will be faster than most companies now have. This will make room for even more complex information to pour right into your home.

Mobile devices will still accelerate, and do what was just a dream just a few years back. While mobile bandwidth will improve significantly, they still won't be able to match the new speed coming into your home.

These will have implications for every business and every person. And Schmidt asked a very valid question that's been asked by many educators: "Why do we teach the old way when all the world's information is on this phone?"

Perhaps another way to ask it is if students could access the entire world's knowledge, how should we help them to synthesize and leverage this power?

Information, communities, mobility and collaboration are all key parts of emerging products from many leading companies.

Your part is to know the world is changing. Now is the time to learn the skills to keep you competitive in working with the entire world's knowledge.

Maybe CISCO's new vision of the world sums it up: Make business more people-centric than document-centric. And if that doesn't spell change, you better check that magic-8 ball.

Augmented Reality: When Real Isn't Enough

2009-11-05T20:36:38Z

Augmented Reality: When Real Isn't Enough
by Wayne Kurtzman

I wait for the gasp during my social media presentations when I talk about augmented reality, or "AR." You don't know about AR? Simply put, AR is literally a new layer of reality provided by your mobile phone. In the not too distant future, phones without AR abilities might as well have big 'ole rotary dials and copper wire hanging off them.

Imagine taking your smart phone and looking at an object through the camera on the phone. Instead of snapping a photo, your camera returns detailed information about the object you are viewing. That is a simplified version of mobile augmented reality.

The photo interacts with AR software on your phone to deliver the information. While it will be possible for the software company to mine what you are interested in, or where you are, to target ads to you there are many other potential applications - and some are already available.

Think of the tourist possibility. You can walk through Boston and point your camera at the statue of Paul Revere and get historical information about the statue and Paul.

Last year, augmented reality was a $6-million industry, according to an ABI research study. By 2014, it will expand into a more than $350-million industry. That's less than five years away.

According to the study summary: "The new capabilities of handset platforms [will] create an explosive opportunity for Augmented Reality technology," explains study author Joe Madden. "Existing technology suppliers will have to adapt, as rapid growth will transform the Augmented Reality ecosystem."

While Mr. Madden notes that "GPS location accuracy is not adequate currently for many applications, requiring additional techniques to refine location precision for shopping applications, or for game applications in which virtual objects must be placed precisely on the display near corresponding real objects."

Take a step back and look at your mobile phone. mCommerce, or eCommerce on mobile device is coming at a rapid rate, and arguably is here. AR is right behind it. Social media is creating and keeping personal connections like never before. Gaming devices are connected to the Internet and are moving to mobile devices. That phone of yours is going to look so old in five years. The convergence of these technologies and accompanying user behaviors will open new possibilities of collaboration, learning, selling and buying. With them will come unbelievable new opportunities to grow a business segment that until now has been left to dreamers.

In the Ben Stiller movie "Night at the Museum" the exhibits of the Museum of Natural History come to life. What if your children's history books had a 3D interactive component to engage them as far as they were willing to learn? Not movie-style 3D, but interactive in your face 3D? (The augmented reality wiki has some great examples).

Now think about the places where you want more information. When you're shopping, wouldn't you like to compare item prices at other stores? What about standing outside a restaurant, holding up your phone and being able to read the menu and recent reviews?

How about while watching a movie, a concert or a ballgame? What if you could select the type of information you want in those venues?

On the other side of the spectrum, you can hold up your phone and perhaps see the Facebook status of people walking by. That is very much within the realm of possibility and definitely scary-cool.

There are already basic AR applications available for the iPhone, Nokia N95 and Google Android, with Blackberry and other platforms not far behind (and may already exist at this writing). The technology will get better, as did the phones, GPS devices, computers and everything else before it.

In addition to mobile devices, other AR devices add other possibilities. Head mounted displays (which should evolve to glasses) and Spatial Augmented Reality devices, or SARs, project displays onto physical objects. Both may do amazing things for virtual training and collaboration.

Since we never got the flying cars or robot maids of the Jetsons, we may just have to settle for a reality that may be described as "unreal" yet inevitable.

Twitter lists: Steal, Hoard, and Make People Feel Bad; Or, The Best Twitter Feature Ever

2009-11-04T19:39:31Z

New Tools, Old Rules
Twitter lists: Steal, Hoard, and Make People Feel Bad; Or, The Best Twitter Feature Ever
by Doug Haslam

I love how the unveiling of Twitter lists has put some people in a tizzy. From Chris Brogan worrying that lists make people feel left out to Robert Scoble overreacting to Brogan's post and Justin Kownacki being his very readably grumpy self in the middle, there has been no shortage of thumb-sucking over lists.

