Social CRM

CRM and IIW #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:42:08 +0000

It just occurred to me that everything being worked on at IIW is meaningful to CRM. I had been thinking that only the VRM stuff was meaningful, but I realize now that all the IIW stuff is, because — from a CRM perspective — it’s all about customer empowerment. And empowered customers are entities that CRM will welcome, sooner or later.

How 'content curators' are connecting consumers | Changing Advertising Summit | guardian.co.uk

(author unknown) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:23:19 +0000

Online 'communities of interest' are becoming increasingly influential when it comes to developing reach and products on the web. But how can brands engage with these persuasive groups and share their…

Facebook friend tally is associated with differences in brain structure | Science | #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:39:26 +0000

People with lots of Facebook friends have denser grey matter in three regions of the brain, a study suggests

Strategic Ambiguity « Mitch Lieberman – A title would limit my thoughts

(author unknown) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:07:17 +0000

One on One: Jeff Jarvis, Author of 'Public Parts' | #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:27:14 +0000

Jeff Jarvis's latest book, "Public Parts," argues that people should embrace publicness, rather than fear the Internet and its potential erosion of privacy.

Fly Fishing in Facebook | thinkJar

(author unknown) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:49:06 +0000

It is knowing where the customers are, what they are doing, and how we can give them what they need in exchange for anything we want back. Let him show us and lets stop pretending we know something we know every little about.

I mean, fish – n0t customers, fish.

'Creepy' Path Intelligence retail technology tracks shoppers | #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:35:01 +0000

SHOPPING centres will monitor customers' mobile phones to track how often they visit, which stores they like and how long they stay.

7 Secrets About Social Media Users, Revealed

(author unknown) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:35:27 +0000

Harvard's remarkable findings show how people really use Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.

Facebook: the Law Says You Can't Have Your Data

timothy — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:41:00 +0000

Are Workers Too Productive? #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:12:29 +0000

We are at the point where commodity worker output can easily exceed the demand for labor

Companies Adopt Gaming Techniques to Motivate Employees - WSJ.com #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:24:35 +0000

Companies are embracing elements of videogames such as rewarding points for completing tasks on time to make management training, data entry and even brainstorming seems less like work.

LinkedIn Acquires Social CRM Company Connected - Forbes

(author unknown) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:28:54 +0000

LinkedIn has acquired Connected, a contact management start-up, the companies announced today, raising possibilities for a future LinkedIn CRM service.

3 Ways to Use Social Network Analysis for Marketing | #FutureOfWork

(author unknown) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:08:57 +0000

While social media has become a focus, social network analysis has largely been ignored. In an industry obsessed with metrics, that seems like quite an oversight.

Google’s New ‘Our Mobile Planet’ Free Tool Offers A Deep Dive On Smartphone Analysis And Data | #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:10:03 +0000

Google is rolling out a new data and analysis tool, called Our Mobile Planet, which gives anyone access to data and research on smartphone usage. The site features an interactive tool that anyone can use to create custom charts from data from the Google’s “Global Mobile Research: The Smartphone User & The Mobile Marketer” report conducted earlier this year (you can read more about the data here). OurMobilePlanet provides deep dives into consumer search, video, social and email behavior, as well as mobile research and purchase intentions.

Claritics adds HTML5 support to its cross-Platform analytics suiteGoMo News

(author unknown) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:15:50 +0000

Rating: Compare user behaviours on Facebook to Android It really does appear that HTML5 apps are finally set to grown massively. In response, Claritics has introduced a release of its Social Intelligence Suite. Significantly, it provides developers with a single analytic framework for tracking HTML5 user data across Facebook, Android, iOS and other platforms. Claritics already provides analytics solutions for social and mobile applications. As Raj Pai, CEO with Claritics, explained, With the rising tide of HTML5 and the number of applications being written in this quickly emerging language, many of our customers were asking to use our analytics for their HTML5 apps.

Take control of your phone’s sensors - MIT | #FutureOfWork

(author unknown) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:38:41 +0000

A Media Lab group that has done groundbreaking work using cellphones to gauge human social interactions releases its technology to the public.