I have a take on Twitter Lists. You didn't ask for it, but here it is--in list form:

The Beta experience was weird and mysterious. I got into Lists early, but had no idea I was a Lucky Beta User. I got no notification from Twitter and was about a day from being blissfully unaware they existed at all. Wait, I'm supposed to be grateful to have been included in such an elite (just how elite, exactly?) group.

I will use Twitter Lists. This is a huge statement for me. List-like functions have been available for a long time on Twitter clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop, but I have been too lazy to use them or make them work for me. However, I follow a lot of people and have long felt the need to do something about finding easier ways to follow sub-groups of people--especially my closest friends and colleagues. My inclusion in the Beta spurred a responsibility to at least try Twitter Lists.

The fact that Twitter lists is a native Twitter feature is my deal-maker. There is no question in my mind that the fact that this feature is an integrated part of the Twitter service, rather than tied to a third-party application that may or may not be usable across all my Twitter touchpoints. Already, Seesmic Desktop (my Twitter client of choice) has integrated Twitter lists into the latest version of its software. Easy!

The ego factor involved in seeing what lists you are on (and how many) is enormous- and fun! Just because we're not supposed to count things like numbers of followers--and the number of lists we're on--doesn't mean we won't do it. It doesn't even mean we shouldn't. And it certainly doesn't mean it can't be fun. I rode the thrill ride of seeing people actually (gasp!) find me worth being added to lists, and then see my numbers lag behind those of Twitter pals I admire.

A personal favorite list I am on is called "Old School Twitter." I like being considered "old school." I'm pretty sure it was a compliment.

I'm with Chris Brogan. I'm compiling my Twitter Lists privately. However, I don't feel as strongly as Chris does about making people feel left out. Deal with it people! The main reason I am compiling lists privately so far is that my first lists are private. They are my friends and my closest colleagues. If I wanted to make a more definitive list of.. anything: PR people, Red Sox fans, comedians, then I might make it public so others don't have to duplicate the work. Which leads me to...

Others' public Twitter Lists are a great pilfering ground. If you want to see what lists I am interested in, don't wait for me to publish lists, see what lists I am following. A lot of people have done "good enough" work that, despite statements above, I am too lazy and practical to duplicate on my own. Theft is the only way to go!

In all, I see Twitter lists as a great utility. My hope is that this unifying feature will goad more people like me into finally grouping the people they follow on Twitter, and even serve as a more updated surrogate for the Twitter directories that seem to keep popping up--and falling into disuse and outdated-ness.

Doug Haslam is an Account Director at Boston's SHIFT Communications, and blogs at DougHaslam.com.

Marketers have to play by the new FTC rules, too

2009-10-30T17:35:59Z

Marketers have to play by the new FTC rules, too
by Bryan Person

Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission announced new guidelines around disclosure for online endorsements that hits squarely at social media content creators, including bloggers, Twitterers, and Facebookers.

The thrust of the regulations, which go into effect on December 1, is clear: If you're paid or compensated in kind (such as being sent a free product to review) to talk about a product, service, or experience online, your content must be accompanied by a clear and easy-to-understand disclosure of your relationship with the marketer/advertiser.

But it's not just the content creators who are on the hook for disclosure; the marketers have legal responsibilities, too, and I break them down in this month's audio commentary.

Click here to listen

Show Notes

Social Media Business Council SEO Andy Sernovitz has been my guide to understanding the new FTC regulations; here are his three key takeaways for social media marketers:

Disclosure in social media outreach is now required.
Marketers must monitor online conversations about products and services they've asked content creators to test and review and correct any misstatements that are made.
Brands and agencies must create policies and training programs for employees and partners that cover the dos and don'ts of working with/compensating social media content creators.

Here are a few other relevant posts on the updated FTC guidelines, all part of my Delicious collection on the topic:

Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (PDF): The official 81-page guide from the FTC
Whitney Hoffman: A flow chart of disclosure
Endorsement deal: A transcript of Bob Garfield's Sernovitz in the October 9 edition of NPR's "On the Media"

Bryan Person is the social media evangelist at LiveWorld. He blogs at BryanPerson.com and can be found on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/BryanPerson.

Reputation Vampires

2009-10-30T16:15:43Z

Reputation Vampires
by Jen Zingsheim

Cross-posted from the CustomScoop blog.