NewsGator Announces Support for Social CRM with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

(author unknown) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:05:54 +0000

NewsGator, a social computing provider for Microsoft, recently announced support for social with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 in the enterprise. Through the combined solution, both the companies plan to target the social CRM market.

50 percent of consumed tweets come from one of 20k influential users

(author unknown) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:19:53 +0000

In a recent study by Yahoo Research, it's been revealed that 50 percent of all tweets consumed are actually generated from just 20,000...

Computer-Generated Articles Are Gaining Traction - NYT #futureofwork

(author unknown) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:43:46 +0000

Using more than a decade of research, a start-up company is taking computer-generated news articles to a more sophisticated level.

Microsoft Eats Its Own SharePoint 2010 Dog Food: 7 Lessons

(author unknown) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:05:06 +0000

#SCRM: How an Accidental Online Community Became an Offline Family

Brent Leary — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:08:18 +0000

I'm writing this while on a plane flying back to Atlanta from Baltimore. I'm coming back home from BPT Partner's Social CRM training event that was headed up by Paul Greenberg (aka The Frientor of CRM). The event was held in Herndon, Virginia, a stone's throw from Dulles Airport, which is where I flew into to attend the event. But I had to fly out of BWI in Baltimore after having two flights cancelled from Dulles because of the blizzard that hit the Northeast.

I'm writing this after suffering through a 2 ½ hour delay, which had me sitting a total of eight hours at the airport. I'm tired..and cranky… and hungry, because the five pretzel bits they give you on the flight ain't cutting it. But more importantly, I'm happy that I traveled in blizzard conditions and got stranded for a couple of days , because coming to what was eventually dubbed the Social CRM Summit was worth every flight cancellation, minute of flight delay, and inch of snow… and that is truly saying something.

It goes beyond the training, which was stellar. Jeff Pedowitz did a great job going over the practicalities of tying "social" to demand generation efforts. Ryan Strynatka from Radian6 gave a nice demo of their social media monitoring tools that sparked quite a discussion on the tool - and the subject. We performed a couple of interesting case studies that really got our minds (and our creative juices) going. And, of course, PG doing his thing. In fact I can honestly say that he was in the rarest of form, which is truly saying something. But I knew he would be.

This is where I stop talking about the training. If you want a blow by blow of developments check out the pdf of all the #scrmsummit tweets put together by the one and only Esteban Kolsky…who seemed to actually be there with us, even though the weather (and airlines) conspired against him making a physical appearance. And I'm sure there are already blogs posted about the event that have covered it in ways that make it unnecessary for me to do so here(Brian Vellmure's write up is an example). So I'll talk about it from another perspective.

This kind of event would not have been possible a year and a half ago. Not the way it played out over the past few days. It couldn't have because many of the people that attended the event didn't know each other. Yeah we all knew (or knew of) Paul, but even Paul didn't know @ScorpFromHell (aka @Prem_k), or @WimRampen, or @MarkTamis. He probably didn't know @CRMStrategies (Brian Vellmure), @MJayLiebs (Mitch Lieberman), @KathyHermann or @MikeBoysen (who I met for the first time at the summit even though we both live in Atlanta). But we all know each other now because of a Twitter hashtag - #SCRM. And that hashtag was the beginning of an accidental community of like minded people, that officially became an offline, flesh-and-bone, group of friends with a common cause.

What's so cool about this story is how naturally it progressed. We didn't start out thinking this would happen, we just gravitated towards each other because of our interest for this thing we call Social CRM. And the discussions that took place through that hashtag moved from strictly professional conversations, to meaningful friendships based on mutual respect. This was no more evident than at this event.

People came from all over to be a part of this - and from all corners of the industry spectrum. Executives at major vendors, highly influential analysts, industry media, practitioners at leading companies, and independent experts everywhere you looked. And the coolest thing of all was that we were all equals, and equally interested in moving Social CRM forward…together.

I loved that we spent so much time together after the formal sessions were over. It felt like a college reunion of sorts. And even though I had never physically met many of the folks before, it already felt like we knew each other, because we did - through that hashtag. And I really think the blizzard became a convenient excuse for us just to hang out all night with each other.

The most important thing for me was a true sense of camaraderie permeated through the whole thing. We all were interested in "the cause" and in each other. And even though there were many debates and differences in opinion, as the President says, we were able to "disagree without being disagreeable". There were no instances of anyone trying to make a name for themselves at someone else's expense. And there was not even a hint of shameless self promotion, or pointless pontification. None of that is needed when you're among respected colleagues, and friends.

In fact what you did see is quite the opposite - people promoting others at every turn. The best example I saw of this was Michael Krigsman's sincere introduction of Forrester's Natalie Petouhoff to SAP's Peter Auditore. Michael's admiration for Natalie was so sincere you couldn't help but see it as he approached Peter. And Peter, Natalie, Michael and I spent the next hour talking like old buddies afterward.

The brain power at the conference was awesome, and equally matched by the years of experience people brought with them. Concepts were explored and debated. Partnerships and business opportunities were discussed, and possibly initiated. But the brains and experiences were outdone by the spirit and friendship displayed throughout the week. And the common interest of moving Social CRM - with tools, services and strategies - from mass conversation to mass implementation.

In the end this was a great event. Only Paul G. could have gotten us all together from all over the world, and in the middle of a blizzard. Well I guess Paul, and Twitter…and a hashtag. After my last rant (Twitter followership and real influence), this whole event is what can happen when Twitter is used for the good.

A big thanks needs to go to the BPT Posse - Bruce Culbert, Bill Howell and Paul - for pulling this one off in some really challenging conditions. We all will benefit for years to come from this. I can't wait for the next one….hopefully without the blizzard.

Technorati : #scrm, #scrmsummit, social crm
Del.icio.us : #scrm, #scrmsummit, social crm

[Web Accessibility Initiative] Social Accessibility Project by IBM

(author unknown) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:00:36 +0000

Facebook - #FAIL in Customer Service - Bad Process, BAD Process | Social CRM: The Conversation | ZDNet.com

(author unknown) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:28:10 +0000

SAP demos new Twitter integration

(author unknown) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:52:50 +0000

CRM Watchlist 2010 - Part IIB | Social CRM: The Conversation | ZDNet.com

(author unknown) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:26:11 +0000

Facebook Is the Future of CRM - destinationCRM.com

(author unknown) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:18:22 +0000

MSN Adds Facebook Integration

Paul McDougall — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:59:00 +0000

The Roadmap to SCRM, Part 3 of 5

(author unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:34:55 +0000

Google Launches Social Search

Thomas Claburn — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:50:00 +0000

What Social Business means for Cloud Computing

(author unknown) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:00:22 +0000

The Roadmap to SCRM – Part 2.2 of 5

(author unknown) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:45:47 +0000

Customer Managed Relationships: Two Mobile Phone Case Studies - Arie Goldshlager's posterous

(author unknown) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:09:58 +0000

In praise of Twitter

Tyler Cowen — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:25:58 +0000

I am surprised how many people still think Twitter is a fad or a waste of time. I view Twitter -- or some modified future version thereof -- as everlasting. Most of all, the search function helps you tap into a real time conversation on just about any topic you want, including the lecture you just gave. Google is wonderful but it's hard to sort through the mess and figure out where the conversation is now. For sampling opinion on either movies or music, Twitter is essential, or even for researching a forthcoming blog post. Think of it as Google focused on one time-slice and giving the weight of crowd opinion no more than linear force. If an opinion is more common it will receive more tweets but otherwise your search brings up the splat, ordered by chronology, and thus it is more idiosyncratic than the first Google search page and often in a good way.

At least now, the people on Twitter are smarter on average than the people whose choices feed into Google. I am not sure that particular benefit will last forever,

If you can find some people worth following, so much the better. But the value of the medium doesn't much depend on what they had for breakfast.

Many people use Twitter to ask for advice; I have yet to learn how to do this well.