Sometimes, the need to monitor from a reputation management perspective hits really close to home. We recommend clients use our service to closely monitor their mentions online to alert them to any potential problems or negative posts, and of course we use the system ourselves.

At CustomScoop, we're very proud of the work we do and are accustomed to coming across accolades more often than complaints. When we do see the occasional complaint, it's something we'll look at objectively, to see if there's a way we can improve. We realize we can't make everyone happy all the time, and that's fine--it's how we learn, refine, and improve our products and services.

On very rare occasions, there are the Reputation Vampires. They suck the life out of your day.

~~Today~~ Wednesday we came across a very negative complaint, where someone purporting to be a customer said that we failed to deliver on a job to remove posts from blogs made by a former employee.

We can certainly see how we would be unable to meet his expectations in this -- it isn't a service that CustomScoop provides. We're an online media monitoring, measurement, and analysis firm, not a reputation repair firm. Clearly, the person leveling the complaint is at best confusing us with another firm--at worst? Let your imagination run wild.

It's one thing to know that you shouldn't chase every rabbit. But it can be difficult to heed that advice when someone levels a completely unfounded accusation at you. It's even worse when you see that unfounded accusation on page one of your Google results. You want to ask the site to take the fraudulent accusation down, and that's a natural--but in this era, futile--response.

(As to the typical corporate response, we're New Englanders and too ~~cheap~~ frugal to call our lawyers. That doesn't work either anyways.)

We tell clients all the time that it is important to have an active monitoring program, and that it's incredibly useful to have a blog in place to use to correct the record and respond when needed. Check and check. We'll continue to focus on what we do best: providing timely, accurate, online monitoring to our clients.

And, once more, with feeling: we do not offer reputation repair services!

The Privacy Genie

2009-10-28T18:10:01Z

The Privacy Genie
by Jen Zingsheim

Shel Holtz appears to have either struck a nerve or a chord with a recent post titled (cleverly) "Recruiters shouldn't care about that Facebook picture of your beer pong game in college." Most of the comments (and there are a lot--the reason I'm writing this is that I had more thoughts and didn't want to keep posting comments!) focus on the appropriateness of sharing "party pictures" and the perceived lack of judgment in doing so, and whether it's short-sighted of HR to take this into account when making hiring decisions. I'm not going to tackle that aspect of Shel's post, as it's being examined in detail on his blog.

What is interesting to me though, is Shel's point that Millenials (paraphrasing here) don't see the need to separate their work and personal lives--or, in Shel's words "[...] they see no reason to pretend that they don't have personal lives in order to create some kind of fictitious persona for work."

This is of course dramatically different from those of us who essentially had these firewalls between work and home built in from day one of our work lives, and it might be why many commenters are blowing by that point. It's too foreign to us. And I honestly don't feel as though I've created a "fictitious persona" for work because I choose to keep some things private. I'm more comfortable in my jammies than a suit, but I'm not going to wear them to work to be "authentic." Work-->work clothes, Home-->stuff that I can cook in and get food on without an enormous dry cleaning bill. These separations don't make me any less "Jen" in either setting, they are situationally appropriate. I view what I choose to share in each setting the same way.

I can think of a number of cases how this separation is beneficial, from both the perspective of the employer and employee. It makes me wonder if Millenials are perhaps setting themselves up for future problems, because it's hard to put that privacy genie back in the bottle.

Part of my thought process I think stems from having lived in small communities, where everyone actually did seem to know everything about you. People clamor to escape small towns due to the very environment that many are now willingly recreating on Facebook. (This is interesting to me from a sociological perspective, maybe as a disconnected and far-flung society we long for the close ties of a small town? Maybe?)

While it might be the "new normal" to be completely open, mixing family and work could soon start to present issues for Millenials. If you're accustomed to sharing everything, it will soon appear in a space shared by work and family. Think of what celebrities and politicians go through, but on a smaller scale: maybe you use a sick day to play golf. Someone posts "hey, great round today" on your Wall, and suddenly you have a credibility issue at work.

Or, what about the very personal decision on when to start a family, and who to tell--with work and family intertwined on Facebook, do you delay telling family until you're ready to notify work--or the reverse? There are a number of medical and personal situations that an employee perhaps wouldn't want their employer to know about (treatment for depression, fertility treatments, financial issues, and so on) and the employer--from a legal perspective--might not *want* to know about either. Perhaps these issues can be kept separate, but it's going to take a heck of a lot more work to do so.