The Three Rules for Making Social Marketing Work @ crm intelligence & strategy

(author unknown) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:30:00 +0000

5 Ways Banks Are Using Social Media

Lon S. Cohen — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:52:04 +0000

Patients connecting with physicians via social media - FierceHealthcare

(author unknown) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:40:57 +0000

Social CRM: When Registration Pages Go Extinct

(author unknown) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:55:10 +0000

New research: B2B buyers have very high social participation

(author unknown) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:39:49 +0000

CISCO Gets Social

Filiberto Selvas — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:45:00 +0000

Gartner Says Companies Need to Pursue Four Steps to Harness Social Computing in CRM

(author unknown) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:07:16 +0000

CRM experts predict 2009

Barney Beal — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:24:26 +0000

CRM and improving order fulfillment...

Richard Boardman — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:25:00 +0000

As I’ve touched on in previous posts, the art of getting value out of CRM is to embed key business processes within the technology. While a lot of attention gets paid to sales and marketing processes, ‘downstream’ areas, such as order fulfilment, are often overlooked but often offer rich potential to add value to the organisation.

Let’s take a hypothetical example. A company sells widget making machines. When an order is received for a widget making machine, there are a wide range of activities, involving a lot of different departments, before the system is installed and paid for. So, in this example, there might be a need to complete contracts, arrange finance, send a welcome pack, survey the site, ship the machine, install it, train staff on it, activate the support contract, handover from sales to account management, invoice, etc. etc.

This is all very difficult to do, or do well at least, without any central coordinating technology. By embedding these processes in an enabling technology like CRM, a range of benefits may accrue. For example:

The fulfilment processes becomes faster with less manual handovers.

There’s less work involved in fulfilling an order, and that work can often be performed by less skilled people.

There’s less of an overhead in monitoring the process, the system can identify the exceptions.

There’s less scope for error, so the quality of delivery goes up.

With fewer errors there’s less management time spent fire-fighting problems.

Cash flow improves because orders are shipped faster, and, since quality is higher, there are fewer reasons for customers to delay payment.

Better visibility of problems and bottlenecks in the process allow the process to be further tuned to increase performance and quality.

The system supports more sophisticated processes that allow customer satisfaction generating activities to be integrated in a way that was impossible with manual systems.

Customer satisfaction increases, which, in turn, ripples through our Web 2.0 enabled world to increase order volumes

OK, so you’re almost certainly not selling widget making machines, and this is a very hypothetical example, but we’ve seen a lot of benefit in managing a wide variety of fulfilment processes in CRM. Funnily enough, it’s often not the most obvious processes that ultimately generate the greatest value.

Oracle previews iPhone, social CRM applications

(author unknown) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:20:02 +0000

Socially

Siebel 8.11, Free Gadgets and CRM 2.0 - What A Country

Paul Greenberg — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:47:42 +0000

Oracle is a client of mine. I'm lucky enough to have clients that I can like - and I'm in a position - even in the downturn - to continue that policy. I don't have to take a client if...

The award winning, edgiest CRM blog on the planet. The industry, the concepts, the news from CRM at the Speed of Light author Paul Greenberg

Being Peter Kim: A List of Social Media Marketing Examples

(author unknown) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:01:29 +0000

I've been thinking about how social media works. For example, applying game mechanics to understand participation, thinking about users vs. customers, and deconstructing ego traps in PR campaigns. This analysis makes me wonder if social media marketing matters and if so, does it scale. I thought you might benefit from some of my background research on these topics. And I'd appreciate your help in curating this list by providing more details and submitting additional cases.[update 10.17.08] Thanks for your input...

What might a recession mean for CRM and Web 2.0?

Barney Beal — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:38:05 +0000

CRM Software: A Must-Have for Businesses

(author unknown) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:31:06 +0000

Guy Kawasaki on Twitter's Impact on Alltop - A True Social CRM Success Story

Brent Leary — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:21:30 +0000

I recently recorded a conversation with Guy Kawasaki to talk about his latest venture Alltop - "the online magazine rack" - and his new book Reality Check. It was my second time talking with him and I laugh just as much as I learn. And one thing I learned, among the many, is how important Twitter is to Guy with respect to promoting what's going on at Alltop. Guy has over 24k followers on Twitter, and has tweeted over 13k times. He replies to almost every tweet that comes his way, and he does so because it's critically important to him to engage with people - from a business perspective. And he doesn't just tweet about Alltop, he also tweets to provide valuable information to the folks who follow him.