I'm not saying one way is good and the other is bad. I do think that eliminating any kind of separation between one's personal and work lives is a decision that should be made consciously, with an understanding that it's going to be very hard to recapture that privacy if you should ever desire it.

In the long run, having no distinction between these spheres of self could ultimately lead Millenials to be *less* authentic rather than more, as they struggle to regain a modicum of privacy in the future.

Status Woe: Social Media to mCommerce

2009-10-28T17:24:29Z

Status Woe: Social Media to mCommerce
by Wayne Kurtzman

The side effects of not considering a social media program for your business may include dry mouth, sweating, indigestion and a loss of revenue from customers who use mobile devices. Even if you still call them cell phones, if you have more than four of them in your household, chances are good you're on Twitter. And now, one-in-five Americans update their "status" online. If they update their status, they're likely talking about a lot more things as well. There is a genuine business need to be part of the conversation.

New research from September 2009 from the Pew Internet Project shows that 19 percent of all Internet users now update their online status using Twitter or a similar social network. That is up 9 percent from 11 months ago. And the more mobile devices in a household, the more likely it is that they are using Twitter. This may lull you into a false sense of security that you do not need to be part of a real-time social network where people talk about what they had for breakfast.

What Did You Have For Breakfast?

A big joke among the Tweeple (people on Twitter) is that we are thankful for people thinking that this is what we are talking about: It keeps other people off our beloved Twitter. The truth is that today alone, I used Twitter to resolve a cable TV question, chatted with another voice-over artist, learned about new analytics possibilities in social media, discussed analysis of new economic trends, and learned how methods of conducting an orchestra is incredibly pertinent to business management . If you just "follow" the "tweets" of people who actually ADD VALUE to your day, social media can make a real difference to you and your business.

I also helped customers connect, learn more about products that they had questions about, and cut through some red tape. By being available on Twitter, these customers had access to a live person where THEY were. They didn't have to come to our web site. They know they have access to people with information via Twitter. Reaching out to them just became one of our competitive advantages.

The 18-44 age group is now rediscovering Twitter and are looking for the same thing we all want: relevant content at our fingertips. And they want to reach out to businesses and friends alike.

Social media, be it using Facebook, Twitter or Friendfeed is becoming what the telephone was through early 80s: Our primary communications tool. Even e-mail is starting to feel so 2001. The big difference, Google, Bing and Yahoo! are there to make the good and bad words available in search results. And with the increased mobility, people will share things AS they feel them.

If this isn't enough reason to have a listening post to the chatter and a way of reaching out, maybe this will help influence you:

New Term: mCommerce

It's not enough that social media is the new telephone. The new mobile devices are doing some amazing things, and prices are coming down. All the major social media networks are continuing their push toward mobility and will help fuel an explosion in mobile commerce applications, or mCommerce.

Social media and blogging content affects peoples' buying behaviors. Research shows that we would rather accept the word of someone we don't know over a salesperson. Social media is generally taking the word of someone who we do have some history with, and who can greatly affect purchasing habits, even if we have never met them in person. Over the summer I was looking for an outdoor grill. In the store, I started searching Google on my Blackberry for customer reviews, which ultimately drove my decision.

Some new mobile applications allow you use the camera on the device to take a photo of the bar code of a product - and then comparison shop while you are in another store. Soon you will be able to buy it that way as well.

Simply, buying from your phone is mCommerce. And this is coming much faster than you think. There are already ways to buy food, beverages and transportation tickets from your phone, so don't be surprised at what's coming up, be ready.

It's time to take a seat at the table, pick up the phone and start being social. There was a time that last sentence would not have made sense. Now it can make dollars.

Riding Google Wave's Potential

2009-10-22T13:28:23Z

Riding Google Wave's Potential
by Robert Quigley

It has been nearly a month since Google unleashed Wave in beta form, and already there are people declaring it a failure, saying it's "too complicated" and they "don't see a use for it."

About two years ago, Christian McDonald, a colleague and friend of mine, said that I needed to get on Twitter. At the time, I was the Internet editor for the Austin American-Statesman, and I think he wanted another person in his small but growing Twitter circle. I distinctly remember him showing me Twitter on his iPhone and trying to get me interested.

I thought Twitter was too complicated, and I didn't see a use for it.

Just a few months later, I gave Twitter a try anyway, became addicted and started sending news tweets on the Statesman account. I still didn't see the full potential, but I kept plugging away. More than a year later, there's no question that Twitter has transformed journalism, not just how I practice it, but how millions do (see: Iran elections).

Having played around a bit on Wave, I see the same potential. If you don't know what Wave is, here's a pretty good explainer.

It may or may not change the world, but I do believe it will change the way we report the weather.

Let me explain what I mean with this hypothetical future Wave use that has been rolling around in my head:

Ice storms hit Austin about once every three years. The storms cripple the city because we're used to dealing with 100-degrees and sun, not 25 degrees and frozen water. People slide all over the roads, schools all close, no one goes to work and we make little snowmen out of dirty ice ... and everyone talks about it.

The next time an arctic cold front takes aim at Central Texas, I'm going to get on Wave and start a discussion about the weather. I'll tag it and make it public so locals can find it through a search. People will be free to add themselves to the discussion on Wave.

Without getting too bogged down in the mechanics of Wave, just think of it like this: If your street is covered in ice and impassible, you can log in, post your report and see your neighbors' reports all across the city. Wonder if the bridge you have to pass to get to work is slick? Someone might have already reported that on the Wave. Users can snap a pic of cars that have slid into telephone polls and easily upload them onto the Wave. It could come in a long, somewhat chronological list, or the reports could be embedded in a map. If I report at 10 a.m. that my street is impassable, and my neighbor gets on there 2 hours later when the street has been salted, she can edit my update to clarify it has been salted and is now open. You can respond within the thread to any of the reports coming in. If someone typed in, "Anyone know about Loop 360?" you can respond right below that to give an update, even if there have been several updates since then. All of this is done in real time - you see the reports show up on the Wave as they are typed. If this is done on the Maps gadget, you'd see pinpoints appearing on the map in real time as people gave their reports. It is crowdsourcing on steroids.

The potential here is very exciting. Add to it Wave's ability to be embedded on external sites (such as our newspaper's Web site), and suddenly you have a game-changing tool.

The last time we had a big storm in Austin, I used Twitter to crowdsource. It worked beautifully, but Twitter still is a bit disjointed as a medium for crowdsourcing news. Tracking tags and keywords and aggregating them in one place can be done, but it's a bit messy. I believe Wave will take that aggregation and collaboration of news to the next level.

Weather works well in this hypothetical, but Wave could also change the way we talk about and cover a major sporting event (like maybe a national championship football game - go Horns!) or an election or a disaster. I'm ready.

Robert Quigley is the social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman and is a blogger for http://oldmedianewtricks.com and http://knightpulse.org. He has proposed a South by Southwest Interactive panel on how journalists can use Wave.

Hear No Customers; See No Customers; Speak with No Customers

2009-10-16T18:03:38Z

Hear No Customers; See No Customers; Speak with No Customers
by Wayne Kurtzman

Over the past few weeks I've attended events where online retailers are meeting and discussing how to have a more successful end to the year. Free or reduced shipping, gifts with your order, web-based affiliate programs are popular topics. The one thing they really wanted to know is how they can use social media to sell to you. This made for some interesting conversations.

Social media, as defined by web developer and podcaster Scott Horvath, is "any web tool your management fears, your coworkers wonder about, and your kids already use." Scott may be just another voice on Twitter, but sharing that gem reinforced that we all have a lot of interesting things to share with the community at large.

That definition also reflects some of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that surround social media for so many business owners. Let me try and break it down a bit.

Social media is not a sales channel, it is a conversation channel. Conversations may lead to trust and in turn, sales could be the result. Word of mouth, however, is much more powerful, as it can make or break a company.

People on social networks share their opinions, requests, brilliant (and less than brilliant) observations, news and conversations. First and foremost, these are people having conversations. To interrupt a conversation with a sales pitch is just rude. If you chatted about a mutual interest and someone finds your passion interesting, then you have developed credibility for your brand, and possibly a fan who will be an advocate online reaching more people than you could do alone.

You would be surprised how many people may find you interesting. It happens slowly, but that's fine. Slow growth is easier to manage.

This may sound time consuming to chat with one customer at a time, but you're really not. You may be speaking with one person, but it can be viewed by thousands as the conversations get indexed in search engines. To prove my point, I took out my Blackberry and showed one online retailer (or etailer) the answer to a question they had: How is our new product doing? There were hundreds of positive comments about it, but clearly there was nobody saying "thank you," or even acknowledging the buzz. Some people were taking offensive at the lack of a response.