Guy's use of Twitter is a great case study in Social CRM. He looks for ways to engage in conversations by way of interesting, captivating content. You can hear the whole conversation below. Get ready to laugh, and learn...

Technorati : alltop, guy kawasaki, social crm, twitter
Del.icio.us : alltop, guy kawasaki, social crm, twitter

Siebel Street: Siebel moves to the SOA world

(author unknown) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:19:32 +0000

Siebel Web Services (SOA enabled) provide platform independent integration and rely on Internet development standards and protocols (XML, SOAP, WSDL etc) for communication. There are two type of Siebel Web Service known as Inbound Web Service and Outbound Web Service...

Bizroof Joins a Saturated CRM Market

(author unknown) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:18:33 +0000

Shared by ScorpFromHell
Man!!! And our onDemand CRM group is stuck with just SFDC & Siebel.

CRM is more or less a staple of the SaaS (software as a service) market. Salesforce does it. Zoho does it. SugarCRM is in the game. Microsoft, too. All to better enhance management of customer relations across a workforce sized large and small. We can now add one more name to the list: Bizroof.

Recently launched and sporting a group of features eminently simple to operate, San Francisco-based Bizroof is constructed with four primary components in mind: the dashboard; sections for people and organizations; and events. Items can be tagged for quick search if needed. Important notes can be recorded. Files can be uploaded. And a calendar is available to pool schedules together and null any worker confusion. Basic management, really. An RSS feed is also offered to keep track of account activity.

Everything arrives with a nicely polished interface, courtesy of Prototype and script.aculo.us, and a recipe of PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, Amazon S3, plus some Zend APIs to finish the dish. Unfortunately, a negative I witnessed when using the service is that it is somewhat slow in displaying pages. You won’t have to wait too long to enter information, but just be mindful that there may be minor delays when navigating around the place.

There are two subscription plans for Bizroof, which are very clearly distinguishable from one another:

Basic, which the company plans to offer indefinitely, won’t cost you a cent, and it’ll accept 3 users, 30 contacts and 30 organizations every month, limitless event scheduling and data tagging, and 10MB of file space for uploads.

Pro, will take $120/year and give 1,000 users access, 20,000 contacts and 20,000 organizations per month, 1GB of room for data, and zero advertisements.

Seeing as how a pro-level account, with its enormous advantage over the freebie, breaks down to just $10/month, Bizroof, even when paid for, seems a decent option to take. Competing offers from the likes of Zoho and Salesforce certainly have their advantages on the bang-for-buck front. But if a simple template for managing data for your business is what you’re after, Bizroof is an alternative to consider. (Note: You’ll need to sign up for a basic account in order to enter a paid subscription.)

Salesforce.com developers getting social with Facebook apps for enterprise

Barney Beal — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:32:40 +0000

How to Tell If Your CEO Is Clueless

GuyKawasaki — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:12:00 +0000

Pontificating, theorizing, and terrorizing abounds these days in tech startups. Here is a simple test to help you figure out if the startup you work for is in trouble. All you have to do is listen to your CEO talk to people for a week and determine if she uses these lines.

"Let me tell you why the Sequoia memo really doesn't apply to us."
"Our team is totally engaged and believe in the company."
"Our market is so large that a 20 percent reduction won't matter to us."
"We aren't changing our long-term strategy because this is a short-term problem."
"It's still too early to tell if we'll be affected."
"The sales pipeline that we've already booked is still strong."
"The start of sales results is just around the corner."
"We can accelerate revenue with a few tweaks to our product."
"We can reduce expenses without affecting headcount."
"Our investors are totally engaged and believe in the company."
"We think we can raise another round right after the holidays."
"We heard that our competitors are in trouble, but we've been more conservative with expenses."
"We have twelve months of cash even with our most conservative sales forecast."
"In these times, (Some Big Company) needs what we offer to increase sales."
"In these times, (Some Big Company) needs what we offer to reduce costs."
"We've built an extremely viral product so we can reduce our sales and marketing expenses."

Score Sheet:

0-3. You're good for at least a year, and there is a healthy level of optimism and delusion (both of which are required in startup CEOs).

4-8. Unless things turn around, your company will hit the wall in nine months.