So what would you do? Do you ignore the people talking about your company online and pretend it doesn't exist or do you listen to them and learn how to react? It still amazes me that many companies prefer to ignore customers because they are online. In challenging economic times, you have to work hard to keep customers and that means listening in any way possible.

Any retailer will tell you that a customer with a problem is an opportunity to create a lifelong customer, depending on how you resolve the issue. Monitoring and reacting to positive and negative comments shows the customer that the company cares.

The most powerful words I've ever seen on Twitter were "How can I help?" This is a normal question that Comcast's Frank Eliason asks of customers who need help. Eliason often speaks about how Comcast Customer Service first learns about issues on Twitter, and they close the loop with the phone team to ensure everyone is working on the same page when resolving issues.

Eliason also reminds us that "Companies don't tweet [on Twitter], people tweet." We may represent a company, but we are people first. That means personality counts. While nobody cares what you had for breakfast, we care about other interesting things in your life. Steer clear of divisive issues, but be personable.

The next question is how do you quantify the buzz? That depends on how much you can invest.

There are some great and reasonably priced services that can monitor Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites from one dashboard. It can quantify the buzz around your company, determine if it is positive, negative, or neutral. That knowledge can help you determine the next steps to take with a product, or perhaps if you have a larger image problem that needs addressing.

On a shoestring budget, Twitter can be monitored with Tweetgrid.com and shared with several people doing the conversations using CoTweet.com. A new web site, oneforty.com, lets you see all the different applications that are available to help you on Twitter.

Linkedin, MySpace, NING, Tumblr are all out there as well. Depending on your product and customer base, start out with one or two and get closer to your customers.

Frank Eliason from Comcast recently paraphrased Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) of Pistachio Consulting on Twitter with "The 4 keys to social media by @Pistachio: listen, learn, care, share. Businesses need to learn these simple truths."

Please take that to heart.

The Portable Economy

2009-10-08T19:54:36Z

The Portable Economy
by Wayne Kurtzman

"The trouble with the world to say, is plain to see, it's coffee in a cardboard cup," according to the John Kander/Fred Ebb song from the Broadway musical "70, Girls, 70." The song focused on how "everything is hurry-up." Mobile technology is in part, both the cause and effect of the new wave of hurry-up. It is also portable information--the steam that will power the new economy. Even if you dislike that idea, it would be a good idea to start to prepare for the changing landscape. And yes, texting was just the tip of the iceberg.

At the recent CTIA wireless conference, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said what one year ago would have been blasphemy to the copper lines that cross the nation: "It's all about mobile." What was more interesting is he described it as "apps economy." "Apps" refer to the applications that run on smart phones like the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry, and Google Android. He then laid out the four-step plan to solve the challenges of getting enough high-speed wireless signal to everything that is going to need it in the future.

The important component is that the government and private sector appear to be on the same page, at least at the high level. "To compete in the global marketplace in the information age, U.S. companies of every sort will increasingly need rely on world-class mobile networks," according to Genachowski.

Many of the people in the audience have grown up in their industry with distrust of the "I'm from Washington and I'm here to help you" mantra. It appears to be different this time. More people in industry and government are finding the portable (or mobile) economy is one of our best bets to leverage our innovative talents and to develop content and services that provide long-term growth and profitability.

The gaming and social media networks that so many belong to have made mobile devices their number one priority. That means giving an equal if not better user experience to mobile users. This will require these changes, most notably the high speed G4 network, to roll out very quickly.

It appears as both Apple and BlackBerry parent Research in Motion (RIM) have reached some agreement to put Adobe Flash right on the chips of future devices. Developing programs for mobile devices will no longer have to be done for each phone - just do it in Flash. That means you can use the developers to make better applications for the phones, not just more versions of the same thing for different devices.

There are already applications to pay for things from some mobile phones. GPS, restaurant guides, communities for just about anything already exist. There is a brave new world out there. You will likely be joining it because it is useful.

New phones reportedly being tested in the U.K. have the video camera and screen on the same side of the phone. This allows people in the deaf/hard of hearing communities to sign during a call. It also allows for other types of conference calls.

Get ready to see more mobile eCommerce applications from well known brick and mortar stores. There will be more content from more sources, and finally, get ready to develop content yourself. No matter what your business is, you will need to develop content that is user friendly for both mobile and office devices.

Yes, it will be harder to get away from the office. But we will also be more connected to our families, sports teams and communities (local and virtual) wherever we go. Yes, it means a faster pace.

To quote that song (from the play that only ran 35 performances), "It's all become Looney Tunes, sugar packs and plastic spoons and ... coffee in a cardboard cup." The Mandy Patinkin version was good too.

The False Consensus Effect, Facebook, and the decline of civil discourse

2009-10-02T00:33:07Z

The False Consensus Effect, Facebook, and the decline of civil discourse
by Jen Zingsheim

Broad topic, I know, but the false consensus effect has been on my mind quite a bit since a Tweet pointed me to this article in the Financial Post. I recorded a Media Monitoring Minute for FIR based on it, but it has been brought to the forefront of my thoughts again, due to a few items on Facebook.

First, by now I'm sure most people have seen the application that sorts through your friends and comes up with a nifty little set of three pie charts. Here are screen grabs from two friends of mine, please note the political pie chart at right:

I'm not included in either one. Why? Because my political views are listed as "other" on Facebook--I'm not sure if Independent wasn't an option or if I just decided "other" was a better fit. Regardless, I'm not included in the chart, and it is obvious how this fits into the false consensus effect--especially in the second screen grab. I'm tempted to list my political affiliation as Democrat just to inject *some* blue into that second chart.

The second item on Facebook that triggered this post is an exchange that is currently being carried out in the comments on a friend's mobile photo upload. The picture is of a random sign, the type of which you see in cities everywhere because people cannot be trusted to use common sense when it comes to such basic activities such as picking up after oneself and not feeding and messing with wildlife. The caption added to the photo was political--not overly so, just the sort of back and forth jabbing we now see all the time. But it definitely injected politics where there initially was none, and the comments have started to devolve into a negative set of generalizations.

We're seeing this far too often. Whether it is the politics over a sign or a subset of customers angry about the perceived message of an advertising campaign (Motrin Moms, I'm looking at you), it's far too easy to get people whipped up. Is it perhaps because their social networks are allowing them to feel more comfortable in their opinions--the warm, comfy blanket of a false consensus--than really exists?

That people feel so sure they are in the right, in no small part because they are (virtually) surrounded by people who feel the same way (or that they assume feel the same way, see screen grabs A and B, above) has in my opinion contributed significantly to a harshness of tone. Add to this mixture the pernicious nonsense of personal branding and a culture steeped in narcissism, and it is no wonder that civil discourse--agreeing to disagree but not be disagreeable about it--is as rare as, oh, I don't know, a blog post devoid of opinion. Hen's teeth. A pig with a purple pocketbook. You get the idea...

So what's the message to brands? I guess it's be cautious of drawing brand-defining conclusions based on what you are seeing said about your product on blogs, Twitter, or forums. Sure, social media can give you a sense of what your customers are saying. But keep in mind the false consensus effect, as it might be just a handful of customers who feel your product is great. Or only a handful that are angry. Or, they could be just wrong.

As with politics, there is always the possibility of the silent majority. Just because it seems like the village is at the drawbridge with pitchforks and torches doesn't mean it's actually so. And just because it seems like everyone thinks your latest pink dog sweater is the shizz on a forum doesn't mean it's going to fly off the shelves of WalMart.

What's After Google Wave?

2009-10-01T21:31:32Z

What's After Google Wave?
by Wayne Kurtzman

This week, there were reportedly 100,000 golden tickets tucked in candy bars located in different corners of the World. The lucky people who found the tickets got to enter the world of Google Wave. Okay, that's not exactly how it happened. Although a little of the imagination from a Jonny Depp or a Gene Wilder could tell you what this product is capable of, and it could be a major game-changer in many aspects of how and what we do today.

In the same way that CompuServe and America Online opened e-mail and the Internet to millions of people, Google Wave may do the same for enabling collaboration. Google describes their new platform as being "... equal parts conversation and document." In short, take instant messaging, e-mail, social media, documents, spreadsheets, blogging and photo sharing, put them into a blender, take them out and let people magically work together in real time. Users can simultaneously edit the same document and photo album while they converse over the Internet. If they need to, they can play it back to review what was updated. It will even translate into dozens of languages on the fly, allowing people who speak different languages to work together. [Read more about Google Wave].

Google may be the first to put this together, but there are others in the wings, and the common theme is collaboration in real time. This begs the question, what would happen if millions of people started to collaborate? It could result in the type of changes not seen since the computer hit the workplace.

Take education for example. We, like many nations, are still mostly tied to a pre-industrial education model that favors read, write, and rote over preparing students to read, write, reason and innovate. Need proof? Three words: The times table.