9-12. Six months is about how long it will take to find a job so start looking now.

12 or more. Fire up Word and get your resume ready.

These are interesting times, and you should understand that many people can tell you how to cut costs. That's fine and dandy, but the true test is whether you can increase sales and increase cash flow not layoff people to success.

To help your CEO, suggest that he or she go here for leadership help and here for financial news.

Additions from the front line:

"We fired out sales team, but our upcoming Facebook app will drive sales." (Peter Urban)

Building a Better Model for Technical Problem Solving

(author unknown) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:18:22 +0000

Social CRM - The Whitepaper

Brent Leary — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:40:41 +0000

Over the last few months I've been talking a great deal on this Social CRM theme. It started with a show I did for TFBS at the end of last year:

Social CRM and SaaS

Then I wrote a few articles, including one for my regular online column for Inc.com:

SmallBizTrends.com: Social CRM - Not Your Father's Customer Relationship Management
Inc.com: The AAAs of Social CRM

It really picked up steam with a post I did back in July after I did my first Social CRM presentation for Intelliworks user conference:

Social CRM In Pictures...and Words

It picked up even more steam when I posted a video of my presentation at the Inbound Marketing Summit last month:

Social CRM - The Video

With that as a backdrop, I recently had the great pleasure of doing a Social CRM webinar organized by Sage Software's SalesLogix division. To see the recorded webinar click on the following:

Social CRM - Going Beyond the Boundaries of Traditional CRM (you will be asked for contact information to view the recording)

Along with the webinar, Sage sponsored a whitepaper I put together to summarize a number of my thoughts and ideas on the subject, as it appears there is a growing amount of interest in it. So here's a link to the paper:

Social CRM: Customer Relationship Management in the Age of the Socially-empowered Customer

If you get a chance to check it out I'd love to get your take on it, and on Social CRM in general.

Oh yeah here are a few links to some other recent TFBS conversations I've had featuring some of the best people in the space:

Social CRM, Zoho and Blogs.com (featuring Forrester VP of Research Bill Band and Sridhar Vembu of AdventNet)
CRM Gang (featuring Ginger Conlon of 1to1 Media, Marshall Lager of CRM Magazine, and Rob Bois of AMR Research)

Technorati : crm, sage, saleslogix, social crm, social media
Del.icio.us : crm, sage, saleslogix, social crm, social media

The Mother and Father of Social Media Lists

GuyKawasaki — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:49:55 +0000

I learned of the "mother of social media lists" and the "father of social media lists." Click here to see mom and here to see dad. These are the most comprehensive lists of examples of social media applications, videos, blogs, podcasts, widgets, crowdsourcing, bookmarking, microblogging, photosharing, wikis, mashups, brand monitoring ad nauseum. Check them out if you don't want to feel left out. (Thanks to Ray Schiel for showing me this list.)

Android’s SugarTrip Takes A New Approach To Dodging Street Traffic

Jason Kincaid — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:26:46 +0000

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With the impending release of the first phone to feature Google’s Android platfrom, we’re beginning to see a few of the first apps that will be available through Google’s Android Market. Among these is SugarTrip, an application that takes an innovative approach to measuring street traffic by taking advantage of the GPS units that will be integrated into most Android phones.

As users drive their cars, SugarTrip will measure how quickly they’re traveling and report their speeds back to a central server. The company says that while the traffic updates available on sites like Google Maps do an acceptable job, they are only useful on interstate highways and rely on computer models based on only a few datapoints. Conversely SugarTrip will be able to provide data on far more streets with many more data points (assuming the application can establish a significant user base).

Users will be able to monitor their trips online, where they can see when they hit traffic and can plan better routes for future trips accordingly. The app will also allow users to view routes taken by others, and to pinpoint their car on a map when they park so that they can find it later (there’s a similar application available on the iPhone that does this).

The company is promoting SugarTrip as a “green” app, as it should help cut back on pollution if it keeps cars from sitting in traffic. The application will be free, with plans to monetize eventually using geo-targeted advertising. SugarTrip is hoping to have the application ready for the G1’s launch on October 22, but will be available soon thereafter if it doesn’t make the cut.

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