To borrow a page from Sir Ken Robinson, children starting school this year will retire in 2069. We have no idea what the world will look like in five years, yet we are meant to be educating them for this future with an ancient skill set. Yet there are teachers ready for the challenge.

I already know educators who can't wait to use Google Wave to have their students create multimedia presentations on history, music history and composers - and play it back in class. Others want their students to work together to capture and analyze the news of the day and extrapolate future opportunities. Even study teams can do multimedia work, all from their own homes - wherever they are on the planet. We may be entering a period where students take their own classwork to the next level - beyond where their parents and teachers can take them.

There are still many companies who demand workers come into the office every day, even on heavy snow days. This, even though they provided their employees everything they need to effectively telecommute. Some even have groundbreaking unified communications software to enable collaboration by voice, video or text without leaving their desk. We all know businesses that require the presence of their employees and others that allow the productivity from the home office. Will this collaboration tool be the one that empowers the change or will it be overruled by 1950's management rules?

The economic downturn started thousands of small businesses. Would the Wave platform allow collaboration to develop between companies to create new partnerships and opportunities? The answer: I already see this happening without Wave; it can only expedite the process.

The truth is that Google Wave is just another technology and collaboration is just another behavior. But in the same way that e-mail and social media are changing the landscape of our society, collaboration platforms like Wave could create a new wave of interactive learning, entrepreneurs and community involvement by simply making it easier to do great things together.

Paired with video conferencing, this technology enables more than just classes, but a local merchant to talk and teach about what they do to thousands of new potential customers. It can even allow similar stores in different places to share best practices.

This is a very rose-colored view of collaboration, but from what I've seen, I have good reason to believe that it could be closer to the developing reality. I have seen more people collaborating to different degrees in recent years than ever before.

Besides, to quote Gene Wilder in the 1971 Willy Wonka role, "Oh, you should never ever doubt what nobody is sure about."

Seth Godin's Squidoo Has An Eyepatch

2009-09-24T18:28:47Z

Seth Godin's Squidoo Has An Eyepatch
by Ike Pigott

Marketing guru Seth Godin has proven once again that everything "new" about Web 2.0 is old again.

His latest venture, Brands In Public, is essentially a rebranding of his Squidoo service with a very important twist.

These Squidoo lenses are for sale.

Essentially, Godin has created an engine whereby he can build a page that aggregates "the conversation" and "the buzz" and the "online chatter" about any public brand or company. All of these results are built on automated searches, and are freely available. They are built on existing open RSS feeds and are not illegally scraped.

But what Godin is doing is sinister, because he's using the power of SEO to bring these public comments and statements into a single page, that he will sell you for the low price of only $400 per month.

You see, "Brand-X" can currently sit back and watch complainers and whiners air their beefs for free. "Brand-X" can even engage with those customers on an individual basis, using whatever tactical or strategic bent that benefits their business model.

By bundling the conversation, Godin believes he is performing a public service. Oh, and for the low, low price of only $400 per month, "Brand-X" will be allowed to take control of the left-hand 60-percent of the screen content area, to better "respond" and "join the conversation."

Godin thinks this will be a good thing, allowing companies to address concerns without doing so in a personal fashion.

I call it piracy. Not the download-songs-from-Kazaa variety, but rather from the Brand Hijacking variety.

Under Godin's nomenclature, the page would be called squidoo.com/brand-x-in-public. He's already generated the pages for top brands in that fashion.

Ask yourself this: What if Twitter had launched its service, but had reserved major brand names for itself? What if Twitter decided to use twitter.com/starbucks as an aggregator of Tweets mentioning Starbucks - then offered to sell the account to Starbucks?

What if Automattic decided to sell off branded subdomains: ford.wordpress.com or mcdonalds.wordpress.com? In those instances, squatters or others who misrepresent their identity get their accounts pulled. (I know this firsthand, because I petitioned the Wordpress folks directly to get redcross.wordpress.com for American Red Cross disaster relief, after a squatter had tried using it for bogus fundraising.)

Even worse, in his announcement Godin makes the following statement:

I'm guessing that big brands are going to need to be in dozens of places like this going forward, because media has shifted from top down, "here's what we say, we're putting on a show, watch us!" to, "oh, you're here, you're talking, hi."

We're still in the early groping of discovering how people and organizations communicate with each other on the internet. But this is not new. It's a form of squatting and piracy, plain and simple.

Unless I am wrong. Tell me what you think.